Welcome
Welcome to my website. It's all new and updated, thanks to the assistance of my tech-savvy son-in-law. I just hope I don't mess it up as I add things to it. I write mysteries -- both historical and contemporary, cozies, middle-grade fiction -- and some non-fiction books. On this site I provide links to Amazon, where all of them are available. I think most of them are also available on other on-line sites, but providing all those links is above my pay grade.You can read more about me on the "About Me" page, logically enough. Please look around and contact me if you have any questions or comments. Let me know if you find any problems with the site.
I'm featuring my latest book, The Gods Help Those, here. You can learn more about this and my other books by going to the appropriate pages. I want to extend thanks up front to the editors and publishers with whom I've worked over the past seventeen years: Judy Geary and Ingalls Publishing Group for getting me started and my current publishers, Perseverance Press with my editor Meredith Phillips, for keeping me going and being so congenial to work with. Visit their site to learn more about my books and other fine books that they publish: http://www.danielpublishing.com/perseverance/index.html I also owe much to my writers' group, the West Michigan Writers' Workshop.
At the risk of bragging (nobody's going to do it for you unless you pay an agent, right?), I have been gratified by comments made about my writing. John Maddox Roberts, author of the SPQR Roman mysteries, said, "Bell has a fine knowledge of Roman life." Kelli Stanley, author of the Roman Noir mysteries, called me "a gifted storyteller and superb scholar of the ancient world." K. G. Whitehurst called me "a master storyteller." I have another website, devoted to Pliny, which I need to update. You can find it at http://www.pliny-mysteries.com/
Available Now
The Gods Help Those is the seventh in a series of mysteries set in ancient Rome and featuring Pliny the Younger. Pliny was a real person, best known for his letters describing the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD, which were written to his friend, the historian Tacitus.
I've been a fan of Pliny for a long time. His letters (over 240 of them) give us a real insight into life in Rome in the late first century AD. When I began thinking about writing a Roman mystery I decided to use him as my detective because he had an inquisitive, skeptical mind. His friend Tacitus seemed a natural partner for his investigations.
I've been quite pleased with the reviews that the Pliny books have gotten. I'm well along with the eighth, Hiding From the Past, and will have it in my editor's hands by April 1.