KENNEDY JONES HAS A PROBLEM
by Liz Kay
(via Writers House)

Kennedy Jones has a problem. She has a lot of problems actually. One, she has aphids in her garden again this year. Two, she has buried a lot of bodies under her garden, and after the last one, there is the distinct possibility that police are closing in. Three, the secluded property she lives on is being developed into an artists’ colony and the (admittedly hot) general contractor seems a little too interested in whether Kennedy had anything to do with his dead cousin.

Kennedy tries lying low and keeping tabs on the case by dating a sweet but dumb deputy, but when the police throw out the words “serial killer” and start connecting victims that aren’t even hers, Kennedy realizes she’s not the only murderer in town. Recruiting the help of one of the artists at the colony—a failing novelist turned true-crime writer, Kennedy races to uncover her competition before they can pin their crimes on her—or do something much worse.

The novel combines Liz’s trademark wit with a highly propulsive mystery and a darkly charismatic protagonist. It marries the hijinks of Finlay Donovan is Killing It and You’d Look Better As a Ghost with the darkly comic horror of Final Girl Support Group, This Girl’s a Killer, and My Sister, the Serial Killer.

Liz Kay holds an MFA from the University of Nebraska, where she was the recipient of both an Academy of American Poets Prize and the Wendy Fort Foundation Prize for exemplary work in poetry. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Beloit Poetry Journal, RHINO, Nimrod, Willow Springs, The New York Quarterly, Iron Horse Literary Review, Redactions, and Sugar House Review. She is the author of the Something to Help Me Sleep {dancing girl press}, The Witch Tells The Story And Makes It True (Quarter Press), Monsters: A Love Story (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), and Fallout (Red Hen Press, forthcoming). Liz teaches and directs the Creative Writing Program at Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, Nebraska.