Biography
Gayle Bartos-Pool
(When I was 25, it was a very good year...)
| Write what you know. |
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A graduate of Rhodes College in Memphis,
Gayle took a year off between her Sophomore
and Junior years and worked first as a newspaper
reporter for a small Mid-South weekly where
she wrote the local articles, laid out the
front page, and took the pictures with an
old Polaroid camera. About the only thing
she didn't do was deliver the stupid thing
every Thursday. This was in the pre-computer, pre-digital
camera, pre-Internet era.
Gayle followed that job with a stint as a
private detective working for Mark Lipman
Service Incorporated out of Memphis. She
had assignments in Atlanta, Chicago, and
Little Rock. She worked undercover on an
assembly line, in a clothing factory, and
in a printing company. As her female protagonist
in her Ginger Caulfield Mystery series says
in the book, "It's amazing how much
people will tell you when they don't know
they're being questioned."
Gayle has worked as a draftsman, in a bookstore,
made miniatures for a doll house shop, and
then spent a decade in a bank learning about
stocks and bonds before she "retired"
to continue her writing full time. It was
that bank experience that led to her writing
Hedge Bet, the upcoming book in the "Gin Caulfield
Mystery Series," coming out in early
2013. The first book in the series is Media Justice.
Her latest book, The Johnny Casino Casebook 1 - Past Imperfect, introduces Johnny Casino. He's a retired
P.I. with a past. He just hopes it doesn't
catch up with him. He thought he buried all
that twenty years ago, but when your father
is the number three man in a New Jersey crime
family and your mother is considered Mob
royalty, life comes at you hard. He cashed
in that existence for life as a private investigator
in Southern California and would have stayed
with it if fate hadn't tossed him another
bone in the form of cold, hard cash. But
for Johnny, things can get complicated, like
the two dead mobsters he has to explain.
But it doesn't stop there as these ten interlocking
cases in the first Johnny Casino Casebook show, because everybody has a past.
Gayle has been published in various anthologies
over the years. She has her own collection
of short stories called From Light TO DARK debuting the Summer of 2012. It is a collection
of tales ranging from lighthearted to soul
searching.
She paints, builds miniature doll houses,
and makes hand-made Santas and other crafts.
Her Christmas stories are filled with photographs
of things she made just to illustrate the
books.
Gayle's husband, Richard J. Pool, is the
basis for Gin's husband, Fred, in The Ginger Caulfield Mysteries. They have shared their home with various
dogs and cats, all strays, and each one special.
Four of them make guest appearances in her
first holiday story, Bearnard's Christmas.
She collects Santas (over 3500), Christmas
ornaments, Halloween decorations, Easter
items, Fourth of July decorations, roosters,
and just about everything else, space permitting
and husband willing.
She is a member of both Sisters-in-Crime/Los
Angeles and Mystery Writers of America. She
was on the board of Sisters-in-Crime/LA as
their Speakers Bureau Director, doing over
80 events. She initiated their workshop program
and worked on the last No Crime Unpublished
conference sponsored by SinC/LA. She was
one of the founding members who brought together
Mystery Writers of America and Sisters-in-Crime/LA
for their inaugural joint conference called
the California Crime Writers Conference in June of 2009. Back on the board, now
as Treasurer, Gayle will help with the 2013
Conference with guest speakers Joseph Wambaugh
and Sue Grafton.
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