I was born in Boston, Massachusetts. My father was an FBI agent and later the Police Commissioner of the city of Boston. Whether it was the influence of a professional detective in the family or near sightedness, I started reading mysteries with Nancy Drew stories and soon moved on to Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Ngaio Marsh. I graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a major in English, then studied for a masters in library science at Simmons College part time while working at the Wellesley College Library. In order to keep busy, I also signed up for a masters in English degree at Simmons and studied Chinese language at Wellesley, and Middlebury.

I worked with computers in libraries moving on to a position at the Massachusetts State Library and at a NELINET, a job which took me to libraries all over New England to help start them up on automated systems. A move to OCLC in Columbus Ohio for another library automation job led to a collaboration with some amateur actors who produced a number of mystery night to help raise money for local libraries. I wrote the plots and peripheral materials for stories ranging from a contemporary reunion, a golf course mystery and a couple set in 1930’s England.

Another job move took me to Chicago where the job at the University of Chicago Library led to creation of Emily Cabot, as a graduate student from Wellesley College who comes to the university the first year that it opens. Between the flavor of 1890’s in the architecture on campus, and the access to historical research materials at the library, it was a great opportunity to translate the feel of the city to stories about Chicago at the turn of the century. Allium Press of Chicago published Death at the Fair, a story featuring Ida B. Wells and the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In Death at Hull House Emily becomes a resident at the famous settlement house on the West side of Chicago the winter after the Columbian Exposition when a smallpox epidemic ravaged the immigrant communities. In Death at Pullman the famous company town south of the city suffers a strike that spreads to the rest of the city and the country. In each story fictional characters mix with some real people from the time, demonstrating the rich history and culture of the thriving young American metropolis that Chicago was. Death at Chinatown allowed me to use some of my Chinese language and culture studies. In Death at the Paris Exposition Emily gets to visit Paris with her family thanks to the patronage of Bertha Palmer. I’d like to continue to follow the stories and Emily and her family into the new century. I’m thinking of covering literary Chicago, the film industry in Chicago, WWI, the flu epidemic, prohibition and the Depression. It would be nice for the series to end with the Century of Progress world’s fair in Chicago in 1934. Death at the Selig Studios set in 1909 takes place in a silent film studio in northwest Chicago. The two most recent books in the series, Death on the Homefront and Death in a Time of Spanish Flu take place in 1917 and 1918.

A new series Nutshell Murder Mysteries features Frances Glessner Lee who is famous for her miniature crime scenes named Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. She worked with Dr. George Magrath Medical Examiner in Boston and is known as Mother of Forensic Science. Book 1 of the series Molasses Murder in a Nutshell involves a fictional murder that takes place during the 1919 Molasses flood in the North End of Boston. The books will be loosely based on the 20 nutshell studies, miniature crime scenes, created by Frances Glessner Lee in the 1940's and used to train police investigators.

Book 2 of the series Three-Decker Murder in a Nutshell is set in East Boston November 1919. Some of the characters are loosely based on my maternal and paternal grandparents who all lived in East Boston at that time but did not know each other as my mother's parents were wealthy owners of a dock building company while my father's parents were living on the salary of a Boston Fireman. It was fun to consult some of my cousins who had done some research in the family history. My parents weren't born till 1920 and 1921.

When not writing, I found a love a sailing on the Charles River, and later learned to race small sailboats in Columbus, Ohio. I’ve sailed a Comet and owned and raced a Rhodes 19 sailboat on Lake Michigan. Having moved back to Boston, I have sailed at Community Boating on the Charles River and at Courageous Sailing in Charlestown.

While living right in the heart of the city of Boston, I’m also a part-time resident of Sandwich, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod.

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