Sophie George Mysteries
(Works in Progress)

Colin Dexter kissed me on the cheek - twice! I took that as a sign that I should proceed with my plan to write a series of mysteries in my retirement — mysteries in which the cleverest people are over sixty-five.

Sophie George actually came to light 20 years ago, inspired by my mother-in-law, who was extremely clever. I wrote "Window by the Pond" based on an adventure with her, a trip to Bok Singing Towers in Florida. By happy circumstances, a well-placed editor read this first manuscript and said, "Your writing is good, but..., "and that was enough to keep me going. I wrote "Gypsies" after being in London and Oxford a few times. Then "House on Fire" popped into my head, set in my own part of the world, southern Arizona. Ideas kept bubbling up until I had six different Sophie George mysteries in various states of array (to put a positive spin on it).

Sophie is a retired librarian living in Florida. She starts her second career as a researcher-consultant to a police detective who is a couple of years younger than she is. That relationship grows into something alternately exciting and irritating. The cases that fall into Sophie's lap involve people of all ages in diverse settings who are victims of their times. Her patient wisdom allows her to aid them, but not without danger dogging her heels.

Over the 20 years I have had several agents and editors read bits and pieces of these stories and I know that my writing is pretty good but that I have to practice Menace. Now I am beginning to retire, I'd like some help from serious readers. I am totally open to ideas about how to make these stories work well to entertain and enlighten — and to scare us in the process. If you want to be one of ten readers for one of these books, I will send you the file. Contact by E-MAIL

Window by the Pond:

Following a family vacation highlighted by a chance meeting of a stranger later accused of murder, Sophie can't resist taking matters into her own hands. Believing Harold to be innocent, she arranges to take him to spy on a suspicious business in Miami, rescues his adult daughter from a kidnapping, and agrees to meet his retired partner in real estate in Connecticut.

Her detective friend "Sam" comes running when she recognizes the real villain at the airport and is taken for a ride in the trunk of a limousine, tied up for a toss in a swamp.

Gypsies:

Sophie arrives in England to visit Alison and David Harlowe just after their neighbor in Hampstead is found murdered. Lydia Peckham-Greene was a mentor to David's sister Pamela, who went missing after a stay in an American commune. A Gypsy friend of both has been arrested. The Harlowes spirit Sophie off to Oxford where she meets a charming university don and involves him in an investigation of Pamela's college years.

After meeting a roommate in a Jericho squat, Sophie encounters trouble: a car just misses her as she crosses the street, a grinning bicyclist storms toward her on a river path, and dogs attack her. She comes to on a canal boat, the prisoner of another member of the Harlowe family. A chance escape allows her to return to the Harlowes' London house where she continues her investigation by contacting Lydia's grieving, out-of-work housekeeper.

House on Fire:

Hurt and embarrassed by Sam's neglect during the holidays — he seems to prefer the company of his nubile neighbor — Sophie answers the distress call of her college roommate living in Tucson whose husband Harvey has not returned from a birding trip to Mexico. She arrives to find Joan Humboldt, a former tennis champion, physically disabled, out of money, and frightened.

After discovering a young woman hiding in the guest house, Sophie begins to search for clues to the professor's secretive professional life. She eventually buries her pride to call on her wayward pal Sam to explore the last place across the border where the husband was seen, which turns out to be a youth-restoring medical clinic.

Back to Tumbleweeds: A Moving Story