Out of the (C)Old, Comes the New

Yeah, I know…bad pun.

I grew up playing in cemeteries. Our family church homes were tiny congregations adjacent to graveyards, and my friends and I always bounded away as soon as we could from church events and family reunions. We'd race among the stones, catch lizards, and perch on granite monuments and make up spooky tales about the ones who lay beneath.

Old gravestones are always the best, and one of my favorites is in the Forest Chapel United Methodist Church graveyard in Hartselle, Alabama. My family attended for a few years when I was a kid. Scratched deep into the stone by an obviously caring, if uneducated, loved one are the words:

EDMEMORY
Of JOSHUA
INMON
HOOWA BOR(N) 1775
AND DESESED
AUGUST TWENTY
FORTH DAY 1804

So who was (hoowa) Joshua and why did he die at 29? Was it a fever? Accident?

Murder?

So it is that I’ve been fascinated with cold cases most of my life. My next book for Steeple Hill, House of Secrets, is a combination story involving a new and cold case, and the book after that is as well. And the one after that.

In fact, it looks as if cold case romantic suspense may be my niche. After all, if I need inspiration, all I have to do is pay a visit to a few of my old haunts (so to speak) and dwell a while on the lives of the saints who have gone before. Their world and lives were as fascinating as our own.