DEATH AND TAXES
It’s a condition of being a mystery writer that you’re always talking about death. Thinking about death. Researching about ways to make people die. Trying to interest your readers in whodunit – what person did another to death. In a few words, a mystery writer’s business is death: cause of, result of, means of.
It’s also a certainty that we have to pay our taxes, or despite the glamor and prestige of our jobs (riiiiiight) the IRS will come a’calling.
Since (like many other writers) I have incorporated myself, I now have the pleasure of paying taxes dozens of times a year. Actually, four – it just feels like dozens. After my accountant had a dispute with the IRS, I actually could not open an envelope with the IRS logo on it for a year. I had to hand it to my husband. Silly, but true.
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin’s world was perhaps in some ways more perilous than ours, but his famous saying still holds true. After this winter, I would add “the common cold” to the list, but death and taxes will do.
I can say with some authority that I cope with thinking about death with far more equanimity than I cope with dealing with the IRS. After all, death is a one-time-only occurrence, while I deal with the IRS on a quarterly basis.
Then too, I write about death theoretically. The people who die in my books only lived in my head, whereas when I write a check to the government of my country or my state, somehow that money is forever gone from my bank account.
In my heart of hearts, I know I’m being ridiculous about taxes and their season. Our government must run, and our tax dollars are the lubrication for the wheels. I don’t grudge that. I know when my house is on fire, I want firemen to come, and when I have a prowler, I want the police to arrive. When my son was in the army, I learned a lot about how hard it is on the men and women who stand between us and the world. I sure want those men and women to get paid! (And by the way, they deserve much more than they get.)
But each year, as April approaches, it’s much more fun to put people to death in a book than to get that total from my accountant.
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March 16, 2015
March 13, 2015
Location, location, location
Posted by Kris Neri
Today, I'm happy to welcome to the Femmes Fatales my friend, Shannon Baker. Shannon is the author of the Nora Abbott mystery series from Midnight Ink, a fast-paced mix of Hopi Indian mysticism, environmental issues, and murder. Shannon is proud to have been chosen Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ 2014 Writer of the Year. Visit Shannon at www.Shannon-Baker.com
Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of her new book, Tattered Legacy.
Take it away, Shannon...
I’m a sandwich generation. In my case, it means I was raised by parents who had no love for the outdoors, preferred to watch television most evenings, and had it not been for their individual recliners, would have been the original couch potatoes. Somehow, I raised two daughters who, despite all my efforts to the contrary, can watch TV for long consecutive hours and have great tolerances for sedentary behavior.
I have some kind of mutant outdoors genes. From my earliest memories I was outside running, roller skating, riding my bike, all accompanied by skinning my knees, falling from trees and knocking the wind out of my lungs, smashing my tailbone on hidden concrete abutments when jumping into a roaring irrigation ditch.
When I married young and moved to the Nebraska Sandhills, I jogged on county roads or pedaled my mountain bike through isolated sandy pastures. Folks in my community thought I was nuts and couldn’t understand why I just didn’t plant more fence posts or throw more hay bales if I needed to exercise. One old geezer loved to pull up beside me in his rusty sky-blue Dodge pickup while I was jogging and lean out his window. “If you’re not in a hurry, I’ll give you a ride into town.”
When I escaped from Nebraska, I finally felt free to indulge my passion. I moved to Boulder, CO and immediately began hiking and mountain biking. I bought a road bike and enjoyed days of pedaling the foothills trails and roads. I took up snow shoeing, SCUBA and kayaking, cross country skiing, week-long backpack trips in the wilderness.
Then I ended up in Flagstaff, AZ, gateway to the Grand Canyon and Sedona, Lake Powell and desert, mountains, prairies. After a lifetime of being considered a freak for wanting to play outside, I was living the dream.
I’ve accidently plopped back down in Nebraska, temporarily. (Only 89 more days of our year and a half sentence) but even here I manage to ride my bike, walk and jog. Again, I’m sort of a freak but not as bad as it was fifteen years ago.
When I left Nebraska I vowed I’d never live anywhere icky again. (So much for vows.) Life doesn’t always work out the way we plan. But here’s the deal about writing fiction: we can always make it work out our way.
That’s why Nora, the protagonist of the Nora Abbott Mysteries, gets to live in really great places. She doesn’t have to face the cloying humidity of southwest Nebraska summers or day after day of milky skies all winter or the raw wind of March on the prairie.
In Tainted Mountain, Nora started out in Flagstaff, on a ski mountain in June. Spicy pines, flashing Indian paintbrush and fiery penstemmon amid the green grass of the slopes. Sunshine and blue skies with mountain air so fresh you’d need to slap it.
In Broken Trust, Nora got to move to Boulder, CO, my heart home. In October, with the oak flashing its red leaves, young people surging on the Pearl Street Mall as another semester at CU is underway. The majestic Rocky Mountains held back by the famous Flatirons and everywhere the beauty and quirkiness that makes Boulder so special.
And in Tattered Legacy, Nora travels to Moab in the spring. The iconic red rocks and hoodoos (don’t you love that word?) and fins of Arches National Park and the giant spires that march over the desert valleys bring Nora into a landscape so amazing it leaves me nearly speechless.
And I got to go to every one of those places. I got to hang out and be there. So even if I’m spending one last winter in the gray gloom of the Nebraska prairie, I can keep the beauty of the outdoors with me.
What is your favorite place, your heart home? Comment for a chance to win Tattered Legacy. (United States residents only because shipping internationally scares me.)
March 11, 2015
The 12-pound Victory
By Elaine Viets
We got the report this week. We hope you’ll join our celebration.
Our cat, Mystery, is cancer free.
We’ve fought more than three years to save our copper-eyed Chartreux, a sweet-natured gray cat with thick fur.
Mystery was only eight when she developed intestinal lymphoma. She couldn’t keep her food down.
We took her to our vet, who sent her to a critical care hospital. The vet suspected cancer, but surgery was the only way to diagnose her.
As Don and I signed the papers for our cat’s $2,500 surgery, I said, "There goes my new couch."
"You didn’t really want that couch, did you?" the nurse said
I did. But I wanted our cat more. While Mystery was in the hospital, Harry, our striped rescue cat, howled all night. He missed his cat pal. Don and I were more determined to save her.
After surgery, Mystery’s weight dropped from 13 to 9.6 pounds. She was a sack of cat bones. But she started feeling better.
I remembered the heartbreaking morning at the vet’s office when we saw two gray-haired women holding their long-haired orange cat and crying. "We have to put her to sleep," one woman said, tears running down her face. "She’s very sick and we can’t afford to pay her bills."
If Don and I had had children, or if we’d been sick, then Mystery might have met the same fate.
But we could afford her care, even chemotherapy at the Animal Cancer Care Clinic in Fort Lauderdale. The animal oncologist promised our cat wouldn’t have the terrible symptoms that people experience during chemo.
"If she’s in pain," we told her doctor, "it’s time to end it. We don’t want her to suffer."
We could handle her chemo bills: If we canceled our vacations. If we didn’t go out to dinner. If we didn’t buy a new TV. Now, when we want to watch TV, we work out in the condo gym. It’s good for our health. And Mystery’s.
And Mystery did get better. She gained weight. She chased her cat pal, Harry, around the house and played with yarn balls.
She saw the oncologist every four weeks, then every six weeks, then every two months. For three years.
And the bills mounted: $400.50 for blood tests, biochemical profiles, Leukeran pills and Depo-Medrol injections. Bills for $328.70. After a few months of this, a bill for $300.88 seemed small.
I tried to ignore that distant whirring I heard in my mind – the sound of my hardheaded German relatives spinning in their graves. They would be horrified we’d spent so much on a sick cat.
But people’s relationships with animals have evolved in the last 100 years. For my great-grandparents, cats were working animals. They were mouse catchers who lived in the barn or the yard. My grandparents felt the same way, though they might let the cats sleep in the garage in cold weather. For my parents’ generation, cats were the animals who lived in the house. But you didn’t let those creatures sleep in your bed. When they got sick, it was adios.
Our cats sprawl all over our bed and they both snore. When Mystery didn’t feel well, she slept in my hair.
Our cats are not our children. But they are part of our family, and we give them good medical care.
And this time, chemo worked. You can see the only side effect in the photo. Her black whiskers turned white.
Mystery’s report this week said she "looks good with . . . no evidence of intestinal thickening or mesenteric lymphadenopathy." She’ll take steroids every three days for maintenance but Mystery is in "complete remission." Her weight is a healthy 12.2 pounds.
We donated her leftover chemo pills to someone who needed help caring for a sick pet.
Mystery beat cancer, with a lot of help.
We hope you’ll celebrate our twelve-pound victory.
***
Win a free hardcover. I’m giving away my first Dead-End Job Mystery that was in hardcover, "Murder Unleashed." Enter to win by clicking Contests at www.elaineviets.com
March 10, 2015
I'm sorry you feel that way
Is there anything more deliciously awful than a non-apology?
Benjamin Netanyahu's last week was a gem: I deeply regret that some perceive my being here as political. [NB - a useful test for genuine apology-hood is if you can take out "I deeply regret that", put in "I wish I hadn't" and still make sense.]
I suffered through a barrage of them one-on-one recently too, when a corporate spokesperson called me to non-apologise for rude treatment the hands of an employee of her company.
"I believe you had a phone call you found unsettling?" she began, putting the problem squarely in my head.
It only went downhill from there. As she rambled on about remedial training, the high standards they aimed for and her even higher hopes that she'd be able to reassure me, all I could hear was the subtext: don't sue us, don't sue us, don't sue us.
Eventually she asked, in a summing-up kind of voice, if I wanted to take it further. I said: "Nah, as long as someone's spoken to the person and she gets it, let's leave it there."
"Oh!" exclaimed the corporate spokesperson. "We have indeed spoken to her."
Dot dot, I think you'll agree, dot.
So I told her that a careful, nicely judged, apology-like stream of words that avoided any admission of fault was infinitely more annoying than the initial rudeness. She assured me of her good intentions, pretended she no idea what I might be getting at and asked if I'd like to speak to someone else. I politely declined (sub-text: I'd rather drink Draino) and finally we were done.
Infuriating.
But if you can do it in dialogue in a novel, there's nothing more entertaining to read than the kind of forked-tongue evasiveness of which the non-apology is the crowning glory.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Elizabeth Bennet give a masterclass on devious dialogue in Pride and Prejudice:
(Dame Judi is my Lady C, Colin Firth's wet shirt notwithstanding. It's like original series Star Trek, but Picard.)
"I was told that not only your sister was on the point of being most advantageously married, but that you, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would, in all likelihood, be soon united to my nephew, my own nephew, Mr Darcy. Though I know it must be a scandalous falsehood; though I would not injure him so much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved on setting off for this place, that I might make my sentiments known to you."
"If you believed it impossible to be true, I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What could your ladyship propose by it?"
"At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted."
"Your coming to Longbourn to see me and my family will rather be a confirmation of it."
And . . . they're off. There's four more pages of cat-and-mouse brilliance. I defy anyone to read it without punching the air.
The best modern proponent of forked-tongue or more generally passive-aggressive dialogue, to my mind, is Joy Fielding. Here's a couple discussing their upcoming wedding early on in Kiss Mommy Goodbye:
"I called the florist," Donna said.
"And?"
"Everything's arranged. White and yellow roses. And daisies. Like you said."
"I thought that was what you wanted," Victor said.
"It is," she smiled. White and yellow roses would be lovely.
"We can have white and pink roses if that's what you'd prefer," he offered.
"No," she said, remembering that it had been her first choice, but after all, it was his wedding too. "White and yellow is fine. I'll be beautiful."
He smiled. "Well, I just thought, with the room being the color it is." Donna took a moment to reassess the room.
[description of yellow room]
"Anything else?" he asked.
"I called the photographers."
"Which ones?"
"Messinger-Edwards," Donna answered. Victor smiled. "They'll be here at four."
"Why four?"
The question caught her off-guard. She stumbled. "I just thought four would be a good time. An hour before the ceremony. You know, gets some shots of . . . Why? Isn't four o'clock a good time?"
He nodded. "Sure." He paused. "I wouldn't have done it that way, but sure. It's fine."
"How would you have done it?"
He shook his head. "Four o'clock is fine."
She changed the subject. "I bought the dress at Bonwit's today. I drove in today and tried it on and it looked great. You were right."
He smiled. "You'll be sitting around in it for a long time, you realize, since you called the photograhers at four o'clock."
"You want to change the time?"
"No, four o'clock is fine. You just have to recognize certain consequences. The dress might look a little wilted by the time the ceremony starts."
"When would be a better time? Five?"
"We're getting married at five." he laughed softly. "Forgetting our anniversary already."
"Well, when? Later?"
"No we'll be too drained later to pose for formal pictures. I told you. Four o'clock is fine."
Oh boy. Should these people get married? No. Are they going to? Yes. Could we stop reading? No way.
I truly hope for the sake of a fellow writer that none of Joy Fielding's manipulative slow-mo car- crash conversations are drawn from life, but I know that I'll be making some dialogue lemonade with that lemon of an apology I got over the phone.
Who's your favourite writer of head-wrecking dialogue? And why exactly do we enjoy it so much anyway?
March 09, 2015
Pack Rat
by Femmes Fatales guest Alan Orloff.
Thanks for inviting me to guest blog! (And hi to all the Femmes Fatales who I know—which is most of you!)
Some people call me a pack rat. Of course, those are only the people who know me.
I’ll admit it. I collect stuff. Lots of stuff. But now, as I help my mother-in-law go through all of her old stuff, I see a potential problem in the offing. The more junk you have, the more junk you need to get rid of!
I just wished I’d come to this conclusion sooner.
My mother-in-law’s desk was like one of those stratified archeological dig sites. On top, the most recent stuff. Semi-current bills. Pizza delivery menus. Business cards of people still alive. As we dug deeper, however, more of the distant past was unearthed. We found coupons for a car wash. (She no longer drives. Doesn’t even own a car.). We found paperwork from companies that don’t exist anymore (some of the receipts were decades old - “Hi, I’d like to return this Betamax. Don’t worry, I have the receipt.”). We found baby pictures of people nobody recognized. Most of those people probably already had their own babies. And grandbabies.
A few snarky thoughts ran through my head until I realized: That was me in a few years!!
So I made a resolution to start getting my own house in order. Literally and figuratively. And painfully, because I LIKE my stuff.
I found three foam fingers (you know, the giant ones that say “We’re Number One!”). I only have two hands!
I have enough old computer power cords, ac adapters, cables, and miscellaneous electronics parts to furnish the set of The Big Bang Theory (and any spinoffs that might arise). I discovered a whole box of perforated printer paper (the kind where all the sheets are connected). I don’t think I’ve ever owned a printer that uses that kind of paper. (None of the six printers I own now do…)
I counted twenty-seven cardboard magazine holders, none of which are actually holding any magazines. (Hey, you never know when you’ll need those! Do they still publish LOOK Magazine?).
All the stuff I just mentioned? All in my office! (Well, only three of the printers. Right next to three old laptops, stacked on top of each other.)
How did I amass so much crap? As you might imagine, I have a hard time throwing things away that might have utility. I have two (2!) old dishwasher racks, just in case I ever need someplace to dry small things I’ve painted. For the record, I don’t paint.
I have the wheeled base from an old chair, just in case I want to construct something that needs a wheeled base from an old chair. (I could go on describing all the junk I’ve collected, but I’m sure there’s a limit to the number of bytes available on the Internet.)
I’m a recovering garage sale junkie. In college, I furnished my dorm room with other people’s outcasts, and it was then I began collecting records (for people aged thirty to forty-five, those are things that hold music, like CDs. For anyone under thirty, records are dinner-plated-sized MP3 storage devices.).
When I had small kids, I’d frequent garage sales looking for used sporting goods. Of course, my real reason for going to these garage sales was to find old, out-of-print books. Consequently, I have thousands of old books (and thousands of new books, too. Can’t ever have too many books!).
What does this have to do with writing? No surprise, but I’m a pack rat there, too. I maintain files of deleted scenes, paragraphs, sentences, even words (for the words, I only keep the deleted ones if they’re really, really good).
Like most writers, I also keep all my old manuscripts. RUNNING FROM THE PAST was the second manuscript I’d ever written (back then, it was titled FATHERS AND SONS). When I finished it, I understood that it wasn’t very good, so I put it aside and went to work on book number three. It wasn’t until some years later that I took another look at that dusty manuscript.
I liked the story. I liked the characters. I abhorred the writing.
So I opened two windows up on my computer: a copy of the horribly-written manuscript and a blank Word document. I proceeded to re-write every single sentence. Then I went through the usual steps: revision, revision, revision. Polishing, polishing, polishing.
That finished manuscript, completely overhauled from its original form, became the book that just came out, RUNNING FROM THE PAST.
If only I could be as resourceful with those old dishwasher racks.
What’s your best “packratting” story? I’ll “gift” a Kindle copy of RUNNING FROM THE PAST to the commenter with the best one!
Alan Orloff’s latest novel, RUNNING FROM THE PAST, a “winner” in Amazon’s Kindle Scout Program, was released last week from their new imprint, Kindle Press. For more info about Alan, visit his website: www.alanorloff.com.
March 05, 2015
The Femmes Fatales welcome Simon Wood!
posted by Dana
Award-winning writer Simon Wood returns to blog with the Femmes Fatales. His new thriller, The One That Got Away, dropped this week, and you should rush to check it out! As always, Simon brings his own experiences to his work, and today, he shares the process behind the new book. Simon, take it away!
I’m very topic driven when it comes to my books. I latch onto an issue, it becomes the basis of a conflict and a book is born from there. With The One That Got Away, survivor guilt was the driving force behind the story. It was a subject that had been in my head for awhile. I had the beginning of the story—two women are abducted and one of the women is given an unenviable decision—attempt a futile rescue or leave her friend in order to escape. My heroine in this case, Zoë Sutton, weighs up the odds and runs, but her life is forever tarnished by that selfish, yet logical decision.
That was the crux of the story, but I had to decide where to go from there. I knew little about the topic of survivor guilt, but at the time I was under the care of a neuropsychologist for a head injury and subsequent memory loss after crashing on my bike. I mentioned that I wanted to talk to someone about survivor guilt.
“Go to the VA.”
“But the book isn't about soldiers.”
“Doesn’t matter. If you want to learn about post traumatic stress disorder, then go to the VA.”
I was introduced to a psychologist who counseled veterans of various conflicts going all the way back to Vietnam. I outlined the basic premise of the book and opened with a question that outlined my basic ignorance and sat back and listened. The great beauty about in-person interviews is that I don’t have any idea where they’ll go, other than nowhere where I thought.
I thought I had an idea of what survivor guilt and PTSD were but it was a good example of an outsider’s perspective. Our long and lengthy discussions got into the meat of the subject. Some of the common afflictions affecting people include sobriety, impulse behavior, isolationism, arrogance, and contempt to name a few. I’ve attempted to incorporate these behaviors into Zoë’s character which also helped drive the plot.
As I tried to absorb this information, I couldn’t help but marvel at this condition where people feel shame for surviving. You fight for your life and win, but your mind discounts the win and obsesses on the loss. The survivor takes on the emotional weight and responsibility for those who didn’t make it and it’s just too big a burden for him/her to bear. The result is that the survivor drives themselves to destruction either directly by throwing themselves into similar conflicts or indirectly through substance abuse and depression. This has to be the most paradoxical illness on the books.
But it’s this paradoxical thinking is what drew me to write about the topic. Ten years ago I was undergoing first responder disaster training. One of the modules dealt with the psychological effects of rescuing the dead and dying; making life and death decisions for total strangers. Then they told us the suicide rate for first responders and it was quite scary. A friend of mine who is both an author and veteran recently posted a stat about returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost four times as many veterans have taken their lives since coming home than those who died in battle. There's not a lot I can say to that other than we’re strange and complex creatures who don’t always make sense.
I hope with The One That Got Away I’ve made an entertaining read but at the same time, I’ve shined a light on a subject that most of us aren't really cognizant of. If you read the book, I encourage you to let me know what you think.
Simon Wood is a California transplant from England. He's a former competitive racecar driver, a licensed pilot, an endurance cyclist and an occasional PI. He shares his world with his American wife, Julie. Their lives are dominated by a longhaired dachshund and four cats. He's the Anthony Award winning author of Working Stiffs, Accidents Waiting to Happen, Paying the Piper, Terminated, Asking For Trouble, We All Fall Down and the Aidy Westlake series. His latest thriller is The One That Got Away, due out March '15. He also writes horror under the pen name of Simon Janus. Curious people can learn more at http://www.simonwood.net.
March 02, 2015
What's an Arisaidh?
Hank Phillippi Ryan: I love Topper, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, and yes, I am late to the party, but I am enchanted by Outlander. So imagine my delight to meet Fran Stewart, and to read the first of her delightful new series featuring a magical tartan shawl and a fourteenth century Scotsman, and ..well, you have to read it. Fran's mysteries are Outlander goes cozy. How great is that?
And one of the the lures of Outlander, besides the romance and the mystery, is...the fashion. Yes, I am in love with the tartan plaids, and the nubby shawls. And Fran, well-versed in all things Scots, has studied this is depth as well. Of course. And after you read this..how can you resist?
An Arisaidh for Everyday
Peigi, the love of my 14th-century Scottish ghost in A WEE MURDER IN MY SHOP, wore an arisaidh. And Peggy, the 21st-century owner of the ScotShop (the only person in town who can see Dirk, the ghost), wears one, too. It’s good marketing for her store.
An arisaidh, the 700-year-old origin of the layered look is—or should be—the envy of any high fashion designer. Until I wore an arisaidh, though, I didn’t appreciate what a magnificent design it encompasses. It’s unbelievably comfortable and looks quite spiffy. I ordered mine from Misty Thicket.com. It comes in four basic pieces, which I spread out on my living room carpet to show you.
To dress for the day, the 14th century woman started with the chemise, a roomy floor-length dress held in place with drawstrings at the neck and wrists. Often women slept in their chemises, so all they had to do in the morning was adjust the drawstring. I must admit, though, that my more recent model has elastic at the wrists.
Next comes the voluminous floor-length overskirt. Mine is light blue and fastens at the waist with yet another drawstring. Tie yours tight; mine had a tendency to fall off before I learned to double-knot it! The chemise and overskirt are both 100% cotton. Notice how the chemise peeks a bit from under the hem of the overskirt—it feels just a little bit naughty to hike the skirt up like that.
Over this goes the bodice, which fastens with lacing, basically a very long ribbon that winds in and out of little holes along the stiffly-boned front edges and ties either at the top or the bottom, depending on what look is desired. My bodice is gray with a dark green ribbon. If I want to be fancy, I can thread a gray ribbon through the holes as well, giving me a bit of multi-colored spice.
In the Outlander series, Claire is always getting Jamie to help with her laces. Now I know why! They’re a real pain in the tutu.
I laced the one in the previous picture so the green ribbon forms a series of V’s. In the next picture, you can see an X pattern.
After this, I have a choice. If I’m working at home all day, I’m set to go. If the day is cool, however, and/or I’m going to be away from home, I belt on a long tartan piece of fabric (almost twice as long as I am tall), and drape it. How? I’m glad you asked.
The arisaidh (that’s the proper word for the plaid fabric) serves as cloak, hood, sling, and pocket. To put it on, divide it roughly in half and throw half the length back over one shoulder. Now grab the heavy wide leather belt—you did remember to put it nearby when you undressed the previous night, didn’t you?—and fasten it around your waist over the plaid.
Reach behind you, find the side edges of the fabric, and adjust them forward (under the belt) as far as you want them. Then pull the front half up so it’s draped becomingly over one shoulder. You’ll notice that the fabric behind you now forms a convenient pocket to carry your knitting, a firearm or two, and some snacks. The front part can be adjusted to form a sling for something like a baby, spare makeup, or your stiletto.
Now, think pashmina, shawl, scarf, or cloak.
To turn your arisaidh into any of these items, simply pull that draped front half out of your belt (remove the stiletto first) and wrap it around you. Raining? Lift it up over your head, as this picture from the Misty Thicket website shows. You’ll still have room for your knitting and weapons in the back. And, of course, the belt is a handy place to hang your 14th-century cellphone.
So, my questions for you are these: What’s the most versatile outfit you’ve ever worn? And just what did you tuck in your pockets?\
HANK: SO beautiful! Femmes, are you tempted to wear one?
*********************************
One of Fran Stewart’s relatives described her as someone with the fashion sense of an aardvark. Fran does have a rather casual approach to clothing. “If my socks match my turtleneck, I feel like high fashion.”
She grew up in a military family, and some of her teachers encouraged her tendency to embellish every event she related. All Fran had to learn was to differentiate between the “really good story” and the truth. With eight published mysteries so far, she’s put that tendency to good use.
Fran lives with various rescued cats beside a creek on the other side of Hog Mountain, northeast of Atlanta. She wears her arisaidh as much as she can get away with, writes the Biscuit McKee Mystery Series and the ScotShop Mysteries, sings alto in a community chorus, and volunteers at her grandchildren’s school library. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America.
A WEE MURDER IN MY SHOP is the first book in her new ScotShop series.
********************
Hamelin, Vermont, isn’t the most likely place for bagpipes and tartan, but at Peggy Winn’s ScotShop, business is booming…
While on a transatlantic hunt for some authentic wares to sell at her shop, Peggy is looking to forget her troubles by digging through the hidden treasures of the Scottish Highlands. With so many enchanting items on sale, Peggy can’t resist buying a beautiful old tartan shawl. But once she wraps it around her shoulders, she discovers that her purchase comes with a hidden fee: the specter of a fourteenth-century Scotsman.
Unsure if her Highland fling was real or a product of an overactive imagination, Peggy returns home to Vermont—only to find the dead body of her ex-boyfriend on the floor of her shop. When the police chief arrests Peggy’s cousin based on some incriminating evidence, Peggy decides to ask her haunting Scottish companion to help figure out who really committed the crime—before anyone else gets kilt…