What is the title of your latest release?
MURDER IN THE UPPER CRUST
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
A murder takes place at a wellness retreat where everyone has a motive and access to a sinister garden brimming with exotic, poisonous plants. It’s like a lighter, funnier version of The White Lotus—relaxation, candles, yoga…and murder.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
I’m a woman of a certain age, so my entire social media feed is trying to sell me products and strategies to look younger, feel healthier, and reclaim my inner peace. It can sometimes feel very poisonous, but also absurdly funny.
The Nightshade Gardens Wellness Retreat in the book was ladled out of a simmering broth of LED facemasks, inspirational bestsellers, perimenopause supplements, and the actual personal growth and wisdom that can come from getting older.
Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
Heck yeah! Delilah O’Leary is a great cook, a loyal friend, and gets into exciting adventures all the time. Anyone who makes me a deep-dish pizza from scratch is A-okay in my book.
What are three words that describe your hero?
Driven, detail-oriented, droll
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
Because so much of the plot hinges on the poison garden, I consulted two great books on poison, DEADLY DOSES AND POISONOUS PLANTS OF THE MIDWEST. I do a lot of online research these days, so it was fun to take a deep dive into some good, old-fashioned reference books. I learned a lot about the physiological effects of various poisons, but also their histories.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
Edit as I go. It’s almost definitely less efficient, but I’ve tried plowing ahead without fixing things and I find the flaws bother me too much. I guess I’m like Delilah in that way. If I see a mistake, I want to fix it right away.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Every kind of dessert except for cookies. I’ll eat a cookie if it’s the only option, because even a sub-optimal dessert is better than no dessert.
Describe your writing space/office!
After years of writing anywhere I could carve out two feet of space, I finally have a dedicated office in what used to be my daughter’s bedroom. When she left for college, I mourned for several weeks, then realized, “Hey, there’s a silver lining to her leaving…” The room is at the back of the house. Very tranquil. It overlooks our garden and the cool Dead End sign my daughter and I painted together. Very apt scenery for this particular mystery.
Who is an author you admire?
Just one?! I refuse! Ellie Alexander for her business sense. Vivien Chien for her ability to uplift people. Richard Osman for creating such memorable characters. Elle Cosimano and Michelle Chouinard for their wit. Honestly, there isn’t enough room on the entire internet for my list.
Is there a book that changed your life?
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. It’s unreal that we’re all still reading it and connecting with the characters hundreds of years after it was published. It’s proof that a simple story, well-told, can endure and connect people across time and space.
Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published). Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
My agent left me a voicemail on Monday, March 9, 2020 to tell me Minotaur/SMP had offered me a contract on the Deep Dish Mysteries. By that Friday, the entire world was shut down. That was a weird week.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
British historical mysteries and non-fiction popular science books.
What’s your favorite movie?
The Princess Bride. A more perfect movie will never be made. As the narrator says, it has everything: “fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escape, true love, miracles!” My older sister and I have memorized it.
What is your favorite season?
Spring. It used to be summer, but the summers have been so hot lately, I’ve started to prefer April and May.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
My perfect birthday would be a long bike ride with my family to the farm-brewery that’s just outside of town. We’d enjoy a relaxing afternoon eating and drinking and taking in the breathtaking beauty of the Appalachians, then ride home via the little ice cream shop downtown.
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I loved Kristen Perrin’s HOW TO SOLVE YOUR OWN MURDER. Just started the second one in that series.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
This feels like picking my favorite child! I love it all - Indian, Vietnamese, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Afghan. You name it, I’ll happily eat it. Another reason I’d love a friend who is a chef.
Oh wait! There’s an exception! I don’t particularly like the cuisine of the central Caucuses. My girlfriends and I used to do a cookbook club where, once a month, we made food from around the world and had a potluck dinner. It might’ve been user error, but the Caucuses month wasn’t a hit with any of us.
What do you do when you have free time?
If I have a rare weekend with nothing on the calendar, I love a good jigsaw puzzle.
What can readers expect from you next?
Readers can expect a brand-new new series! WINONA WILD HAS KILLER INSTINCTS comes out in August 2027. It’s about a behavioral neuroscientist who grew up at a tiger sanctuary. Think The Tiger King meets Knives Out meets an Ali Hazelwood STEM Romance. It’s going to be a lot of fun.
The sixth book in the delectable Deep Dish Mystery series, set in a Wisconsin pizzeria.
Chef Delilah O’Leary is going where no deep dish pizza chef has gone before: a swanky wellness retreat, where she's agreed to cater for a crowd of the who’s who. Instead of cashing a fat check for an easy gig, though, she encounters a diabolical plot with more layers than one of her signature pies.
The exclusive event, hosted by superstar guru Rhiannon Frost, promises inner transformation—but when a spiteful attendee turns up dead during the guided meditation, Delilah smells more than incense in the air. Every guest has a motive…and access to a sinister walled garden brimming with exotic poisonous plants.
With her restaurant short-staffed, and her boyfriend, Detective Calvin Capone, splitting his time between bartender duties and undercover sleuthing, Delilah’s got her hands full. Can she slice through the lies before the killer strikes again? Or will this luxe getaway turn into a one-way trip to the great beyond?
Mystery Cozy | Mystery Culinary | Mystery Amateur Sleuth [ Minotaur Books, On Sale: October 27, 2026, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781250326317 / eISBN: 9781250326324 ]
Mindy Quigley has won a number of awards for her short stories, including the 2013 Bloody Scotland prize and the 2018 Lightbringer award. Her work as the coordinator of a pastoral services program at the Duke University Medical Center provided the inspiration for her bestselling Reverend Lindsay Harding mystery series. She’s writing a new mystery series for St. Martin’s Press, which will debut in August 2022.
Before she started writing fiction, she worked in project management roles with university research centers, including the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic and the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Edinburgh, Scotland.
She lives in Virginia with her history professor husband, their two children, and their miniature Schnauzer.
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