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Judi Culbertson at Secret Garden Tea Cafe, December 2013
Judi Culbertson is the author of thirteen published books. Soon after graduating from Wheaton College she published GAMES CHRISTIANS PLAY (Harper & Row, 1967), followed by THE LITTLE WHITE BOOK ON RACE (Lippincott, 1970). As well as parenthood and a day job as a social worker, she wrote stories for literary magazines and published articles in Glamour, The New York Times, Newsday, Cosmopolitan, Woman's Day, Working Mother, and others.
In 1986, after a trip to Paris, Judi and her husband, Tom Randall, wrote PERMANENT PARISIANS, An Illustrated Biographical Guide to the Cemeteries of Paris, published in 1987 by Chelsea Green Press. Other in the series include New York, London, California, and Italy.
Judi's other books include a mystery, THE NURSERY (St. Martin's Press, 1996), SCALING DOWN, Living Large in a Smaller Space, with Marj Decker (Rodale 2005) and THE CLUTTER CURE (McGraw-Hill, 2007). Since leaving social work in 1999, Judi developed her used and rare book business. It is this background that helped create the Secondhand Prose Mystery Series. A NOVEL DEATH, published by Avalon Books in June 2011, is the first book in the series. AN ILLUSTRATED DEATH was published on October 1, 2013 by Harper/Collins. A PHOTOGRAPHIC DEATH is scheduled for May 27, 2014.
A PHOTOGRAPHIC DEATH
Nineteen years ago, Delhi Laine's two-year-old daughter, Caitlin, disappeared from a park in Stratford-upon-Avon. After a frantic but inconclusive search, authorities determined that she must have fallen into the river in the picturesque area, her body washed away.
Although the wound has never healed, the family has moved on. Then a mysterious letter containing the ominous words, YOUR DAUGHTER DID NOT DROWN, arrives their lives are once again thrown into turmoil. For Delhi the choice is easy. No matter how tenuous the thread, she cannot leave it unexplored.
Even if it takes her back to England and a path that includes murder. Even though Caitlin's twin, Hannah, and Delhi's husband, Colin, are deeply against her search. Even though it may split the family and lead to danger and shocking truths. Despite these conflicts, Delhi plows ahead. What she finds is something none of could them could ever have imagined.
Read the opening scene at Excerpts page, located under More.
Harper/Collins Books
Nineteen years ago, Delhi Laine's two-year-old daughter, Caitlin, disappeared from a park in Stratford-upon-Avon. After a frantic but inconclusive search, authorities determined that she must have fallen into the river in the picturesque area, her body washed away.
Although the wound has never healed, the family has moved on. Then a mysterious letter containing the ominous words, YOUR DAUGHTER DID NOT DROWN, arrives their lives are once again thrown into turmoil. For Delhi the choice is easy. No matter how tenuous the thread, she cannot leave it unexplored.
Even if it takes her back to England and a path that includes murder. Even though Caitlin's twin, Hannah, and Delhi's husband, Colin, are deeply against her search. Even though it may split the family and lead to danger and shocking truths. Despite these conflicts, Delhi plows ahead. What she finds is something none of could them could ever have imagined.
Read the opening scene at Excerpts page, located under More.
Harper/Collins Books
AN ILLUSTRATED DEATH
When bookseller Delhi Laine gets the opportunity to appraise the late Nate Erikson’s library, she jumps at the chance, despite the mysterious circumstances surrounding the illustrator’s death. Invited to spend time with the eccentric Erikson clan at the family compound in the Hamptons, Delhi can’t help but wonder what really happened to the lost patriarch and his little granddaughter who also drowned in the family pool.
Then death visits the family once more. Another Erikson is found murdered and dark family secrets come to light. Left coping with a charmed family not quite as idyllic as they once seemed, Delhi is determined to solve the murders once and for all. But digging up truths can get you dirty…and Delhi is about to discover just how far some will go to keep them buried."
Read the opening scene on Excepts page located under MORE.
Harper/Collins Books, ISBN # 0062296345
When bookseller Delhi Laine gets the opportunity to appraise the late Nate Erikson’s library, she jumps at the chance, despite the mysterious circumstances surrounding the illustrator’s death. Invited to spend time with the eccentric Erikson clan at the family compound in the Hamptons, Delhi can’t help but wonder what really happened to the lost patriarch and his little granddaughter who also drowned in the family pool.
Then death visits the family once more. Another Erikson is found murdered and dark family secrets come to light. Left coping with a charmed family not quite as idyllic as they once seemed, Delhi is determined to solve the murders once and for all. But digging up truths can get you dirty…and Delhi is about to discover just how far some will go to keep them buried."
Read the opening scene on Excepts page located under MORE.
Harper/Collins Books, ISBN # 0062296345
A NOVEL DEATH
Like other used and rare booksellers, Delhi Laine, owner of the website, Secondhand Prose, dreams of making the Great Find--if not a Shakespearian folio, then at least a fragment of an Emily Dickinson poem or an Edgar Allan Poe manuscript. But after mysteriously receiving a very rare and valuable children's book in the mail, she finds that such treasures can come at a terrible price. A close friend is attacked in the bookshop she owns and another bookseller is murdered.
After receiving death threats herself, Delhi realizes that she must find the book's owner. But the people around her are not what they seem as they drag her into a world of deception, backroom dealings, and forgery. Besides coping with avaricious booksellers, her estranged famous-poet husband, and demanding children, she must find out who is behind the attacks and now has her in their sights.
Read the opening scene at Excerpts page, located under More.
Thomas Mercer Books ISBN #978-0-8034-7663-9