It was the week before Halloween, shortly after I'd moved into a new apartment. I went for a walk in the neighborhood and spotted an old Victorian. I've always loved old houses so I stopped, gazing up at it. And I wondered what those walls would say if they could talk.
Intrigued, I wanted to find out
more about the house and the area so I went to the Cincinnati Historical
Society and immersed myself in research. The more I learned, the more certain I
was that I wanted to write a mystery novel that took place there.
I continued to take walks in the
neighborhood, always with my camera. Little by little, I began to come up with plot
ideas and the characters who would live in my fictional version of the house.
So, that's how I came to write Mixed Messages, my first Malone mystery. Proof that you never know
where an idea for a book (or a series) will come from.