DEATH COMES OUT OF THE CLOSET

It looks like a classic crime of passion to Detective J. P. Beaumont: two corpses found lovingly entwined in a broom closet of the Seattle School District building. The prime suspect, Pete Kelsey, admits his slain spouse was no novice at adultery, yet he swears he had nothing to do with the brutal deaths of the errant school official and her clergyman-turned-security guard companion. Beau believes him, but there’s something the much sinned-upon widower’s not telling–and that spells serious trouble still to come. Because the secret Pete’s protecting is even hotter than extra-marital sex . . .and it could prove more lethal than murder.

As a desert rat moving to Seattle, I had no idea that a few inches of snow could bring the city to a complete halt with alarming regularity, usually just when children are going back to school after Christmas vacation. I wrote the blizzard scenes at the beginning of this book in September while I was sitting in a hotel room in Hawaii. When the book came out in February almost a year and a half later, I did a signing at a K-Mart in Lynnwood, Washington. A woman came marching up to the table and glowered down at the collection of books scattered across the table. “You’re real fast, aren’t you!” she said accusingly.

“Not really,” I said. “I’ve been writing these books since 1983.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “That snow storm just happened three weeks ago.”

The character of Pete Kelsey was based on the husband of a friend of mine, a woman who was a book rep., selling my publisher’s books to the wholesalers who stocked books in grocery stores and airports and “better bus depots everywhere.” He was and is a highly sought-after and talented contractor to say nothing of an excellent cook. I’ve always hoped that he was pleased with his fictional depiction in this book.

JAJ