antiques dealers who instilled in her a passion for history, fine art, and travel. During college she studied at the University of Freiburg in Germany and St. Clare's College, Oxford, where she fell under the spell of the British Isles. In 2019 Connie won the IPPY Gold Medal for Mystery and was a finalist for the Agatha Award's Best Debut. She's a member of Mystery Writers of America and is on the board of the Guppies and her local Sisters in Crime chapter. Besides reading and writing mysteries, Berry loves history, foreign travel, cute animals, and all things British. She resides in central Ohio and northern Wisconsin with her husband and their adorable dog, Emmie.
The new Kate Hamilton mystery is A Grave Deception.
Recently I asked Berry about what she was reading. Her reply:
Visit Connie Berry's website.Since I’ve finished the latest installments of all my current favorites—Richard Osman, Elly Griffiths, Anthony Horowitz, Sarah Pearse, Ruth Ware, Robert Galbraith—I decided to indulge myself by reading—or rereading—crime novels written during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction (the period between the two world wars). Guided by British crime writer and editor Martin Edwards, current president of the famous London Detection Club, I’ve enjoyed wonderful novels by E. C. R. Lorac (Fire in the Thatch, Death of an Author), Anthony Berkeley (Murder in the Basement), and a lesser-known author, Anthony Rolls (Family Matters).
They were recommended by Edwards, who wrote introductions to them for their publication by the British Library Crime Classics. In my opinion, these novels hold up today as true puzzle pieces with plenty of clues, red herrings, and twists. They also provide a fascinating time-travel experience to life in rural England between the wars, which I love. The BLCC collection to date includes more than 130 titles, but I’ve stopped reading them for now so I don’t unconsciously begin imitating their style. I can do that.
Over the Christmas holidays, I’ll reread as I always do The Wind in the Willows and several of the P. G. Wodehouse short stories, along with watching the movie Holiday Inn.
At present I’m enjoying Vaseem Khan’s third book in the Malabar House series, The Lost Man of Bombay. Set in the 1920s, Persis Wadia, India’s first female detective, investigates the murders of three European men, whose corpses bear similar mutilations.
The Page 69 Test: The Art of Betrayal.
My Book, The Movie: The Art of Betrayal.
Q&A with Connie Berry.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
