Join the Malden Public Library for Mystery Making with Sisters in Crime New England

In this fun, fast paced improv game, authors Susan Cory, Toni L.P. Kelner and John Nardizzi, will brainstorm on their feet to create a brand-new mystery, using suggestions from the audience! This event will take place on Tuesday, August 5, from 7-8 p.m. in the Maccario Room at the Library (36 Salem St.).

Meet your authors:

SUSAN CORY: According to her website, she “was an award-winning residential architect in Cambridge, Ma. before she retired to write mysteries full time. She earned a brown belt in karate and visited 100 countries along the way.

“Her mystery series, beginning with Conundrum, features Iris Reid, also a Cambridge architect, as an amateur sleuth trying to uncover a murderer at her Harvard reunion. Susan found inspiration for starting this series at her own 20th architecture school reunion, not that anyone was killed then. That she knows of.”

Her seven books in the series have won praise from Kirkus, who calls her sleuth “an appealing and believable hero” with supporting characters who are “outstanding” and “hone this remarkable story.”

“Cory gleefully breezes through subplots and twists with a resourceful protagonist at the helm.”

Her eighth book in the series, The Forger’s Daughter, is due out in August 2025.

TONI L.P. KELNER is two authors in one. As Leigh Perry, she writes the Family Skeleton series featuring a walking, talking skeleton named Sid. The series debuted with “A Skeleton in the Family.” As Toni L.P. Kelner, she’s the author of the eight Laura Fleming mysteries and the three books in the “Where are they now?” series. She also coedited seven urban fantasy anthologies with NYT bestseller Charlaine Harris. In between novels and anthologies — and under both names — she writes short stories about pirates, PIs, serial killers, zombies and demonic phone calls. A dozen of her stories were recently collected in her most recent book, “The Skeleton Rides a Horse and Other Stories,” from Crippen & Landru Publishers.

Toni and/or Leigh have been nominated multiple times for the Anthony, the Macavity and the Derringer, and she has won an Agatha Award for Best Short Story and an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. Her short story “Baby Trap” was selected for the anthology “Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024,” edited by S.A. Cosby and Steph Cha.

JOHN NARDIZZI, according to his website, “is an award-winning writer and investigator. His crime novels have won praise for crackling dialogue and pithy observations of detective work. The Burden of Innocence earned a 2022 Shamus Award nomination for Best PI Paperback. He speaks and writes about investigations in numerous settings, including World Association of Detectives, Lawyers Weekly, Pursuit Magazine and PI Magazine. His work on innocence cases led to the exoneration [of] Gary Cifizzari and James Watson [he was awarded the Arc of Justice for the Watson case in 2021] as well as million dollar settlements for clients Dennis Maher and the estate of Kenneth Waters, whose story was featured in the film Conviction. Prior to his PI career, he failed to hold any restaurant job for longer than a week. He lives near Boston, Massachusetts.”