My Weblog

Milestones

by Toni L.P. Kelner / Leigh Perry

 

Every year has milestones, but 2013 is just chockful of them, personal and professional, parental and psuedonymous. In fact, I've already passed a couple but there are plenty more to come.

 

May 9: Fiftieth Birthday

 

No, not mine. I passed that particular milestone some time back. But this year, my husband Steve turned 50. Unfortunately, we haven't thoroughly celebrated yet because of all the other milestones coming this month. But I can say that smooching a fifty-year-old is even better than smooching a forty-something-year-old man. Practice makes perfect.

 

May 23: High School Graduation

My ittle baby Maggie graduated from Matignon High School. Gulp. Not only was the graduation itself a momentous occasion, but there were so many other mini-milestones associated with it: the school Art Show (Maggie won an award), Awards Night (she came home with four), the Prom, the funny school tradition of driving around the school honking on the last day of classes. I would have felt melancholy about taking that last drive to school on grad night had it not been for an upcoming milestone.

 

June 1: Authorial Anniversary

Tomorrow will be the twentieth anniversary of the release of Down Home Murder, my first book. Though I had a couple of interviews and a dozen limericks published before that, I count June 1, 1993 as my debut as a professional writer. In twenty years, I've published eleven novels, five co-edited anthologies, twenty-eight short stories, a few more limericks, and an assortment of essays and recipes. I figure that's a good start. 

 

June 7: Junior High School Graduation

Next week, my even ittler baby Valerie graduates from junior high school. We are particularly glad for Valerie to graduate because this is her third grammar school. She had two close while she was attending, and we've been on tenterhooks for the past three years that this one wouldn't die. And it didn't! As with Maggie, there are a multitude of mini-milestones attached. The school play (Val was fabulous), the school Art Show (Val won in her class), the art class Art Show, and a graduation banquet on this coming Monday. I'm starting to think they cluster all these events so you'll be so busy that you don't remember that you're supposed to be sad.

 

June 18: Silver Anniversary

Twenty-five years ago, Steve and I were married in Charlotte, NC. Marrying him was one of the smartest things I ever did. I was explaining to Valerie that the twenty-fifth anniversary is known as the Silver Anniversary, and she wondered why. Actually, so do I. It may refer to the silver showing up in our hair. All I know is that this marriage hasn't tarnished a bit.

 

September 3: New Book, New Series, New Name

September is the day my new book comes out, and as you can see from the cover, I'll be morphing into Leigh Perry for the Family Skeleton series. Now you know what the L.P. in Toni L.P. Kelner stands for.

 

September 5: Starting High School

You remember how I said I almost felt melacholy about that last trip to Matignon? Well, it was far from the last time I'll make that drive, because history will repeat itself as Valerie starts at Matignon. She excited about many aspects, but I think the part she likes best is knowing that she won't have to wear ugly plaid skirts ever again.

 

September 14: Starting College

Maggie will be studying animation at the Atlanta campus of the SCAD. Though I'm very proud of her, I don't want to even think too hard about this particular milestone. According to Mapquest, SCAD is 1115.77 miles from my house. That's a whole lot of milestones.

 

After that?

There may be more milestones coming this year--after all, life is full of them--but that's about as many as I care to contemplate right now. Of course, the good thing about milestones is that every one represents a chance to celebrate and share the excitement. I just hope that by September, I'm not worn out from passing so many.

 

What about you, Gentle Reader? What milestones do you have coming?

 

 

 

Celebrating National Procrastination Week

by Donna Andrews

Actually, National Procrastionation Week is in March.  So either I'm late celebrating it for 2013 or I'm getting a jump on 2014.

I vote for late.  Around here, sometimes, every week seems like National Procrastination Week.

If I'm immersed in a draft, it's not so bad.  I can blame my procrastination on the writing.  "I'm pushing aside everything so I can get my draft done," I proclaim, bristling with virtue.

But I've already turned in both books that will come out this year.  The ARCs are already out for Hen of the Baskervilles.  I'm nearly finished proofing the galleys for Duck the Halls.  I'm going to start drafting my 2014 book soon, but I haven't quite yet.  So logically you'd think maybe I'd be caught up with all those things I pushed aside to finish the books.

Yeah.  Logic.

So what's my excuse now?

I'm resting.  Recuperatiing.  Gathering my energy for the draft I have to start pretty darn soon.  Researching my topic.  Recharging my batteries.

Sounds a lot better than goofing off.

Actually, I have been doing a lot of gardening.  Gardening is a great palate cleanser for a writer, because it's completely non-verbal and seems to occupy a different part of the brain than writing. I can happily putter around in the garden while nibbling away at a pesky plot problem. Or, better yet, putter while ignoring a plot problem, in the not unrealistic hope that the verbal part of my brain will solve it in the background while in the foreground the gardener brain is staking tomatoes, pulling weeds, planting bulbs, and deadheading flowers.  Or while the photographer part of my brain--another creative but non-verbal part--is trying to figure out the right angle to take a photo of the latest blooms.

The best of the garden shots end up in my 365 Project--it's a photo challenge to post a photo every day for a year--a photo you took that day.  I'm in my third year of doing it, and if you'd like to follow the results, check out my author page on Facebook.  Or go directly to my 365 project.  Or just look at the photos decorating this blog, all but one of which were taken this week in my garden.  (The one that wasn't is the bee visiting the allium.  Not my yard, but I did give the yard's owners the allium bulb.)

Yes, I've been doing a lot of gardening and taking a lot of photos.  Sometimes procrastination doesn't mean you're lazy, or not busy.  It just means I'm not doing what someone--possibly me--thinks I should be doing.

One of the things I did manage to get done over the winter was create my 2013 calendar.  It's something I send out as a present every holiday season.  Got it done in time . . . but then I had just a little bit of trouble getting all of them out.  Lost a handful.  Had to order a few more.  And then, last week, I found the lost ones.  Which still have half a year's use left in them. 

So, in honor of National Procrastination Week, I'm giving them away.  If you'd like one, leave a comment. Say something, profound, amusing, or just plain true about procrastination, and you could win one of the handful. 

I promise I won't procrastinate too long about mailing them out.

Japan

by Dana

Right after Edgars and Malice Domestic*, I was lucky enough to go on a trip Mr. G and I had been discussing for--gulp--close to thirty years.  Back in high school, I already knew I'd be an archaeologist, but I imagined I would focus on Japanese archaeology of the shogunate period.  Just like every other girl who grew up in the suburbs.  That notion lasted just my first year in college, when I studied Japanese language and history.  It was pointed out to me that it would be difficult for me to work in Japan, so I re-focused my studies on colonial New England and post-medieval England.  But I never lost my earlier interest.

(Mt. Fuji; we totally lucked out with the clouds and saw some wonderful views.)

It's hard to imagine something you've been thinking about for decades that actually lives up to expectation, but this trip exceeded my wildest dreams.  I'm going to let the pictures do the talking.

I totally loved going to the markets.  This one (above) is the famous Tsukigi market in Tokyo.  

And some vegetables from a market in Kanazawa.  Everything was gorgeous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were privileged to watch the calligrapher Koshun Masunaga at work.  I particularly liked when she said that when she was grinding ink, as she's doing above, she thinks about what she will paint, and then starts when the right idea strikes her.  Some days she says she spends all day grinding...

 

This is the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Shirakawa Village, where the houses are all in the traditional gassho style with steeply-pitched thatched roofs.  I loved the running water running through the village; the villagers who live there keep up the houses and put up with throngs of visitors. 

A view within the Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa (which competed for one of my favorite cities in Japan).  Absolutely stunning, from every angle, at every scale, and the pine pollen filled the air...sniffle.

And a sake tasting, at the brewery in Takayama.  The brewer, above, gave us a tour and explained the process.  Our fantastic guide, Oka-san, is pointing out some of the history.

Every where we went, we met wonderful people (who were more than kind about the few surviving phrases of my very rusty Japanese) and saw amazing things.  We asked to take pictures of some of the vendors (like the gentleman who provided the eel for lunch, one day), and were asked by the kids we

met at the Kutani Ceramics Museum to take our picture, too (below--I'm in the middle, not wearing a school uniform).  I could post pictures forever about the food (I ate everything in sight, and loved 99% of it), the temples and shrines, the museums, and walking everywhere, but this will serve as a start.

*Speaking of Malice Domestic, I am so thrilled about the Agatha win for "Mischief and Mesopotamia," and I discovered when I reached Japan that it had also been nominated for an Anthony Award for Best Short Story!  Thank you, everyone! 

Heaven, Hit TV Shows, and Digging Cemeteries

By Elaine Viets
I’m still unpacking from my "Board Stiff" book tour, but I wanted to give you some of the highlights.

The tour got off to a rousing start at the Festival of Mystery. Each year, Femme Marcia Talley drives three writers to the festival in Oakmont, a pretty Pittsburgh suburb.

This year, the hilarious and very British Ann Cleeves and Frances Brody were Marcia’s other guests.

Frances Brody writes the Kate Shackleton mysteries, including "A Woman Unknown." "The series began," Frances says, "with a picture in my head of a man trapped behind a high wall, unable to return home. Someone needed to discover who and where he was. Along came Kate Shackleton, sleuth extraordinaire. She stepped from our family album like the genie summoned from the lamp."
Ann Cleeves has the hit TV series, "Vera." (Order it on Netflix. I guarantee you’ll love it.) Her Vera Stanhope novel, "Silent Voices," finally made its US debut. Ann talked about taking the film crew around Northumberland.
Ann and Frances made the four-hour drive fly by. We stopped for lunch at the historic Jean Bonnet Tavern, which is supposed to be haunted. No ghosts, but a substantial lunch.                

 

 Then we went to writers’ heaven. That’s the Festival of Mystery, where about 40 authors are invited to sign their books each year. This annual event attracts busloads of mystery readers, who  around the local church hall, pay $8 to go in, and fill huge shopping bags with books. These serious readers have checklists for their favorite authors ("I didn’t get ‘Final Sail’ last year, but I’ll buy it today," one woman told me.) They’re adventurous and love new authors, too.

Laurie Stevens, the new owner of Mystery Lovers, is continuing the tradition.

Best of all, I get to see old friends like Karen Pietsch – a.k.a. Peach – and her daughter Julia, Peach Blossom. This year, Peach severely tested my marriage. She gave me a jar of homemade strawberry jelly. It’s as good as my grandmother’s, and that’s saying something. I hid the jar in my socks so Don wouldn’t find it. He squanders half a jar on his toast. I like to savor the experience and make it last.

 
St. Louis was my next stop, with six events, including a benefit signing for the local ALS chapter. My good friend Diana Wunning has eleven family members with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease. She chooses not to know if she has the gene. Diana had just flown back from Washington, D.C., where she talked to our lawmakers about funding research to cure this terrible disease. St. Louisans are so generous. Thanks to you, ALS got more than $800.
After the benefit, I had a high school reunion at the Ferguson Brewing Company. I enjoyed talking to my Aquinas High School classmates (from left) Pat Helbling Davis, Mary Kunz Brock, Richard O'Keefe, Deb Dower Potter, and Rick’s wife, Jan O'Keefe.

Here’s the best part about impromptu reunions: no dieting or shopping for something to impress my classmates. We enjoyed good food and good conversation.

There was more – lots more, including a standing room only crowd at Barnes & Noble in Ladue. But the most unforgettable moment was when reader Connie Zuk Nisinger presented me with this unique handmade pin. You can see the big white pearl and the delicate filigree, but I bet you can’t read the writing on the tiny gold shovel. It says, "I Dig Bellefontaine"
That’s Bellefontaine Cemetery, a historic burial ground in north St. Louis. Connie works there.

"Thank you, Connie," I said. "But I’m trying to stay out of cemeteries."

"I know that," she said. "I thought you’d get a kick out of it."

I do. As long as I’m on the right side of the grass.

 

                                                            ****

WIN A COPY OF "FINAL SAIL" today. My publisher is giving away three copies of my Dead-End Job mystery, FINAL SAIL, Friday from 9 a.m. to noon EST. Just follow @penguincozies on Twitter  and retweet our tweet about the giveaway for a chance to win.

 

Galactic Expo!

from Mary

 

Last weekend, I did something fun. Yes, me, the one who stays inside, safe in her cozy little box, rarely venturing out into civilization. 

 

What got me out of the house was a special event at our fairgrounds called the Galactic Expo. Basically, it's a huge New Age party in a really big building. Booths lined the walls and ran up the middle, with hundreds of people milling about, checking out the vendors' wares. 

Beautiful jewelry, rocks, crystals ...

 

Clothes, purses, incense, tapestries ...

 

And my favorite ....

 

... the book booth, of course, which had nothing but super-interesting titles. Well, besides a few Erich Von Danikens. But otherwise, so many I wanted. Most exciting purchases: two books on medicinal herbs and one brand new just-released book on a specific relatively unknown Native American research topic for my next book. Squeee!!! Couldn't believe it when I saw the title. Nearby book buyers didn't seem to mind my loud unintelligible enthusiasm nor the rapturous quasi-tribal dance. They understood.

Most folks came out to the Expo for the BIG draws, naturally, the psychics and readers and other spiritually attuned earthbound beings. Of the 100 booths there, I'd guess about 40 to 50 of them offered readings or counseling. That's a whole lot of mind melding going on in one place! It's a wonder the building didn't levitate.

I'd checked the directory beforehand and saw one booth I wanted to be sure and find called Tena's Tea Leaves. I had no idea what a tea reading was like. It was FUN! Besides the interpretation about future events, which was great, what I loved was seeing Tena's amazing intuitive skills at work. The girl has got it.

Tena's a writer herself. And get this - she's the TRUE BLOOD and VAMPIRE Examiner on examiner.com!!!! I couldn't believe it! The ultimate Charlaine fan, no doubt about it. You can check out her many other skills at her website here.

On the other side of the room, I had one more reading. Sharon Wilkerson is a spiritual coach and astrological consultant. She read my horoscope, though that sounds very small compared to the actual worth of the session. Her many years of spiritual/religious work, of counseling others, made this another fantastic experience full of understanding and good advice. Read more about her on her website here.

Okay, now I'm officially PSYCHED! If you ever get a chance, check out a New Age expo for yourself. Don't be afraid. Go on down to Madame X and let her read your mind. You might like it!

 

 

Writers have to be prepared to take their knocks when they put their work before the public, and some of the knocks are pretty hard. Some of them are sucker punches. There’s a line (and it’s not so fine) between constructive criticism and rabid attack.
I don’t intend to keep harping on the controversy surrounding the last book in the Sookie series, because I’m gradually putting the tension behind me, but I am thinking about issues that arose. I wonder if it’s even possible to offer constructive criticism about a 13-book series that’s at an end. Surely such criticism would only have been helpful if it had been offered earlier, so that if I felt it were valid I could implement it. I’ve read comments about past books that I really found insightful and helpful . . . but not this time, not about this book.
I tried to read the Facebook comments on my professional page, and I’m still trying to thank readers who were nice enough to say they read the book all the way through before they disagreed with me . . . because what really rankled was the hatred expressed by some readers who hadn’t read the book. They didn’t care about the thought process or the plot points that led to the conclusion of the book. All they wanted was an ending they had chosen. They ignored all the signs I’d planted so carefully to indicate where I was going. Then a vocal minority declared that the whole series was worthless if Sookie didn’t end up with the suitor they favored.
And an even smaller group demanded I explain and defend myself.
I considered that for 30 seconds.
Nope. Not gonna happen. At some point, I realized that nothing I did or said would even make the most virulent haters pause for a moment in their hating to consider any words of mine.
In the end, my sales went up. I would rather not have had to endure what I did, but did the controversy really hurt the book? No, it didn’t. It hurt my pride, and it hurt my feelings, and it provided me with some moments of anxiety. But I’m a grownup. I’ll recover.
So, friends and readers, onward! New books to write, new projects to consider, and new characters to create!

Charlaine Harris

How the Other Half Lives

Readers of this blog are used to a literary feast from the wonderfully talented Femmes et Frere. This week: hotdish surprise.

Catriona has stepped aside for a one week (not-so-) special and allowed me, Neil, her husband, to give an up close and personal view of what it's like to be hitched to one of these writer types. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 But why  have you got me this week,and not her indoors?  Catriona is working like a demon, editing and drafting a Dandy Gilver novel, which will appear at some point in the future. She mentioned that she was a touch on the busy side what with the manuscript, guest-blogs and group-blogs looming. I, jokingly, offered to write the blog with the most pressing deadline and much to my horror she said "Go on then.  Femmes on Friday, please".  

You'd think the man who once ended up doing an exhibition Cha-Cha-Cha as part of a talent show at a literary festival, because of a mistaken belief that offering to help wouldn't lead anywhere awkward, would have known better.  You'd be mistaken.  I am that dumb. 

So (getting back on track) what's it like being married to one of these writer types? It's brilliant. Of course I had to say that. If for no other reason than because Catriona spends a lot of time imagining how to murder people, we live in a fairly isolated house, and even the distant neighbours we do have are used to the sound of power tools. I might not be the brightest button in the box but I know how to butter-up with the best (Boy, B got a bit of an outing there). 

So, it's brilliant, but it's not what I thought it would be. Back in the grim, dark days of the late 1990s when Catriona was contemplating leaving academia behind to give writing a go, I thought... I thought...

Well, the truth is I thought there'd be more wafting, more staring into space, more sentences that trailed off half-finished (no such luck. Joking, hon.) and I expected that I'd have to make way for a new house guest called The Muse. I thought I might have to push The Muse to one side on the couch (ever so gently, of course) if I wanted to sit beside my wife in the evening. 

But it turns out that Catriona's Muse likes a well organized environment, has a work ethic that makes me ashamed any time I complain of the long hours involved in being a professor, and keeps her at her desk eight hours a day when literally outside the door is all that California has to offer. 

What I've come to realize is that this discipline provides the anchor point that allows a writer's imagination to float free and become completely immersed in the world being created. It's quite something to be around while it's happening.

Which is not to say that all is calm during the creative process. At some point in the birth of every story there comes "the big early wobble", or BEW. Now, I've spoken to the partners of other writers (there are a fair few around the Davis area) and they all knew what "the big early wobble" was without me having to explain. As the name implies it usually happens near the start of a new book.

Catriona is a beginning-to-end kinda writer so the BEW usually sets in around chapter 3 or 4 and it goes something like this:

C: This is terrible.

N: Oh?  What is? {Uh-oh, looks like the BEW}

C: This story. It's rubbish. Dandy's not Dandy, it has no colour, no life. It's thin.  I don't know where it's going, and it's just awful.

N: Hmmm, that *does* sound bad. Are you sure? {Yup , it's the BEW.}

C: Yes. Certain. It's never been this dreadful before. Never.

N: Not even the last time, when you said exactly the same thing? {I wonder if I can jog her memory?}

C: I've never said this before, because it's never happened before.

N: {Nope} OK. Well we better get our thinking heads on and come up with a solution. How about you read me what you've got so far and I'll tell you whether it's any good? {What a brilliant idea! And without precedent, apparently}

C: OK, but it's really rubbish [starts reading and begins to get a sense of deja vu...] 

And so the BEW comes on, shakes things up a bit, and passes off without breaking anything, leaving no trace of having ever been there. Again.

Eight Dandy Gilver novels have been through the BEW so far.  Next month's new book AS SHE LEFT IT went through one that registered on the Richter scale and caused new legislation in California's central valley.  All writers have to have quake-straps on their laptops now.  She did that.

But the book's the thing and the book survived.

April Showers & May Flowers

by Kris Neri

“It was a nice late April morning, if you care for that sort of thing.”
— Raymond Chandler, Pearls are a Nuisance

Okay, it’s not April now, it’s May. Not too different, though. What I mean is that it’s spring. Spring! A great time of the year.

Spring has been slow in coming to Northern Arizona. Our March was outright cold with frequent snows, and April was also cooler than usual. But now the pleasant days are finally here, and they were worth waiting for. Not too cold, not too hot. With soft breezes and a warm and welcoming sun.

For those unfamiliar with the high desert, you might imagine that we wouldn’t see much in the way of color. The arid, rocky soil here does seem unfit to grow anything other than some rugged cacti willing to wait eons for a few drops of water. But if you think that, you’d be wrong.

Every spring, whether wet or dry, high desert or low, the wildflowers return. In rainy years, the carpets of color are absolutely staggering. Rich yellows, pinks, purples, oranges and other tones stretch as far as you can see under an imaginably clear blue sky. They’re a bit more restrained in drier years, but I actually like those better. Instead of blanketing vast acreage, wildflower plants seemed to have been placed more selectively in perfect harmony, by what you’d think to be the world’s most talented landscape designer. Every year I’m continually amazed that this brilliant placement could possibly happen on its own.

Wildflowers aren’t our only gift from Mother Nature. Delightful little white flowers fill the huge cottonwood trees that proliferate here and other parts of the West. At a certain point in spring, those trees shed their petals. In neighborhoods heavy with cottonwoods, breezes carry those petals, tossing them at windshields in a show that looks remarkably similar to a winter blizzard. But instead of snow, they’re truly a shower of flowers. In some spring weeks, I’ve been treated to that flower shower for days on end. Magical!

Spring desert days aren’t all perfect, though. With flowers come allergies for many of us. Some desert plants produce staggering pollen levels. Juniper trees are especially bad. If you’re unfamiliar with them, the junipers we have in Northern Arizona aren’t anywhere near as showy as the wildflowers. They’re small, slow-growth trees that produce tiny berries. Varieties of junipers show up in lots of places around the globe, but this is my first encounter with them. If you’re a gin drinker, you’d probably welcome them, because those berries produce your gin. Since I’ve never been able to tolerate gin, I don’t have to.

But I do admire junipers. With their rugged bark and rough dull green needles, with their sometimes misshapen growth patterns, they make a much more lasting statement about high desert conditions than the gaiety of our seasonal wildflowers. Some Native Americans respectfully refer to them as “Grandfathers,” because many Southwestern junipers can easily be six to eight hundred, or even a thousand years old. A thousand years! They were here before us, and they’ll be here after. Perhaps the levels and particular virulence of the pollen they release is their reminder to us of that. 

Thankfully, they don’t kill me. I’m able to control my reaction to them with OTC antihistamines. But I know people who, despite every possible prescriptive prevention, can count on at least one trip to the emergency room each year, where they beg for help from punitive sinus headaches and the sinus infections that invariably result.

There’s probably something where you live that’s just as much a mixed blessing. Doctors say that, throughout the world, allergies are getting worse. Some blame climate change because it has brought about new growth patterns, and even new plant life in areas that were never hospitable to those varieties before.

Okay, so nothing’s perfect. But spring comes pretty close. It was cold yesterday, and it’ll be hot tomorrow. But for now, even if it means keeping the Claritin or Zyrtek close at hand, it makes me wish I could play hooky everyday.

What’s your favorite season where you live?

Remembering Mom and Dad

For many of us, I know that Mother's Day and Father's Day can be tough. My mom passed away in December of 2001, my dad in Feburary 1990. I still feel both those losses keenly, even after much time has passed. I was an only child, and I think that if I'd had siblings, some things might be easier to bear.

This year, though, I was determined not to be sad and instead to focus on more positive things. I thought about what traits I inherited from my mother. One in particular has served me well all my life, but particularly as an adult. My friends have often heard me refer to my mother as the stubbornest woman the good Lord ever created. "She could out-stubborn a mule," I've been known to say.

My mother was the fourth of ten children in a poor family. She grew up during the Depression, and they had some hard times. She faced even more challenges in adolescence and young adulthood, but she fought through them and overcame them. She met and married my dad, the love of her life, and though they had some rocky times, they loved each other so much they worked through them. After my dad died, however, she lost a lot of that spirit, but there were still sparks of it there, enough to keep her going for nearly twleve years.

My mother was a hard worker all her life, as was my father, and they imbued me with those values. Stubbornness -- or tenacity -- is a good thing for a writer to inherit, otherwise we'd be so discouraged by those rejection letters we'd never publish anything. But thanks to my parents, I don't easily take "no" for an answer. If one thing doesn't work, something else will.

Beached!

By Elaine Viets

For "Board Stiff," my new Dead-End Job mystery, I transformed my favorite true stories into fiction.

Newlywed private eyes Helen Hawthorne and her husband Phil Sagemont have an assignment in the mythical South Florida town of Riggs Beach, known as "Rigged Beach."

Competition for tourist dollars is cutthroat here. Sunny Jim, owner of a stand-up paddleboard rental company, believes someone wants to ruin his business. When an innocent tourist dies in what looks like an accident, Sunny Jim insists she was murdered. Helen and Phil, along with dozens of others, saw her tumble off her paddleboard. Now they have to solve a murder with no witnesses and no weapon.

These three stories that actually happened to me:

The Branded Roach wandered into the restroom at a posh ocean restaurant. I’m the woman in this story:

"I saw a roach in the ladies room. A big one," the woman said.

"Did you say a big roach?" the restaurant owner asked. "Not a little brown one?"

"That thing is nearly two inches long," the woman said. "You could saddle and ride it. It’s disgusting."

"Oh, that’s not one of our roaches," he said. "That’s a beach roach." He smiled as if that was an explanation. 
Helen and Sunny Jim encounter The Helpful Tourist. I actually met him on the beach:

A sunburned man in lime board shorts gingerly carried a big bluish crab to the water. The crab, big as a saucer, wiggled its hairy legs and waved its claws dangerously close to the man’s thumbs.

"That crab looks angry," Helen said. "I mean, if crabs get angry."

"That one’s pissed, all right," Jim said. "It’s a land crab. They don’t like salt water once they’re adults. Buncha land crabs live in burrows by that sea grass there. This is the third time he’s thrown that poor creature in the water. I better tell him before that crab takes a hunk of his hand."

"Hey, dude!" Jim said. "Dude in the green! Drop that crab."

"You talking to me?" the man asked. He was in his twenties, with buzzed brown hair and small features scrunched together in his red face.

"Yeah, that’s a land crab," Jim said. "You aren’t doing it any favors dunking it in the ocean. It hates salt water."

"Can I, like, eat it?" the man asked.

 "You can," Jim said. "It can eat you, too. Watch your hand!" The crab’s sharp claw lunged for the tourist’s thumb. He dropped the crab and leaped back before it attacked his bare toes. The crab scuttled across the sand to the sea grass. The tourist waved at Jim and ran into the ocean.
Not all tourists are kind. I was outraged when I saw two college boys playing with a pink football – and so was Helen:

Helen saw two guys in gray college T-shirts and black board shorts playing catch on the beach. The crewcut college boys were throwing a small, pink football with a tail.

A tail?

Helen looked closer. That wasn’t a football. It was a fish. A red snapper was gasping and flopping as it arced through the air.

"Hey!" she shouted. "Stop that!"

"What?" said the short one. He had heavy shoulders and slitty eyes and wore his arrogance like cologne. "It’s just a fish."

"Then eat it or throw it back in the water," Helen said. "Don’t torment it. It’s alive."

She glared at them both.

The taller boy with the lean runner’s body had the grace to look ashamed. He cupped the wriggling fish in his hands, carried it to the ocean and gently lowered it into the water. The fish lay on its side for a long moment, then righted itself and swam slowly away.

PI partners Helen and Phil find dark undercurrents of corruption in this cheerful beachfront town, and the trail leads them back to Helen’s hometown, St. Louis.
I’m touring St. Louis through Sunday.

Today, Friday, I’m at the Festus Public Library at 1 PM, then sign at a  Benefit for ALS – Lou Gehrig’s Disease – 5:30 to 7 PM.

Saturday, I’ll talk and sign at Barnes & Noble Ladue, 11 to 3 PM.

Sunday, see you at Left Bank Books in the Central West End, 4 PM.

Details at www.elaineviets.com/new/Events/default.asp