Charlotte Hinger is a Western Kansas historian. Deadly Descent was inspired by a childhood listening to the natural born liars in her small community of Lone Elm, Kansas, and the mesmerizing “rest of the stories” whispered behind closed doors when she edited over 500 family submissions for county history books. She has published a number of mystery short stories. Simon and Schuster published her historical novel, Come Spring, which won the Western Writers of America Medicine Pipe Award. Convinced that mystery writing and historical investigation go hand to hand, she applies her MA in history to academic articles and her depraved imagination to wicked little short stories.