Rosalie Stafford,
founding publisher of
Web Mystery Magazine,
holds degrees in
history of
art & architecture,
in folklore, and
in literature
(CV).

When not
writing or teaching writing,
her pastimes include
growing roses,
raising Angoras,
practicing textile arts, &
actively working to
preserve our
American
heritage of freedom.

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Whodunnits
offering uproarious comedy and
old-fashioned Golden Age tight-knit plotting: an engaging and very rare combination.

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In her search for a recherché thesis topic which will help her along her career path to a tenured position as academic folklorist, naive Flora Dimopoulus takes a job as a telephone psychic.  Occupational folklore abounds at the psychic hotline and, using the academic tools she has been taught such as non-judgementalism, moral relativism, and celebration of diversity, Flora tries to make sense of the nutty worldview of her speed-freak workmates.  But the most pressing question turns out to be: could a telephone psychic really discover the identity of a call-girl's killer?

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 "Friday's child is loving and giving ..."

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Flora Dimopoulus is offered an exciting folklorist-in-residence position at San Diego's historic Brick Row, whose mansions make up the ten diamonds in the crown of local Victorian architecture.  There she discovers that frail and elderly owners of these Victorian mansions are dying at a statistically-improbable rate. 

Could red-headed Marva Jankowsky, abrasive historic-preservationist who snatches up the precipitously-vacated Victorians for restoration and gentrification, be responsible?  Or is someone else at work here, with motives inscrutably obscure?

What is the connection between Ace Towing and Club King College, the casino card-dealing vocational school? What has become of the valuable Greek icon, the Madonna and Child painting which Shamus is planning to give to his angel Flora when he proposes? Who – and what – is Rita, the mysterious dark lady? Will the sociopath who goes by the alias Schlomo Einstein get what he wants – or what he deserves? Will the King of Clubs be brought to justice? And will Shamus finally propose marriage?

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Author Rosalie Stafford holds degrees in literature, folklore, and art history.  Formerly a teacher of writing, literature, and humanities at various colleges in San Diego, she now lives in a vintage Airstream on a remote Arizona ranch.   When not writing, her pastimes include growing roses, raising Angoras, practicing textile arts such as knitting and weaving, and actively working to preserve our American heritage of freedom. 

Wielding a scathing pen, she cheerfully employs humor and satire to poke holes in political-correctness.   Connect with her on FaceBook's Rosalie Stafford, Mystery Novelist Fan Page.