Welcome to Our Blog

by Eric

It took more than one book to change our name to Eric Reed.

Well, okay, it only took one book, The Guardian Stones, out in January, and we'll still be Mary Reed and Eric Mayer on our Byzantine mysteries. Except for the Head of Zeus UK editions where we'll remain M.E. Mayer. I think that's it. Except in a few households where our name is Mud. Live long enough and your name is bound to be Mud someplace.

Live too long and you begin to have trouble remembering your pen names.

We all (for values of "we all" equaling the authors and editor Barbara Peters) figured it would be a good idea to differentiate our upcoming World War II historical from those set in the sixth century. We don't want to scare off readers who don't care for the Byzantine period. However, if you do read our Byzantine mysteries we'd love for you to check out our new effort.

Before Eric Reed debuts, however, Mary and Eric return in October with the eleventh John the Lord Chamberlain mystery, Murder in Megara. This time John finds himself and his family exiled to a rural estate near where he grew up. To solve a murder, the former Lord Chamberlain needs to venture into territory he usually avoids -- his own past. More about that in future posts.

This is going to be a joint blog. We're not sure exactly what we'll post aside from anything that strikes our fancy. Mary will be posting a review of an older mystery novel every week on Golden Age Sunday. If you like that sort of mystery -- and we consider our mysteries with their fairly clued puzzles as direct descendants --be sure to look for her posts.

I don't have any concrete plans right now but, hey, you will note that according to Hollywood poster conventions, Mary gets top billing here.