John J. Lamb

John J. Lamb brought experience as a Southern California police officer to a second career writing mysteries. The Mournful Teddy opens his Bear Collector's Mystery series and introduces retired San Francisco investigator Brad Lyon and his wife, Ashleigh, in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Their work making and collecting teddy bears becomes the setting for an inquiry surrounding a valuable commemorative bear. Berkley's 2006 edition began a sequence continued by The False-Hearted Teddy, The Crafty Teddy, The Clockwork Teddy, and The Treacherous Teddy. Lamb also wrote Echoes of the Lost Order and edited the nonfiction collection San Diego Specters. His former public-service career informs Brad Lyon’s investigative perspective, while the craft setting gives the series its distinctive identity. The Mournful Teddy is therefore both the entry point to a five-book sequence and the clearest example of how Lamb joined procedural knowledge to the conventions of a collector-centered cozy mystery.