Local mystery writer to hold booksigning at Southeastern Sept. 2

Press Release Date: 08-24-2009

DURANT, Okla. – Local mystery writer Marion Moore Hill will speak and sign copies of her just-published novel, "Deadly Design," at several area locations in coming days.

On Wednesday, September 2, from 2-3:30 p.m., she will speak and sign books at the Southeastern Oklahoma State University Library, 1405 N. Fourth St. in Durant.

Hill and her husband, Dr. Elbert R. Hill, professor emeritus of English, Humanities, and Languages at SOSU, will be traveling and promoting the book during much of September and October, especially in Virginia, the setting for the novel.

The author is a former SOSU English teacher, newspaper reporter, and legal secretary.

"Design" is set in various Virginia locales associated with Thomas Jefferson, including Monticello, Williamsburg (where the third president studied at the College of William and Mary and later served as Virginia's governor), and Poplar Forest, Jefferson's second home near Lynchburg.

In "Design," history-buff protagonist Millie Kirchner solves a crime from Jefferson's era as well as two 21st-century murders that relate to it. The plot concerns an old house rumored to have been designed by Jefferson, and an important sub-plot relates to the Lewis & Clark Expedition planned and authorized by him.

The novel is Hill's fourth published mystery, the third for Pemberley Press, and the second in her Deadly Past Mysteries series, which debuted with "Deadly Will."

She also has two titles published in her Scrappy Librarian Mysteries series, set in northeastern Oklahoma: "Bookmarked for Murder" and "Death Books A Return."