Nehring, Radine Trees

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Nehring, Radine Trees

PERSONAL: Married John Nehring (a photographer). Education: Principia College, fine arts degree; postgraduate study at University of Tulsa and University of Iowa.

ADDRESSES: Home—AR. Agent—c/o Author Mail, St. Kitts Press, P.O. Box 8173, Wichita, KS 67208. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer. Worked as news and feature reporter for magazines, newspaper, and radio.

AWARDS, HONORS: Christian Writer of the Year award, American Christian Writers, 1998; Dan Saults Award, Ozarks Writers League; awards from Oklahoma Writers Federation, for Dear Earth and A Valley to Die For; Governor s Award for best writing about the state of Arkansas; Tulsa Nightwriter of the Year Award.

WRITINGS:

Dear Earth: A Love Letter from Spring Hollow (essays), Brett Books (Brooklyn, NY), 1995.

A Valley to Die For (mystery novel), St. Kitts Press (Wichita, KS), 2002.

Music to Die For (mystery novel), St. Kitts Press (Wichita, KS), 2003.

A Treasure to Die For (mystery novel), St. Kitts Press (Wichita, KS), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Radine Trees Nehring's love for the Ozark Mountain region of Arkansas illuminates her nonfiction and also her mystery series featuring amateur detective Carrie McCrite. Nehring, who lives in the Ozarks, wrote news and features about the area for many years for radio, newspapers, and magazines. In 1995 she published her first book, a collection of essays titled Dear Earth: A Love Letter from Spring Hollow. In it, she relates the story of her husband and herself, explaining that she initially thought of the Ozarks as a weekend getaway but finally came to embrace the region as home. Booklist reviewer Patricia Hassler described Dear Earth as being narrated in the "clear, warm voice" of an environmentalist who loves her husband and her land. "Read it and dream," concluded Hassler.

The natural beauty of Arkansas figures prominently in Nehring's mystery series, because amateur sleuth Carrie McCrite works for the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. This job takes Nehring's protagonist to many rugged locations that serve as the backdrop to a series of mysteries. "Until I began to write about Carrie McCrite," Nehring commented in Passport Journal, "I'd dealt only in facts…. What fun it is to take those facts and the settings I love, add people entangled in problems and seeking answers to important life questions, and come up with mystery fiction."

Reviewing the first "Carrie McCrite" mystery, A Valley to Die For, Library Journal contributor Melanie C. Duncan found that it is written "with flair." Carrie, a widow, discovers the body of an environmental activist who was opposing the sale of a farm property to an unethical mining company. Carrie's friend and romantic interest, retired policeman Henry King, helps her to unravel the mystery. In the next book, Music to Die For, Carrie and Henry are attending a Parks and Tourism convention when the child of a husband-and-wife country-western duo is kidnapped. Carrie and Henry find the abductor, but he is dead; the child remains missing, and Carrie and Henry set out to find her. Harriet Klausner, reviewing the mystery for MBR Bookwatch commented that "Henry is a delightful lead as his admiration and fondness for Carrie grow; she is an intriguing charter who when struggling asks the Lord for guidance."

In A Treasure to Die For, Henry and Carrie try to enjoy a vacation at an Elderhostel in Hot Springs, Arkansas, when another murder occurs; this one is related to a buried treasure. Nehring's character development was again pointed to as the book's most appealing quality by reviewers. Tamara Butler, for example, wrote in Library Journal that the romantic story involving Carrie and Henry is "even more rewarding than the suspenseful plot." Shelley Glodowski, reviewing the book for MBR Bookwatch, also found the love story "touching" and the mystery "absorbing and well written."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Nehring, Nadine Trees, Dear Earth: A Love Letter from Spring Hollow, Brett Books (Brooklyn, NY), 1995.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 1995, Patricia Hassler, review of Dear Earth: A Love Letter from Spring Hollow, p. 1541.

Library Journal, February 1, 2004, Tamara Butler, review of Music to Die For, p. 70; June 1, 2002, Melanie C. Duncan, review of A Valley to Die For, p. 122; February 1, 2005, Tamara Butler, review of A Treasure to Die For, p. 64.

MBR Bookwatch, February, 2005, Shelley Glodowski, review of A Treasure to Die For; March, 2005, Harriet Klausner, review of Music to Die For.