Sarah Shaber - Author of the Professor Simon Shaw Mysteries

One Friday afternoon in the spring of 1996, aspiring novelist Sarah Shaber got home at a quarter to five. On her answering machine was a "call me" message from an editor with St. Martin's Press, a major New York publisher.

When Shaber called back, the editor was still in her office, sparing the budding writer and her family from a suspenseful weekend. Shaber's first novel, SIMON SAID, had won the Malice Domestic Award for Best First Traditional Mystery. The grand prize in the contest for unpublished mystery authors was a book deal with St. Martin's Press.

"I had entered the contest the previous year and lost," Shaber says. "But I'm very persistent. I rewrote the manuscript and entered it again, and this time, I won."

SIMON SAID was published in 1997 in hardcover and in 1998 in paperback. Rod Cockshutt, who reviews mysteries for The News and Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, where Shaber lives and where the mystery is set, called it "a witty academic murder mystery" and "foul play dripping with local color." His favorable review was followed by more, including a positive mention in The New York Times.

"Being a published writer is the most fun I have ever had in my life," Shaber said. "I like everything about it, the research, the writing, the book signings, the travel, everything. I just wish I could write faster!"

Shaber's second book, SNIPE HUNT, a sequel to the first that's set on the North Carolina coast, was published in March 2000. It was a Mystery Guild alternate selection for May 2000. It, too, has garnered good reviews--like this one from Publishers Weekly: "Confederate gold, German U-boats, blockade runners, murders old and new all surface to play their part in this appealing cozy, which pleasingly mixes regional history and lore, a bit of romance, and a soupcon of suspense." SNIPE HUNT is now available in paperback. THE FUGITIVE KING, the third book in the series, was published in September 2002, and was also a Mystery Guild selection.

Of THE BUG FUNERAL, Shaber’s fourth book, available in May 2004, Margaret Maron has said, "Sarah Shaber's strongest novel yet! The Bug Funeral kept me totally absorbed. I literally could not put it down. She just gets better and better with each new book."

Shaber's next book, Tar Heel Dead, which she edited for the University of North Carolina Press, is a collection of short stories by North Carolina mystery writers. Shaber's contribution is a story featuring her sleuth, Professor Simon Shaw.

Simon Shaw, Shaber's "detective," is a history professor at a Raleigh college. Shaw is not a superhero. "I wanted Simon to be human. He's a bit neurotic, gets migraines when the going gets tough, lives in jeans and sneakers, and obsesses about his love life," Shaber says. "But he's very smart and when he commits to investigate a murder nothing discourages him."

Shaber, a Duke University history graduate, said her work is an extension of her own interests--history and mystery. For years family and work responsibilities took precedence over her writing ambitions. She has been an editorial assistant, an advertising copywriter, and the executive director of a non-profit organization.

"Finally, I just came to a point in my life where I felt driven to write a book," she said. "I just couldn't stand the idea that I might never get to it."

After a year of trying to fit writing around her other obligations, Shaber had written just fifty pages. So she quit her job. She spent two more years pecking out the draft of SIMON SAID that won the manuscript competition. Now writing full time, Shaber has started a fourth book. "I have enough book ideas to keep me writing about Simon's adventures for years," Shaber says.

Shaber lives in Raleigh with her husband, Steve, an attorney with Poyner & Spruill, and son Sam, an actor, musician and high school senior. Daughter Katie Lindsay is an environmental scientist and lives in Matthews with her husband.