Dirty Business #3 April 2010 On Sale: April 13, 2010 Featuring: Paula Holliday 256 pages ISBN: 0312569947 EAN: 9780312569945 Hardcover $24.99 Add to Wish List Mystery Cozy Buy at Amazon.com Dead Head by Rosemary Harris When Paula Holliday learns that one of her new friends is actually a fugitive who’s been on the run for years, she’s hired to find the person who outed the woman and in doing so finds that a lot of people are not always who they seem to be. The third entry in the suburban noir series which Carolyn Hart called “quirky, original and captivating” and the Connecticut Post called “a sophisticated mix of comedy, romance and murder.” Excerpt “It’s a false lamium,” I said. Babe Chinnery folded her muscular arms, appraised the plant, and said simply, “If it’s not a lamium, why in hell do you keep calling it one?” “Things aren’t always what they seem to be.” “Thank you, Yoda.” The woman had a good point. She usually did. Despite the rock ’n’ roll outts, the hair color that changed with the New England seasons, and the boyfriend twenty years her junior, Babe had more common sense than most of the people I…

That’s the tagline for Dead Head, my latest suburban noir novel (Minotaur April 2010). I started asking that question two years ago when a middle class mother of two in southern California was taken away in handcuffs after authorities learned she was a fugitive from the law. Ripped from the headlines is hardly a new concept – writers as varied as William Shakespeare and Dominick Dunne have looked to news reports for inspiration, so that puts me in good company! Almost every day there’s a news item that has the fledgling writer as well as the more experienced one thinking “that would make a good story.” Most writers I know have idea files – mine is six inches thick and filled with clippings and printed articles ranging from the story of a Chicago woman who poisoned the trees in a public park because they were obstructing her view to last year’s much more serious violent chimp attack, which took place five minutes from my home in Connecticut. (Yes, I had met the chimp once.) But this woman’s story really resonated for me. I’ve lived in cities and suburbs and it’s so easy not to know the person next door. We…

I’m going to my first RT Booklover’s Convention this April and no sooner did I click Send on the registration form than I went out and bought a red dress. Unless you know me, this might not seem like a significant event but ninety-five percent of the items in my closet are black. There’s a blue suit and a brown dress and a lilac one-shouldered number that I had to buy because it’s Armani and was on sale, and it looked terrific on me eight years ago when I bought it but it’s never been worn outside of my closet. (Did I mention it has sequins?) I don’t know what possessed me. I’d gone to Macy’s to buy a bra – forget Victoria’s Secret – Macy’s has the best selection on the planet. Anyway, bras are on the sixth floor and some marketing genius must have realized that by having only escalators (and no elevators) in the building a shopper would have to pass lots of other merchandise they aren’t really looking for on the way to the thing they are looking for. There it was, on the fourth floor. Red. Sleeveless. On sale. And calling to me. It’s one…