We’re launching a new series over here called Book Shots. It’s going to feature some of the top mystery writers working today. No one has time to doom scroll endlessly to find a YouTube clip of an interview. We’re giving you quick Book Shots of authors and their newly released books.

Some may be familiar faces, and others–well, you might just find your new favorite author.

So, sit back, relax, and pour yourself the libation of your choice and enjoy Book Shots with Author Peggy Townsend.

Peggy Townsend is longtime newspaper reporter who has won multiple state and national awards for her work. She has chased a serial killer through a graveyard at midnight, panhandled with street kids, and sat on a mountaintop with woman who counted her riches in each morning’s sunrise. She has rafted rivers, come face-to-face with a grizzly bear and, twice, lived in her van for seven weeks while traveling across the country. She divides her time between the Central Coast of California and the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Her new book, The Botanist’s Assistant, hits the shelves today, November 18th. I loved it. Great characters, an intricate plot, and it’s one of those stories that sticks with you long after you put the book down.

The Botanist’s Assistant is quite a departure from your previous books. It’s so cleverly written and plotted, you wouldn’t have expected this from a thriller author. How difficult was it to make that shift to more of a traditional mystery?

It was definitely hard at first. My editor said she wanted a cozy mystery instead of a thriller like my last book, The Beautiful and the Wild, and I thought: How am I supposed to write a cozy mystery when I don’t read them? Then, I realized that Agatha Christie, Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series and Jesse Q. Sutanto’s Vera Wong books, were all cozy mysteries that I had read and loved. That’s when the awkward but unstoppable Margaret Finch appeared in my head and it was off to the races. 

Margaret Finch is a wonderfully drawn character. What went into creating her, and where did you draw inspiration from?

Thanks for admiring Margaret. I like her a lot too. My inspiration for her was born a bit from my tendency to organize things and to get grumpy with people who don’t check their facts before they speak, but mostly she came from the scientists I’ve interviewed while I was working as a journalist. Each one of those researchers was smart, curious, tenacious and paid attention to detail and I thought: “the scientific method doesn’t seem too different from how a detective works.” I kept those qualities in mind as I wrote Margaret, along with the fact that scientists, especially women scientists, often don’t get the respect they deserve. 

Dark Academia is having a moment in crime fiction. What makes college campuses and the people who inhabit them so interesting?

College settings have a bit of everything needed for good crime fiction: young students hungry for new experiences, faculty driven by ego and the belief they are smarter than everyone else, research that can veer into dangerous territory (think viruses and AI) and sometimes cut-throat competition for recognition and grant money. While doing research for The Botanist’s Assistant, I found true stories about professors who thought they were smart enough to get away with murder but were caught because their inflated sense of self tripped them up.

Margaret has a tendency to obsess over rituals and details. Where does this interesting eccentricity come from?

Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Jane Smiley (A Thousand Acres, Golden Age) once told me the way she conjures emotional scenes is to take a small event and blow it up to twice its size. So, for instance, that moment of panic when you can’t immediately spot your child in a department store is magnified to create heart-stopping trauma in a story about a kidnapped child. I used my tendency to put things in order and to make long to-do lists as a base for Margaret’s obsession for organization, precision and honesty that can, and does, rub people the wrong way.

Other than Margaret, who was the most difficult character to write?

I had a hard time getting the hapless post-doc, Calvin Hollowell, right. When I first wrote him, he was so whiny I realized no reader would like him. Then, he was too snarky. I finally got Calvin right when I remembered a friend who I adored but who sometimes spiraled because of his anxieties. Like all good writers do, I stole a few things from real life and there was Calvin.

What did Margaret teach you as you wrote The Botanist’s Assistant?

Margaret taught me that no matter what has happened in our lives, we all have the capacity for love.

Here’s where you can find your copy–and you should!

Amazon Barnes & Noble Bookshop.org

Let Peggy know what you think about her latest, or leave a question for her in the comments below.

Hope you enjoyed Book Shots, please keep checking back and give me your recommended mystery authors for a future session. Up next will be Elena Taylor with her stunning new suspense, The Haunting of Emily Grace.

Book Shots

Illusion of Truth re-orders available now. Releases on January 6th, 2026

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org