Dear Reader:
Austin McKenzie, veterinarian and enthusiastic amateur sleuth, sprang full blown from my imagination on a day our own veterinarian treated my Quarterhorse Andrew for a hoof abscess. Large animal vets have a tough life. As Austin says when he decides to go back into business after losing his retirement income in a bad investment, “it’d been a long time since he’d spent a subzero day in a barn up to his knees in blood.” And there was our farm’s own, dear, Dr. Scoville spending a cold Sunday afternoon lancing boils. It takes a special kind of guy to dedicate a career to caring for farm animals—and I decided then and there I wanted that guy for my hero.
That was the beginning of the CASEBOOKS OF DR.MCKENZIE, my new series from Berkley.
Austin is a retired professor of bovine back fat. His home is in Summersville, a lovely village in the Fingerlakes region of Upstate New York. Summersville is a stone’s throw away from Hemlock Falls, the site of the Inn run by the two amateur sleuths from my Hemlock Falls series.
Austin is a happy—if somewhat testy—character. He’s devoted to his wife Madeline (who tactfully rules the roost) and fond of his two attractive young assistants, Joe Turnblad and Allegra Fullbright. The humans of Sunny Skies, the McKenzie farm, are joined by Austin’s faithful collie, Lincoln, Odie the barn cat, Pony, a mischievous Shetland, and Andrew the Quarterhorse. (And yes, Andrew is based on my very own Andrew, whose hoof abscess provided the germ of the character in the first place.)
THE CASEBOOKS OF DR.MCKENZIE lets me spend time with my favorite creatures, human and animal both. Once in a while. Austin and Maddy drop in on the folks at Hemlock Falls, since Meg and Quill are favorites of mine, too. I hope that you’ll meet them all—and that you enjoy the visit.
Warmest Regards,
Claudia
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