MEET THE AUTHOR

Dear Friends,

I am Pamela Boteler, a Richmond resident for over thirty years. I wish to share with you, “Snookered,” my inaugural novel.

As background to my Crisp Caper, I must profess that I have never been involved in the arena of writing - a career as medical artist and raising a family took priority. Life forced a change when my mother needed to move from her beloved Tennessee home to live in Richmond. Great unhappiness ensued. On a bleak January day, this author prayed for guidance to help bring a ray of sunshine into Mother’s severe unhappiness.

As an act of sheer desperation, I asked my mother Doris, hypothetically how she might assist her granddaughter, a twenty-five year FBI Special Agent, in solving a ‘caper’. Her eyes took on a glint of excitement as the very thought was ludicrous, but highly possible. Working as ‘senior agents’, she and her real sister, China, become sleuths. Doris’ laughter extended that first week, into months of plot planning and writing. Photos made during her depression and then months later at a ‘Crisp Reading’ at Verena Senior Living on Brook Road show the total change in personal appearance as she had laughed her way into looking ten years younger.

Taking these newly discovered writing skills to the next level in 2012, Emmy Award Winner Andrea McDaniel of Channel 12 News, stepped up to narrate a second Crisp Caper. Richmond’s “Final Act Drama” producer Russ Randall directed three charity performances in front of a live, theater audience.

My collaboration with Marlys Fisher proved to be an invaluable next step. Marlys’ extensive dude ranch experiences were the underpinning of the Snookered enterprise, giving texture and reams of knowledge which this author knew nothing about.

Into this new environment came Sue Driscoll, a new friend I made who suffers from ALS. As a former librarian, she quickly offered to edit the manuscript and in the process the writing the book, our time together, and the excitement that this might bring joy to others, created a project that once again lifted the spirits of someone I love very much.

Absolutely no one was more surprised than I was that the Crisp sisters have come back for a second caper! I hope you will come with the sisters as they head to a Wyoming dude ranch for a trip of many firsts!

I pray you enjoy the book, share it, laugh…and remember our dear friends suffering and surviving and LIVING with ALS!

Pam Boteler