12th Annual
Monday, May 7, 2007
with media sponsorship by WDUQ
Doors open at 4 pm
Program begins at 5 pm
This year's Festival of Mystery will take place on Monday May 7, 2007; a return to our traditional first Monday in May date.
We will return to the new quarters at the Greek Orthodox Church in Oakmont, 12 Washington St., about 5 blocks from the store. The Church hall gave us a much more comfortable space for our many authors and their fans at last year's Festival and this year's promises to be just as big.
Ticket for this year's Festival are $7 in advance, $8 at the door. Why not buy your ticket right now?
 a Festival of Mystery ticket, $7. To purchase more than one ticket, simply adjust the quantity in the shoppin cart prior to check-out.
Naturally, we'll have the famous bag-o-books for the first hundred or so customers who arrive at the Festival plus food and drink available for purchase. Because we've moved to a site a little further from the store we want to offer a little gift of a free paperback to any Festival ticket-holder who makes a purchase in the store that evening.
We're developing the list of attendees so keep checking back for the latest news.
If you are an author, publicist or editor and you are interested in attending or have an author you'd like to send, please use our Contact Form to send us a note.
Here's the author line-up so far:
Donna Andrews set the tone for her charming and humorous Meg Langslow series by winning the Agatha, Anthony, the Barry and the Romanic Times awards for the debut, Murder with Peacocks. For the Festival, Donna will be coming with the sixth, Owls Well That Ends Well, an Agatha nominee. Donna is also the author of another Agatha-nominated series featuring artificial intelligence personality Zack Turing. Most recent in that series is Delete All Suspects.
Pittsburgh author Kathy Ayres teaches writing and coordinates the MA in Children’s and Adolescent Writing program at Chatham College while turning out acclaimed novels of historical and contemporary fiction. Her most recent young adult mystery, is Macaroni Boy with a setting in the Depression-era Strip District of Pittsburgh. Kathy will arrive at the Festival with a brand-new picture book: Up, Down and Around..
Cordelia Biddle is well known to MLB fans as half of the husband and wife team behind Nero Blanc and the crossword puzzle mysteries featuring Roscoe Polycrates. Now, under her own name, Cordelia has launched a splendid new historical mystery series featuring young Philadelphia heiress Martha Beale who investigates her own father's mysterious death in the Conjurer, set in 1842. A wealth of carefully researched detail, some based on Cordelia's own family history, makes this series debut a treat for fans of historical mystery.
Husband and wife writing team Cordelia Biddle and Steve Zettler are the reality behind Nero Blanc and the joint authors of eleven delightful and challenging mysteries featuring crossword puzzle editor Belle Graham and her PI partner Roscoe Polycrates. In addition to mystery, their books feature crossword puzzles integrated into the plot. Their most recent book is Death on the Diagonal.
The British born Rhys Bowen now lives in California where she has written ten wildly successful mysteries featuring the amiable constable Evans Evans, the latest being Evanly Bodies. She has been nominated for every major mystery award: Agatha, Edgar, McCavity, Anthony and Barry and has won both the Agatha and Anthony Award. Not resting, she’s started a new series with the Agatha-winning Murphy’s Law featuring turn of the century Irish immigrant Molly Murphy. and the sequel Death of Riley, an Agatha nominee. In Dublin's Fair City, the sixth, has just been published. In the summer we can look forward to a brand new series featuring impoverished aristocrat Lady Victoria set in '30s London.
Ellen Byerrum launched the Lacey Smithsonian series with Killer Hair which introduced the fashion columnist who still had time to track a killer of hair stylists while keeping tabs on the capitals fashion do's and don'ts. Three more books followed, most recently Raiders of the Lost Corset that takes Lacey to Paris.
Husband and wife Lori and Toni Karayianni are the magic behind Tori Carrington and the debut mystery Sofie Metropolis whose eponymous heroine finds her wedding called off when she discovers the groom and maid of honor in flagrante. Seeking refuge, she finds a new career as a sort of PI. The third in this smart and funny series, Foul Play, will be out just in time for the Festival along with the paperback of number two, Dirty Laundry.
We used to know her as Noreen Wald but her sprightly new series is written as Nora Charles with senior sleuth Kate Kennedy introduced in the first, Death With an Ocean View. Her fourth is Hurricane Homicide that makes good use of Florida's recent spate of Hurricanes as the background for a mystery where the victim is the local weatherman.
Jane K. Cleland comes to the Festival with her Agatha-nominated debut mystery Consigned to Death, an Antiques Roadshow for mystery fans, the first in a traditional mystery series featuring antiques appraiser, Josie Prescott. Set on the rugged New Hampshire coast, Josie uses her knowledge of antiques to solve the crimes. Formerly the owner of a rare book and antiques store, Jane now lives in New York City with her husband.
Kate Collins is the author of the best-selling Flower Shop Mysteries starting with Mum's the Word. She'll be at the Festival with number five, Acts of Violets with A Rose from the Dead due in December. An Indiana native, Kate was a teacher before motherhood put her on the path to writing. When not growing roots at her computer, Kate loves to grow flowers and vegetables in her garden. The author lives with her husband in Northwest Indiana and Key West, Florida.
C.R. Corwin writes the Morgue Mama Mysteries for Poisoned Pen Press. The series features cranky, crafty newspaper librarian Dolly Madison Sprowls. Her co-workers at the Hannawa Herald-Union call her Morgue Mama -- but only behind her back. The New York Times calls the current installment, Dig, “Both a brainteaser and a comic salute to the rather terrifying charm of its heroine." Corwin, a former newspaper man himself, lives in Akron, Ohio.
Ellen Crosby launched her mystery writing career after work as a journalist with the Washington Post. She's taken her knowledge of the Virginia wine-making business and put it to excellent use in her series debut, The Merlot Murders. In August we can look forward to the second in the series, The Chardonnay Charade.
Shirley Damsgaard will arrive at the Festival with the third in her Ophelia Jensen series, Trouble with Witches.Her Agatha Nominated debut Witch Way to Murder kicked off this series with a paranormal twist that pairs librarian Ophelia with her Aunt Abby with entertaining results. Witch Hunt will be out in June.
Casey Daniels once applied for a job as a tour guide at a historic cemetery. She didn't get the job, but she did get the idea for the Pepper Martin Mystery Series. Casey learned to love mysteries early thanks to her dad, a Cleveland Police detective, who enjoyed Sherlock Holmes stories and spent his days off searching for stolen cars--with Casey along for the ride. Casey has a degree in English and a background in journalism and teaching. Her first Pepper Martin book, Don of the Dead, was an IMBA bestseller. The second book in the series, "The Chick and the Dead," was published in March and the third book, "Tombs of Endearment," will be on the shelves in October. Casey lives in northeast Ohio.
Bill Davis has lived in Southwestern Pennsylvania nearly all his life. After a thirty year career at Allegheny Ludlum he has finally been able to pursue his life-long interest in writing, publishing his debut novel The Forever Man. Set in a small town in southwest Pennsylvania it features Sheriff Clive Aliston who finds himelf tracking a serial killer. Bill is at work on a second Clive Aliston novel.
'Vicki Delany has been called “one of Canada's most promising new practitioners of the crime genre.” (Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune). Her novels of psychological suspense, Scare the Light Away and Burden of Memory are published by Poisoned Pen Press. She has taken early retirement from her job as a systems analyst, and the Festival is her first stop on a year-long drive across North America.
Michael Dittman’s debut noir, Small Brutal Incidents, chronicles a WW II vet’s hard luck when he finds himself neck deep in corruption in a post-war Pittsburgh. In addition to reams of journalism, he’s written two books on the Beat Generation. Dittman writes, lives, and teaches in Northwestern Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh author Rebecca Drake’s debut thriller, Don't Be Afraid, came out in September 2006. The Next Killing will be available in September 2007. A former journalist and native New Yorker, she’s also lived in Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, and New Jersey.
Mary Anna Evans has degrees in physics and engineering, but her heart is in the past. Her series character, Faye Longchamp, lives the exciting life of an archaeologist, and Mary Anna envies her a little. Her current novel, EFFIGIES, was a Book Sense Notable Book. Her second novel, RELICS, was a bestseller for the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, and her first novel, ARTIFACTS, won the Benjamin Franklin award for best mystery published by a small press. Mary Anna has a husband, 3 children, about 20 musical instruments, and a cat.
Kate Flora hails from Maine but now lives in Concord where she shares local author billing with Thoreau and Emerson. At last year'sFestival Kate came with Finding Amy: A True Story of Murder in Maine which was subsequently nominated for an Edgar Award. This year she'll join us with a brand-new mystery, Playing God as well as the seventh in her Thea Kozak series, Stalking Death.
Pittsburgh author Kathleen George has authored two suspenseful and original mysteries, both with Pittsburgh settings: Fallen and Taken. When not keeping readers breathless, she's a mainstay of the University of Pittsburgh Drama Department. Kathleen will have a new novel out in the fall, Afterimage.
Jack Getze covered financial and economic issues for the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, the London Times, and many other publications before switching professions and becoming a stock and bond salesman for several regional securities firms on the New Jersey Shore. He is the author of the Austin Carr Mystery Series, debuting this year with Big Numbers.
Christine Goff is a two-time Willa Literary Award Finalist for Best Original Paperback, and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers 2002 Writer of the Year. Her latest book, Death Shoots a Birdie, the fifth novel in her “Birdwatcher’s Mystery” series, features the death of a renowed birder--with his protege the chief suspect.
When it comes to community theatre, Susan Goodwill has done everything from sell popcorn to wield power tools. Susan joins the Festival with BrigaDOOM, the first in this sexy, sassy series featuring amateur sleuth Kate London and a supporting cast of quirky community players. Born and raised in western Pennsylvania, Susan now lives in a 1927 cottage-style home on a small lake in Michigan.
Chris Grabenstein’s debut novel Tilt-a-Whirl was hailed as “One Of 2005’s Best Mysteries” by The Christian Science Monitor and several syndicated mystery columnists. Set in a seedy seaside resort down the Jersey shore, it teams a young summer cop with a by-the-book soldier just back from Iraq. Whack-a-Mole, the third in the series, is due in June.
Beth Groundwater's comes to the Festival with her debut mystery, A Real Basket Case, It has already garnered good reviews from Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal and other publications. She also has published seven short stories, including one in Wild Blue Yonder, Frontier Airlines's in-flight magazine, and one which was translated into Farsi. Between writing spurts, she defends her meager garden from marauding mule deer and wild rabbits and tries to avoid getting black-and-blue on the black and blue ski slopes of Colorado.
Pittsburgh playwright and actor Kathryn Miller Haines is coming to the festival with her debut mystery, The War Against Miss Winter. The World War II set series featuring actress/amateur sleuth Rosie Winter is due out in June 2007.
Robin Hathaway writes the Dr. Fenimore series. The Doctor Digs a Grave won the St. Martin's/Malice Domestic contest in 1997 and an Agatha Award in 1998. Since then she has produced three more Doctor books. The newest Fenimore book is The Doctor Rocks the Boat.
L.C. Hayden’s fifth mystery, Why Casey Had to Die, is the Agatha Nominee for Best Novel and her previous release, What Others Know, was nominated for Left Coast Crime’s best mystery award. Hayden hosts Murder Must Air, the live talk show sponsored by Mystery Writers of America. Besides writing, Hayden enjoys drawing, reading, traveling, and scuba diving. In addition to her seven novels, Hayden has published over 400 pieces in various magazines.
Mary Ellen Hughes hails from Maryland where she has also set her newest mystery, Wreath of Deception. This first installment in her new Craft Corner series deals with murder in an arts and crafts shop, and her protagonist gives workshops while tracking down killers. She even shares step-by-step directions for a project at the end. Talk about a crafty sleuth! Mary Ellen has two previous mysteries featuring a vacationing math teacher.
Sue Ann Jaffarian is the author of the Odelia Grey mystery series which features a plus-sized, middle-aged paralegal as a humorous amateur sleuth. In addition to writing, she is a paralegal like her character. Sue Ann is active in Mystery Writers of America and the current president of the Los Angeles Chapter of Sisters In Crime, an international non-profit organization dedicated to promoting women in the mystery genre. The first book in the Odelia Grey mystery series, Too Big To Miss, has been optioned for TV and the second book, The Curse of the Holy Pail, was recently released, with the third in the series, Mother Mayhem, scheduled for release in early 2008. Sue Ann lives in Los Angeles.
Linda O. Johnston's first mystery short story won the Robert L. Fish Award. Linda has authored 15 novels, including romantic suspense for Harlequin Intrigue. In her Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery series from Berkley Prime Crime, protagonist Kendra is a lawyer who lives in the Hollywood Hills with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Lexie. Linda is also a lawyer who lives in the Hollywood Hills with her Cavalier Lexie.
John J. Lamb is the author of the IMBA bestseller, The Mournful Teddy (a 2006 Dilys Award finalist), The False-Hearted Teddy, and Echoes of the Lost Order. He is a retired Southern California cop, with eighteen years of experience as a homicide detective, CSI, and hostage negotiator. John now lives in the Shenandoah Valley with his wife Joyce, a retired fingerprint expert and crime analyst.
Mary Jane will be coming to the Festival with a brand-new series beginning with Organize Your Corpses featuring professional organizerCharlotte Adams. She is also the author of five books in the popular Ottawa-based Camilla MacPhee series. Mary Jane has twice won the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis award for best crime short story. She is a lapsed librarian, a former co-owner of Prime Crime (Ottawa’s tiny perfect mystery bookstore), and a past president of Crime Writers of Canada. Although she is a member of the Ladies Killing Circle, in reality, she has ever bumped off anyone.
Pittsburgh writer Nancy Martin has a long and successful career of writing romance titles. six years ago she turned her hand to mystery with outstanding results in the first of the Blackbird Sisters series: How to Murder a Millionaire which introduced a group of Philadelphia blue bloods fallen on hard times. The sixth, A Crazy Little Thing Called Death, has just been published in hardcover along with the paperback of the earlier Have Your Cake and Kill Him Too.
Karen E. Olson returns to the festival this year with Second Hand Smoke, the second in her Annie Seymour mystery series set in New Haven, Connecticut.
Her first book, Sacred Cows, which won the Sara Ann Freed Award for debut mystery, was recently released in paperback.
Sandra Parshall is the author of The Heat of the Moon (2006), nominated for the Agatha Award for Best First Novel, and the recently released Disturbing the Dead, both featuring veterinarian Rachel Goddard. Sandra lives in the Washington, DC, area with her writer husband and two spoiled cats.
Cynthia Riggs, a thirteenth generation Islander, lives on Martha's Vineyard in her family homestead, which she runs as a bed-and-breakfast catering to poets and writers. She has a degree in geology from Antioch College and an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College. She also holds a U.S. Coast Guard Masters License (100-ton). Shooting Star is her seventh published mystery featuring amateur sleuth Victoria Trumbull..
Local writer Mary Jo Rulnick will take the mystery out of keeping your kitchen organized and your family well fed with her Frantic Woman’s Guide to Feeding Family and Friends, a practical book that blends menu planning with healthy recipes that are simple.
Maggie Sefton writes the Knitting Mysteries beginning with.Knit One, Kill Two, which introduced aspiring knitter Kelly Flynn and her group at the House of Lambspun. That debut was an Agatha Award nominee. The fourth in the series, A Killer Stich, will be released in hardcover in May 2007 just in time for the Festival.
Sharon Short is the author of the humorous Stain-Busting Mystery Series featuring Josie Toadfern, stain expert and laundromat owner. Murder Unfolds is the fifth and most recent novel in her series. Short also writes a humor column for the Dayton Daily News.
Clea Simon is the author of the Theda Krakow mysteries, "Mew is for Murder" and "Cattery Row" (Poisoned Pen) and the upcoming "Cries and Whiskers," as well as several nonfiction books. A resident, like Theda, of Cambridge, Mass., she lives with her husband, Jon, a jazz critic, and their cat Musetta, a jellicle.
Actress and author Gammy L. Singer’s resides in New York City. Combining humor with grit, her Landlord Tales series set in Harlem has been optioned for film and television by Laurence Fishburne’s Gypsy Cinema Productions with Fishburne set to star. Her second book, Down and Dirty, Another Landlord’s Tale was released this year as well as the mass market version of her first, re-titled Hard Luck and Trouble: A Landlord’s Tale.
Patricia Smiley’s debut novel False Profits, which introduced financial consultant Tucker Sinclari, received a starred review from Booklist and was a Book Sense recommendation. Her follow-up novel Cover Your Assets was a RomanticTimes Top Pick. Both novels were Los Angeles Times Bestsellers. Short Change, the third in the series, is set for release in July.
Mary-Ann Tirone Smith was born in Hartford, CT, and has lived all her life in Connecticut except for the two years she served as a Peace Corps volunteer on Mt. Cameroon, an active volcano rising 13,000 feet above the equatorial sea. She grew up in a large extended family all living in the greater Hartford area (34 aunts and uncles and 60 first cousins). She is married, has two children and is a third generation Red Sox fan. She has published eight novels including the Poppy Rice mysteries: LOVE HER MADLY, SHE'S NOT THERE, and SHE SMILED SWEETLY. Here memoir, GIRLS OF TENDER AGE, offers a window into the crime that influenced her decision to tackle a mystery series.
Award-winning, critically acclaimed author Wendy Corsi Staub has written more than sixty novels and is best known for the New York Times bestselling suspense novels she has written under her own name. Writing as Wendy Markham, she is a USA Today bestselling author of more than a dozen chick lit and romantic comedies. Currently under contract with five publishers, she will release six new novels in various genres from December 2006 through the September 2007, culminating in the launch of her paranormal young adult series, Lily Dale, just optioned for television.
Denise Swanson realized that working as a small town school psychologist gives one many of the clues to mysteries large and small--thus was Skye Denison debuted in Murder of a Small Town Honey. Denise brings the ninth book in the series, Murder of a Botoxed Blonde, to this year’s Festival.
Marcia Talley--returns to Pittsburgh to sign copies of her latest Hannah Ives book: Through the Darkness. She is also the editor of two collaborative novels, most recently I’d Kill For That a fascinating project involving 13 writers. This award-winning author lives on the Chesapeake Bay .
Sarah Stewart Taylor is the author of the Agatha-nominated O' Artful Death, the launch for the Sweeney St. George series, featuring an art historian who specializes in gravestones and funerary art.Three books have followed in this unique series, most recently Still as Death, Sarah lives in Vermont.
Pittsburgh attorney turned novelist Heather Terrell will be at the Festival promoting her forthcoming debut novel The Chrysalis, an engaging thriller about artworks looted by the Nazis. Moving back and forth in time she combines art and history into a compelling tale. Chrysalis will be published in May and we'll be celebrating with Heather at a publication party at MLB on May 18.
Elaine Viets continues working her series of dead-end jobs with the sixth: Murder with Reservations, where Helen finds work as a hotel maid. Elaine, who really does work all these jobs, says the hotel job was the by far the hardest of her dead end jobs. Elaine has also begun a second series featuring mystery shopper Josie Marcus. Latest is High Heels Are Murder. Elaine lives in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Heather Webber has the prefect mystery series if your interest is in gardening starting with Hoe Lot of Trouble that introduced Nina Quinn, the owner of a garden makeover company. Diggin Up Trouble was an Agatha nominee last year. She'll be coming to the Festival with the fourth: Trouble in Bloom.
Mark Richard Zubro has published nineteen books in two different series. The Tom and Scott series, the most recent of which, Everyone's Dead But Us, is just out this year. His other series features detective Paul Turner. The most recent book in that series is Nerds Who Kill. His other interests include eating chocolate, napping, and reading. His book A Simple Suburban Murder won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Mystery.Mark Richard Zubro recently retired after thirty-four years of teaching in the same school district. He was president of his teachers' union for the past twenty years and lives in suburban Chicago. |
Rhys Bowen
C.R. Corwin
Michael Dittman
Jack Getze 
Chris Grabenstein
Sandra Parshall
Cynthia Riggs
Maggie Sefton
Sharon Short
Clea Simon
Gammy Singer
Patricia Smiley 
Heather Terrell
Home
|
Site map