Annelise Ryan

Annelise Ryan is the mystery-writing identity of Wisconsin emergency nurse Beth Amos. Stiff Competition is the seventh Mattie Winston mystery, published by Kensington in 2016. The series follows Mattie from nursing into medicolegal investigation in the fictional town of Sorenson, Wisconsin, mixing forensic detail with humor and an amateur-sleuth structure. In this installment, the discovery of a local property developer in the woods intersects with the disappearance of Detective Hurley’s daughter, forcing Mattie to balance two urgent searches. Ryan’s medical background supports the procedural texture that runs through the sequence. Under the same name she later created the Helping Hands and Monster Hunter mysteries, while she has also published as Allyson K. Abbott and under her own name. Stiff Competition sits at the center of the twelve-book Mattie Winston run, after Stiff Penalty and before Dead in the Water, extending the professional and personal continuity of the series.