Karen MacInerney is the author of the Gray Whale Inn mystery series and Tourmaline Teal, which she co-authored with Barbara Burnett Smith (Berkley, 2007). She is a former public relations writer, a graduate of Rice University, a member of the Writers' League of Texas, and the founder of the Austin Mystery Writers critique group, which she attends regularly. Before writing Murder on the Rocks, Karen spent many summers in island fishing communities in Maine and Newfoundland; although she now lives in Texas, she escapes to Maine as often as possible.