We are delighted to welcome crime novelist Marilyn Levinson as our guest blogger today.
Marilyn is the author of three — three! — mystery series, two of which are in print with the third soon to come.
Here she is to tell us a bit about her three amateur sleuths.
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We mystery writers create several characters for each novel we write. We have to, when you consider the number of murder victims and the necessary pool of suspects to draw from. One's sleuth is the most important character in the book, and I've taken great pleasure in creating each of my sleuths. Like me, they're all female, but that's where the resemblance ends. I doubt I could be as brave or as resourceful as Lydia, Gabbie, and Lexie.
Photo provided courtesy of
Marilyn Levinson
Lydia Krause, my sleuth in A Murderer Among Us and Murder in the Air is an attractive, feisty fifty-eight-year-old woman, who has just made monumental changes in her life. After her beloved husband dies, she sells the company she owned and ran, and moves to Twin Lakes, an upscale retirement community. Her older daughter expects her to spend her days babysitting for her two daughters, but murder and mayhem soon demand much of Lydia's attention. Capable as ever, Lydia helps resolve her grown daughters' problems and takes on a part-time job as she forges new friendships and spars with homicide detective, Sol Molina
My sleuth in Giving Up the Ghost, thirty-five-year-old Gabbie Meyerson, comes to a small town in Long Island in midwinter to teach English at the local high school. Newly-divorced, after helping put her husband behind bars, Gabbie has barely enough money to pay her rent. As if starting a new life isn't enough, she discovers she's sharing her cottage with the ghost of Cameron Leeds. Cam persuades Gabbie to find out who murdered him. When not keeping a chapter ahead of her students and dealing with two bullies, Gabbie questions the townspeople, until Cam's murderer tries to kill her, too. Good thing she's struck up a friendship with the local lawman who was Cam's best friend, and who might become someone she could care for — if she isn't careful.
Lexie Driscoll, the sleuth in my third mystery series that hasn't been released, is another type entirely. A forty-eight-year-old English college professor with a penchant for going for the wrong type of man, Lexie has no home of her own because her second husband burned it down with him inside. Lexie moderates the Golden Age of Mystery book club. In Murder a la Christie, she housesits her recently murdered friend's home in upscale Old Cadfield while chasing after the murderer employing Hercules Poirot and Jane Marple's investigative methods. World-renown architect Allistair West and homicide detective Brian Donovan both like Lexie. In Murder the Tey Way she makes her choice.
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In addition to her mystery novels, Marilyn Levinson writes books for kids and travels the world. You can learn more about her, her books, and her adventures on her website, MarilynLevinson.com, and her blog, Tides and Tidings.
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