MURDER THEY WROTE
Find the Fake
Somewhere in this issue is a fake ad . Find it and send your answer to : Joe @ oldmillroadmedia . com
Congratulations to everyone who picked Bookworms in the Holiday issue . The winner , selected randomly from a list of all those who entered and provided the correct answer , is Lucinda Cockrell of Lincoln , VT .
Winner receives a gift certificate to an area business .
44 VERMONT MAGAZINE
BOOKWORMS
Got a case full of books you ’ ve never read ?
We can help !
We ’ ll come over , read them , and give you the gist .
BookwormReading . com
Archer Mayor
Prolific mystery author Archer Mayor was born on a farm near Mount Kisco , New York in 1950 . “ My father was a very restless creature ,” says Mayor . “ We moved all over the place during my childhood and adolescence . Before I settled in Vermont , I lived in about thirty different places on two continents .”
Although Mayor ’ s childhood was defined by a lingering sense of instability , the constantly-changing nature of his earliest years forced him to develop a set of skills that aided in his development as a storyteller . “ Every time that I moved , I crossed a new cultural threshold . I was always ‘ the new kid ,’ and I felt like there was always a target on my back . I had to come up with a defense , so I developed a storyteller ’ s acumen . I also learned how to create new identities for myself , which made it easy for me to segue into creating believable characters when I started to express myself as a writer later on .”
Mayor spent a significant amount of time in France throughout his adolescence and early adulthood . While there , he served as a photographer / editor for Paris Match magazine during the “ Événements de Mai ” riots of 1968 . After graduating from Yale University with a degree in U . S . History in 1973 , Mayor headed west , where he eventually landed in California .
Upon his arrival in California , he worked as a political aide and field representative for William M . Roth during his campaign for the California Governorship in 1974 . After Roth lost in the gubernatorial primaries to Jerry Brown , Mayor returned east to New York City and began working as a researcher and writer for Time-Life Books . A year later , Mayor moved down to Texas , where he served as a scholarly editor at University of Texas Press . After taking a job as a consultant at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin , Texas in 1979 , Mayor decided to branch out on his own . He moved to Newfane , Vermont shortly after in 1980 , and bought the house where he has now lived for over forty years . “ I ’ m an anthropologist by instinct ,” says Mayor . “ I like to know what makes a culture and its inhabitants tick . When it came time for me to pull up stakes and leave my past career aspirations behind , I had to find a place that was kind – a place that cared about its people and didn ’ t get in their way . I also wanted to move to a state where I could really get to know the people around me and interact with them on a deep level . I found that here in Vermont .”
After moving to Newfane , Mayor spent several years working on two nonfiction history book projects before writing the first novel in his enduring Joe Gunther detective series , Open Season . In the years following Open Season ’ s publication in 1988 , Mayor went on to write over thirty-two books in the Joe Gunther series , one of which appeared on The New York Times Bestseller list , and all of them garnering nationwide , laudable reviews . The Joe Gunther novels are set in Vermont and draw heavily on Mayor ’ s personal experiences in the Green Mountain state .
In 1985 , Mayor began working for the Newfane fire department as a firefighter / EMT . By deeply immersing himself in his local community through a series of public service jobs in Vermont , Mayor was able to find the inspiration for the books that have defined his literary career . “ I ’ ve served in