Mystery in the New Forest by Carol Cole

Carol was raised in a small village in the New Forest National Park in southern England. Her first pony, Buzz, started her life-long love affair with horses. This survived up-close and personal encounters with gorse bushes, bogs, peaty turf and the occasional solo walk home when she didn’t keep hold of the reins. It even survived marriage, motherhood and a diary-farming husband who neither liked nor trusted anything equine.
Following formal education and with an interest in forensics and police work, she applied to join Hampshire Constabulary. She was unsuccessful as she did not meet the minimum height requirement.
Seduced by the ‘other worlds’ she encountered, first in rhymes and poems, and then in fairy tales and books, she thinks her first story may have featured her dog and homework.
Throughout the farming years, Carol wrote short pieces for the farming press, and a series of articles for the RSPCA. Whilst a school governor, she submitted educational articles related to unusual school projects including the authentic reconstruction of an Iron Age hut.
Fiction followed, with the publication of short stories in magazines, both in the UK and Germany. The broadcast of a play by BBC Wiltshire Sounds and performances of other plays at literary festivals was followed by success in writing competitions.
Carol has always liked puzzles and logic, and this is probably the reason she turned to the genre of crime when she began writing novels. Her first novel was long listed in the Plaza Prizes crime category. She is a member of the Crime Writers' Association.
She lives in a rural community near the cathedral city of Salisbury with her husband and two rescued feral cats.