Claire, Edie

PERSONAL: Married; children: three. Education: Earned D.V.M.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Warner Books, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. E-mail—edieclaire@juno.com.

CAREER: Writer. Formerly worked as a small-animal veterinarian, and in corporate communications.

WRITINGS:

"LEIGH KOSLOW" MYSTERY SERIES

Never Buried, Signet Books (New York, NY), 1999.

Never Sorry, Signet Books (New York, NY), 1999.

Never Preach Past Noon, Signet Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Never Kissed Goodnight, Signet Books (New York, NY), 2001.

Never Tease a Siamese, Signet Books (New York, NY), 2002.

FICTION

Long Time Coming (novel), Warner Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Meant to Be (novel), Warner Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Borrowed Time (novel), in press.

Contributor to short-story anthology And The Dying Is Easy, Signet Books (New York, NY), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: Edie Claire studied to become a veterinarian and worked for several years in that field. On her home page, Claire explained that, ultimately, the daily duties of a vet could not fulfill her "rampant desire to create." She turned to writing, first as a contributor to scientific journals and corporate communications, and then as a novelist. Perhaps not surprisingly, the central character in her mystery series, Leigh Koslow, has a father who works as a vet.

Claire's fictional sleuth is an advertising copywriter who stumbles into mysteries and has to solve them without the standard tool kit of a private detective or a policewoman. In Claire's debut novel, Never Buried, Leigh finds an embalmed corpse in the refurbished home she has just bought from her cousin. The discovery leads both Leigh and her cousin into danger as they piece together clues surrounding a fifty-year-old scandal. In Never Sorry, Claire makes use of her knowledge of animals to create a chilling scenario of murder in a deserted zoo. Never Preach Past Noon finds Leigh trying to save an unscrupulous aunt from the inscrutable motives of a charismatic pastor, and Never Kissed Goodnight returns to Leigh's cousin Cara, who must suddenly make sense of a visit from her estranged father, complete with dangerous baggage. A more recent addition to the series, Never Tease a Siamese, draws Leigh's veterinarian father into peril after a wealthy widow bequeaths him a huge sum to care for her many Siamese cats. Although Claire has more recently moved into mainstream fiction, she noted on her home page that she has not ruled out more "Leigh Koslow" titles, perhaps even including Leigh's offspring.

On her home page, Claire also noted that she likes to write the kind of fiction she prefers to read, namely suspenseful stories that do not pander to graphic violence or explicit sexual scenes. Her mainstream novels Long Time Coming and Meant to Be rely on believable characters and recognizable situations as they create love stories threaded with suspense. In Long Time Coming veterinarian Joy Hudson returns to her home town of Wharton, Kentucky to help care for her aging parents. Having decided to permanently move home, Joy buys a house that belonged to her former best friend, who was killed in a driving accident during high school. Inevitably Joy must face her prejudice against the man who brought about her friend's death as she also deals with the possibility that her friend's spirit is haunting the house. A Publishers Weekly critic said the novel "carries readers nimbly along to a warm, gratifying conclusion." Patty Engelmann in Booklist maintained that the work "disproves the adage that you can't go home again."

Meant to Be begins with an incomplete deathbed confession. Called to the hospital to see her biological mother, Meara O'Rourke does not understand the words the near-stranger whispers into her ear. What does become apparent when her mother's will is read, however, is that Meara has inherited half of a large estate in the pristine Pennsylvania mountains. When Meara arrives to investigate her inheritance, she finds Fletcher Black, the other half-owner, who resents her intrusion. Despite growing tensions, Meara is determined to stay in order to understand her mother's mysterious warnings. "There's no denying that this story is suspenseful," wrote a Publishers Weekly critic. In her Booklist review of Meant to Be, Engelmann concluded that Meara's quest to understand the past "opens up the future in Claire's compassionate romance."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 15, 2003, Patty Engelmann, review of Long Time Coming, p. 47; May 15, 2004, Patty Engelmann, review of Meant to Be, p. 1603.

Publishers Weekly, November 10, 2003, review of Long Time Coming, p. 47; May 24, 2004, review of Meant to Be, p. 50.

ONLINE

AllReaders.com, http://www.allreaders.com/ (February 7, 2005), Harriet Klausner, reviews of Never Tease a Siamese, Long Time Coming, and Meant to Be.

Edie Claire Home Page, http://sleuths2die4.thewriters.com (February 7, 2005).