Sunday, April 26, 2015

Cynthia Riggs

Cynthia Riggs is the author of Poison Ivy, the 11th volume in the Martha's Vineyard mystery series. She was born on Martha's Vineyard and is the eighth generation to live in her family homestead which she runs as a bed and breakfast catering to poets, writers, and other creative people.

Recently I asked Riggs about what she was reading. Her reply:
At the moment, I, Cynthia Riggs, am re-reading Donald Westlake’s What's So Funny? featuring John Dortmunder, a burglar who manages to bungle most of his jobs in highly creative ways. I’ve read most of the Dortmunder books, and catch myself laughing out loud at times at the complicated capers that Dortmunder undertakes. In this book, an ex-cop blackmails Dortmunder with a photo of Dortmunder heisting a computer. The ex-cop wants Dortmunder to steal a valuable chess set stored in an underground bank vault several floors beneath a high-rise office building. Where I am now, Dortmunder and the ex-cop are casing the secluded and abandoned country house where the chess set, if Dortmunder is successful, will be stashed. However, a teenage wanna-be crook and his moll have broken into and are living in the house and overhear enough about this valuable chess set for the reader to see complications coming. Further complicated by the fact that Dortmunder and his ally, Andy, plan to substitute a fake chess set, assuming they succeed in stealing the original. And this is only a third of the way through the book.
Visit Cynthia Riggs's website.

--Marshal Zeringue