Daniels, Casey

PERSONAL:

Education: Earned degree.

ADDRESSES:

Home—OH. E-mail—casey@caseydaniels.com.

CAREER:

Writer. Worked variously as a writing teacher and journalist.

WRITINGS:

"PEPPER MARTIN" MYSTERY SERIES

Don of the Dead, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2006.

The Chick and the Dead, Avon (New York, NY), 2007.

Tombs of Endearment, Avon (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Casey Daniels is the creator of the "Pepper Martin" mystery series. Daniels, who admits to having a strong fascination with cemeteries, created an amateur sleuth, Pepper Martin, with the same personal trait. Daniels explains on the Casey Daniels Home Page that, after driving home from a part-time cemetery tour-guide job interview (a job which she did not get), she came up with the idea of a crime-solving cemetery tour guide who is able to communicate with the dead.

The first book of the series, Don of the Dead, finds Pepper Martin fallen from grace. Her father is in jail for Medicare fraud and her mother and fiancé both leave her life. Martin finds herself working as a cemetery tour guide when she hits her head on the mausoleum of recently departed mob boss Gus Scarpetti. From this point on, she is haunted by Gus and given the task of finding out who killed him. Connie Payne, reviewing the book in Once upon a Romance, complimented the characterizations, saying that Martin is "very much a 21st century woman, yet she has a great combination of empathy and sass." A contributor to Publishers Weekly had a different interpretation, noting that "despite some plot holes and flimsy characterizations, Daniels pulls the mystery together in the end." Reviewing the book for BookLoons, Belle Dessler concluded: "As unexpectedly funny as it is genuinely captivating, this novel is sure to appeal to fans of mystery, romance, chick lit, and paranormal novels alike."

Daniels told CA: "I enjoy reading the ‘classic’ mystery authors like Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but it was P.G. Wodehouse who taught me that a book can be very funny, indeed.

"For me, writing is my full-time job. That means I work at it five days a week (sometimes more if deadlines are breathing down my neck), all day. I start with plot ideas and from there, hammer out a pretty complete, chapter-by-chapter outline. I use that as a basis for my writing."

When asked the most surprising thing she has learned as a writer, Daniels said: "That people still don't recognize me at the grocery store!

"I hope readers are entertained by the ‘Pepper Martin’ mystery series. I hope they laugh, I hope they're surprised by the solution to the crime, and most of all, I hope that they come to regard Pepper as a friend and that they want to keep checking in to see what she's up to."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, November 1, 2006, Ann Kim, review of The Chick and the Dead, p. 56.

Publishers Weekly, March 27, 2006, review of Don of the Dead, p. 63.

ONLINE

Armchair Interviews,http://www.armchairinterviews.com/ (May 9, 2007), Andrea Sisco, review of Don of the Dead.

Best Reviews,http://thebestreviews.com/ (February 20, 2007), Dawn Dowdle, review of Don of the Dead.

BookLoons,http://www.bookloons.com/ (May 9, 2007), Belle Dessler, review of Don of the Dead.

Casey Daniels Home Page,http://www.caseydaniels.com (May 9, 2007), author biography.

Casey Daniels Joint Web log,http://www.thelittleblogofmurder.com (May 9, 2007), author profile.

I Love a Mystery Newsletter,http://www.iloveamysterynewsletter.com/ (May 9, 2007), Harriet Klausner, review of The Chick and the Dead.

Once upon a Romance,http://www.onceuponaromance.net/ (May 9, 2007), Connie Payne, review of Don of the Dead.

Roundtable Reviews,http://www.roundtablereviews.com/ (May 9, 2007), Sylvia Cochran, review of Don of the Dead.