Hello fans of mystery, murder and mayhem! Allow me to introduce myself: I’m Leslie Langtry, and I’ll be your host here at Fresh Fiction, every week for Mondays are Murder! To get the ball rolling for something like this, I’d usually do an ice breaker like, “Ideas on how to kill with vegetables,” or “How would you introduce a blue ringed octopus to a victim who wasn’t in Australia and make it look like an accident?”
Unfortunately, we can’t really do that here, so you’ll just have to settle for a plain old intro. About me, I’m a USA Today best selling author and was first published in 2007 when my first book, ‘SCUSE ME WHILE I KILL THIS GUY, (a dark comedy about a family of assassins) came out. I wrote four books for that publisher before striking out on my own for a time in 2011, and landing with another publisher in 2014 with my next (and longest series) the Merry Wrath Cozy Comedies – first book – MERIT BADGE MURDER (a comedy about an ex-CIA agent turned small town Girl Scout leader). There are currently 34 books in the Merry Wrath series because 1) they’re fun to write, and 2) I’m a glutton for punishment. It’s mostly number one…I think.
I’m also a huge mystery reader, so I’ll share my favorites with you every week! My love of mysteries started as a kid with Nancy Drew. Every other day I rode my bike to the library in my hometown to drop off a couple of books and pick up more. That’s what launched my obsession for mystery series. Then, as I got a little older, I started swiping my mom’s Agatha Christie books from her nightstand, putting them back after I’d read them. She never knew about my ninja stealth mystery thefts…at least, I don’t think she did. Then again, I could be wrong. She almost always figures out who the killer is in my books.
As an adult, I discovered mystery bookstores – actual stores that only sold mysteries! There was one in Madison, Wisconsin, and when visiting, I’d walk in and tell them what I liked and walk out with new-to-me authors and their series, like Carolyn Hart’s Death on Demand mysteries or Joan Hess’s Maggody Series.
It wasn’t until I was in my thirties when I decided to try actually writing a mystery. I think it’s the lure of the puzzle that does it. I love red herrings and plot twists as a novelist and a reader. I’m happiest when I finish a book and have no idea who the killer is! If I can solve it right away, I tend not to finish it. I want to be surprised at the end and try to achieve the same things with my books. So far, my fans tell me I pull it off. Except for Mom, of course. Someday, I’m going to really catch that woman by surprise.
If you want to know more about me or my books, you can check me out on my website.
Watch for me next week and every Monday after that. And hey! No one got murdered – which is always a plus for stuff like this because you never really know, do you?
Why the hell not?
Leslie Langtry does not like to write bios. Seriously, she’s just not good at it. You’d think that after fifty books, she’d be able to pull off a few sentences, but no, she can’t. It’s very disappointing. At least her books are good, which counts, in her mind, as a win.
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