Who killed Michael Porter in the pantry with a candlestick during the preview party for the annual house and garden tour?

This question sets the scene for the cozy mystery novel Murder at Twin Beeches by Ann Arbor author Maria Leonhauser. The book is the start of a series, and the intrigue builds, detail by meticulous detail, in short chapters with a brisk pace.

Twin Beeches is a family estate that briefly changed hands but went back to the same longstanding family when the short-term owner, who was known to throw parties, disappeared. Louise Jenkins, the current heir after five generations of men named Samuel, appreciates the history and setting:

Twin Beeches wasn’t tucked behind its landscape to be left alone. It was there to fit in. To be a part of nature like the trees for which it was named. It belonged and welcomed guests. It made the ribboning driveway feel like the unfurling of a beautifully wrapped gift as a car crunched along the gravel toward the front entrance. The gift, of course, was its inhabitants; the house was just the packaging.

However, the body in the pantry adds an unnerving episode to Twin Beeches’ otherwise (mostly) upstanding past.

The murder coincides with the return of Amelia Halliday, Louise’s daughter who leverages her experience as an investigative reporter to look into the crime. While Four Lanes End in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, may seem like a quaint small town, more and more clues—and deaths with fishy circumstances—start accumulating and point to something sinister. Nevertheless, after losing her job owing to a lapse in judgment, Amelia is glad to be there:

Amelia had left her small town because she didn’t want her glory days to end there. She wasn’t going to succumb to Bruce Springsteen’s small-town anthem. She would be different. Her glory days would continue. She’d have glory days galore. Until the inglorious happened.

“LA is hardly Four Lanes End,” she said. She needed her small town now. It was like a pair of old slippers, their alpaca lining holding the imprint of her feet, each toe owning its own little valley into which it settled, warm and protected. “It’s good here.”

Amelia’s new home adds to the warmth because she lives in the historic library building that she went to as a child. Now that the library has a new building, the previous building was available to be her residence.

Amelia’s timing for returning to Four Lanes End is great, but her impression of the town’s safety and protection will turn out to be less true than she thought as she digs deeper into the circumstances and people surrounding Porter’s murder. Despite her carefulness and attention to detail, Amelia—and others—find themselves in danger. Many of the characters become suspects until Amelia or the police can clear them and get closer to the culprit—or culprits. Solving this whodunit takes equal parts brains, gut instinct, and teamwork.  

Murder at Twin Beeches is Leonhauser’s first novel. She was a journalist and then worked in public relations. Now she spends her time writing mysteries and lives in Ann Arbor.

Q: You have been a journalist around the country, including Philadelphia, Sacramento, and more places. What brought you to Ann Arbor?
A: I moved to Grosse Pointe, Michigan in 1985. My husband at the time was hired by the Detroit Free Press as an editorial cartoonist. I gave birth to our daughter Ariel weeks after we moved there, so took six months off before working out of the Detroit bureau for Time magazine and later for People magazine. Eventually, I entered the PR world until I retired in 2014. I lived in Grosse Pointe, Birmingham, and Dearborn before moving to Ann Arbor. It’s been home for 21 years. I love it here.

Q: Your career included journalism and public relations. What inspired you to make the leap to writing a book?
A: Writing a book was always at the top of my “When-I-grow-up-I-want-to” list. You could say it took quite a while for me to grow up, or at least reach the top of that list. And the primary reason was the need to earn a living. Enter the news biz and PR. And what a great living it was. But when I would read a book that excited me, there was always an admiration and a yearning to sit down and write my own. I’ve always been captivated by words and how they can create a time, place, and an experience without visuals.

Q: In what ways does your experience as a journalist inform or support your novel writing?
A: I’m a better fiction writer having honed my skills as a journalist.

Journalism requires discipline. You need to understand the issue and its news value, gather facts, interview relevant people, understand motives, and write the story generally on a short deadline. And the editor determines the word count.

Writing fiction is a free-for-all. The word count is in the multiples of thousands, facts may or may not be present, and the deadline is wildly different. I realized early on that no matter how fast I wrote, my self-imposed deadline was going to keep running, or at least strolling, away from me as the story evolved.

I still needed discipline to keep writing but I also needed patience. Sometimes my characters weren’t ready to reveal everything; they needed me to slow down so I could better understand them.

Q: What drew you to writing a mystery in particular?
A: I love reading them. It began with Nancy Drew. The puzzle of putting a mystery together was irresistible. It requires motive, a cast of characters, red herrings, and other tasty treats to keep the reader guessing.  

Q: In Murder at Twin Beeches, the main character, Amelia Halliday, lives in the former library of Four Lanes End. She remembers reading Nancy Drew books there on “the fourth bookcase from the door, seventh shelf” as a child before a new library was built. This library home is based on your childhood library. How did placing Amelia in a familiar setting affect the story?
A: Ah, yes, my beloved library. Four Lanes End is the original name of Langhorne, where I grew up. As a child, I told my mom that one day I wanted to live in the Langhorne Library. Built in 1888, its brick structure and slate roof looked like a house. A house that held nothing but books. How perfect. It’s such fun having Amelia live there. Kind of a win-win for both of us.

Everything I’ve written about the library is true, except you have to imagine all the walls filled with books, and there was no second floor for bedrooms. In the ‘70s, the books left for a new, modern public library. Fortunately, the Historic Langhorne Association moved in and created a local history reference library and museum. I asked for the board’s permission for Amelia to make it her home.

Q: After losing her job and moving back to her hometown, Amelia takes on her new pastime of privately investigating a murder, as encouraged by her mother: “‘I’m supposed to be here,’ Louise added. ‘And you are, too, Amelia. A man has been murdered in this house. Use it to get your mind off the mess you made in California.”’ Why is Amelia the right person for this work? Why doesn’t she leave the investigation to the police?
A: Amelia realizes she needs to do something to stop reliving the self-destruction of her career as an investigation reporter. Investigating the murder could be just the ticket. Complicating matters is that the police detective leading the investigation is someone she once had a relationship with. It ended badly. So did the relationship that got her fired. She’s good at investigating; bad at relationships.

Q: Murder at Twin Beeches brings a crime that hinges on details. Did you map out the plot before you wrote it? What was your writing process?
A: My new view of writing fiction is that it’s a solitary endeavor until your characters believe in you. I discovered that about 60 pages into the book.

I started out with a general plot and a few primary characters. And then the characters seemed to take over. For example, there were two important plot points where I needed secondary characters. One to find the body in the pantry and the other to tell us about the victim, and then they would exit stage right. Except they didn’t. They became a part of the fabric of the book, particularly Ruth Richards.

Q: There are many more plot lines and characters to discuss, such as Ruth Richards, Carol Anne, Winnie Miller, the Travel Club, etc. These plot lines intersect in numerous ways. Which character do you most relate to and why? Will we meet any of these characters again in future books?
A: Oh yes, they settle in at my home office daily as I work on the second in this series. Louise Jenkins, Amelia Halliday, and Winnie Miller are core to the series. Each is part of me or my family.

Louise is modeled after my mom: whimsy, kindness, openness. I’m a lot like her. A bit of me also shows up in Amelia but not just for her love of the library and career choice. She can be self-critical and unsure of herself at times but masks it with humor.

Winnie is dearest to me. She is modeled after my late daughter Ariel Gold, who died from sudden cardiac arrest at age 35 in 2020. Winnie is Ariel when she was 11, perhaps not as much of a brainiac as Winnie, but certainly digging deep into things that interested her. Winnie’s love of color is pure Ariel, who was an artist. Her motto was Live Vibrantly. Winnie is named after Ariel’s favorite childhood toy, Winnie the Pooh.

Q: What an inspiration. One more question before we wrap up. Murder at Twin Beeches is published by Twin Beeches Books. Would you be willing to talk about self-publication and how you formed Twin Beeches Books?
A: Initially, I followed the traditional route: queried agents, researched small publishing houses, and read the rejection letters—many of them generic. I understood. Agents and publishers are inundated with authors hoping their book becomes a best seller.

It was hard work, and I just wanted to write mysteries, hang out with my characters, and have people meet them in the pages of my books. So, I committed several months to learning about self-publishing. The more I learned, the more it felt like this was where I should go. It was a business decision for me and for my characters. If I’m not published, who will read about them?

Perseverance is my middle name—actually, it’s Ellen, but you know what I mean. And so the journey began. I formed an LLC and hired professional editors to edit and format my paperback and e-book. Cathy Gendron, an Ann Arbor artist and a dear friend, created my cover. She is currently working on the cover for my second book in the series.

I like the path I’m on. Would I like a publishing contract? You bet! But what is most important to me is the joy of writing, spending time with my characters, and seeing where they take me.

Q: What are you reading and recommending?
A: Since I’m writing the next book, I’m reading less. Recently, a friend of mine recommended Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club. They’re fun and poignant. I want to read Martin Walker’s newest book. His Bruno, Chief of Police series set in a small town in southwestern France is wonderful. I’ve also been reading about Colonial America; it’s relevant to my next book. It’s not historical fiction, but like Murder at Twin Beeches, the history of Bucks County is a part of the story. There are so many other authors I adore.

Q: What is coming up next for you?
A: I’m in the thick of writing my second book in the series. I expect it to be out early summer of 2025. My characters, especially Amelia, Louise, and Winnie, show up every day filled with ideas and plot movements. Sometimes I can’t type fast enough.

Martha Stuit is a former reporter and current librarian.