Holly Price first appeared in So About the Money and one of the best ways to learn about a person is by asking questions, so let’s get to know Holly.

What is your full name?
Hi, I’m Holly Price.

How old are you?
Thirty

What is your profession?
The easy answer is I’m a CPA, a certified public accountant. Until about a day ago, I was a specialist handling corporate mergers and other transactions. That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? For a lot of reasons, I’m thinking about quitting that job and moving back to my hometown to run a local accounting practice.

Do you have a significant other?
I think I do {grin}. My author kept breaking us up and getting us back together, but I hope we’ve all worked that mess out.

What is their name and profession?
He’s JC Dimitrak, a detective with the Franklin County sheriff’s department.

Do you have any children?
No yet. Someday.

Do you have any siblings?
I have a half-sister named Keri Isles who I hear is getting her own series!

Are your parents nearby?
My parents’ divorce brought me back to Richland, Washington earlier this year. (That was a classic mid-life crisis brain-fart by my dad!) My mom’s still in town and worked with me while I ran the family’s accounting practice, which is actually a good thing. My dad and his new. . .what should I call her? I’ll be polite and call her his new friend. Anyway, they were living in Sedona communing with a shaman, but now they’re headed to California. Unfortunately, I’m currently back with my transaction company and you got it, working in LA. My dad has this weird idea that we should all be one new, big, happy family. Let’s just say, I have my doubts.

Who is your best friend?
Laurie Gordon has been my best friend since high school. She keeps saying she isn’t Yoda and doesn’t know everything, but she’s pretty good at figuring out my relationship messes.

Do you have any pets?
Once I get settled in, I think a dog would be a wonderful pet. Since I work corporate transactions, I travel a lot and don’t think it would be fair to the animal to be left alone so much.

What town do you live in? Do you live in a small town or a big city?
After eight years based out of Seattle, I temporarily moved back to Richland, in eastern Washington state. Seattle is a big city and has both the advantages and problems of one. Great restaurants, clubs, theater, and live music, but traffic and hideously expensive houses are real problems. Richland is one of three small cities clustered where the Columbia, Snake and Yakima rivers join. Large enough to be interesting, but definitely still a small town.

Type of dwelling and do you own or rent?
I had, hmm, still have? a townhouse in Seattle. I rented it out when I took a leave of absence to help my mom after my parents split up. In Richland, I bought what everybody, including me, calls the ugly little house. I’ve been fixing it up, which has actually been a lot of fun.

What is your favorite spot in your home?
My favorite spot in my house is sitting at the counter in the kitchen. (I retiled it myself, thank you very much!) I can look out the window and see for miles over the Columbia River, all the way to the Blue Mountains. It’s lovely.

Favorite meal and dessert?
One of the things I love about all the travel at my transaction job is trying new restaurants and new foods, so I’m not sure I have a favorite. . . Oh, the fried plantains with mango salsa (a small restaurant near my Seattle townhouse makes it) are delicious! Desert? Anything with dark chocolate.

Do you have any hobbies?
I’ve discovered I really like fixing up my house. Sometimes it’s big projects like redoing the kitchen, where I have to hire people to help. I recently installed a Ring doorbell (the old one made this annoying-as-all-get-out buzzy-britz sound) and yes, it actually works!

What is your favorite vacation spot?
I dream about having the time to go to a tropical island and relax. I took my mother to Vancouver, Canada for Christmas this year, which turned out to be a lot of fun.

What music do you listen to?
I love all kinds of music. Okay, full honesty, I’m not fond of rap. Dancing around to upbeat music makes me happy and jazz or classical helps me focus.

Do you have a favorite book?
Since I have to read so much technical stuff at work, I like genre fiction for escape. Mysteries are my favorites.

What is your idea of a really fun time?
Getting together with friends at one of the local wineries in eastern Washington. There are so many terrific ones and a lot of them have good food and live music. Always fun to do that.

If you were to write a memoir, what would you call it?
Hmm. I can’t see me writing a book, but if someone else wrote my biography, I hope they wouldn’t call it, ** She Worked Too Much **.

Amateur or professional sleuth and whom do you work with?
My family and friends seem to drag me into all kinds of messes. I’m definitely an amateur when it comes to murder investigations. Now, financial investigations, that’s what I do professionally. I once told JC that in a lot of ways, the two are very similar: ask a lot of questions and write up reports. For some reason, he was not amused.

Who do I work with on figuring out what’s going on? JC’s stock answer seems to be “stay out of my investigation,” so he’s no help. Instead, friends and clients have given me leads. Even Frank, my old stalker, turned around and helped me during In It For The Money. That’s the book right before this one.

In a few sentences, what is a typical day in your life like?
Whew, it used to be twelve-hour work days, plowing through due diligence on a transaction, collapse, and do it again the next day. I explained it to a staff person like this:

“I know you used to work for a transaction group,” Sammy said. “What does ‘due diligence’ mean?”

She considered how to answer in guy terms. “Before you bought a used car, you’d want to know it ran, right?”

Sammy gave her a look that said, Well, duh.

“So, you’d check for Bondo, rust. Get a Carfax report to see if it’d been wrecked or trashed by a flood. Maybe have a mechanic run tests.”

“Got the picture.”

“Buying a ‘used’ company is the same thing. Is the asset labeled ‘building’ an office tower in Pasadena or a burnt-out shell in Watts? Are there liabilities hidden somewhere that are going to come back and bite you?”

It was challenging and interesting. Now, I do similar work, helping clients figure out how to approach financial questions. And I review a lot of staff projects. But no more twelve-hour days. Unless I end up in the middle of another murder mystery.

Giveaway: Leave a comment below for your chance to win an e-book from one of the books in the “Holly Price” series (So About the Money, Double Down, Malbec Mayhem, or In It For the Money). The giveaway ends June 23, 2020. Good luck everyone!

Calling For The Money is the fifth book in the “Holly Price” traditional mystery series, coming June 25, 2020.

Holly Price has it all—or does she?

Holly worked her way to the top of her field. Now she has the job, the money, the whole package. Behind the scenes, however, she’s wresting with a crushing workload, a backstabbing boss, a ruthless reporter, and the devastating worry she’s made a massive life choice mistake.

Then a friend goes missing and a ruthless gang is . . . calling for the money.

Holly must confront her past, and define her future, if she wants to save both of them.

Purchase Link
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About the author
An award-winning author of financial mysteries, Cathy Perkins writes twisting dark suspense and light amateur sleuth stories. When not writing, she battles with the beavers over the pond height or heads out on another travel adventure. She lives in Washington with her husband, children, several dogs and the resident deer herd. Visit her website at cperkinswrites.com.

All comments are welcomed.