Libraries Hope Their New Poster Will Say Volumes

Elizabeth George of Huntington Beach is the Orange County Public Library’s new poster girl.

The former El Toro High School English teacher, whose first British detective novel (“A Great Deliverance”) was published in 1988, is pictured standing in a veddy British-looking staircase with an arched, beveled-glass window behind her. (Actually, it’s the San Juan Capistrano home of Bob Lawrence, vice president of sales for Toshiba’s disk products division.)

The annual poster is designed to celebrate the Orange County Public Library as “My Kind of Place.”

George, who is shown holding a copy of her most recent novel, “Well Schooled in Murder,” is quoted as saying: “I first entered a library when I was seven years old. Inside I found the world.”

The poster will be released Monday in conjunction with National Library Week. It will be available, for free, at all 27 Orange County branch libraries.

George, who has earned international acclaim for her novels, joins past poster subjects T. Jefferson Parker, Donald Stanwood, Maxine O’Callaghan, Joseph Wambaugh and Ray Bradbury (the only non-Orange County author so honored).

“I’ve always wanted to be on a poster--a pinup,” George conceded with a laugh, adding: “I feel very complimented to be asked to join such distinguished company.”

George’s fourth British mystery novel, “A Suitable Vengeance,” is due out in June. Set in Cornwall, England, it concerns detective inspector Thomas Lynley’s investigation into the death of a journalist.

George, who teaches an advanced writing class at Coastline Community College, traveled to Sweden and France in January to publicize two of her novels. (Her books are published in 13 foreign languages.) She also made a side trip to Lancashire, England, to research a new novel, “Missing Joseph.”

More recently, she returned from Upstate New York where she participated in two mystery weekends at the Victorian-era Mohonk Mountain House. She not only was the main speaker both weekends, she said, but she played one of the characters in the mystery.

“I was one of the suspects, a vamp; it was wonderful,” she said. “It was fun because I was decked out in gold lame and sequins.”

Typical writer’s garb, she added with a laugh.