After writing several thrillers and dark, suspenseful novels, author Liza Tully decided she needed to pivot toward something more cheerful.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty years ago, I had written a comedy, and I thought, \u2018Gee, that was fun.\u2019 I remember doing that, and I loved it,\u201d Tully said.<\/p>\n
The result: a new novel and the start of a new series, starting with her latest release, \u201cThe World\u2019s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant.\u201d<\/p>\n
The main characters of the murder-mystery story are esteemed private investigator Aubrey Merritt and her recently hired assistant Olivia Blount. They\u2019re working together to find out what really happened to Victoria Summersworth, whose daughter thinks her death on her 65th birthday was incorrectly ruled as a suicide.<\/p>\n
Aside from the whodunnit, the heart of the story is also about the relationship between the prickly, brilliant Aubrey and newbie Olivia, who come from two different generations: Aubrey is a Baby Boomer, while Olivia is Gen Z. Tully said she wanted to illustrate just how tough it is to be a twenty-something through Olivia.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re trying to establish yourself in a profession, and, sometimes, you don\u2019t even know what you want to do with the rest of your life. And then even if you do know, you have to get a break. And if you get a break, you need a mentor. And so that\u2019s where Olivia is \u2013 she really, really wants this job, she\u2019s lucky to have it, but she also has to put up with a mentor who\u2019s not exactly the nicest person in the world,\u201d Tully said.<\/p>\n
She then juxtaposed that early-career struggle with Aubrey\u2019s own challenges nearing the end of her career.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s in her 60s, she\u2019s always been a loner,\u201d Tully said. \u201cShe\u2019s at a time of her life where she realizes that at some point this is going to wind down for her. And then what is her legacy going to be? For her to make her life meaningful, she needs to take all this wealth of knowledge and expertise that she\u2019s gained over 30 years and give it to someone. Because if she doesn\u2019t, it\u2019s just going to die with her. So they both have a really big stake in their relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n
And although \u201cThe World\u2019s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant\u201d is a murder mystery harkening back to the work of Agatha Christie, particularly with the iconic \u201cgreat reveal\u201d denouement scenes of the beloved detective Hercule Poirot, the novel is considered a \u201ccozy\u201d mystery, meaning it lacks any graphic details. Tully said she thinks this particular subgenre is having a moment right now because of how comforting it feels for readers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s something just so reassuring about having a mystery \u2013 one that gets solved at the end \u2013 because then you can close the book, and it\u2019s done, and you\u2019ve had the experience,\u201d Tully said. \u201cI also think that in cozies, oftentimes, there\u2019s an amateur detective. In this case, Aubrey Merritt is a professional private investigator, but she\u2019s also just a normal person. So the idea that anyone can observe carefully, reason clearly, understand human psychology, and somehow solve something, I find it very inspiring to think that problems can be solved and ordinary people can do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guest<\/p>\n
Liza Tully, author of \u201cThe World\u2019s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After writing several thrillers and dark, suspenseful novels, author Liza Tully decided she needed to pivot toward something…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[489,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-4427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}