Date Published: 06-30-2026
Publisher: Mission Point Press
A former lawyer who once helped the FBI convict her own husband for fraud, Ann Audrey has settled into a reclusive life, until her longtime friend Flynn Reynolds asks for help. His elderly aunts are convinced that another nephew was murdered by his wife, Kathryn, whose second husband is now also dead. Ann Audrey is skeptical. Still, she owes Flynn, and there are some odd questions. Complicating matters is Kathryn’s latest mother-in-law, a woman who rose from an impoverished background into Atlanta’s upper circles and recognizes a kindred spirit in her dead son’s ambitious widow. She doesn’t believe Kathryn is a murderer—but she has heard rumors, and she wants them stopped.
Set in Atlanta in January 2000, as the city buzzes with anticipation for the upcoming Super Bowl, Ann Audrey searches for the black widow through the city’s frenetic bar scene, private clubs, high-rise offices, and beloved local institutions like Mary Mac’s Tea Room and The Varsity. With help from Flynn and her friend Theo, along with the return of sexy detective Mike Bristol, she pieces together a twisting story of social climbing, carefully managed appearances, marriage, and murder. As the Super Bowl kickoff draws near, the case reaches a climax when an ice storm shuts down Atlanta’s roads and power, leaving secrets and murderers with nowhere to hide.
I primarily read mysteries of all kinds. My mother introduced me to the Golden Age British mysteries, and on occasion I still read them—not so much Agatha Cristie (although she’s a great plotter), but Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham. I think they appeal to me now because I like historical fiction, and although they were then writing contemporary fiction, nowadays it’s historical (pre-and post-World War II.) I also like mysteries set in other countries, like Ovida Yu’s Singapore mysteries or Sujata Massey’s India and those with a lot of humor like Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody spoofing Victorian-era adventures in Egypt. Of course you can’t beat Anne Perry for historical/Victorian mysteries. Among my top writers, in addition to those above, I’d have to put Elizabeth George (for character development), PD James, and Charles Todd.
I’ve just finished two series by Ashley Gardner, one a Regency era mystery and the other set during Imperial Rome. I greatly admire her research, to say nothing of her prodigious output!
I went to Duke. It’s college basketball, naturally
The beautiful woods and water that are accessible with little effort.
I’ve written since I was in grade school—poetry (very bad) and short stories (not too awful.) I started seriously writing with the idea of completing a novel after I left the fulltime practice of law.
I’m a bit of both. The books start with an idea, for example, Death and the Social Climber began with a true story of a black widow that happened in Georgia. I couldn’t stop thinking about that, and about why she did it, and what triggered the victim’s families to get suspicious. The plot grew from that, but I confess, things do change as I write.
News reports, stories friends tell me about family members’ escapades, merely observing people and wondering what they are really thinking/plotting. I have too much imagination; sometimes I’m glad people can’t read my mind.
I clean everything off my desk, and if the weather is right, go out for a bike ride.
The old advice is really true: just go to the computer every day. Some days you may only write your grocery list, but if you sit there long enough, you’ll start noodling about that character who’s in the back of your brain. I write in Word, but I also use Scrivener. I’m compulsive, so I keep the document in two different software.
This one I’m bad about. I was a lawyer for decades, and I lived and died by court-ordered deadlines. I’m at my best when I have a writing group planned, and I know I must produce pages to read. That spurs me to get it done, so I push my writing group to get together for selfish reasons.
A Jack Russell terrier. High energy, needs exercise, curious about everything, can be trained with a lot of time and effort.
My two writing groups—one in Michigan, one in Atlanta—and my brother.
I have a friend who sends me very Southern names that she sees in obituaries in small town Georgia newspapers. I sometimes just open a magazine and scroll down through the contributors for inspiration. Anywhere there’s a list of names will do.
Following her mother’s lead, Mississippi native Winnie Simpson was an avid murder mystery reader beginning in the third grade, starting with Nancy Drew and moving through the classics of British, American, and international crime. Winnie studied music at Duke University, later receiving an MFA in Music at SUNY Buffalo, where she worked as an arts administrator before throwing it all over in order to make a decent living. After finishing law school at Emory University, she became a partner in a large firm in Atlanta where her practice focused mainly on securities litigation. Retiring early, Winnie relocated to Northern Michigan where she lives in a renovated nineteenth-century building that served as a former Michigan state asylum. For more than a decade, she has taken writing classes and participated in writing groups. She is fond of opera, hiking, cycling, and Duke basketball, most seasons.
https://mybook.to/DeathandtheSocialClimb
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