The Friends of the Concord Free Public Library present
CFA Mystery Night 2025
moderated by
Kate Flora
Monday, October 27, 2025
6:00 PM
Concord Free Public Library, 129 Main Street
Kate Flora's fascination with people's criminal tendencies began in the Maine attorney general's office. Deadbeat dads, child abusers, and employment discrimination aroused her curiosity about human behavior. The author of twenty-four books spanning genres including crime fiction, true crime, memoir, nonfiction, and short stories, Flora's been a finalist for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Derringer awards and twice won the Maine Literary Award for crime fiction. She's a former international president of Sisters in Crime, and a founder of the New England Crime Bake and Maine Crime Wave mystery conferences. She blogs with the Maine Crime Writers.
When not conducting research for her novels and nonfiction, Kate can often be found in her garden, waging war against the woodchucks and her husband’s lawnmower. She divides her time between Maine and Massachusetts. The CFA Team thanks Kate for her many years leading Mystery Night!
CFA 2025 MYSTERY NIGHT PANELISTS
Nicole Asselin
For more info, visit www.nicoleasselinwriter.com
Nicole Asselin graduated from Curry College in Milton Mass with a degree in English/Creative Writing, minoring in Dance in 2004. She also attended George Mason University and received a Master’s in Arts Management.
She worked in the Government sector for over ten years before transitioning to Healthcare as a Technical Writer.
She lives on the South Shore of Massachusetts with her three cats Madeline, Fern, and Captain.
The Ballpark Mystery series is her first published work.
Richard Cass
Richard Cass is the author of the Elder Darrow jazz mystery books, an amateur sleuth series set in his native Boston. The first book, In Solo Time, won the 2018 Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. The fifth, Sweetie Bogan’s Sorrow, won the Nancy Pearl Librarians’ Prize for Genre Fiction. The seventh and last book in the series, Closing Time, was published in 2024. The Last Altruist, a Maine-based crime novel, is the prequel to his latest book, Hard as a Headstone, which will be published by Islandport Press in September 2026.
He holds a graduate degree in writing from the University of New Hampshire, where he studied with Thomas Willams, Jr., Charles Simic, and Joseph Monninger. His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Gray’s Sporting Journal, ZZYZVA, Tough, Shotgun Honey and Best Short Stores of the American West.
He lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine with his wife Anne.
kim herdman shapiro
