The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras »

J. Michael Orenduff's "Pot Thief" murder mystery series continues to garner prizes. The first book in the series, The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras, won the national Dark Oak Mystery Contest, and the Kindle version won the EPIC eBook Mystery of the Year for 2009.
The second book in the series,The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy, won the Best Fiction Book of the Year for 2010 from the Public Safety Writers Association. The third book, The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein will be out in the fall of 2010.
Mike grew up in El Paso and spent much of his youth traveling New Mexico with his father who sold cattle feed supplements and with his mother and sister who frequently vacationed and week-ended in New Mexico. Mike received his M.A. from the University of New Mexico and his doctorate from Tulane University, and he taught at universities in seven states and three countries before starting a writing career after taking early retirement (or, as his friends describe it, a midlife crisis).
His play, The Christmas Visitor, won the 2009 Jewel Box Playwriting Contest, and has also received recognition from the Solano Repertory Playwriting Contest in California, the McClaren Comedy Contest in Texas and was selected as one of the "Top 100" by Writers Digest. The play set in the fictional town of Quashcott, Maine, a state where Orenduff lived from 1987-1995, serving first as president of the University of Maine at Farmington and later as Chancellor of the University of Maine System. After Orenduff was run out of Maine by the faculty union, Newt Gingrich, in his book To Renew America, described him as "A hero to the American People."

When a shady character offers him $25,000 to steal a thousand-year-old pot from Albuquerque's Valle del Rio Museum, Hubert Schuze knows he should turn it down. His pot digging may be illegal, but it's a big step from that to robbery. But he figures it can't hurt just to visit the museum and assay his chances.
He figured wrong.
After deciding the museum is impregnable, he returns to his shop to find a BLM agent who accuses him of stealing the rare pot. Theft charges escalate to murder.
Hubert's powerful deductive skills and weak nerves are put to the test as he solves the crime and clears himself.