Wendall Thomas | Author
Wendall Thomas | Author
 
 
 
 

NEWS, INTERVIEWS, & UPCOMING EVENTS

 
 
 
 

THE CYD REDONDO Mysteries

Lefty and Macavity nominee for Best Debut Mystery of 2017

ANthony and LeftY Nominee for Best Paperback Original and Best Humorous Mystery 2019

Lefty nominee for Best humorous Mystery of 2021

LEFTY WINNER FOR BEST HUMOROUS MYSTERY OF 2023

 
 
 

— LOST LUGGAGE —

When her friend is murdered, Brooklyn travel agent Cyd Redondo travels to Tanzania, where she faces down a cobra, steals a diplomatic bag, hijacks a Fed-Ex truck, repels an amorous leopard, crashes an eco-safari, and is forced to smuggle snakes in her bra, all to save her clients from an endangered animal smuggling ring.

— DROWNED UNDER —

When Brooklyn travel agent Cyd Redondo’s former in-laws go missing on an Australian cruise, she helicopters Down Under, only to stumble over a dead body and a desperate plot to save the world’s last Tasmanian tiger.

— FOGGED OFF —

When her client and Jack the Ripper expert Shep Helnikov is found dead in London, travel agent Cyd Redondo navigates the cutthroat worlds of research librarians, unemployed actors, rodent smugglers, embassy underlings, retired taxidermists and more to find his killer and avoid her own one-way ticket to the morgue.

— Cheap Trills —

After her mother secretly books an Eat, Pray, Love tour to Bali through a rival agency and winds up a murder suspect, travel agent Cyd Redondo battles snake removal experts, songbird smugglers, and thieving monkeys, commandeers a funicular railway, and infiltrates an underground Tupperware network, all while trying to keep three hungry, endangered Bali starling chicks alive in her purse.

 

PRAISE FOR CHEAP TRILLS

 
 

“Cheap Trills is strikingly original, brightly inventive, masterfully plotted and truly hilarious. To say this seasoned travel agent is a cynic would be an understatement. But she’s our kind of cynic: world-wise, sharp-witted, undeterred and with a heart that bleeds compassion. Equipped with her trusty Balenciaga purse, there’s no danger she can’t handle, no mystery she won’t tackle, no bloody wound she can’t patch up. Brilliant writing, engaging reading!”

— Stephen Mack Jones, author of the award-winning August Snow thrillers

 
 

“These books are wonderfully outrageous, consistently surprising, and totally hilarious—instant escape, instant entertainment, and diabolically clever. I would follow the fab Cyd Redondo anywhere.”

— Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author

The Front & Back Cover of CHEAP TRILLS by Wendall Thomas

 
 

“Cheap Trills has led me to conclude that author Wendall Thomas is somewhat of a magician, somehow imbuing the very serious subject of exotic bird poaching with humor, intrigue, exoticism and romance. The mystic island of Bali comes alive in this lively, intricately researched, and thoroughly entertaining mystery, which I could not put down. Standing ovation for author Wendall Thomas and Cheap Trills, you’ve crafted another sure-fire winner!”

- Baron R Birtcher, LA Times best-seller and award-winning author of Reckoning and Fistful Of Rain

 
 

“Prepare for takeoff! Cheap Trills is a riotous island romp with everyone’s favorite travel agent, Cyd Redondo. Once her trademark red Balenciaga bag comes out—it’s on! Thomas has created a sidesplittingly hilarious heroine without rival. Cheap Trills is a non-stop laugh adventure.”

- James L’Etoile, award -winning author of Dead Drop and the Detective Emily Hunter series

PRAISE FOR Fogged Off

 
 

“The setting is the cobbled streets and shadowed alleys of old London Town, but the story is Wendall Thomas's trademark three ring-circus, with the redoubtable Cyd Redondo as ringmaster, high-wire walker, and - of course - animal wrangler. What a joy it is to follow the increasingly bonkers plot knowing that every last madcap thread is guaranteed to come together in the end. Fogged Off is what the world needs right now.” 

- Catriona McPherson, multi-award-winning author of the Last Ditch Motel series

 
 

“Brilliant, hilarious, and surprising from start to finish,  Wendall Thomas’s new Cyd Redondo mystery is a screwball delight. London is as much a character as all the other eccentric loons who populate Fogged Off. The banter is snappy and laugh out loud funny. The mystery is gloriously twisty and constantly kept me guessing from the first page to the last.  If Preston Sturges and Janet Evanovich had a baby, she would be Cyd Redondo.”

– Haris Orkin, award-winning author of You Only Live Once.

 
 

“You will laugh from the very first page. I love every single book in this series. Don’t miss any of them.”

- New York Times best-selling author Paige Shelton

The Front & Back Cover of FOGGED OFF by Wendall Thomas

The Front & Back Cover of FOGGED OFF by Wendall Thomas

 
 

 “Cyd’s Balenciaga bag deserves to become as legendary as Sherlock Holmes’s deerstalker and magnifying glass.”

- James W. Ziskin, Anthony, Barry, and Macavity Award-winning author of the Ellie Stone mysteries

 
 

“One time in a restaurant I watched the guy alone at the next table physically shake from laughter through his whole meal, and I knew I wanted whatever he was having.  Turned out to be Lost Luggage, so I went and bought a copy that day. Three of these madcap mysteries in, I will ride with Cyd Redondo wherever Wendall Thomas takes her.  But never while I’m eating soup.”

- Howard Michael Gould, Shamus Award-nominated author of the Charlie Waldo novels

PRAISE FOR LOST LUGGAGE

 
 

“Thomas makes a rollicking debut with this comic mystery featuring an unconventional protagonist who proves to have the skills of MacGyver. With its sexy overtones, this fun, character-driven novel will appeal to Janet ­Evanovich fans.”

- LIBRARY JOURNAL (starred review)

 
 

“Has my vote for one of the best new characters in mystery/crime.”

- Kathy Boone Reel The Reading Room

The Back Cover of LOST LUGGAGE by Wendall Thomas

The Back Cover of LOST LUGGAGE by Wendall Thomas

 
 

One of  Kittling Books’  Best Reads of 2018:  “Thank heavens! I've been waiting for years to find a successor to Janet Evanovich, and I've finally found one.”

- Cathy G. Cole for Kittling Books

 
 

“Ms. Thomas has an absolutely lunatic talent for plot and one of the funniest first-person voices I've read in years … what kept coming to my mind as I read this were comedy films from the 30s -- for me, the golden age of American film humor.”

- Timothy Hallinan,
Lefty winner and Edgar and Macavity Award nominated author of the Junior Bender and Poke Rafferty novels

 PRAISE FOR DROWNED UNDER

 
 

“The passenger list in Wendall Thomas’s Drowned Under is a cavalcade of randy former nuns, gigolos, stowaways, near-extinct marsupials...and one brilliantly sexy disaster of a globetrotting travel agent named Cyd Redondo. Thanks to her wildly creative mind, the fruits of which produce frequent affronts to her dignity, Cyd is easily one of my favorite amateur sleuths in fiction today. Thomas’s writing flows effortlessly, and her plotting is complex but perfectly tied together. This is a remarkable novel in what is shaping up to be an exciting and hilarious series. Don’t miss Drowned Under or its predecessor, Lost Luggage. You’ll love Cyd, perhaps the funniest heroine out there. Highest recommendation.”

                 - James W. Ziskin, Anthony, Barry, and Macavity Award-winning author of the Ellie Stone mysteries

 
 

“Bravo. Cyd Redondo, Redondo Travel, is at it again. What a wonderful sequel to Lost Luggage. With her clever mind, tart comebacks, and Balenciaga tote bag, Cyd is a fearsome force. I love her pluck, the way she digs her way out of trouble, and her willingness to do everything  she can—even die—for her clientele. What a heroine for the modern age. Do not miss this!”

          - Daryl Wood Gerber, Agatha award-winning national bestselling author of the Cookbook Nook and French Bistro Mysteries.

 
 

“Drowned Under is laugh out loud funny. With its finely tuned timing and zany, emotional protagonist, this novel puts Thomas in a class with Carl Hiassen and Janet Evanovitch.”

          - Nancy Tingley, Lefty nominated author of the Jenna Murphy mysteries

 
 
 
 
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Short Fiction

 
 
 

— Ladies night —

“The stories range across all sorts of genres and styles of crime-writing. Some examine the dark side of the Hollywood dream. . . Wendall Thomas goes the other way with a sly deadpan take on her character's less-than-successful life-style in 'Loser Friend' - and don't we just cheer as our girl turns the tables!” - Screenwriter Elisabeth Fies

— Last Resort —

“If Michael Connelly introduces a book, you know it has to be worth a look. This time he focuses on a journey through Los Angeles, its dark alleys and places tourists never go. . . 'Eggs Over Dead' by Wendall Thomas shows us that waitressing might be a dead end job when you came to L.A. to be a writer, especially when your one break turns sour, but sometimes when the meal’s finished, the just desserts can be delicious.” - Author Gayle Bartos-Pool

— MURDER-A-GO-GOS —

“The writers tapped for MURDER A GO-GO'S bring distinctive needles to that vein. . . Wendall Thomas's 'Forget That Day' is a wonderful window into a world we rarely see — that of the actors and actresses on the fringe of Hollywood who do whatever they have to, to hang on to what little they have.” - Journalist and Editor Jim Thomsen

— CRIME UNDER THE SUN —

“It may be a cliché to say an anthology has something for all readers, but CRIME UNDER THE SUN delivers in full. From cozy and quirky to gimlet-eyed and hard boiled and with more than a couple of sides of tense and chilling. Story to story, I was delighted, thrilled, amused, and amazed.” - Author Art Taylor