Newspaper Articles from 1993

Murder most foul, murder most intriguing, and best of all murder that’s Made in Montana.

Prowell has created a memorable female detective, Phoebe Siegel, who is touch on the outside but fill of fragile fellings, in her first published work, “By Evil Means.”

Along with Phoebe, Prowell introduces the Siegel family, some of them lovely, some of them lousy, and most of them, like most of us, bouncing back and forth between the extremes of behavior.

Phoebe is a private investigator in Billings. But she refuses to work in March, a month that hasn’t been kind to her.

As the book opens, it’s the end of February and Phoebe is getting ready to close up shop for a month. A desperate woman comes into her office and despite Phoebe’s attempts -first polite, then increasingly assertive – to send her on her way, the woman persists and presents Phoebe with the one case in the world that she can’t turn down, even with the evil Ides of March looming over her.

The opening to “By Evil Means” is one of the most tightly-written and gripping to start a mystery in a long time. By the end of the first few chapters readers have a handful of clues that will come full circle and aid in solving the mystery by the end of the book.

The story centers around a fictional private rehab center located near Billings, called Whispering Pines. There are whispers of unsavory activities going on, and as she investigates, Phoebe Siegel finds her private life is becoming increasingly entangled with the people at that facility.

Prowell said that after her children grew up and started families of their own, she crossed the line from being an avid reader to becoming a writer.

She followed the rule of writing what you like to read.

Prowell said she is a fourth-generation Montanan, with ancestors who homesteaded in the territory two weeks before Custer’s last stand, and has inherited a story-telling tradition, which, she said, is the “richest tradition we have out here.”

When she finally received the galleys of her book, Prowell said, she was able to read it for fun. But before that, when she was trying to whip the novel into shape, she said, she was sometimes in tears, convinced it was the most boring book in the world, and asking herself way she wasn’t doing something real, like going to beauty school.

She also thought, she said, that living in Montana, she was too isolated to do something like this. Now, the thought that “real people” are out there reading her book is a little frightening, she said.

Prowell is a co-founder of the Montana Authors Coalition, is state liaison for the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, and belongs to Sisters-in-Crime.