My Weblog

And the winner is . . . part 2

by Donna Andrews.

To announce the release of The Nightingale Before Christmas, my latest Meg Langslow Christmas mystery, I sent out a newsletter, and included a contest, inviting readers to name their favorite character in the series for a chance to win a copy of Homicidal Holidays, the latest in the Chesapeake Crimes short story anthology series.

Those of you who follow the Wicked Cozy blog already know that Meg's father, Dr. James Langslow, was the overall favorite, named by slightly over a third of those responding. (If you want to know their reasons, check out my Wicked Cozy blog.)

But what about the other two thirds of the respondents? What other characters do readers love?

To my complete surprise, Spike, Meg and Michael's nine-and-a-half-pound furball of a dog, came in second. The fact that so many readers have grown fond of Spike, aka The Small Evil One, famous for biting the hand that feeds him—all too often while it's feeding him—shows, I think, how besotted we all are with dogs. And cats, but there isn't a cat with a major starring role in my series. Hmmmm . . .

Anyway, among the reasons readers cited for choosing Spike:

“He is a delightfully written tribute to small dogs who don't know they are small and .convince the rest of the world to go along with them,” Lissa H. says. Mary M. agrees: “I know he’s not a human being, but my favorite 'character' is and has been from the start---Spike. He’s so human in all his appearances. He thinks he’s the size of an elephant and is afraid of nothing. I don’t think I’d want to meet him in person but he sure is fun to read about.” “I happen to be an animal lover. So, I would say Spike is my favorite (Spike is family),” Peggy W. reports.

Tied for third place are Michael, Meg's husband, and her eccentric cousin, Rose Noire.

I wasn't surprised to find Michael was a favorite. “Meg's awesome but, no matter what happens, Michael always seems to stay calm and just 'handle things.' says Marijah S. “From crazy in-laws to his own crazy mom to university politics to obsessed fans to the antics of the twins - nothing fazes him. I work with a lot of actors and I've never met one who stays as calm as Michael does!” Deb C. adds “Love their relationship….loving, carefree, supportive, etc.!” And Margie M. says “My favorite character is the long-suffering, ever-patient and seemingly unflappable Michael. He seems to go-with-the-flow with whatever Meg gets tangled in and still find time to hold a job and be a wonderful dad to Josh and Jamie. Hats off to Michael!”

I was also delighted to find that readers had grown fond of Rose Noire, because I find her a lot of fun to write. “My favorite character in your Meg Langslow series has always been Rose Noire. She reminds me of a roommate of mine during my wild, single, and Birkenstock wearing California days!” Donna K. reports. And Shirley P. notes that “One of my favorite characters is Rose Noire - even though she is kind of spacy, she has a good heart and I'm always intrigued to see what herbal concoctions she is going to make next.  BTW, I think you are 'channeling' Stevie Nicks when you dress her.” (And yes, Shirley, definitely channeling Stevie.)

In fifth place was Meg herself—not, I think because readers don't like her, but because I sort of implied in my text that I was looking for characters other than Meg. And a number of other characters got mention or two, either as favorites or also rans. Meg's cousin Horace; her grandfather; her twin sons; her brother, Rob; her grandmother; Chief Burke's wife, Minerva; Mrs. Thornhill, the calligrapher and cat lady from Murder with Peacocks; Stanley Denton, the local PI; Mother's long-suffering friend, Mrs. Fenniman; Dr. Smoot, the vampire obsessed medical examiner; the Shiffley clan; Meg's nephew Eric; Michael's mother; Dr. Clarence Rutledge, the holistic biker veterinarian; the Mutant Wizards—all have their fans.

Even Meg's mother has fans, which is a relief. She is not my mother—I have offered to give Mom an affidavit to that effect—and I'm not sure I could survive living with or even near her. But I've grown curiously fond of her, and it's a relief to see that I'm not alone. “I love the regal untouchability of Mrs. Langslow's character; she has the always-on-top quality of a Georgette Heyer hero,” reports Elizabeth G.

While it wasn't the reason I did this informal and very unscientific survey, I definitely plan to pay attention to the results, and make sure that the characters who are reader favorites all get their time in the spotlight!

And thanks to all of you who love the books—and please keep reading!

 

 

Merry Christmas from the Femmes - part 2

by Donna Andrews

A few more holiday photos from the Femmes Fatales.  First, Ginger, my canine niece, had a great Christmas--she got to spend most of the day with Grandma.

And from Kris Neri: Philly, the rein-cat.

And Annabelle, the rein-dog.

More tomorrow!

The Femmes

Merry Christmas from the Femmes

by Donna Andrews

The Femmes Fatales (and Frere) have been taking some time off to celebrate the holidays with our families.  But--a picture's worth a thousand words, right? So here are a few thousand words about our holidays.

Catriona McPherson's definition of Christmas bliss . . . and her innovative way of repurposing some earlier seasonal decorations for Christmas:

Christmas in the Kelner household looks a little different now that Toni (under her Leigh Perry nom de plume) is writing about Sid the Skeleton:

 And if you live in Fort Lauderdale, like Elaine Viets, the Winter Boat Parade is a highlight of your holiday season.

More to come . . . but in the meantime, may your holiday season be filled with . . . um . . . yachts and pumpkins and talking skeletons.

Of Cats and Cozies...

by Femmes Guest T.C. "Toni" LoTempio

Today the Femmes welcome Toni C. LoTempio, whose first Nick and Nora mystery was recently released by Berkley Prime Crime. As well as being a writer, Toni -- and my goodness I like that name -- is known as a blogger, reviewer, and interviewer. She and her cat Rocco are active over at Cats, Books, and...More Cats! Today I found out that Rocco is the "honorary spokescat" for Kids Need to Read, a charity co-founded by Denise Gary, PJ Haarsma, and (swoon) actor Nathan Fillion. He's also the inspiration for the feline character Nick in Toni's new book. And take it away, Toni. (LOVE that name!) -- Toni L.P. Kelner

Most of the mysteries on my bookshelf, I confess, are cozy mysteries. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the genre, cozies are a subgenre of crime fiction where the crime and the detection takes place in a small town. Remember the old Murder She Wrote series? That’s a good example of a cozy. The detectives in such stories are nearly always amateurs (cue JB Fletcher) sometimes retired lawmen or women. The majority of the detectives are of the female persuasion, and often hold jobs that bring them into contact with the other residents of their town. More often than not they’ll have a contact on the local police force who’ll help them out with a clue or two.

The killers aren’t usually hardboiled serial killer types, and once unmasked, are most often taken into custody with little or no violence. If there is violence, it happens off-screen…no grisly murder scenes depicted in any cozies! Foul language is also kept to a minimum. The murders are generally members of or related to someone in the town wherein the murder occurs and the motives – greed, jealousy, revenge – often are deep rooted. 

Cozies frequently revolve around a theme – for example, Diane Mott Davidson’s revolves around cooking, Parnell Hall’s around crossword puzzles, Monica Ferris’ needlework…you get the idea. Animal lovers are also well represented, as well, which brings me to my cozy mystery series, debuting in December from Berkley Prime Crime…..think Jessica Fletcher with a cat and you’ve got it!

My series is the Nick and Nora mystery series. Nora is Nora Charles, ex-crime reporter turned restaurant entrepreneur. After a 12-year stint  reporting on crime in Chicago she's come back to her hometown of Cruz, California, to take over her deceased mother’s sandwich shop. Shortly thereafter, Nora finds a surprise waiting outside her door – a stocky, black and white cat. She takes the cat in and names him Nick (after Nick Charles, the Thin Man, of course). She later finds out that the cat did in fact belong to a PI, Nick Atkins, who is currently MIA – she also finds out that Nick has many talents, among them the ability to spell out words with Scrabble tiles – plus, he’s got a nose for scenting out crime.

Here’s the teaser, taken from the back of the book:

Nora Charles doesn’t believe in fate, even if she is a crime reporter who shares a name with a character from The Thin Man. In fact, she’s moving back to Cruz, California, to have a quieter life. But after finding an online magazine eager for material, and a stray cat named Nick with a talent for detection, Nora’s not just reporting crimes again. She’s uncovering them…

Back in her hometown, Nora reconnects with old friends and makes some new ones, like Nick, the charming feline who seems determined to be her cat. But not everything about Cruz is friendly. Writing for a local online magazine, Nora investigates the curious death of socialite Lola Grainger. Though it was deemed an accident, Nora suspects foul play. And it seems that her cat does too.

Apparently, Nick used to belong to a P.I. who disappeared while investigating Lola Grainger’s death. The coincidence is spooky, but not as spooky as the clues Nick spells out for her with Scrabble letters—clues that lead her down an increasingly dangerous path. Whether fate put her on this case or not, solving it will take all of Nora’s wits, and maybe a few of Nick’s nine lives. 

I hope you’ll join Nick and Nora on some of their adventures, but even if a crime solving cat isn’t your cup of tea, I’m sure that there are many other cozies out there that are. Sample the genre today – I think you’ll be very pleasantly surprised!

 

 

Going to Schenectady

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

There’s a really famous author—I won’t tell you who it is, because honestly, I forget—who groans when he’s asked  “Where do you get your ideas?”  Because, of course, that's the hardest question of all. He laughs about it. "Schenectady," he says.

 Man. I wish you could really do that. 

 I'm fascinated by the “where do you get your  ideas’ question, and for every book I’ve ever written—eight of them now! I can answer it perfectly. I remember exactly the moment when the idea came.

For PRIME TIME, when I got a spam email with the subject line “a mortgage refinancing deal for you” but the body of the email was what looked like lines from a play by Shakespeare, or someone of that era.. Why would someone do that, I wondered? And my brain answered—maybe it’s a secret message.

 Whoa. Secret messages in computer spam.

 And that became PRIME TIME.   

I won’t tell you all of them, but for AIR TIME it  came from the airport, where I was picking up a checked bag. Whoa, I thought, you could take anyone’s bag, and no one would ever know. 

Whoa. Smuggling via multiple baggage claim checks. Love it.

 For the WRONG GIRL, when a viewer called and told me an adoption agency had sent her cousin to the wrong birth mother. “Can you believe it, Hank,"  she said? "They sent that woman the wrong girl."

 Bingo bingo bingo.

 TRUTH BE TOLD (which just got named a Library Journal BEST of 2014!) came from a series of investigative stories we did on empty foreclosed homes. What it someone was hiding bodies in those vacant places, I thought? Only certain people would know which houses were empty, and for how long. Hmmm..

And now, I wish the Schenectady story store was a real thing. I am working on the final revision of my new book, WHAT YOU SEE (which came from one of my lawyer-husband’s cases) and haunted by the knowledge that I have to come up with another wonderful plot. Soon. Really really soon.

 And I’m not quite sure, right at this moment, what it is.

  Let me say that I have been a reporter for 40 years. Every time I do a big news story—I mean EVERY time—I worry that I’ll never come  up with another one. But I always do. And finally, after all these years, I am beginning to believe that the moment that I say that is just another predictable point in the story journey. Soon after I think that, the idea appears.

 And there’s no reason to think it won’t happen again in fiction world. Right? When the time is right, and the universe is ready, my next plot nugget will appear and all will be well again.    

 Right? Right?

 See you in Schenectady.

 

Settling on a Setting

by guest blogger Sherry Harris

When I got the opportunity to write the Sarah Winston Garage Sale series, I had a heck of a time deciding where to set it. My husband served in the Air Force for 21 years so we have a “home is where your stuff is” mentality. I started going through the possibilities and felt a bit like Goldilocks: LA is too big, Fort Walton Beach is too hot, then I landed on Bedford, Massachusetts. It was just right. So my protagonist, Sarah Winston, lives in a fictional version of Bedford called Ellington.

Things Sarah and I love about New England:

Four seasons -- Patriots, Celtics, Bruins and Red Sox and in a perfect world all four collide into one massive, fabulous October perfect storm. Oh, and there’s that whole other thing: gorgeous falls, snowy winters, flower filled springs, and lovely summers.


The drivers -- Before I moved to the Boston area a friend living there gave me this advice about driving -- never make eye contact with other drivers. Really? I wondered who was driving up there people or bears. Driving seems to be another sport to New Englanders.

Roast Beef and Pizza places-- mom and pop delis are everywhere. It seems like a funny combination and each place has their own take. Some add clams -- Roast Beef, Pizza and Clams. DiNapoli’s Roast Beef and Pizza is Sarah’s favorite place to eat in Tagged for Death and the DiNapolis are like family to her.

Wicked -- it’s a wicked awesome word. Usually used as a substitute for the word very.  You’ll look like a rookie if you just say: That’s wicked.

Those accents -- I love the accents and followed people around listening to them -- it wasn’t stalking it was research. People ordering lobstah rolls, a man picking out a “cahd” (card) for his wife, someone saying come to my rum (room). I convinced the cable guy to pronounce things for me: refrigaratah, ideaer, cah, computah. That’s why he was late for his next appointment.

The funny names they call things -- A woman in Home Goods telling another she’ll go get a carriage. I’m thinking Cinderella but she showed up with a shopping cart. A little girl with her mom admiring pocket books (purses), frappes are milk shakes not coffee drinks.

Ice Cream Stands -- Frappes remind me of all the wonderful ice cream stands in New England where the ice cream is made on site and they are only open seasonally. Sarah’s favorite is Bedford Farms. She seems to solve a lot of problems while eating a kiddie size (which is a double serving anywhere else) cup of coconut almond chip or Green Monster (a reference to the beloved Fenway, home of the Red Sox).

Sarah and I could go on. But I’ll stop because if I get started on inventions, history, and the plethora of New England authors we’ll be here all week. Thanks to all the Femme Fatales for letting me stop by today!

Sherry Harris started bargain hunting in second grade at her best friend’s yard sale. She honed her bartering skills as she moved around the country while her husband served in the Air Force. Sherry uses her love of garage sales, her life as a military spouse, and her time living in Massachusetts as inspiration for the Sarah Winston Garage Sale series. Tagged for Death, first in the series, released on December 2, 2014.

Blog: Wickedcozyauthors.com

Website: Sherryharrisauthor.com

Angel Pets, Devilish Good Books

from Mary Saums

 

I loved Elaine's post about dealing with her cat and its medicine. Any pet owner who has tried to get a cat to open its mouth when it doesn't want to can sympathize. 

Never again will I attempt to brush my cat's teeth. But, when I saw an ad for a new tooth-cleaning gel that is salmon-flavored, I couldn't resist giving it a try. Surely Big, my sweet tabby, would at least lick it up along with her food. 

We all have our little dreams.

I just tried again to get her interested.

 

 

She takes a sniff .... good .... maybe ....

 

 

Um ... No.

I wonder if a hypodermic squirt along the gumline while she's asleep ... she might dream of salmon leaping upstream ... yeah, right before she chomps down on my fingers.

No matter what, our pets are dear friends who comfort us when everything gets crazy. Like this time of year with shopping frenzies and mad rushes to get special holiday dishes cooked. Or whenever it feels like the whole world has gone totally insane, they're at home waiting to make everything better.

 

 

 

So while you're snuggled up by the fire this season with your laptop, some cocoa and the animal of your choice, here are a couple of books and a great mystery website to check out.

 

 

A TRAIL THROUGH TIME by Jodi Taylor

When I've talked about previous books in this series, I don't think I've pointed out how much readers of "normal" historical fiction would love these crazy sassy time-travel adventures. Each book has the time teams going back in time to an important event in history. Here, they go to Pompeii, to Egypt to see Cleopatra, and some emergency stops in 13th and 17th c. England. 

Max, leader of St. Mary's time-traveling dept. and her cohorts are funny, realistic characters. With futures and pasts leaping over each other and intertwining, I strongly urge everyone to read the series in order. They're short books. Splurge and treat yourself.

 

 

BRYANT & MAY AND THE BLEEDING HEART by Christopher Fowler is another winner in this terrific series. The two senior citizen detectives and the rest of the Peculiar Crimes unit continue to solve London's weirdest crimes. Two teenagers witness a body coming up out of a grave in a tiny city cemetery. Others think them mistaken or just plain stoned, but Arthur May, a walking encyclopedia of London history and folklore, believes the kids and takes on the case.

Special Treat: Bryant & May fans rejoice! Christopher Fowler has written a special Christmas short story featuring the detectives and it's free!! It's on the UK Random House website, Dead Good, a well as info on many other mysteries and happenings in the mystery world, including ... 

 

 

 

... a new book, SHERLOCK CHRONICLES by Steve Tribe, a guide to the BBC TV series. HAPPY HOLIDAAA-AAA-AAAYS ... jingle jingle jingle jingle ... HAPPY HOLIDAAA-AA-YS ... :) with photos and interviews and who knows what all. Click here for the Fowler story page, but you'll want to check out the whole Dead Good site. It's full of good stuff.

 

 

By Elaine Viets

The beastly war in our home is over. For now.

I’m almost afraid to say it, but we’ve finally figured out how to give our cat half a pill.

Don and I are owned by an 11-year-old copper-eyed Chartreux named Mystery. For three years, we’ve been giving her pills for cancer, and she’s recovering. Chemo pills do not make her sick. Her only side effects are her black whiskers turned white.

Pilling the cat is an involved process. Every three days, Don slips on latex gloves to give her a radioactive pill, plus a steroid. At first, her dose was slipped into a Pill Pocket treat, but that was too easy. Soon, the little queen ate the treat and spit out the pill.

We wrapped pills in treats, in cheese, in chicken. She hid them in the couch cushions, slid them into the tile grout, or rolled them under the counter. 

Then the vet gave us her profession’s secret weapon – the pill gun. We stuck the pill in the rubber tip, pulled the plunger, and the cat gulped it.

The pill gun shot the pill past that flapper in the feline throat that rejects pills. Mystery swallowed the pill.

We’d won.

Then she had to take heart medicine – a half pill. A 10-milligram tablet is about this big (), except it’s crumbly.

The pill gun didn’t work for something that tiny. Mystery’s doctor warned us she could die without that vital half a pill.

You’d think it would be easy to outwit a creature with a brain the size of a Ping Pong ball, but that cat devotes her energy to outwitting us, while we use our bigger brains to work – mostly to pay for cat care.

This problem required better brains than mine. Fortunately, I belong to the Cat Writers’ Association, so I asked the CWA for help. Several members suggested the solution: CATcaps.

"Ease the pain of giving pills to cats," the CATcaps Website said. These are  "chicken flavored and scented empty gelatin capsules that smell and taste like chicken. Although cats are notoriously picky eaters, we found that in a ‘pill taking challenge’ 70% of the cats in the study readily took the CATcaps pill."

A pill taking challenge? All cat pilling is a challenge. I hope this challenge was done under authentic test conditions: at 7 a.m. with the cats howling for breakfast before the pillers have had their coffee.

Back to the CATcaps. The Website says a capsule "ensures a friendly process for giving pills to cats without the battles. Chicken flavored capsules are made from BSE-free 100% bovine pharmaceutical grade gelatin. Chicken flavored CATcaps empty gelatin capsules are suitable for all dry ingredients . . . "

I don’t know what BSE-free means, but our vet approved it.

I ordered 100 CATcaps for $9.99 from http://www.capsuline.com/, then bought a cheap pill cutter at Walgreens, which looks rather like a mousetrap. The pill cutter makes dividing crumbly pills easier.

I cut the pill, making sure not to lose the halves in the white-speckled granite kitchen counter top. Then I took apart the pale yellow chicken-flavored capsule, dropped in the fragment and stuck the capsule back together.

Finally, the test. Don unholstered the pill shooter and loaded it.

The cat gulped it down. Success.

But she’s plotting. Look at her.

Win my Christmas mystery, "Murder with All the Trimmings." Click on Contests at www.elaineviets.com

Writing from Your Roots

by Dean James.

Since 2000 I have published twenty novels, thirteen of which are set in Mississippi where I was born and reared. During the writing of those novels I lived in Texas, and the Mississippi that I was writing about was a Mississippi of memories. Memories that were refreshed by periodic visits with family who still live here, of course.

One of the thirteen books, Cruel as the Grave, is set in Jackson where I'm now living. The rest are set in north Mississippi where I grew up, in fictionalized versions of towns. I didn't use the real towns because I didn't want to be tied to exact geography and having to worry about what was on a particular corner and other such details. Besides, the Mississippi I have been writing about is as much impressionistic as it is real.

Mississippi is a state of mostly small towns and lots of rural area still. The small-town aspect of my home state is what I want to capture, because that's what I grew up with. Now that I'm back and living here, in the state's largest city, I wonder how what I observe and experience in Jackson might color my writing going forward.

For one thing, I hear more often than I have in three decades that soft and slow Mississippi cadence, with emphasis on syllables one doesn't except. Case in point, DEE-cem-ber, rather than De-CEM-ber. I've heard that several times lately at the public library when I've checked out books due this month. Hearing these speech patterns make me realize how different my own became over the years I lived in Texas. I also know how easy it is to slip back to that earlier cadence, the one so familiar from childhood.

The best thing about being home again is that I am able to spend time with family members more frequently. Thanksgiving Day was a wonderful experience this year, because I gathered with family on the paternal side at the home where my father and his siblings grew up. My grandparents have been gone for four decades, and getting together again in the house that holds so many memories of love, laughter, and holidays was truly special. It was also bittersweet as I looked around the room and noted the absences -- of my parents and grandparents, particularly. But I also felt a deep connection to the house and the land on which it stands because my roots grow deep there.

Now that I am "on the spot," so to speak, will it affect my writing? Interesting to speculate, to me at least, how -- and if -- my writing might change. Stay tuned....

Fo-ur Calling Birds, Three Shopping Trips, Tw-o Turtle Doves . . .

Reading Kris's Christmas shopping blog on Friday, put me right in the mood for the next couple of weeks.  And brought back some happy memories too.

I LOVE Christmas shopping.  All three phases of it.

Phase one: I've got thirty five immediate relatives to think up, find, buy, wrap and deliver presents for and I wouldn't have it any other way.  It's especially easy to say that when the thirty five presents are under my mum's spare bed in Edinburgh ready to be picked up on Christmas Eve.

Phase two: then it's down to the undergardener and me. A couple of days before Christmas we'll empty the big bowl of change that's been collecting on the kitchen windowsill all year, make up rolls, take them to the bank and then split the notes. In one morning we buy Christmas presents for each other - taking pride in not going a penny over budget - and go out for lunch.

These days we skulk around a small town in California trying not to meet in the bookshop while one of us is buying his wife the new Stephen King (for instance). Before we moved, we used to go on a shopping trip to the little town of Ambleside in Cumbria. 

There was an ironmonger, an Oxfam (thrift store), an antique shop, a climbing shop or ten, a bookshop and a sweetie shop. We never had any trouble. One year, though, we happened to be in Manhatten and - no joke - I met Neil coming down Madison Avenue with a wild look in his eye. "It's a nightmare," he said. "I can't find anything for you." In Manhatten.  Well, I suppose there's no Oxfam.

Phase three: food, food, glorious food. And drink. I take the feasting element of Christmas quite seriously.The house needs to be stuffed to the rafters with turkey, bacon, sage and onion, chippolatas, kilties, pickles, chutneys, nuts, cheeses, Christmas cake, clootie dumpling (if you think the cake is funny, don't ask), shortbread, panettone, stollen, chocolates, sherry, port, claret, champagne, ginger wine, dark rum for putting in coffee while splitting logs on a frosty morning, cream to put in with the coffee and rum . . . the frost is unlikely but I'm ready if it comes.

The best Christmas-food-shopping meltdown I've ever heard of happened in Marks and Spencer's foodhall at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. The receptionist at my work had rushed out on her tea break to pick up the last few things needed to tuck in under her house's rafters so she could call it properly stuffed. When she came back to work, slightly late, she was dazed and smudged but had two bulging bags full of shopping.

"I just lost it," she said. "I was halfway up the chilled aisle and I just couldn't do it anymore. I sat down on the floor and started crying."

"What happened then?" we all wanted to know.

"An assistant came and took me through the back, made me a cup of tea, put all my stuff through the check-out and brought it to me," she said. Then she sniffed. "I'm definitely doing that again next year. Might have to go to a different branch, though."

Merry Christmas - including the shopping!