An Air Force brat who landed on the civilian faculty of the US Naval Academy, Molly Best Tinsley taught literature and creative writing before the publication of her first novel My Life with Darwin prompted her to head west and write full-time. With a prize-winning collection of stories, a pair of spy thrillers and a literary mystery behind her, she began tinkering with the pieces of A Modest Trumpet Fanfare, the novel she’d been preparing to write all along.