A Word from Shelley:   Like Lindy Haggerty, I retired from a successful dance career in New York City.

As a performer, I toured internationally with Louis Falco, Twyla Tharp Dance and American Ballroom Theater.  I also appeared numerous times for PBS on Great Performances, Evening at the Pops and Happy New Year USA.  Sometimes the locations were exotic: historic Spanish opera houses in Mexico or an outdoor theater in an ancient French monastery; sometimes less glamorous lecture demonstrations at a high school gymnasium or a performance in a converted movie house.  But it was always interesting, and the people and places I encountered have given me a wealth of local color and oddball characters with which to fill the pages of the Lindy Haggerty series.

In addition to performing, I have choreographed and taught for companies throughout the world.  I served as dance consultant for AS THE WORLD TURNS and the Broadway productions of STATES OF SHOCK and SINGING IN THE RAIN.   As assistant to the choreographer on the Milos Forman film AMADEUS, I spent six months in Prague reconstructing authentic period dances and learning to deal with the unwieldy bureaucracy of a communist run movie studio.

I received my BFA and MFA from the University of Utah, where I was a member of Ballet West, and subsequently taught at California State University, Fresno.

I now live in New Jersey, and in addition to writing, continue to be involved in local fund raisers and talent shows. I coach professional ballroom couples and do occasional show 'doctoring.' 

Puzzles have always been a favorite with me.  From grappling with those first  thick wooden pieces that seemed impossible to fit back into its place .  To the thousand piece jigsaw where you can’t tell the water from the sky . . .until you look very closely, compare colors and textures and shapes.

And gradually a picture emerges.

Every summer as a child, I vacationed in the mountains of North Carolina at a huge stone lodge that would rival any gothic castle.  Especially when the thunder storms settled above us or the blanket thick fog rolled in when you least expected it.

There was no television or radio at the lodge.  There was a phone at the registration desk that I suppose guests could use for emergencies though I don’t remember anyone ever using it.  Imagine several weeks without television, DVDs, iPods, lap tops or cell phones. 

Now it seems like heaven.  We had plenty to do without any of these.  Watch the hummingbirds outside the breakfast room window.  Hike, fish, canoe, badminton on the lawn.

At night or on rainy days, guests of all ages would gather in the game room.  A huge place with a grand stone fireplace.

We’d pass the time away playing cards, chess, or checkers.  Working jigsaw puzzles or crosswords and playing Parcheesi.

The puzzle was always left on the table, so anytime a person a minute to spare, they could  add a few pieces to the picture.

I still usually have  a jigsaw puzzle in the works at my house.  It has its own table and its own room, which we call the puzzle room, even though we do have a television against one wall.  Strangely enough we rarely turn this one on.

The first puzzle I added to this repertoire after leaving for college, was the New York Times crossword, which I still work faithfully each day.  A kind of priming the brain for working on all those plot twists and character traits.

Along the way my love of puzzles and writing  intertwined into a single passion.  It might have started when I was on tour as a professional dancer.  We spent many hours on buses, in airports, train stations, on planes , in cars and boats, even.  Rubik’s cube  was popular then, and you could walk down the aisle any time of day and night and someone would be working out the squares.  We also read a lot.  Mainly thrillers,  mysteries and romantic suspense.

By the end of a six or eight week tour, the books were dog eared and the cube, were showing wear.

And then came Sudoku.  Wow! 

So when I added a new series to my Lindy Haggerty dance company mysteries, it seemed perfect to include puzzles in the next series: The Katie McDonald puzzle museum mysteries.

The best of both worlds.