Erica Obey- "The Brooklyn North Murder"
Dear Reader,
Welcome to Dr. Mary Watson’s fictional home of Morgansburg, NY, where women still can their own preserves, the Fire Department hosts annual visits from Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and the Ancient Order Hibernians’ Pipe and Drum Band leads the annual Memorial Day parade.
A village out of time, yes, but not all that different from growing up Lutheran in Brooklyn. And these memories inspired my new locked room mystery novel, The Brooklyn North Murder – where a hedge fund billionaire dives into a lake in full view of witnesses watching a triathlon — and disappears.
I was hardly raised in Lake Wobegon, but I do possess some interesting skills, such as crafting Christmas tree ornaments out of egg cartons and angels out of old copies of the Reader’s Digest. I freely admit I never mastered the art of crocheting covers for wooden coat hangers, but I bought them eagerly at fundraisers such as the Mother’s Day Plant Sale, the Strawberry Festival, the Penny Social, the Harvest Festival Dinner and Christmas Craft Fair.
I never realized how much I missed that life until I moved to the Hudson Valley. My first sight of a Fire Department Ladies’ Auxiliary made me feel like I was coming home. I have a similar nostalgia for golden age mysteries. My childhood guilty pleasure was selecting a stack of Agatha Christies to take with me on summer vacation. My parents escaped into the woods across the United States, and while I enjoyed camping, my real escape was into a world where people took tea at village fetes and even the criminals had style.
The real-life hipsters have discovered the Hudson Valley. The parades and crafts are rapidly being edged out by goat yoga, wine bars, art house movie theaters, and “destination hamburgers.” Change is of course good, and I’d be the first to admit there were problems in my remembered paradise.
But just as my AI detective, Doyle, combines old-fashioned mysteries with cutting edge cyber-technology, I hope The Brooklyn North Murder preserves the best of a time I cherish while offering a fresh twist on classic village life involving a seemingly inexplicable murder mystery.
—Erica Obey
Erica Obey is the author of The Brooklyn North Murder, her locked-room series debut, as well as five other award-winning mystery novels set in the Hudson Valley. She is the past president of the New York Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, as well as a frequent reviewer and contest judge. She lives with her husband and a rotating assortment of cats in a historic arts colony in Woodstock, N.Y.
Website: https://ericaobey.com/
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