Eliot Byerrum

“If we’re not supposed to talk about politics or religion, this is going to be a very tricky holiday!”

When Father Jeremy, an aging monk, returns to his hometown to celebrate 50 years in the priesthood, transitions and secrets threaten to throw his family’s Christmas into turmoil, comic and otherwise.

Three 20-something cousins are at major crossroads in their lives. Maureen, who has an answer for everything, treads dangerous political waters working for a corrupt U.S. senator. Law student Cheever is torn between going for a flashy career in Washington or choosing a more compassionate path. And Althea, ever the rebel, horrifies everyone with her big surprise: She's joining a convent. Caught between generations, her parents are squeezed by money woes and panicked by changes to come. And all her mother Marty wants is one little Christmas miracle or maybe even an angel.

Father Jeremy’s Jubilee turns out to be a Christmas to remember.

Modern Noir

It is October, the haunted time of year. Trees triumphantly don their fiery-colored leaves in a last gasp of exuberance before they turn brittle and die. A derelict amusement park and musical strains from an offstage carousel heighten the feeling of season’s end. This play is set at Echo Valley, a mostly abandoned no-longer-fun fair. It is the site of a recent murder of a young woman, the kind of woman who wasn’t supposed to end up as a statistic.
This is a murder mystery that explores the rippling effects it has on the characters.
The story begins a couple weeks before Halloween and concludes the morning after trick-or-treating ends. While much of the action takes place at Echo Valley, the set converts to accommodate other locations, the corner of a bedroom, a slice of kitchen, a gala Halloween Masquerade Ball. Yet Echo Valley’s outline remains ominous over all the scenes.
The Angel of Death Rises Early casts its light on private investigator Isabelle McGuire. She must face her own private demons when she is hired to investigate the murder of another woman named Isabelle, the woman who was killed and discarded at the rusting shooting gallery. As McGuire is drawn further into the case, she begins to identify too closely with the other Isabelle, whose life had surprising parallels with her own.
McGuire shares her fears with her romantic partner detective Nick Gordon but only when he’s asleep. She doesn’t trust herself to confide in him completely when he’s awake. The dead Isabelle’s best friend and mother play on McGuire’s sympathies, but can she trust them? Her attractive new client has more than the investigation on his mind, and a mysterious-yet-oddly-sympathetic killer from out of her past compel McGuire to test her preconceptions about homicide. The investigation threatens her relationship with Nick as she tracks a murderer and reevaluates her own secret struggle with the Angel of Death.

Available from Samuel French

Christmas Eve is no bed of roses for struggling private eye Cactus O'Riley, a fiery redhead with a bad case of the holiday blues. Being a P.I. is a tough business. Is she really cut out to be a detective? Should she try to scrape up the rent, or close up shop for good?

The last little surprise package she needs is a lovelorn deputy D.A., a pair of armed-and-goofy fugitives hunting some dead private eye, and her male secretary's overbearing mother -- who mistakes a tense hostage situation for the perfect little holiday murder mystery party. Just what she's always wanted! And just what Cactus didn't need this Christmas Eve.

It's a Dickens of a Christmas, as Cactus digs up long-buried mysteries, unwraps a few small miracles, and takes a second chance on love and luck -- and the life of a private eye.

Two one-act mystery comedies, available from Samuel French

REMEDIAL SURVEILLANCE -- Teaching a night school private eye class? Headache enough for this burned-out ex-detective. And Buzz's new "star pupil" Irene is a dizzy wannabe gumshoe who's seen too many old movies. But Irene's surveillance homework not only catches Buzz with his pants down, it might just save his hide.

DEJA RENDEZVOUS --Partners? Buzz and Irene?! Yes, but their new private eye biz isn't exactly booming and they can't even agree on splitting up. Can this unlikely partnership blossom before a femme fatale out of Buzz's past poisons their relationship (and a lot more)?