The Girl in the Next Room: A Sam Russo Mystery

Ki Longfellow, born on Staten Island, New York, to a French-Irish mother and an Iroquois father, grew up in Hawaii and Marin County, California, but ended up living in France and England for many years. She is the widow of a British national treasure, the complete artist Vivian Stanshall.

In England, she created and sailed the Thekla, a 180 foot Baltic Trader, to the port of Bristol where it became the Old Profanity Showboat. It remains there today as a Bristol landmark. On it, she and Vivian wrote and staged a unique musical for the sheer joy of it. "Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera," garnered a host of delighted, if slightly puzzled, national reviews. The Old Profanity is on its way to becoming a film: "The Last Showboat."

Her first novel, "China Blues," was the subject of a bidding war. "China Blues," and her second novel, "Chasing Women," introduced Longfellow to Hollywood... a long hard but ultimately fascinating trip.

When Vivian died in 1995, Ki stopped writing, living on Standing Room Only Farm in Vermont. Time may not heal, but it tempers. Eventually Ki began writing again, but her subject became the moment at age 19 that informed her life... a direct experience with the Divine. She chose the figure of Mary Magdalene to tell that tale in her novel "The Secret Magdalene."

Ki's second book on the Divine Feminine is "Flow Down Like Silver," a novel about the numinous and gifted Hypatia of Alexandria, a tragically ignored historical figure of towering intellect who searched through intellect for what the Magdalene knew in her heart.

Recently, a huge departure from all she'd written before, Longfellow found herself writing a tale of supernatural horror called "Houdini Heart." This book was selected by the Horror Writers of America as one of a handful of books to be considered for their 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Best Horror Novel.

In the Spring of 2013 the first three titles of her Sam Russo noir murder mystery series was published by Eio Books: "Shadow Roll," "Good Dog, Bad Dog," and "The Girl in the Next Room."