Mary V. Welk is the author of numerous short stories, poems, and song lyrics. Her first full length novel, A DEADLY LITTLE CHRISTMAS, merited an award in the 1996 Hemingway First Novel Competition under the title FOUR TO GO. In the field of short stories, Ms. Welk's "The Tell-Tale Glow" was recently selected as a winner by the Mystery Guild in their "Quoth the Raven, 'Evermore'" competition. A member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, Ms. Welk was one of four authors selected for the 'Medically Speaking' panel at the 1999 Malice Domestic XI convention in Washington, D.C. The author resides with her husband and two of her six children in the Edison Park community of Chicago. She is currently at work on the third book in the Caroline Rhodes mystery series, TO KILL A KING.