Emley, Dianne

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Emley, Dianne

PERSONAL: Born in Los Angeles, CA; married; husband’s name Charlie. Education: University of California at Los Angeles, B.A., M.B.A.; attended Université de Bordeaux, France.

ADDRESSES: E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER: Writer and novelist. Has worked as a department store division manager, clothing boutique buyer, egg and poultry industry marker, sales and support manager for a software company, customer service representative at the California Department of Consumer Affairs, polling place recruiter, drill press operator, and technical writer.

WRITINGS

The First Cut, Ballantine (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS: Mystery novelist and crime writer Dianne Emley is the author of The First Cut, her debut novel featuring Nan Vining. The character of Vining originated during Emley’s participation in the Pasadena Police Department’s Citizen Police Academy, a twelve-week outreach program during which the police educate citizens on the role of the police and the techniques of law enforcement, Emley told an interviewer on NewMysteryReader.com. This experience led her to an immersion in learning about law enforcement, Emley stated, including repeated ride-alongs with patrolling officers, participation in disciplinary review boards, and close association with district attorneys and police officers. “I found the experience life-altering,” Emley told the NewMystery Reader.com interviewer. “I came to appreciate what it means to put on that uniform and walk the streets and the pressures involved in making life-and-death instantaneous decisions that will be scrutinized by the public and media.”

With this newfound clarity informing her fiction, Emley created Pasadena, California-based homicide detective and single mother Nan Vining, protagonist of The First Cut, the first book in a projected series of crime novels that combine thriller elements with a touch of the supernatural. Vining has just returned to work on the police force after a year-long convalescence following a near-fatal knife attack. Her injuries were so severe that she was left clinically dead for more than two minutes. Her attacker was never found or identified, but she and her daughter refer to him as T.B. Mann, short for “The Bad Man.” In the wake of the assault, her self-confidence is injured. She suffers from panic attacks and struggles to make herself enter the homes of strangers. Despite her fears, she knows she has to conquer them for her sake and for her teenage daughter’s sake. On Vining’s first day back on the job, a beautiful LAPD vice cop, Frankie Lynde, is found dead in an upscale neighborhood, her throat cut. At the crime scene, Vining seems to hear Lynde’s bloodied corpse mutter a cryptic message, which spurs her investigation. She discovers that Lynde had been involved in a kinky relationship with rich club owner John Lesley and his ex-stripper wife, Pussycat. Though Lesley is the prime suspect, he is clever enough to conceal his involvement, leaving Vining and the police with little evidence to connect him with Lynde’s murder. As Lesley searches for a new victim, Vining recreates Lynde’s final days, bringing her ever closer to a final showdown with the dangerous Lesley. “Nicely developed characters and genuine suspense elevate this impressive crime debut,” commented a Kirkus Reviews critic. Nanci Milone Hill, writing in the Library Journal, called the novel a “gripping debut page-turner” that takes a close look at the “shadier side of humanity while providing readers with a first-rate story.”