It was so nice to be asked to contribute to this anthology which features PI stories set in the eighties and tied to significant events of that era. At first, I was hesitant, because I’ve never written a private-eye story before. Most of my mysteries lean more to the cozy genre. I also hesitated, because I was baby-bound with two young daughters during the eighties, and that decade tended to pass in a blur. The only major event I recalled was Expo 86, which we had enjoyed as a family.
Still, I would not have felt confident about using Expo as a story setting, except that I suddenly remembered how my mother had given me diaries when the girls were born, along with the directive that I should write about their childhood so that I wouldn’t forget what they’d said and done when they were little. Sure enough, when I dug out the diary for 1986, I found lengthy descriptions of all our visits to the fair, some with our children, some just the two of us, and some accompanying my parents when they chose to go. Added to these excerpts, I did some more research, and found it great fun revisiting the fair and creating my first PI story. I was even happier when the story was accepted for the anthology, so the book comes out in April and I’m in there with “Baffled in the Blue Zone”. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.