Elaine’s biography in three flavors
In 50 words
Award-winning mystery writer Elaine Viets has written 36 mysteries in five bestselling series. She returns to her adopted home with her Florida Beach series. Sex and Death on the Beach is the first in the new series. Her latest mystery is Beach Blonde Betrayal.
In 100 words
Award-winning mystery writer Elaine Viets returns to her adopted state with her Florida Beach series, starting with Sex and Death on the Beach. Beach Blonde Betrayal is the newest. Publishers Weekly says of Beach Blonde, “With elegance and wit, Viets weaves each of these colorful subplots into an appealing tapestry. The result is a genial cozy that’s ideal for summer reading.”
Elaine’s written 36 mysteries in five bestselling series. She’s won the Agatha, Anthony and Lefty Awards and was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Malice Domestic Mystery Convention. She lives in Hollywood, Florida.9oH9ooHo9llywoo9
In 400 words
Elaine Viets is the author of thirty-six bestselling mysteries in five series. Beach Blonde Betrayal is the newest mystery in her Florida Beach series. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel said about Sex and Death on the Beach, the first novel in that series, “Viets enlivens her novel with characters who are as realistic as they are quirky.”
Elaine’s also written the hardboiled Francesca Vierling novels, the traditional Dead-End Job books, the cozy Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper series, and the Angela Richman, Death Investigator books. The New York Times Review of Books calls her Dead-End Job mysteries “clever,” and she’s received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly. Elaine has won the Agatha, Anthony and Lefty awards and was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Malice Domestic mystery convention.
She completed the MedicoLegal Death Investigator Training Course at the St. Louis University School of Medicine, which inspired her to write the Angela Richman, Death Investigator series.
Deal with the Devil and 13 Short Stories, a collection darkly humorous short stories, was published by Crippen & Landru. Elaine had speech training in New York with Ruth Franklin, director of both AFTRA and SAG, and voiced her own audio books for Americana Publishing.
She is a frequent guest on local, national and international TV and radio shows, including the Discovery Channel’s MythBusters, hosted the syndicated Travel-Holiday Radio Show and was a commentator for the National Public Radio station KWMU. She hosted a primetime television program, Viets Beat, for KMOV-TV in St. Louis and won two local Emmys and was inducted into the St. Louis Media Halls of Fame. Her Dead-End Job series is taught in universities in the United States and Japan.
She’s given commencement addresses at her alma mater, the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Elaine has taught writing seminars at SleuthFest, Sisters in Crime chapters in Jacksonville, Florida, Richmond, Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee. She’s appeared on numerous panels at Malice Domestic, SleuthFest, Bouchercon and the American Library Association. Elaine knows the book business from the ground up, and worked as a bookseller at Barnes & Noble, Fort Lauderdale. She was a director at large on the National Board of the Mystery Writers of America, served on the board of Sisters in Crime, and is a past president of the Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. She lives in Hollywood, Florida, with her husband, writer Don Crinklaw