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Oops, I Did It (my taxes) Again

HANK PHILIPPI RYAN:  Doing my taxes. There has got to be a better way!

I wish I had taken a photo of my huge box of paperwork before I shipped it to the accountant. It was—well, poor Howard. He's about to get the box from hell. 

It wasn't supposed to be like this. (And yes, I'm aware it's April Fools' Day. I guess that's what my English teacher meant by irony.) 

All year, I filled one of those red expanding accordion files with little bits of paper,  receipts, plane tickets, hotel bills, cab slips, scrawled and illegible carbon paper receipts from bookstore,  Amazon bills,  gas receipts, mileage listings, invoices from PR companies,  ten million crinkled up cash register tapes from the post office, and receipts form bookmark places and website designers and ah….whose idea was it to do all this? Anyway, it was very very organized, I THOUGHT, and I was very proud of myself for being so forward-thinking,  when April rolled around I would be all set to do my taxes.

Who was I kidding?

This weekend, I thought—okay, DOING IT. (I know, about time) and I got out my big bulging file and a bunch of manila envelopes and a legal pad and a calculator started to organize. I have a calendar, and it’s pristine, with absolutely everything I ever did on it. So what  happened and when, is very clear.

Still. Like I said, I should have taken a photo of me in sweatpants and a t-shirt from the Boston Book Festival that just has a  ?  on the front, SURROUNDED by little bits of paper. It was—can I just say, horrible? I whined for three solid hours (which I’m sure was not much fun for darling Jonathan, who was trying to watch basketball). I’M NOT DOING THIS was a theme, as well as WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS with the recurring refrain of  HIS IS SO STUPID.

I don’t mind paying taxes (too much)—I enjoy the highway system and the post office (obviously) (although know that is privatized), I appreciate our troops and the FDA and the CDC and the Justice department and all that.  (All good, without saying it all works perfectly, but there’s no way I can control it all and that’s another blog.)  I know I am lucky and I am happy, to help the less fortunate and keep the wheels of government on the road. Such as they are.

But the biggest thing I said was THERE’S GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY to do this. Better than saving little scraps of paper.  Better than using a legal pad and a calculator.

So Femmes, is there? Thing is, I know I am not going to go to my computer every day and enter stuff. I know myself well enough not to pretend that a daily accounting thing is gonna work.

I never pay cash, and so there are credit card and check receipts for EVERYTHING.

Grr. But I’m finished now.

And today I sent it all in a big box to the accountant, bless you, Howard, I hope you can make sense of it.

Is there any magic way to make this easier? How do you do it?

IN WHICH TONI AND I WEAR BASEBALL CAPS

Toni (L.P. Kelner, also known as Leigh Perry) and I have a day to celebrate on April Fool’s. Our sixth anthology will be on the shelves . . . and we’re still friends. In fact, we’re better friends than ever.

 

Many years ago, at least seven or eight, I was approached by the late, great, Martin Greenberg, who had the strange idea that I could edit an anthology. Since I had a pretty accurate estimate of my skills as an editor, I agreed to do it if Toni could be my co-editor.  And Toni and I both were also obliged to contribute a story apiece to the anthology.

 

Toni has always had the skill, or the educated knack, of putting her finger on what ails a story. I might be able to tell you the story is not completely healthy, but Toni can tell you what medicine the writer needs to take to make the story better. I’ve been learning from the master. Since Toni is also a multiple award winning short story writer, I may have had that talent of hers in the back of my mind, too.

 

We’ve had fun picking the themes, and even more fun assembling our dream team of writers, a list which must resonate with both ourselves and our publisher. We try to balance both mystery writers and urban fantasy writers, female writers and male writers, well-known writers and about-to-be-well-known writers.  We have never published a story we’ve regretted, and we’ve been proud of the quality of our selections.

 

“Games Creatures Play” will be on the shelves April 1, and the combination of sports and supernaturals was a lot of fun for all the writers concerned. What sports? Well, we’ve got baseball, softball, ice skating, roller skating, hide and seek, cops and robbers, drag racing, boxing . . . and more.  What supernatural creatures? Ha! Ghosts, the Devil, a magician, space aliens . . . just to name a few.

 

The phenomenal part of this experience is that Toni and I still like each other, and I respect her skills more than ever.  I like to think that we’ve turned some mystery readers on to urban fantasy writers, and vice versa.  Some of the stories have spawned series, and some have led to a movie option. (We’re proud grandparents.)

 

We can hardly wait to see what happens after “Games Creatures Play.” Want to put some money on which story becomes the stand-out? Hey, betting’s a game.

 

Charlaine Harris

Nekkid werewolves at the ancient Olympic Games

by Dana

 
I was thrilled when got the invite to contribute to the anthology Games People Play, edited by Fellow Femmes Fatales Charlaine and Toni.  Then...a sense of trepidation when I realized that I had to come up with a sport or a game.  I was coming home from vacation, so my first thought was “museum touring,” but it's not a competitive event (at least, not outside certain circles).  “Drinking games” was my next thought, but I don't know (or remember) any drinking games because, like Ford Prefect in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I usually played to lose.  I used to compete in “balk-offs” when I worked in the field, which meant racing another archaeologist to see who could clean a unit's wall with a trowel the fastest and most evenly.  Again, not widely accepted as competitive sport.

Marie-Lan Nguyen, 2011

But then...there's always punching and kicking.  When I was working on the Emma Fielding books, I took a few years of krav maga.  My first thought was to have Gerry Steuben the PI werewolf investigate illegal cage fighting...? 

Then, a brain wave:  Pankration!  A sport that was a combination of boxing and wrestling, developed in the 7th century BCE, and the antecedent of modern mixed martial arts.  Back in the day, it was so vicious it was said Hercules himself invented it, and the only rules were no eye-gouging and no biting.  The opponents fought naked on a muddy field; the victors were celebrated in song.  The cheaters were a source of disgust.  And the losers...were often maimed or dead.  On the pottery below, an eye-gouger is about to be rebuked (hit) by a judge.

© Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons

Best of all, the name means “all powers,” which created a nice conflict for my Fangborn character, Nikodemus of Halicarnassus, who would not be able to use his werewolvish abilities in front of an audience at Olympia.  I decided to set it in the 4th century BCE, and pretty soon, I had a crotchety oracle telling Niko he had to prevent a murder that would pollute the holy rites of the games and bring disaster on everyone.  I threw in a beautiful courtesan, and a strange weakness overcoming my Fangborn hero.  And...there was a time limit, as the games were only four days long. 

 

The best part was that, having traveled to the site of Olympia a few years ago, I had a sense of the place.  I had no idea about the rules of the ancient games or how the religious rituals were performed, so I turned to the excellent A Visitor's Guide to the Ancient Olympics by Neil Faulkner. 

I had a terrific time writing this story because I learned so much about the ancient Games.  I also learned a bit more about the history of the Fangborn.  And speaking of which...

I have a new Fangborn novel coming out in about two weeks!  Zoe Miller is back, reeling from her

discoveries at the end of Seven Kinds of Hell, and desperate to save the Fangborn from the Order of Nicomedia, an organization dedicated to finding and destroying the Fangborn.  Leave a comment—on sports, on werewolves, about how you discovered the Femmes Fatales, about which story you're looking forward to in Games, almost anything (be nice!)—by 5:00pm EST Sunday for a chance to win a copy of PACK OF STRAYS!

Monterey in pictures

by Donna Andrews

One of the joys of going to Left Coast Crime this year was the location, a block from the waterfront in Monterey, California. I played hookey a couple of times to walk up and down the shore taking pictures. Here are some of my favorites from the trip. You can click on any of them if you want to take a closer look. And let me know which one I should choose as my grand prize winner!

Game on!

by Toni L.P. Kelner / Leigh Perry

I live in in sports heaven. Here in metro Boston, we have the Bruins for hockey, the Celtics for basketball, the Patriots for football, the Red Sox for baseball, and of course, the Boston Marathon. Then there's all the college teams and tournaments to enjoy. Heaven!

Except that it's all wasted on me. I'm not a sports fan.

I don't understand the inside fly rule, I've never understood what a down is, and fighting over a puck just seems rude to me.

This is nothing new me. When I lived in Charlotte, NC, home of the World 600, I knew nothing about stock car racing. Nor did I care about college basketball, even though college basketball has quasi-religious status in North Carolina. Despite the occasional social awkwardness, my ignorance was never a problem until Femme Charlaine and I decided to use a sports theme for Games Creatures Play, the latest of our urban fantasy anthologies. Then it was a problem.

Fortunately, there is one Boston sport I can get behind: candlepin bowling.

What? You've never heard of candlepin bowling? But it predates the standardization of ten-pin bowling! In fact it goes back to 1880, which means it also beats basketball and stock car racing. Okay, I never heard of it before moving to Massachusetts, and it's mostly played in parts of New England and Canada. It's played mostly like ten-pin bowling, but with smaller finger-hole-free balls, and the pins are thinner. The picture below shows a ten-pin ball and pin on the left, with a candlepin pin and ball on the right. (That short thing in the middle is a duckpin bowling pin. Don't ask.)

Candlepin is popular for kids' birthday parties around here, which is how I learned about it. Not only are the balls a lot easier for kids to handle, but for kids, they can put up bumpers along the sides of the lane so that the ball can't go into the gutter. I've played many games of candlepin myself. (Though not well, even with the bumpers).

Still, just because I knew it marginally better than most other sports, I wasn't completely convinced that I was going to use it as a background for my story. I was afraid that it was too obscure, and that my surface knowledge of the sport would be called out by hordes of rabid candlepin fans. But as much as I'm immune to the lure of sports, I cannot resist a good pun. And one day, when I mentioned to my husband Steve that I was considering using candlepin in my story, he said, "And you could call it 'Bell, Book, and Candlepin.'"

As they say in the alley: STRIKE!

Of course, with a title like that, I had to throw in a witch. The werewolf was just a spare. Get it? A spare?  In bowling? Okay, I don't ever think I'll be a sports fan, but I'm definitely a sports pun fan.

Anyway, if you're interested in sports, or just in stories about supernatural creatures playing sports, other stories in Games Creatures Play feature more familiar games like baseball, softball, boxing, roller derby, and fencing. (Also pankration, which is even more obscure than candlepin bowling.)

The rest of the team roster includes: Charlaine Harris, William Kent Krueger, Jan Burke, Joe R. Lansdale, Caitlin Kittredge, Brendan DuBois, Dana Cameron, Scott Sigler, Ellen Kushner, Brandon Sanderson, Mercedes Lackey, Seanan McGuire, Adam-Troy Castro, and Laura Lippman. I think I speak for the whole team when I say...
Game on!

NOTE: For people who've read some of my other short stories, the witch in "Bell, Book, and Candlepin" is a member of the Kith family I introduced in my story "For a Good Time, Call..." in Mark Van Name's anthology The Wild Side, and the werewolf first appeared in "Keeping Watch Over His Flock" in Wolfsbane and Mistletoe.

Left Coast Crime Report

By Catriona

There are as many Left Coast stories as there were people there; this is one.

My adopted state of California put on a great show for a start. The Pacific was sparkling, the sun was shining, the seals were  . . . scenting the air with that special fragrance of theirs. I don't think anyone who made the trek to Monterey for Left Coast Crime 2014 was sorry they came.

It was especially lovely to see friends from the snow zones unfurling in the mild air and dusting off their t-shirts and sandals. (A bit sadder on Sunday morning to see them checking weather reports from home and beginning to think about where they'd left their shovels.)

 Here are Sparkle Abbey (Iowa) and Nancy Parra (Illinois)at the conference hotel on Thursday.

Also on Thursday was the opening reception where the toastmaster, Brad Parks, announced the award nominees. And the lovely thing about Left Coast is that they put the honour just to be nominated in physical form with a plaque.

The panels I got to were wonderful, especially Deadly New Voices where these debut authors talked about their paths to publcation: MP Cooley, Sherry Novinger Harris, Lori Rader Day, Carlene O'Neill and Holly West.

And how adorable is the smile on Martha Cooley's face as she embarks on her first ever signing?

The best surprise of the weekend came from Terry Jacobsen of Library Journal. I admitted in an interview with LJ recently that I had never read any Nancy Drew. On Friday morning, Terry called me over and said she had a present for me:

The absoutely best *thing* about the weekend wasn't actually a surprise, although I did have to pinch myself. My parents were there!

And I got the chance to say a very public thank you to them for all they've done, because of the biggest and best surprise of all. (I lied.)

Look - a shiny thing! Holding an award. DANDY GILVER AND A BOTHERSOME NUMBER OF CORPSES won the Bruce Alexander Memorial Award for best historical mystery, presented by my friend David Corbett.

And soon after the end of the awards dinner, it was all over. But instead of trailing off alone to an airport as usual after conventions, this time I strolled along a coast path and then went for a surrey ride with my parents and hsuband. No fringe on top but ehh - you can't have everything.

 

THE STRAW

I might as well call this blog “The Straw that Broke the Camel’s Back” or “I Throw up my Hands in Exasperation” because these are both things I experienced this past week. You know that situation? When you decide the deck is stacked against you, but you can stand it, and then one more thing happens to push you over the edge?

I had a little surgery, which was no big deal to anybody but me. And it turned out fine. But I was pretty nervous, and I walked out with a big bandage on my arm, and after a week, when I went back, the site was still sore and unpleasant. Finally, that day, the surgeon was able to close it, which was an immense relief, and then . . . I turned out be allergic to the bandage. The next day, my arm looked like something the contestants might create in the reality show “Face Off.”

This seemed to me to be adding insult to injury. I’d had a string of illnesses, and I was sick of it. Either I developed this allergy (presumably to Latex) because of the previous bandaging, or the new bandage had more of whatever I’m allergic to in it, because everywhere it touched my skin, I had swelling and redness and those little itchy weepy bumps. It was a spectacular display.

Though hardly life-threatening or disfiguring or even very serious, right? But while I was worried about other things to begin with, it was just enough to push me over the edge into an immense case of self-pity.

Does it sometimes seem that Life, with a capital L, is taunting you? Or have you just experienced a series of random events, a piling of misfortune upon misfortune? I’m reminded (in a more serious vein) of families who return from an interment to find that the house has been burgled. In a way, you can see that coming (lawbreakers can read the obituaries, too), just the same way that you can only discover you’re allergic to Latex when you put some next to your skin.

In another way, the tragi-comedic viewpoint of life has to kick in when the bad things start stacking up. Minor or major, it requires a great attitude adjustment to find the ridiculousness of it all, and to laugh at it.

So let’s pretend we’re at a bar together, and let’s belly up and have a drink, and laugh at life. There’s more to enjoy than not, and laughter is the best defense against misfortune pile-ups.

Of course, it can take good long while to get to the point where you can laugh.

Charlaine Harris

The very deepest part of the very darkest woods

by Dana

I'd call it a bit of bad timing, but when you've got deadlines, it's all bad timing.  I'm in the middle of my WIP, which means for me that I have about a quarter of the novel written, out of order, with a lot of scaffolding with notes about what else may happen.  Things will start to really take off with the next fifty pages or so, and work will progress faster until I reach the three-quarters point, and then I'll stall for a bit, then finish the book at a feverish pace.

I know this will happen because it's happened on seven other novels and sixteen short stories.  I kept notes, the first few books I wrote, because I needed to learn whether this was just my process.  It happens every single time.

The dread of hitting the middle is huge.  Doubt floods my mind and worry nibbles at my nerves.  The inevitability of it is rather like a horror story.  You know the process, can see it's happening, but refuse to think it will be as awful this time, until it actually is.  No, they're just freckles, you tell yourself, in denial as the tentacles start to sprout.  The alien didn't really bite me, I'll be just fine—gaah blorgel Earthlings, gaah blorgel!  

I do not exaggerate.  Horror.

Ordinarily I'd switch over to my Plan B—another WIP in a different style, voice, etc.  That let's me leave a problem, focus on something else, and gives my brain to figure out the next step in Plan A. 

The thing is, I'm in the middles of Plan B and Plan C as well, and I can see the little suction cups starting to grow on the tentacles...

These are things I do.  I keep at them (or variations of them) until something gives. 

Change the music.  The playlists I use can create a groove—or they can create a rut.  Sometimes I have to find a different style of music to shape my POV.

Change your space.  If you write in the kitchen, move to the living room.  Switch coffee joints.  Painting your office might not be an option, but maybe changing your pictures around, or adding new ones, or taking them down entirely is.  I put up some new art, and even if it changes the way I feel for just a second, it's useful.  The picture (above) is the first thing I see when I enter my office.  The calligraphy translates as "narrative."

Read/watch something you ordinarily wouldn't read/watch.  Sometimes that will give you a different perspective on where you're stuck.  If you're curious about fashion design or physics or monster trucks, chances are there'll be something there that speaks to you about your current work, however indirectly.

Discuss the problem with your character.  For example, “Dear X, you really are stupid today,” oftentimes X will answer back.  “Well, if I am stupid, it's because you had me use the same solution to the last two problems, and I'm cleverer than that.”  Surprising how often that works.

Don't discount the thoughts you've already had.  This is a new one for me and it's important.  I have a list of things from Pack of Strays (out April 15, and available for preorder today!) to address in my next Fangborn book on my whiteboard.  You'd think I could go through, do them, cross them off.  Dust off my hands and call it a good week's work.  But for some reason, I think “oh, but I've already had that thought, it doesn't count.  I need to have a new thought.”  No, it doesn't count because you haven't written it down.  Those loose thoughts in your head?  They belong on the page.  Write them down, however imperfectly.

Finally, if Mal's motto in "Firefly" is “keep flying,” ours must be “keep writing.”  If the middle is inevitable, then the solution is too.

Courage!

Cats Are Magic

By Elaine Viets

Cats are magic. Any mystery reader knows that. In some mysteries, like Sofie Kelly’s Magical Cats series, cats walk through doors and materialize in strange places. Sofie’s cats took her to the New York Times bestseller list.

In my Dead-End Job mysteries, Helen and Phil’s cat, Thumbs, is also magic. But his magical abilities are more down to earth.

This is a scene from CATNAPPED!, my 13^th Dead-End Job mystery. That’s a magical number, too. Private eyes Helen and Phil are waiting for the catnapper to call. During this tense time, Thumbs uses all his feline powers to comfort Helen Hawthorne:

  

　

Cats are magical creatures, Helen thought, as she sipped her coffee on the couch in Phil’s apartment. Her own cat, Thumbs, was curled up next to her, purring. Cats can’t talk or walk through walls, though they seem to have those powers. But they are calming.

Since nine o’clock this morning, I’ve downed four cups of coffee, waiting for the catnapper’s call. Phil’s worked himself into a sweaty, twitching mess of caffeine nerves.

We both know we have to recover that kidnapped kitten. Our reputation—the future of our agency—is wrapped up in Justine’s small gray paws.

I’m scared, too. Phil may be the only man in the world for me, but he can’t help me wait out this crisis. All we can do is worry together. Thumbs and his rumbly purr ward off the gnawing anxiety.

Thumbs only weighs fifteen pounds. He has no pedigree. By any breed standard, his soft, six-toed paws are deformed. Yet he rules our household through the force of his personality. Phil and I run on his schedule: his breakfast is served at seven a.m., his dinner is at seven p.m., his litter box is cleaned, his ears are scratched and he scores an occasional shrimp treat.

He’s smart enough to be content with that. Thumbs knows the secret of serenity. He gives it, too. He has an uncanny knack for coolly sidestepping mayhem. His first owner was murdered. I swiped him from his second owner, and used the cat’s DNA to send that person to prison.

Thumbs has stayed with me ever since. He adopted Phil, and now he’s sitting with me during this crisis, watching me with those shrewd golden-green eyes outlined with dark feline mascara. His sturdy body is a patchwork of stripes and pure white fur. He’s a creature of many parts.

Helen was scratching the thick fur along the cat’s shoulders when she heard the special ring tone for the kidnapper’s line.

She checked the clock: 10:45.

Phil pounced on the phone.

 

 
NOTE: CATNAPPED! goes on sale May 6, but you can get a low preorder price here: http://tinyurl.com/nk4wb3v

Watch the book trailer here:

http://www.elaineviets.com/new/Misc/trailers.asp

And enter my contest for the Bakers Dozen Book Giveaway. Go to www.elaineviets.com  and click on Contests.

Dishing on...Downton!

 

“A fast-paced plot with plenty of false leads keeps the reader turning the pages.”          –Publishers Weekly

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  PW above is describing Sandra Parshall’s brand new Poisoned Ground—but Sandy wants to talk about a different  “fast placed  plot with plenty of false leads.”

 Yes, we watch it. Yes, we love it. Yes, we simply cannot get enough of it.

 And today, we delightedly feed our DT addiction—as Sandra Parshall takes on—gasp—Julian Fellowes. Stand back, y’all!

 The Downton Whodunnit

                  Sandra Parshall

  We need to talk about Downton Abbey.

 I know, I know — reams have been written about it on the internet and in the press since the season finale. Nobody cares whether Mary marries the lovesick Lord or the farming expert who turns out to be heir to a baronetcy. Nobody cares about the world of future heartache poor Edith is setting herself up for by bringing her illegitimate daughter to Downton to be raised as the adopted child of the pig manager. All people have talked about is the murder mystery. Did Bates kill the valet who raped Anna? Even those who believe he did (and I’m one of those) try to find ways to excuse him.

 But nobody seems to have noticed how Julian Fellowes pulled his punches at every turn in writing the rape-and-revenge tale. As a piece of storytelling, I think it fails on all levels.

 First, it’s preposterous for the valet, Green, to be so confident he can get away with a sexual assault under the circumstances. He is the servant of Lord Gillingham, who is courting Lady Mary, the daughter of an Earl. While they’re visiting the ancestral home of that Earl, the valet rapes Anna, a married woman who is lady’s maid to Mary and spends hours every day in her company. Not only does Green rape Anna, but he hits her, leaving visible damage on her face. A servant would have to be insane to think he could get away with this, but Green seems blithely unconcerned about Anna telling either her husband or her employer. Maybe we’re supposed to believe he’s nuts.

All that aside, Fellowes passed over a chance for real drama by ignoring the vulnerable position of female servants in relationship to their male employers and other men in their social circle. Suppose Lord Gillingham had a younger brother who has embarked on a promising career in the military or diplomacy. Suppose that young aristocrat accompanies the Lord to Downton, sneaks downstairs during the concert, and rapes and beats Anna. And Carson, the butler, witnesses the attack. The rapist makes threats, Anna pleads for silence out of fear of what Bates would do, but Carson, being Carson, cannot stay silent. Because his integrity is unassailable, Lord Grantham will believe him.

 Now we have real drama. Can Bates be restrained from taking revenge on a member of the aristocracy? Will Lord Grantham allow a maid to bring criminal charges against a young man of his own class, thereby destroying what promises to be a brilliant future? What will Lord Gillingham do? Which side will Mary be on? If Lord Grantham wants to hush up the matter, will Tom Branson, the chauffeur who married into the family and has never felt comfortable about it, take his daughter and leave Downton in protest, depriving Cora and Robert access to their granddaughter?

 Fellowes tends to draw a strong, thick line between upstairs and downstairs in the stories he writes for Downton Abbey. The two are intertwined only in the romance and marriage of Lady Sibyl and Tom the chauffeur. In the rape story, he has mostly kept the people upstairs ignorant of what’s going on, allowing only Mary to become involved in a minor way. When pressed to explain her glum mood, Anna serves Mary an absurd story about a stranger, a passerby, who entered the house, raped her, and disappeared. Mary gives only a moment’s thought to reporting the incident to the police. How realistic is it that she would not want her father, the Earl, to know that his grand estate had been invaded and one of his employees attacked?

 After sussing out the truth, that Lord Gillingham’s valet was the culprit, Mary gives in to Anna’s protest that Bates must never know who did it because he might kill the man. (How could he kill Green if Green were under arrest and in jail?)  Mary takes the wishy-washy step of telling Lord Gillingham that his valet has done something naughty and should be fired, but she won’t tell him what Green did. After Bates learns the truth and Green dies under suspicious circumstances, we’re supposed to sympathize with Mary’s crisis of conscience as she wonders whether to turn Bates in or keep silent.

 Some commentators have remarked on the condescending and male-centric approach Fellowes took in handling the rape story. Anna was made to play the stereotypical victim throughout, weeping about feeling “dirty” and moaning that her husband would never want to touch her again if he learned she’d been raped. Fellowes put a gag-inducing line of dialog in Bates’s mouth when he had the devoted husband tell Anna that the rape didn’t make him love her less, it made him love her more. I know Fellowes is writing about an earlier period, almost a hundred years ago, but this stuff is drivel. A little emotional originality would have improved matters — but the basic storyline would remain wimpy and lacking in dramatic punch.

 It could have been so much better if Fellowes had been willing to drag one of the upstairs dandies downstairs to do something criminal and disgusting — and then forced the aristocrats, and not just the servants, to deal with the fallout.

 HANK: So, what do you think? Cannot wait for Julian Fellowes’ comments.

 And Sandra has a signed POISONED GROUND for one lucky commenter!

 ************************************

Sandra Parshall is the author of six Rachel Goddard mysteries set in Virginia. Her 2006 debut, The Heat of the Moon, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Her latest title is Poisoned Ground (March 2014). A longtime member of Sisters in Crime, she has served on the national board and managed the SinC members= online community for many years. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, a veteran Washington journalist, and their cats Emma and Gabriel. Visit her website at http://www.sandraparshall.com.

POISONED GROUND
"Parshall expertly maintains the tension until the surprising conclusion." -- Kirkus Reviews

Gunshots on an autumn day leave a beloved local couple dead and signal the start of a vicious battle over the future of Mason County, Virginia. A powerful development company has chosen this small community in the Blue Ridge Mountains as the site of a sprawling resort for the rich, and the local people are taking sides. No one opposes the project more vocally than veterinarian Rachel Goddard, and her outspokenness complicates the job of her husband, newly elected Sheriff Tom Bridger. Many see the project as the cure for poverty and high unemployment in a dying community. Others, including Rachel, know the firm behind it is notorious for mistreatment of employees, and they’re alarmed by the prospect of the entire county becoming financially dependent on a predatory company. Rachel’s friend, horse breeder Joanna McKendrick, owns the most desirable land, and she’s fighting intense pressure to sell and make way for the development. When Joanna’s neighbors, an older couple who also refuse to give up their farm, are gunned down outside their house, it appears supporters of the project will stop at nothing to push it through. Soon a small-scale civil war is raging in the county. As the violence escalates, Rachel and Tom realize the truth behind the attacks is far more sinister than it seems, rooted deep in the poisoned ground of the past.

 http://www.sandraparshall.com