Lou Allin sings two national anthems, having born in Toronto but raised in Ohio when her father followed the film business to Cleveland in 1948. His profession explains her passion for celluloid classics, which shows up frequently in her writing. A Ph.D. in English Renaissance literatrure coincided with the end of the boomer hirings and, discovering that she retained Canadian citizenship, Lou headed north, ending up at Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ontario, where she taught literature, writing and public speaking for more than twenty-five years. That area is the setting for the Belle Palmer mysteries. Lou is now a resident of British Columbia. Her Belle Palmer mystery series includes: Northern Winters Are Murder (2000), Blackflies Are Murder (2002), Bush Poodles Are Murder (2004), Murder, Eh? (2006), and Memories Are Murder (Fall 2007). Her new series, the Holly Martin Mysteries, debuted with And on the Surface Die in the fall of 2008.