Born and raised in New York City, my plans to become an artist got sidetracked by an interest in psychology. While in school, I graduated college, majoring in Fine Arts and Psychology, combining my two interests. I continued my education as a Graphic Designer at The School of Visual Arts. I worked as a freelance graphic artist for a while before starting a career in the creative arts therapies. While I enjoy a dark, brooding, suspenseful mystery, sometimes I need a little humor to round out those dark edges. Despite some bad things happening in the world, most people do silly, goofy, and often stupid things and you have to laugh.
One for the Money was the first in many books by Evanovich that I’ve read. This one got me started and hooked on her funny, sexy, and female-driven stories. Stephanie Plum made me laugh out loud in public. Evanovich proved not every detective (or bail bondsman) had to be a guy, hard-boiled and emotionally stunted. I liked the idea of a wisecracking heroine, who could find a clue if she had to. This #1 NY Times bestselling has over twenty-eight books that would put a smile on anyone’s face.
Stephanie Plum is down on her luck. She's lost her job, her car's on the brink of repossession, and her apartment is fast becoming furniture-free.
Enter Cousin Vinnie, a low-life who runs a bail-bond company. If Stephanie can bring in vice cop turned outlaw Joe Morelli, she stands to pick up $10,000. But tracking down a cop wanted for murder isn't easy . . .
And when Benito Ramirez, a prize-fighter with more menace than mentality, wants to be her friend Stephanie soon knows what it's like to be pursued. Unfortunately the best person to protect her just happens to…
How can a story about white supremacists, lottery tickets, and turtles make you laugh? In Carl Hiaasen’s Lucky You, murder and mayhem are the least of its treasures. Hiaasen’s style is witty, wildly humorous and with a keen eye for the obvious. He has a way of inhabiting his stories with colorful, bombastic characters who linger long after you turn that last page. He sets most of his stories in southern Florida, which only adds to Hiaasen’s unique setting and style.
From the author of STRIP TEASE and STORMY WEATHER, a lighthearted crime novel set in Florida. Two white-trash reprobates win a lottery jackpot of $28 million but are forced to share this amount with a third party. When they decide that this is not acceptable they set out to find the other winner and void her claim by violent means.
Though David Handler’s The Cold Blue Blood plays out much like a traditional whodunit, it has a dash of East Coast humor. The Berger and Mitry Mysteries have been one of my favorites for years. Handler’s strong descriptive style, unique characters, and colorful book titles always had me searching for the next installment. Handler’s main character, Mitch Berger, a New York City film critic, plays the perfect fish out of water, now living on a wealthy private island called Big Sister. A dead body in his garden introduces him to his other partner in crime, Lieutenant Desiree Mitry. This odd couple is both charming and disarming as they sleuth through the snobs of Big Sister.
Mitch Berger, a top film critic with a major New York newspaper at a surprisingly young age, has become almost a recluse since his wife died one year ago. He spends his time secluded in his apartment or in the dark recesses of a screening room. Although he continues to dazzle moviegoers and the film elite with his criticisms, his editor and good friend is alarmed about him. As a scheme to pull him out of the doldrums of his grief, she gives him a non-film assignment - to do a color story on the wealthy and social homeowners on…
The first time I read David Rosenfelt’s Andy Carpenter series, I immediately thought that Groucho Marx had moved to North Jersey, gone into law, and adopted a rescue dog. Rosenfelt’s reluctant lawyer hero goes at his oddball cases with a collection of even odder associates. Dry, witty, and a little self-effacing, Rosenfelt’s style brings to life a cast of characters that made me reluctant to put his books down. I started the series with the third book, Bury the Lead, first but quickly caught up. The first book in the series is Open and Shut. Mystery and animal lovers will find a place in their heart and funny bone.
Defence attorney Andy Carpenter has been successfully avoiding taking on new cases until his sometime friend and newspaper owner, Vince Sanders, calls and asks him for a favour. Daniel Cummings, Vince's star reporter, is being used as the mouthpiece for a serial killer. He has been cooperating with the police but Vince wants to make sure both the newspaper and Daniel are protected. Andy thinks the case be a piece of cake...until Daniel is found unconscious in park next to the killer's latest victim. Daniel claims he intended to stop the murder but the police arrest him. Now, with the…
My new best find is the Lacey Luzzi Mysteries by Gina LaManna. Along with smart titles and snappy dialogue, I fell in love with almost stripper Lacey Luzzi and her mafia family. The first book is a lovely introduction to unforgettable characters. Reminiscent of Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, La Manna introduces us to gangsters, secret family history, questionable friends (Meg!), and her cousin. It’s a light and easy read for those dipping a toe into humorous cozy mysteries.
Lacey Luzzi's roller coaster of a life has been filled with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. She just never expected the lows to be so...sparkly.
After falling on her face during an attempt to follow in her recently deceased mother's stripper boots, Lacey realizes she is not cut out for life onstage. She sets out on a yearlong investigation to find her true family, never expecting she'll find it with a capital F.
With a rumbling stomach, a need for money ("check engine" lights don't fix themselves!), and a conscience that operates at 78 percent on…
Pennywise is the first book in the Maggie and Odessa mystery series. An amateur sleuth cozy mystery, laced with humor, friendship, family, and learning how to start again. Set in New York City, a diverse cast of characters and mayhem whirl around two best friends from high school, who remain fiercely loyal despite the occasional dead body. Told from Odessa’s often cynical and humorous point of view, they embark on a new phase of their lives. Maggie wants to be a private detective. Odessa just wants to get back to her old life as an advertising exec. Nothing goes as they plan.
I have been to, and loved, North, Central, and especially East Africa for over fifty years. Only six times have I been to Africa on holiday; more often, perhaps twenty or more times, as a television producer. Working in Africa gains a perspective of reality that the glories of vacation do not. Each has its place, each its pitfalls like stalled plane rides with emergency landings in the bush or attacks by wildlife. But, in the end, the magic of the “otherness,” what an old friend called “primitava” captures one’s soul and changes your life.
Keen to rekindle their love of East African wildlife adventures after years of filming, extreme dangers, and rescues, producer Pero Baltazar, safari guide Mbuno Waliangulu, and Nancy Breiton, camerawoman, undertake a filming walking adventure north of Lake Rudolf, crossing from Kenya into Ethiopia along the Omo River, following a herd of elephant making their annual migration.
Stumbling onto an elephant poaching, the team become embroiled in true financing of terrorism for al Shabaab –ivory sales–and are determined to stop the slaughter at any cost. Ivory trade financing terrorism involves UN refugee camps with two hundred thousand displaced Somali persons, powerful…
A documentary team hiking through East Africa collides with a gang of deadly poachers, in this gripping adventure by the author of Kidnapped on Safari.
Years of filming, extreme dangers, and daring rescues have taken their toll on documentary producer Pero Baltazar and his team. To relax and reconnect with the East African wildlife they love, Pero organizes a walking safari for him, his camerawoman Nancy Breiton, and their elite guide Mbuno Waliangulu. Still, Pero has trouble truly disconnecting from work. When the team comes across a herd of elephants making their annual migration north of Lake Rudolf, Pero decides…
