about me

Hello, everybody. What an exciting community this is. I love that this site is multi-national, and that your stories have settings all over the world.

I live in Austin, Texas, USA. I am originally from Virginia, where my first book, the Made-Up Man, is set. Like my main character, I lived in other countries for a number of years when growing up (my character was born in Kenya).

I began my career teaching philosophy and took several major detours before ending up at the Texas Attorney General’s office, where I was a writer and researcher for a number of years. The AG is the chief law enforcement officer for the state, responsible for high-profile prosecutions and investigations, as well as victim services.

My fascination with crime did not begin with what I learned working for the AG, however. I love reading all kinds of books, but I started with Nancy Drew as a child and moved on to Agatha Christie and Erle Stanley Gardner as a teenager. Over the years I have devoured everything ever written by PD James, Dorothy Sayers, Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald, and Ruth Rendell – to name only a few favorites. I feel sure that more than half the books I’ve read in my life have been murder mysteries. There was never any question about what kind of book I would write!

favourite books

This is not so much a list of favorite books -- these are books that I find most useful and inspiring for my own work. As such, it's a list that changes over time.

Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky)
The Chill (Ross MacDonald)
Rebecca (DuMaurier)
Lolita (Nabokov)
In Pale Battalions (Goddard)
The Veiled One (Rendell) - or anything else she wrote!
The Talented Mr. Ripley (Highsmith)
Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)

my websites

http://www.pommelhouse.com