WS Gager on Writing

Love is Murder is grand time!

2012-02-06T15:54:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I attended my second Love is Murder conference at the Intercontinental Hotel in Chicago. This was the perfect place to get my head back in writing and to met some truly terrific people. I also knocked off my to-do list the horrible task of getting a new author photo. I will be unveiling it soon. Stay tuned. Now back to LIM, I would like to give you my top 10 list of why you need to put the next Love is Murder conference on your must attend list.

10.   Always be personal in your marketing and put your contact info on your website. This includes an email address.

9.    Sue Peterson from Brain Snacks is a great person to sell your books. Thank you!

8.   My favorite quote: "Positive relationships are your best marking tools." --Karen Syed.

7.   I saw real photos of autopsies of suicides, gun shot wounds, drownings and other creepy things to help me describe the gore and add realism.

6.   The program had a forensic track that covered every aspect of crime and a few I'd never thought of. It also had a writing tract for those who wanted help with their writing.

5.   Real undercover stories from a New York City cop who was retired but didn't look old enough. I've never seen so many cops get off a bus and will never look at a parquet floor in quite the same way.

4.   Hank Phillippi Ryan, Julie Hyzy and Julie James are three very different, but classy woman who write great books and received some well deserved recognition. They also were very entertaining and shared some secrets as well as embarrassing moments.

3.   I laughed so much and enjoyed Donald Bain's take on ghostwriting and his Cabot Cove jokes. His list of books numbers three digits with many carrying our favorite Maine mystery author as sleuth.

2. David Morrell who made Rambo a household word has a great sense of humor, grounded in the real world and a wicked glint in his eye when contemplating murder and mayhem. I sat next to him on a panel and enjoyed his philosphy of writing only the books he wanted to no matter the pressure.

Drum roll here...And my favorite thing thing from LIM...

1.   The FBI guy (who will remain anonymous for his own protection) talked for hours about life as an agent to writers sharing secrets and showing me his credentials so I could get them right in my next book. I had to call it a night before he did. A true professional about the good, bad and the politics about his job.

While many of these people will not be the guest of honors next year, most of them were no strangers to Love is Murder and regular attendees. Pencil Feb. 1-3, 2013 into your calendar and sign up for the newsletter with all the information at http://loveismurder.net/. I would also like to thank all the wonderful volunteers who work so hard to make it fun. I hope you enjoyed your down day. You must have been exhausted but I truly appreciated it!

I'm back and ready to write!

2012-02-02T17:50:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! It’s February 2 and for me it is the beginning of a new and better new year. I want to forget 2010. It was not my year with lots of personal issues. (This blog will be keyed TMI) In the good news department I lost a ton of weight got in shape for the first time in more decades than I want to admit to. The bad news is that losing weight comes with side effects that no one tells you about. So surgery was required in July just after A Case of Hometown Blues was released. Eight weeks of recuperation finished off my summer. Fall came and my plan entailed editing my fourth Mitch Malone Mystery and get a book ahead. I had a great idea and did a ton of research over Labor Day weekend for book 5.

Ready to dive in I started long hours at my computer as well as teaching Developmental English classes at a local college. I’ve had problems for a couple of years with my shoulder with calcium build up and figured it was time to get another cortisone shot. I will spare you the gory details but my tendon hung by a thread from a puncture. It only took two more doctors to find out what the real issue was and I needed another surgery. Not what I had planned for November and December! My right writing arm was immobilized in a sling for six weeks and then at least six weeks of physical therapy to get it usable. I became very proficient at one-handed typing.

February marks the beginning of my freedom. I’m getting better every day. Physical therapy is getting my arm in shape and I can’t wait to get to my computer. I’m up to an hour at a time before I have to quit. I’m planning to get back into Facebook, Twitter, networking groups and blogging. I may be a little sporadic at first. I’ve tried to keep up on email but have more than 600 unread messages which I believed could wait. If I missed something, please resend it.

If anyone will be in Chicago for Love is Murder this weekend, track me down. I can’t wait to reconnect! I’ve missed all my online friends!

Merry Christmas and Happy 2012!

2011-12-16T06:30:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to post a quick update. To all who came out to the Countryside Arts and Crafts Fair last weekend. It was a great time and thanks for being so supportive for my first appearance in Jackson. Can’t wait for more. Sheila King won the drawing and hopefully is curled up with A CASE OF INFATUATION right now.

I’m going to be off line for the holidays. I’m working on the latest in the Mitch Malone Series. I have to get a good title going. A Case of …” It’s about Mitch Malone getting a girlfriend and then she gets blown up. Mitch isn’t having a lot of luck with the ladies these days. Maybe an old flame will stop by to “comfort” him. You never know with a work in progress! It will be out this summer. Feel free to leave suggestions for the title. I need help with this one!

So have a great holiday season and I will see you in the new year!

And the Winners Are...

2011-12-09T17:59:00.000-08:00

My first blog tour is now in the history books. A special thanks to all my blog partners. They were fantastic to work with and great writers. I was honored to be asked to join them. Please continue to visit their blogs and support their work. Their books are wonderful. My blog partners are:

M. M. Gornell http://mmgornell.wordpress.com/

Timothy Hallinan http://www.timothyhallinan.com/blog/

Jackie King http://bnbmysteries.blogspot.com/

Jean Henry Mead http://mysteriouspeople.blogspot.com/

Marilyn Meredith http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/

Mike Orenduff http://thepotthief.blogspot.com/

Jinx Schwartz: http://jinxschwartz.blogspot.com/

Earl Staggs: http://earlwstaggs.wordpress.com/

Anne K. Albert: http://anne-k-albert.blogspot.com/

Beth Anderson http://www.bethanderson-hotclue.com/blog/

Ron Benrey http://blog.benrey.com/

Pat Browning http://pbrowning.blogspot.com/

John M. Daniel http://johnmdaniel.blogspot.com/

Alice Duncan http://aliceduncanblog.blogspot.com/

I also would like to thank them for allowing Mitch Malone to take over the blogging and answer all his impertinent questions.

And now for what you have all been waiting for (drum roll here) -- The winners of books. I originally planned to give away a single book but have, in the spirit of the season, added a couple of more. So without further adieu the winners are:

Jenny Twist

Stephanie Suesan Smith PhD

boots@wowway.com

Please email me at wsgager@yahoo.com and let me know whether you would like A Case of Infatuation, A Case of Accidental Intersection or A Case of Hometown Blues and whether you would like it in paper, nook, or kindle format and how best to get it to you. Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you will continue to follow Mitch Malone and his search for a Pulitzer.

MWW Day 14 - M.M. Gornell's Hubert James Champion III

2011-12-08T01:26:00.000-08:00

Today is the last interview in the Murder We Write Blog Tour. It has been a long and busy two weeks but I must say I’ve met some incredible “characters” including one of the most interesting today. I’m hoping this one will turn into national headlines with the man’s credentials but I’m getting ahead of myself. Thank you, Hubert James Champion III, for coming in today. Champion is the hero in Reticence of Ravens, a Route 66 mystery by M.M. Gornell. Hugh you own a store/gas station in the middle of the Mojave Desert in California. Isn’t it a bit rough to get customers in a land that doesn’t see much travel?

Hugh: I don’t want customers—that’s the point. All I carry are five brands of candy bars—Baby Ruth, Charleston Chews, Mounds Bar, Heath Bar, & Milky Way—bottled water, and small glass bottles of Classic Coke. Oh yeah, lately I started carrying milk for the locals because Gabe insists. Unfortunately though, thousands of people travel daily on I-15, and I-40 (Route66) south of me. Fortunately, all the LA, Vegas, and Roadie folks just whiz by Joey’s mini-mart and don’t bother to stop. Especially if they’ve made the mistake of stopping once before. My gas pumps don’t even work, and like I said, I just want to be left alone, blend in with the sand. My desert-dog Hobo and the Ravens are plenty company for me. Out here I can bury my head in the sand along with a lot of bad memories. I’m thinking you can understand what I’m getting at with the bad memories…

I can understand wanting to help a damsel in distress. I get suckered into that on occasion but did you really think she wasn’t guilty when she arrived covered in someone else’s blood?

Hugh: Well, there’s the mind, and then there’s the heart. All the circumstances screamed LoraLee did it—but my heart knew she couldn’t. Silly sounding thing for a man to say, but darn it, it’s the truth—and being a psychologist, after a while you learn to accept a few things about yourself. The problem, Mitch, was I didn’t have a clue how to prove her innocence. And I really hated I’d have to get involved. (Hugh sighs.) Truth is, if it weren’t for pushy Gabe and that nosey FBI agent, I’d left the whole thing in Audrey’s hands.

Now I’ve warmed you up with some easy questions. I understand you may have some mental problems and have conversations with some birds that show up. What is up with that? As a former psychologist, you have to know you need help?

Hugh: (Laughs) And you don’t have any hang-ups? Did you know Ravens are extremely intelligent—more so than a lot of humans I’ve met. Besides, you must know all us head-types are screwed up. I did have a shrink. Stopped going, didn’t like her answers. You want her number?

Now, I’ve worked with the FBI on occasion and it hasn’t turned out very well for me. They are a devious lot. Has that been your experience, Hugh? Any skeletons you want to tell me about the FBI? You always need something to hold over them and I would be happy to attribute it to an unnamed source…

Hugh: The FBI let my cousin’s husband die. That’s enough for me to hate their guts. (Hugh sighs again) That being said, I kind of like Ted Fletcher—he dropped in while I was trying to help LoraLee—with his own agenda of course, and asking for my help. They always are, asking for help that is—then when you need them… (Hugh clears his throat) Where the heck are they?

Okay, I’ll admit part of the reason I let Ted insert himself into my life even though he’s FBI—was he’s Audrey’s brother. And you know my feelings for Audrey…

Actually, Hugh, I don’t. Could you—

Hugh: Well, Mitch, I think that’s all I want to say for now. But, it’s been good for me to get out of the desert for a bit, see what’s going on in the rest of the world. I appreciate you asking me out, it’s actually been fun—but I need to get back Hobo—and my Ravens. Thanks, though!

Thank you Hugh for being honest about your involvement in the murder of Turner Jackson. Now if you will excuse me, I have a story to write up. Thanks for the ammunition. I’m going to pay back that FBI femme fatale that used me for her case. Did I say thanks, Hugh, now you better run. I’ve got a deadline. Oh, before I forget, get more about Hugh’s story and others in the Route 66 series from M.M. Gornell’s website: http://www.mmgornell.com and her blog http://www.mmgornell.wordpress.com , where she talks about Route 66 adventures, has conversations with other authors, reviews books, and hosts guest bloggers. You can also email her directly at mmgornell@earthlink.net . Madeline’s books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and Smashwords—in paper and e-book formats. http://www.amazon.com/Reticence-Ravens-M-Gornell/dp/1608300390/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314747098&sr=8-1

Also, don't forget to leave a comment. Today is your last chance to get an entry in to win one of the books about yours truly. You will love my stories in the Mitch Malone Mystery series.

Madeline (M.M.) Gornell has three published mystery novels—PSWA awarding winning Uncle Si’s Secret (2008), Death of a Perfect Man (2009), and her latest release, Reticence of Ravens (2010)—her first Route 66 mystery. Reticence of Ravens is a 2011 Eric Hoffer Fiction finalist and Honorary Mention winner, the da Vinci Eye finalist, and a Montaigne Medalist finalist. She continues to be inspired by historic Route 66, and has recently completed Lies of Convenience, which hopefully will have a 2011 winter release date. It is a tale that fictionally connects murder, truths untold, and Chicago’s Lake Michigan with California’s high desert on the opposite end of The Mother Road. Madeline is also a potter with a fondness for stoneware and reduction firing. She lives with her husband and assorted canines in the Mojave in a town on internationally revered Route 66.

MWW Day 13 - Tim Halinan's Louie the Lost

2011-12-07T01:44:00.000-08:00

I really need a break from W.S. You would think she runs my life. This is why I’m not married. I don’t want anyone telling me what to do. It’s bad enough that I have to do an interview a day for the Murder We Write Blog Tour during the holiday season, but now I’m interviewing hoods. I’m an award-winning reporter. I don’t interview street thugs. The interview I wanted was Junior Bender. I hear through my sources that he is a great private investigator like yours truly but also a high-end burglar. Now he would make a great story. Junior is a reoccurring character in several of Tim Hallinan’s books including the recently released LITTLE ELVISES. Here comes my interview now. Don’t tell him I’m less than happy. I am a professional after all.

Louie, so glad you could join me today. I understand that people call you Louie the Lost. Can you tell me why?

Louie: No.

Well, then. After a short-lived life of crime, you have become an information broker, right? How do you collect that information?

Louie: Look, I'm gonna start by offering you some advice, okay? First, you wanna open easy, let a guy get comfortable. Second, do your homework. I didn't have no “short-lived career.” I was the getaway driver du jour for probably more years than since you started to shave, if you ever did, and I'd still be a wheelman if my GPS unit hadn't missed Inglewood and put me in Compton, two million in diamonds in the trunk of a brand-new Cadillac, three jacked-up white crooks in the front, and half the black people in Los Angeles staring in through the windows. So, yeah, after that they started to call me Louie the Lost, and, the offers kinda stopped coming. I even got an agent for a while, but agents don't do nothing for you and then they want ten percent of nothing.

And I ain't no information broker. Information brokers in my neighborhood got the lifespan of a fruit fly. But if I were an information broker, I'd have started by keeping my eyes and ears open and I'da found stuff out, same way I found out that I'm your second choice. I'da read your introductory paragraph. See, it's amazing how much stuff people say, that they don't think anybody will hear.

But it's okay. I'm sure Junior had a perfectly good reason for sticking me out here in public, not even my face blurred out or anything. And when we're finished here, he and I are gonna talk about it for a while.

Is collecting information dangerous? I know on occasion my name has graced a hit list or two. What are some of the scrapes you have found yourself in?

Louie: Crossing the street is dangerous. Going to the library is dangerous. These days, you get a jaywalking ticket, the cop writes it on some kinda electric screen thingie and pushes a button and the ticket goes up into the sky and comes down in a computer that's got in it everything you done wrong since you were three and you peed in your father's shoes for yelling at your mom. Everything's dangerous.

But here's a clue, okay? What's dangerous isn't how you get the information, it's who you tell it to --

Say if a reporter like myself came to you looking for some information, would you provide it? What would the cost be?

Louie:--for example, you don't tell it to reporters, because most reporters are weenies. Nothing personal, just like I'm not taking it personal that I'm not the guy you really wanted to talk to.

Tell me about you and Junior Bender?

Louie: I feel like Marilyn Monroe's first husband. Nobody wants to know nothing about me. Okay, Junior's a burglar. I'll be nice and say he's an ace burglar, what with he's never been caught. I don't know many guys who been at it so long without getting caught. So anyway, I watched him from a distance for a while and used him as a test. In my line—I mean, the line you mistakenly think I'm in—you need trackers sometimes. And trackers need to be tested. So before I really knew Junior, I'd test my trackers on him—see if they could follow him for five or six hours without getting caught. Two did okay, and the third led him right back to me.

So after he put down the gun, we had the kinda talk the White House would call “a free and frank exchange of views,” and after he left, I said to my wife, Alice, I said, “So? Whaddya think?” and Alice said he was okay. Alice always knows. So, yeah, we're friends now. The tracker's working in a bowling alley now.

You and Junior seem to be pretty good friends. Think you could convince Junior to a tell-all exposé about jewel thieves?

Louie: Not a chance. But I might get him to talk about the night him and Annette “Ladyfingers” Haskell accidentally hit the same house at the same time and Junior took one look at her and said, “Ladies first,” and eight hours later, they wound up in Vegas together. That was after Junior's divorce, of course. He never ran around on Kathy, not ever.

Louie it has been very educational having you here. I hate to admit it but W.S. does have some good ideas on her own without my help. I can’t wait to read all about your next escapade in LITTLE ELVISES. Where can I find that?

Louie: You can get it on Amazon and on the other one, the one with the fancy-shmancy and sign—Barnes & Noble, that's it—for $2.99. Or I can get you a used one for $1.75, but don't tell Junior.

Great. Thanks. And I may call you for a favor. I have this story I’m working that deals with real estate fraud and may need to know where a couple of bodies are buried.

Louie: Sure. We'll swap. You tell me what you know, and I'll give it my best consideration.

Thanks Louie. We’ll talk. As for you reading this. Yes I mean you! Don’t forget to leave a comment or two to be entered in a drawing for Mitch Malone autographed book. It could be valuable. Winners to be drawn in just a couple of days so don’t wait.

Timothy Hallinan has lived, on and off, in Southeast Asia for more than 25 years. He wrote songs and sang in a rock band while in college, and many of his songs were recorded by by well-known artists who included the platinum-selling group Bread. He began writing books while enjoying a successful career in the television industry. Over the past fourteen years he has been responsible for a number of well-reviewed novels and a nonfiction book on Charles Dickens. For years he has taught a course on “Finishing the Novel” with remarkable results – more than half his students complete their first novel and go on to a second, and several have been, or are about to be, published. Tim currently maintains a house in Santa Monica, California, and apartments in Bangkok, Thailand; and Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He is lucky enough to be married to Munyin Choy-Hallinan.

MWW Day 12 - Jackie King

2011-12-06T01:01:00.000-08:00

Only three days left in the Murder We Write Blog Tour. I’m getting a bit winded with the fast pace and all the interviews I’ve been forced to do under deadline no less. Just hoping there is a break in here toward Christmas although I’m not big on family. Today we are going to change it up a bit. I’m interviewing one “foxy” lady. Jackie King is the author of several novellas, anthologies and books. Jackie thank you for joining me today. W.S. told me I would enjoy this interview because you and foxy are often used in the same sentence. Then she laughed. I just didn’t get the joke. Can you explain it to me?

Jackie: My dear Mitch, there’s no joke, maybe you had spinach on your teeth. I’m a very foxy lady, and among other things, write as a part of a team called “The Foxy Hens.” We wear boas and strut our stuff, and I’ll bet that you’d love us. I even got kissed by a customer once at a book signing. We were giving away chocolate kisses and I said, “Want a kiss from a foxy hen?” and offered him the candy. He said, “Sure,” then leaned down and kissed me. He was good looking and just the right age for me, (yes, he was an older guy) but I forgot to get his telephone number.

Oh, now I see W.S. was pulling a fast one on yours truly. Well I will get even. I don’t want it to be said I wasn’t professional in conducting this interview so on to more meatier questions. Many of your stories are set in the past, the Wild West to be specific. Why is that? What’s wrong with the present?

Jackie: Nothing at all, but the Old West is fun, too. That’s where my historical mysteries are set, in 1889 Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory. I write about gutsy, ambitious, adventurous women who came to this unsettled land at the time of the Land Run. Some are rich, most are poor, but they all seem to get mixed up in murder and mayhem. I’ll be giving away a signed copy of THE FOXY HENS and MURDER MOST FOWL at the end of this tour, and also a signed copy of AN INCONVENIENT CORPSE.

The latest anthology is set in present times and called FOXY HENS MEET A ROMANTIC ADVENTURER. I’ll bet you’d like my story Warm Hearts on Cold Streets, not for the romance part but because my character Anna Rainwater gets tangled up with a serial killer. What a scoop that would make!

In AN INCONVENIENT CORPSE a body is found in a bed and breakfast. In my latest adventure, A CASE OF HOMETOWN BLUES, I stay in a bed and breakfast and I was a bit unnerved because the owners seemed to know every move I made. Are all bed and breakfasts like that? If so, how come they didn’t know about the body?

Jackie: That’s what they want to know! Everyone thinks that poor Grace Cassidy killed the guy. Because of this (plus her rotten husband running off with his secretary and all of their assets) she not only has to find a way to support herself and her teenaged son, she has to find out why there was a dead, naked guy in her bed and who killed him.

Many of your stories in the “Foxy Hen” books have holiday themes. Is that by design or just chance? Are you a big fan of holidays?

Jackie: We have one book with holiday themes: THE FOXY HENS AND ONE BIG ROOSTER. My story is called Thanksgiving with a Mysterious Stranger and features a mail order bride whose husband gets murdered. She didn’t like him that much, but feels obliged to solve his murder and homestead their stake.

Another Foxy Hen book is FOXY HENS GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT. My novella is called The Ghost Who Wouldn’t Skedaddle. These mysteries have a little touch of paranormal, so they might be too scary for you, Mitch.

Thanks for the warning but I don’t scare easily. W. S. must be feeding you some bad information. Anyway, Jackie, thank you so much for joining me today. Where can folks find your books?

On my Website: http://www.jacqking.com/ also check out my Blogsite: Cozy Mysteries and Other Madness: http://bnbmysteries.blogspot.com Amazon and Barnes & Noble as well as available through all bookstores. Amazon: http://amzn.to/gMv7CH and Nook at http://bit.ly/fovbLR

I’ve had such fun talking to you Mitch. (By the way, is you single?) And thanks to each of your readers for taking a break from their holiday preparations to join us. Remember readers, to make comments on each of our 15-member mystery writer’s blogsites. We’re giving away over 50 books total, either during the tour or immediately afterwards. I’m giving a signed copy of my cozy mystery THE INCONVENIENT CORPSE and a signed copy of THE FOXY HENS AND MURDER MOST FOWL. Names will be drawn by random from those who take time to leave a comment.

Jacqueline “Jackie” King is a full time writer and native Okie who lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At 49 she survived an unexpected divorce and a few years later wrote Flirting at Fifty, her first novella. This humorous account of what is sometimes called “splitting the blanket” in Oklahoma, is part of Chik~Lit for Foxy Hens (2006). The anthology was a success and the Foxy Hens series, brainchild of writer Peggy Fielding, was birthed. Next King wrote The Spinster, the Pig and the Orphan, set in 1889 Guthrie, for Statehood Foxy Hens and Murder Most Fowl (2007). Her third novella, The Ghost Who Wouldn't Skeddadle, will be published late in 2007 in Foxy Hens Go Bump in the Night. This anthology includes Peggy Fielding’s Half-Hollow Hill.

MWW Day 11 - Jean Henry Mead's Dana Logan & Sarah Cafferty

2011-12-05T01:57:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Day 11 in the Murder We Write Blog Tour. Don’t forget to leave a comment to be entered to win a copy of one of my adventures to be drawn at the end of the tour. Who am I you ask? I’m Mitch Malone, crime beat reporter extraordinaire for the Grand River Journal. My interview today is a pair. Meet Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty. Normally I would insert some kind of snide comment about the pair being widows in Jean Henry Mead’s Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense series but a little old lady called Elsie Dobson has cured me of that behavior. The pair being interviewed today travel in a motorhome finding murder around every turn. Let’s start with the basics. How did you two hook up?

Dana: We met in a San Joaquin Valley retirement village where our Sew and So club members were dying alphabetically. A dog trainer had just been elected sheriff and he was bungling the investigation so badly in A VILLAGE SHATERED that we decided to discover the killer’s identity ourselves—before our own names came up on his list. All the dead bodies made us decide to sell our homes and buy an RV to travel, but we stumble over bodies, no matter where we go.

I like my Jeep but you take your transportation a bit more seriously. You have a motorhome named Matilda? How did that happen and who is it named after?

Sarah: Dana hates the name but I christened the RV for my Aunt Matilda. She was one determined lady who bullied her way around, no matter who stood in her way. Kinda like the motorhome does on the highway. She wasn’t a bully, mind you, but people took off like scalded cats whenever she lit into them.

You two have matched wits with terrorists in MURDER ON THE INTERSTATE to killers in DIARY OF MURDER and many others. What was the scariest situation you faced?

Dana: For me it was crashing the motorhome when the killer sneaked onboard and pushed a gun into my throat while I was driving. I knew he was going to kill me so I drove into a ditch along the highway while he was standing behind me. That experience was closely followed on the fright scale by the blizzard I had to drive the RV through in Colorado in DIARY OF MURDER after my sister died in her mansion in Wyoming. Her husband claimed it was suicide but we proved him wrong.

Sarah: Don’t forget the flash flood that nearly drowned us while chased by a serial killer in MURDER ON THE INTERSTATE. And I was kidnapped by a drug gang in the Laramie Mountains in DIARY OF MURDER. They tied me to a chair and left me there to freeze to death after they slapped me around. They even left the door open so bears and wolves could come into the cabin. I guess they didn’t kill me themselves because I reminded one of gang members of his grandmother.

Dana, you have a daughter, Kerrie, who is a journalist. Do you think she would want a date with a hot crime beat reporter with a few awards under his belt? I’m quite the catch.

Sarah: (muttering to herself) You’re gonna catch pneumonia if you don’t button up your shirt, Don Juan.

Dana: Kerrie might have dated you in DIARY OF MURDER or A VILLAGE SHATERED. But she fell in love with an FBI agent in MURDER ON THE INTERSTATE, although he used her as a decoy for the homegrown terrorists he was investigating in Denver, which almost got her killed. Kerrie always seems to fall in love with lawmen, although she was engaged to a fellow journalist in A VILLAGE. He betrayed her so she hasn’t really trusted men since.

Kerrie is involved in several of these dangerous situations. Do you go in and rescue her or does she rescue you?

In A VILLAGE, Kerrie is lured into an old house by the killer and I have to rescue her with the sheriff’s riot gun. And in MURDER ON THE INTERSTATE, Sarah and I rescue Kerrie from the hospital when terrorists are blowing it up after she’s been injured in a limo accident.

But her investigative skills have helped us solve a number of murders.

What’s up next for you old ladies, err, crime fighting sleuths?

Sarah: Old ladies are we? We’re only sixty and that’s the new forty, in case you didn’t know. We can do anything younger sleuths can do, with the possible exception of scaling tall buildings.

Dana: Sarah’s right. We’re out to prove that women our ages are still desirable—

Sarah: There’s a San Joaquin Valley sheriff still chasing after Dana.

Dana: —and that women of a certain age don’t have to confine themselves to rocking chairs and bridge games. Some of us are jumping out of airplanes, climbing mountains, downhill skiing, driving RVs, and marrying younger men . . . whatever we want to do. Sixty is a great time to be alive.

As for our next caper, Kerrie’s publisher is murdered and she’s accused of the crime. I think we’ll call this one MAGNETS FOR MURDER.

Okay, okay, I get it. Thank you, you young chicks, Dana and Sarah. To find out more about Jean Henry Mead’s books check out her website at http://www.jeanhenrymead.com. Also, make sure you leave a comment. Jean Henry’s giving away one of her mystery ebooks at the end of each of her 14 blog appearances as well as three print novels at the conclusion of the tour. Be sure to leave a comment and email address to be eligible for the drawings. Her blog tour schedule is listed at: http://jeansblogtour.blogspot.com/

Jean Henry Mead has published 15 books, half of them mystery/suspense and historical novels. She also writes the Hamilton Kids’ mysteries and is an award-winning photojournalist. Jean's latest Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense novel, Murder on the Interstate, is available at:Amazon.com: http://tinyurl.com/6znjvsa Barnes and Noble: http://tinyurl.com/3vxzppy

MWW Day 10 - Marilyn Meredith's Tempe Crabtree

2011-12-04T01:05:00.000-08:00

It’s day 10 in the Mystery We Write Blog Tour. I must admit in the times of complete disclosure to have a soft spot for Marilyn Meredith or F.M. Meredith. She was one of the first to read my adventures and I’ve been forever grateful. However, I’m Mitch Malone, a crime beat reporter, and I do have to ask the tough questions. Luckily today, I’m interviewing Deputy Tempe Crabtree from Marilyn’s latest book, BEARS WITH US. Tempe lives and works in and around Bear Creek, a mountain community of the Southern Sierra. I thought it would be fun to learn more about Tempe’s duties as a deputy in a remote area like the one she patrols. Tell me first, where exactly are Bear Creek and the Southern Sierras?

Tempe: We’re in California. The Southern Sierra is the southern part of the Sierra Nevada mountain range located above the San Joaquin Valley. Or to pinpoint it even more, it’s 70 miles North and East of Bakersfield. The town of Bear Creek is small. We’re near part of the Giant Redwood forest and the Bear Creek Indian Reservation.

That gives me a better idea of where you’re located. It sounds like a beautiful place to live. Ever worry about earthquakes?

Tempe: This feels a bit weird to me, being interviewed by a reporter. Because I’m just a deputy and major cases are investigated by major crimes detectives, they are the ones who are usually interviewed.

I know that you are often called on to assist the detective on many cases because you know the area and the people in Bear Creek much better than they do. I hear you are often called to help out with crimes on the reservation too because of your Indian heritage.

Tempe: (Laughing) The detectives have the misconception that the rez Indians will trust me more than them because I’m an Indian too, but I’m afraid it doesn’t always work that way. I do have friends on the reservation, but I’m law enforcement and that right there makes me suspect to many. However, I have more patience than the detectives and because of that, I sometimes can learn more than they can.

Tell me about your job. I cover crime in the big city of Grand River, Michigan. It must be different being a resident deputy in a mountain area than in law enforcement in larger cities.

Tempe: I am the resident deputy, though my usual patrol hours are four to eleven, I’m often called on to take care of problems that come up at other times during the day or night and my days off. The residents tend to call me rather than 911. Other deputies are sent up from the sheriff’s sub-station in Dennison to patrol when I’m not on duty. The CHP sends cars up to patrol regularly too. Many of my calls are different than a city deputy or police officer would get—I often have to shoo cows off the highway and tend to other animal problems.

Being an award-winning reporter I get around. I hear you’ve had quite a troublesome animal lately.

Tempe: I’ll say. We’ve had numerous visits from bears. I’ve chased bears out off the school yard, out of people’s houses and an apple orchard.

We have bears in Michigan but it is rare that you see them. Is that usual?

Tempe: Because we’re in the mountains, we do have bear sightings, but this year has been unusual because the bears have discovered people food and they like it, especially ice cream.

Don’t you have Animal Control or anything like that to help you out?

Tempe: We have a Fish and Game man, but he has a huge area to cover. He helps me when possible, but sometimes he’s just too far away and I have to do what I can until he can get there.

Sounds dangerous. What about your private life? Do you have time to have one?

Tempe: Sometimes it’s hard. I’m married to a patient man, which certainly helps. Hutch is the pastor of the local church and fortunately he’s willing to assist me when I need him. Because he’s a pastor, he gets nearly as many calls for assistance as I do—and sometimes I help him out.

I’m not big on marriage. Not the marrying kind. Sounds like an ideal marriage and I rarely see any of those.

Tempe: It is most of the time.

Hmmm, my reporter extinct tells me I may be missing something here. Is there anything more you’d like to say about that?

Tempe: A few times I’ve used Native American spiritualism to help me find out the truth about a crime and my husband really doesn’t like me to do that, he fears for my soul. Frankly, I think the Great Spirit my people believe in and the God my husband worships are one and the same.

Oh. I’m not much on religion. Makes me nervous, so let’s stop the interview there. Thank you for answering my questions, Tempe, and if people want to learn more about what happened with the bears they should read the book, BEARS WITH US.

About Bears With Us: Deputy Tempe Crabtree has her hands full when bears turn up in and around Bear Creek, a young teen commits suicide and his parents’ actions are suspicious, a prominent woman files a complaint against Tempe and her preacher husband Hutch, a love affair from long ago comes to light, and a woman suffering from dementia disappears. Purchase the book at http://mundania.com/book.php?title=Bears+With+Us/

Marilyn Meredith is the author of over thirty published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, the latest Bears With Us from Mundania Press. Writing as F. M. Meredith, her latest Rocky Bluff P.D. crime novel is Angel Lost, the third from Oak Tree Press. Marilyn is a member of EPIC, Four chapters of Sisters in Crime, including the Central Coast chapter, Mystery Writers of America, and on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America. Visit her at http://fictionforyou.com and her blog at http://marilymeredith.blogspot.com/

Make a comment and be registered to win a Mitch Malone Mystery. Drawing to be held after the tour is over next Friday.

MWW Day 9 - J. Michael Orenduff's Alain Billot

2011-12-03T01:19:00.000-08:00

For once, W.S. Gager has given me an interview I can sink my teeth into, literally. Alain Billot is the sous chef in J. Michael Orenduff's fourth book, THE POT THIEF WHO STUDIED ESCOFFIER. My mouth is watering just thinking about it, but first I must be professional and ask a few questions. So Alain, tell us how you came to be a chef at Schnitzel?

Alain: First, Mitch, let me say it is a pleasure to make with you the interview. You are the first correspondant I meet in America. I am spending a year in your country because I plan to open un restaurant américain when I return to France. My plan is to work in each of the best food cities in America to learn more of your many cuisines. Schnitzel was the only restaurant in Santa Fe with an opening for a chef.

Now Schnitzel is located in New Mexico. Your name sounds French. Isn't New Mexico all about Southwestern cooking that is spicy? Do you like things spicy?

Alain: Ah, you have gone straight to chase, as they say here. Schnitzel was a failure because the Austrian cooking was too heavy and did not have the spice of which you speak. But when the manager announced Schnitzel was to close, we convinced him to let us make a second try with Austrian/Southwestern fusion.

Hubie, or as his friends call him in jest, the pot thief, is an old friend of mine through W.S. and J. Michael Orenduff, whose paths usually cross annually in Vegas. (Don’t even ask. I’m not telling! A good reporter never divulges his sources.) How did you meet Hubie?

Alain: Ah, this is the perfect follow through for you last question. I met Hubie when he was hired to make plates for Schnitzel. But in addition to being a potter, he is also an amateur cook who knows well the New Mexican food. When we decided to change Schnitzel to Austrian/Southwestern fusion, there was no one on the kitchen staff who knew of Southwester cuisine, so we enlist Hubie to be, so to speak, our advisor. He is the one who invented our most successful dish, Schnitzel con tres chiles.

Um, Alain, the phrase is ‘follow-up’. ‘Follow-through’ is what you do with a golf swing. But speaking of dishes, now to the tasty stuff? What did you bring for me to sample today? What is your specialty? Any doughnuts?

Alain: Yes, for dessert, I have brought you a beignet, the French donut laso known here in New Orleans. For your lunch, I have a croque monsieur. It means ‘crisp mister’, crisp because it is fried and mister perhaps because it was the lunch of the working men. But when Hubie mentioned it to that Detective, Fletcher, he thought it meant ‘dead man.’

Fletcher? Whit Fletcher? I interviewed him a few months back. His English is worse than yours, and he was born in America. Well, New Mexico, anyway. One last question. Any chance you and Hubie will be working again together?

Alain: Qui sait? The garde manger at Schnitzel was murdered, and Hubie was arrested for embezzling the restaurant and then later shot at. I think he has had enough of the restaurant business. However, we became blossom buddies, so who can say what the future holds.

The phrase is ‘bosom buddies’. Thanks for doing this interview, Alain. And before I forget, don’t you forget to leave a comment to be entered to win one of my award winning adventures in book or ebook format. Winners will be announce at the end of the Murder We Write Blog Tour.

Mike Orenduff grew up in a house so close to the Rio Grande that he could Frisbee a tortilla into Mexico. He came by his love of pueblo pottery during weekends, buying small pots from the pueblos his family visited and – in one case – acquiring one when his sister traded chocolate chip cookies for it. His love of pottery expanded to a general interest in archaeology which he studied as an undergraduate. While in graduate school at the University of New Mexico, Mike worked during the summer as a volunteer teacher at one of the nearby pueblos. He went on to serve as President of New Mexico State University and as a visiting faculty member at West Point and President of Bermuda College. After retiring from higher education, he rekindled his love of the Southwest by writing his award-winning Pot Thief murder mysteries which combine archaeology and philosophy with humor and mystery. Among his many awards are the New Mexico Book of the Year, the “Lefty” national award for best humorous mystery and two “Eppies” for the best eBook mysteries.

MWW Day 8 - Jinx Scwartz's Hetta Coffey

2011-12-02T01:03:00.000-08:00

It is my pleasure to interview Hetta Coffey, the globe-trotting civil engineer in Jinx Schwartz’s Hetta Coffey Mystery Series in the similar vein as the Mitch Malone Mysteries Series where I’m the star. Hetta I am very interested in you, err the latest adventure in JUST DESERTS. Let’s get started and maybe we will have time for a drink afterward. First, I understand you’re single, right? You don’t find a boyfriend, do you? I’m single too.

Hetta: Well, gosh, Mitch, seein' as we are both single, my sometimes amour is missing in action, and, if your boyfriend doesn't mind, I drink champagne.

Boyfriend? I’m not interested in boys. Where did you get that from? I’m not too keen on the desert. What made you decide to visit the Mexican border?

Hetta: I go where the money is, and with my boat in dry dock in Mexico I needed the pesos for repairs. I brought my boat, Raymond Johnson, into Mexico two books ago (Just Add Salt) even though many told me I was spectacularly unqualified. Anyhow, I hired this dishy boat captain, Fabio, and we...uh, what was the question?

Are you big on sailing? I understand you just brought a boat in JUST ADD SALT. The Great Lakes are great for sailing but only for a few months a year. I would be happy to show you the ropes, so to speak.

Hetta: Actually, Just Add Water (Book 1 of the series, and winner of the EPPIE 2007 for Best Mystery) is when I bought my boat. I figured if I had a boat I could bag a man, since using my gun hadn't worked so far. Show me the ropes? I'm really not into that kind of thing.

Rumor has it you are a bit outspoken. Does that get you in trouble?

Hetta: Outspoken? Me? Hey, it's not my fault people are so touchy. I mean, all I do is mention the obvious, and next thing I know people start shooting; you write the obvious and you get a Pulitzer Prize. Where's the fair in that?

When I Googled you, it said you were a civil engineer. What does mean you do and how does that involve sailing or deserts?

Hetta: I have my own consulting firm, which takes me all over the world. And now that I have the boat, I am taking on jobs in Mexico to keep me in tortillas and refried beans.

And while I love being on the water, JUST DESERTS (Hetta Coffey number 4) finds me working on the Mexico/Arizona border, where people are disappearing and all hell is breaking loose, even before I get there.

Hetta, thanks for joining me today on the blog as part of the Mystery We Write Blog Tour. To read more about the Hetta Coffey Mystery Series go here www.jinxschwartz.com. Don’t forget to leave a comment to be entered in book giveaways on yours truly’s adventures. Hetta, now about that drink…

MWW Day 7 - Earl Staggs

2011-12-01T01:49:00.000-08:00

Today’s interview will be a little different than the last several. This one will wrap up lucky number seven in the Mystery We Write Blog Tour. Don't forget about the chance to win one of the award winning books featuring yours truly. Just leave a comment on any of my steller interviews and you will be entered to win. Now, lets get to the interview. W.S. didn’t get to pick the interview for today. It was all me, Mitch Malone. As a kid I roamed the woods with my friends playing cowboys and Indians in rural Michigan. I have fond memories of those days. Today’s author is Earl Staggs, a real live Texan and cowboy enthusiast. Welcome, Earl. Earl you live in Texas now. When did you move to the land of round ups and cattle rustling?

Earl: Hi, Mitch. I don’t mind telling you I’m a bit intimidated being interviewed by a tough, no-nonsense guy like you but I’ll give it my best shot. Fire away.

You grew up in Ohio, in the same town as Roy Rogers. You even met him once. What was that like? Did that inspire your move to Texas?

Earl: Growing up in Portsmouth, Ohio, I was thrilled and proud that Roy had also grown up there. Saturdays, we’d spend all day at the movie theater watching our cowboy heroes outwit, outride, and outshoot the bad guys. We had Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, Rocky Lane, Lash LaRue and more. But when Roy came on the screen, it was special. He rode faster and shot straighter than all of them. He was King of the Cowboys and we idolized him. After all, he was one of us, almost like kinfolk.

When the opportunity came along to meet him in person many years later, I may have appeared to be a mature adult, but not really. I was eight years old again and standing beside the hero of my youth who wore the white hat, rode the great golden stallion, and made the West safe for all of us.

When my wife and I moved to Texas, I thought it was because our daughter and our grandsons lived here. That may have been the main reason, but somewhere deep inside, there may have been some influence from that eight-year-old cowboy fan who wanted to live where Roy used to ride.

About a year after Roy passed away, I wrote a story called “White Hats and Happy Trails” about meeting him. Anyone interested can saddle up, mosey over to my website at http://earlwstaggs.wordpress.com and read it. There’s even a picture of my wife and me with Roy to prove it’s all true.

You are an expert in writing as I am being a Pulitzer-nominated reporter for a newspaper. What advice can you give to those just starting out in writing?

Earl: Very slick, Mitch, the way you slipped your own plug in there. I thought this interview was about me. Oh, well.

Beginning writers never have a shortage of advice offered to them, and it’s all good. The line I like to toss out is this: “Always make sure the next thing you write is better than the last thing you wrote.” We should never stop learning and striving to be improve our skills. Being a good writer is not good enough. There are too many good writers ahead of you. To get to the front of the line, you always have to push yourself to be better.

In newspapers, the space is shrinking and we have to tell great stories in the fewest words. As an award winning short story writer how do you manage to get it all to fit?

Earl: I’ve been asked how long should a story be, and my answer is, “As long as it has to be to tell it well.” Sometimes, though, an editor or publisher will state a maximum word length, and that’s when it gets tough. In addition to learning how to write, we also have to learn how to edit, tighten, and shorten. While it can be painful to cut or shorten something we’ve sweated over, it’s part of the job.

I write a column called “Write Tight” for the online magazine Apollo’s Lyre. In each issue, I offer tips and examples of ways to reduce word count without losing important elements of the story. Many times, tightening actually improves a story. That old “less is more” thing.

How many cowboy hats do you own and do you wear one all the time?

Earl: I own several and wear one most of the time, especially in the summer. You learn to do that in Texas where the brutal sun doesn’t just beat down on you. It tramples you like a stampede of longhorns.

Great visual there Earl. Where can we get our hands on your latest prose and what is next for you?

Earl: Since we’re talking about cowboys and the old West, I have a story available at http://store.untreedreads.com called “Where Billy Died.” A modern day bounty hunter travels to Texas in search of an outlaw and finds himself entangled in a legend about a famous outlaw from the past.

You and your audience are also invited to visit my website at http://earlwstaggs.wordpress.com and visit with my special guest for today. While you're there, you can read Chapter One of MEMORY OF A MURDER, which earned thirteen Five Star reviews. You’ll also find information there about my recently published collection, SHORT STORIES OF EARL STAGGS, containing sixteen of my best.

Also while you’re there, don't forget to sign up for the drawing on December 9. The first name drawn from those who leave a comment will receive a print copy of MEMORY OF A MURDER. The second name drawn will have a choice of an ebook or print copy of SHORT STORIES OF EARL STAGGS.

Thanks, Earl, for talking about all things cowboy today.

Derringer Award winning author Earl Staggs has seen many of his short stories published in magazines and anthologies. He served as Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Magazine and as President of the Short Mystery Fiction Society. His novel MEMORY OF A MURDER earned thirteen Five Star reviews online at Amazon and B&N. His column “Write Tight” appears in the online magazine Apollo’s Lyre. He is also a contributing blog member of Murderous Musings and Make Mine Mystery. He hosts workshops for the Muse Online Writers Conference and the Catholic Writers Conference Online and is a frequent speaker at conferences and writers groups. Email: earlstaggs@sbcglobal.net Website: http://earlwstaggs.wordpress.com

MWW Day 6 - Anne K. Albert's Muriel

2011-11-30T01:16:00.000-08:00

Today I’m interviewing Muriel of FRANK, INCENSE AND MURIEL. It’s appropriate because we are in the midst of the holidays and this book by Anne K. Albert is all about craziness during the holidays. I’m not much of a decking the hallway’s person or give a lot of presents. My list isn’t long unless they are a good source. But enough about me, let’s hear Muriel’s story. Tell me a bit about yourself. You were born and raised in New York state, right?

Muriel: Yes. I grew up in and around Niagara Falls.

We all have people from our growing up years that we just don’t like. I know I have a cousin who just couldn’t leave me alone. You have something similar don’t you? It is the season for forgiveness? Can you forgive and move forward?

Muriel: It’s not that I didn’t like Frankie, it’s just that he complicates things.

Got an example?

Muriel: It started in high school when he wrote me a note. I have no idea of its contents. Nor do I care. All I know is the teacher intercepted it, read it, raised an eyebrow, and zeroed in on me.

“I believe Frankie had you in mind when he wrote this,” she said, then began to read it aloud. She got as far as the salutation he’d printed on the outside of the folded sheet of three-ring notepaper. “To the Brian.”

The class erupted into hysterics. The teacher returned the note to Frankie and resumed her lesson. From that day forward, I was the girl named Brian, and Frankie became my sworn enemy.

Brian?

Muriel: He’s dyslexic.

I can see by the words you use that you have quite a bit of education. Some people might not find you too interesting. Oops, sorry, didn’t mean that the way it sounded. How does an intellectual type get involved in a missing person’s case?

Muriel: What is it with men who are intimidated by a few grey cells?

I’m not intimidated.
Muriel: Right.

The missing woman?

Muriel:A very close friend asked for my help. I couldn’t say no.

My family, including that cousin, isn’t very close. I rarely return to my hometown. Your family is quite colorful. I can’t believe I heard this right, but they are going for some type of world record?
Muriel: I’d really rather not discuss it.

I would.

Muriel: (Long silence, and then Muriel sighs.) Okay. It’s a tradition that began with my parents. My father was a real live action figure. Always on the go. Always in search of that next adrenalin rush. My mother shared his sense of adventure, and in some ways was even more of a daredevil. My brothers went on their first adventure trip when they were still in diapers. Me? Riding the merry-go-round makes me nauseous. I’ve always held the conviction that if humans were meant to race down snow covered mountains, scuba dive on ocean floors, or jump out of airplanes, we’d have been born with skis for feet, gills for lungs and had wings attached to our backs.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the only time of year the family gets together is December. On Christmas Eve we vote for the family member who took the greatest risk during the past year and lived to tell the tale. The winner receives the D-DAY trophy. The letters stand for Death-Defying Act of the Year Award. Now, can we please talk about something else?

I’m not big on romance. Never have really dated. You find yourself in some sticky situations with this private investigator and it’s a bit cold? Any juicy parts?

Muriel: That is none of your business. Besides, there’s nothing going on between me and Frankie. We’re, um, just friends. Really.

Uh-huh. Thanks Muriel for the visit. If you ever leave New York, drop by Grand River, Michigan. Weather is about the same but maybe I could provide some warmth. (Muriel rolls her eyes.) FRANK, INCENSE AND MURIEL sounds like a great story. How can I find out more about it?

Muriel: Visit author Anne K. Albert online at her website http://www.AnneKAlbert.com/ She also blogs at http://anne-k-albert.blogspot.com/ and http://muriel-reeves-mysteries.blogspot.com. Anne is also on Facebook www.facebook.com/annekalbert and Twitter www.twitter.com/AnneKAlbert.

Hi, Anne here! On Muriel’s behalf I’d like to say thanks for featuring her today on Day 6 of the second 2011 Mystery We Write Blog Tour. Click here: http://amzn.to/pg67sx to read a sample of Frank, Incense and Muriel. I’d also like to encourage readers to enter my comment to win contest.

CONTEST DETAILS: Comment to WIN! Three names will be selected at random from comments on all 14 of Anne’s Mystery We Write Blog Tour guest appearances. Winners will receive an e-copy of FRANK, INCENSE AND MURIEL, book one of the Muriel Reeves Mysteries. Visit http://tinyurl.com/3hzpqvv for her schedule and contest details. Good luck!

Mitch here. Just to let you know that W.S. is collecting names for a drawing for my adventures so let me know what you think! To visit her today chec out Mike Orenduff's blog:

http://thepotthief.blogspot.com/. I

MWW Day 5 - Beth Anderson's Jack O'Banion

2011-11-29T01:43:00.000-08:00

Today I’m welcoming someone who I can relate to although not his location. Today’s guest is Valdez Alaska’s Chief of Police Jack O’Banion. He must solve the murder in RAVEN TALKS BACK by Beth Anderson. He’s a bit crusty and one of those old school police chiefs – a man of few words. I’m going to see if I can get him to open up a bit with my superior interview skills. He may be tough. I think I just heard him mutter: “Another reporter. Just what I need.” I’m sure he didn’t mean me. Let’s get to the details. Tell me about the murder you have to solve.

All I can tell you so far is that a female body was discovered in the back yard of a family here in Valdez while their yard was being dug up in preparation for an addition to their house. The medical examiner has confirmed that she was a murder victim. Her identity is not known as of yet and we have no missing persons reports to go on. I’m heading over to the M.E.’s office right now so I’m sorry, I can’t give you any more details at the moment.

Now I know from personal experience that cops aren't real fond of amateurs intruding on their investigations. How do you feel about that and what about that Raven Morressey. She is one crazy chick. You gonna lock her up?

Mrs. Morressey is understandably stressed due to the victim having been buried in her yard. When I have more information I’ll call a press conference.

How did you come to be in Alaska? You were in Texas weren’t you?

I was. I rode up here on my Harley from Dallas for a vacation, dropped in and chatted with the chief at the time, who was thinking about retirement. A few months later he did retire and I was offered the chief’s position here in Valdez. After giving it a whole lot of thought I decided to take it.

What about a love interest? Those Alaskan nights get awfully long, dark and cold. What do you do when you are not working? Or are you one of those cops that never aren’t on the job?

I am one of those cops that never isn’t on the job, yes. Every chief of police is.

I understand you have bunch of media breathing down your neck. I know those TV people can be really bad. I’m a newspaper reporter. How about giving me a little inside scoop?

I’ll hold a press conference whenever I have any more information. At the moment, I have none and I’ll have to cut this short now because I have work to do. Thank you.

Chief, it’s been enlightening. If I ever have some free time I might look you up in Alaska. To find out more about Jack and Raven, you have to pick up this Kindle bestseller. Check it out here: http://www.bethanderson-hotclue.com

Beth Anderson is a multi-published, award winning author in several genres including romance and mainstream crime fiction. A full time author, she now lives in Washington state. She has appeared on Chicago's WGN Morning Show, The ABC Evening News, as well as numerous other radio and cable television shows. She has guest lectured at Purdue University, Moraine Valley College, and many libraries and writers' conferences. She loves music, particularly jazz. Her website and blog are at http://www.bethanderson-hotclue.com

Note: Anyone who leaves a comment will be entered to win free books to be awarded at the end of the tour. Visit W.S. today at as she talks about setting at Marilyn Meredith's blog: http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com

MMW Day 4 - Ron Benrey's Felicity "Flick" Adams

2011-11-28T01:11:00.000-08:00

I’m feeling lucky today, if you get my drift. It’s day four of the Mystery We Write Blog Tour that I was hijacked into participating in by W.S. I’m still thinking of payback, but not today. Today’s victim is real easy on the eyes. I’m interviewing Felicity (Flick) Adams, the American-born curator of the fictional Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum—the setting for Ron and Janet Benrey’s “Royal Tunbridge Wells Mysteries” Let’s see if Mitch can work his charm. For starters, you don’t look like a scientist with a PhD who’s an expert on tea. I’d have guessed you were a cheerleader for an NFL football team. What’s that all about?

Flick: I allow every interviewer one inane question—even if he intends it as a backhanded compliment. You’ve had your opportunity. Please ask me a question that makes sense.

(Long pause as Mitch gulps) Tea? Err, that’s something little old ladies drink with lemon and little sandwiches. Why does England need a museum to showcase tea?

Flick: Most American’s don’t realize that tea is the second most popular beverage in the world. (Water is the first.) Tea is big business—and it has had a fascinating history. The Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum was established in 1964 to be a center of scholarship about tea history, tea chemistry, and tea tasting. The museum also honors Commodore Desmond Hawker, a 19th Century Master of the China Tea Trade. The institution is really a combination art and natural history museum dedicated to the art, geography, botany, and manufacturing related to Britain’s tea trade and its love affair with tea. Thousands of tourists visit us each year—which testifies to the wisdom of “building a museum to showcase tea.”

You keep saying “Royal Tunbridge Wells.” Where does the “Royal” come from? And what does it mean?

Flick: Tunbridge Wells is a small city about 40 miles southeast of London, in the County of Kent. In 1909, King Edward VII—who enjoyed visiting “the Wells”—bestowed the right to add the prefix “Royal” to the city’s name. Some residents use “Royal,” some don’t.

I understand you solved a murder that happened inside the tea museum. I’ve covered lots of murders for the Grand River Journal and they usually happen in dark places like back alleys, drug houses and such. What respectable murderer would kill someone amidst tea cozies, whatever those are?

Flick: That question is clearly based on another misconception about tea—the notion that selling tea is gentle and docile. The 19th century tea trade was a rough and tumble business—with more than its share of robber barons, seedy businessmen, and cutthroat tea purveyors. The museum had to cope with two murders. The first happened quite recently, but it was driven by events in the tea trade that occurred more than a century ago. The second took place more than forty years ago. I can say with confidence that both involved the usual motives for murder: greed, lust, and jealousy.

You sound like you know what you’re talking about. How did you become a double-barreled expert—on murder and tea?

Flick: I’m astonished—you can ask a sensible question that has an interesting answer. When I was in graduate school I wanted to become a forensic scientist—the kind of guru you see on TV, in the different CSI shows. Unfortunately, the advanced courses made me queasy. One professor told me I had too active an imagination—that I couldn’t disconnect my thoughts from the blood and gore, when real people were involved. In the end, I switched to food chemistry. I eventually focused on tea, wrote three books about tea, including the very popular “How to Host an English Tea.” The rest is history.

One woman even with your obvious skills, can’t run a museum by yourself and solve crimes. My research said your sidekick’s name was … something very British. Oh, yes, a guy named Nigel Owen. What’s his story?

Flick: Wow! If Nigel were here, you’d have a bloody snoot about now. Nigel is anything but a “sidekick.” He is currently the Managing Director—that’s equivalent to President—of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum. I agree that Nigel can be a bit stuffy at times, but I expect him to change in the months ahead.

You expect him to change? Are you going to fire him? No, I got it. You weren’t interested in yours truly because it sounds like you two are an item. Do you plan to reel him in?

Flick: Ding! That’s your second dumb question. See you around.

Um… Can I call you in Tunbridge Wells? Er… Do you have a card with your cellphone number?

Flick: [Expletive Deleted]

I must apologize to my loyal readers. I’m not used to doors slamming in my face for these fluff interviews. To get a better idea of what “Dead as a Scone,” the first “Royal Tunbridge Wells Mystery” is about since the interviewee has taken flight:

Murder is afoot is the sedate English town of Royal Tunbridge Wells … and the crime may be brewing in a tea pot! Nigel Owen is having a rotten year. Downsized from a cushy management job at an insurance company in London, he is forced to accept a temporary post as managing director of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum. Alas, he regrets living in a small town in Kent, he prefers drinking coffee (with a vengeance), and he roundly dislikes Flick Adams, PhD, an American scientist recently named the museum’s curator. But then, the wildly unexpected happens. Dame Elspeth Hawker, the museum’s chief benefactor, keels over a board meeting—the apparent victim of a fatal heart attack. With the Dame’s demise, the museum’s world-famous collection is up for grabs, her cats, dog, and parrot are living with Flick and Nigel—and the two prima donnas find themselves facing professional ruin. But Flick—who knows a thing or two about forensic science—is convinced that Dame Elspeth did not die a natural death. As Flick and Nigel follow the clues—including a cryptic Biblical citation—they discover that a crime perpetrated more than a century ago sowed the seeds for a contemporary murder.

Ron Benrey writes cozy mysteries with his wife Janet. Together, they have written nine novels in three series: “The Royal Tunbridge Wells Mysteries,” “The Pippa Hunnechurch Mysteries,” and “The Glory North Carolina Mysteries.” Ron has been a writer forever—initially on magazines (his first real job was Electronics Editor at Popular Science Magazine), then in corporations (he wrote speeches for senior executives), and then as a novelist. Over the years, Ron has also authored ten non-fiction books, including the recently published “Know Your Rights — a Survival Guide for Non-Lawyers” (published by Sterling). Ron holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a master’s degree in management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a juris doctor from the Duquesne University School of Law. He is a member of the Bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Today you can visit W.S. at Jean Henry Mead's blog at http://mysteriouspeople.blogspot.com

MWW Day 3 - Pat Browning's Penny Mackenzie

2011-11-27T01:35:00.000-08:00

Day 3 of the Mystery We Write Blog Tour that W.S. has so graciously volunteered my expert interviewing skills. She also is offering a chance to win A CASE OF HOMETOWN BLUES to some lucky commenter. I should be more upset but today’s featured author is one that really gets around. I mean, when W.S. has me looking at things, I see Pat Browning’s posts on several blogs. I appreciate someone who says it like it is. Kind of like yours truly here. Today’s guest is from Pat’s ABSINTHE OF MALICE. Again, a book I’ve read many good reviews for and have a certain kinship with Penny Mackenzie who joins us today. Welcome Penny. You and I share a similar background at least we both are reporters for newspapers but I understand you cover more fluff pieces. Why did you become a reporter?

Penny: A reporter’s job on The Pearl Outrider was the only job open that sounded halfway interesting when I got out of college. Pearl, California is a very small town. My parents were part of the power structure, such as it was, and they put in a good word for me with the publisher, Walter Wynd.

Walter was a good man and his employees repaid him by referring to the paper as The Weekly Wind. It was mostly a good-natured jest. Walter’s only fault was that he never printed any bad news, just the local fluff, which was made to order for my job as Lifestyle Editor.

I cover the crime beat and have been known to solve a crime or two. I hear you tripped over an old murder? Can you tell me about it and maybe I can use my master reporting skills to help you solve it?

Penny: Sweaty business, murder. Ordinarily I would just look for the person who does the most sweating, but in this case … well, I shouldn’t tell you who the murderer turned out to be. I didn’t have to do much detecting, just a whole lot of snooping and putting two and two together and getting five. The best tool in a reporter’s tool box is curiosity. I had my share and then some.

Sorry about your friend Maxie. In A CASE OF HOMETOWN BLUES I had to solve the case of who killed the homecoming queen who was pretty sweet on me. I’d returned kicking and screaming to my hometown. Maybe you don’t want to know about that. Tell me about Pearl, California. I know at times it felt like the whole town was out to get me. Do you feel like that?

Penny: Nah. I went to school with half the people in town and knew all the gossip about the other half. I felt as if the whole town was looking over my shoulder, egging me on.

Penny, I can see you are a girl with some intelligence. Any chance you would want to have a drink with me and discuss reporting techniques? (Wink, wink)

Penny: Well, such invitations are scarcer than hen’s teeth in a town like Pearl, but I don’t drink and I’m spoken for – again. This time I think it may work out.

Penny, it has been a pleasure getting to know you and would really like to have that drink. Any plans for another adventure where we might cross paths?

Penny: Sorry about the drink, Mitch. Stop by the newsroom for a cup of coffee sometime. I’m in the middle of a really big adventure this time, working title METAPHOR FOR MURDER. Somebody’s been messing around in the old Chinese cemetery, especially around China John’s grave. China John’s been dead for 70 years so why all the interest now? And who was he anyway? He was a real mystery man. Stay tuned …

For more on ABSINTHE OF MALICE, read an extensive excerpt at Google Books http://tinyurl.com/23pojdm

Buy the book at
Barnes and Noble, print and Nook - http://tinyurl.com/43lgk5u
Amazon, print and Kindle - http://tinyurl.com/3ry9gya

Pat Browning was born and raised in Oklahoma. A longtime resident of California's San Joaquin Valley before moving back to Oklahoma in 2005, her professional writing credits go back to the 1960s, when she was a stringer for The Fresno Bee while working full time in a Hanford law office. Her globetrotting in the 1970s led her into the travel business, first as a travel agent, then as a correspondent for TravelAge West, a trade journal published in San Francisco. In the 1990s, she signed on fulltime as a newspaper reporter and columnist, first at The Selma Enterprise and then at The Hanford Sentinel.

MWW Day 2: John M. Daniel's Guy Mallon

2011-11-26T01:59:00.000-08:00

Day two of the Mysery We Write Blog tour and W.S. Gager has me doing all the work. Not sure how that happened. Don't forget to leave a comment to be entered to win my latest escapade, A CASE OF HOMETOWN BLUES. Today I’m interviewing Guy Mallon, a man who knows a lot about words. He was in publishing for many years. I have the pleasure of getting it first here. BEHIND THE REDWOOD DOOR by John M. Daniel has only just been released. I do know how to get a scoop! Let’s start easy. Tell us a bit about yourself, Guy.

Guy: Thanks for taking the time to interview me, Mitch. It’s good to meet you at last. I’ve heard a lot about you. You seem to get into some tight scrapes as a crime reporter. How did you did you ever decide to get into such a risky business?

Don’t get me started. Besides, I’m the one asking the questions here, remember? So. Take two. Tell us a bit about you.

Guy: Okay. So, yes, I love words. I guess what I’m proudest of is my collection of Western American poetry, first editions. That’s what got me into the publishing business in the first place. And what got me out of it, eventually.

What happened? Got tired of publishing? Got tired of poetry?

Guy: I’ll never get tired of poetry—good poetry, that is. But I gave up publishing when I moved to Jefferson County back in the late 1990s. Publishing was too dangerous, believe me. I should have chosen something safe to do for a living, like crime reporting. Just kidding. But really, as a small-press publisher I was threatened and chased by thugs in Las Vegas and marched through a tropical jungle at gunpoint by a cocaine smuggler, I had a ton of books dropped on my body by a religious fanatic, and had my warehouse burned down by an arsonist. So I quit, and moved to Jefferson County, to help my wife run a used bookstore. Something gentle, right?

Well, from what it says in John Daniel’s new novel, BEHIND THE REDWOOD DOOR, you may have settled down, but you haven’t stayed out of trouble. How do you get drawn into another mess?

Guy: Well, a friend of mine, Pete Thayer, got killed, stabbed in the throat and left to bleed to death beside a dumpster out back of the Redwood Door Saloon, on Friday the thirteenth of August, 1999. You would have liked Pete, by the way. Investigative reporter, like you. Anyway, I got talked into taking over his job as editor of the weekly paper, and that turned out to be a dangerous job to have. Target of a lot of small-town grudges. Or maybe I’m just a trouble magnet. That’s what my wife says.

Now Guy, your bio and experience sound a lot like the man behind the pen, John M. Daniel. What makes you special?

Guy: A lot of people point out the similarities between John Daniel and yours truly. We both used to work in bookstores. We both admire formalist verse. We both are married to smart, kind, businesslike, beautiful women who happen to be partial to gin. And of course we were both small press publishers. But Daniel has kept his nose clean. He writes bloody murder, but he goes into a coward’s crouch at the slightest offense. Me special? I don’t think of myself that way, but damn it, sometimes you have to take a stand, right?

Now I don’t want to be offensive here, but trouble might follow you because people might make a bit of fun of your height. Hey, don’t get mad. Just wondering if that has anything to do with it?

Guy: Mitch, my friend, I’m glad you used the word “height,” because height is something I’m proud of. Whenever some jerk asks me, “How short are you?” I answer, “I’m not short. I’m five feet. Five feet tall.” I can spot a jerk by the way he looks down on me from above. Jerk…am I allowed to use stronger words here? No, I guess not. The word I would use if I could pinpoints where the sun don’t shine. Heightists, I call them, and they’re trouble. Let me tell you something—

Okay, on to safer subjects. Tell me about your wife? Was it love at first sight? Did you have to rescue her?

Guy: Carol is the best thing that ever happened to me. No, it wasn’t exactly love at first sight, but when she walked into my store and offered to help with the publishing business I knew she had something I needed in my life. Carol is five years older than I, eight inches taller, and a whole lot smarter. Rescue her? No, I’d say she’s the one who rescued me.

How did she do that?

Guy: I’m not proud of this, but I once made a bad business decision. I don’t mean bad for business. I mean unethical, bad for my soul. Carol left me for that. Left me stranded. She moved out and away from my life. I decided then I had to straighten up and fly right. Which I did, and she took me back. I consider her my grace and savior. Other than that, she has bitched at me ever since for having an addiction to trouble. I’d like to think that’s tamed me down a bit. But it’s the kind of cure that has to be practiced one day at a time.

Thanks, Guy, for stopping in. Maybe we can get together and do a little bourbon sipping some time soon. I’ve been thinking about putting my memoirs together. Would you be able to pull some strings to get them published?

Guy: I’m out of the publishing business, and have been for over ten years. In the meantime publishing has changed a lot. But I’ll tell you what. Talk to my friend Wendy Gager. She might be able to find a way for your tales to get into print. Meanwhile, Mitch, thanks again for chatting with me. I have a feeling you and I see eye to eye—so long as I’m standing on a chair.

To read more about Guy, check out John’s website at www.johnmdaniel.com Remember Behind the Redwood Curtain has only just been released. Be the first to read about it. Tell the bookstore your friend Mitch Malone recommended it.

John M. Daniel has worked as a bookseller, a free-lance writer, an editor, an entertainer, a model, an innkeeper, and a teacher. He and his wife, Susan, live in Humboldt County, California, where they are small-press book publishers. Susan enjoys gardening, John enjoys writing, and they both enjoy living with their wondercat, Warren. He now teaches creative writing for Humboldt State University Extended Education. His thirteen published books include four mysteries: Play Melancholy Baby, The Poet’s Funeral, Vanity Fire, and Behind the Redwood Door, recently published by Oak Tree Press.

MWW Day 1 - Alice Duncan's Daisy Gumm Majesty

2011-11-25T01:24:00.000-08:00

First up today is Alice Duncan. She is my first victim, err guest, in the Mystery We Write Blog Tour. If you read yesterday’s blog announcing the tour, you know I wasn’t thrilled when W.S. approached me. I admit that I was a little less than enthusiastic and then she tempted me with the first author, Alice Duncan. Alice writes about Daisy Gumm Majesty who is my victim, err guest today. Daisy, so glad you could be with us. You live in a very unique time period filled with history. Tell us what is going on in the world.

Daisy: Yes, the world was a very different place after The Great War and the disastrous influenza pandemic that overlapped it. So many, many people lost loved ones that they’re happy to have me communicate with their dearly departed. So what if I have to pretend? My work honestly helps people, no matter what Billy and Sam think.

Now I understand you have a real honest to goodness babe who has hired you. Any chance you could fix her up with your new friend, Mitch Malone?

Daisy: Really, Mr. Malone! How terribly crude. Besides, Mrs. Pinkerton is much older than you. And she’s a married woman. I know *some* men wouldn’t find that a deterrent, but I must beg you not to bother Mrs. P. She’s my best and most faithful client. Even if she is a nitwit. Oh, dear. Please don’t tell her I said that.

Oh, maybe that wouldn’t work. You say your career is that of a spiritual advisor and you get paid to do that? What are the spirits advising in GENTEEL SPIRITS?

Daisy: Yes, I am a spiritualist medium. Mind you I’m *not* a fortune-teller, although according to my husband, Billy, and his best friend, Sam Rotondo, there’s not any difference. But there is. As for what the spirits are advising me in GENTEEL SPIRITS . . . if you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll admit to you that I’m a fraud. I can’t really communicate with dead people. However, there are lots and lots of people who would rather take advice from a phony spiritualist like me than from friends, neighbors, alienists or ministers, so I take their money and do my best. Unfortunately for me, my job in GENTEEL SPIRITS is that of personal spiritual advisor to a *very* temperamental and stupid silent-screen actress, Lola de la Monica, who claims to be from Spain. I’ve heard her when she wasn’t acting, though, and I can tell you she sounds awfully much like my Brooklyn-born party-line neighbor.

People pay you for that? Must be that World War I time period when people were different. I’m a man of sensitivity myself. Any chance you would want to advise me on some matters over a few drinks?

Daisy: Advise you over a few drinks? Really, Mr. Malone! Prohibition is the law of the land, and I don’t care how many people flaunt that law. I can’t afford to do anything so foolish. How many people do you think would hire me if they knew I drank? None. That’s how many. I have to protect my image, which is that of a pale-but-interesting, sober-clad spiritualist who’s an expert wafter. I tell you, I’m *good* at my job!

Oh, sorry, didn’t realize Prohibition was the law of your time and you're married. I don’t mess around with married women. I hear you have another story coming out in just a month or so called ANCIENT SPIRITS. What hare-brained, err adventure befalls you?

Daisy: Yes, indeed, I am married: to the love of my life, Billy Majesty. We had planned a long, happy and fruitful union, but the forever-damned Kaiser and his stinking mustard gas took care of that dream for us. Billy joined the army and went to France shortly after we were married. He wasn’t there for more than a month when he was gassed out of his foxhole and then shot when he tried to crawl to safety. He came back to me after months and months in various hospitals, a ruined man. Therefore, I have to earn a living for the both of us. Billy hates that he can’t work; worse, he hates that I have to. I’m afraid we live a rather fraught existence.
As for ANCIENT SPIRITS . . . well, you’ll just have to wait and find out, won’t you? Although I can tell you I get to ride a camel during the book. And a more evil-smelling, short-tempered beast I’ve never encountered.

Thank you Daisy. It’s been a blooming good time. Get it, Daisy, blooming? Oh, well maybe not so funny. Fine. We’ll just finish this up. For a strong read about a woman who is threatening me with a right hook, pick up GENTEEL SPIRITS or ANCIENT SPIRITS. Before I become ancient myself, check out http://www.aliceduncan.net for more information and where to find Daisy’s fascinating tale.

• GENTEEL SPIRITS (featuring Daisy Gumm Majesty, and set in Pasadena, CA, in 1922): http://tinyurl.com/3ndzcff
• PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL (featuring Annabelle Blue and set in Roswell, NM, in 1923): http://tinyurl.com/3uafvqg
• FALLEN ANGELS (featuring Mercedes Louise Allcutt and set in Los Angeles, CA, in 1926): http://tinyurl.com/3wh2a6t

Award-winning author Alice Duncan lives with a herd of wild dachshunds (enriched from time to time with fosterees from New Mexico Dachshund Rescue) in Roswell, New Mexico. She's not a UFO enthusiast; she's in Roswell because her mother's family settled there fifty years before the aliens crashed. Alice no longer longs to return to California, although she still misses the food, not to mention her children, one of whom is there and the other of whom is in Nevada. Alice would love to hear from you at alice@aliceduncan.net. And be sure to visit her Web site at http//www@aliceduncan.net

Murder We Write Blog Tour Starts Tomorrow

2011-11-24T00:59:00.000-08:00

Mitch Malone here. W.S. Gager has me working double and triple time for the next two weeks for the Mysteries We Write Blog Tour. I have to be honest here. I bitched and moaned for more than an hour when W.S. proposed the idea. I’m an amazing newspaper reporter but she wants a stellar interview every day for two weeks. Even us superhero reporters can’t write Pulitzer Prize stories every day. They take work. You can’t just ask any old questions. You need research, good questions and something to catch them off guard to get an honest response.

I’ve been doing my research and I hate to admit that W.S. may have been right. These folks are top of the line writers with terrific books. With so many at one time I haven’t been able to read all their books yet but the ones I have, I have really enjoyed. These are great writers who know the business. However, I’m not interviewing the authors. I’m better than that. I’m interviewing a main character in their latest book. Some of them really air some big secrets…

Stop by every day for the next two weeks and see for yourself. I deftly get them to tell me things; things you want to know. If you need more incentive to stop by, W.S. is making it worth your time, if you are feeling lucky. Leave a comment and let me or my interviewee know you stopped or ask a question and see if you can rival my questions. W.S. is kicking in a few books on my latest big story called A CASE OF HOMETOWN BLUES to a random commenter.

Here’s the Murder We Write Blog Tour schedule:
Nov. 25 – Alice Duncan
Nov. 26 – John M. Daniel
Nov. 27 – Pat Browning
Nov. 28 – Ron Benrey
Nov. 29 – Beth Anderson
Nov. 30 – Anne K. Albert
Dec. 1 – Earl Staggs
Dec. 2 – Jinx Schwartz
Dec. 3 – Mike Orenduff
Dec. 4 – Marilyn Meredith
Dec. 5 – Jean Henry Mead
Dec. 6 – Jackie King
Dec. 7 – Timothy Hallinan
Dec. 8 – M.M. Gornell
Dec. 9 – Winners announced and maybe W.S. will actually post something to the blog. Miracles do happen! (Take that, W.S. I told you my services did not come cheap!)

I'm Taking Off on Mystery We Write Blog Tour

2011-11-20T16:44:00.000-08:00

It may be a few days before Thanksgiving for many of you but for me it is five days before I participate in my first blog tour. That’s right starting on Friday, that is Black Friday, I will jump aboard the Mystery We Write Blog Tour. I will be promoting my latest book, A CASE OF HOMETOWN BLUES, in the Mitch Malone Mystery series. That being said, secrets will be revealed as I talk about the craft of writing and how the Mitch Malone series was started. Each day for the next two weeks I will be going from blog to blog. Here is my schedule and where to find the posts.

Nov. 25 – M.M Gornell Blog

Nov. 26 – Timothy Hallinan

Nov. 27 – Jackie King

Nov. 28 – Jean Henry Mead

Nov. 29 – Marilyn Meredith

Nov. 30 – Mike Orenduff

Dec. 1 – Jinx Schwartz

Dec. 2 – Earl Staggs

Dec. 3 – Anne K. Albert

Dec. 4 – Beth Anderson

Dec. 5 – Ron Benrey

Dec. 6 – Pat Browning

Dec. 7 – John M. Daniel

Dec. 8 – Alice Duncan

I was very humbled to be asked to participate with some fine authors who are much more successful and well-known than I. Did I mention it is the Mystery We Write Blog Tour? My job was to write the posts for each day for the blog I will visit. I turned the other job over to Mitch Malone, ace investigative reporter. He interviewed characters in each author’s book with a couple of exceptions. So stayed glued to W.S. Gager on Writing blog to learn more about these great authors. Leave comments on my blog and the blogs I visit for a chance to win more than 60 books being given away during the 14 days. All that is needed to enter is a comment. Winners will be announced on Dec. 9 in most cases.

Mitch Malone Mondays Are Back With Chris Redding's Trey McCrane

2011-11-06T18:39:00.000-08:00

Mitch Malone here. It’s been a while since I’ve been in print. It’s not my fault that W.S. Gager has been running around interviewing 13 friends for a blog tour that starts later this month. I’m just getting feeling back in my fingers from taking so many notes. Not to mention that I’m currently in the midst of another new story, err book, but W.S. will have to tell you about that later. I’m on a deadline. Let’s get to my victim for today. Trey McCrane is the hero in BLONDE DEMOLITION, a new novel by Chris Redding. Let’s get to it. Trey you are an agent for Homeland Security. Can you tell my readers what that entails?.

It can entail a lot of things including naturally disaster relief and border patrol. My job is to investigate any kind of bomb threats to the United States.

I have several cop friends that feed me information for stories and from them I know some of the best cops either were or could have been great criminals. Any skeletons in your closet?

Well, I can't disagree with your friends. I guess I was a little rambunctious as a child. Maybe blew up a few things that I shouldn't have. We'll leave it at that as those records are sealed.

Now it doesn’t take much investigation to figure out that some hot blond is involved, the book is called BLONDE DEMOLTION. She isn’t happy about seeing you again. What happened?

As usual, I'm not really sure what is going on in Mallory's head. We seemed to have a good thing. One of our cases went south, but that happens. Next thing I knew she was gone and there were skidmarks by my front door.

As I mentioned, I work mostly with cops but sometimes homeland security gets involved and might in my next book. Would you give a reporter like me a scoop? You ever worked with any reporters?

I try my best not to work with reporters. Besides, my job isn't about talking to the public. That's what we have PIO's for.

Tell me about this Stanley guy? Why isn’t he locked up somewhere?

Stanley is a pretty slick character. I think he has many DHS people in his pocket.

Thank you Trey for stopping by Mitch Malone Mondays. Where can my loyal readers go to find out the rest of the story?

BLONDE DEMOLITION will be out Nov. 15 in electronic form on Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble. Check out www.chrisreddingauthor.com for more information.
Thanks for having me Mitch. Here is more information about the book.

You just can't hide from the past...

Mallory Sage lives in a small, idyllic town where nothing ever happens. Just the kind of life she has always wanted. No one, not even her fellow volunteer firefighters, knows about her past life as an agent for Homeland Security.

Former partner and lover, Trey McCrane, comes back into Mallory's life. He believes they made a great team once, and that they can do so again. Besides, they don't have much choice. Paul Stanley, a twisted killer and their old nemesis, is back.

Framed for a bombing and drawn together by necessity, Mallory and Trey go on the run and must learn to trust each other again―if they hope to survive. But Mallory has been hiding another secret, one that could destroy their relationship. And time is running out.

Energized by Magna Cum Murder

2011-10-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

I just returned home from Magna Cum Murder and I’m so excited to get started on my fifth Mitch Malone novel. November is National Novel Writing Month and I enjoy trying to pound out the very rough draft in a month. It works for me. But back to Magna, it was a great group of other writers and readers who love mysteries. It was heaven to talk about writing and mysteries nonstop Friday through Sunday. I met and talked with so many great people! Best of all some even brought my books. I’m eternally grateful to them!

Friday night I competed in a game show with Parnell Hall, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Les Edgerton, Con Lehane. The World’s Best Detective show is the brainchild of Austin Lugar who serves as MC. Two detectives are pitted against each other to solve a murder suggested by the audience. Parnell is a very funny guy and I was worried about being able to keep up with his quick wit. I didn’t know the other contestants. The show was funny and we all played off each other well. As for Parnell and I…we didn’t agree on most of the pairings and bantered back and forth. Harry Bosch (created by Michael Connelly) defeated Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, whose name I could never pronounce correctly.

Saturday I could relax and enjoy the sessions and then moderated a panel on Sunday morning on “It’s not a vacation, it’s research.” Not sure why I was tapped to do this because I live in Michigan and my books are set in Michigan put the panelists had books set in Washington D.C., England, Thailand, and Vancouver. They had great stories about their research trips.

Kudos to Kathryn Kennison, Magna Director, her crew and Ball State University for sponsoring this great weekend of Mystery.

My Email was HACKED!

2011-10-21T08:17:00.000-07:00

I got hacked! I’m not sure why it had to happen today but it did. Funny thing is that I realized it right away. First I got an email address back and was already changing my password, then my husband called and said he got a message from me too. The first message went out at 10:00 a.m. EST. Within ten minutes, sixty messages had been sent.

I caught the error within 30 minutes and reset my password. Then I started sending out apology emails to every email that was sent. The ironic thing is that now I can’t send any more emails because of the suspicious activity on my account. Yes, me sending apologies for the emails of the hacker flagged my account! I still have a half dozen to send. Yahoo hopes my account will be able to work soon and if now within 24 hours to contact them. Where were they when I was hacked?

My second question is how did they do it? All those email were sent in 10 minutes or less. It took me 15 minutes to reply before they cut me off. If I were the suspicious type and I am a mystery writer, then there has to be murder involved. There might just have to be a bit of hacking in my next novel just because I want to understand how this can happen. Anyone know an answer or better yet an expert? Is this some computer somewhere programmed to try every combination for an email without monitoring? This curious mind wants to know and then perform some maiming and murder, fictitiously of course!

P.S.: So sorry if you got one of the emails that had some website on it. Anyone know how to fry a website? I’m still looking for vengeance.

Hay Sculptures Decorate Fremont

2011-10-05T18:58:00.000-07:00

I wish I could get people to talk about my book as much as Fremont pulls together for the annual Harvest Festival this weekend. The festival features all kinds of events and even a beer tent (a relatively new thing for the community).

While we will not be visiting for the festivities, we did enjoy all the decorations this past weekend when visiting for Homecoming. I can’t count the number of businesses who created a hay sculptures—Fremont’s answer to Art Prize in Grand Rapids.

They dotted the town from end to end and many of them incorporated the business’s theme from the duck at the car wash to the house at the ReMax office. They were so adorable that we kept driving through town to look at them and as the weekend went on more and more appeared.

Fremont is all about enjoying nature whether it is working on the farm or in the apple orchard or swimming in a lake or kayaking down a river. This weekend is about celebrating what it has to offer.

I miss those things, now we leave in a larger city. I miss knowing folks at the grocery store and being able to spend all afternoon in the Koffee Kuppe with good friends! I need to start making local connections and meeting people. Maybe I will build a hay sculpture of a book to tell them a local mystery author has moved in. It works for Fremont!

For more information on the Harvest Festival, check out the Fremont Chamber of Commerce's website at http://fremontcommerce.com/harvest/index.php

The Choice Between Encouragement and Sarcasm

2011-09-28T06:19:00.000-07:00

My first day of class is always the best. The minds are open and eager to learn. I teach developmental classes at a local right-to-try college offering technical training and medical technician degrees. I love the right-to-try concept in that anyone can attend regardless of whether they successfully completed high school or not.

My students can be anywhere from just out of high school to men and women in their 50s or 60s with kids and families trying to be retrained in a state that has lost too many higher paying manufacturing jobs to low-wage service jobs. Their former jobs are now being done outside the country. By the time the students arrive in my class, they have come to terms with their lost and want to be retrained and provide for their family. They are dedicated and eager to learn.

They also share another common trait. Some educator or family member along the way has done a number on them and convinced them they are stupid and can never learn to read properly or write an acceptable sentence.

The best part of my job is telling them they will learn. I will see to it. You can see the hope shine in their eyes because no one has encouraged their education before. And usually that is all they need along with some work to improve their skills. When they leave my class they are ready to take on the rest of their education and improve their life.

What frustrates me is the stories I hear along the way. The humiliation dished out at the hands of role models or parents. Imagine what these people could have already accomplished if given just a little bit of encouragement instead of negativity? We throw around the word “stupid” like it was candy instead of poison to a struggling soul. What would the world be like if we replaced the scorn with a helping hand, a word of encouragement instead of sarcasm? Could it be that simple?

Google Alerts Now Filled With Hockey Instead of My Book!

2011-09-23T11:44:00.000-07:00

I have Google Alerts for my name and the name of each of my books. What that means is when someone mentions my name or one of my books, I get an email from Google letting me know along with a link to go look at it. I love it and it is a super cool concept. I’ve seen lots of buzz about my books including a great review from the Lansing State Journal! I had no idea my publisher sent an advance reading copy to them. I encourage everyone to have Google Alerts.

As I mentioned, I have one that I created this summer for A CASE OF HOMETOWN BLUES. I didn’t think too much about it until hockey season started this past week. The St. Louis Blues trigger my Google alert nearly every day. I’m trying to decide if I should make the search more specific, but wouldn’t want to miss something if my book title isn’t exactly as it should be.

For now, I’m keeping up on hockey which is a big sport in our house with my daughter being the biggest fan. The bad part is the Blues aren’t “her team.” That would be the Detroit Red Wings. I must admit I don’t keep up on their season much, but I’m more of a red and white girl than blue and gold. For now I will just cheer for more alerts for my favorite team – the Mitch Malone Mystery series. Go Hometown Blues!

What would you like to see more Google alerts for?

Forecast: Characterization with sunny flowers

2011-09-21T07:25:00.000-07:00

I splurged yesterday at the grocery store and purchased a large bunch of yellow alstroemeria, a lily-type flower. The weatherman is forecasting gray days for the rest of the week. Something about a trapped low pressure system waiting for some stronger weather to move it out. While we wait, it sits and spins over Michigan creating clouds and off and on showers. To offset that tired, crankiness the weather can cause, I wanted to be proactive and purchased the flowers. For me the yellow helps replace the sun.

I never was one who wanted a beau to deliver a big bouquet as a sign of eternal devotion. Now that I’m older and married, I appreciate them more. And they do make me smile as the rain pelts the window. When the grayness pulls me to the couch for a nap, I look at the flowers and it helps me go back to writing. I’ve been struggling to create some vivid characters for a short story that needs to be done by the end of the month. Making charcters come alive in short stories is very difficult unless you can show traits by actions. Flowers can help with that.

Does your main character adore or scoff at flowers? Mitch Malone, the crime beat reporter sleuth in my mystery series, would scoff at flowers. He has no idea why the world needs them, thinks they are silly and the folly of woman. However, he would bring them to a date, if he ever had one and thought it would help the girl like him better. What I need to decide is how the female character would react when Mitch shows up with a large bouquet? Does she throw them in his face? Take them and gush giving him a big hug? Take them and then slam the door in his face?

Characters are funny things. You create them, then they have the nerve to have a mind of their own and tell you what they are going to do. Have you ever read a book and the character did something you didn’t expect and you couldn’t say why? Was that good characterizing or bad? My guess is bad unless there is a compelling reason for the character to change that you could find about later.

Think about your favorite characters? Would they buy flowers? Would they never notice them or would they smile every time they walked by? Tell me about your favorite character and their flower choices.

Technical Terms Defined

2011-09-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

Today's post is a guest blog from the Murder Must Advertise loop which is dedicated to helping mystery authors get the word out on their books. As a little background, I am taking a book blog tour class and get lost in all the technology terms. I thought Paul's comment on the litserv was very informative and others might benefit from it. Thank you PolyWogg. To see more about Poly, check out his website at http://polywogg.ca

The mechanics differ from site to site, but the "theory" behind them is
relatively straightforward.

Note though that one should distinguish between a blog (regularly updated
content on a website) and a newsletter (regularly updated content sent out
by e-mail). If you get Hitch's business updates by e-mail. they are truly a
newsletter -- all the content is there to read, for the most part,
relatively self-contained. At the other end of the spectrum is a
auto-generated newsletter that basically does nothing more than tell you
there's a new blog entry on the website (this is what my e-mail followers
get, designed to drive people to the site). In the middle is something CJ
Lyons does -- she sends out what looks like a newsletter in that it is a
nicely drafted/crafted e-mail, but also contains announcement info on links
to more info on her website. So, if someone wants your newsletter, there's
really only one way to get it -- sign in and give you their email address.

However, if you want to "follow" a blog (or any website generally), there
are generally five ways to do it, only one of which requires an e-mail or
login. First, you can do it manually -- some people have a few bookmarks
that they just click on once a week or once a day and go to the site to see
what's new. Upside is it is totally within your control, no distractions, no
inbox filling up, etc.; downside is you forget to click and miss something
interesting.

Second, you can use a tool like iGoogle or MyYahoo etc to create a special
page that does nothing more than give you little windows of other pages --
so you "add" someone else's URL to this page and next time you go to
MyYahoo, it will show you if there is anything updated on that page (usually
the home page of the blogsite). This is basically how most news sites work
that aggregate other news sites.

Third, you can subscribe "manually" to their updates (if the site allows
it). My site gives this option -- if you subscribe, enter your e-mail
address, etc, then every time there's a new blog entry, you get an e-mail.
Most sites don't have it, at least not by default, but it is usually easy to
add. I have mine set to send out the "notifications" daily only cuz I don't
generate a lot of content, it's a personal site. And I use a plugin called
FeedBurner which includes an e-mail option. They manage all the e-mail
addresses, not me, and it is a lot more sophisticated then me having them
register on MY site (which btw also creates essentially a type of account on
my site, which is also an opening for future vulnerabilities) .

Fourth, you can click on the RSS feed and add it to your browser (some
browsers have built in plugins that will allow feeds to appear just in their
toolbar as pulldown menus). RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and was designed for "following" someone without necessarily telling them and having to provide your info. If you are on a site that is even the least bit social media friendly, you usually see a little icon for Facebook, another for Twitter, several others for other social media sites, and then one that is orange and looks like a dot in the bottom left hand corner with two semi-circles radiating out to the right -- the image is supposed to be like a speaker giving off "waves". Clicking on this activates the RSS feed, and your browser set up decides if it knows what to do with it (i.e. add it to your pulldown menu) or not (gives you a really ugly page of computer code that is almost unreadable).

Fifth, and I find this the easiest, is to run an RSS reader program. Some
are standalone and run on your desktop, others are web-based. I use Google's web-based RSS reader, called, dum dum de da: Google Reader. In the reader, you basically give it the URL for the site you want to follow and it will try to figure out the feed address for you -- usually something like www.site.com/ feed or something similar. Most of the time though I just click on the RSS icon and up pops a bunch of options like "How do you want to follow this?" with a list of various readers to choose from, and Google is almost always an option. I click on google reader, it adds it for me to the google reader, and voila, my google reader has another bookmark in it that is now following George's Guide to Navel Lint. If It doesn't give me the popup, I can add it manually by opening google reader and entering the URL myself, and that will find it most of the time. If not, last resort is to "right click" on the RSS icon on the blog, say "COPY LINK LOCATION" and
paste *that* into your Reader program. This isn't a great explanation, there
are pages and pages of examples on the Google Reader Help site, if you can't get it to work, but it's not as bad as I describe. Like I said, most of the time, I just click on the RSS icon and say "add to google reader". I have even added a Google Reader widget to my iGoogle home page that tells me when google Reader has something new in it. Of course, Google Reader also "pulls" the content from the original site and gives you a viewer reader to see the entry -- which means if you're following your favorite author, and they add a special banner to their site advertising a new book or a sale, you don't see it in the reader ... you read the text, not the original website. You can click through to it easy enough to see more, but it does mean you're not visiting the site.

As for MM's comment about, ahem, commenting and wanting a universal commenting system, I hope no one holds their breath. It won't come anytime soon, I don't think -- two of the main drivers for running different commenting systems is (a) how it integrates with the underlying software which varies from other sites for specific offerings (FB and Google+ do similar things, but not identical, and comment systems will differ in their ability to integrate with them too); and (b) combating spamsters. If anyone follows The Passive Guy's blog, he even gives good examples of Spam 2.0 attempts on his site -- spamsters who post what look like perfectly
legitimate but somewhat generic comments, no spam involved, and wait until you approve it. Which seems like a waste of spam time, except most sites have similar policies -- all first time comments get moderated, *but* if you are posting from an e-mail address that has already had at least one comment approved, the site allows direct posting without moderation. So the first comment goes in as "innocuous" and then they can spam your site at will, because the address is already "validated" as okay. So expect the commenting systems to respond in different ways, and to continue their parallel but incompatible development.

RSS is a great way to market your site, build followers, etc., but the downside is it is also anonymous -- you don't know who is following you, unlike Twitter or newsletters. It's one of the reasons too why it is so popular -- I don't necessarily want to share my address with you for all eternity opening myself up to the potential of eternal spam from you. I just want to read your blog :) But while it builds support for your CONTENT, RSS readers also encourage people to view your content in THEIR windows, not the original site.

Kerrytown BookFest Featuring Louise Penny

2011-09-12T19:02:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I went to the Kerrytown BookFest in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I’d never been and it was really nice. I didn’t realize there were so many specialized book publishers. I also had the privilege of listening to Louise Penny being interviewed by Robin Agnew of Aunt Agatha’s Book Store.

I’ve not read any of Louise’s books but I will be, I guarantee it not only from Robin’s kind words but because of the author. She was so interesting, engaging and comfortable playing the 200 plus people there.

I’m comfortable talking to people but she related to the audience within seconds. She talked about her husband, her writing process, a hilarious story about how she got one of the ideas (from her husband). Her mysteries feature Inspector Armand Gamache and are set in Canada. The first book on my list is the one where someone is killed by electrocution on a frozen lake during a curling match.

I wish I had taken notes and been closer to the front so I could see more of her facial expressions. But you didn’t need to see her to know she was having fun. The hour flew by and the audience’s questions came fast and furious. Someday I hope I’m as comfortable with an audience and have people entranced by the stories I tell.

2011-09-12T08:31:00.001-07:00

Kittling Books: Great questions, different answers and bonus travel tips. http://ping.fm/1jxcP

Blogging and Too Much Information

2011-09-08T11:06:00.000-07:00

I’m taking this great Blog Tour Class from Dani at http://bookblogtours.com. We’ve only just started and I’ve learned so much. We are working on critiquing each other’s blogs. Usually I’m a dine and dasher when it comes to blogs. I don’t seem to have time to read them all. I pop in and read what I want, post a quick comment, and then move on.

Since the class started, I am spending more time on the blogs I look at. I just went to post on a blog because the woman was looking for help getting her author portrait taken. (I’ve had many jobs/careers and one was with a great photographer and picked up a few tips. I also hate horrid photos that with a bit of tweaking could have been great.) After making my comments I spent some time looking at her blog and trying to evaluate as we are learning.

In the class there has been a bit of discussion about Feeddjit which shows you where the people are from who are looking at your blog. I saw one from Lansing and thought it was cool because I am trying to connect with writers who life near me. (I just moved.) After a few moments I realized the person was me. Ugh! Now I understand Feeddjit – a live traffic feed and why the woman who had it said she just likes to see where people are coming from. I think that is cool too. I’m scared to add here because I think all my views will be my mother! Does technology give you too much information? What do you think? Are you my mother?

2011-09-05T18:19:00.001-07:00

Worked hard researching this weekend -- not. http://ping.fm/Bkj2r

2011-09-01T08:26:00.001-07:00

Has sensitivity been overridden by a need to be funny? http://ping.fm/mYPED

2011-08-31T19:19:00.001-07:00

What happens when you describe a setting and realize you are lost in the wrong town. http://ping.fm/U7eOH

2011-08-30T08:24:00.001-07:00

3 is my lucky number. See why. http://ping.fm/gCDDJ

Mitch Malone Mondays - John Bray

2011-08-15T06:28:00.000-07:00

I get back from vacation and W.S. has all these interviews lined up. I talk to cops every day on the beat as the best reporter at the Grand River Journal and all she gives me to interview are cops or former cops. I don't know why she can't set something up with a super model or something. Now there would be an interview. I don't want it to be said that Mitch Malone isn't professional. Today's interview is John Bray, a former cop and attorney. John, thanks for joining me today. You started out as a cop and then switched careers to law. Why did you do that?

Hi Mitch, Before we begin, if you'd like to interview a snazzy model speak to Mina. But be careful, Dante is the jealous type and he's armed. (THE CONFIDENTIAL). To get back to your questions. leaving the department early was a difficult decision. I had to wait 3 years for my pension to vest and I got 17/40ths instead of 20/40ths but I made more money practicing law. When I left, the NYPD was going through a major upheaval and I was right in the middle of it. I was a prosecutor in the internal disciplinary system having been admitted to the bar and promoted to lieutenant. I was recommended for a meritorious promotion to lieutenant detective squad commander but the Police Commissioner denied it on a personal whim, I decided my time would be better spent elsewhere.

Thanks John. I may have to look up Mina. Before becoming an attorney, you worked in New York City and covered some of the worst crimes. Does that have any influence on your writing?

THE CONFIDENTIAL is based largely on a fictionalized version of events and people I had personal experience with, so yes, there was at least one book there, the publisher wants a series,(gulp).

When you were working as a cop, were you a good source for reporters? I know I didn't cover the beat in New York but would you feed me information?

When I was in the PD, I never had a good experience with reporters, but I don't want to get personal. When I practiced law they came to me for interviews and were more deferential.

Your book, THE BALLAD OF JOHNNY MADIGAN, is being published by BeWrite Books of Lancashire, England. Where can people find it and what is it like having an English publisher?

The publisher, by the way, is a small independent company which is now incorporated in Canada. The main guy in the company is English and lives in France and the technical work is done in Vancouver. My editor lives in Ottawa, I think they're all great people. THE BALLAD OF JOHNNY MADIGAN is published by BeWrite Books and is available through them, Amazon, B&N, Books-a-Million and on all the e-media. THE CONFIDENTIAL, just released, is on all the same outlets.

My understanding is the THE BALLAD OF JOHNNY MADIGAN is set in the 1800s. How hard was that to write about? You weren't living then, I assume?

THE BALLAD starts in Lower Manhattan, with which I am very familiar. I did tons of research to write a Civil War story, but it becomes a law enforcement/counterespionage story. Very different from the usual Civil War book. (My great-great-grandfather was killed in action during the battle of Port Hudson, LA during the WAR OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION), as they like to call it down here in Williamsburg, VA, whence we have retired and now write.

John, a pleasure having you. You sound like a great storyteller. Where can people find other things you have written?

I spent 30 years as a criminal attorney, I have tons of anecdotes about crime and court room stuff, besides doing trial work in the PD. For example, did Wendy tell you that the tech man at our conference played an excerpt from PRINCE OF THE CITY? The protagonist was someone I worked with in uniform and later became my witness in the Trial Room when he testified against his brother officers. A character somewhat like him appears under a fictional name in THE CONFIDENTIAL. I have had some short stories published by e-zines but some require an acquired taste, shall we say, and most but not all are not cop stories. My website/blog is www.poppa10.wordpress.com. For more information on the books check my publisher's website at www.bewrite.net.

Thanks John.

Mitch Malone Monday - A Case of Hometown Blues

2011-08-08T06:59:00.000-07:00

Hello world. Today I’m taking over the blog as usual on Monday but I’m not interviewing anyone. I need to tell you about my newest adventure called A CASE OF HOMETOWN BLUES. I got stuck going back to my hometown of Flatville. I refused being the ace reporter I thought it would make a difference. It didn’t.

Talk about a disaster. Here’s the opening couple of paragraphs:

“HEY, MALONE. HOW can we expect to get a Pulitzer in this backwater?”

I wanted to roll my eyes. I had been nominated for the top prize in investigative journalism twice, but never won. My topic for this seminar to a sister newspaper’s staff was finding big stories and working sources. However, Biff and Bob, I think that’s what they said their names were, heckled me just for kicks.

This routine was familiar. I’d been known to do it when I was required to attend a seminar or two in the past. The rest of the afternoon was going to be painful, if I didn’t stomp on these two and fast. I didn’t do painful. I was an award-winning journalist who covered the crime beat. I was immensely qualified to lead this seminar after receiving national headlines on a story in each of the last two years.

Argued with my editor five ways to Sunday, but nothing would persuade him to not send me.

After the first session I decided to relax at the local pub. Walked right into my class reunion. I never planned to return to this God-forsaken place of my birth but then I saw Trudy, the homecoming queen. She took a second look at me and we were really hitting it off. Problem was she turned up dead the next day and I was wanted for murder.

Something was mighty fishy in my home town and I had motivation to dig deeper. Every time I thought I was getting close to the truth, it wasn’t. I couldn’t believe all the secrets I uncovered.

Check out A CASE OF HOMETOWN BLUES for yourself…
http://www.amazon.com/Case-Hometown-Blues-W-Gager/dp/1610090179/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311040194&sr=1-1

Mitch Malone Mondays - Keith Bettinger

2011-07-31T01:47:00.000-07:00

Mitch Malone here back from a vacation and pleased to see my latest adventure is now available. Check it out. Enough of that though, today's guest is a man who knows how to tell a story. Keith Bettinger is a retired cop from New York or maybe I should say Brooklyn specifically. Keith is one guy I wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. Thanks for stopping by and letting a reporter take a few jabs at you. First, how did a tough cop become a writer?

Hi Mitch, Wendy must of gave you some misinformation. I’m not from Brooklyn, I just sound like I am. I’m from Long Island, pronounced by the natives as “Lawn Giland”. I lived in the bucolic suburbs filled with dandelions and ragweed. I really made my way into writing by accident. I did something that ‘professional writers’ tell you you can’t do – I did a term paper on dreams and post shooting trauma, and a well-respected trainer and writer, Massad Ayoob, of the Lethal Force Institute in New Hampshire, passed it along to the editor of Police Marksman magazine and they sent me a contract to sign.

While you were working, did you ever have a favorite reporter? (I know you weren't working with me and that might have made a difference.) Did you feed them information?

On Long Island there is only one daily newspaper, NEWSDAY. As it goes Newsday is the sworn enemy of police. However, they did have one excellent crime reporter, Jim McDonald. He wrote the truth about the police. If you did a good job, Jim was there to tell the residents of Long Island about your deeds. If a cop did something wrong, Jim reported it without sensationalizing it. It’s a shame he has passed away.

The other great reporter was Ed Lowe. He was more a storyteller about life on Long Island. His father was the Chief of Police in the village of Amityville, NY. The first time I met Ed at a book signing of his I told him he was the only reason I let Newsday in my house. He laughed and told me when he went to work for Newsday he asked his father could he bring the paper home. His father told him, “Only if you pay for it. I won’t.”

Ed wrote many moving tributes about a lot of the people I worked with. He could make you laugh and he could make you cry with his printed word. It was a sad day when Ed Lowe passed away a few months ago.

Your new book, END OF WATCH, is about a cop who faces tragedy and how he lives with it. This is a fictional story but is based on a real guy? How did putting this story together come to be?

END OF WATCH took about fifteen years to complete. It’s not based on anyone. It comes from being a peer support counselor during police week for thirteen years as well as at the National Law Enforcement Memorial dedication in Washington, DC. I saw many people trying to understand why they lost their loved one. I wanted to write a book that would be short enough to read in a couple hours, and yet make them understand that they are not alone in their grief. It was a struggle to get the book completed. Now I hope it helps readers work their way through their grief.

END OF WATCH is a more serious read isn't it? Another of your books is just laugh out loud funny and is about two cops called Fighting Crime With "Some" Day and Lenny. You are a seriously funny guy and I have that on the best authority. Is it harder to write humor?

I would say that END OF WATCH is somewhere between a romance novel and a self help book. Romance because there is love of family and the job, and self help because grief issues are addressed.

Fighting Crime with “Some” Day and Lenny started as a joke with a story about 2 bumbling NYPD detectives in the quiet borough of Staten Island. Staten Island is the best kept secret of New York City, right across from Brooklyn. It has suburbs just like Long Island has. In all the old black and white movies, cops were banished to Staten Island when they did something wrong.

There is a competition between the cops that patrol Long Island and the New York City Police Department. Nothing terrible. Just who has the hardest job and who makes the most money. I decided to play off this competitive spirit and put an overachiever with a bungling partner and put them in a location where cobwebs grow on criminals. Many of the scenarios are exaggerations of actual events.

The hardest part of writing humor is what is funny to me might not be funny to the reader. You can’t insult the reader. One of the most difficult parts about writing comedy about Staten Island came after September 11, 2001. I started writing my book a few years before that infamous date. All the debris was taken to the Arthur Kill landfill on Staten Island. There as it was sifted through by police officers looking for remains to return to loved ones. There was no humor in that location. I had to make up a different location for some ‘funny’ things to happen. Also, some police officers died on Staten Island during the writing of the book. Caution had to be used when writing comedic scenarios. That is why I wrote and included the last chapter in the book.

Tell us one of the funniest things that happened to you?

Although it didn’t happen to me I was there to witness it. It was a summer evening and a call went out for a possible burglary in progress. The owners of the house were on vacation and neighbors thought someone broke into the house. We responded and all the young cops were leaping the six foot tall fence. Us old guys opened the gate and walked into the back yard.

While looking in the back window of the house for burglars, one young officer took a step back and everyone heard a loud splash. We looked and there sticking out of the in ground pool was the officer’s hand holding his portable radio above the water. If there had been burglars in the house they would have escaped because there wasn’t a cop at the scene that wasn’t rolling on the ground laughing. Well, there was at least one cop that wasn’t laughing. Fortunately for me, I was laughing.

Keith it has been a pleasure and I wish you had been a cop on the beat. How can people get their hands on END OF WATCH?

I self-published END OF WATCH so it would finally be in the hands of readers. I did the cover art. (The photo, which I took at the National Law Enforcement Memorial, plays a part in the story.) Eventually I hope to pick up a publisher and turn the book over to the publisher for distribution. The book is available through me for $10 and $3 first class US Mail, or $5 for priority mail.

Thanks Keith. Pick up a copy of END OF WATCH. Contact Keith through his email: keithbett@cox.net

A Case of Hometown Blues

2011-07-18T19:19:00.000-07:00

A Case of Hometown Blues is now available on Barnes and Noble.com and Amazon. BN has a bargain price on it so get it quick. Here is the link: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-case-of-hometown-blues-w-s-gager/1030783909?ean=9781610090179&itm=1&usri=a%2bcase%2bof%2bhometown%2bblues

Still not sure if it is for you? Here are the first couple of paragraphs.

“HEY, MALONE. HOW can we expect to get a Pulitzer in this backwater?”

I wanted to roll my eyes. I had been nominated for the top prize in investigative journalism twice, but never won. My topic for this seminar to a sister newspaper’s staff was finding big stories and working sources. However, Biff and Bob, I think that’s what they said their names were, heckled me just for kicks.

This routine was familiar. I’d been known to do it when I was required to attend a seminar or two in the past. The rest of the afternoon was going to be painful, if I didn’t stomp on these two and fast.

I didn’t do painful. I was an award-winning journalist who covered the crime beat. I was immensely qualified to lead this seminar after receiving national headlines on a story in each of the last two years.

When a Mitch Malone exclusive ran, the advertisers ponyed up for weeks afterwards and circulation rose making my editor and publisher happy in a business that struggled to survive. I was asked to talk to other newspapers in the chain to encourage them to get bigger stories and edge the bottom line into black. I didn’t like it, but didn’t have a choice.

“When was the last time one of your stories made it on the wire?” I challenged the fresh-faced kid a couple of years out of college.

Bob looked at his shoes. Chair legs scraped against the floor as everyone in the room straightened their backs in the small conference room. I looked down the fake wood-grain table that had room for a couple more bodies. Now I had their attention and the sun pulled from behind a cloud and brightened the pale yellow walls.

“What makes a good story great and launches it into the wire services is the attention to detail. Not only creating a picture with your words, but using quotes to convey emotion. You have to work with your police departments, sources and your witness to have conversations with you in order to get at the depth of emotion in a story.” I thought I had them now.

“Yeah, but what terrorists come to Flatville to train for a mission? You can see for miles.” This from another irritant.

“Good and even great stories aren’t found under rocks.” Although I wanted to throw a few stones at the voice, I think was Biff. “Good stories are hard work and require investigation and talking to a lot of people, not just a single source.”

I was back in control again. “I could have just gone with the double homicide story and moved on to the next burglary, but I wouldn’t have been nominated for a Pulitzer for that. You have to develop a sense when something doesn’t seem right. You need to push a little harder.”

“You need to become wanted for murder and go into hiding.”

Also, if you read the book, it would be great if you would post a review or comment on Barnes and Noble or Amazon, or Goodreads.com or other places. I need to get more people to read the books. Thanks for all your help! Enjoy Mitch!

2011-07-13T05:11:00.001-07:00

How many emails do you save? I'm blogging about my massive Inbox and how I can't get it under control at Acme Authors. http://ping.fm/l0P0H

2011-07-01T07:26:00.001-07:00

Hear about my Hometown Blues on Shelley Irwin's morning show. http://ping.fm/fQ8ui

2011-06-19T10:40:00.001-07:00

Will facebook replace the need for class reunions? I weigh in on the subject. http://ping.fm/N4gly

2011-06-18T17:53:00.001-07:00

A day late but see how I almost died the weekend I met my husband. http://ping.fm/P3tUF

2011-06-15T11:00:00.001-07:00

My article is published on My Life. My title was "A Shrug is Not a Conversation," but it didn't really explain that the article was about my son and I living together. However, if you have a teenager, you would get it right off. To see the whole article, follow the link: http://ping.fm/fMNrm

Can you relate? What title do you like?

2011-06-13T04:18:00.001-07:00

Mitch Malone interviews an advice columnist. See if he exposes the writer's cover in the Coffee Break Mysteries. http://ping.fm/oTPlC

Mitch Malone Mondays: William S. Shepard

2011-06-13T01:01:00.000-07:00

Finally someone who understands an interview. Today’s guest is “Ask Martha” the columnist featured in the Coffee Break Mysteries by William S. Shepard. These are short stories that keep your attention and guessing who the culprit is and short enough to get you back to work before you’re fired. “Ask Martha” has a unique perspective on life and I hope to break the news on her real identity but I’m a little scared of Crusher Davis, a 6 foot 6 former football player who had a journalism major. Let’s see was Ask Martha has to say. How to I refer to you? Do you answer to Martha even though you don’t wear a skirt?
Pleased to be with you. I notice you are not wearing a skirt, either. Slacks are so much more comfortable, don't you think? Ask Martha is my advice column on The Chronicle, so Martha will do. I don't know how these rumors got started about my identity. I'm a football fan and an admirer or what Crusher Davis used to do for our high school and then college teams. And as you know he writes the business column here at the Chronicle, so we see each other a lot.

How did you get the gig of being “Ask Martha"
I applied for it, to the Editor of the Chronicle. They were shorthanded, and as the Editor, James Carstairs, explained to me, a man doing that job just wouldn't be credible. The column had to be written by a woman.

Do you have any life experiences to give people expertise when you respond to their questions? You don’t have any psychology background do you?
People have always trusted me to keep their secrets. That seems to come across in my column too. They write in and tell me the darndest things! Sometimes I think it is like a police confessional. Anyway, one thing and another, I am able through my column and contacts to solve local crimes - that recent arson spree, for example, or the stolen identity case.

How do you keep your identity a secret? Someone has to see you and wonder who you are?Most of my interviews are through the column, and when I get too busy and he has time, Crusher Davis does some interviewing, in his Business Editor reporting function. He did that in The Embezzler case, for example, over at Nolting Furniture.

Crusher, I can call you Crusher? Oh, I can’t. Okay, give me a little space here will you. I won’t break your story on the Ask Martha gig. I know how newspapers work. What’s next for you? Will you always be the advice columnist? As long as Mr. Carstairs is pleased with my work, I'll keep at it. And who knows? Bob Woodward was a reporter for the Montgomery County, Maryland Gazette before lucking into a job at the Washington Post.

How do you get along with the police?
Inspector Samuels of the Centerville Police is my contact for these investigations. He says my help is quite valuable, and he wants to continue that relationship. Now of course, he is always perceptive and can solve cases on his own, but what with budget cutbacks, his police department is shorthanded. As far as work is concerned, I'm lucky to have this job, and there is no such thing as "extra money." I didn't start off detecting crimes, but it just sort of worked out that way. Everyone confides through the mail with my Ask Martha column, so it works out well all around, for The Chronicle and for Inspector Samuels and, I hope, for my writing career.

Thanks for the interesting interview. I promise to keep your identity a secret. Us newspapermen have to keep our sources a secret! For more information about Ask Martha and the Coffee Break Mysteries, check out William’s website: www.diplomaticmysteries.com. Also watch for the newest Ebook, "The Great Detectives." A bit of insider information is that it will be a special for 99 cents for the summer. Get it quick!

Mitch Malone Mondays - Lauren Carr

2011-06-06T01:42:00.000-07:00

Today I’m taking a whack at interviewing a former editor and former is the only way I agreed to do this. Editors and I don’t always get along but I’m intrigued enough about the Mac Faraday mysteries to give Lauren Carr a chance. Maybe editors can reform. Let’s see. Lauren, tell me about your life as an editor. Did you ever give newspaper reporters a hard time about misplaced commas?

I was pretty nice as an editor. In fact, my bosses would complain that I was light with the red pen. It wasn’t that I didn’t know that a comma belonged there. But now, looking back, I was young and sensitive and didn’t want to hurt the writer’s feelings. Maybe, Mitch, now that I have more of a backbone, if I was back at the editor’s desk, I would be one of those editors you hate.

In the federal government I dealt with writers, not reporters who were out beating the sidewalks like you and trying to get the scoop over the next guy. They were overworked and stressed-out bureaucratic types who simply wanted to get their projects done and move on to the next report. You never get stressed-out, do you?

The reports I edited were actually full-fledged books that would be bound and printed in the government printing plant. Our books would go to the highest level of our federal government. Copies would actually go to the President of the United States, the Vice President, and each member of Congress and the Senate, plus others throughout the government. So, if a word was misspelled or a comma was misplaced, and the President of the United States was to see it – it was a big deal. I guess I did an okay job because I never heard of him complaining about my sloppy editing.

I knew you couldn’t be that bad as an editor and now you write about Mac Faraday, a man who we all want to be—that’s $270 million richer after an inheritance. How did the idea for Mac and his millions start?

As with any plotline comes about, it was with a germ of an idea. A friend of mine had a baby when she was in high school, which she put up for adoption. Thirty years later, that baby found her. It was all a happy reunion and things turned out great.

When this happened, I started thinking, as I always do, What if? Of course, that “What if” involved murder in some way, shape, or form.
What if that unwed mother had gone on to be rich and famous — world famous — like the American version of Agatha Christie? And what if the child that had been put up for adoption had grown up to become a great detective — like the fictional detective in his unknown mother’s mysteries?

Those what if’s became the premise for It’s Murder, My Son. The irony is that Mac Faraday is a bankrupt homicide detective when he comes into his inheritance from Robin Spencer. His wife had left him for another man and had taken everything. On the day his divorce becomes final, his late mother’s lawyer chases him three city blocks (Mac hates lawyers as much as you hate editors, Mitch) before Mac believes that he really is a millionaire.

You seem to have a good handle on small town life. I couldn’t stand the small town I grew up in. I like the action in the big city. Have you always lived in a small town? What makes it preferable to the big city?

When I was growing up in the small town of Chester, West Virginia, I was dying to get to the big city. Small town life was so boring. When I lived in Washington, I loved a lot of things about it. I loved the theater and the night clubs and the museums and the excitement, too.

But I missed the small town values and wholesomeness. I missed how neighbors cared about their neighbors. Also, when it comes to mysteries set in small towns, everyone knows everyone’s business. Everyone has a secret and there is always someone who knows that secret, which makes mysteries in small towns so interesting.

Is Mac a good detective? Does he need a reporter to be at his beck and call and help him with crime? I may be available soon.

Sorry, Mitch, the reporter at Mac’s beck and call is Archie Monday and I don’t think Mac will be letting her go soon. She’s not exactly a reporter, but she is just as good. Archie was the late Robin Spencer’s editor and research assistant. I think you would like Archie as your editor, Mitch. She’s heavy with the red pen, but she’s very easy on the eyes.

Since Mac is retired from police work and new to Spencer, he lacks the connections he was used to having in Washington. But, if that information is anywhere out there in cyberspace, Archie Monday can get it. Archie sort of came with Mac’s inheritance. She lives in the guest cottage on the estate at Spencer Manor. Mac’s mother had left her the cottage to live in as long as she wants and Mac has no desire for her to leave anytime in the near future, if you know what I mean.

What’s next for Mac?

What does any homicide detective do with all his spare time when he comes into a multi-million dollar inheritance and a luxurious estate on Deep Creek Lake? If you’re Mac Faraday, you pursue the lifestyle of a millionaire playboy between solving mysteries.

His next mystery is personal. IN OLD LOVES DIE HARD, Mac is settling nicely into his new life at Spencer Manor when his ex-wife Christine shows up—and she wants him back! Before Mac can send her packing, Christine and her estranged lover are murdered in Mac’s private penthouse suite at the Spencer Inn, the five-star resort built by his ancestors.

The investigation leads to the discovery of cases files for some of Mac’s murder cases in the room of the man responsible for destroying his marriage. Why would his ex-wife’s lover come to Spencer to dig into Mac’s old cases?
With the help of his new friends on Deep Creek Lake, Mac must use all of his detective skills to clear his name and the Spencer Inn’s reputation, before its five-stars—and more bodies—start dropping!

Thank you Lauren for giving us the scoop on Mac Faraday. I wish you could give us the secret to inheriting millions but that will have to wait for another day. To see Mac in action, check out Lauren’s website at: http://laurencarr.webs.com/

Stop By Art Hop

2011-06-03T05:51:00.000-07:00

I'm crazy. My son is graduating from high school and the open house is Saturday. Instead of getting ready, I'm trying to sell books at the ‎1st annual Art Hop tonight in downtown Fremont MI (6/3/11) from 4-7 pm. Lots of artists will be showcased including fellow writing buds Joselyn Vaughn and JQ Rose. We will be at the White Agency, at 52 W. Main St., kittycorner from Veterans Park. Come say hello! Buy a book. Hear all about the new one due out in a month! I've just goten the cover. It's really cool!!!!

2011-05-22T20:21:00.001-07:00

Find out how an auto engineer can write about the gritty side of Detroit. http://ping.fm/PxCuU

Mitch Malone Mondays - Dennis Collins

2011-05-22T20:20:00.000-07:00

Dennis Collins is a Michigan author who knows what it is like growing up in the auto industry. Dennis and I tipped a few beverages after writer’s workshop and he was interesting. He has two books out about a gritty detective duo called THE UNREAL McCOY and TURN LEFT AT SEPTEMBER. Let’s get right to the questions. Dennis you write about two of the boys in blue. How did you come up with Albert McCoy and Otis Springfield?

A number of my o

ld school buddies went into police careers and I've worked with a number of police officers in conjunction with civic events in Detroit. I'd say that my cops are pretty much a composite of all the officers I've known. I've tried to feature their most positive professional traits as well as a little personal insight.

You write about Detroit which hasn’t gotten a lot of good publicity lately. Do you think the city can make a comeback?

The Detroit that I grew up in was the most powerful manufacturing center in the United States. Our war effort earned us the nickname, "The Arsenal of Democracy." It would be a terrible loss if Detroit was to simply fade into oblivion. The new mayor is a local icon and sports hero with a reputation for getting things done. He was a major part of Detroit's industrial community as a businessman and I believe that he has a realistic vision of what is needed to reclaim the city's former dignity and respect. There is hope but it will take generations.

You worked as an engineer for one of the Big Three in Detroit for a number of years. How did that help you write about the detectives?

My job took me to the manufacturing floor where I needed to interact with the hourly workforce on a daily basis. Auto workers are a large and truly diverse group. I worked with some who were unable to read at even a third grade level and some who were college graduates. One was even a Mensa member. This wide cross section presented a wonderful opportunity for people watching and cultural observations. Some of the characters that I worked with were gamblers and bookies and then there were drug addicts, alcoholics, and ex-cons. But they all showed up and worked as a team most of the time. Many were immigrants and many were from other parts of the country. I don't know of another place where I could have observed a wider spectrum of human behavior. Quite a few of these people translated into characters in my books.

Turn Left at September is a unique title. How did you come up with that?

I actually didn't have a title for that book until long after the first draft was finished. As is my practice I spread several copies around to trusted friends for proofreading and critiques. One of the women who read it sent me a note saying, "your title is on page ---- (can't remember), 'When you get to September, turn left'." It was simply a line out of the book. at first I didn't like it but when I began running it by people for their input I was amazed at how many folks thought it was great. I'm a guy who listens to critics.

Not many people know I did a stint in Bad Axe as a reporter and had to hot foot it out of there when I got on the bad side of some people. You live north of there on Lake Huron. Does being by the water help your creativity?

I have to say that the serenity of the Lake is helpful in getting me in a creative mood and on sunny summer days I often write on the beach (with a pad and pencil, laptops and sand don't mix). But the simple truth is that Lake Huron can be an intimidating and unfriendly environment when the Gales of November rear their heads. In the winter, just pull your shades and write.

Any Future plans?

Kindle has changed the face of publishing and opened up a whole new world with new readers and a much broader market. I have been so encouraged by the reaction to my first two books since releasing them on Kindle, I have decided to introduce my third book The First Domino in electronic format for all e-readers. It should be available very early in June at an extremely attractive price.

Thanks Dennis for the honest answers. To get more scoop on the is books, check out his website at http://www.theunrealmccoy.com

2011-05-17T11:57:00.001-07:00

This woman lives in my hometown and lost nearly 200 lbs. http://ping.fm/VDabT

2011-05-15T22:18:00.001-07:00

A female Dr. Dolittle solves crimes...http://ping.fm/J0QP9

Mitch Malone Mondays -- Victoria Heckman

2011-05-15T22:13:00.000-07:00

I’m not much of an animal person. There is a dog in the fourth Mitch Malone book but I don’t even want to think about that adventure. What does that have to do with Mitch Malone Monday’s? Glad you asked. Today’s guest is Elizabeth Murphy, a creation by Victoria Heckman. Victoria, who I gather through our email conversation, is a bit shy about her talent and wanted the character to appear. I’m good with that. In BURN OUT, Elizabeth talks to animals and with the furry creations, she solves crime. Elizabeth, can I call you that? You don’t have a nickname?

Elizabeth is fine. When I was little people tried to shorten it to Liz, Beth, and the best was Bit. That's not even a name. I corrected them, so I'm told. "My name is Elizabeth." So, that's what stuck!

Okay. Let’s get to the heart of the matter. You talk to animals? It’s not just a dog or cat that shares your living spaces, but any animal out on the street? How does that work?

I can communicate with other animals almost better than my own sometimes. I hear it's like your kids. Tig and I don't have kids yet, but we hope to. Anyway, I talk to Teddy and Edward, our cats, and of course our neighbor's pug across the street, Buster. However, sometimes strangers (strange animals!) are better at giving and receiving. Some animals ignore you, like some people do. I have learned a lot from being a good listener. I think most people really could communicate with their animals better if they tried. I mean, their pets/companions are always trying to tell them something. I guess I'm just the translator! Also, I find that what the animals are saying stems from things their *people* do, and often the owners/humans don't like that--that they have some responsibility in their pet's behavior.

Now I understand you have a husband who is a firefighter. Does he know? Does he believe you or do you have to get your point across in other means. I picture the department’s Dalmatian adding a little emphasis to your points on your significant other’s butt. Can you get animals to do things?

When we first met, I didn't tell him. I mean, how do you say that on a date? But it sort of came out as all secrets tend to do! He knows I talk to the animals, but it wasn't til recently that he really bought into that I could understand what they were giving back to me. It's not like they bark and you can say, "Oh, Tipsy's saying I like liver but not chicken." They tend to send me pictures and sometimes I have to really work to figure out the problem. Animals who are domesticated are easier for me. Every communicator is different (yes, there are a lot of us out there) but I find the animals around humans have figured out the best way to talk to us. Wild animals have a whole other perspective. Think of a camera for a movie. If you are talking to a bird, you might get some nice aerial pictures, but if you are talking to a small dog, he is not going to show you pictures of the problem on the roof. Unless he's been there, of course! As far as getting them to do things, not really. They like something in return, so most of my successes in information or behavior involve a concession on my or the owner's part. Some dogs, for example, just LIKE fetch or bringing in the paper. Most of the time, the animals are not going to do something just because someone wants it. The real exception for both animals and people, is love. If they love you, they will work very hard to make you happy. And if you love them back, then it's a win for all.

Cool gift. Is this a big secret or do people know and call you into service to say find their stray cat?

I haven't had success consistently with finding animals remotely. I know of some who can, I'm just not one of them. I need to see and hear the animal, especially the first time I chat with it. I can do it by phone after that, but it's a lot harder for me. However, if the animal was already a client I can do that. I am better at finding out behavioral issues, which is why most people contact me. Animals always have a reason for doing what they do, and it makes sense to them, even if their owners don't like it. I had a call once from a lady whose cat was peeing on the bed. Can I say peeing here? Anyway, she didn't know why and of course wanted it to stop. I'm glad she called after just the first couple times because her cat had a urinary tract infection and was in a great deal of pain. The woman worked a lot and the cat never seemed to mind but she thought it was because the cat was lonely. Nope, Kitty didn't care, just wanted her person to know something wasn't right.

Now where can people get their hands on this story?

Print copies are available at all your local online shops. The E book will be available from Smashwords any day now and at Amazon shortly after that.

Now Ms. Heckman also writes another series called KO’d in Hawaii. How do you differ from Katrina Ogden, the main sleuth?

K.O. is some of me... most of the ridiculous things she's done, so have I. Embarrassing but true. She's braver than I am, however. She's also taller and thinner!

Thanks so much for being my guest and talking about your gift. I’m a little gifted myself and know it can be difficult to disclose those personal details. If you want more on Elizabeth, Katrina or Ms. Heckman, please visit www.victoriaheckman.com

Mitch Malone Mondays - A.J. Walker

2011-05-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

Today is a bit of a stretch for crime beat reporter and no-nonsense guy like me. I’m interviewing Kip Itxaron, a character in a newly-released book by A.J. Walker called ROOTS RUN DEEP. If you think I have issues, it is nothing compared to Kip, but let me let her tell you about it through the masterful questions by yours truly. Kip, first tell me about the world you live in?

Whose world—the world of the goblinkin or the world of the humans? I’m a goblin (men are hobgoblins, and the race is goblinkin, try to remember that, human) and my world is the Reservation. That’s where the humans make us live. Rocky soil that’s no good for farming, a stinking shanty town, and stuck on the edge is the Great Forest. Don’t go in there or the elves will use you for target practice.

The human world is a world of big cities, palaces, opportunity, and privilege. Humans own everything and make all the laws. I’m familiar with Vancian, the closest human city to the Reservation. I work there sometimes. In the day I scrub floors or clean privies. It’s a crap job with low pay, but that’s all the goblinkin can get. Helps me know the city, though. Knowing the city is essential for my night job. But perhaps I shouldn’t tell you about that.

Not that I believe in that goblin stuff, but W.S. Gager must be out to convert me about things that seem impossible. I understand you see visions? What’s that like? Anything I can place a bet on?

I broke free of the Reservation and journeyed into the distant mountains in search of the Lost Tribe of the Goblinkin. While I was there I visited a cave where the wise ancestors of the Lost Tribe sat in a circle, mummified. I sat with them through the night and had a vision of blood and fire, of betrayal and hope. I learned of my fate, and I learned of the dynasty I would bear. They said I’d change the world, and damned right you can bet on that.

You have quite a history of a self-made woman. Tell us about being raised in a shanty town and then being called to lead your people.

It all started on my job. My night job. The human king Roderick got deposed and I had to smuggle him across the river. My boss got a good sum for that, and I got a lifetime of headaches and responsibility. I didn’t know he was the king, of course, he was disguised, but I soon found out. He made me a deal—raise and lead an army of goblinkin to help him retake his throne, and the goblinkin would get equal rights. Since the guy who overthrew Roderick was out to exterminate my people, I didn’t have much of a choice. My people never have a choice.

Why did he pick me? Because of my fighting ability? My leadership ability? Not likely. He picked me because I was the only goblinkin he knew.

I don’t have any phobias but I understand you have a fear of battle? Why? Do you really have to conquer this? Is war looming?

On a job in the early days, a deal went sour and we had to cut our way out. I killed two that night. One was just a human rogue, but the other was a goblin. The look in her eyes. . .

War isn’t glamorous, war isn’t fun, and yes, war is looming. Everyone should be afraid of war because everyone should be afraid of dying. But it isn’t really dying I fear. I fear what I become when the blood starts to flow.

W.S. made me ask this question because she knew I wouldn’t. It’s about love. I hate talking about this mushy stuff but I understand there is a bit of a love interest in this? How does that work for you?

Roderick. How in the world did I fall for him? He’s a human, and a king without a throne. The king without a throne I can deal with, although it means I inherit a whole lot of enemies. It’s the human part that I don’t get. Let’s be honest, Mitch. Look at yourself in the mirror. You don’t have any tusks, you’re strong for a human but wouldn’t win an arm wrestling contest with a hobgoblin twelve-year-old, and you don’t have even a trace of green shading to your skin. Pink? Brown? Those are colors for shirts, not skin.

So yeah, he’s ugly and a bit of a loser, yet he’s got this inner strength to him. His men don’t follow him for profit or out of fear like with goblinkin leaders, they follow him because they love and respect him. He always tries to do right, even though he screws that up more often than not, and he’s the only guy of any race who admits it when he’s wrong. Can you imagine an elf doing that? “Oh, I was wrong for sticking an arrow in that goblin.” Maybe he’d say, “Oh, I was wrong only to stick one arrow in that goblin.”

Thanks for joining us today Kip. It has been amazing learning about your time and will be looking for the book. Where do I find it?

Thanks for having me. You’ll be over at my place later for me to interview you. We’ll share a bottle of fermented goat’s milk and I’ll cook up some rat on a stick. You can buy my ebook directly from Double Dragon:
http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-804-4
from the Kindle Store or at many other online outlets that sell ebooks.

2011-05-02T11:41:00.001-07:00

What does a Latin teacher, ballerina, and priest have in common? http://ping.fm/Uo4hS

Mitch Malone Mondays - Donna Fletcher Crow/Felicity Howard

2011-05-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

I’m not happy. Today’s blog features the main character in A VERY PRIVATE GRAVE by Donna Fletcher Crow. Met Felicity Howard, a nun of all things studying for the priesthood. I don’t know where W. S. Gager gets these people. I don’t even go to church and she wants me to interview religious people? You can’t say Mitch Malone isn’t professional and an extraordinary interviewer. So, Felicity, what would possess an American to study in England?

Okay, Mitch, old buddy, let’s get one thing straight. I’m NOT a nun! I’m a thoroughly modern American girl who happened to grow too tall to be a ballerina and found teaching Latin in London boring. If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s being bored. So I heard that the Church is one place you can still use Latin today and there was this really cool monastery in Yorkshire where a lot of the teachers are monks. I mean, this has to be as good as Hogwarts, doesn’t it?

And, hay, you ought to try popping into a church sometime on your day off. By church I mean a really brilliant one with smells and bells and lots of candles. That’s what hooked me— it’s better theatre than the ballet.

This mystery seems a bit like Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, except he didn’t have a student do all the sleuthing. What made you think you could figure out who killed your favorite monk?

Well, I guess I have to face it. I have the energy. My church history
lecturer, Father Antony who can be pretty stiff sometimes, but when you catch him unawares is really the dishy vicar, has all the real knowledge. He does go on a bit, but I’ll have to admit, it’s all important to finding these jerks. And I really want to do that because Father Dominic was such an old darling. And, you see, Fr. D gave me his pilgrimage journal just before he died, so he must have thought I could do something with it. We did have this special understanding.

Now you travel with this Fr. Antony across England and Scotland. You want us to believe this is a platonic relationship? Any romance between the pair of you?

Oh, Mitch, you do ask the hard questions, don’t you? Can we just say that I’ve learned a lot from Antony and leave it there for now? I’ve really got so much to sort through and my head is in a whirl— never mind my heart.

Several times you are nearly killed in some very religious places. Was this luck, a higher power, or you just being fast on your feet?

I’d like to say it’s intelligence, but sometimes I can be pretty stupid. I’m trying to learn to look before I leap, but I suppose old habits die hard. And, I am quick on my feet. I keep up my ballet training and it can be very useful in a tight spot. Higher Power? Hmmm. Antony would say so. I’m open on the subject.

What happens next for you? Do you finish your schooling? Come back to America? Get to be a priest?

Okay, in spite of my prickly answer at first, I’ll admit I am considering becoming a nun. Don’t laugh— I just said I’m open. You’ll have to read my next adventure in A Darkly Hidden Truth which will be out this fall. Until then I’m not saying more.

I have to give old W. S. credit. I did enjoy questioning Felicity and finding out what makes her tick. You can check out her antics too. Go to Donna Fletcher Crow’s website: www.donnaFletcherCrow.com

Mitch Malone Mondays - Douglas Corleone

2011-04-25T00:06:00.000-07:00

Kevin Corvelli and I may share some interesting common traits. Okay, I’m not raking in the bucks as an attorney but neither is Kevin. He is the featured character in to two legal thrillers penned by Douglas Corleone, an attorney himself. Kevin’s first adventure, ONE MAN'S PARADISE, won the 2009 Minotaur Books / Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award. His second book, NIGHT ON FIRE, continues the journey of discovery and redemption and comes out tomorrow. That’s right, you heard it here on Mitch Malone Mondays first. Let’s get to the gritty details. Kevin, you live and work in Hawaii. This can’t be a tough place to work? It’s all beaches and babes…How do you find time to work?

Well, Happy Hour doesn't start until 3 or 4 p.m., so that leaves me a solid six or seven hours a day to draft motions, make court appearances, and hustle up some new clients. That said, the surroundings -- the beaches, the palm trees, the sunsets -- they all disappear when I'm in a courtroom defending a client. And when I take on a high-profile case, I might as well be hunkered down in Tent City, Iowa, during a tornado. Turns out, where I am isn't nearly as important to me as who I am.

As I mentioned above, the babes and bikinis would be distracting. In NIGHT ON FIRE, your client is a woman on her honeymoon. Why do you decide to defend her when she is obviously guilty?

I'm a lawyer, Mitch. It's not my job to determine whether my clients are guilty; that's for a jury to decide. My job is to represent my client to the best of my ability, and in a criminal trial, that means doing whatever necessary within the bounds of the law to create a reasonable doubt in the minds of the twelve men and women in the jury box. If you're hinting that I had an ulterior motive in taking Erin Simms on as a client, well... Maybe you should find a gig with one of the tabloids, Mitch.

I understand. When I write a story, I’m unbiased. I just print the facts. You are an attorney. What makes you investigate your own cases? Don’t attorneys just sit in their office and look up case law? Couldn’t you just hire a PI? Or maybe fly a certain crime beat reporter like me out to Hawaii to help investigate (and get out of the snow in April)?

I have a full-time investigator named Ryan Flanagan. Flan and I work well together, but I'm not the kind of lawyer who can just sit back in an air-conditioned office barking orders. Once I left New York, I vowed I'd turnover every stone in every criminal case I took on, and that's just what I do, even if it occasionally puts me in harm's way. I owe that much to my clients. As for flying you out to Hawaii, Mitch, in case you haven't heard, reporters are not my favorite people in the world. Don't take it personally.

How can anyone not like reporters? That last comment doesn’t have anything to do with this question. My research tells me you left New York under some troubling circumstances. What were they? Have you been able to hide in paradise?

It's no secret that I fled New York after my client Brandon Glenn was murdered at Riker’s Island only a few days before he was vindicated. Was I able to hide? Well, I'm still talking about it, aren't I? I realize now what I should have realized then, that the media will never allow the public to forget the Brandon Glenn case. That fiasco will follow me every step of my career, it'll chase me during every high-profile case. I'll never be able to put it behind me; it'll follow me to my grave.

By media, he’s meaning those TV show news people. Thankfully, I’m not one of those. Thanks Kevin for joining me today and give my best Douglas Coreleone. Don’t forget you heard it here first. Buy NIGHT ON FIRE, hot of the press, by visiting Kevin’s author’s website: http://www.douglascorleone.com/

2011-04-24T19:19:00.001-07:00

Kevin Corvelli hates reporters but shares secrets of his success as an attorney with Mitch Malone on Monday. http://ping.fm/9LoTQ

2011-04-18T10:07:00.001-07:00

17th Century guest writes in to Mitch Malone about sexual prowness. Check it out. http://ping.fm/p94Nm

Mitch Malone Mondays - M.E. Kemp

2011-04-18T09:59:00.001-07:00

Today my guest is from the 17th Century and we couldn’t communicate the way we usually do so had to use another method which was a damn nuisance, I say. I couldn’t grill her as I would like. I’m also not sure of the cousin business but have only started looking into my lineage recently. So here is the letter. Some parts have made me a bit uncomfortable. Hetty is a bit “forthwith’ as you will see. She promised to check in so leave a comment at the bottom and I will time-travel them to her and back so my response time may be a bit slow!

To Mitch Malone in the 21st century
From Hetty Henry, 17th century

Thank you for your letter, Cousin Mitch and I'll do my best to answer your questions. First I should introduce myself. My name is Mehitable Henry but my friends call me Hetty. I am a widow, true, but this enables me to control my late husbands' properties on my own. I run a mercantile business quite profitably, thank you, and I have no plans to marry again. If I married I would lose control of that business to my new husband.

But that doesn't mean I don't like men. We're not a Victorian society, you know, we are much closer to the Elizabethan, we Puritans, and you know how lusty the Elizabethans were. Yes, I would say we are a lusty peoples; we enjoy lots of good food, more drink than you could handle -- I challenge you to down one of Mr. Sparke's Specials from his tavern in Ipswich. It's made of rum, beer, molasses and bread crumbs. Even our ministers drink prodigious amounts of liquor at their ordination dinners, as you may tell by looking at the tavern bills. As for sexual contact, well.... If I like a man I bed him. We are lusty there, too. Why, my friend the blacksmith brags that he "had" the miller's wife four times in one afternoon; I'm not making this up. If you can match that, Mitch, I'd really like to meet you.

I have a partner in my detection work, a young minister. His name is Increase Cotton but I call him "Creasy." He's related to the famous Mather family -- it's his cousin Cotton Mather who sends us out to do his dirty work for him. (Ministers are political leaders as well as religious in our community, so people turn to them in times of trouble.) We make a great detective team because Creasy has the training to ferret out the guilty secrets of the human soul and I have the contacts and wealth to gather information. We have been called "two nosy Puritans," but it is our duty to keep the community safe, and being "nosy" is necessary to detecting, as you know. We try to keep our relationship on a professional level, although sometimes we fail -- we're not Saints, after all. (A little joke there; the Saints were the Pilgrims.) On our last case, which I call in my report: DEATH OF A DANCING MASTER, Creasy and I found and read aloud a packet of steamy hot love letters. We were very close to an indiscretion upon the murder victim's lush bed when we were interrupted by a loud banging upon the door by that officious prig, Constable John Phillymort. Phillymort - that's French for "dead leaf" - and it's a good description of the man, always going around quoting the Bible while he arrests innocent people.

I know my report seems to indicate many women of loose morals in Boston, but you must remember that the dead dancing master was a Seducer; he took advantage of his women pupils. It's always the woman who suffers, isn't it? In my time a woman's good name is really all she has -- unless you're the widow to two rich husbands, of course. It's easy for a woman to fall in love with a practiced libertine, as was the dancing master. The husbands are often away at sea for months, so when a handsome man flirts with you... well, nature takes a hand. (I rather regret I never met the dancing master, myself -- I was away on business.) Not that Francis Perkney deserved murder, I don't believe that at all. Everyone deserves justice, no matter how poor or how rich. Creasy and I made sure the man received justice for his death, even though I put my own life in danger setting a trap for the killer. After that close call, I need a vacation. I think I'll head for old Cape Cod for some sun, sand and murder. Care to join me, Mitch?

Your Obedient Servant, Sir, I Remain
Mehitable Henry

Interesting letter from Hetty. Not sure what she means by that obedient servant remark. See what I mean about being a little outspoken? Makes you want to run out and grab the DEATH OF A DANCING MASTER, doesn’t it. Go ahead and check it out at http://www.mekempmysteries.com/news.html

Mitch Malone Mondays - John Desjarlais

2011-04-10T23:52:00.000-07:00

Mitch Malone here and I’m happy to help out W.S. when I can but she is taking advantage when she’s off cruising and having fun. Somewhere you have to draw the line. However, I don’t want it to be said that I’m unprofessional. I’ve got a dynamite author her with a Latino main character that is hot. Reminds me of another dark-haired beauty but I don’t want to get distracted. Today’s guest is John Desjarlais whose newest book is slated to be out any day now. It’s called “Viper!” Where did you get your inspiration to write about the main character, Selena? She sounds hot!

Latina insurance agent Selena De La Cruz was a minor character in my first mystery, BLEEDER. The story takes place in rural Illinois where there’s been a large influx of Latino laborers for agricultural operations such as slaughterhouses and canneries. With all the unease among the townspeople about so many poor and ill-educated immigrants, I wanted to balance this by portraying a positive, well-educated Latin character that cared about this issue. Since my protagonist, Reed Stubblefield, had been injured in a school shooting, I also needed a local insurance agent to assist him with disability claims. So I invented Selena, a thirty-something second-generation Mexican-American insurance agent from a well-to-do family in Chicago, a Loyola finance major. When she first walked on the stage in those cherry high heels, with that attitude and driving that fast car, I knew she had a story of her own. She insisted on a larger role in BLEEDER.

Cherry high heels. Hmmmm. Do you find it hard to write about a woman, being in her head?

This was the most challenging writing I’ve ever done. Not only did I need to get the ‘woman’ thing right, I had to get the “Latina” thing right – all the cultural stuff: family, customs, language, the works. I interviewed Latinas and subscribed to Latina magazine. I read several books (aimed at this growing U.S. population) about the struggle to acculturate to New World realities while holding to tradition and Old World expectations. I browsed blogs and web sites by Latinas, to overhear their conversations about dealing with a bicultural identity and being a woman in a man’s world. I sent pieces of the work-in-progress to a Latina who checked the language (she’s a professional translator) and who made sure I was accurate and respectful with all the cultural material. I knew I was getting it right when she once wrote, “I am SO into Selena!” What a relief to hear her say that.

I’m not exactly very religious but you’ve included that aspect. The Catholic Church figures heavily in this book especially with Selena being on the All Souls list. What prompted you to include that?

I’m a relatively new convert to Catholicism and so I am fascinated by all the details of Catholic faith and practice that I never knew as a faithful evangelical. I was casting about for a premise to begin the sequel to BLEEDER and noticed this practice of placing a “Book of the Dead” in the sanctuary around All Souls Day for families to record the names of loved ones who had died over the year so they could be remembered and respected. Well, if you’re a mystery writer and you hear a phrase like “Book of the Dead,” you sit up straight. What if there were names in it of people who weren’t dead, but they were being killed in the order in which they were listed?

At the same time I learned about the Mexican holiday that runs nearly concurrently, “The Day of the Dead.” It’s a fiesta where Mexican families decorate home altars with flower garlands, special breads, candles and photos of deceased relatives. They give candy skulls to children and have picnics in cemeteries where they call out insults to a female grim reaper figure called “Lady Death,” saying “Hey, you old baldy, you missed me this year!” It’s all very light-hearted and is loosely connected to old Aztec customs and folk beliefs. Anyway, I knew that Selena’s name had to be on the list (the last name) and that she’d be the protagonist of the sequel.

I also had the idea that a local girl visionary would claim that a “Blue Lady” appeared to her announcing the next death in the list. While some in the Mexican-American community would believe it was Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of Mexico (whose apparition in the 16th Century led to the conversion of millions of Aztecs and stopped the slaughter of human sacrifices), others believe it is the Aztec goddess of Death. So the “Catholic” and “Aztec” religious aspects worked into the story quite naturally.

Many times when authors include religious items in their works, many people are turned off. How do you balance the religion in a fast-paced thriller?

I’m not sure it is a matter of ‘balance’ so much as a matter of ‘blending’ in a way that is both subtle and necessary to the story. It isn’t so much another added ingredient in the stew (much like it shouldn’t be compartmentalized in one’s life); it’s in the very aroma of the whole pot. If it is something forced, extraneous or – God forbid – preachy, then a reader may feel manipulated. The reader might suspect that the story has a hidden agenda of proselytism. People are rightly ‘turned off’ when the spiritual material is handled poorly, whether it is in-authentic or inaccurate or in-your-face.

All of this material in VIPER, however, is natural and an organic part of the story and characters. My story premises – the Book of the Dead and the mysterious “Blue Lady” - are necessary to the criminal investigation aspect of the story. As for characters - Mexicans still identify themselves strongly as Catholic even if their practice isn’t exemplary – it’s part of the culture. For example, Selena is not a deeply devout Catholic but she still goes to Mass with her family dutifully and she has santos y virgencita figurines around her house. By habit, she crosses herself when passing a church. She doesn’t pray the rosary, but her faith-filled godmother gives her one as a gift and Selena carries it with her. I think she’s newly intrigued by the mercy, majesty and – ahem – mystery found in the fullness of the Catholic faith.

No one was ‘turned off’ by Dan Brown’s inclusion of religious elements – except for every educated Christian who knew Brown got everything wrong, and it was insulting. I think the book served to reinforce some prejudices against the Catholic Church and caused some who were poorly catechized to derail. When a writer deals with religious material, it must be dealt with honestly.

The mystery genre is full of religious characters and themes, and one reason may be that the genre is a good place to explore the ‘higher mysteries’ of the human heart. It looks closely at our deepest desires and fears, it faces the mystery of death and undeserved suffering squarely, and is concerned with justice. Done well, it fully examines the mystery of what it means to be fully human. It tries to make sense of the frightfully short dash between our birth date and departure date on our tombstones. How ‘religious’ can you get?

Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael stories and GK Chesterton’s Father Brown stories are instructive in this regard, Andrew Greeley less so. As Emily Dickinson said, ‘Tell ALL the truth, but tell it slant/ Success in circuit lies.”

Will there be other Selena mysteries and if so what can we expect and when?

Yes. I’m working on the third story in the series and I hope to have a draft completed by the end of summer 2011. I’d expect it might be published in Spring or Summer 2012.

After several life insurance clients die in rapid succession, Selena De La Cruz learns their policies were recently sold to a "life settlement" broker for their cash value, with the full death benefits converted to bonds and paid to third party investors. Though such a practice is legal, Selena suspects the clients were murdered to guarantee a high return on the ‘death bonds.’

I’m in a research-and-outline stage at the moment.

Thanks for having me as a guest, Wendy! Your readers can find me at www.johndesjarlais.com and my blog http://jjdesjarlais.blogspot.com, and they can email me at jjdesjarlais@johndesjarlais.com

Thanks, John. Can't wait to read Selena's story.

Mitch Malone Mondays - Gerald M. Weinberg

2011-04-04T00:17:00.000-07:00

Today I get to pick the brain of a techie, Jerry Weinberg also know as Gerald M. Weinberg, author. I've got some great questions for him on problems I've been having with some computer systems so I'm going to jump right in. You don't mind if I call you a geek do you.

Jerry: Why would I mind such a flattering compliment?

You have tons of books out in both fiction and nonfiction. What made you decide to write fiction after a successful career in consulting and writing computer and self-help novels?

Jerry: Actually, I decided to write fiction long before I published any nonfiction--I just didn't sit down and write any. That's not completely true. I wrote one novel and threw it away (actually, I kept a copy, but I'm afraid to look at it today.

Then a decade later, I wrote another and actually sent it to a publisher. The editor sent me a 5-page, single-spaced letter telling me in great detail what I needed to do to improve the manuscript. I was devastated, not understanding that if an editor takes the time to write you a 5-page letter, he must like the book very, very much. Certainly, later in life when I did some editorial work, I never wrote even a three-page letter to the best submissions.

So, I shut down my fiction for another two decades, until I was rich enough to afford rejections. I received some helpful feedback, and was wise enough just to learn from it and keep writing. That's where I am today-writing and learning.

"The Aremac Project" intrigues me for a number of reasons. I live in the Midwest and about three hours from Chicago. You have terrorists blowing up things? Tell me about that.

Jerry: I was born in Chicago, and when in high school (Senn High), I cut school
rather regularly and explored the city, up, down, and sideways. I knew how I felt about landmarks disappearing (not because of terrorists, but because of greedy developers), so I figured it would be a great way to extort money from the city, with (intentionally) killing anybody.

You say they have a machine that can read minds. Boy, I would love to have that when I'm interviewing the police chief and he doesn't want to give me any information. Does it come in a handheld model? With all your skills, could that be possible?

Jerry: Shortly after The Aremac Project was published, I received an email from a professor out West who was trying to build such a machine. In the book, and in his lab, the Aremac (backwards camerA) pretty much fills up a room, but the history of technology shows how electronic ware gets smaller and smaller rather quickly. When I started programming computers, I worked with the largest computer in the world (at that time). I had about 10% of all the computing power in the world literally under my thumb. The machine filled a large room, and now I can hold a million-times more powerful machine in the palm of my hand. So, yes, an Aremac will be built, and then it will be miniaturized. We just don't know the exact time scale.

The two main characters are grad students and one of them has a life threatening side effect from this invention. Should they be messing around with this stuff unsupervised?

Jerry: Well, they are supervised, but their supervisor is an arrogant, stupid, jerk.

Now in a just a second we will get to my computer questions, but first I want people to know where to find all your books: http://geraldmweinberg.com. Now you all go check out the books, about my computer....

Jerry: Yes, about your computer. You bought it yesterday? Yes? Well, it's obsolete, so scrap it and buy one that's up-to-date. Thanks for the interview.

2011-03-28T09:43:00.001-07:00

Having problems finding your writing voice? Check out 2 distinct voices in today's blog. http://ping.fm/oGT4x

2011-03-27T20:13:00.001-07:00

I couldn't wait til Monday for this post. See how Trixie "sweet" talks Mitch Malone. http://ping.fm/Gj1We

Mitch Malone Mondays - Bobbye Terry

2011-03-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

Mitch, here. I’ve got a lot in common with Trixie Frye and I can’t wait to get to the questions. She is filling in for her author, Bobbye Terry. Kind of the same way I fill in for W.S. on Mondays. Trixie Frye has her hands full with her sister, Roxie. Let’s get started on the questions and see what’s up in her kitchen, err book.

Trixie, your story, “Buried in Briny Bay” was just released. What is up with that sister of yours? You can’t just kill people if you are unlucky in love.

Trixie: Mitch, you have no idea how full my hands really are. Roxie is like fast drying quicksand. She grabs you and holds you captive until you get sucked in. But, truth be told, my sister didn’t kill anyone and I’m going to take on anyone that says she did. It’s just a mite peculiar the victim was the same woman who took Rox’s first boyfriend away from her and married him. Of course Georgia was also the same woman who got pregnant by Roxie’s husband who was later found mowed down by a tractor-trailer while coming home for leave from the Army. All coincidence, honestly. I’m as sure of it as I am the bay will flood this spring. Bodies may be stacking up, but I tell you my baby sister is innocent and I’m going to prove it. As long as no one else dies.

You can’t spend your whole time bailing out your sister. What keeps you out of trouble?

Trixie: I own this diner called Happy Daze Diner and I get people the house special, icebox lemon pie and some sweet tea. Hubby Floyd Frye, my very own couch potato when he’s not working as a barber at his shop, keeps an eye out for me, not that it really means all that much, seeing as he has his glued to the TV screen for any sports event from Monday Night Football to panning for gold . Of course even at work he can watch TV, which does make me ponder how good his haircuts really are. Never mind, enough about Floyd. He’s an albatross only I should bear.

Icebox Lemon Pie? Huh? I’m a doughnut connoisseur myself but I’d be willing to try the pie. What makes it so special?

Trixie: Now I can’t give away the secret of my house special. Let’s just say it makes you sassy, satisfied and sweeter than sugar.

Not sure sweeter is better for me. It seems that you and Roxie may be an interesting pair to watch. Something bad happens. I’ve read some of the descriptions and other than you keep finding dead bodies it seems pretty humorous. Do you mind people laughing at your antics?

Trixie: (Rolls eyes) People gotta do what people gotta do, but anybody raised in the South, especially female, knows the only way to stay sane is to joke a little. I mean, honestly, why cry when you can poke fun at yourself? But believe me, we’re as serious as a man on the opening day of hunting season about out sleuthin’.

Wow, that is pretty serious at least when it’s deer hunting season in Michigan. “Buried in Briny Bay” is published in an electronic format and is billed as a novella? That mean you only have half a story? How does a novella work?

Trixie: Now darlin’, everybody knows that it’s not the quantity of the goods but the way they make you feel. This book wallops a heaping tablespoon of goodness in every chapter. Plus it’s just the right size for a good night’s read.

I might enjoy a novella. I’m pretty busy on the crime beat and don’t have time for big books. If I wanted to get your books, where would I go?

Trixie: Bobbye and her publisher, Turquoise Morning Press, have made sure they’re available just about everywhere. But to help you out, because I am a southern lady, I have some of the links below:

Turquoise Morning Press
Amazon

Thanks for stopping by Trixie. I can’t wait to stop at the Happy Daze Diner. You made my mouth water with that lemon pie but I’ll take mine with a beer instead of sweet tea. That’s a northern thing! Don’t forget to check out the book and some other adventures of Trixie and Roxie at http://BobbyeTerry.Blogspot.com.

Mitch Malone Mondays - Marilyn Meredith

2011-03-21T00:10:00.000-07:00

Mitch Malone here and I'm going to try and clean up my act a bit. I don't have a lot of soft spots but I do for today's featured author, Marilyn Meredith, also known as F.M. Meredith. Marilyn gave a great cover quote for my first adventure, "A Case of Infatuation". Marilyn just released another Rocky Bluff PD Mystery. Marilyn, you accomplish so much with at least two books every year and you are kinda up there in years. To what do you attribute your stamina too?

Marilyn: This question made me laugh. Yep, I am in my late seventies (eek, that sounds old) but inside I feel the same as I always have. I’ve always liked to accomplish things, you even say that’s what drives me. I’m an early riser and that’s a good thing because that’s when my brain functions the best. By late afternoon I’m busy cooking dinner and once everyone’s eaten, I’m done with anything that takes a brain power.

You have some great characters in your books. Tell me how you came up with idea for Rocky Bluff PD?

Marilyn: My police officer son-in-law (who was killed in the line of duty 20 years ago) is the one who got me interested in writing about people in law enforcement and their families. The town of Rocky Bluff is partially based on the beach community we lived in for over 20 years though I moved it farther up the coast between Ventura and Santa Barbara. I wanted it to be a small town with a police department that doesn’t have much money and mostly relies on old-fashioned police work to solve crimes. And of course a lot of the focus in the books is on the personal lives of the police officers and what goes on in their family life.

I interview a lot of police officers and fraternizing between officers is often frowned upon. How do you handle the relationship between Stacey Wilbur and Doug when they work together?

Marilyn: In earlier books, Stacey vowed never to date a police officer. When she began working with Detective Doug Milligan her resolve melted away. In "Angel Lost" the coming wedding between Stacey and Doug is primary to the story. Because it is a small department, and Stacey being the only female officer for awhile, the issue of fraternization between officers has never come up. And as I like to remind people, Rocky Bluff P.D. is my department and I can do it anyway I want. (Smile.)

Gordon Butler is a character that I can relate to. Sometimes I have strings of incredibly bad luck. Is there any relief for me, err him?

Marilyn: Gordon Butler is one of my favorite people. Poor guy, he can’t seem to do much of anything right and adds a bit of comic relief to the more serious stuff that’s going on in Rocky Bluff. He’s a by-the-book officer which sometimes adds to his problems. He ends up being a bit of a hero in "Angel Lost." In 2012, the next book in the series will feature Gordon.

Do you have actual angels? Do the angels help the police solve crime?

The title, "Angel Lost", has two meanings which I can’t really tell you because it would give away too much. But there is only one angel who appears in a store window at night and though it’s important, whether or not it’s real is not for me to decide. After you read about the angel, let me know what you think. And no, the angel doesn’t help solve any crimes—but it is important.

Why do you say the book is written by F.M. Meredith instead of Marilyn since everyone knows you by that name?

Marilyn: When I wrote the first book in the series I thought that if I used my initials people wouldn’t know I was female. The majority of the first books were written from male point-of-view. When the first book came out the publisher put my picture on the back cover, so I might as well have just used my regular name.

Thank you, Mitch for taking the time to interview me, this has been fun.

I think my author had the same thought when doing her book, but I don’t want to say anything. Glad you could take the time from your busy blog schedule to be interviewed by yours truly. If you want to see more information about "Angel Lost" or the other books penned by Marilyn, check out her website at: http://fictionforyou.com