A man's gotta do what he's gotta do, if he wants to do what he wants do.

Greg Monroe writes romance novels under the nom de plume Ginny Madison. That's what he's "gotta do". What he wants to do is write mysteries; hard-boiled mysteries with bite. But his publisher tells him his mysteries lack originality, his plots are simplistic and his characters... well, they just aren't real.

Complicating matters, Greg's live-in Uncle George brings home an attractive new housekeeper. Hattie Fulton is intelligent, capable, resourceful and not who she pretends to be.

But before Greg can uncover the truth behind the attractive Hattie Fulton, Uncle George becomes the main suspect in a real murder mystery. Suddenly thrust into the role of a real detective, Greg digs into the mystery hoping to prove his uncle's innocence while at the same time struggling to meet his next publishing deadline. Surprisingly, Greg's fictional plots suddenly become edge-of-the seat compelling and his characters take on a life of their own. If you discount the strong resemblance to both Hattie and Greg and the sparks that are flying between them.

Now all Greg has to do in order to clear his uncle, finish the best mystery novel he's ever written and win over his housekeeper is uncover the real murderer, without revealing to everyone that he's really a romance writer pretending to be a mystery writer.

When it comes right down to it, all Greg wants to do is say "Goodbye Ginny Madison".

Autorentext

I grew up reading comic books in my uncle's toy and hobby store. I didn't know how to read at first so I contented myself staring at the drawings while trying to figure out what the words meant. I believe the first word I learned was "Pow!". "The" wasn't far behind. Then my uncle started sending me home with a comic, often, purportedly so my parents could read them to me, but also because he grew tired of me being in the way of paying customers.

I learned two things from that experience; how to manipulate my uncle, which came in handy as I grew older, and how to read at an early age, which served me well my entire life.

Reading opened up a whole new world for me; a world of knowledge, entertainment and imagination, and that world lay just across the alley from me at the Dyckman Free Library. By the time I reached the second grade my family had named me "Professor". By the eighth grade I'd demonstrated to Mrs. Dombrowski, the librarian, that had I not only graduated from the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew section, I was well on my way through the adult fiction section and could pass a comprehension quiz on any book I'd already managed to smuggle out of the adult section when she hadn't been looking.

In high school my standard answer to a question from any teacher wondering how I happened to know something esoteric or arcane was "I read that somewhere." Which also brought a standard groan from my classmates.

Writing is a natural evolution from prolific reading. And when I discovered I could wow both my classmates and instructors with my completed writing assignments, I decided at age sixteen that I would someday become a writer of books.

Then life got in the way; graduation, marriage, kids, college (I've earned three degrees), various business pursuits, various stints at journalism, teaching, coaching, school administration and half a dozen hobbies. But I never forgot about becoming a novelist. So I studied people (future characters); their mannerisms, how they spoke, the way they conversed, what motivated them, how they reacted in various situations, how they expressed their hopes and their dreams, the way one wrinkled her nose when she laughed, the way another tended to begin the answer to any question with "basically".
And I gathered reams of notes; character descriptions, possible storylines, potential plots, locations, time periods, etc. And I continued to read, sometimes for entertainment, sometimes...