Charles Puccia

Author of darkly comic mysteries where ordinary life takes a deadly wrong turn.

I’ve assembled my career through what I generously call several mid-life crises. The first struck in 1969, when I joined the team that built the first computerized airline reservation system, thereby unleashing the era of do-it-yourself online travel planning. I’ve had decades to reflect on this. I regret having placed the burden on everyone to make their own travel arrangements. Between crises, I moved my family through southern France, Sicily, and Rome before settling into a seaside cottage in northeast England, splitting my time between my home in Boston and the cottage. My family’s view of these arrangements is not on record. In 2008, I launched the Vinnie Briggs Mystery series—dark, cynical, and steeped in the belief that people are capable of almost anything. Then Frances Langone arrived. He Had It Coming trades Vinnie’s brooding for absurdity, his cynicism for smiles, and his grim worldview for the cheerful chaos of a woman who investigates murder the way most people play tennis: with more confidence than skill and a surprisingly good outcome. I consider writing the ideal occupation: intellectually absorbing, socially respectable, and an airtight excuse for missing in-law gatherings. The family dog remains neutral as long as the treats keep coming.