It’s Tuesday morning at Columbia Falls Junior High School in northwest Montana. Approximately 75 eighth graders troop into the library where a massive glass wall faces Glacier National Park, shrouded in clouds that promise early snow. The students are gearing up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) led by English teachers Rubianna Masa and Cecilia Byrd-Rinck. Since 2012, Rubianna has shepherded her students through the November writing marathon where they draft an entire novel in 30 days. “I will not…

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  Montana has more bookstores per capita than any other state. Bad Rock Books in Columbia Falls, MT is one of my personal favorites. You can read about it here on The Kill Zone.              The paperback of my new thriller Stalking Midas  is available at Bad Rock Books or in Kindle ebook here.

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Elder Fraud affects all of us, either hitting our pocketbooks or breaking our hearts or both. It’s also the subject of my new thriller, Stalking Midas. Please join me Wednesday, October 9, at 1:30 p.m. at Buffalo Hill Auditorium (inside the Villas). I’ll read from Stalking Midas and talk about how elder fraud became personal when a scammer targeted my adopted mother. The book is fiction but the problem is real, costing untold billions of dollars each year. I’ll share lessons…

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One year ago today, a beloved, wise man died. In the Holocaust, Nissan Krakinowski lost his whole family except for his brother, Chaim. Nissan went on to build a successful life in New York, owning two hat factories where he worked with Chaim. Nissan married Rose and they had two daughters they adored, Pessie and Shayndee. He revered his in-laws who also shared his home. Family meant everything to Nissan. His warmth, humor, and kindness drew people to him. His…

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I love talking with book clubs–members are not only avid readers, they’re also wonderful cooks! As a writer, I’m always willing to work for food. The book club I met with today included a beautiful lunch–tortellini salad with tomatoes and peppers out of our hostess’s garden. Her living room has entire walls of bookshelves. She doesn’t know yet that I’m planning to move in! They’d read Instrument of the Devil, the first book in my Tawny Lindholm Thriller series. We had…

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Jon, an adventurous reader, took my thriller Instrument of the Devil on an extended sailing cruise. This morning, he sent beautiful photos from Split, Croatia and also shared the book with shipmate Dina. A big thank you to Jon and Dina! I’m so glad you both enjoyed the story! Here’s Jon on the high seas. And here’s Dina.      Only my book accompanied them, not me personally (darn!). To see what I missed, I researched Split, Croatia. What an…

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Jon, a reader from Annapolis MD, took my thriller on his sailing cruise through the Mediterranean. Here he is in Crete. Next stop, Venice. Thanks for sending this beautiful photo, Jon! Smooth sailing!

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This morning, while driving away from my house on the way to the gym, I met my neighbor in her car coming home. We stopped, rolled down windows, and chatted for a moment. She’d been to a garage sale in a nearby town about 15 miles away, didn’t find much worth buying, and only spent $5. We said bye and went about our business. Just an ordinary Saturday morning, right? This small incident nearly brought me to tears of joy.…

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Grab a cold drink and a hot thriller for your summer reading pleasure.  Instrument of the Devil is on sale for 99 cents from July 7th to July 14th. Winner of the Zebulon Award and the Kindle Scout contest. After her husband’s death, Tawny Lindholm isn’t looking for romance but it finds her when she meets Kahlil Sharivar, a charismatic psychologist with the charm and good looks of Omar Sharif. Embarrassed by her dyslexia and intimidated by technology, Tawny welcomes…

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