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A True Fashion Victim (Oh, not Elaine!)

      

“Viets doesn't waste a word in this tight, fast-paced installment as she deftly balances comedy and tragedy.”

   ** Publishers Weekly Starred Review

 

Secondhand clothes. First-degree murder.

What a perfect headline for our Elaine’s newest Dead End Job mystery, Half Price Homicide. 

 

 In HPH, Helen Hawthorne sells the most wanted bargains at Snapdragon’s Second Thoughts. The Fort Lauderdale consignment shop has designer duds to die for – literally.   And though Helen’s alter ego Elaine (or is it the other way?) is probably out at a bookstore right now (or—shopping for bargains?), Femme Hank grabbed her for a bit of a chat about her latest.

 

 

HANK: Consignment stores, huh? How did you get hooked on the idea of second-hand clothes? It seems like every garment would have a story…

 

ELAINE:  It does. This idea came from reader Sherry Schreiber, who used to work at a designer  consignment shop. She told me I would be amazed at what goes on at these stores. She was right. I dedicated the book to Sherry. 

 

 Our shop, Hibiscus Place, diversified. It also took in dry cleaning and sold fancy knickknacks along with the designer label clothes and shoes. One woman asked me the price of a ginger jar on a high shelf. I checked and told her. She said, "That would be perfect for my neighbor's wife."

 

"She collects ginger jars?" I asked.

 

"No, she was hit by a car shopping at discount store. The jar would be good for her ashes."

 

HANK:  You worked at a consignment store in Ft. Lauderdale for this—the ninth? In your dead end job series.  (Did they know you were doing research? Or were you undercover?)  So? What goes on behind the scenes? I always think the proprietors are swiping the good stuff.  (FINE. BLOGGER WILL NOT LET ME INCREASE THE SIZE OF THE FONT. GRR.)

ELAINE:  This is my ninth Dead-End Job mystery.  I did research at Hibiscus Place on Las Olas. Manny, the owner back then, and his staff knew what I was doing. I dusted the knickknacks, especially the ones on the upper shelves, because I was tall. I also sized and buttoned the stock. I swear the shirts unbuttoned themselves at night when we left the store.

 

Laurie, the sales associate, showed me the intricate steps required for dry cleaning. Laurie was careful not to mix up the orders. She had to get the instructions right (starch or no starch, boxes or hangers, for shirts), spot treating and special care instructions. Laurie had infinite patience.

 

I've heard that consignment shop staff take home the best items, but that didn't happen at Hibiscus Place. Manny, the owner, couldn't and wouldn't wear size 2 True Religion jeans.

 

I like wearing men's shirts and the shop sells the most sumptuous shirts on consignment. I bought shirts from Barneys New York and from London. That stopped after a few weeks. I began to realize my closet could only hold so many clothes.

Hibiscus Place also has amazing deals on designer purses. A Prada purse kept calling my name. I was relieved when it was sold on a day I wasn't there.   

 

 HANK:  Oh, I would never have been so virtuous. (And my closet bar fell the other day, dumping untold stuff on the floor. I think there's a lesson there.) Anyway, give us the scoop on Half Price Homicide. 

 

 

ELAINE: It takes place at Snapdragon’s Second Thoughts, a Fort Lauderdale consignment shop. The customers who bring in their barely worn fashions want the money for reselling their clothes, but not the notoriety.  Helen has wants of her own. Tired of living life on the lam, she wants to go home to St. Louis to clear her name. She wants her greedy ex-husband to go away. She wants to marry Phil, the man she loves. Helen will get everything she wants and regret she gets what she most wanted.  (HANK: BLogger hates me... )

HANK: Hmm. Can't wait to read it!  There’s always an undercurrent of social commentary in your books—it’s subtle and seamless, but it's there. I always leave tips in hotel rooms, now, thanks to you. What do you want us to take away from HPH?

 

ELAINE: was astounded by the women who'd married rich men, but had no spending money of their own. These women had huge closets with special places for everything from purses to dresses and evening wear. Their husbands knew exactly what was in those closets and would not let their wives buy new clothes unless there was an empty space. The women would sneak out clothes and sell them on consignment to make room for more new clothes. They reminded me of my grandmother, who would go through my grandfather's pocket change while he slept and build up a stash of nickels -- but that was in the last century and my grandparents were poor. I had no idea modern men were still so controlling -- and modern women put up with it.

 HANK: Congratulations, Elaine! Do you all buy clothes at consignment stores? Or--sell via the consignment route? Any consignment adventures?

 

Eggcellence in Mysteries

by Toni L.P. Kelner

Mysteries are often referred to as hard-boiled or soft-boiled, and as I was dying Easter eggs a few weeks back, I decided that these are natural comparisons. Mysteries are a lot like eggs--they can be served all kinds of ways and I like pretty much all of them.

Sometimes I want that hard-boiled texture, tough and protected by a tough shell. That would be, naturally, a hard-boiled mystery, say something from Andrew Vachss.

Other times, I want to start with that hard-boiled egg and mix in different flavors, just like making deviled eggs. That could be a serial killer novel like Thomas Harris writes, or something with supernatural elements like Kat Richardson's books.

There are days when I like my eggs scrambled in butter, yummy and rich. That would be a traditional mystery, the way Margaret Maron and Rex Stout write them. And just like you can mix cheese or bacon with scrambled eggs, you can add romance like Nancy Bartholomew or the paranormal like Charlaine Harris or history like Alan Gordon and come up with a brand new dish

Then sometimes I want the fluffiest omelette, like the comic mysteries of Donna Andrews and Elaine Viets and cozies by Charlotte Macleod.  They're wonderful plain, and wonderful with added ingredients to make them hysterically historical like Elizabeth Peters' books or paranormal funnies like Casey Daniels.

So you can limit yourself to one kind of egg, if that's your druthers, or you can indulge in the wonderful things you can do with eggs. I'm a fan of variety, myself--give me a dozen, and make every one different.

Of course, I haven't come up with analogs for sunny side up, frittatas, or quiche, but that's because this metaphor of mysteries as eggs is itself similar to Easter eggs in one important way. If it sticks around long enough, it starts to stink.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Weddings

Denise Swanson is the author of the Scumble River mystery series. Her current book, Murder of a Wedding Belle, debuted at number twenty-five on the New York Times Bestseller list. Denise lives in Illinois with her husband, classical music composer, David Stybr, and her black cat, Boomerang.  Welcome, Friend of the Femmes Fatales Denise!

By Denise Swanson

When the idea for my current book, Murder of a Wedding Belle, came to me I thought the research  would be fun. And it was. But it was also eye-opening, shocking, and just a bit appalling. I knew weddings had gotten more elaborate since my own thirty years ago, but I had no idea just how extravagant they had become. It seemed that for some couples weddings are now competitive events—the object of which is to see if one bride can outdo all of her friends. And, of course, in the fictional town of Scumble River, this leads to murder.

Recent family engagements had clued me into the myriad of websites devoted to planning the big day, so they were my first stop on the research trail. Not only do these sites barrage the bride with endless choices (when did favors go from nuts and mints in a little white paper cup to a $25 wine corking set?), they offer the engaged couple an opportunity to give their guests TMI. While I usually enjoy reading how the groom-to-be proposed, when it involves nudity and chocolate sauce a part of me cringes. That’s not an image I really want to have pop into my mind every time I see Cousin Jane and her new husband.

After exploring the Internet, I turned to my next favorite research tool, reality TV. The Women's Entertainment channel, WE, features shows from Bridezilla to Bling on the Bride to Little People, Big Day, and at least twenty-five others! Hard to believe that a person could watch nothing but wedding related TV for a twenty-four-hour period and never see the same show twice.

Because I was writing about an over-the-top event, I found Platinum Weddings, Rich Bride, Poor Bride, and My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding the most helpful. I saw grooms riding in on elephants, brides wearing gowns that cost more than my car, and receptions that featured photo booths, cigar rollers, candy bars, martini lounges, and a living buffet. These programs helped me visualize what a truly excessive bride could demand for her wedding day.

I was also writing about the flipside to an elegant wedding since one of the Dooziers (an über-redneck family from my series) was also getting married. But fear not, even this kind of wedding had a reality show devoted to it. On days that I went from watching How to Marry a Prince to watching My Big Redneck Wedding, my head felt as if it was spinning
around like the Linda Blair on the Exorcist. 

In addition, I read magazines and books devoted this million-dollar industry. One interesting article I remember was called “The Seven Deadly Sins that can Ruin Your Wedding.” It listed items like the linens not matching the color theme and unimaginative food at the reception, but it made me think about what I considered the true deadly sins.

Lust—lusting after all the commercial things that the bridal magazines, wedding planning websites, and other merchandisers insist you need to have the perfect wedding.

Gluttony—gobbling up everyone’s time and attention because you are The Bride.

Greed—insisting that every part of your wedding be top-of-the-line no matter the cost to you or to others.

Sloth—expecting everyone to do things for you.

Wrath—exploding if you don’t get your own way.   

Envy—being jealous that another bride had something better than you did.

Pride—an arrogant attitude that doesn’t allow you to empathize with others.

Formulating these Seven Deadly Sins helped me understand what I wanted the underlying theme of my book to be. Because, although I like to go for the laughs, I love when my readers go away thinking about the moral of the story, as well. I hope some of you will join Skye in her new adventure, Murder of a Wedding Belle, and see just how over-the-top weddings can be.

Werewolves, vampires, spies, computers, jazz

by Dana

When I blogged over at The Lipstick Chronicles recently, it occurred to me that I didn't remember how I came up with the elements that comprise “Swing Shift,” which appears in the new MWA anthology, Crimes By Moonlight.  CBM is edited by our own Charlaine Harris, and feature stories by twenty super writers, including Femmes Charlaine, Toni, and  Elaine, and FotF Harley Jane Kozak.   (It's available now, and several of us, including me and Toni, will be at the launch at Mysterious Bookshop during Edgars Week.)  I figured it would be a useful exercise to go back over the process. 

It wasn't on purpose.  It wasn't a process so much as a...series of coincidences.

It started randomly, while listening to NPR's “Morning Edition” and a piece on the murals on the walls of the Department of Justice.  I checked out the website and saw the images, which were painted during the Depression.  For some reason, it was the dog in a mural called “Society Freed Through Justice” by George Biddle that caught my attention.  I'm not a dog person, so I was surprised that particular one (number 10 on the NPR slide show) spoke to me.  He just seemed so...engaged with the family sitting down to eat.  

My next thought was that he wasn't a dog.  He was, obviously, a werewolf, and, more than that, one of my Fangborn (the family of werewolves, vampires, and oracles dedicated to protecting humanity).  After that, I wondered who might see this painting, or more, who would have known to sneak a werewolf into the mural.  More questions:  did the government know about the Fangborn?  What were the Fangborn doing throughout American history?  When did this story take place?

That led to me thinking about the setting, and I liked the idea of using Boston; members of my family told me stories about Boston in the bad old days and worked in the area during World War II.  That gave me a couple of voices (I stole some cadence and phrases from my MIL, grandmother, and great-grandmother), and that led me to think about why Boston and Cambridge would have been important in the 1940s.  My husband has been using and studying computers since before we started going out (many, many years ago).  I've absorbed a lot of that history, and so the use of some of the earliest computers in the war effort sprang to mind.  The jazz came about the same way:  everyone has a secret, in this story, and I figured the jazz clubs in Boston would supply all sorts of bad guys and bad behavior to exploit. 

I wish there was a real process--x, y, and z--but it seems like it's just a matter of not stifling an impulse.  You start off an odd thought, hear some voices, then rummage around in the attic of your experiences.  Add some research, take some liberties with history, and add a soupcon of music. 

It was tremendous fun to write, and I can promise you:  it won't be the last historical Fangborn story I do.

When a series ends

by Donna

When I'm out at events and conventions, talking to readers, one of the questions I hear a lot is "Why isn't so-and-so still writing?  I loved her such-and-such series!"

Sometimes this is said with a definite hint of resentment, as if the reader suspected the writer in question had taken her readers' money and abandoned a beloved series in mid-stream to loll on a tropical island drinking daiquiris and ogling muscular bronzed surfers.  And sometimes the readers frown a little at me, too, as if suggesting that the responsible thing for me to do is to go and find my fellow writer and bring her back into the fold.  (Which I would gladly do if the writer really were on that tropical island.)

Do I seem to be a particularly plugged-in specimen of the writerly species, or do other authors get this question, too?  Perhaps readers assume we all know each other--it certainly seemed that way to me at mystery conferences I attended before I was published.  And that knowing one another, we will know the status of each other's careers.  

And we usually don't.  Though having been around the publishing business for a decade, I'd hazard a guess that in nine out of ten cases, the author hasn't stopped writing.  The author got dropped by his or her publisher.

There are other reasons for not writing.  Illness.  Changes (for better or worse) in the authors' family life that eat up writing time. A deliberate decision to change careers, either to something that lets them earn a living or to something else that they love even more than writing.  

Very occasionally a writer decides--or even starts out with the idea--that a series has a specific arc that she wants to accomplish. It's a rare--and admirable writer who, upon finishing that arc, has the strength of character to say, "That's it.  I've done all I can with this series."  (Though in the interest of not getting lynched, some of those authors wisely add "for now.")

But at least nine times out of ten, if you no longer see an annual installment in a mystery series, it's not that the feckless writer has failed to write it.  The writer has written it, or would if she got a contract to do so.  But the publisher has said "No thanks."

And why don't the writers tell their readers about this?  For the same reason we humans send out engraved announcements of pending marriages and say as little as possible about getting dumped.  You want to crawl in a hole and pull it in after you.  These days, some writers who get dumped blog about it, but most just sit tight and hope to have good news to announce before their readers forget about them.

So if you happen to be an ardent fan of a writer who hasn't had a book out in a while, what can you do about it?

Yes, you can write to the publisher.  But it probably won't do any good.  Publishers make decisions on whether to keep a writer or not based on the numbers.  

And if you email the writer, keep in mind that it's not her fault.  If you berate her for not writing fast enough or abandoning characters you love, it will only make her feel worse.  You might make her feel better if you say that you love the series, and would like to know if there are more books coming out.  And if you add that you would like to be on her mailing list so you can know when her next book is out--whether or not it's in the beloved series--that might just make her day.

Let's face it: by the time the reader--or even the writer--knows that a series is being dropped, it's probably too late to do anything.  So if you love a series, tell the world about it NOW, while it's still alive.  Blog about it.  Mention it to friends.  Give paperbacks to people you think would like it.  

Wouldn't hurt if you bought those paperbacks from an independent bookstore, while you're at it, because a lot of those are also in danger of becoming victims of the numbers.  (Not sure if there's an indie bookstore near you?  Check the Indie Bound site.  Even if there's not one in your back yard, almost all of them do mail order.)

So, can you think of a series you'd like to make sure doesn't disappear?

Like a pro

by Kris

My husband, Joe, is the frontman of a very popular Northern Arizona blues band, Blues Dawg. Because his schedule running our bookstore, The Well Red Coyote, is so demanding, Joe can’t play as often as he might like. That pent-up demand means that the gigs he does play are almost always really well attended. I’ve seen bars so packed that they can’t squeeze in another person until someone leaves and concert halls with standing room only.

That’s why it was such a surprise when a recent gig was poorly attended. The timing was poor — it was Good Friday, a day when lots of people either stay home or travel to visit family. And it was a brand new venue that few people had discovered yet. For whatever reason, they only attracted around twenty-five people in a venue that could have held far more than that.

I also knew that my husband was playing sick. He’d contracted a stomach bug, and while he wasn’t violently ill, he didn’t feel well. The thing is, though — nobody could tell. Not that the band members had to feel disappointed by the poor showing, and not even that Joe wasn’t well. They gave a dynamite, energetic, tight performance, which the small audience loved.

It struck me that there was a lesson there for authors. If you’re a professional — you perform, no matter what.

As both an author and a bookseller, I see author signings from both sides, and I see them handled both well and poorly. These days, after five years in business, our bookstore mostly gets good turnouts for our author events.

But every now and then, we have a clunker, with few people showing up. I always feel badly for the author, because I’ve experienced it myself. But I also know that as an author, I give my all, whether there’s one person there or a packed house. Yet I’ve seen authors phone in their appearances if they don’t consider the size of the crowd big enough to matter.

For a while we were scheduling a nonfiction author for regular educational events related to his latest book. I noticed that the enthusiasm he brought to speaking was in direct proportion to the number of people in attendance. With a big crowd, he was engaging and facilitated an interesting discussion. But when the crowd was smaller, he seemed remote and almost sulky.

One night, only one person showed up. The woman had come in earlier and was interested in his book, and came back to hear him speak. But though she tried to engage him in direct conversation about his book, he pretended to be too busy with his own browsing to talk with her. When his speaking time came, I asked him to get started, even though he would only be speaking to that one customer and me, unless someone else showed up. But he wouldn’t begin. He insisted on waiting until more people arrived. After more time had passed, and nobody did come, he canceled that night’s talk. With a sigh, the woman said, “I hope I get to hear you talk someday,” and she left. Without buying a book, something I felt sure she’d wanted to do when she arrived. I canceled his future discussions, even though I had every expectation for better attendance for many. I knew I couldn’t trust his professionalism.

Some of you might be saying, “Big deal. It was just one book.” But you know what? Whether titles are sold by the hundreds or thousands or millions, whether an author is present when most of his sales are made or not — at the retail level, all books are all sold one at a time, to one individual at a time. Every reader should matter.

Whether we’re thrilled with our large turnout or disappointed by a small one, a professional performs, no matter what.

That’s what I believe. How about you?

And You'll Find Yourself in the Rotogravure

Happy Easter!

And today the Femmes are celebrating with a true FOTF, Rosemary Harris.

 

 

 Hank: And let us say, her newest book DeadHead is out any day now. It has the best cover I've seen in along while...and what's inside is wonderfully Rosemary: hidden pasts, fugitive moms, witness protection, a murder or two, Ro's trademark clever puzzles, and another page-turner of an adventure with master gardener and amateur sleuth Paula Holliday.

 

Anyway, Femme Hank says:

Rosemary Harris might have been my "friend one" in mystery world. If not, pretty darn close. Before my first book was published, I think, and before hers was, we were thrown together by fate (and Jan Brogan) to put together a do-it-right-now panel when a SinC guest didn't show at a meeting.

Ro, Jan and I bonded instantly, and since Ro and I were the total newbies, we had more than our awe of Jan in common.

Since then, we have realized we were separated at birth (another blog for another day) except for justa few tiny things. LIke, when she was growing up, I bet her family had no Passover tradtions. Mine did have a few Easter traditions (mostly having to do with candy and whining for never-to-arrrive real bunnies).

But nothing like Ro's.    

Happy Easter! At Ro's house.

Rosemary Harris:

When I was growing up in Brooklyn, New York we had lots of unwritten traditions for Easter. My mother would bake amazing Italian wheat pies with delicate lattice tops, her contribution to the family feast which was always at my grandmother’s

 

and lasted  the entire day. There’s a line in one of the Godfather films “Don’t touch the antipasto until Pop gets here!”

I must have heard some version of that a thousand times when I was a kid.

We would, of course, color and hide eggs – the designs getting more intricate and hippie-like the older we got . (Not as impressive as this one decorated by a pal.) All the cousins – my mother was one of eight and my father one of nine, so you do the math – would present Nanny with either an azalea or a gardenia. Never anything else. I have no idea what she did with them all since they never appeared in her garden the following year.

 

After dinner, the adults would play cards and the kids would watch television, the boys voting for the sword and sandal epics and the girls invariably going with Easter Parade starring Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. (The hats, the shoes, Ann Miller shaking the blues away!)

Another less happy memory was the requirement that my older sister and I dress alike. What this had to do with the resurrection or bunnies or lambs, I never quite figured out. Invariably as the younger sibling, I never got to choose. Having discovered black in the fourth grade and never looking back, it was an annual horror show for me to have to don pink, green, white and baby blue. (My sister was a redhead so there was a lot of blue.)

 Not content to swaddle us in pastels, my mother thought no Easter outfit complete without matching hats, bags, white gloves and generally patent leather shoes. I do remember the year of the go-go boots – the only good thing about them was that they obviated the need for the lace-trimmed anklets. Mercifully this predates digital cameras and no pictures survive, but I can remember one hat that was very much like the guy’s on the HO Oats package.  Luckily this torture only continued until I was around eleven. By then my sister was fifteen and wasn’t having any of it (she’d moved into her beatnik period.)

Now Easter comes and goes. The only indication for me is the appearance of bunny peeps and PAS dye in the drugstores (what do they DO the rest of the year?) Perhaps, inspired by this Easter blog, I will search online for a recipe similar to my mother’s. Maybe I’ll buy myself an azalea. Maybe…I’ll even wear some color other than black. What will you do…any traditions?

Happy Easter!

Rosemary Harris is the author of the Dirty Business mystery series from Minotaur Books. Her debut novel Pushing Up Daisies was nominated both an Agatha and an Anthony for Best First Novel. She is past president of SINC New England and currently vp of MWA’s New York Chapter. Visit her at www.rosemaryharris.com