Joan Hess

Joan Hess (January 6, 1949 – November 23, 2017) was an American mystery writer, a member of Sisters in Crime, and a former president of the American Crime Writers League. She wrote two popular mystery series: The Claire Malloy Mysteries and The Maggody Mysteries (also called The Arly Hanks Mysteries), and contributed to multiple anthologies and book series, including: Crosswinds, Deadly Allies, Malice Domestic, Sisters in Crime, and The Year's 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. She also wrote the Theo Bloomer mystery series, under the pseudonym Joan Hadley.
Series
The Claire Malloy series is set in Farberville, Arkansas, and centers around Claire Malloy, who owns a small bookstore across from the campus of Farberville College. It has been suggested that Farberville is a stand-in for Fayetteville, Arkansas, with many landmarks, including the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, Dickson Street, and even well-known local citizens, thinly veiled in the prose.
The Arly Hanks series is set in Maggody, Arkansas, population 755. The main character is Arly Hanks, Maggody's irreverent young female police chief. The first book of the Arly Hanks series, Malice in Maggody, was the basis for the 1993 CBS television pilot Arly Hanks.
In the Theo Bloomer series the eponymous protagonist, "a dignified offshoot of old Connecticut money and prestige", is a retired bachelor-botanist who formerly worked as a florist. In each book, family obligations take him to an exotic vacation destination, where he becomes embroiled in a mystery: in the first book, he travels to Israel to retrieve his niece, who is staying at a kibbutz hotel, and in the next he accompanies her party to a "luxurious villa" in Montego Bay, Jamaica, as a chaperone.
Awards
Hess was nominated for the Agatha Award five times and won once, for her 1990 short story "Too Much to Bare".
Personal life
A longtime resident of Fayetteville, Arkansas, Hess lived in Austin, Texas, where she died at her home November 23, 2017.
Bibliography
Novels
Claire Malloy series by Joan Hess
Strangled Prose
The Murder at The Murder at the Mimosa Inn
Dear Miss Demeanor
A Really Cute Corpse
A Diet to Die For
Roll Over and Play Dead
Death by the Light of the Moon
Poisoned Pins
Tickled to Death
Closely Akin to Murder
Busy Bodies
A Holly, Jolly Murder
A Conventional Corpse
Out on a Limb
The Goodbye Body
Damsels in Distress
Mummy Dearest
Deader Homes and Gardens
Murder as a Second Language
Pride v. Prejudice
Maggody series by Joan Hess
Malice in Maggody
Mischief in Maggody
Much Ado in Maggody
Madness in Maggody
Mortal Remains in Maggody
Maggody in Manhattan
O Little Town of Maggody
Martians in Maggody
Miracles in Maggody
The Maggody Militia
Misery Loves Maggody
Murder@maggody.com
Maggody and the Moonbeams
Muletrain to Maggody
Malpractice in Maggody
The Merry Wives of Maggody
Theo Bloomer Mystery series by Joan Hadley
The Night-Blooming Cereus (1986)
The Deadly Ackee (1988)
Standalone Teenage Romance
Future Tense (1987)
Short stories
Maggody Files: Hillbilly Cat
Great Cat Mysteries: An Anthology of Feline Capers (audio edition by Phoenix Books, 1996).
She also has two books of solely her own short stories.
She co-authored Elizabeth Peters' last book, The Painted Queen. After Elizabeth Peters died, Joan Hess completed this last novel in the popular Amelia Peabody series.
Notes
References
1949 births
2017 deaths
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American novelists
Agatha Award winners
American mystery writers
Place of birth missing
American women novelists
Writers from Austin, Texas
Women mystery writers
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American women writers
Novelists from Texas
People from Fayetteville, Arkansas