Hey! I’m Tory Benning, a landscape architect based in Santa Sofia, California, a small coastal town about twelve miles north of Santa Barbara. I grew up here and have lived in Santa Sofia most of my life, except when I went to college and grad school at USC in Los Angeles. Since earning my Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) eight years ago, I’ve worked at my family owned landscape design firm, named Benning Brothers after my father John and my Uncle Bob. People often look puzzled, and by people, I mean guys I’ve met when I was single and trying to mingle, when I told them I’m a landscape architect. They think maybe I’m a gardener, or a nursery worker. Benning Brothers does happen to own a nursery division, but that is the exception rather than the rule. Most landscape architecture firms are pretty much like architecture firms, with offices and studio spaces where we design outdoor hardscape and gardens. Our most typical work and most lucrative jobs are large scale commercial and civic projects. Three years ago, I finished the renovation of the twenty-five-acre grounds of the Hotel Santa Sofia, a luxurious resort overlooking the Pacific Ocean, which included a Hidden Garden and a Secret Maze. We also have done malls, restaurants, and civic complexes like the Santa Sofia Civic Center. But our work is not limited to Santa Sofia, we submit bids for work all over California and beyond.

Just a few months ago, I was living my best life. In the process of submitting a bid for the new Hotel Santa Sofia Properties condo project up the coast I’d met a rising-star architect from Chandler Architects International, the prime architecture firm who’d invited Benning Brothers to be the subordinate consultant on the proposal. His name was Milo Spinelli and we hit it off immediately. He was funny and smart and super good-looking. Plus, he had a British accent that made me swoon. And best of all, my picky little Pomeranian, Iris, adored him. We were inseparable from our first date on. It was a whirlwind romance but, in my heart, I knew he was the one. So, when he proposed after only four months, I said yes.

Ever since I met Milo my days were spent working hard. We got up early, sometimes stopping by a Starbucks on the Promenade if we had time, sometimes meeting for lunch at Sadie’s Seafood on the pier if our busy schedules permitted it. We’d work late but knowing we’d catch dinner together afterwards made time fly by. On the weekends we played hard too. We went hiking in the nearby mountains or biking on local trails. We went wine tasting in the Santa Inez valley. We’d spend some weekends exploring nearby Santa Barbara and Montecito, having so much fun going to museums, the zoo, or just taking walks along the beach. We sometimes traveled south to Los Angeles to try some of the best new restaurants and go to concerts.

But then tragedy struck. My dear father, a fitness addict, accidentally fell off the Santa Sofia pier and drowned. I’d lost my mother to a car accident when I was eight. Now I was an orphan. Granted, a thirty-three-year-old orphan. But an orphan, nonetheless. Our wedding was only two weeks away and Milo insisted we carry on, as my father would have wanted. My ever-supportive Uncle Bob agreed to walk me down the aisle and we had a perfect wedding ceremony despite the flood of emotions we all were feeling from my father’s death. But I tried hard to compartmentalize my feelings of loss for the day. I felt comforted that Iris attended the ceremony and watched her mama tie the knot from her front row seat on my neighbor Katie’s lap. Afterwards, I remained in the gardens because our photographer wanted some extra photos of me while everyone else headed to the patio for cocktails before the reception. Milo texted me he was taking Iris home because she was acting up, my first feeling of dread. When I arrived outside the reception hall Milo wasn’t there. No one else had seen or heard from him. When my neighbor Katie came out of the reception hall with Iris my heart stopped. She’d never spoken to Milo about Iris, who’d been well-behaved, totally contradicting Milo’s text. And Milo still wasn’t responding to our repeated texts and calls.

The wedding planner urged me to make a decision about what to tell our guests. We had over a hundred people waiting with their champagne glasses poised to toast us. But just as the bubbly foam in their flutes disappeared into thin air, so had Milo.

Murder in the Secret Maze is the first book in the NEW “Tory Benning” cozy mystery series, released February 26, 2020.

Landscape architect Tory Benning knows the lay of the land, but she’ll have to dig through the clues to unearth a killer . . .

After a whirlwind romance and a glorious wedding at the luxurious Hotel Santa Sofia, Tory Benning is ready to let down her hair, slip into her dancing shoes, and celebrate—until she discovers that her newly minted husband has vanished. The police suspect cold feet and second thoughts are behind Milo’s disappearance, but Tory’s certain he’s met with foul play. And since she designed the plush resort, she knows every nook and cranny of the grounds and adjoining secret maze, and wastes no time delving into her search.

As clues begin to emerge that Milo may have taken his last breath in the maze, Tory steps up her sleuthing, even as she learns she’s the prime suspect of a cop with a chip on his shoulder and is squarely in the sights of a menacing stalker. And when a second body is found on the grounds, Tory fears she’s up against a killer determined to silence any and all who get in the way.

Not to be deterred, Tory forges ahead, navigating a case with more twists and turns than the maze itself, until the labyrinth of clues leads her to shocking revelations about her husband, her family, and the identity of a killer who’s dead set on making her the next victim . . .

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Meet the author
Judith Gonda is a mystery writer and Ph.D. psychologist with a penchant for Pomeranians and puns, so it’s not surprising that psychology, Poms, and puns pop up in her amateur sleuth mysteries featuring landscape architect Tory Benning.

To learn more about Judith, visit her website at judithgonda.com.

All comments are welcomed.