Jeff Resnick has a knack for getting into trouble. And sometimes he isn’t the only one. And what is June without a wedding? As it happened, in DEAD IN RED, the second Jeff Resnick Mystery, Jeff’s older half-brother, Dr. Richard Alpert, was about to get married to his long-time significant other, Brenda Stanley. It was to be a small wedding. Just the bride and groom, Jeff as best man, and Brenda’s friend, Maggie Brennan, as bridesmaid. Then the four of them would go out to a nice lunch before the bride and groom left on their honeymoon to Paris. And yet even small weddings need certain items. Things like the wedding dress, the tuxes, flowers, and of course, the license. While all that took place, Jeff, a former insurance investigator was looking into the circumstances surrounding the death of a local bartender. That led him to the bar scene and drag shows. Richard sort of tagged along. (Yes, sort of!) And then there was a fight—perhaps a brawl would be a better term. Let’s just say the wedding pictures were to become a whole lot more interesting. And then things took an even more sinister turn. Will Brenda finally get…

As a New York Times bestselling author with three names (L.L. Bartlett, Lorraine Bartlett, and Lorna Barrett), readers think they know what my most successful series is. The Booktown Mysteries by Lorna Barrett, of course. That’s the name most people associate me with—it, and the cozy mystery genre. But in reality, I’ve sold many more books in my Jeff Resnick series, and yet that name is far from being a household name. Unlike my cozy mystery series (and I have three), the Jeff Resnick Mysteries are quite a departure as it has an authentic setting—Buffalo, New York—and as I’m not a native, I’ve had to depend on actually visiting the area so that my books reflect the ambiance of the city and its surrounding suburbs, where most of the books take place. Why did I choose Buffalo? I (wrongly) concluded that as it was a much bigger metropolitan area than Rochester, where I live, that the crime rate must be much higher. Nope. But it’s an edgier city that has been shaking off its run-down reputation as a rust-belt relic and has recently been undergoing a renaissance. I’ve had a lot of compliments on the setting for the (so far)…