Judith McMonigle Flynn has traveled a rough road from tending bar at the Meat & Mingle to owning Hillside Manor on Seattle’s upscale Queen Anne Hill.

After a second—and much happier—marriage to her old flame, Joe Flynn, life seems sweet. Except, of course, for those pesky corpses she keeps finds in all sorts of places, including the kitchen sink.

But there’s a funny side to homicide when Judith and Cousin Renie start their zany brand of sleuthing. The cousins are as close as sisters, though their bickering banter might indicate otherwise to outsiders. Whether they’re trapped in a snowbound mountain lodge with a loony bunch of phone company executives or staying on the Oregon coast with a greedy crew of treasure seekers, Judith and Renie stick together until they nail the killer du jour.

Much of the action, however, takes place at Hillside Manor where at least three guests have left their mark by meeting their Maker. Judith’s husband, Joe, who has now retired as a homicide detective, vehemently opposes his wife’s risky penchant for solving crimes. Judith’s curiosity and sense of justice prevail, but often causes tension between the couple.

The combative-by-nature Renie is a graphic designer by trade who’s professionally known as Serena Jones of CaJones Design. Her husband, Bill, is a psychologist who—when he’s not watching World War II movies—adds some formidable (if unusual) insights about the criminal mind. Bill’s constant TV companion is Oscar, a stuffed ape who prefers the X-rated channels.

There’s more to the Flynns and the Joneses than this idiosyncratic foursome. Judith’s aged and sharp-tongued mother, Gertrude, has never liked Joe. (She liked Husband Number One even less, and shed no tears when all four-hundred pounds of him blew up at the age of forty-nine.) Thus, Gertrude refuses to live under the same roof as her daughter’s current husband, and has exiled herself to the remodeled toolshed.

Gertrude’s hobby seems to be badgering her daughter and quarreling with Lunkhead (as she calls Joe). But the old girl has found a new career in her semi-dotage: As a symbol of The Greatest generation, she’s sold her life story to the movies. Not to be out-done, Renie’s mother, the gregarious Aunt Deb has—via a case of mistaken identity--become a design consultant for a large timber company. Stick figures are her specialty.

Then there’s Judith and Joe’s son, Mike, thirtysomething with an Amazonian wife and two small sons, works as a forest ranger. Mike was an adult before he learned that Judith’s first husband wasn’t his biological father. He’d been conceived while Joe and Judith were engaged. The wedding plans were a casualty of Joe’s rookie cop reaction to a couple of teen-agers who’d suffered fatal drug overdoses. Joe had gotten drunk and been shanghaied by an alcoholic lounge singer who dragged him on a plane to Vegas where they had a quickie wedding before he sobered up.

As for the three grown Jones offspring, they had lived at home while staying in college for so long that the ivy began to grow on them. They are all now married and finally living away. After years of griping about her children’s care and feeding, Renie is suffering from Empty Nest syndrome. Being a cynical mother with plenty of attitude, it’s a fairly mild case.

The B&B series pioneered the innkeeper sub-genre. All of the books are in print, and the earlier mass-market titles have been revamped with eye-catching new covers. The B&Bs have consistently made the USA Today bestseller list and have been Number One on many mystery lists.

While the cousins’ off-the-wall methods may be unorthodox, the plots are traditional, the clues can lead to a solution by the perceptive reader/viewer, and the atmosphere evokes the Pacific Northwest. While Judith and Renie are Catholic, secondary characters include every race, religion and creed. According to readers, the books’ biggest attraction—along with the laughs—is the relationship between the two leading ladies. While the majority of fans are women (covering a long span of age and background), men also enjoy the books. Male readers have frequently started reading the B&Bs after watching their wives/girlfriends roll off the sofa with laughter. In short, everybody loves Judith and Renie.

WHITHER EMMA?

At the start of The Alpine Winter, Emma hasn’t gone far since the close of The Alpine Vengeance. Less than three weeks have passed since the harrowing events of December 4. I can’t give away too much because many of you may not have read AV yet, but I can say that Emma hasn’t been in the true spirit of Christmas despite the imminent arrival of son, Adam, and brother, Ben.

Nor do Emma’s spirits lift when Ben arrives. She has a confession to make and it’s one that her priestly brother doesn’t want to hear. The visit isn’t off to an auspicious start, especially when Adam is delayed by an Alaskan white-out.

But there’s still a newspaper to put out on the sometimes snowy and almost always wet streets of Alpine. It doesn’t buoy Emma’s spirits when Leo and Vida both leave town for the Christmas weekend—and Mitch Laskey suddenly goes AWOL. Emma’s only source of comfort is Sheriff Milo Dodge who finally returns from his own nerve-wracking domestic ordeal in Bellevue.

Of course there are some very mysterious doings—three seemingly separate incidents, including two from out of the past. Are they linked? You can find out for yourselves when the book is released November 29, 2011.

OKTOBERFEST IN LITTLE BAVARIA
(0r How The Cousins Learned to Drink Beer and Like It)

I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself or my readers, but about a month ago my editor at HarperCollins/William Morrow asked me if I knew what the 2012 B&B book was about. Didn’t have a clue except that The Cousins had to leave Hillside Manor before we all got claustrophobia. I was still working on The Alpine Winter at the time and had Stevens Pass and Highway 2 on my brain, so it occurred to me that the nearby town of Leavenworth would be holding its Oktoberfest and why not send Judith and Renie there? In real life, they’ve been to Leavenworth many times, including for their Bavarian-style Christmas celebration. The book’s title popped into my head — The Wurst Is Yet to Come. My editor, bless her, loved the title. Now all I needed was a plot and since I am now into Chapter Three, it’s beginning to thicken.

List of 2011 releases:

• The Alpine Uproar (paperback)—March 3
• The Alpine Vengeance (hardcover)—March 29
• Loco Motive (paperback)—April 26
• All the Pretty Hearses (hardcover)—July 5