Tracy:  It is such an honor to have you join us at Roundtable Reviews.  Thanks so much for taking some time out of your busy schedule.  You've just finished up the third book in your “Dead End Job” series and sent it off to the publisher.  What are your upcoming plans?

Elaine:  I'm researching book four, which is set at a bridal shop for the outrageously rich.  This should be a natural for a mystery --  by the time most brides walk down the aisle, the entire wedding party wants to murder one another.

Tracy:  Your latest heroine, Helen Hawthorne, went from a superb six-digit salary to finding any job that will pay her under the table.  Obviously to write about dead-end jobs, you have to have some experience with it.  I spent three years as a travel agent and must say I am so glad I got out of it before the Internet really took off!  What is the absolute worst job you've held?  The best? 

Elaine:  Like Helen, I work these minimum-wage jobs. The best for was MURDER BETWEEN THE COVERS. I worked at a bookstore for more than a year. Nice staff, good customers, and a real insider's look at the book business. I learned about stripping and picking up slush with your bare hands. (Stripping is the practice of disposing of unwanted paperbacks. You tear off the covers and send them back to the publisher for credit. Slush are the books customers leave all over the store, that have to be returned on the shelf.)  People have asked me "Is bookselling a dead-end job?"  It was when I did it -- I was the slowest cashier in the system, always jamming my register.

The worst job was telemarketing. I was cursed from coast to coast. I sold septic tank cleaner, by the way.

Tracy:  The characters in the “Dead End Job” series are so colorful.  Do you base them on people you have met?

Elaine:  Florida is full of colorful characters. One of my neighbors had a parrot very much like Pete. She never went anywhere without the little green bird on her shoulder. Phil the invisible pothead -- well, he's all over down here. You never see Phil. You just smell him. As for Helen's landlady, Margery, she's based on my next-door neighbor, who owns the Bel-Aire Beach Motel, and my grandmother, who drank screwdrivers, smoked unfiltered Marlboros and made me laugh with her salty comments. Grandma always thought I was a bit of a stick. She was a lot younger than I was.

Tracy:  What’s up next for Helen?

 Elaine:  We've just signed a six-book contract with Signet, so I see lots of dead-end jobs in our future.

Tracy:  You also have the Francesca Vierling series.  I have not had the pleasure of reading them, yet, but I was laughing over the THE PINK FLAMINGO MURDERS.  There is one thing I hate more than pink flamingos on the lawn, and that is the silly wooden painted figures of a woman bent over showing her panties that seem to be the rage in New England now.  Can you share more about Francesca and that series?

Elaine:  Ah, the  PINK FLAMINGO MURDERS. You can kill someone with a plastic lawn flamingo, by the way.  It depends on where you put the little legs.  Did you know that it's not illegal to carry a concealed flamingo in all fifty states, but it is against the law to display them on your lawn in many areas?

PINK FLAMINGO  is part of my Francesca Vierling series, a newspaper series set in St. Louis. I liked that serries, but it's harder to write. When you live in the Midwest, people expect you to have standards, to have morals, to have taste. Florida has no such handicaps.  Francesca is currently resting now, but we'll return to her adventures later.

Tracy:  I read that you love a good mystery!  With Christmas nearing, are there any books that you are hoping to find under the tree?

Elaine:  Any books by Michael Connelly, Jan Burke, Tim Dorsey, Jerrilyn Farmer, Val McDermid.  I know I'm leaving lots more good ones off the list. This is a golden age for mystery lovers, and it seems like I discover another good writer every week.

Tracy:  I know you prefer mysteries with strong heroines.  I like my mysteries to have humor to break up the tension.  What do you consider to be the kiss of death to a mystery; that one thing that will turn the book into a wallbanger guaranteed?

Elaine:  A heroine who does something stupid, like go alone into a building where the serial killer is hiding. ("Gee, he has a chain saw and he's dismembered six women. I'll catch him armed only with my nail file.") Mysteries are read by smart women, and I don't think we enjoy reading about dimwits.  Another pet peeve are books with a 45-year-old guy as the hero, and a beautiful 20-year-old woman falls in love with him.  Those are male romances.  There's fiction and there's fiction, and I promise you that won't happen in my book -- unless the guy is really rich.

Tracy:  Are there other genres that you would like to try your hand at?  I know you were a journalist, do you ever miss it?

Elaine:  I don't miss journalism, although I do miss my newspaper readers.  I like the theater, and some day, I'd like to see my books on the stage as a full-length play.  I think my characters are very theatrical.

Tracy:  Thanks so much for spending time with Roundtable.  I wish you much success with this release though I'm sure it will fly off shelves.  I know I would never miss one of Helen's stories!