News & Views

Step Inside Rita’s World:
News & Views with author Valerie Webster

 

Welcome to the blog of crime fiction author Valerie Webster

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Valerie Webster of Boulder, Colo. draws readers into the shadowy worlds of crime and crime fighters by using her 30+ year career in cyber and real-life security.

The result is riveting fiction based on real cases and policing applications with the main character Rita Mars–an ex-investigative reporter fighting crime around Washington D.C.’s beltway and beyond.

Webster’s debut novel Driven: A Rita Mars Thriller received critical accolades from readers.

Her second book in the crime fiction series is Objects of Desire.

Webster is a member of Mystery Writers of America and the national and Colorado chapters of Sisters in Crime.

Purchase The Rita Mars Thriller Series Here

Read More on the Blog

The Mysterious Stranger

The Mysterious Stranger

Feb 19, 2026 | ,

Book 3 of The Rita Mars Thrillers, The Book of Revelation is soon to be released into the wild.  It is a tale not told by an idiot, I hope, but it for sure sizzles with a preacher stealing a child, a young mother locked in combat with her father, and a stranger obsessed with Rita. 

Prewriting Rituals

Prewriting Rituals

Jan 23, 2026 |

Writing is like every sport.  While you may not think of it as such, you are competing with not only the writers who skated to publication with shiny advances, but all the writers who are out there seeking sale and celebrity just like you.  And it’s crowded out here...

Christmas 2025

Christmas 2025

Dec 22, 2025 |

Christmas.  As an author, I’m thinking I should be promoting the heck out of my books.  I did that but then I thought beyond my purely monetary desires.  I considered this year’s marking of the birth that was to bring us hope.  Our hope has suffered severe challenges of late and while we go through the motions buying gifts and decking the halls, we feel uncertain.

The Book of Revelation

Sep 26, 2025 | ,

I’ve been hard at work on a new Rita Mars Thriller. It’s called The Book of Revelation. When people hear that title, they immediately think of the apocalypse or the end of the world. Or destruction or death. But “apocalyptic” really doesn’t mean end of the world, or...

Write Club Episode 7 – Robert J. Bonney

Jul 28, 2025 | ,

Rob Bonney is a novelist, poet, and climate activist. His first novel, Hide, is the story of a boy with an audacious plan to save himself. Suspenseful, philosophical and comic, Hide always returns to Seb’s questions: How have we become so lost, so detached from...

Write Club Episode 6: Diane Gansauer

Jul 16, 2025 | ,

Valerie Webster talks with Diane Gansauer, the author of The Waypoints: From 400 Farewells and 3000 Miles. At the age of sixty-one, Diane Gansauer committed to something great: hiking the entire length of the Continental Divide Trail, from Mexico to Canada. Over a...

Write Club Episode 5: Dr. Terry Chase

Jul 16, 2025 | ,

Valerie Webster interviews Dr. Terry Chase. Terry Chase is a nationally recognized speaker, teacher and author spanning careers in healthcare, higher education, and private practice. As a leader in nursing and healthcare, she has contributed value to educational...

Write Club Episode 4: William A. Liggett

Jul 16, 2025 | ,

Valerie Webster interviews cli-fi author William A. Liggett. Bill Liggett writes fiction that blends behavioral and earth sciences in the new literary genre “cli-fi,” or climate fiction. His goal is to paint a hopeful future, based on solutions to global warming....

Write Club Episode 2: Stephen Saletan

Jul 16, 2025 | ,

Stephen Saletan is the author of the memoir, "To The Midnight Sun" an inspiring story of family, history, and the search for connections across place and time that help make us who we are. https://youtu.be/pQ-M_449CcM?si=qigbc3I201PAj4NF