Death becomes her: Lafayette writer finds Bay Area perfect setting for debut thriller

Linda Lee Peterson has an impressive vocabulary, but there are a few words missing from it: Timid, shy and retiring don't make the cut.

"I am the whore of Babylon," says the marketing executive-turned-novelist as she describes her current multicity book tour. "Set me up on a stage and I will talk about my book."

The book in question is Peterson's debut novel, "Edited to Death," a mystery thriller set in San Francisco. Like her fictional Jewish heroine Maggie Fiori, Peterson claims Jewish roots (on her father's side), and is happily married and an accomplished professional.

However, unlike Fiori, who is a magazine editor, Peterson never discovered her boss slumped over a desk, a victim of murder most foul. Nor did she set out to solve such a murder, other than in her vivid imagination. As far as her new novel goes, that imagination has been on the case a long time.

"I got the idea 15 years ago," admits the Lafayette resident. "I've always loved mysteries, always loved books about big cities and always loved the modern domestic comedy of manners. This book put all three together."

A lifelong reader, Peterson was particularly smitten with the mystery genre. "Mysteries invite you into worlds you might not have known," she says. "And writing about San Francisco and Oakland, I try to show how casually multicultural life works here."

Composing a mystery novel adds a few extra burdens beyond the normal creative requirements, notes the author. "You have to play fair with readers," says Peterson. "If you don't foreshadow correctly, they are crabby with you."

The CEO and managing partner of the marketing firm of Peterson Skolnick & Dodge, she has written several nonfiction books, including volumes about flowers, candles and linens. She was also the garden columnist for Diablo magazine.

That touch of Martha Stewart suits Peterson, who wears the mantle of class and sophistication with ease. She's an avid gardener, hostess and world traveler, as well as a wife and mother.

"My father was a New England Jew married to a Southern Baptist from Mississippi," says Peterson, who grew up in Los Angeles attending Methodist church services and annual seders with her cousins. "I think of myself as a Protestant, but culturally I think of myself as a Jew. The cultural values of Judaism make sense to me."

Among those values is the call to repair the world. Her community projects include serving on a committee overseeing construction of a new library in Lafayette, sustaining the library's literary series "Sweet Thursdays" (after the Steinbeck novel) and sitting on the board of Youth Homes, an East Bay foster child program. She also serves on the board of the Graduate Theological Union's Pacific School of Religion.

Her husband, Ken Peterson, is a workers compensation judge, while son Ben is a former member of the j. staff.

As for her next novel, it's not even on the drawing board yet, but she's not worried about finding ideas, inspiration or even snatches of dialogue.

Says Peterson: "I'm a terrible eavesdropper."




"Edited to Death" by Linda Lee Peterson (221 pages, 21st Century Publishing, $23).