Marley Clark Mystery-Thrillers

My Heroine—Marley Clark

Marley Clark is a retired military intelligence officer, who works part-time as a security officer on a fictional island in the Lowcountry near Beaufort, South Carolina. At age 52, she’s physically fit, smart, possessed of a wicked sense of humor and sexy, though she doesn’t think of herself in those terms. Widowed at age fifty, Marley’s struggling with the role men will play in the next chapter of her life.

Marley’s Military Intelligence Background

While the heroine of this mystery-thriller series is a fictitious character, she has a lot in common with Arlene—a friend since kindergarten. Like Marley, Arlene is a retired military intelligence officer and was kind enough to share some of her military experiences, both hilarious and harrowing, to enrich the background of my character. However, unlike Marley, Arlene is happily married and lives inside the Beltway in the
D.C. area, where her last assignment was at the Pentagon. Marley, Arlene and I share a love of the water and swimming. Arlene and I were syncrhonized swimmers in junior high and high school.

DEAR KILLER, NO WAKE ZONE & BOOK THREE—
Shortly after I started plotting DEAR KILLER, my debut mystery, my cousin Steve Kennedy was diagnosed with cancer, and I decided my characters needed to spend some quality time hanging out with Steve in Spirit Lake/Lake Okoboji, Iowa. The picture at left shows Steve and me sitting atop an amusement park boat ride. When we were kids, our folks took a similar picture of the two of us cruising in this boat’s twin. Of course, back then both our butts fit inside. I had a wonderful time researching NO WAKE ZONE with Steve’s help. If you’d like to know more about my cousin’s wonderful legacy, this newspaper article provides some history. If you’re in the vicinity and want to visit the Iowa Great Lakes Maritime Museum or ride the Queen II excursion boat, here’s another link. A statue of Steve graces the pier where the Queen II is berthed. Steve was the first captain of the Queen II.

While NO WAKE ZONE wasn’t snapped up by a publisher the minute it left my computer, the earliest version made the finals of the Malice Domestic St. Martin’s Press contest for Best First Traditional Mystery. That recognition helped keep self-doubts at bay while I finished DEAR KILLER. Then, taking advantage of what I’d learned about craft, I rewrote NO WAKE ZONE to up the tension and fine-tune the humor. During my revisions, I smiled repeatedly as I remembered my late cousin’s delightful laugh and contagious smile.

In the third Marley mystery, WITH NEIGHBORS LIKE THESE, our heroine will return to her home in the SC Lowcountry, her zany friend Janie, and a reunion with a handsome deputy.


	[Author Linda Lovely] [Marley Clark Mystery-Thrillers] [Dear Killer] [Dear Killer Reviews] [Appearances & Events] [Interesting Blogs] [Meet Linda Lovely] [Romantic Suspense] [Writing Fiction] [SC Writing Groups] [Contact Information]