Hey, avid readers, did you know there’s an author whose books are all based in Cape May?
Libby Klein — born Lisa Schwartz — was raised in Cape May and writes cozy mystery novels based on her hometown.
Klein adopted “Libby Klein” as a pen name to honor her late grandmother and craft a writing identity steeped in warmth, wit and murder — fictional, of course.
When Klein began writing a decade ago, cozy mystery tropes were firmly entrenched with 20-something heroines, inheritance-driven plots, cats and charming male cops doubling as love interests. She broke nearly all of them.
Her first book, “Class Reunions Are Murder,” introduces Poppy McAllister, a middle-aged, plus-sized widow who returns to Cape May for her 25th high school reunion — and ends up accused of murder when a former cheerleader drops dead in front of her old locker. The novel kicked off a nine-book series full of sharp humor, romantic tension and inventive plotlines.
Klein’s ideas come from unexpected places — Facebook posts, antique shows or real-life oddities. One book was inspired by an LED face mask that looked “like something out of ‘Doctor Who.’” Another book featured a 19th-century vampire-slaying kit that had silver bullets, dehydrated garlic and a stake.
To visualize characters, Klein often builds Pinterest boards or scours images online based on the attributes she comes up with. One character ended up resembling “Lost” actor Josh Holloway — by accident.
“My daughter-in-law came in and said, ‘Why do you have Sawyer from ‘Lost’ on your wall?’… I had never heard of Josh Holloway or watched ‘Lost,’” Klein said.
While she enjoys reading romance, Klein gravitates toward mystery because of its structure and reader expectations.
“I didn’t want to write sex scenes,” she admitted. “So I thought, I’ll kill someone instead.”
What she loves most is the puzzle. She said, “It’s not about the murder. It’s about restoring order, finding the killer and outsmarting the bad guy.”
But behind the clever plots and colorful characters is a harsh publishing reality.
“One of the hardest things for fans to hear is that publishers don’t care how good the book is,” Klein explained. “They only care how much it sells.” If a beloved book is passed around instead of purchased, it may still be canceled — even if every reader raves. “It’s just like TV,” she said. “It comes down to numbers.”
That makes the longevity of her “Poppy McAllister” series particularly impressive. While most series get three to five books, she got nine.
Her contracts came in waves: three books, then two, then three more and, finally, one last book. “They told me to tie up all the loose ends. I had two books planned, so I had to cram a lot into one,” Klein said.
Klein is now launching a second series with a completely different tone. “Vice and Virtue,” the first book in the “Layla Virtue Mysteries,” blends cozy elements with deeper emotional arcs.
“My publisher wanted me to shift into women’s fiction,” she said. “In cozy mysteries, the ‘center pole’ is the murder. In women’s fiction, it’s the emotional journey.”
In “Vice and Virtue,” Layla, a former cop with PTSD and memory gaps, is reluctantly drawn into a murder investigation while navigating her own trauma and building new relationships.
The “Vice and Virtue” series’ next book, “Gimme Shelter,” will be out in April 2026 and can be found anywhere that sells books.
