Bill Stackhouse

Mystery Author and Playwright - Author of the Ed McAvoy Mystery Series and the Caitlin O'Rourke Mystery Series

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Born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in Detroit, Michigan, mystery writer, playwright, and part-time actor Bill Stackhouse has a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering from General Motors Institute in Flint, Michigan, and a Masters Degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. At Ford Motor Company and later, as Director of Quality Assurance & Training at a large automotive parts supplier, Bill became involved in the development of instructional manuals and training films. In the throes of a mid-life crisis, he decided to pursue the most enjoyable aspect of his job on a full-time basis―writing. Bill's scriptwriting credits include training films and promotional videos for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to name a few. He has also written numerous radio and TV commercials. Branching out from technical writing into the arts, four of Bill's seven stage plays (The Best Laid Plans, The Early Bird, To Serve and Protect, and A Tradition of Service) have won contests - a local, a statewide, a regional, and a national. In addition to playwriting, Bill has directed many productions for various community theatres. For a very brief time, he even had a theatre company of his own that toured six mid-size cities in Northern Alabama and Southern Tennessee. Bill and his wife live in North Alabama where he works as a scriptwriter for a multimedia production firm and continues to write mystery novels and stage plays.

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Download sample chapters of Ed McAvoy & Caitlin O'Rourke Mysteries, as well as perusal copies of stageplays.

The Ed McAvoy Mystery Series

Even with a left leg shattered by a drug dealer's bullet and a medical retirement from the Detroit Police Force, former homicide captain Ed McAvoy feels he’s too young to be put out to pasture. True, he thinks, being Police Chief of Peekamoose Heights, a quiet, sleepy little village in New York’s Catskills, will be a far cry from what he has been used to, but it still will be police work—his first love. Besides, McAvoy reasons, the chief's job will also afford him the opportunity to pursue his second love—trout fishing. With the slower pace in the Catskills, being Chief of Police in Peekamoose Heights will be sort of like running a country club, or so he thinks. After all, how much crime can there be? Some occasional petty theft, maybe a little vandalism, perhaps a few drunk-and-disorderly incidents? And every so often, he figures, someone might die—but, then, it probably will be an old person whose time has just run out, or a victim of an unfortunate accident. McAvoy soon discovers that his skills as a homicide detective will not atrophy from lack of use in Peekamoose Heights. Murder, as it turns out, is an equal-opportunity crime that not only resides in large bustling cities like Detroit, but in sleepy little Catskill villages like Peekamoose Heights as well.

The Caitlin O-Rourke Mystery Series

Caitlin (Kate) O’Rourke is not your typical Irish-American lass. At six-one and one-hundred-seventy-eight pounds, with dark skin, raven-black hair, and a nose like an eagle, the MVP setter/middle blocker on the Italian Pro Volleyball circuit is a has-been in her late 20s, prematurely retired due to a blown-out knee. She’s bitter, dejected, and not sure of what to do with the rest of her life. Money isn’t a consideration. A large salary plus product endorsements have left her quite well off. But Kate needs to do something—something meaningful. She’s been offered a coaching job at a women’s college in Fond du Lac, but Kate is unsure—both about wanting to coach and about wanting to subject herself to the Wisconsin winters. Kehough’s Irish Pub in Nashville, Tennessee, with its upstairs apartment, is home to Kate, and the pub itself provides employment for her brother Seamus and his wife Mary Grace. It also, indirectly, provides a solution to her search for something to do with her life.