Inside my CIA Career: The Point of It All
Before retiring, I took a seminar about transitioning to the private sector. All the students were...
Inside my CIA Career: Variety and the Spice of Life
What did I do? Whenever I’m asked, “What did you do in the CIA?” I’m a bit stuck. There’s no good...
Inside my CIA Career: Encounter with a Spyplane
FLYING Several years ago, my husband got his private pilot’s license and we owned a small Piper...
Inside my CIA Career: Media Matters
What the heck is OSINT My resume includes this line: OSINT Analyst/Editor, Foreign Broadcast...
Inside my CIA Career: Secrets of Great Dialogue
Competing Motivations As happened so many times over the course of a 30-year CIA career, I was...
Inside my CIA Career: Make it “Actionable”
CIA career During my 30-year CIA career, it was always impressed upon me that we were stewards of...
Inside my CIA Career: The Moving Picture Show
Thanks to my CIA Career If you’ve read the last few books in the Detective Emilia Cruz police...
Inside my CIA Career: the Coup Kit
Coups My official resume says this about the 5 years during my CIA career when I was an all-source...
Inside my CIA Career: The Analytic Puzzle
First Job My first position with the Central Intelligence Agency was as a political analyst. The...
What I did in the CIA: Glutinous but not Unflavorful
Blame it on the Swedish meatballs Early in my CIA career, I was having lunch in the cafeteria of...
The Big Pivot of 2021
The Big Pivot Do you remember the sofa moving scene in Friends? They guys are doing their best,...
The Face that Launched 1000 Words
Some authors look for visual cues to help create setting and characters. Most call it research. I...
Longlisted for the 2020 Millennium Book Award
10 November 2020 Political thriller THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY has been longlisted for the...
Paranormal Romance Tops BookLife’s October Indie Spotlight
15 October 2020 AWAKENING MACBETH, a romantic thriller with a paranormal twist by Carmen Amato,...
Fiction author asks: Why do we fall in love?
True Story I met my husband at a Memorial Day picnic. After burgers and hot dogs, our host hauled...
Virgibooks Publishes Detective Emilia Cruz Stories in Italian
27 September 2020 The Italian translation of MADE IN ACAPULCO was released this week by Italian...
2020 Poison Cup Award from CrimeMasters of America
13 September 2020 The Detective Emilia Cruz police procedural series received the 2020 Poison Cup...
New York to Mexico and Back Again
ONCE UPON A TIME My hometown of Rome, New York, was a close-knit community where almost everyone...
How to Survive a Pandemic from Polar History’s “Wicked Mate”
I was recently asked if the coronavirus pandemic had changed what readers want from mystery...
7th Detective Emilia Cruz Mystery is Finalist for 2020 Silver Falchion
30 July 2020 RUSSIAN MOJITO, the 7th installment of the Detective Emilia Cruz police procedural...
How to be an Armchair Traveler
I keep waiting for coronavirus to call a time out but, uh, so far . . . no. It's turning me into...
Announcing the Galliano Club new historical mystery series
What??!! A new historical mystery series? But, but . . . Read on. One of my earliest memories is...
Detective Emilia Cruz Mysteries Released in Spanish
25 June 2020 CLIFF DIVER, the first thriller in the Detective Emilia Cruz series by Carmen Amato...
Mini Masterclass: How to Write a Mystery Series
Did you ever want to write a mystery series? Have an idea for a character but nothing else? Maybe...