After my graduation from Rutgers, I took a job at Holt, Rinehart and Winston in New York City, where I ended up in the Adult Trade Division. From there I moved on to graduate school and earned a PhD in English from Case Western Reserve University, writing a dissertation on the nature of suspense. And somewhere along the way I started writing mysteries.

When I’m not writing, I teach creative writing at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where, on even the coldest days, a walk through any studio both stills and thrills the heart. I think of Keats: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, – that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” And that’s a mystery, too. . .