Vital Signs — Marcia Talley

“Vital Signs” [is] a bittersweet story that reminds us that a crime's legacy does not necessarily end when the crime is solved,” says Laura Lippman in her Foreword to CHESAPEAKE CRIMES I, the collection in which this story originally appeared. “I was inspired by a true story,” Talley told a gathering of fans at a bookstore one evening. “There really was an “Aunt Lucy,” although she wasn't a murder victim -- at least not as far as I know!”

“My mother was an avid mystery fan,” Talley's been quoted as saying, “and a charter subscriber to Ellery Queen's Mystery magazine, so mysteries were always around the house. I was also a great fan of that old television show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and am grateful that although it appeared on TV late on a Sunday night (a school night, gasp!) I was allowed to stay up to watch it. I think my fondness for quirky endings can be traced directly to Mr. Hitchcock.”

Marcia's Agatha and Anthony award-winning short stories have appeared in more than a dozen collections, including anthologies edited by New York Times best-selling authors Lawrence Block, Elizabeth George, Laura Lippman, and Anne Perry. They have been selected for inclusion in The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories and The Deadly Bride and 21 of the Year's Finest Crime and Mystery Stories, edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg.

Marcia Talley is the Agatha and Anthony award-winning author of ALL THINGS UNDYING and eight previous mystery novels featuring survivor and sleuth, Hannah Ives. Hannah's tenth adventure, A QUIET DEATH, will be published in the summer of 2011 by Severn House.