Colt, Jennifer

views updated

Colt, Jennifer

(Sally Smith)

PERSONAL: Born in Dallas, TX; married.

ADDRESSES: Home—Santa Monica, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Broadway Books, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER: Screenwriter and novelist. Worked for Dimension Films and Playboy Enterprises and in non-theatrical division of MGM/United Artists in Los Angeles, CA. Previously worked as a children's programmer, video salesperson, horror script writer, and temp.

WRITINGS:

The Butcher of Beverly Hills: A Screwball Mystery Featuring Kerry and Terry McAfee, Writers Club Press, 2002, published as The Butcher of Beverly Hills, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 2005.

The Mangler of Malibu Canyon: A Screwball Mystery Featuring Kerry and Terry McAfee, iUniverse.com, 2003, published as The Mangler of Malibu Canyon, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 2006.

WORK IN PROGRESS: The third mystery featuring the McAfee twins.

SIDELIGHTS: Jennifer Colt is the pseudonym of Sally Smith, who worked as a screenwriter for several years, but always wanted to write a novel. She privately published her first two books, The Butcher of Beverly Hills: A Screwball Mystery Featuring Kerry and Terry McAfee, and The Mangler of Malibu Canyon: A Screwball Mystery Featuring Kerry and Terry McAfee and eventually found an agent and mainstream publisher for them. The books were then reissued under titles without subtitles. "It's true I've been writing a long time, but I've only been writing novels in earnest since late 2001," Smith told Stacey Cochran in an interview for January online. "It feels great to be paid to write my own stuff as opposed to being a hired gun, but it's totally unnerving at the same time—uncharted territory."

The first in a three-part series, The Butcher of Beverly Hills features beautiful twin crime fighters Kerry and Terry McAfee. While the identical twins may look alike, they have very different personalities. Kerry excelled in school and is cautious while Terry has spent time in jail and is the more adventurous of the two. Together they form Double Indemnity Investigations and soon find themselves on the case of a missing husband and the ten thousand dollars he took from his wife. Learning that the husband may have been having an affair with a nurse in a plastic surgeon's office, the two visit the surgeon, Dr. Hattrick, and become suspicious. Reviews were enthusiastic, a Publishers Weekly contributor calling the book "a fast-paced, gum-snapping, snarky chick-lit mystery with sparkle to spare." Kristine Huntley, writing in Booklist, commented that The Butcher of Beverly Hills is "a superior entry in the increasingly popular chick-lit mystery genre."