![\"Author](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/mch-l-books-0707-02.jpg\")
Author Fiona Mackenzie (Courtesy photo)<\/p>\nAs the storyline goes, billionaire Conrad Worthington, following a mysterious car accident, has been rendered unconscious and clinging to life in the ICU, just days before the scheduled reading of his revised will.<\/p>\n
Imagine \u2014 and we can since the protagonist is from Pebble Beach, and Fiona Mackenzie, author of this recently released murder mystery-suspense thriller, grew up in Carmel. Apparently Worthington\u2019s loved ones \u2014 which may be a stretch \u2013 -are more concerned with the state of his will than the status of the patient.<\/p>\n
Things become more contentious when the \u201canxious family\u201d learns that Worthington had made plans to leave the majority of his estate to his eldest daughter, Darcy, leaving other family members to question their worth \u2014 and his.<\/p>\n
Author Fiona Mackenzie (Courtesy photo)<\/p>\n
To complicate or, perhaps, clarify matters, Worthington suddenly \u201cdisappears\u201d from his hospital bed, which may or may not be a euphemism for \u201cdead.\u201d This development forces Darcy to abandon the sophisticated city life that suits her in New York and return to the (stereo)typically safe-by-the-sea setting of her seemingly idyllic childhood in Carmel, to sort things out.<\/p>\n
Enter the unrequited love affair whose demise may have prompted that escape to the Big Apple, which seems to have been left smoldering and just might reignite.<\/p>\n
Now, we\u2019ve got the makings of a movie which, Mackenzie reveals, has caught some early interest among those who have the wherewithal to make it happen. But we\u2019re getting ahead of ourselves. First, we have to find out what the heck happened to Conrad Worthington, whose name alone is like a target on his back. Then we can turn our attention to the romance and imagine what will get in the way of that, until it doesn\u2019t. If Hallmark picks it up, it will end with a kiss. If Netflix gets involved, it could be disastrous.<\/p>\n
The title of the thriller, \u201cMurder in Pebble Beach\u2014Mystery in The Club, Book One,\u201d gives us a bit of foreshadowing and the promise of more to come. And the prologue, penned by actress Katherine Kelly Lang, who lives in Carmel, further ignites intrigue.<\/p>\n
Citizens of the world<\/p>\n
Mackenzie\u2019s family ended up in Carmel through the narrative of a love story. Her parents, both from Scotland \u2014 hence her name \u2014 met on an arranged date in San Francisco and, six weeks later, were married in Carmel. Perhaps the premise for another book their daughter may one day write.<\/p>\n
But, before they could settle by the sea, they moved to Hong Kong, where Fiona was born, and her father opened the first Mandarin Hotel.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was 5 or maybe 6 when we moved back to the Peninsula,\u201d Mackenzie said, \u201cwhere my father ran a hotel in Monterey and then on to Atherton, and then Canada, followed by Texas. Finally, when I was going into sixth grade, we came back to Carmel where my dad, Graeme Stuart Mackenzie, owned Sandpiper Inn on Carmel Point for 25 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sandpiper Inn was used in filming the 1965 film, \u201cThe Sandpiper,\u201d starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, who had met on the set of \u201cCleopatra\u201d in 1962 and married in 1964 \u2014 the first time. The Inn, originally called \u201cHoliday Inn,\u201d underwent a name change to avoid confusion with the hotel chain that was developing its presence in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
Mackenzie flipped the tassel on her mortarboard at Carmel High and headed to Cal Berkeley, where she studied political science, paired with a lot of English graduate classes. One of Mackenzie\u2019s truest inspirations remains her high school English teacher, the late Frederick \u201cBuzz\u201d Rainer, who taught English and coached sports for the Padres for 33 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember Buzz was so passionate about the English language and literature, introducing us to \u2018Beowulf\u2019 and Chaucer,\u201d she said, \u201cand both encouraging me and embarrassing me by reading my papers aloud.\u201d<\/p>\n
After commencing from Cal, Mackenzie went to graduate school at Georgetown, where she was studying foreign service. During her last year, as she began to rethink her interest in foreign service work, one of her professors commented on her natural ability for writing and suggested she consider a career in journalism.<\/p>\n
\u201cA light went off in my head. I fired off a resume to British Vogue,\u201d she said, \u201cand was hired to write features. Poorly paid, I began lobbying to be sent to Paris. After getting my foot in the door at CNN and 60 Minutes, I got the Paris assignment and started working for news production companies.\u201d<\/p>\n
As her French improved, Mackenzie garnered a job offer to work on a new television show, \u201cHighlander,\u201d in English but set in Paris. Once the show wrapped, she was hired as an entertainment correspondent in New York. She now lives in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
Bottom line: This author can craft a story. Mackenzie, who spent a lot of time on the golf course with her dad, let her characters percolate a little while she considered the setting for her book, in this coastal community she still calls home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually wrote the pilot for the movie version of this story before I wrote the book,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a big glossy story, so once I was told it would make a great book, I turned my attention to that. Book #2 is coming along, and I\u2019m now pitching it as a series.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lingering question: \u201cIs Conrad Worthington alive?\u201d Fiona Mackenzie says we\u2019ll just have to read the book, which is available in local bookstores and via Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the storyline goes, billionaire Conrad Worthington, following a mysterious car accident, has been rendered unconscious and clinging…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,276,34276,171,15176,2295,18932,1072,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-43970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-carmel","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-monterey-county","13":"tag-newsletter","14":"tag-pebble-beach","15":"tag-things-to-do","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114807637944330674","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}