Molly MacRae spent twenty years in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Upper East Tennessee, where she managed The Book Place, an independent bookstore;
may it rest in peace. Before the lure of books hooked her, she was curator of the history museum in Jonesborough, Tennessee’s oldest town.
MacRae lives with her family in Champaign, Illinois, where she recently retired from connecting children with books at the public library.
Her latest novel is
There'll Be Shell to Pay.
[
My Book, The Movie: Plaid and Plagiarism;
The Page 69 Test: Plaid and Plagiarism;
The Page 69 Test: Scones and Scoundrels;
My Book, The Movie: Scones and Scoundrels;
The Page 69 Test: Crewel and Unusual;
The Page 69 Test: Heather and Homicide;
Q&A with Molly MacRae;
Writers Read: Molly MacRae (July 2024);
The Page 69 Test: Come Shell or High Water;
My Book, The Movie: Come Shell or High Water]
At CrimeReads MacRae tagged a few favorite amateur sleuths with offbeat jobs, including:
Gloria Lamerino, protagonist in the Periodical Tables Mysteries by Camille Minichino, is a former Berkeley physics professor. Gloria left California for her 
hometown, Revere, Massachusetts, and now works part-time as a science consultant for the Revere police department. Her former and current jobs are offbeat only because so many cozy mysteries feature crafters, cooks, café owners, and the like. Gloria is fifty-six, turning gray, and thinks of herself as amply proportioned. She has brains and hips. She uses her science background and everything she absorbed from the dynamics and traditions of her Italian family to help her solve murders in her own well-mannered way. There’s something else offbeat about her—she doesn’t live in a quaint or cute cottage and she hasn’t inherited an inn or B&B. She lives in an apartment above a friend’s funeral home. These are intelligent, well-written, tightly-paced mysteries with appealing, sympathetic characters and a real Boston feel. There are eight books in the series and several short stories.
Read about
the other entries on MacRae's list.
--Marshal Zeringue
may it rest in peace. Before the lure of books hooked her, she was curator of the history museum in Jonesborough, Tennessee’s oldest town.
