Lesley A. Diehl

I retired from my life as a professor of psychology and reclaimed my country roots by moving to a small cottage in Morris, New York. In the winter I migrate to old Florida--cowboys, scrub palmetto, and open fields of grazing cattle, a place where spurs still jingle in the post office. Back north, I devote afternoons to writing and, when the sun sets, relaxing on the bank of my trout stream, sipping tea or a local microbrew.

My first mystery, A Deadly Draught, features a microbrewer who discovers her closest competitor's dead body on his brew barn floor. Since she found the body, the authorities, including an old lover, assume she is the killer. The setting is a river valley in upstate New York, a location where a number of craft beer brewers have located their businesses. The murder gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Drink to your health."

My next cozy, Dumpster Dying, was released in January by Oak Tree Press. It is set in rural Florida. In it, snowbirds and Florida natives clash in muderous and sometimes hilarious ways. Grab your nine iron and shoo those gators off the fairway, but beware of bodies in the trash.

My writing muse in upstate New York is the ghost who inhabits my 1874 cottage. His name is Fred. In rural Florida I have two muses. One is a three legged alligator named George and his recent companion, three foot Bailey.

For a story of what can go wrong at a holiday dinner, I wrote "Murder with All the Trimmings". It is included in the e-anthology, The Killer Wore Cranberry. http://anotherdraught.blogspot.com/ http://www.lesleydiehl.com/