Graham, Barbara 1948-

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Graham, Barbara 1948-

PERSONAL:

Born 1948, in TX; married.

ADDRESSES:

Home—WY. Email—[email protected].

CAREER:

Novelist. Former travel agent and ballet teacher.

WRITINGS:

Murder by Serpents: The Mystery Quilt, Five Star (Waterville, ME), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Barbara Graham combines her love of writing and quilting in her debut mystery novel, Murder by Serpents: The Mystery Quilt. Tony Abernathy, sheriff of a small town in East Tennessee, is called to investigate the death of a man found handcuffed to the steering wheel of his car, which is full of snakes. The deceased man that Tony discovers is John Mize, an ex-convict, snake handler, and cousin of local junkie Quentin Mize. Ruby Brown is also connected to John. Her restaurant is adjacent to the parking lot where John's body was found, and she was once his unwilling wife. Tony tries to figure out the clues to the killing with the assistance of his wife, Theo, who owns the local quilting shop—and whose pattern for the mystery quilt referred to in the subtitle is included in the book. Body parts are found scattered near the town and are rumored to belong to Theo's best friend's husband. More danger is in store for Tony—enough crime, according to Romance Reviews Today contributor Jane Bowers, "to rival Chicago's meanest neighborhood"—before the sheriff finally puts together all the pieces of the mystery.

Harriet Klausner, a contributor to Genre Go Round Reviews, described Murder by Serpents as a "fine regional murder mystery" enlivened by offbeat characters. Bowers, too, appreciated the book's rich collection of characters with quirky behaviors, including Quentin's habit of sitting in his county jail cell singing duets with Elvis, "a bat that only he can see and hear." A writer for Kirkus Reviews also praised the book, calling it a "soothing cozy debut."

"My personal statement is ‘every book needs a dead body and every bed needs a quilt,’" Graham stated in an interview posted on her home page. "I feel strongly about the power of laughter—it can banish many ills or at least make them more bearable." Graham explained that her love of mysteries began in childhood, when she devoured Hardy Boys books and later developed an interest in Edgar Allan Poe. "I always wanted to tell stories," she observed. "It didn't begin as a thought of writing books. I'm not sure when I realized books are written by people and not dropped from the sky. Like many aspiring writers, I encountered ‘the cruel teacher’ at an impressionable age and did not attempt writing for many years after that. [But] even through those years, I made mental notes and daydreamed stories."

Graham lived for several years in the East Tennessee region where her novel is set but now resides in Wyoming with her husband and two dogs.