KEMPER DONOVAN is a full-time writer who is currently publishing an ongoing mystery series via Kensington Books. The Busy Body is the first in the Ghostwriter series. Previously, he published the standalone novel The Decent Proposal (HarperCollins). He is also the host of the podcast All About Agatha, dedicated to all things Agatha Christie, in which guise he has appeared on BBC TV and Radio New Zealand and written for the official Agatha Christie website, agathachristie.com.
Learn more about Kemper Donovan below!
Former Senator Dorothy Gibson, aka “that woman,” is the most talked-about person in the country. Dorothy had been the independent candidate for President, and after her very public defeat she has retreated to her home in rural Maine. She invites a ghostwriter to join her so they can work on her memoir.
A ghostwriter tells other people’s stories for a living, and this is a dream assignment. The ghostwriter is impressed by Dorothy’s work ethic and steel-trap mind, not to mention the lovely surroundings (and one particularly gorgeous bodyguard). But when a neighbor dies under suspicious circumstances, Dorothy is determined to find the killer, and she and the ghostwriter team up to launch their own murder investigation.
The best ghostwriters are adept at asking questions and spinning stories … two talents, it turns out, that also come in handy for sleuths. Dorothy’s political career, meanwhile, has made her an expert at recognizing lies and double-dealing. Working together, the two women are soon untangling motives and whittling down suspects, to the exasperation of local police. But this investigation—much like the election—may not unfold the way anyone expects …
Kemper has lived in Los Angeles for most of his adult life. Starting out, he worked at a company called Circle of Confusion, representing film/television screenwriters and comic books. His first client wrote the screenplay for the feature film Hanna, released by Focus Features in 2011.
Before that he attended college at Stanford University and law school at Harvard. Technically, he’s a retired lawyer, which means he passed the New York Bar and then immediately switched his status to “retired” to avoid fees and continuing education requirements….
He began writing his first novel, The Decent Proposal, when he was still a manager. After an extremely long gestational period and an even longer process acquiring representation and then selling the book for publication, he turned to writing full-time.
Around the same time, he began a side project with his dear friend, Catherine Brobeck. Together, they created the podcast All About Agatha, devoted to the one and only Agatha Christie. Tragically, Catherine passed away at the end of 2021, and he has continued on with the podcast solo. It was his work on All About Agatha that inspired him to write his own mystery series, which is currently being published by Kensington Books.
Kemper is married, and he and his husband have two daughters, who keep them extremely busy.
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Tea, Tonic, and Toxin is a book club and podcast for people who love mysteries, thrillers, introspection, and good conversation. Each month, your hosts, Sarah Harrison and Carolyn Daughters, will discuss a game-changing mystery or thriller from the 19th and 20th centuries. Together, we’ll see firsthand how the genre evolved.
Along the way, we’ll entertain ideas, prospects, theories, doubts, and grudges, along with the occasional guest. And we hope to entertain you, dear friend. We want you to experience the joys of reading some of the best mysteries and thrillers ever written.
Teasers & Tidbits
Dashiell Hammett’s crime novel Red Harvest is more than just a gripping detective story. It’s also a political statement, inspired
When Dorothy L. Sayers wrote Whose Body? (her debut novel, published in 1923), she introduced a detective who would go
If you’re a fan of Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries, I’m sure you’re already familiar with Hercule Poirot, the eccentric Belgian
This detective novel introduces readers to a British mining engineer – Richard Hannay – who has just returned to London
Even though the name of this book is Trent’s Last Case, the novel is actually about the FIRST detective case
Long before he started writing his own detective stories, Gilbert Keith (G.K.) Chesterton was already a fan of the genre.
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