About the Author

Debra began her writing career with poetry and song lyrics and soon expanded her repertoire to include freelance features articles. Writing under the pseudonym of Ann Richards, she has been published in several Canadian magazines and newspapers including both the Calgary and Toronto Sun.

Her first mystery, Flashpoint, follows a female arsonist while telling of the life and death situations firefighters face each day and the family support system that surrounds them.

In order to insure that the technical material in the book was correct, Debra spent six weeks going through the Calgary Fire Departments training academy, traveled across the country interviewing firefighters, wrote several articles on the subject, and spent a great deal of her time with the "A" shift crew at Fire Hall No. 9 in Calgary. During which time she had the opportunity to go on actual fire calls enabling her to experience the job of firefighting first hand. She often jokes that "she is the only person who has been through fire training in three different academies and still hasn't made it to the fire floor."

Debra believes her best novels, come from in-depth research. In order to gather information about the funeral service industry for her second novel, Don't Believe Everything You See, she worked for McInnis and Holloway Funeral Homes in Calgary for six months, and then further intrigued, enrolled in a funeral director course. "Prior to researching this novel, I thought that funeral directors were morbid people. I learned that they are kind, caring, compassionate people who treat the families they serve with dignity and respect. They also have a wonderful sense of humor!"

Debra is currently working on the sequels to both books and looking forward to spending time back at the Fire Academy, for the sequel to Flashpoint, titled Under Pressure, and sailing the seas in Mexico for the sequel to Don't Believe Everything You See … titled Into the Sea