Author and Syosset native Toby Speed literally went to great heights while writing her latest mystery, Death Over Easy.
The mystery takes place in and around Port Jefferson and includes several characters who are pilots, including one aerial daredevil. A pivotal scene takes place in a small airplane.
“For me, writing this book was a great journey in the understanding of fear, risk and reward,” she said.
Speed, who knew no pilots and was in fact afraid to fly when she started writing the book, took flying lessons and earned her pilot’s license to give the flying scenes an authentic flavor.
After becoming a pilot, Speed went on to earn her tailwheel rating and spent nearly a year learning how to fly aerobatics. She then purchased her own airplane, a 1966 Piper Cherokee, and completed the novel.
Death Over Easy is her first Emma Trace mystery and her first book for adults.
Emma is a practical, both-feet-on-the-ground type of person who reluctantly finds herself embroiled in a case involving blackmail, murder and flying.
When police suspect her of having murdered the local diner’s short order cook, she is forced to come out of her safe world to find the real killer.
Speed is also the author of seven children’s books, including Two Cool Cows, an IRA-CBC Children’s Choice Book, and Brave Potatoes, which was on both the Publishers Weekly and The New York Times children’s bestseller lists.
Her short story, “At the Corner of Night and Nowhere,” is included in the anthology, Moon Shot: Murder and Mayhem On The Edge of Space.
