Spotlight on Leslie Karst #SallySolariMysteries

 

Back in the early 1980s, I wrote a song for the new wave rock band in which I sang and played guitar about a gal named Sally, who’s sick of her job and ho-hum life. As a result, she buys a jet black guitar, starts practicing every day, and dreams that someday she’ll “shine in the spotlight, hear her voice on the radio.” (And yes, my protagonist, Sally Solari, does owe her name—at least in part—to the heroine of that song.)

I still like to rock out, but more so with food these days

Well, today it’s my turn to “shine” in one of our Kitchen’s “Spotlight” features, in which we take turns talking a bit about ourselves, our writing journey, and our books. So here goes!


The daughter of a law professor and a potter, I learned at a young age, during family dinner conversations, the value of both careful analysis and the arts—ideal ingredients for a mystery story. Putting this early education to good use, I now now write the Lefty Award-nominated Sally Solari mysteries, a culinary series set in Santa Cruz, California.


I was lucky enough to live in a host of different locales growing up, as our family followed my father in his academic peregrinations: from Columbus, Ohio, to South America and Mexico, to Santa Monica, California, to Oxford, England, and then back again to Santa Monica. In 1974, I moved north to attend UC Santa Cruz (home of the Fighting Banana Slugs!), and after graduation, parlayed my degree in English literature into employment waiting tables and singing in the new wave rock and roll band I mentioned above.

beautiful Santa Cruz

Exciting though this life was, I eventually decided I was ready for a “real” job, and ended up at Stanford Law School, then went on to work as the research and appellate attorney for a civil law firm in Santa Cruz County. Not satisfied with simply practicing law, however, I formed yet another band (you see, I share a lot in common with the gal in my song)—this time a country-rock band called Electric Range, and during the mid-1990s we performed around the Northern California Bay Area and recorded a CD of my songs. (You can listen to the songs here, if you’d like.) During this time, I also rediscovered the passion for food and cooking I’d had as a youngster, and so once more returned to school—this time to earn a degree in culinary arts. (Yes, all this was while still working as a lawyer. Guess which activities were the most fun!)


Then, after twenty years as an attorney, I retired from the law and decided to try my hand at writing a culinary mystery novel—which ultimately became the first in my Sally Solari series, Dying for a Taste. There are now five books in the series, the newest of which—The Fragrance of Death—releases tomorrow! Yippee!

On a personal more personal side, In addition to writing, I like to spend my time cooking, cycling, gardening, singing alto in the local community chorus, and of course savoring delicious meals and wine! My wife and I and our Jack Russell mix, Ziggy, split our time between Santa Cruz and Hilo, Hawai‘i.


About my Sally Solari culinary mystery series:


Sally is a fourth-generation Italian, part of the community of fishermen who first emigrated to Santa Cruz, California back in the 1890s. Not yet forty, she’s already experiencing erratic hormones and hot flashes. As a result, she can tend towards over-the-top emotions and sarcasm (though cycling and bourbon help). But she’s also smart, stubborn, and resolute, and rarely takes no for an answer. So when Sally sets her mind on tracking down a murderer, you do not want to be the one who gets in her way.

the Santa Cruz wharf, home to Solari’s Restaurant

In this newest book, The Fragrance of Death, Sally finds that after getting mixed up in one too many murders, her nonna’s friends have now taken to crossing themselves when they see her in the street. Adding to her woes, a sinus infection has knocked out her sense of smell, making cooking on the hot line difficult, indeed. Nevertheless, Sally is determined to stay out of trouble and focus on her work.


But then her old acquaintance Neil Lerici is murdered at the annual Santa Cruz Artichoke Cook-Off, and her powers of investigation are called into action once more. Sally plunges headfirst into the case, risking alienating everyone she knows, and soon it’s not only her restaurant and tentative new relationship that are on the line—it’s her life . . .

Leslie’s website
Leslie also blogs with Chicks on the Case
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THE FRAGRANCE OF DEATH

is now available for purchase here!

 

 

Praise for Leslie's most newest Sally Solari mystery, THE FRAGRANCE OF DEATH:

 

“A page turner for me from the very first chapter, THE FRAGRANCE OF DEATH had everything I’m looking for in a mystery and more.”

Lisa K's Book Reviews



"[An] enjoyable fifth outing for Santa Cruz, Calif., chef Sally Solari.... This well-done culinary cozy should win new fans for the ever enterprising Sally."

Publishers Weekly

All five Sally Solari Mysteries are available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop.

 

Dying for a Taste, A Measure of Murder, and Murder from Scratch are also available as AUDIOBOOKS from Audible!