From Publishers Weekly
The Mystery Writers of America presents an all-original anthology sure to appeal to
Twilight fans with an interest in crime. While vampires are well represented among the 20 selections, most notably Parnell Hall's darkly humorous Death of a Vampire, bestseller Harris ensures that werewolves, ghosts, and magicians also get their due. Harley Jane Kozak does a superb job of integrating a ghost into a contemporary setting in Madeeda, in which an expectant mother is concerned over her two-year-old twins' visions of a bad witch. A phantom ship figures in Lou Kemp's In Memory of the
Sibylline, a highly effective horror story set in the 19th century. Even Mike Hammer gets into
X-Files mode in Max Allan Collins's and Mickey Spillane's Grave Matter, which successfully introduces a supernatural element into the case of a series of mysterious deaths in the ironically named town of Hopeful, N.Y. Other contributors include William Kent Krueger, Margaret Maron, and Carolyn Hart.
(Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Charlaine Harris, who has been writing mysteries for over twenty years, is a native of Mississippi. Born and raised in the Delta, she began training for her career as soon as she could hold a pencil. Though her early works consisted largely of poems about ghosts and (later) teenage angst, she began writing plays when she attended Rhodes College in Memphis, and graduated to books a few years later.
After publishing two stand-alone mysteries, Harris decided to establish a series. She began the lighthearted Aurora Teagarden books with Real Murders, which garnered an Agatha nomination. Harris's protagonist, a diminutive Georgia librarian whose life never turns out quite the way she planned, kept Harris busy for several books, but finally Harris (and Aurora) grew restless.
The result of this restlessness was the much edgier Shakespeare series -- set not in England, but in rural Arkansas. The heroine of the Shakespeare books is Lily Bard, a tough and taciturn woman whose life has been permanently reshaped by a terrible crime and its consequences. In Shakespeare's Landlord, the first in the series, Lily is caught at a moment when the shell she's built around herself is just beginning to crack, and the books capture Lily's emotional re-entry into the world, while also being sound mysteries.
Harris's latest venture is a series about a telepathic barmaid in southern Louisiana. The first book in the series, Dead Until Dark, won the Anthony for best paperback mystery of 2001. Each book about Sookie Stackhouse (and her dealings with vampires and werewolves and other creatures of the night) has gathered more readers to enjoy the books' unique blend of mystery, humor, romance, and the supernatural. The Sookie books are also being read in Japan, Spain, Greece, and Great Britain.
In addition to her work as a writer, Harris is married and the mother to three children. A former weight lifter and karate student, she is an avid reader and cinemaphile. She is a member of the vestry of St. James Episcopal Church.
Harris is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the American Crime Writers League. She is a member of the board of Sisters in Crime, and alternates with Joan Hess as president of the Arkansas Mystery Writers Alliance. © 2004 Charlaine Harris
