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Author: Peggy Ehrhart | Website
When Peggy Ehrhart was in the third grade at Our Lady of Peace School in the San Fernando Valley, she won a Knights of Columbus essay contest and her fate was sealed. It just took her awhile to realize that what she really wanted to write was fiction.
After a BA in English from University of Portland, she headed to San Francisco, just like several thousand other people who had gotten word that San Francisco was the happening place to be. Amid many enjoyable distractions, she managed to get an MA in English from San Francisco State, then headed off to University of Illinois for a Ph.D. in Medieval Literature. Her first college teaching job after grad school brought her to the New York City area, where she has happily remained ever since.
Then, after several years of teaching and in the throes of a severe midlife crisis, she bought an electric guitar and wrote her first mystery novel–though as her alter-ego, Margaret J. Ehrhart, she’d been writing busily the whole time: numerous scholarly articles, and a book about Greek myth in the Middle Ages funded by a research grant from the American Council of Learned Societies.
The transition from would-be mystery writer to published mystery writer would have happened a lot sooner if she wasn’t having so much fun with the music. She formed The Last Stand Band, which over the course of its five-year life, played numerous gigs in New York City and the surrounding area.
Besides Sweet Man Is Gone, Got No Friend Anyhow, and the academic projects, Peggy has published stories, essays, and translations in print media and online.
She’s married to Norm Smith, the sweetest man of all time, and has one child, Matt Smith, who’s in a band.
Published Works & Book Reviews
Got No Friend Anyhow
A Maxx Maxwell Mystery, #2. This is book two in a series, but can stand alone.
Maxximum Blues has a solid foothold in the Manhattan blues scene, but Maxx Maxwell (real name: Elizabeth) knows a CD will make the band irresistible to festival organizers. Prowling Rooster Records is her label of choice, but when the CD is nearly finished, producer Rick Schneider disappears—and it looks like he’s hooked up with his old girlfriend, singer-songwriter Brenda Honeycut.
Maxx’s interest in Rick is personal, too. He’s the first guy she’s trusted since leaving Sandy, the womanizing guitar player who broke her heart.
When Maxx searches for the CD master in Rick’s studio, she finds his cherished memento, a framed album cover, knocked from the wall—and even more alarming, a pool of dried blood. The next day, she identifies Rick’s body at the county morgue.
Got No Friend Anyhow showcases Maxx’s blues-babe wardrobe, her tenderhearted toughness, and her eccentric band mates. In classic whodunit style, it takes the reader on a ride that keeps pages turning all the way to a dramatic and unexpected climax.