Patricia "P.J." Lambrecht, co-author with daughter Traci of seven bestselling thrillers featuring the St. Paul Monkeewrench gang, died yesterday, the Pioneer Press reported. She was 70. The Monkeewrench series, which they wrote under the pen name P.J. Tracy, "features a colorful group of computer geniuses who work in an old mansion on Summit Avenue." Their most recent book was The Sixth Idea, published in August.
Early in her career, Lambrecht wrote romance novels under the pen name Melinda Cross, publishing 11 for the Harlequin Presents line. The Pioneer Press noted that the Lambrechts teamed up on their first thriller, Monkeewrench, in 2003 "as a stand-alone, never thinking it would become a series. So they were surprised at the attention they got."
Traci Lambrecht said a poignant surprise "was learning, the day her mother died, that their United Kingdom publisher will bring out a novelization of a Christmas story the partners have been working on for 23 years," the Pioneer Press wrote.
"This was our baby together, the piece of work closest to our hearts, about two elderly sisters living in an asylum who go looking for the Baby Jesus in Las Vegas," Lambrecht said. "P.J. was unconscious, but I told her about it and I think she heard it somewhere in there."