In today’s virtual tour, I want introduce you to one of my favorite writers, Elaine Viets. I’ve met Elaine a few times at conferences and she’s always been very nice and encouraging to me, a newbie author. Some of you in the mystery community may know that Elaine, author the Dead End Job series as well as the Mystery Shopper series and a contributor to the ever-popular Lipstick Chronicles blog, recently had a stroke. She’s on the road to recovery, but won’t be able to tour for her latest book, Murder With Reservations, so the mystery community is touring for her.

Here’s what Publisher’s Weekly had to say about Murder With Reservations, “Yuppie-turned-menial-job-hunter Helen Hawthorne, still on the run from her deadbeat ex-husband, is keeping a low profile with backbreaking work as a maid at Sybil's Full Moon Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in Viets's humorous and socially conscious sixth whodunit.”

To research the series, Elaine has worked plenty of dead end jobs herself including posts as a telemarketer, a bookstore clerk, and a sales clerk at a clothing boutique.

Here’s what she said about working as a hotel maid: “I admit it. I never tipped hotel maids. If I was paying $200 for a room, I was shelling out enough money. I wasn’t going to be nickeled to death. Then I started researching Murder with Reservations. In that book, Helen Hawthorne works as a hotel maid. I trained as a chambermaid at the Holiday Inn Express in Highland, Illinois. I put on a name tag and a yellow smock and pushed a cart. How hard could this job be? After all, I clean my house. This isn’t like cleaning a house. It’s like cleaning fifteen houses. In one day. I never worked so hard in my life.”

You can read more at Elaine’s website in the sidebar.