• Maffini, Mary Jane

Maffini, Mary Jane

Mary Jane Maffini MJ Maffini

Lapsed librarian and former mystery bookseller Mary Jane Maffini is the author of fifteen books in three series. You Light Up My Death, the seventh in the Ottawa-based Camilla MacPhee mysteries has hit the shelves to join the Fiona Silk capers set in West Quebec and the six Charlotte Adams organizer mysteries. By the way, those Charlotte Adams mysteries have been optioned for television.

Mary Jane also collaborated on the five Book Collector mysteries with her daughter, Victoria, writing as Victoria Abbott. The contemporary series plays with the books and sleuths of the Golden Age of Detection.

In addition to the Bony Blithe Award (for mysteries that make us smile) for The Marsh Madness, as half of Victoria Abbott, Mary Jane has three Arthur Ellis awards for short crime fiction. “So Much in Common” (EQMM) also won the Malice Domestic Agatha award and was nominated for an Anthony Award at the World Mystery Convention.  In 2012, The Busy Woman’s Guide to Murder, Charlotte Adams number six, won the Romantic Times award for Best Amateur Sleuth novel.  

When not bumping off the unsuspecting, Mary Jane lives and plots in Manotick where her husband looks over his shoulder a lot. She also knits sweaters for the latest princess dachshunds, Penny and Ivy.

She is available for writing workshops, keynotes, book clubs, and, under the right circumstances, alibis.

Find out more at www.maryjanemaffini.com where you can sign up for her newsletter.

Awards:

  • Winner, Bony Blithe Award (as half of Victoria Abbott) for The Marsh Madness.
  • Winner, Romantic Times (RT) award, best amateur sleuth, 2012, for The Busy Woman’s Guide to Murder.
  • Winner, Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story, 2010, ‘So Much in Common,’ EQMM.
  • Winner, Agatha Award for Best Short Story, 2010, ‘So Much in Common,’ EQMM.
  • Winner, Crime Writers of Canada's Derrick Murdoch Award, 2006, for being "The Tiny Perfect CWC Volunteer"
  • Winner, Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story, 2001, for “Sign of the Times” in Fit to Die, RendezVous Press.
  • Winner, Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story, 1995, for "Cotton Armour" in The Ladies Killing Circle.
  • Winner, Ottawa Citizen Short Story Contest, 1994, for "Death Before Doughnuts"
  • Nominated, The Barry Award – Best Paperback Original (Deadly Pleasures Magazine) 2006 for The Dead Don’t Get Out Much.
  • Nominated, Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel, 2003, for Lament for a Lounge Lizard
  • Nominated, Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Mystery, 1999, for Speak Ill of the Dead
  • Nominated, Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story, 1999, for "Kicking the Habit" in Menopause Is Murder