PCL's Annual Summer Celebrity

Save the Date!
Parkland Community Library’s Annual Summer Celebrity: Elaine Viets
Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2011 at 7 p.m.
Parkland High School Auditorium
Reservations Requested 610-398-1361 x13

Elaine Viets is the author of two national bestselling mystery series. Her Dead-End Job series is a satiric look at a serious subject – the minimum wage world. Her character, Helen Hawthorne, works a different low-paying job each book. She’s been everything from a telemarketer to a hotel maid. The South Florida series has been called “Janet Evanovich meets The Fugitive.”

Publishers Weekly called  “Murder Unleashed,” Elaine’s hardcover debut  “wry social commentary.” The magazine gave her ninth Dead-End Job mystery, “Half-Price Homicide,” a starred review.

Her Dead-End Job series is taught in universities in the United States and Japan.

Elaine’s second series, featuring Josie Marcus, is a look at the pink collar world of secret shopping. This critically acclaimed series debuted in October 2005 with “Dying in Style” and tied with Stephen King on the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association bestseller list.

Elaine’s short stories have appeared in two New York Times bestselling anthologies. “Vampire Hours” was in “Many Bloody Returns,” edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner and reprinted in “Vampires in Love,” published by Barnes & Noble. Her short story, “The Bedroom Door,” was in Mystery Writers of America’s “Crimes by Moonlight,” edited by Charlaine Harris.

She has had short stories published  in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and anthologies such as “Drop-Dead Blonde,” “High Stakes,” the award-winning “Chesapeake Crimes I,”  Mystery Writers of America’s “Blood on Their Hands,” edited by Lawrence Block; Mystery Writers of America’s “Show Business Is Murder,” edited by Stuart Kaminsky; and “The World’s Greatest Mystery and Crime Stories,” edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg.

Her short stories have been published worldwide, including Britain, Australia, Turkey and France.

Elaine has appeared on national television including the Discovery Channel and the Sally Jesse Show.  She was featured on National Public Radio station WLRN with Jeff "Dexter" Lindsay on "Literary Florida."

Elaine has served on the national boards of the Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime.

She won the Agatha, Anthony and Lefty Awards.

From http://www.elaineviets.com/default.asp