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Joan Hess
Oh dear, this seems so personal. I was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, luckily a blue dot in a red state. Did the normal kid stuff, avoided the long arm of the law. I earned a BA in art from the U of A, and a MS in early childhood development from Long Island University. I was teaching art in... show more

Oh dear, this seems so personal. I was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, luckily a blue dot in a red state. Did the normal kid stuff, avoided the long arm of the law. I earned a BA in art from the U of A, and a MS in early childhood development from Long Island University. I was teaching art in a preschool (pretty clever combination of the degrees, right?) when a friend suggested I write a romance novel. I wrote ten unpublishable ones before I realized I needed a splash of blood and a slather of humor in my prose and turned to mysteries. The Claire Malloy series came first, followed by the Maggody series. A third series, the Theo Bloomer mysteries, sputtered out after two novels, alas (it was going to be my "travel" series, requiring me to take tax-deductible business trips to do the research). Now I live in Austin, Texas (also a blue dot, but a bigger one), a ten-minute drive from my absolutely adorable twin grandchildren Jack and Annabelle, soon to be three years old. Please don't ask me if they're identical. Their gracious mother frequently allows me to drop whatever I'm doing and dash over to babysit. And I do. I'm currently working on my forty-fifth (or so) mystery, a Claire Malloy based on my brief experience in the jury pool. When I'm not babysitting, that is.
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Birth date: January 06, 1949
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Community Reviews
Lisa (Harmony)
Lisa (Harmony) rated it 11 years ago
I'm afraid the title is quite apt. The plot involves a murdered romance writer, and the prose was on the level I expect from the romance aisle--strained metaphors, intrusive irksome dialogue tagging--and even more irksome characterizations. This is told first person, and our narrator, Claire Malloy,...
Wyvernfriend Reads
Wyvernfriend Reads rated it 11 years ago
This is a very mixed bag of stories, all clever and all interesting. These take a twist on the stories of fairy tale, taking a more crime oriented look at these stories. Many of them are clever and interesting but some of them are a litle laboured, trying to twist the story a little too much to fi...
Chris' Fish Place
Chris' Fish Place rated it 14 years ago
There are some pleasent surprises in this little collection. There are also some duds. Thankfully, however, the gems make up for the dudes. There does seem to be a preponderence of mob stories.The stories range from funny to touching. Now of them all really sad. Standouts include-"After Happil...
Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud
Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud rated it 15 years ago
Rating: 3.25* of fiveClaire Malloy, bookselling sleuth of the Farberville Book Depot, returns for her umpty-zillionth murder investigation (well, okay, only the sixteenth) but this time at a *shudder* Renaissance Faire!Now seriously. Have any of y'all been to a Renaissance Faire? Have you not wished...
Reflections
Reflections rated it 15 years ago
After a bitter divorce Arly Hanks left Manhattan to be the police chief in her more than small hometown of Maggody, Alabama. This is the first in the series and they are all hilarious.
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