It’s August in the Berkshires, and the area is suffering from a terrible drought. As wetlands dry up, the perfectly preserved body of a local man, missing for forty years, is discovered in Wolf Bog by a group of hikers that includes Kathryn Stinson. Who was he and what was his relationship with close friend […]
Boston library curator Kathryn Stinson returns to the Berkshires, hoping to rebuild her romance with Earl Barker, but ends up battling a New York developer, determined to turn the property she’s been renting into an upscale development. The fight pits her against Earl, who has been offered the job of clearing the land. When a fire breaks out in the woods, the burned body of another opponent is discovered. Did he die attempting to escape a fire he set, or was the fire set to cover up his murder? Kathryn’s search for answers leads her to other questions about the developer’s connection to a friend of hers who fled New York years ago for mysterious reasons. The information she uncovers puts her in grave danger.
Leslie’s story, “Death in a Strange and Beautiful Place” is among the thirty stories set in different locales all over the world that appear in this anthology.
This story appeared in NOIR AT THE SALAD BAR, CULINARY TALES WITH A BITE, published by Level Best Books, July 2017. It all began with macadamia nuts. I’ll never forget how thrilled I was to have my yummy recipe for white chocolate chunk macadamia nut cookies included in What’s Cooking at Hillcrest Elementary School on […]
This story was published in Day of the Dark, Stories of Eclipse, edited by Kaye George, and released by Wildside Press on July 21, 2017, in time for the total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017. Madras, Oregon, 9:13 AM, Sunday, August 20, 2017 “Antarctica in 2014. Norway in 2015. Indonesia in 2016.” Daphne […]
This anthology serves up thirty gastronomic mysteries, including Leslie’s story,
“My Life in Killer Recipes.”
This anthology of twenty-four stories by mystery writers and others celebrates of the August 21st total solar eclipse in the United States. It features Leslie’s story, “Chasing the Moon.”
It’s November in the Berkshires, a dreary time of dwindling light when the tourists have fled along with the last gasp of fall foliage. So when a stranger shows up in the sleepy hilltown of New Nottingham and starts asking questions, the locals don’t exactly roll out the welcome wagon.
Bostonian Kathryn Stinson is on a deeply personal quest to solve a family mystery: the identity of a nameless beauty in an old photograph an ancestor brought with him to California over a century ago. But, as Kathryn quickly discovers, the hills possess a host of dark secrets – both ancient and new – that can only be revealed at the price of danger and even death.
It’s the week before Thanksgiving, and history textbook writer Miranda Lewis has deadlines to meet. But when a routine check-in call to her young niece ends in tears and a hang-up, Miranda hurries to Plimoth Plantation, where her niece works as an interpreter. The day after her arrival, the already explosive atmosphere turns violent when someone beheads the interpreter who portrays Miles Standish. With suspicion falling on her niece, Miranda sets out to uncover the truth.
When Miranda Lewis accepts an invitation from her old college roommate and her roommate’s father, a handsome courtly Virginian, to attend the reenactment of the Gettysburg Battle over the Fourth of July Weekend, she hopes to recapture the magic of the long-ago summer she spent with them, But the jaunt down memory lane turns into a nightmare when her roommate’s estranged husband Wiley, a hardcore Confederate reenactor, is shot in the leg and dies of a heart attack while reenacting Pickett’s Charge.