Anthony and Agatha Award-winning author Elaine Viets started her career as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was a longtime popular media figure in St. Louis and a regular columnist for the newspaper for twenty-five years. She also hosted the local light-news television program Viets Beat, for which she won Emmy Awards in 1989 and 1990. After moving to Washington, D.C., Viets wrote a newspaper column syndicated internationally by United Feature Syndicate in New York.
Elaine left the newspaper business to become a full-time novelist. In 2004 she was nominated for three Agatha Awards. In 2005, she won awards for Best Short Story at two notable mystery conventions: an Agatha Award at Malice Domestic and an Anthony Award at Bouchercon, both for her story Wedding Knife.
In 2008 she appeared an episode of Mythbusters for the "Biscuit Bullet" story.
Elaine built a successful career as the author of four mystery series. She drew on her professional experience to produce her first four novels set in St. Louis at a newspaper, featuring hard-boiled Francesca Vierling. Francesca was a six-foot-tall St. Louis newspaper columnist who's tough and glamorous and drives an '86 Jaguar while investigating murder.
Elaine then wrote the Dead-End Job mysteries introducing Helen Hawthorne in a fun, traditional series. Helen had a high-finance job, a beautiful home, and a caring husband—or so she thought until she caught him with their neighbor. When a judge ordered Helen to pay her ex alimony, she took off to hide out in Fort Lauderdale to save her dignity – refusing to pay her ex a penny. Taking one dead-end job after another, Helen found herself embroiled in murder and mayhem.
Elaine also began writing the Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper mysteries, set in Maplewood, a charming St. Louis suburb. These are sweetly cozy. The reader is introduced to mystery shopper and single mom Josie Marcus, who tries sleuthing on for size when she’s framed for murder. On her first assignment, Josie mystery-shops the stores of St. Louis’s premier handbag designer, Danessa Celedine. A stunning socialite who makes headlines with her hot Russian lover, Serge, Danessa sells exquisite purses to the rich and famous. After Josie writes a negative report, Danessa and Serge are both found murdered, she’s suddenly linked to an actual homicide—as the chief suspect! Josie Marcus is a mystery shopper with a penchant for finding murder along the way.
Because Elaine enjoys variety, she’s moved back into darker crime and forensic drama with her next series, the Angela Richman, Death Investigator mysteries. Death investigators work for the medical examiner. They take charge of the body, photographing it, documenting the wounds, and more. The police investigate the rest of the crime scene. Angela lives in mythical Chouteau County, just west of St. Louis. The rich live in the town of Chouteau Forest, a bastion of old money. The workers live in a section with the snarky name of Toonerville. But death doesn’t discriminate between the rich and the poor. Angela works cases for the super-wealthy as well as the poor. It’s her job to examine, photograph and document their bodies, so the dead can tell her how they died. The Angela Richman series is dark, but it's not as gruesome as Patricia Cornwell’s novels. It's closer to Kathy Reichs' Tempe Brennan mysteries. So far, the series has four novels, Brain Storm, Fire and Ashes, Ice Blonde, and A Star Is Dead. Death Grip, the fifth book in the series, will be published in December, 2020 in the United Kingdom and March, 2021 in United States.
Elaine’s short stories, Deal with the Devil and Thirteen Short Stories, have been published by Crippen and Landru.
She has served on the national boards of the Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and is currently treasurer of the Sisters in Crime Treasure Coast Chapter. She was honored to be named Toastmaster of the Left Coast Crime convention, as well as Toastmaster at Malice Domestic and also Guest of Honor at that mystery fan convention.
Today, Elaine lives in Fort Lauderdale with her husband, reviewer, Don Crinklaw.
For a complete listing of her books and a full bio please visit www.elaineviets.com.
