About the Pennsylvania Dutch Mysteries

Ms. Fairchild is new to fiction writing. A life-long educator and business woman, Hannah Fairchild's emergence as a writer came about when vision problems caused her to retire from her much loved work as student teacher supervisor.

No longer able to roam country roads in search of wild flowers, Ms. Fairchild saw an opportunity to write the mysteries she'd always wanted to write.

Drawing on her Pennsylvania Dutch heritage for inspiration, ("Throw papa down the stairs his hat," "Ve grow too soon old und too late smart,") her series, "The Pennsylvania Dutch Mysteries," is set in quiet Plainfield, a town still populated by the same hard working, phlegmatic Pennsylvania Dutch who built the town.

The main characters, Sam Thaxton and Salome Thaxton McKnight, twin heirs to the vast Thaxton fortune, are forty-five in the first book. If It's Monday it Must Be Murder is drawn from her experiences as a teacher of adolescents with behavioral problems, experiences at once so frustrating, mystifying and delightful, there was nothing for it but to record that adventure. Once given life, the "Corrigibles" insisted on having a part in each of the Pennsylvania Dutch Mysteries as well.

The second, Dead in Pleasant Company, features a unique killer who murders via the Internet.

Ms. Fairchild writes the sort of mysteries she likes to read, with believable characters that matter, low on commonality and contrivance, high on humanity and humor. Her stories are literate and occasionally even a bit alliterate, each offering something unique to the reader.

A third and fourth books are in the works.