My funny new mystery

I'm happy to announce that my new novel,  A BOX OF PANDORAS, is now available through Amazon for Kindle. And it's only $3.99.

I'm very proud of this book. It's got all the elements of a traditional mystery, but it's loaded with laughs and the female protagonist is an absolute stitch. Loretta Kimball is a small-town busybody, sassy and sharp, who knows everybody in Pandora, NM, and is perfectly willing to share her opinions about them.

The basic plot -- the president of an actor's fan club gets mixed up in murder at a Santa Fe film festival -- bounced around my "Ideas" file for several years. Then last year Loretta suddenly spoke to me. Her first-person voice came to me full-blown, as did many of the details of life in Pandora, and the novel felt as if it flowed out of the ends of my fingers. I wrote it in a matter of weeks, though the revisions took months, as usual.


For the first time, I'm publishing through the KDP Select program, which offers certain promotion and marketing benefits in exchange for a 90-day exclusive on Kindle. This means members of Amazon Prime can borrow the book for free. (It also means that fans who read my books on Nook and other e-readers will have to wait a few months for A BOX OF PANDORAS. Sorry!)

Most New Mexicans will recognize the title, as it comes from our late, great Gov. Bruce King, who was famous for such malaprops. He once warned that a legislative measure would "open up a whole box of Pandoras." When I decided to create a New Mexico town for this book, Pandora seemed a natural.

While the town is imaginary, life there will seem very real to folks who grew up in small towns and rural areas. Everybody knows everybody. You can't get away with anything. Old grudges last forever.

One of the funniest aspects of A BOX OF PANDORAS is Loretta's lifelong grudge against Mitzi Tyner, a schoolmate who's always stealing Loretta's thunder. Mitzi and her sidekick, Nannette Hoch, attend the Santa Fe film festival, too, and play big roles in the story.

I've already written one short story featuring these characters, and would love to feature them in more novels. Depends on sales, of course. So get out there and do your part. Pick up A BOX OF PANDORAS today!