Although she'd been scribbling in journals for years, Kris Neri waded into the writing pool slowly.
She got her start when her husband suggested she write a humorous account of his underwhelming
success as an amateur, middle-aged, middle-of-the-pack triathlete. The piece was promptly
accepted and though the magazine omitted her byline, they paid her for it.. That was all
it took. Kris fired off more spec pieces to other magazines and they all sold as well,
one for a considerable sum. Excited by the possibility of a new career, Kris told
everyone who would listen, "This is gonna be a snap," and then she went on to receive
resounding rejections on the next dozen or so pieces she tried. Eventually, she secured
nearly sixty nonfiction credits in such magazines as Entrepreneur, Runner's World,
Cooking Light, Food and Wine, Swim, and many others, writing primarily
on the subjects of psychological motivation and fitness, areas she knew nothing about.
The lifelong mystery lover yearned to write mystery fiction, however. Comfortable with the short form, Kris initially wrote mystery short stories, garnering credits in countless publications and anthologies in the US and overseas. She has now published fifty short stories, two of which won the Derringer Award. One of her Derringer Award winners, "L.A. Justice," introduced unconventional mystery writer Tracy Eaton and her eccentric movie star mother, Martha Collins, in a daffy little tale of murder, mobsters and the hiding away of a body. Readers responded so favorably to Tracy and her off-kilter world, that Kris put them into her first novel, Revenge of the Gypsy Queen, which received nominations for Agatha, Anthony and Macavity Awards. The series continues with Dem Bones' Revenge, which won the Samantha Award for 2001 from Hutton Book Reviews, and November 2005 will see the publication of the third in the series, Revenge for Old Times' Sake.
Kris lives in Southern California with her husband and pets, and she teaches
crime writing for the Writers' Program of the UCLA Extension School.
When the cops catch Tracy Eaton's mom - Hollywood legend Martha Collins, alone with the
bloody remains of celebrity litigant Vince Sperry, holding nothing but a lame excuse,
Tracy leaps to her defense. So why does Martha thwart Tracy's efforts to clear her?
Other suspects abound, but those scare Tracy even more. Was Martha right? Had Tracy's
lawyer husband, Drew, settled his career-making lawsuit with a bullet? Or did her dad,
aging Hollywood heartthrob Alec Grainger, decide to end an old feud once and for all?
All roads seem to lead to the past, to one old Hollywood scandal after another.
If Tracy keeps digging, will she clear Martha's past and her future? Or will she
unearth something that's sure to slam the cell door shut on her exasperating,
but much-loved mother?
For more information, see krisneri.com.