For the past two decades, private investigator Leigh Hearon always hoped to sit down and write a great American mystery.

But real crimes kept getting in the way.

Finally, in April, Hearon achieved her goal, and “Reining In Murder,” the first book in her planned Carson Stables series, was published.

The paperback is available now through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and several area independent bookstores, including Eagle Harbor Book Company. The next mystery in the series, “Saddle Up For Murder,” will be published in November.

Heron will visit Eagle Harbor Books at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 22 to sign copies and discuss the challenges of writing a book in the midst of a nonstop nonfiction sleuthing career.

“To many people’s surprise, my protagonist is not a hard-boiled female detective,” Hearon said. “That genre is done very well by writers such as Sue Grafton, Laura Lippman and Sara Paretsky, to name a few. So, I decided to create my lead character around my second love, after investigation, horses.”

Hearon’s protagonist Annie Carson is a feisty horse trainer on the Olympic Peninsula who rescues a thoroughbred from a freak roadside accident in which the driver is killed. A few days later, she delivers the horse to its owner and stumbles upon another dead body. Carson is determined to find the killer, much to the dismay of local law enforcement.

During her more than two decades as a private investigator, Hearon has worked on several high profile cases that have appeared on “Forensic Files,” “In the Dead of the Night,” “48 Hours,” “Unsolved Mysteries,” “City Confidential,” “Court TV” and “America’s Most Wanted.” She confessed that bits and pieces of these cases may have found their way into both characters and plot.

“I’ve interviewed a lot of the disreputable characters throughout the years,” Hearon said. “And I’ve worked on almost every crime that exists — murder, arson, theft — you name it. Being in the thick of criminal investigations has given me a lot of ideas.”

Visit www.eagleharborbooks.com to learn more about this and other upcoming author events at the downtown Winslow book shop.