Saums, Mary

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Saums, Mary

PERSONAL:

Born in AL.

ADDRESSES:

Home—TN. E-mail—marysaums@hotmail.com.

CAREER:

Author. Has also worked as a recording engineer in Muscle Shoals, AL.

MEMBER:

Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Women's National Book Association, Middle Tennessee Archaeological Society, Alabama Archaeological Society.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Tennessee Writers Alliance Award, for poem "The Blues Reminds Me"; Best Fiction Award, Futures magazine, 1999, for short story "Ai-yee, Chihuahua!"

WRITINGS:

Thistle & Twigg (novel), St. Martin's Minotaur (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor of poems to Southern Voices in Every Direction.

"WILLI TAFT" SERIES

Midnight Hour, Silver Dagger Mysteries (Johnson City, TN), 2000.

The Valley of Jewels, Silver Dagger Mysteries (Johnson City, TN), 2001.

When the Last Magnolia Weeps, Silver Dagger Mysteries (Johnson City, TN), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Novelist, poet, and short-story writer Mary Saums is the author of Midnight Hour and other works in the "Willi Taft" mystery series. In Midnight Hour, Willi, a Nashville studio singer, finds her life in danger after she becomes involved in a twenty-year-old murder case. The novice private investigator returns in The Valley of Jewels, helping discover the connection between a murdered history professor and a celebrated opera star. In When the Last Magnolia Weeps, Willi looks into the stabbing death of an elderly priest. When Father Mike McDennehy is found murdered after a Christmas concert, suspicion falls on one of Willi's musician friends. The author "has a charming character in Willi Taft," commented New Mystery Reader critic C.J. Curry.

In Thistle & Twigg, Saums introduces Jane Thistle and Phoebe Twigg, a pair of widows who investigate a murder in which Cal, Jane's eccentric neighbor, is the chief suspect. Their efforts are complicated, however, when Phoebe's kitchen is firebombed and Jane receives a harrowing phone call from a dead man. "The gutsy gals' debut is full of paranormal twists and amusingly cozy characters," remarked a Kirkus Reviews critic. Sue O'Brien, writing in Booklist, similarly noted that the women "are sympathetic, well-developed characters whose developing friendship adds to a satisfying mystery."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 15, 2006, Sue O'Brien, review of Thistle & Twigg, p. 28.

Drood Review of Mystery, May 1, 2004, review of When the Last Magnolia Weeps, p. 13; July 1, 2004, review of When the Last Magnolia Weeps, p. 13.

Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2006, review of Thistle & Twigg, p. 1105.

Publishers Weekly, June 11, 2001, review of The Valley of Jewels, p. 65; January 8, 2007, review of Thistle & Twigg, p. 35.