[Deep South Mysteries 01] • Cruel as the Grave

Maggie McLendon should be at home in Houston, studying for her

Ph.D. qualifying exams, but a letter from her great aunt arrives, bearing

bad news. Maggie's grandfather, Henry McLendon, whom she has never met, is

seriously ill in Jackson, Mississippi.

Maggie's father, English professor Gerard McLendon, has been estranged from

his family since Maggie was an infant, but now there is perhaps one last

chance for the McLendons to be reunited. The family welcomes Maggie and

Gerard to Jackson, and Gerard has a chance to reconcile with his father.

But a murderer strikes, savagely, and Gerard McLendon looks like the chief

suspect. Maggie must sort out decades of family secrets, including the

puzzle of her grandmother's death twenty-five years before and its

relationship to the present crime, to arrive at the truth. But not before

the killer strikes a second time. Could Maggie or her father be next on the

list?

**About The Author:**

I've been a devoted mystery reader since the age of ten

and now the manager of Murder By The Book, a specialty bookstore in Houston,

I have published numerous articles, interviews, and reviews, and several

works of non-fiction on the subject of mysteries.

My first novel-length mystery fiction, *Cruel As The Grave*, will be published

in May 2000, by Silver Dagger Mysteries.

I grew up in Mississippi, with scads of cousins all over the place, none of

whom has ever married one another as far as I know. Sitting around on

porches on hot summer days, listening to adults telling stories, I decided I

wanted to tell stories, too.

I wrote my first novel when I was twelve, and I've been making up stories

ever since. No matter where those stories are set, something Southern creeps

in. I think that growing up Southern was like living in the middle of every

one of Shakespeare's plays all at once. Comedy, drama, tragedy,

farce--they're with you every day; all you have to do is choose.