"The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant" by Liza Tully

Liza Tully’s previous literary effort was a grim thriller set in Siberia. “It was a suspense novel, but I realized it was very dark,” she said.The author, who wrote Finding Katarina M under the pseudonym Elisabeth Elo, decided to follow that with something a little lighter. The result? The feel-good mystery, The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant.Her latest effort teams Aubrey Merritt, “a brilliant Boomer detective," with Olivia Blount, “an ambitious Gen Z assistant.” Together, the pair repair to the lavish Wild Goose Resort in Vermont to solve a murder—or is it suicide? The clues are there for the reader to come to his or her own conclusion, said Tully, who worked as an editor at a children’s magazine before turning to fiction writing. She’s also worked as a project manager at a tech company and as a counselor at a halfway house. A lover of mysteries, particularly those of Agatha Christie, Tully said she followed the approach used by Christie, saving the concluding chapter in her book for “the big reveal,” where the detective lays out her case, lists the clues, and names the suspect.Tully noted that in the world of mysteries today, she plays it pretty straight in the publishing world that now offers a wide variety of mystery categories—such as historical, psychological, hard-boiled, and others. The “cozy mystery” category usually involves “amateur detectives and cats,” she said.The fact that so many books get published in this country each year—as many as one million titles by one estimate—might give one pause to someone trying to corral readers. But Tully said the fact that so many books are published “is a sign of a free and healthy society.”Tully, who lives outside Boston with her family, taught classes at Harvard and Tufts before attending night classes at Boston College, a schedule that allowed her to write during the day. As far as her present writing routine goes, “I’ll start at noon and go until four or five,” she said.As for her intake of books, Tully loves mysteries but said she often reads those with a critical eye, judging style and substance as she shapes her own future efforts. “For my own pleasure, I tend to read non-fiction. It allows me to learn things that I didn’t know before,” said Tully, citing All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley, a 2023 memoir of a museum guard, as an example.