Date Published: 06-30-2026
Publisher: Mission Point Press
A former lawyer who once helped the FBI convict her own husband for fraud, Ann Audrey has settled into a reclusive life, until her longtime friend Flynn Reynolds asks for help. His elderly aunts are convinced that another nephew was murdered by his wife, Kathryn, whose second husband is now also dead. Ann Audrey is skeptical. Still, she owes Flynn, and there are some odd questions. Complicating matters is Kathryn’s latest mother-in-law, a woman who rose from an impoverished background into Atlanta’s upper circles and recognizes a kindred spirit in her dead son’s ambitious widow. She doesn’t believe Kathryn is a murderer—but she has heard rumors, and she wants them stopped.
Set in Atlanta in January 2000, as the city buzzes with anticipation for the upcoming Super Bowl, Ann Audrey searches for the black widow through the city’s frenetic bar scene, private clubs, high-rise offices, and beloved local institutions like Mary Mac’s Tea Room and The Varsity. With help from Flynn and her friend Theo, along with the return of sexy detective Mike Bristol, she pieces together a twisting story of social climbing, carefully managed appearances, marriage, and murder. As the Super Bowl kickoff draws near, the case reaches a climax when an ice storm shuts down Atlanta’s roads and power, leaving secrets and murderers with nowhere to hide.
Interview with Winnie Simpson
Author of Death and the Social Climber
Could you tell us about any research trips you took for this story? Which places did you visit, and what made them essential to your writing?
Because this Ann Audrey mystery is set in Atlanta at the turn of the Millenium, I visited locations that were thriving (or deserted) at that time. For example, Underground Atlanta actually does lie under the current street level, and over decades it has changed from a thriving nightlife scene to a creepy, aging tourist trap. I needed a creepy place for a meeting between Ann Audrey and Oliver, a hulking, suspicious character. I also visited the former Bellwood Quarry, now a beautiful park, but at the time of the book an abandoned pit quarry perfect for dumping a body. On the fun side, I loved to visit restaurants and bars that Ann Audrey frequents in this book—especially The Varsity with its car hops and Mary Mac’s Tea Room, an Atlanta icon. What Ann Audrey and her companions order at these food stops is part of how I develop their character.
What's the strangest thing you've ever had to research online for your book?
I don’t know if you’d consider this strange, but it was not my usual search. For the first Ann Audrey mystery Whipped Cream & Piano Wire, many of the suspects were veterans of the Vietnam War. For one of the scenes, I researched tiger traps, a deadly booby trap used by the Viet Cong. It consisted of a concealed, deep pit filled with sharpened bamboo punji sticks, and men who fell into them were horribly injured. The description of coating the spikes with animal dung or bacteria laden material won’t go away.
What research (history, mythology, science) goes into your world-building?
Although the turn of the Millenium doesn’t seem that long ago, in terms of technology it’s a vast space. Mobile phones are a good example: in the 1990’s people started carrying a mobile phone, no longer tethered to a land line, but those phones were just that— not smart phones, which didn’t begin to be used for another decade. I’ve researched the brands of phone (the Motorola flip top was popular) and how people were using them. Other research involves fashion. Ann Audrey’s best friend Theo is a wealthy fashionista, so I research what designers were considered the top of the line for clothing, handbags, shoes, even perfume, in order to outfit Theo consistent with her character and the time period.
Have any of the people you've known, past or present, left a lasting impression on your writing journey? If so, we'd love to hear about a memorable experience that stands out to you.
I’ll have to dodge this question. There are so many people who’ve made an impression on me, and there isn’t time or space to pick one.
Do you write in the same genre all the time?
No. I’m in the middle of writing a contemporary mystery where one of the detectives is a ghost, a former psychiatrist from the early 1900’s. His POV has been fun to work with, contrasted with his partner—a very contemporary woman with 21st century attitudes about men, sex, life choices.
Which character, supernatural or human, do you enjoy writing the most and why?
I love the “out-of-place” characters the most. I know Ann Audrey, her circle of friends and their upper class urban milieu intimately, so I relish the chance to spend time with an intimidating six-and-a-half-foot-tall gangster, or a crafty old woman living alone in a backwater town in Appalachia, or a former Vietnam War sergeant who appears to have gone feral. Once I start writing those characters and they’re unspooling for me their layered stories, time flies. That’s the fun stuff about being an author.
Following her mother’s lead, Mississippi native Winnie Simpson was an avid murder mystery reader beginning in the third grade, starting with Nancy Drew and moving through the classics of British, American, and international crime. Winnie studied music at Duke University, later receiving an MFA in Music at SUNY Buffalo, where she worked as an arts administrator before throwing it all over in order to make a decent living. After finishing law school at Emory University, she became a partner in a large firm in Atlanta where her practice focused mainly on securities litigation. Retiring early, Winnie relocated to Northern Michigan where she lives in a renovated nineteenth-century building that served as a former Michigan state asylum. For more than a decade, she has taken writing classes and participated in writing groups. She is fond of opera, hiking, cycling, and Duke basketball, most seasons.
https://mybook.to/DeathandtheSocialClimb
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