Lets Talk Guest Elaine Viets

With Rachel Thompson on a work assignment, Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy sits in as cohost

Our guest is Elaine Viets

How do you like your mysteries? Hardboiled, with a blood chaser? Warm and cozy? Or funny and traditional, with all the clues, and some good laughs? My four mystery series have something for every reader. 

I started dark with the Francesca Vierling mysteries, set at a newspaper. My Dead-End Job mysteries are funny and traditional. The Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper mysteries are sweetly cozy. 

Now I’m going back to the dark side, with a new series featuring Death Investigator Angela Richman. Death investigators work for the medical examiner. They take charge of the body, photographing it, documenting the wounds, and more. The police investigate the rest of the crime scene. Angela lives in mythical Chouteau County, just west of St. Louis.

After the hardboiled Francesca series, I worked dead-end jobs until my agent sold "Shop Till You Drop," my first Dead-End Job mystery. This series features Helen Hawthorne, a St. Louis woman on the run in South Florida. Now I was back writing traditional mysteries, cheerfully slaughtering bad bosses and annoying customers. 

I enjoyed writing all those mysteries, but I missed the dark side. Even cozies aren?t all kittens and cupcakes. Miss Marple, the fluffy knitter who declared “I am Nemesis,” relentlessly brought killers to justice.

Angela Richman is one of a kind. Janet Rudolph,, says she believes there are no other series featuring death investigators.

"Brain Storm," the first Angela Richman mystery, is just out from Thomas & Mercer, and getting terrific reviews. "Fire and Ashes," the second Angela mystery, will be out in 2017. 

I enjoy the best of both worlds: Light and dark. I hope you will, too.