Kathy McIntosh is addicted—to words. She loves the way words sound and the way they look on a page.
A native Californian who enjoyed thirty years plus in Idaho, Kathy transplanted from Idaho to Tucson, abandoning her long johns and snow shovel. She shares space with a rescued Bernese Mountain Dog sometimes known as The Fat and the Furriest, and her patient husband.
Kathy’s first two novels in the Havoc in Hancock humorous suspense series take place in North Idaho, territory famous for its kooky citizens. Her second series, the Adventure Calls Mysteries, chronicles the adventures of an eco-tour company. When you guide tourists through the Southwest, you expect rattlesnakes and sunburn, not murder. But for the employees of Adventure Calls Ecotours, every breathtaking destination seems to come with a body.
Adventure Calls Mysteries — where the landscapes are breathtaking, the locals are colorful, and someone always ends up dead.
More about Kathy, her books, her blog, and a chance to sign up for her very occasional newsletter are at www.kathymcintosh.com.
The Adventure Calls Mysteries are all available at Antigone Books, Mostly Books, and the Tubac Center for the Arts.
Publications:
MURDER, COTTONWOOD STYLE
A relaxing week off. A body on the trail. So much for vacation.
Chef and tour guide Madrone Hunter just wants one peaceful week in Arizona's Red Rock country with her brother. Instead, a hike near Cottonwood turns up the body of a former client—the same client who threatened to sue Madrone and her employer into oblivion.
Now Madrone's the prime suspect, and the threats aren't slowing down. She has to find the real killer before she becomes the next victim. Every acquaintance she interviews hides a secret sharper than her chef's knife. Can she serve up the truth before someone silences her for good?
MURDER, SONORAN STYLE
Murder in the heat of the desert.
Gabe Ramsay had a plan: bury his past as a disgraced college professor, keep his secrets buried deeper, and spend his days guiding tourists through the sunbaked beauty of the Sonoran Desert. Rattlesnakes and sunburn, he expected. A murder weapon with his fingerprints on it, he did not.
When a developer Gabe publicly clashed with turns up dead —stabbed with Gabe's own skinning knife—he becomes suspect number one. His only ally is Madrone Hunter, the guide company's sharp-tongued chef, who's better at reading people than she lets on. Together they have to out-sleuth a killer before the desert claims Gabe as the next victim.
MURDER, TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES STYLE
In a town called Truth or Consequences, somebody's hiding both.
Madrone Hunter can't catch a break - not even on vacation. A relaxing stay in New Mexico's hot springs town turns chilling the moment her host's neighbor is found dead, right after the two had fought bitterly over a property line.
Police call it suicide. The victim's son calls it murder. When Madrone starts digging, she not only finds motives but a decade of rivalries, betrayals, and a blackmail scheme that someone would kill to keep buried. As the suspect list grows, so does the danger. In a town built on secrets, will the truth cost Madrone everything?
Foul Wind, the second in the Havoc in Hancock series, was released in October, 2015. The wind from the new wind farm outside Hancock is blowing bad: blackmail, murder, and eau de hog. Then eco-activist Feather Sullivan's sister disappears. Feather and her mother, often at odds, endure hungry hogs and sinister strangers to sniff out the murderer and root out the financial shenanigans at the wind farm.
Mustard’s Last Stand, the first in the Havoc in Hancock humorous suspense series, has been compared to the witty but weird works of Carl Hiaasen. Ed Mustard heeds his brother's call for help—from jail—and heads home to Hancock, Idaho. Hauling the ashes of his dead ex-wife, Ed joins his brother Roadkill and a band of fiery pregnant women to fight a safari camp in the North Idaho woods.
