Woman's World, November 2007

"Bad connection" -- A Solve-It-Yourself Mystery

Page 47

Detective Karen Marx must convince an old woman who's been calling 9-1-1 to talk to the Chief of Police that she's been the victim of an extremely clever group of con men.

The third tale in my The Fifth Precinct series, this story brought back Lieutenant Karen Marx but this time paired her with Jim Crivelli, the Chief of Police, in his only appearance to date. The plot behind the story is in fact quite accurate and is based on an actual scam recently pulled off in the southwest United States. The third mystery I ever sold, this story paid 71-cents-a-word--I was moving up in the world of writing crime fiction.