This week, to my complete delight, my Sunday School teacher/private detective/fabulous protagonist Maggie Dove made a guest appearance in the pages of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. This is big time. AHMM has been around since 1956. It has published a roster of famous mystery writers. And now me!
My story is titled “The Countess of Warsaw,” but I can’t explain why without giving away too much. It was a hard story to write because I knew from the moment I started to write it that I wanted it to be good. Which is a lot of pressure. Usually I meander my way into a story, but in this case I truly hoped it would be picked up by AHMM, and so I focused intently on plotting and making it tight. I tried to think about the stories I loved growing up. I loved to be surprised by the way a plot unfolded and I absolutely loved to be surprised at the end. But you can’t just sit down and say, Okay. Surprise me. It probably took me about a year to write this. Anyway, it is a great joy to see my name in the Table of Contents and to think of Maggie Dove joining all the other detectives who have visited there. 
And in other Miss Demeanor news, congratulations to Cate Holahan, who just got a starred Kirkus review for her upcoming novel, Lies She Told.
