Please Welcome Back Mystery Author Marni Graff

We are delighted to welcome back author Marni Graff to Omnimystery News.

Marni begins a new series with Death Unscripted (Bridle Path Press; October 2015 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we asked her to give us the backstory to it. She titles her guest post for us today, "A New Direction".

— ♦ —

Photo provided courtesy of
Marni Graff

Readers of my Nora Tierney Mysteries, set in England, were surprised when I came out with a new book a few weeks ago and to see it is the first in a new series, this one set in Manhattan. Death Unscripted is based on my favorite nursing job in a varied thirty-year career, working for Cinema World Studios, still in operation in Greenpoint, NY, which supplies authentic medical equipment and nurse consultants for medical scenes on any show filmed in the Manhattan area. This could be a series, a soap opera, or a made-for-television movie. Most days I was sent to the set of the popular soap, One Life to Live, where I came to know the cast and crew. I also did the show Law and Order several times. On any show I worked with the director and actors to help them create as realistic a scene as could be within the confines of what the directors would call "artistic license" when they deviated from that reality.

Death Unscripted had its genesis when I was transitioning from nursing to full time writing, studying various forms of writing and conducting interviews for "Mystery Review" magazine. During a course at Oxford concentrating on Gothic mystery writers like Wilkie Collins and Daphne Du Maurier, the magazine arranged for me to train down to London to interview the reigning Queen of British Crime, P. D. James. I could scarcely believe my good luck. James was my hero and I was going to meet her at her Holland Park townhouse.

The Baroness had just turned eighty when she opened the door and invited me into her antiques-filled home. Two hours later, after my questions were exhausted and I couldn't in all good conscience take up more of her time, I prepared to leave. Instead, she asked if I would like to come down to her kitchen for a coffee before my train back. Would I?

We talked more personally then, and she asked about the English mystery series I'd been making notes for on this trip. I was enthralled, knowing I was sitting at the table where this legend created her stories in longhand. She approved of my planned story arc, and of moving Nora around England, too. Talk turned to my nursing history and my unusual consulting job, achieved because I knew screenplay formatting. Then she insisted I write this book.

"Readers love a behind-the-scenes look at a world they don't know," she said. "Promise me one day you'll write a mystery revolves around someone who does that."

Death Unscripted fulfills that promise. Trudy Genova, RN, is the nurse I've created who works on set doing medical consulting for a soap opera filmed for the internet. During taping, a womanizing actor she's been working with dies suddenly, but not before pointing his finger accusingly at Trudy, bringing her under suspicion for his death. She sets out to clear her name, and when a second death occurs, Trudy realizes she's put herself in jeopardy. It's a mix of amateur sleuth and police procedural, as it's written not only from Trudy's point of view, but from that of NYPD Detective Ned O'Malley, senior detective on the case. There's humor, despite the gloomy deaths, and I hope the vibe of New York City in all its glory comes through.

— ♦ —

A former registered nurse who wrote "on the side," Marni Graff has published articles, interviews, poetry and creative nonfiction. She wrote for seven years for "Mystery Review" magazine and is also the Managing Editor of Bridle Path Press. Teaching creative writing, running the Writers Read program in NC, and participating in writing workshops fill out her days. She lives in rural coastal NC on a river and shares her home with her husband and Spinone, Radar.

For more information about the author, please visit her website at AuntieMWrites.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.

— ♦ —

Death Unscripted by Marni Graff

A Trudy Genova, Manhattan Mystery

Publisher: Bridle Path Press

Trudy Genova has the best job any nurse could want, working on set as a medical consultant for a NY movie studio. No more uniforms, bedpans or emergencies, until at the actor whose overtures she's refused dies suddenly while taping a hospital scene — but not before pointing his finger accusingly at Trudy.

When detectives view Trudy as a suspect, she sets out on an investigation to clear her name. Then a second death occurs, and Trudy realizes she's put herself in jeopardy.

— Death Unscripted by Marni Graff