Woman's World, January 2003

"The one dollar caper" -- A Mini-Mystery

Pages 40-41

Police Lieutenant Karen Marx must find out how a thief is siphoning money out of a bank without leaving any clues whatsoever to how he's doing it....

The first tale in my The Fifth Precinct series, this story introduced my readers to Lieutenant Karen Marx in her first adventure, along with her partner Sergeant Tom Mackenzie. This was the first mystery story I ever wrote, and I sold it to the first market I showed it to--Woman's World. My first try at writing a mystery story ended up selling for half-a-dollar-a-word and was read by more than 1.5 million readers. It was the sale of this story that convinced me to move from writing only speculative fiction and trying my hand at mystery & crime fiction as well.

It was also the story that gained me entrance into the Mystery Writers of America, who apparently figured that anyone who could take his first attempt at a mystery story and sell it to the largest market in North America for 50-cents-a-word, really should be a member.