WHEN I WAS A KID, I READ THE NANCY DREW MYSTERIES AND DREAMED OF BEING A SLEUTH.

As a kid, I curled up in a hammock in San Marcos, Texas, when it was still a small sleepy town, and dreamed of living in River Heights and being best friends with Nancy Drew. After all, she was bold, adventuresome, amazingly talented, and always solved the mystery. She was also kind and often helped disadvantaged people.

My passion was reading, and our tiny town library had only two small rooms of books. We lived a block away, and the librarian knew me well. When I wasn’t reading, you’d find me either learning how to sew or playing with paper dolls. Writing wasn’t on my radar. In fact, careers for women weren’t even talked about then.

My dad was in the Air Force, so when I was twelve, we moved to Utah. All these years later, I still shudder at the terror of driving at night in the rain and snow, along a treacherous old road through Weber Canyon near Ogden, and arriving at our destination in early December.

INSTEAD, I GOT MARRIED, WENT TO COLLEGE, GOT A JOB, AND BECAME A MOTHER.

My dad retired in Utah right when the frenzied 60s and early 70s were upon us. Being an unruly young woman, I had many adventures between a wedding, motherhood, a divorce, and a college graduation. Then I became a hippie in San Francisco. Suddenly, I was in the middle of Vietnam War protests, communal living, alternative schools, Zen Buddhism, and healthy eating. Yes, I had my two kids with me and always worked, and I took them to Ireland on my first major trip.

As a profession, I’m an accountant. I worked, but faced a lot of discrimination against women, and single mothers in particular. Employers presumed I was husband-hunting and I would quit as soon as I found one, so I started my own accounting practice out of necessity. I got married again and became a stepmother, but by then it was the late 80s, and I was an independent, feminist, woman. A month before the wedding, I took a long-planned trip around the world, going through Russia on the Trans-Siberian railroad. I wasn’t cut out for being a stepmother. The marriage didn’t last very long.

Soon thereafter, I got involved in a class-action lawsuit involving a first amendment claim, and became enamored with the law. My kids were in college, so I went to law school. I became interested in how the law affected women and children, but there weren’t any jobs in the field of domestic violence at the time.

Since I was enjoying my mid-life crisis, I also took writing classes after law school. In 2003, I had a story published in two literary magazines.

I GRADUATED FROM LAW SCHOOL WHEN I WAS 50 YEARS OLD AND WORKED HARD TO BECOME AN EXPERT.

Soon after graduating from law school and passing the bar exam, I realized all of my effort would be for nothing if I didn’t use my education. I decided to move to Washington, D.C. I drove my 15-year-old red sports car across the country by myself and found a job with a mid-size CPA firm as a Senior Consultant.

I managed the unusual projects that often had legal elements in the financial crisis under investigation. I became an expert in an obscure part of the law. I also found fraud, abuse, mismanagement, waste, corruption, and greed. For fifteen years, I wrote scathing reports and then trained people on how to do their jobs, or got them fired.

I got married again and moved to a five-bedroom home in the suburbs of Maryland. I still had a craving to write. For several years, I took classes and worked on a manuscript which still sits in the bottom drawer. That story involves racial issues in the emerging South after the 1960s civil rights period. I also worked a lot of overtime for my job. My husband found companionship elsewhere.

After the divorce, I had a big house and found women roommates. This was the beginning of the project that became the Golden Girls Network. I published a book about this experience. I also continued traveling.

It finally came time for me to retire. I made my way back to Utah, where my son and his family live. I took writing classes again. In a class called “How to Write a Murder Mystery,” each student needed a project. My project ultimately became Buried Bones.

COVID came along, and I used the time to keep working on the manuscript. It took five years, many books on writing skills, and a couple of editors, but I learned a lot.

I TOOK THE PLUNGE AND CREATED MAGGIE ANDERSON, WHO IS THE SLEUTH I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE.

Wouldn’t you know it - Maggie Anderson has had many of the life experiences I had, but I gave her a more traditional backstory, and she is more athletic than I am. The sense of justice that became important to me in the 60s and 70s is reflected in her approach to the law. She’s ethical, intuitive, and caring to a fault. Like Nancy Drew, she believes in fighting for the underdog and takes her work seriously.

She enjoys being independent and making her own decisions. Like me, she isn’t sure she’s cut out to be a wife. We’ll see if the charming Robert Parsons can persuade her differently.

“However, the plot is impressively intricate and unfolds in a manner brimming with suspense. This is an exceedingly intelligent murder mystery, dramatically enthralling and thoroughly entertaining. An immersive tale of murder and betrayal.”
– Kirkus Reviews