Over the years, a few of my friends' parents have become friends in their own right. One is Mariann Tadmor, mother of Karen. A one-woman U.N., Mariann had a Danish mother and a Swedish father, and she married an Israeli diplomat. She speaks five languages and has lived in nine countries and visited many others.
Though I've known Mariann for nearly a quarter-century, I'm still learning about her. Like several others, she worried that I'd be bored when I took "early retirement." She passed along a stream of videos, including every episode of "Upstairs, Downstairs," casually mentioning at one point that she'd worked as an au pair for one of the actresses. In later years, a country declared her persona non grata (for whistle-blowing) and she was stoned by indigenous South Americans (I still don't have the full story on that), among other exploits.
Always encouraging the pursuits of others, Mariann tends to have several pots simmering on her own stove at any given time. She has one of the most inquisitive minds I've known, so I wasn't unduly surprised when, years ago, she started referring to "my novel." For most people that would be an aspiration, but for her it was another adventure to experience.
Murder at Machu Picchu turned out to be the first in a series that currently numbers four, all carried by Amazon. (No. 3, Murder in San Francisco, was dedicated to me, a great honor.) All feature an intrepid P.I. named Jamie Prescott, but the settings are as diverse as Mariann's own, allowing readers to play armchair (or wheelchair) detective and traveler simultaneously. The latest takes you to New Orleans in August 2005. Rowboat not included.
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