You worked for years in public relations. How did you decide to start writing fiction?  

After  I was downsized from my public relations job,  I decided I was going to live on my severance and write a book -- fiction,  after all those years of writing news releases.  I had nine months of severance -- six YEARS later that book, UNCOMMON GROUNDS, was published. So much for my master plan.

Are the Maggy Thorsen books mainly set in Wisconsin? How are you connected to that part of the world?

Although I moved to Florida about a year ago, I lived in Wisconsin most of my life. As a matter of fact, my home is the town of Brookfield -- which, of course, bears NO resemblance to the fictional town of Brookhills, where Uncommon Grounds is located.  Especially the rampant sex and murder parts.  Truly.

You've received starred reviews and some high praise for your books. What is your favorite review?

There are more recent ones that I've loved, but I think my favorite is my very first. It was by Dick Adler of the Chicago Tribune.

Despite the fact Dick said that he was usually attracted to "the darker, colder kind of mysteries and thrillers," he called UNCOMMON GROUNDS "as wonderfully rich and sharply written as anything going."  If that wasn't great enough, he ended with, "What moves Balzo's book high above other writers who try to cover the same territory is a sharp and often amusing skill that convinces us that this is real life, and that it matters."

When I'm feeling "stuck," I re-read the review. Oh, hell--who am I kidding? I can recite it by memory.

Are you a coffee aficionado? When's your favorite time of day to drink coffee? Do you have any coffee secrets?

I drink about a pot of coffee every morning. I crave the stuff, and I'm addicted to coffeehouses.  They're wonderful gathering places and lovely places to study people interacting with each other.

I wrote UNCOMMON GROUNDS at my favorite coffeehouse  in Brookfield and was trained as a barista. I learned how to make lattes and cappuccinos and spent time with a coffee roaster.  Then I broke five pots in one week, and the owners made me quit, saying it would be cheaper for them if I sat down and wrote, and they gave me free coffee. Worked for me.

What's next for Maggy and for Sandra?

I'm hard at work on the next Maggy book, this one entitled FROM THE GROUNDS UP.  After that's done in July, I'll start on the first book in a new series, Main Street of Murder, also from Severn House. From then on, I'll be alternating between the two series.

Carolyn Haines is the author of the Sarah Booth Delaney Mississippi Delta Mystery series, the ninth book of which, GREEDY BONES, will be released July 7 by St. Martin's Minotaur. She is a 2009 recipient of the Richard Wright Literary Excellence Award and a writing fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Active in animal rights work, she is also the Fiction Coordinator for the creative writing program at the University of South Alabama.