Emily Toll
Emily Toll considers herself one of the luckiest women
alive. Not only is she able to do the work she loves, but
that work involves killing folks who’ve got it coming, in
the comfort and privacy of her own office. She didn’t set out to be a serial killer. She didn’t
even set out to be a writer. But somewhere along the rocky
road to adulthood and gainful employment, she made a very
crooked turn. That turn also led her from the frigid
winters of Chicago to sunny Southern California, where she
has lived happily for a quarter century. When her mainstream tale Convictions: A Novel of the
Sixties was published in 1985, Emily considered herself on
the path to literary success. She didn’t realize at first
that this path is long and twisted and sometimes leads
right off the edge of cliffs. A few years later, she
decided to turn to crime. She was reluctant to attempt
writing mysteries because they had always been her favorite
form of entertainment, and she feared that writing them
would spoil the pleasure of reading them. Happily this
proved not to be the case. Because she has always believed travel to be one of the
highest forms of art, Emily looked for a way to incorporate
this into her work. The result was Guns and Roses, a travel
mystery set on a tour of the History and Gardens of
Virginia, primarily in Colonial Williamsburg. Guns and
Roses was nominated for Agatha and Macavity Awards as the
Best Mystery Novel of 2000. Guns and Roses also led to a new travel mystery series,
written under the pseudonym Emily Toll. Murder Will
Travel, the first in this series, introduced Lynne
Montgomery, a Southern California widow who leads the
occasional intriguing tour through her Booked for Travel
agency. There’ve been other side trips on Emily’s writerly path
including the script for the Academy Award-nominated short
film, Doubletalk. She’s been involved with libraries since she was three,
when she began checking books out of the Skippy Cannon
Memorial Library at church, named for an uncle who died
young. She has served thirteen terms as president of
various Library Friends groups and currently runs the
Friends Bookstore at her local library. This bookstore
turns a nice profit, thanks to a great volunteer staff,
wonderful book donations and prime space provided by the
Library. Emily Toll lives in a Southern California beach town
where flower growing is a common occupation and the high
school offers Surf PE.
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Series
Books:Fall Into Death, May 2004
Paperback
Murder Pans Out, May 2003
Paperback
Murder Will Travel, May 2002
Paperback
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