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Win a free registration to Murder and Mayhem in Milwaukee!

by Dana

Pssst...hey, bud. Want a free registration to Murder and Mayhem in Milwaukee?

*opens a battered brief case to reveal a shiny, new, totally legit registration to MMM; a golden glow lights the immediate area*

Seriously, you want to get in on this.

There are killer book bags (this is mine from a few years ago; tequila not included):

 

There are authors like Johnny Shaw and Sean Chercover (seen below) and Tasha Alexander, Laura Benedict, Rob Brunet, Cara Brookins, me!, Matthew Clemens, Reed Farrel Coleman, MP Cooley, Andrew, Alex Grecian, Rob Hart, Michael Koryta, Ben Lieberman, Bryon Quertermous, Lori Rader-Day, JD Rhoades, Tom Schreck, Michael Stanley (Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip), Wendy Corsi Staub, Dennis Tafoya, and Sarah Weinman, on these panels.

There's an auction for character names and other groovy swag.

One week from Saturday is one of my favorite weekends in the crime fiction calendar, Murder and Mayhem in Milwaukee. It's a day of panels featuring some of the coolest writers around; it's a day filled with folks who love, love, love crime fiction.

And I can get you in for free.

Just leave a comment below with your favorite mystery or crime story you've read this year, and I'll put you in a drawing—I love me some random number generators! Comments must be in by 5PM EST Monday, November 2, 2015. Be sure to check in to the update on Monday.  (And if you can't be in Milwaukee for MMM, maybe share the crime-fiction love and share this post?  Thanks!)

If you win, just show up in Milwaukee on November 7, 2015*. Tell 'em Dana sent you.

*Registration good for the event only

Avoiding The Ruts

Catriona writes: We all love a good yarn, right? A mystery doesn't have to be about anything to grab us. But when you find a good grabby yarn that teaches you all manner of fascinating stuff about something new . . . well, then you can curl up and devour it and call it life-long-learning. R.J. Harlick - our guest at Fatal Acres today - is the mistress of grabby mysteries with things to teach us too. Read on for more news of her latest Meg Harris Canadian Wilderness series - brrrrr.

 R.J. writes: Good Day, everyone. I hope you are having a glorious day and a productive one too. I’m thrilled to be blogging on Femmes Fatales today and thank Catriona for inviting me.

A box of my latest book, A Cold White Fear, has just landed on my doorstep. Since this is the seventh book in the Meg Harris mystery series, you’d think I’d just give this box a quick once over and shove it out of the way so I can get on with the writing of the next book in the series. But, nope, I get as excited with this first view of my hard fought words in book form as I did when my very first book Death’s Golden Whisper arrived on my doorstep. It’s a magical moment to finally see these words that I’ve spent so many hours shaping into a story come together in a book that people will hold, read, curl up in bed with, stick a bookmark in, pass onto a friend and even spill coffee on, a book that has become a living, breathing thing.

So do I ignore the box? No way. I slit the box open and carefully lift out the top book. Cover is perfect. It captures the mood of the story perfectly. I run my hands over it. It feels very smooth. I heft it in my hand. Yup, it’s a good weight, not too heavy for holding while reading, but heavy enough to give it a solid presence. I flip the pages. They move easily. I read the first words of the first chapter, the words I have read many, many times before from the moment I first penned them until I dispatched them off to my editor for the last time. But somehow reading them stamped so indelibly on the page, makes them different, something special, something to treasure.

But you know what? That’s as far as I read. Sure I’ll go through this first chapter later, when I select the passage I will read at my upcoming book launch.  But rarely do I go beyond this first chapter. I have yet to read any of my earlier books, so it is doubtful I will read this one. Maybe it is because I am too close to the words, besides I know how it ends….

A Cold White Fear is particularly special for me because with this book I challenged myself as a writer more so than I usually do. As a writer of a series it is easy to get into a rut and keep writing the same book, so I strive to make each story unique. I give Meg a life that grows and evolves with each book. I send her to different Canadian wildernesses. Invariably murder happens and while Meg is racing to find out whodunit she gets to know the Native people who live there, their traditional ways, their history and some of the issues they face in day-to-day modern living.

When it came time to write the seventh Meg Harris mystery I decided to try a completely different kind of story. Rather than have her solve a murder, I decided to place Meg in a life or death situation from the very start and see if she can survive unscathed.

I added to the challenge by limiting the setting to the interior of Meg’s rambling Victorian cottage while it is being bombarded by a major blizzard. I plunge her into darkness with a power outage. Not only does she have to deal with no light and no heat as the temperature plummets, but also with no communications to the outside world, for her phone link has been cut off. This while strangers have invaded her house, menacing strangers who emerged out of the pummelling snow.

I also limited the time to less than a day.

With these two limitations, I found that I couldn’t rely on action to be the main driver. I had to rely on my characters to bring the story to its climactic end. And so A Cold White Fear became more character driven than the previous books, although my characters usually have a big say in where the story is going in all my books.

The biggest challenge, though, was having Meg endure something that even in the writing of these words makes me cringe. After seven books, she has become a very close friend. I so didn’t want this to happen to her, but I knew it had to. It took me three revisions of the scene to take it as far as it needed to go. But in its writing I felt that I had grown that much further along my journey of being a writer.

With A Cold White Fear about to be released,  I have begun the next Meg Harris mystery and Meg and I are looking forward to a new set of challenges.

Thanks again for giving me this moment to talk to you about Meg Harris mysteries and A Cold White Fear in particular.  Take care.

Catriona adds: I might have been in California too long but that picture of the wilderness fills me with dread. Everyone - is the desert or the snowscape a scarier setting?

ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

October has always been my favorite month, with the gentle melancholy of fallings leaves and the end of summer. The cooling off of temperatures. The chance of rain. The pleasure of beginning to plan holidays. Who can come home to share the feast? Who can be here to open presents and rejoice?

This year my October has been one of loss. My daughter lost a good friend. Hal and I have lost two long-time companions, our aged Rocky and his boon buddie, Scrunch the terrier. We expected to lose Rocky, who was sixteen. Scrunch’s illness was a horrible surprise.

I thought of Kate Atkinson’s wonderful book, “When Will There Be Good News?”

But life continues, and the gap closes, and you begin to look forward again. Our remaining dog, Colt, is adjusting to being an Only Dog. We are adjusting to that, too.

I am trying to think of the pleasures of the present and the pleasures to come. I will have amazing career news in the next week or two. My children and grandchildren are healthy. I’ll give a baby shower, which is always a celebration of life to come. I’ll put away the pumpkins and get out the turkey decorations.

This year has been a tougher than usual transition, but I know that soon I’ll feel better. And I’ll be happy to have the memories I have; I’ll look forward to the life to come.

Charlaine Harris

Don and the Sex Olympics

"I'm going to the Sex Olympics," my husband Don said.

"You come home with a medal and you're a dead man," I said.

"My editor assigned it," he said.

Don is a reporter for the Forum newspapers in South Florida. I was surprised his editor, a thoroughgoing family man, gave him that assignment.

On closer examination, the event was the "Sexual Health Olympics," sponsored partly by the YMCA. Now I had visions of disco dancing Village People and . . .

 

Well, some of the Sex Olympics' target audience might have danced to the Village People hit. The Olympics were for seniors 50 and over, designed to teach AIDS and HIV awareness to older adults. That group has the fastest growing AIDS rate.

Baby boomers were trouble when they were flower children, and they're a bigger problem now that they're over fifty and frisky. Their attitude seems to be: "Yippee! We don't to worry about getting pregnant!" But "seniors aged 50 and over have the highest rates of HIV/AIDS."

What kinds of games do they have at the Sex Olympics?

 

The flyer promised a Condom Relay Game. I could see – well, never mind what I saw. You probably imagined something similar.

Sex Jeopardy.  I was sure I'd played when I was younger.

The Wheel of Sex. An updated Spin the Bottle?

And the Condom Buffet Table. I'm no fan of buffets, but that one could change my mind.

According to the YMCA, about 50 people showed up for the Sex Olympics and all but one man refused to be quoted for the paper.

Don wrote: So, after a brief lecture brimming with statistics, the games began and participants found themselves frowning at a display of what, in less genteel surroundings, might be called sex toys.

"They were interactive games," YMCA spokesperson Emilia Solano said, "for older adults to participate in and have fun, but also learn about the issues around HIV and sexually transmitted diseases."

Like the Condom Relay Game.

"First we taught them how to put a condom on," Solano said "There are specific steps. We had a wooden penis there for the occasion. The game involved putting a condom on the wooden penis and the point was to see who could do it the fastest while doing it the right way."

Then there was Sex Jeopardy.

"The questions were related to the presentation," Solano said. "Like, what is the percentage of older adults in Broward County that have HIV? The answer is 26 percent. Or, what are the ways to protect yourself? The answer might be, 'a condom.’ Or, ‘monogamy.’ "

After that came the Wheel of Sex.

"It was an actual wheel," Solano said. "They would spin it and it would come to rest on one topic or another. Like, My Partner Doesn’t Like to Use a Condom. Then we’d ask questions related to the topic. "What can she do about it?" One answer: "She can learn to put on a condom with her mouth."

    

Gracious! I was fifty shades of pink.

Much of the sex games information was, well, neutered. But the paper did run a lovely photo of the Condom Buffet Table, with condoms in punch bowls.

"All kinds of condoms," Solano told Don. "Different sizes, different colors. And lotions. A lot of older adults, especially those who’ve been widowed for a long time, haven’t been exposed to any of this. So we have it right there, and they can open packages and look at things."

It was an opportunity, Solano said. "Because nine times out of ten they’re not going to walk into a store and start examining these things. This makes it more comfortable for them to do that in the future."

And the headline? "Sex Ed Program Has Older Adults in Mind."

Definitely an anticlimax.

******************************************************************************

Win MANY BLOODY RETURNS, edited by Femmes Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner. Eeriely delicious stories by Charlaine, Toni, Jim Butcher, me -- and so many more. The perfect anthology to send shivers down your spine on cold winter nights.

Click Contests at www.elaineviets.com

 

The Scottie Barked at Midnight: The Story Behind the Story

by Kaitlyn Dunnett (aka Kathy Lynn Emerson)

The Femmes are delighted to welcome Kaitlyn Dunnett, who also writes as Kathy Lynn Emerson. Two guests for the price of one! Kathy Lynn and/or Kaitlyn have written over FIFTY books under several names. She's an Agatha Award winner for Best Mystery Nonfiction for her book How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries, and was an Agatha nominee in 2014 for Best Short Story for "The Blessing Witch." As is only appropriate with two names, she has two series in progress: the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries (including The Scottie Barked at Midnight, which comes out October 27) as Kaitlyn and the historical Mistress Jaffrey Mysteries as Kathy (the most recent is Murder in the Merchant's Hall). The Mistress Jaffrey books are a spin-off from her "Face Down" series, and are set in Elizabethan England. You can find her in both incarnations on the web: www.Kaitlyndunnet.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com. Take it away, Kaitlyn!

 

For some reason, in planning my Liss MacCrimmon mysteries about a woman who runs a shop featuring Scottish imports and gifts with a Scottish theme, it never occurred to me to add a Scottie dog to the mix until I received an email from a reader in April of 2012. She’d read the first three books in the series and enjoyed them, plus she’d gotten a kick out of the “Blooper Page” at my website. Since I encourage readers to ask questions if they think they spot a mistake or an omission, she pointed out a loose end in the fourth book, Scotched. Then she went on to make a request—include a Scottish Terrier (or two) in future books. I wrote back to answer her question about the loose end and promised to think about adding a Scottie, although at that point I had no idea when or how I might manage it. Certainly Liss couldn’t adopt a dog, not with two very territorial cats already in residence!

Since books are written well in advance of publication, the plots of the next two in the series were already set. The one after that, at my editor’s request, was to be a Christmas book, and I didn’t see any way to add a dog there, either. However, along with the proposal for the Christmas book, I was to submit outlines for the ninth and tenth entries in the series. For number nine, I proposed a story that eventually became The Scottie Barked at Midnight.

Once I had my editor’s okay, in December of 2013, I contacted the woman who had written to me and asked her to be my technical advisor. Smart move on my part! She sent me all kinds of wonderful information on Scotties in general and her Scotties in particular and answered questions as they arose. Even better, she sent me pictures of her Scotties, including one of all four of them in the snow. She describes this scene as the Scotties having a meeting to plan what game to play next.

In The Scottie Barked at Midnight, there are two Scottish Terriers, Dandy and Dondi, and they are two-thirds of “Deidre and her Dancing Doggies,” the leading contenders to take top prize in a television variety show. The competition is cutthroat, and that’s no exaggeration. When Dandy is dognapped, it is Liss who finds and returns her to her owner, a kindly act that soon involves Liss in murder, mayhem, and malicious machinations.

 

What You See is WHAT YOU SEE!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: So, Femmes, this is what happens several times a year on this wonderful blog…we all get to share the unimaginable incomparable craziness that is publication day!

And, now, we have arrived at that astonishing point for my dear WHAT YOU SEE.   

The other thing that begins to happen this week is the reviews! You see an email subject that says review and you click open, knowing your life may change. I burst into tears when I saw Oline Cogdill's!

She calls WHAT YOU SEE "superb," and "highly entertaining!" I sat in my study hollering superb!  Superb!  Superb! (Can you imagine?) Luckily I was by myself.

Library Journal awarded a star, and the other three trades were fabulously positive.      Robin Agnew of Aunt Agatha's Mystery Bookstore called it“flawlessly done,” and “perfection,” and  “one of the best and most resonant thrillers of the year.”

I will probably tell you about those that a couple more times.

You have been on this journey with me from the beginning, and I am grateful. But just a reminder, here are two looks into WHAT YOU SEE.

This is Franklin Alley, just within a surveillance camera shot :-) of Boston City Hall. 

  

The book begins with a high noon stabbing in Curley Park, and Jake and Deluca get a tip that the bad guy has gone down this twisty cobblestone path. But it is a dead-end! Would a murderer run away in this direction? And then they hear something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another scene: 

 

  

This is Jane Ryland, who, due to a series of events – – very surprising – – is now at Boston City Hall. She's on the trail of this noon-time standing. And then she gets that  phone call.

Two more quick things: 

 But right now if you are intrigued, do buy it anywhere--your local bookstore or on line!  

And then let me know via my website,  because I am sending prizes to all who order before October 26. And for you darling Femmes readers a special prize. Just put Femmes! on the form (you can click to it from my website) in the inscription space, and I will send you a special treasure.

Crossing fingers and love you madly!  

And anyone have pals in Atlanta, Phoenix, Madison, Oakmont, Indianapolis or Orange county? Tell me in the comments if you anywhere near there! And check my events calendar--love to see you all.  

And oh--LAUNCH PARTY! Thursday, October 22, 7pm at Brookline Booksmith. Will I see you there?

Ah. SO NERVOUS! How can I relax?

Thanks!

by Donna Andrews

When something nice happens, you say thanks to all the people who helped make it happen. By name, if possible. I would love to thank each and every person who contributed to my taking home the very lovely chunk of crystal shown at left—the Library of Virginia's 2015 People's Choice Award for Fiction. But I'm afraid that will be impossible.

I can thank Sandy Treadway, the Librarian of Virginia—what a cool title!--because it's her library giving the awards. And Amy Bridge from the library staff. I think Amy was in charge of a lot of the organization of the event, but I know she was the one who organized getting me down to Richmond for it, in spite of a rather chaotic fall.

And I'd like to thank Adriana Trigiani (see photo at right) for being such a great emcee. I literally forgot for most of the evening that I was supposed to be all nervous and nail-bitey over whether or not I won, thanks to her wit and charm.

And here's where I run out of names, because I don't know the names of the people on the panel who chose my book and four others to be this year's finalists. I suspect they were librarians (because behind every good book-related thing there must be librarians). I know they have great taste—here's the slate:

The Good, the Bad, and the Emus by Donna Andrews

Gray Mountain by John Grisham

The Hunger Artist by Jeffrey N. Johnson

How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky by Lydia Netzer

Small Blessings by Martha Woodroof

I can think of one entity I'm not going to thank: the manufacturer responsible for my wardrobe malfunction. I was all dressed up to head over to the library for the “black tie optional” awards banquet. Like most writers, I spent large chunks of time at my computer, which is a “presentable clothing optional” zone, so I fret a little when I have to clean up for company. But as I looked at myself in the hotel room mirror, I decided I would do. Black slacks, black top, decorative craft fair jacket, downright elegant craft fair gold earrings, and presentable yet comfortable shoes. I nodded with satisfaction at the mirror, and turned to pick up my purse and head down to the hotel lobby.

The heel of my left shoe crumbled. Not broke off, which could be fixed with a little glue, which I bet the elegant Hilton Garden Inn could have found for me. Crumbled into a million bits.

I quickly texted a friend for emergency fashion advice—the black Crocs, or the teal sneakers?

And that's how I showed up at the banquet wearing these.

I consoled myself with the thought people were unlikely to see my luminous teal feet onstage. After all, odds were that John Grisham would take the award with Gray Mountain, which the Washington Post's Patrick Anderson called an “angry and important new novel.” And if he didn't, the other three nominees were no slouches either.

I'm tempted to give way to magical thinking and say the teal shoes did it. If I'd been dressed in the utterly presentable outfit I'd planned, maybe fate wouldn't have decided it would be a hoot to send me up on stage.

But I know where thanks are really due: thank you, readers! I can't possible know the names of everyone who voted for my book, but I'd like to thank you all. And, for that matter, I'd like to thank anyone who took the time to vote for any of the nominees, and I hope I'm not the only one whose TBR pile got a little longer upon reading the list above.

The Library of Virginia rocks!

 

No Damsel in Distress!

 HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Jon Land is the genuine article. He’s a terrific writer, an incredibly successful author, a tireless teacher, a mentor and guide and hilariously funny.

He’s the best dinner pal ever—and knows his books and movies like nobody else. And he’s truly thoughtful about his craft—and today on Femmes, he explainsus how he’s crafted exactly the kind of character he wants.

No damsel in distress:

 Caitlin STRONG and women in thrillers

                    by Jon Land

Okay, so the thriller genre is arguably the most popular fiction genre and women, not so arguably, buy the majority of books.

         So why aren’t there more female heroes in thrillers?

         Sounds like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?  And I’m not talking about detectives or suburban moms who solve crimes between carpooling.  I’m talking hardcore action thrillers.  I’m talking about female versions of Jack Reacher, Lee Child’s iconic series stalwart.  A woman who can mix it up with pretty much anyone.

          And that’s how Caitlin Strong was born, a direct result of my creating a different kind of hero to fill an obvious void.  And for seven books now, with the release of Strong Light of Day, it’s been an absolute blast.  Easily the most fun I’ve ever had writing.  Caitlin is no damsel in distress obviously but, by the same token, I faced some obstacles that proved systemic to my intentions right from the start, obstacles that have likely waylaid the plans of other authors who’ve tried, or at least considered, doing the same thing.  Let’s look at three of them.

         CREDIBILITY:  When you read the high stakes, high action thrillers of James Rollins, Steve Berry, Brad Thor, Daniel Silva, the late great Vince Flynn and countless others, you’re treated to a splendid succession of burned-out and/or former intelligence agents and/or special operators with a proven, tested skill set and the physicality to back it up.  Well, there are no Green Berets, Navy SEALs, or Delta Force commandos who are women.

         So I decided to make Caitlin a Texas Ranger, part of a legendary, storied crime-fighting outfit dating back nearly two centuries.  And not just any Ranger either, but a fifth generation Texas Ranger to explain why, as a woman, she’s so readily accepted into another traditionally male-dominated organization.  At maybe a hundred and thirty-five pounds, Caitlin isn’t about to mix it up with the same brutes her male thriller counterparts take on.  Rangers, though, are known for their grit and their gun, both of which suit a woman just as well as a man.  People see that famous cinco pesos badge first, the gender later.  And it doesn’t really matter whether it’s a man or a woman holding the 9mm pistol, right?  

         EMOTION:  But women have never served alongside men in combat for a reason.  The fairer sex has been portrayed as waging different kinds of battle and, in thrillers, has mostly been relegated to roles better suited for the fairer sex.  This gave me a wonderful opportunity when I created Caitlin from the first book in the series (Strong Enough to Die), when she becomes romantically involved with a reformed outlaw she once put in prison named Cort Wesley Masters.

         Masters, it turns out, is thrust into the role of parenting his two teenage boys.  Becoming a kind of surrogate mother to Luke and Dylan showcases Caitlin’s maternal instincts, at the same time it places that proclivity in direct contrast to her nature as a gunfighter.  I essentially cast her in the role of the loner hero in the tradition of Alan Ladd in Shane, John Wayne in The Searchers, or Gary Cooper in High Noon.  More recent times have seen such Western heroes morph into the likes of Bruce Willis’s John McClane from the Die Hard series or Clint Eastwood’s wondrous (Dirty) Harry Callahan.  Caitlin’s love for Cort Wesley’s boys create a moral conflict that becomes the emotional core of her character.  She wants it both ways.  The question is, can she have it?  And the fun lies in watching her try.

         THE STORIES:  In Strong Light of Day, the fate of America hangs in the balance.  Same thing in Strong Darkness and Strong Rain Falling, the two titles that preceded it—in fact, that formula holds true for the entire series.  Mysteries are about solving something that’s already happened; thrillers are about preventing something really, really bad that’s about to. 

         So in casting a woman as a thriller hero, I gave Caitlin Strong the awesome responsibility that almost invariably falls on her male counterparts.  And the scenes I probably enjoy writing the most of all are those when she confronts a villain who’s normally a very powerful man.  In fact, I think what defines this series more than anything is watching Caitlin go toe-to-toe with the Donald Trumps of the world used to shoeing women aside the way they might a fly.  Not so with Caitlin.  She’s every bit their equal, not about to back down, stand aside, or be intimidated.

          That creates a great dynamic, Caitlin’s demeanor and calm belying the resolve and intensity that lies within.  She always seems to be a step ahead of them, even though they’ve got all the resources and all the power.  They’ve beaten back all comers in rising to the top, but they can’t beat back Caitlin.  And the fact that she’s a woman sometimes leads to such types tending to underestimate her.  They’re villains, after all, who don’t think anyone can beat them, least of all a woman.

         I think that, as much as anything, defines Caitlin’s essence.  So many thrillers have portrayed women as victims to the point where it has often appeared an overused staple of the genre.  And they’re not far off from reality.  A recent survey indicated that over a quarter of all college coeds report having been victims of sexual assault at some point—a truly terrifying statistic.  I believe in that sense Caitlin is a kind of projection of women who are tired of being victims.  What guy doesn’t want to be able to kick anyone’s butt, like Jack Reacher?  By the same token, what girl wouldn’t want her so-called sensitive side to be matched by the ability to turn the tables on anyone who treats her wrong?  Like Caitlin Strong.

         Hey, the motto of the Texas Rangers is, “One Riot, One Ranger.”  Notice that it doesn’t say man or woman.

 ****************************

Jon Land is the USA Today bestselling author of the 38 novels, including seven titles in the critically acclaimed Caitlin Strong series: Strong Enough to Die, Strong Justice, Strong at the Break, Strong Vengeance, Strong Rain Falling (winner of the 2014 International Book Award and 2013 USA Best Book Award for Mystery-Suspense) and Strong Darkness (winner of the 2014 USA Books Best Book Award and the 2015 International Book Award for Thriller). His latest, Strong Light of Day, will be followed by Darkness Rising, his sci-fi collaboration with Heather Graham coming from Forge in June of 2016. Jon is a 1979 graduate of Brown University, lives in Providence, Rhode Island and can be found on the Web at jonlandbooks.com or on Twitter @jondland

 *****

“In a genre dominated by testosterone-fueled stories of former Delta operators, Navy SEALs, and hard-boiled alcoholic detectives, a female protagonist is hard to sell and even harder to write, but Jon Land nails it with Caitlin Strong.”—New York Journal of Books

 

STRONG LIGHT OF DAY FLAP COPY

 

Caitlin Strong is a fifth generation Texas Ranger as quick with her wits as her gun. Over the years she’s taken on all manner of criminals and miscreants, thwarting the plans of villains to do vast damage to the country and state she loves.  But none of that has prepared Caitlin for an investigation that pits her against ruthless billionaire oilman Calum Dane whose genetically engineered pesticide may have poisoned a large swath of the state.

 

How that poisoning is connected to the disappearance of thirty high school students from a Houston prep school, including the son of her outlaw lover Cort Wesley Masters, presents Caitlin with the greatest and most desperate challenge of her career.  And, as if that wasn’t enough, she also has to deal with a crazed rancher whose entire herd of cattle has been picked clean to the bone by something science can’t explain.

The common denominator between these apparently disparate events is a new and deadly enemy capable of destroying the US economy and killing millions in the process.  An enemy different than any Caitlin has faced before, and a foe it will take far more than bullets to bring down.  But there’s another player in the deadly game Caitlin finds herself playing in the form of Russian extremists prepared to seize upon an opportunity to win a war they never stopped fighting.

Caitlin’s race to save the country weaves through the present and the past, confronting her and Cort Wesley with the most powerful and dangerous foes they’ve ever faced, both human and otherwise.  The Cold War hasn’t just heated up; it’s boiling over under the spill of a strong light only Caitlin can extinguish before it’s too late.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October Book Reviews

 

by Mary Saums

 

 

THE BULLET CATCHER'S DAUGHTER: The Fall of the Gas-lit Empire, Book 1 by Rod Duncan was so full of action and surprises, I hardly know where to begin. Set in an alternative Victorian England, a civil war results in a divided country and the rise of power of the Patent Office. Think Gestapo.

Amidst the unrest, a poor young private detective tries to squeak out a living but cases are rare. To the world, he is Edwin Barnabus, he saves money by living on an old barge, and he supports his twin sister, Elizabeth, now that their parents are dead.

But the reality is that there is only one person living on the boat. Elizabeth is alone in the world. In order to survive, she dresses like a man so she can be accepted as a private inquirer. Trouble comes when a young man from the Patent Office gets curious about one of her cases.

BULLET CATCHERS DAUGHTER was a finalist for the 2014 Phillip K. Dick award. I look forward to more in this series!

 

 

 

THE HAUNTING OF MADDY CLARE by Simone St. James 

Wow Wow WOW! I mean. Just ... whew. Wow. There's so much I loved about this book.

Okay, gothic. Loved the tone of this story, set in 1920s England. The tone and pacing reminded me of stories like Rebecca. I found Sarah Piper, the main character, to be more realistic and, because of that, more appealing than some heroines in gothic books.

Sarah works for a temporary service, usually doing secretarial-type work. She is sent out to assist Alistair Gellis, a young man who writes books about ghosts. Maddy thinks she'll be transcribing notes or doing some other ordinary job. 

Instead, Gellis needs her because the particular ghost he's investigating gets very, very angry around men. He was hired because the house owners think, with his expertise, he can convince the ghost, Maddy Clare, to move on to the next world. But he needs a female go-between to do the dirty work.

This book won two RWA Rita Awards and also the CWA Arthur Ellis Award from Crime Writers of Canada. It certainly deserves these and more. The narration and the portrayals of Gellis and his assistant Matthew Ryder, both dealing with post-traumatic disorders from their war experiences, were so well done. I can't wait to read the next in the series.

 

 

THE SHEPHERD'S CROWN by Sir Terry Pratchett

 

So sad that this is Pratchett's last book. But, as always, his stories give us so much to love  and plenty of laughter.

Granny Weatherwax has always been my favorite Terry Pratchett character. And, as always, she is her complete, strong, wonderful self even as she prepares for her own death. She leaves her cottage to young Tiffany Aching, her understudy and a darned good witch about the county herself.

Trouble is brewing in the land of the elves. A particularly nasty elf decides he wants to be boss in the King's absence, so he riles up the kingdom and tosses the Queen out. Elf troops begin invading the real world.

Tiffany and the other witches have their hands full and realize they need more witches. The only applicant is Geoffrey, a rich lord's son, who has run away from home with his goat. And, of course, since it's a Pratchett novel, both young man and goat have surprising talents.

The witches have never had a male applicant before. But Geoffrey and his remarkable sidekick soon convince the group they can be of help.

Lots of fun and a great ending for Granny, Tiffany and all the good folks who live on The Chalk.

 

So, tell me -

What have you been reading lately? Let us know your current reads in the comments section.

 

 

Fair Ladies.

Catriona writes: I've heard people say that writing is hard and I always wonder what else they've tried: Mining? Psychiatric social work? But every so often there comes along a writer who really doesn't make it easy on themselves (awkward pronoun absolutely intended). The guest blogger at Fatal Acres today is D.E.Ireland, author of the wonderful Henry Higgins/Eliza Dolittle series. Book 2, MOVE YOUR BLOOMING CORPSE is just out (and there's a giveaway below).

I interviewed Meg Mims and Sharon Pisacreta to find out more on writing as a pair, about a different country, in a different time, with pre-existing characters. It makes me tired just thinking about it . . .

 1. What's a typical day of Meg and Sharon being DE Ireland?

 Meg: Since we live on opposite sides of Michigan, we never have the same "typical" days. First of all, I’m a "morning" person - I also have a dog, who comes first (like a child) when it’s time to go outside, eat breakfast, go outside, go for a walk, get a treat, go outside, eat supper, go outside, etc. I will choose between coffee or tea with my breakfast, and then settle down to check email (and Facebook, to my detriment) before writing. I set goals in order to keep on track (finish a scene or chapter, write a blog post, research, etc.) and take a break for lunch (and reading), walk the dog or go on an errand, then more writing/editing, making dinner, back to the laptop, or watching a TV show, a baseball or hockey game, and then reading before bed.

Sharon: As a night owl, I’m up late. But I’m usually on my Pilates machine by 10am; three days a week this is followed by a good 90 minutes at the nearby gym. Because sitting for hours at my laptop often leads to problems with my back and shoulders, regular exercise is a must. On weekends I work at an art gallery, so I don’t get a lot of writing done on those days. But I make certain to fit in a good 7-8 hours of writing on weekdays. That can stretch to a lot more, especially because I’m now writing two series. As for goals, I’m ‘The Outliner’, so I know exactly what I should be working on that day, regardless of which series I’m focusing on. Like Meg, I devote a certain portion of the day to Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc. Sometimes that takes up way more time than it should, but social media is essential for an author now. There’s no way of getting around it. 

2. How do you get London right (because you do, you know)?

 Meg: Thank you! We try so hard, since we're both research hounds and love history. We love delving into old maps, checking old photos, reading books on the era, the city, the lifestyle. Pinterest is our friend, and we love finding a specific event or person of the time to inspire our plots.

Sharon: I’m a huge Anglophile. Fingers crossed, I’ll be able to head back to London for my third visit sometime soon. I also order quite a few research books about British history from Amazon U.K. Meg and I share secret boards on Pinterest where we pin hundreds of photographs of places, costumes, and old maps that are pertinent to the manuscript we’re currently working on. It’s become an invaluable research tool. 

3. How do you get Edwardian London right? Have you ever had a near miss with an anachronism?

Sharon: In 2014 I attended a panel at Malice Domestic by English mystery author Raymond Buckland. He said he could always tell if an author was American since they used the word ‘sidewalk’ rather than a British writer’s choice of ‘pavement’. We immediately changed those instances in our first Doolittle/Higgins book where we had indeed done just that. Thank you, Mr. Buckland. We both own dozens of research books on the period, but like pavement vs. sidewalk, there are still some things that are sure to get past us. But we do try hard to get it right.

Meg:  We used The Fast Track, a book on Edwardian era horse racing, which is chock full of incredible details for Move Your Blooming Corpse. And after writing our first draft, where the murder victim is shot with the starter pistol at Ascot, we discovered (thank goodness!) that starter pistols were not used in horse racing at Ascot or any English racecourse, like we thought. So we had to change the method of murder in our book. Happy accident, that.

4. Do you have your own Henry, Eliza and the Colonel in your heads or do earlier versions (Audrey Hepburn?) ever creep in?

Sharon: When we were casting people for the characters in our series, Keira Knightley was chosen as our Eliza. But we both admitted that Audrey Hepburn was the image in our minds whenever we wrote about the Cockney flower girl.  Rex Harrison has always been our Professor Higgins. No one can beat him in that role. I was lucky enough to have seen the 1987 Broadway production of Pygmalion with Peter O’Toole and Amanda Plummer. Both were quite fine as Higgins and Eliza, but neither could compare to Audrey and Rex. Most of the other characters in our books are based on current actors. For example, we cast Helen Mirren as Professor’s Higgins’s witty and elegant mother.

Meg: Definitely Wilfred Hyde-White as Pickering, since he was so perfect. As Sharon mentioned, we prefer Audrey and Rex as the main characters. Although we’ve watched the 1938 film of Pygmalion with Wendy Hiller and Leslie Howard, they’re just not right; we’ve also listened to the 1956 Broadway album of My Fair Lady with Rex and Julie Andrews, both great. But in our books, Eliza has also become her own 'character', pushing beyond Julie/Audrey's portrayals. Rex Harrison's churlish voice speaks to us both whenever we're channeling Higgins, but Sharon has the magic touch of sparking the funny banter between Higgins and Eliza.

5. Following that - if you were settling down on the sofa on a Sunday night to watch the Masterpiece Theater adaptation, who would your dream cast be?

Meg:  Hmm, dream cast. We definitely pictured James McAvoy as Nottingham in Book 1, and Dan Stevens (Matthew in Downton Abbey) as Freddy; Robin Wright from The Princess Bride is our Clara. Sharon found a picture of the 1960s supermodel Jean Shrimpton to be our Rosalind Page, and we both agreed that Miranda Richardson ought to be Mrs. Eynsford Hill.

Sharon: Since we’ve already discussed who plays our main series characters, I’ll reveal who we ‘cast’ as the supporting players in Move Your Blooming Corpse. In this book, our actors would include Damien Lewis as Lord Saxton, Winona Ryder as Lady Tansy Saxton, Ruth Wilson as Jack Shaw’s sweetheart Sybil Chase, Uma Thurman as Diana Price, Stockard Channing as the Duchess of Carbrey, a young Robert Redford as Ambrose Farrow, and Jonathon Rhys Meyer as Jonathon Turnbull. But we don’t always cast famous actors as our characters. One of the characters in Book Two, Sir Walter Fairweather, is based on a delightful friend and co-worker of mine. I’m hoping he’ll be pleased…or at least amused.

We are giving away a copy of MOVE YOUR BLOOMING CORPSE today. Just leave a comment to be entered.

This is only one stop on the MOVE YOUR BLOOMING CORPSE Mystery Virtual Book Tour. For other stops on this tour, CLICK HERE.

 You can also read more about Eliza and Higgins in WOULDN’T IT BE DEADLY, the first book in the St. Martin’s Minotaur mystery series.