One of my most vivid memories from childhood is lying in my comfy bed on a Friday night, heavy rain pelting my window, mesmerized as I read The Hound of the Baskervilles. I couldn’t stop reading until I finished the novel, lucky not to have school the next day. 

I was always an avid reader but Arthur Conan Doyle took me into a 19th-century world of adventure and mystery, where I went along with Sherlock Holmes when the “game was afoot.”  I was hooked. 

I went on reading all of the Holmes’ novels and short stories, moved on to classic mystery writers, such as Edgar Allen Poe, Wilkie Collins, Dorothy Sayers, and continued to devour my favorite genre fiction throughout my adult life.

At the same time, in my early career as a newspaper reporter, I covered criminal courts. I gained valuable insights into the real world of violent crime, reporting on trials, guilty pleas, and sentencing hearings.

It seemed inevitable, then, that one day I would try my hand at writing my own crime fiction. Being a native of Philadelphia I set my debut novel in the city I know and love. And I tapped into my family’s South Philadelphia Italian roots to create my protagonist, PI Andrea Fabiano and the world around her.