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Happy Halloween!

It's the last Tuesday of the month and so it's the Tuesday Femmes in conversation: Hank,  Catriona and  . . . for the first time . . . our brand-new Femme, Alexia Gordon. 

 

 

Hmmm, last day of October. Whatever will we talk about?

 

Catriona: Is Halloween a big deal in your house?

 

Alexia: I'm child-free; Halloween is a non-entity in my house. I keep the lights turned off to discourage trick-or-treaters. This year, I've arranged to be out of town for Halloween. My ultimate goal is to have the big, old, creepy house on a hill that trick-or-treaters are afraid to visit because they're convinced it's haunted or inhabited by a witch.

 

Catriona:  I love it, Alexia! I *would* be child-free but for the one inside me, so I put pumpkins on the step and make sure to have some fun-sized Mars Bars in the house on the 31st. This despite the fact that we live up a dirt road in the middle of nowhere and the nearest thing to trick-or-treaters are the neighbours' teenagers, two fields away, who are way-hay too cool to have any part of it. I like to sit outside the coffeeshop in town when the little tots go trick-or-treating in the downtown businesses. Last year, Elsas from Frozen were number one. This year, I'm expecting Wonder Womans a-plenty.

 

HANK: I love it, too, and especially seeing little kids in costumes. It ups the cute factor exponentially. We don't get too many trick or treaters, but  we leave the lights blazing and eagerly await them. Twizzlers for everyone! (Which I have to test, of course. And Mounds.)

 

           Catriona: Mounds? Anything like Nut Goodies? Enquiring mi- Okay, chocaholics want to know.

 

Also, what was Halloween like when you were a child? It was a big deal in Scotland. We went guising, which is similar to trick-or-treating, except you have to perform for your swag: recite a poem, sing a song or do a dance. Some people let kids off with telling a joke, but I don't approve of that. We dooked for apples and monkey nuts, risking drowning and sharing all our germs, and we . . . except you know what? I was going to start talking about fireworks and bonfires, baked potatoes and toffee-apples. But that's Guy Fawkes Night (5th of November). Halloween and Guy Fawkes merge together like Christmas and New Year. I always felt sorry for Easter, stuck out on its own. 

 

HANK: Oh, gosh, long ago, when it was all safe and fine and we trooped down the sidewalks. And got--what? BAGS of candy. (We tossed the apples, not because they might be dangerous, but because yuck. We wanted CANDY.)Tootsie rolls, I think, were big. Tootsie Roll pops! And Teaberry gum! And Blackjack gum. Good and Plenty. And those candy bars that had four parts. My favorite costume ever was princess (surprise suprprise) which Mom made from a piece of silver poster board twisted and stapled into a pointy hat, with a pink scarf coming out the top. I wore it for WEEKS. The pointy hat-scarf  was accompanied by a floaty cape, made out of a pink plastic shower curtain. And by "made" I mean: get a shower curtain, get a big safety pin, combine, go.  I mean--I loved it.

Alexia: I went trick-or-treating in the era of razor blades in apples paranoia so no one gave out homemade/unwrapped treats. My parents let me go door-to-door for a limited time with a group of friends who they approved of and an adult chaperone. When I got home my mother inspected every piece of candy with a level of scrutiny any crime scene investigator would envy. Any piece that had a wrapper that wasn't factory perfect and hermetically sealed went in the discount pile, much to my juvenile dismay. I wore great costumes. My mother is talented with a needle and she sewed some awesome outfits. The lion and the geisha were my favorites. Selecting the Butterick pattern and the fabric from the fabric store was the best part of the holiday preparations, followed by selecting the huge bags of candy from the grocery store Halloween aisle. Your entire neighborhood reputation rested on selecting the "good" candy. You didn't want to be the house that handed out the off-brands that only appeared around Halloween and ended up in the discard pile. Mom always bought her favorite candy (Mr. Goodbar) and stashed an extra bag for herself in the end table in the living room. 

 

Catriona: It all sounds lovely. Maybe not the razor blades. I love the fact that, starting today, holidays come thick and fast.  What's your favourite?

 

Alexia: Christmas and Easter are my favorite holidays. I love the pagentry of the Christmas and Easter services in (Episcopal) church--full on "smells and bells" and sung Eucharist. Beginning each service in darkness on the Eve of the holiday and ending in glory as the sun rises is mystical.

 

HANK: Anything I can get presents for, right? But truly, I love Christmas and Chanukah for the cards, LOVE sending and getting.  But my favorite favorite, no presents involved, is Thanksgiving. I even love the frantic pre-holiday shopping because I always think: we're in this together, doing the same thing, with the same goal. It feels very community to me.  l love the arrival of everyone, friends and family, and traditions, and making the turkey, and how it all smells, and when everything comes out on time, and ah. We gather at the table and drink champagne and great wine and I am getting teary just thinking about it. I even love the leftovers.  (Least favorite? Labor Day, I guess. Because summer is over.)

 

Catriona: It's Christmas for me too. I love every bit of it: the Christian story, the pagan traditions, the commercial bits . . . I love  writing cards, shopping for presents, wrapping them, (these days) handing over an arm and a leg to the Post Office, choosing a tree, decorating the house, cooking and baking. EATING, of course. I love the Hanukkah get-together and the New Year get-together. Did I say that "Christmas" to me means everything from the 18th of December to the 6th of January? The best bit of all is wiring in about a tall pile of books, on the couch, with a fire crackling and the fridge stuffed with leftovers. Not long now. 

 

So, come on, everyone: what do you love or loathe about Halloween, whether yesteryear or today ?

  

Synchronicity

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

Synchronicity: the simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection.

As I write this, I'm in Yorktown, in my mom's house—the house I grew up in—watching as some workmen install a new air conditioning system. Since the temperature here at the moment is a balmy 46—expected to reach a staggering high of 60—the whole subject of air conditioning seems pleasantly remote and theoretical. So when the workmen haul the old air conditioning unit away, I will thank it not only for several decades of service but also for not actually dying during one of this summer's heat waves.

I whiled away the three hour drive down here by listening to an audiobook of Oliver Sacks's The Mind's Eye. Like many of Sacks's books, it's a series of case studies that add up to something greater—in this case, a meditation on the nature of sight and the relationship between the eyes and the brain. In both The Mind's Eye and Hallucinations, which I read/listened to earlier this month, Sacks mentions a particularly fascinating neurological phenomenon: Charles Bonnet Syndrome, in which people with visual impairment or damage to the sight-related parts of the brain experience complex and vivid visual hallucinations.

I was greatly saddened by the death of Oliver Sacks in 2015. Not just because it will mean only a few more books by him—a few rather than none, because apparently he had at least one book in progress, a collection of existing essays that his friends and staff were able to bring to fruition. And I suppose I'm grateful that I never got the chance to write to him—a mere fan letter would have felt intrusive, so the only valid reason I would have for writing would be to share with him some bizarre neurological symptom that he might find fascinating. Much as I enjoy reading about his cases, I'm just as happy not to find myself among them.

I do suffer from headaches that might be migraines—they've never been formally diagnosed as such. They could just be severe one-sided sinus/tension headaches with optional nausea and photosensitivity. For years I resisted defining them as migraines—it felt as if that would give them greater power. And besides, I never had the aura that was supposed to precede a migraine. However, after reading Dr. Sacks's Migraine, along with Carolyn Bernstein's The Migraine Brain, I'm inclined to reconsider. Only a third of migraine sufferers get an aura. And I do sometimes have what might be classified as an aura. Occasionally I have a feeling of intense visual clarity. Colors are brighter, more saturated. Lines of demarcation are more precise. Everything seems much more itself. I have learned that this otherwise pleasant visual experience can be a precursor to a headache, so I relish it—and take an Excedrin.

I wonder, now, if Dr. Sacks might have found this symptom interesting. Perhaps I should have written him about it. Too late now. And I have identified my headache triggers—stress, lack of sleep, dramatic changes in weather, and allergens like dust and mold. Quitting the day job to write full time didn't eliminate stress and lack of sleep, but it significantly reduced them, so I'm no longer a martyr to my maybe-migraines. I get fewer of those moments of alluring visual clarity--still, a good trade-off.

But the violent storm that swept up the East Coast yesterday brought on a migraine or migraine-level headache, and I had to wait till it passed to set out for Yorktown, so migraines were much on my mind. (Better today, thank you.) Still, I was tired at the end of the day, and went to bed early, so I could be awake and alert when the air conditioning guys arrived at 8. I settled under the covers, sighed the satisfied sigh of a tired person about to achieve the bliss of sound sleep in a comfortable bed, turned out the light . . .

That was when the bed fell down.

Not entirely. Only one corner of it. I turned on the light to find that the frame itself was intact, but the bits of wood along the inside of the frame that hold up the bed slats had become detached from the frame, and the whole thing was listing like a car with a flat right rear tire—something I've also had personal experience with lately. But that's another story.

I was so tired I considered just turning the light out again and sleeping aslant. I told myself this was probably not good either for me or the bedstead. I considered moving to one of the other beds in the house, but none of them were made and most of the sheets were in the laundry hamper. My fit of energy the last time I was down here fizzled out after I'd stripped most of the beds. So I moved the frame to one side, hauled the mattress onto the floor, and slept that way. And very well, thank you. I was that tired

Before falling asleep, I found myself thinking of that great James Thurber story, “The Night the Bed Fell.” One of my all-time favorite stories by one of my all-time favorite humorists. If you haven't read it, here's a link. Only last night I couldn't remember—was it “The Night the Bed Fell” or “The Night the Bed Fell Down?” I fell asleep wondering.

This morning I looked it up. “The Night the Bed Fell.” By James Thurber, who lost an eye in childhood when he and his brother were playing William Tell with real arrows. He became nearly blind in later life, and was diagnosed (by the eminent neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran) as having suffered from . . . Charles Bonnet Syndrome.

If this were a mystery, I would at this point be shouting “aha!” Because there are—or at least there should be—few if any pure coincidences in a mystery. In fiction the apparent coincidence of Charles Bonnet Syndrome and migraines popping up in two unrelated circumstances would be highly significant, and I would be eyeing the neuroscientists in the cast of characters with deep suspicion.

But this is real life. So . . . merely synchronicity.

At least the whole bed falling down had a few positive side effects. Thanks to the web searching I did on Thurber and Charles Bonnet syndrome, I may have found a new science author to read—I need nonfiction to read during the stages of writing when my own plots occupy my brain, and Ramachandran's Phantoms in the Brain and The Tell-Tale Brain sound like just the thing. And I find the Oliver Sacks did a TED talk, so there's my entertainment for this evening, when the workmen have gone and I've finished the day's quota of revisions.

And now back to Toucan Keep a Secret.

 

Dog days

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

This is Ginger, my nephews' senior dog. Senior as in she's the more established dog, the one who's been around the longest. She's about five years old now, which means that she's a sedate, middle-aged lady. She likes her naps. She's particularly fond of napping in the vicinity of one of her humans. People sometimes ask if she's the model for Spike in my books. Heavens, no! She does have Spike's imperious nature. But she is a genial tyrant.

Up until recently, she pretty much ruled the roost at her house. Then at Christmastime a horrible thing happened.

She acquired a little sister.

This is Maple, the ancillary dog. She's less than a year old, and it shows. Supposedly she's part bichon frisee and part Pomeranian. Yeah, right. I'm betting on part wolverine and part Tasmanian devil. Don't be fooled by the cuteness factor. Mapes could teach Spike a thing or two.

Sometimes when their humans are busy with work and school I step in to give the pair a walk. (This wouldn't be particularly necessary for Ginger alone, but Maples's housetraining is a work in progress.)Yesterday's walk was typical

The dogs always greet my arrival with a frenzy of barking. Everyone within two miles is now aware that a) there are dogs living here and b) someone is arriving whom they either really like or really hate. I open the door and step quickly in before Maple can make a break for freedom, because she can outrun a cheetah and hasn't yet learned to come when you call, and I have no desire to spend the next hour running around the yard waving the treat bag and squeezing her favorite squeak toy.

The dogs dance around my feet and jump on me, doing their best do knock me off balance and, if possible, through one of the glass panels beside the front door. So far their efforts have been unsuccessful, but they persevere. I grab leashes, and everybody's excitement reaches heights I never thought possible. I don't bother asking “who wants to go outside?” It's pretty obvious everyone does.

And they'd get there a lot faster if they'd cooperate. Maple fights like a cornered rat to escape the leash, writhing frantically and nipping me with her tiny (but sharp, and very numerous) teeth. As soon as I managed to clip the leash in place, I turn to Ginger.

So does Maple. Apparently act two of our ritual is that while Ginger is briefly immobilized, having the leash snapped to her collar, Maple has to pounce on her. Much shouting of “No! Bad dog!” I tell Ginger Mapes is only playing. Ginger isn't buying that. I'm not sure I do either. The pouncing continues while we got out the door, while I lock the door, and all the way down the brick walk.

Half the time just as we hit the street I realize that all unnecessary drama of fighting the leash and pouncing has distracted me from the not unimportant task of stuffing a couple of poop bags into my pocket, and I have to drag the dogs back inside to remedy the omission. Very literally drag, in Ginger's case. Try to lead her in a direction she doesn't like and she digs in her feet and does a remarkable imitation of a two-ton truck at rest.

Finally we set out. Briskly! Joyously! Incompatibly. Ginge wants to trot ahead inexorably, like a canine steam train. Mapes wants to stop to smell the flowers . . . and the leaves . . . and the neighbors' garbage . . . and the fire hydrant . . . and what looks like a small, dessicated chipmunk. If it's on the ground, she wants to smell it.

Half the time we're not doing a walk so much as a tug of war, with me in the middle getting pulled in both directions. And if I were a mad inventor, I'd invent a leash that dogs couldn't drag along behind them so it gets caught between their legs and peed on. I bet the world is crying out for that invention. I know I am.

Yesterday Ginger stopped to poop a mere block into the walk. And I didn't have a plastic poop bag, only the little plastic squares that are hard to hold onto, especially when one of the canine tug of war games gets going. So I wrapped the poop carefully, placed it where it would be out of the way yet visible, planning to pick it up on the return leg of the trip, which would mean only carrying it for a single block. But when I came back . . .it was gone.

Now, on top of keeping the dogs away from the roadkill, I've also got to watch out for the possible arrival of a highly irate neighbor who thinks I deliberately left a bright orange poop packet on the edge of his or her lawn.

The walk continues. We pass large dogs and greet them with fierce barking—well, Ginge and Mapes do. I'm too busy dragging them to the other side of the road.

Invariably, if one dog squats to pee, the other dog suddenly decides that there's something a lot more interesting to do half a block away, and lurches in that direction. Sometimes I'm caught unaware and get pulled along for a step or two, which means the peeing dog gets jerked off balance right at a critical moment. Maples just shakes it off, but Ginger's looks of withering scorn are a wonder to behold.

If by now you've gotten the idea that they don't get along and try to be as different from each other as possible, you're on the money. About the only thing they do in unison is chase squirrels. We saw two today. I think my arms are now several inches longer than they were before yesterday's walk.

But it's all fodder, as we writers tell ourselves when things aren't going quite as we planned. All it takes is a couple of walks and I have more than enough ideas about how to keep Spike busy in the next book.

Although if anyone has any bright ideas about how to train the dogs to stop running in circles around me and tying up my legs with their leashes, I'm all ears.

 

 

 

A Day in the Life of Death Investigator Angela Richman

Ever wonder what a death investigator's life is like? Here's a glimpse at Angela Richman's day -- or make that night -- as a death investigator. 

 

Day in the Life of Death Investigator Angela Richman
By Elaine Viets

Detective Ray Greiman called me at midnight. “Luther Ridley Delor’s house is on fire. One body so far. They’re bringing it out. Get over there now.”
My heart sank. I'm Angela Richman, Chouteau County Death Investigator. That's like a paralegal for the medical examiner: I handle homicides and unexplained deaths.
This was the third major fire in Chouteau County, a ten-square-mile preserve for the 1 percent and those who served them, near Saint Louis, Mo.
Seventy-year-old Luther called himself a financier to take away the sting of how his family made a trainload of money: running a nationwide chain of payday loan companies. I wondered who'd died: Luther? His 20-year-old fiancée, Kendra? A servant?
Burn victims were worse than badly decomposed bodies. When I arrived, the scene at the fiery mansion was controlled chaos. The victim was Luther, not Kendra Salvato, his Mexican-American fiancée. Detective Greiman had already decided Kendra had killed the old man. He told me Luther spent his last night at a local bar "pounding down Dos Equis and grabbing Kendra’s ass. Popped Viagra with a beer and said he and his little ‘greaser gal’ were going home to screw and we should expect to see flames. Too bad they were the wrong kind."
Greiman's evidence? A half-melted gasoline container found by Luther’s door. It had the logo of Kendra's father’s lawn service. Jose mowed the lawns in Luther's neighborhood.
“So?” I said. "The crew lost it.”
“Right before the house happens to go up in flames? I don’t believe in coincidence."
I tried to ignore Greiman and concentrate on Luther's body actualization – the examination. Luther seemed smaller in death – he really was smaller. Burn victims could lose up to 60 percent of their weight.
I slipped on four pairs of latex gloves. I'd strip off the gloves and put them in my pocket as the examination went on so I wouldn’t contaminate the investigation with fluids or fibers from other areas. I called up the "Body of a Burn Victim" form on my iPad. The routine questions soothed me, restoring order to this hellish chaos.
Were there any thermal injuries? Luther’s arms were raised in “pugilistic stance” of a burn victim, as if he’d gone nine rounds with death and lost. His arm muscles had contracted in the heat. I measured the burns and blisters on his seared flesh, then carefully covered his fragile hands in paper bags secured with rubber bands. They might crumble when the body was transported to the morgue. The heat from a fire made bones brittle, and they could fracture when the body was moved. No bones jutted through his skin. I noted that, then tore my eyes away from the horror for the next question.
Hair color? Luther’s magnificent white hair had been burned away, but I knew the color and noted the absence of hair.
Eye color? I couldn’t tell. The eyes were cooked and shriveled. I fought back my nausea. Focus. You have a duty to help Luther. He was a rich, silly old fool led around by his libido, but now he needs your skill. Local gossip said the old man had given his young mistress $2,000,000 to wear his ring and another $2,000,000 to marry him. Now he was a brittle-boned mess of kindling.
Was the victim’s clothing consumed by fire? Luther wore the remnants of white silk boxer shorts: a melted elastic waistband and enough cloth to cover his genitals. I saw no sign of other clothes and didn’t remove his underpants. That would be the ME’s job.
Was there an odor of petroleum product on the clothing? I forced myself to lean in closer but couldn’t smell either oil or gasoline.
Was the victim known to drink to excess? I had no idea how much he’d drunk tonight—or rather, last night—but it had to be a lot. If his body was too cooked to do a blood alcohol test, the ME would have to use a piece of brain.
Could the victim’s medical problems have contributed to the fire or to his/her inability to exit the fire scene? "Witnesses said the victim was extremely intoxicated when last seen alive," I wrote. Was Luther too drunk or confused to follow Kendra's instructions? Did she even try to save him? If she abandoned Luther, she'd still have $2,000,000 – a lot of money for a manicurist.
Was the victim heard to cry out by any witnesses? That was the question. Plenty of witnesses were still watching the firefighters. I’d seen Greiman jump to conclusions before. It wasn’t my job to investigate Luther's death—in fact, it violated the rules.
But I did have to record the facts. And I’d do everything she could to make sure Kendra was fairly treated.

In the Elevator with Jackie O.

Catriona writes: It's my absolute pleasure to be welcoming our guest at Fatal Acres today. Ellen Byron's mystery-writing career started with a bang: she won the William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic grant for unpublished writers - "the Malice grant" - and, as ever, the judges were not mistaken. When PLANTATION SHUDDERS was published, it became an Agatha, Lefty and Daphne finalist and a USA Today bestseller. All this and a long career in Hollywood should make Ellen intimidating, right? Wrong. She's as sweet and kind and humble as she is talented, funny and sharp. I'm a big fan. Not least because Ellen's stories are always so very glamorous and far from my world. Today's blog is no exception.

Ellen, take it away.

It was the late 1980s. My therapist had moved to a new office on Park Avenue, one I’d never been to before. I was having what I considered serious boyfriend problems, so on a lovely spring day I hastened across Central Park to the East Side for my appointment. I located the building and walked through the well-appointed lobby to the elevator, which turned out to be the kind of old-money kind that still required a uniformed operator. He greeted me with a smile as I got in, and held the elevator for another passenger who had just come into the lobby. She was elegantly dressed and sported large black sunglasses. She took off the sunglasses and warmly greeted the operator by name. I stood frozen.

My elevator mate was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Being this was New York, celebrity sightings weren’t that unusual.  In fact, only weeks before I’d crossed Madison Avenue with her son, John Kennedy, Jr. So at first I thought sharing an elevator ride with the former First Lady was a fluke. But then it happened again. And again. And I realized something - Jackie Kennedy Onassis and I had simultaneous therapy appointments.

I’ll be honest. This did not have a positive effect on my own sessions. It’s hard to complain about the latest bad bet you’re dating when you know that a few floors below, the widow of Camelot, the sister-in-law of an assassinated presidential candidate, the ex-wife of an internationally famous billionaire, is sharing her thoughts and feelings. Kinda makes “he said he’d call and he didn’t” seem a wee bit petty.

Eventually Jackie and I fell into a routine – not that she ever knew it, of course. She’d come into the elevator, probably on her lunch hour since she was working as an editor at Viking or Doubleday at the time. I’d play it cool and avoid eye contact while she exchanged brief pleasantries with the elevator operator in that breathy, Jackie O voice, and get off a few floors before me. Then, sadly, my therapist moved to another location and my brush with an American legend was over.

But my memories of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis stayed with me.  Even in a small, cramped elevator, she exuded a warmth and graciousness that didn’t have a hint of superiority. When I was creating the character of Grand-mere in my Cajun Country Mysteries, I remembered those characteristics and used them, adding a hint of Maggie Smith asperity and wit, plus a realistic take on human nature.

American First Ladies belong to a small, sometimes lonely club. When I was working a part-time job at Lord & Taylor’s on Fifth Avenue, I met Patricia Nixon. She was gracious but reserved, and there was a sadness to her. And not all First Ladies are beloved. I was pen pals with a Marine major during the first Gulf War who’d piloted Marine One in the 1980s for the Reagans. He liked Ronnie, but was not a fan of Nancy.

I still vividly recall those elevator rides with Mrs. Kennedy Onassis. There was something both touching and impressive about her determination to have as normal a life as possible, complete with regular therapy check-ups. Hey, who knows? We were both single. Maybe in her sessions, she was complaining about boyfriend problems, too.

Catriona writes: You've set a high bar, Ellen, but I'd love to hear from everyone: who's the most famous person you've ever met?

Ellen Byron writes the Cajun Country Mystery series. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called her new book, A Cajun Christmas Killing, “superb.” Body on the Bayou won the Lefty Award for Best Humorous Mystery, and was nominated for a Best Contemporary Novel Agatha Award. Plantation Shudders, was nominated for Agatha, Lefty, and Daphne awards, and made the USA Today Bestseller list. She’s written over 200 national magazine articles; published plays include the award-winning Graceland; TV credits include Wings, Just Shoot Me, Fairly OddParents, and pilots. Ellen lives in Studio City with her husband, daughter, and two spoiled rescue dogs.  http://www.ellenbyron.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ellenbyronauthor/

https://twitter.com/ellenbyronla

How the Finch Stole Christmas

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

Readers are always asking writers where we get our ideas. Some writers resent this, because it seems to imply that all you need is a good idea and you're home free—and as all writers know, even the best idea can take months and months of hard work to turn into a book.

I've learned to be more philosophical about this question. Since my book ideas get a little weird sometimes, I can understand why readers want to know where I get them. So I try to pay attention when I'm having an idea, in case it turns into a book whose readers want to know where the idea came from. It's not that hard—I don’t get book-worthy ideas that often. Fortunately I only have to come up with a couple of them a year to have more than enough writing to keep me busy.

The problem is that by the time an idea has turned into a book, it may have strayed so far from the original idea that even I have trouble seeing the connection. Or revealing the idea might be a major spoiler—remember that brain teaser involving a man who stabbed someone with a icicle that then melted, leaving the police baffled about the absence of a weapon? Okay, not using that trick anytime soon, but you get the idea. Or an idea may sound kind of dumb when I put it down on paper. All of that can happen.

So what can I say about the ideas behind How the Finch Stole Christmas?

In the first three Meg Christmas books--Six Geese a-Slaying, Duck the Halls, and The Nightingale Before Christmas--Meg’s actor/drama professor husband, Michael, is doing a one-man staged reading of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Bits of Dickensian dialogue festoon all three books. I actually show parts of the performance in Nightingale, and--well, no spoilers, but it’s possible Meg figures out a few things while watching Dickens.  Having carried that thread to its logical conclusion, I was going to back burner Dickens for the fourth Christmas outing . . . until it occurred to me that I could escalate it instead.

In Finch, Michael is directing a full cast play of A Christmas Carol. Backstage drama! Victorian scenery! Munchkin cuteness! Since one of Meg and Michael’s twin sons can play Tiny Tim while the other appears as the boyhood version of Scrooge.

Fun!  Okay, but where’s the conflict? Because unlike real life Christmases, where conflict is a bad thing, a Christmas mystery needs conflict.

And then I happened to be watching some old episodes of Dark Shadows, featuring Jonathan Frid as the vampire Barnabas Collins--a role that propelled the Canadian stage actor into unlikely cult stardom. And Frid lived on for forty-one years after Dark Shadows ended. Doing what, I wondered? Live theater, apparently--and, for a while raising money for charity by performing one-man shows--sometimes at Dark Shadows conventions.

I was reminded of another TV character who was intended to be a temporary bad guy and ended up the hit of his show--Jonathan Harris, who played Dr. Zachary Smith on Lost in Space.  Harris wasn’t even in the original (unaired) pilot, but his portrayal of the comic villain stole the show (and probably kept it on the air for three seasons).  I remember seeing Smith on a talk show once, when the host, presumably intending to ask Smith how he liked working in Hollywood, began his question with: “So you’re English--”

“No I’m not,” Harris shot back. “I’m affected.”

Yes!

I found myself taking small bits from each of the Jonathans to make my character. Creating an imaginary TV show that could have made him--briefly--a cult idol. And then, since a mystery needs conflict, making him a less likable guy than either of the Jonathans probably was. I gave Malcolm Haver--that’s his name-- an ego the size of the planet Jupiter, and a drinking problem, and a long-suffering agent who was sharp enough to negotiate a contract that ensures he can’t be fired as long as he shows up on stage, no matter how inebriated.

So Meg’s trying to keep him on the wagon--she’s acting as Michael’s assistant director, not because she has theatrical ambitions but because he mostly needs someone to organize things and manage people, and she’s very good at that. Also, she’s one of the few people Haver finds daunting--Meg’s mother, who’s doing the costume, is the other.

And while trailing Haver to find out who’s been supplying him with alcohol . . .

But any more would be telling.

How the Finch Stole Christmas is out tomorrow!  So you can find out for yourself!

p.s. Yes, there are finches.

Burning Question

By Elaine Viets of the Femmes Fatales

My stove and microwave made a suicide pact and died at the same time. The microwave went out with a bang. Really, it sounded like someone fired a weapon. The stove gave up quietly.
These appliances didn't die of overwork – not in my house. But they were old, and now I had to replace them. That hurt. A lot. It cost . . . nevermind what it cost. It was too painful. But I could have had a lot of fun with that money.
I posted my pain on Facebook: "I just bought a stove and microwave, and now I keep wondering how many restaurant dinners that equals."
Sure enough, I got an answer.
Mystery writer Deb Marshall wrote, "That's 7,328 dinners, including delivery on 20% of them and providing you’re a good tipper. This, of course, depends upon the installation fees for the appliances, but I did averages for everything. All things considered, you and Don should be able to eat all three meals out every day for about the next 6.5 years. Send the appliances back."
"Arghhh! I've wasted my money!"That's all I could think.
I'm not a cook. I have friends who find a session in the kitchen to be wonderfully creative, and offer dinners that are proof. I've heard of stove worshippers who want to buy ovens that cost more than $11,000. I'm not kidding. Williams-Sonoma sells something called a La Cornue stove for $9,950, plus $1,300 delivery and installation. I'm sure meals cooked on that stove would make the angels weep. Personally, I'd rather take that money and eat my way through the south of France.

                                                                
I appreciate good food. But I can't cook it. I've burned water. I left a pot of water boiling on the stove, and the next thing I knew, all that was left was a white calcium crust. I also burned boil-in-the-bag lima beans, and let me tell you, that is one nasty stink.
I start cooking with good intentions, but then I get distracted. I'll see something interesting on the Internet. I only look at it for a minute and suddenly the house is filled with smoke.
When I announced I'd bought a stove and microwave (and unlike the folks with that fancy Le Cornue, I got free delivery and installation, except for a $25 power cord for the microwave), my friend Kay Gordy asked, "And just what do you intend to do with these items?"
Well, I could heat up lukewarm coffee and my breakfast oatmeal in the microwave, boil tea water on the stove, and broil chicken burgers in the oven. But that hardly seemed worth the 7,328 dinners that Deb Marshall said I'd be missing. Good dinners. Cooked by professionals, and brought to my table by smiling servers, instead of the burnt offerings I so often produce.
Maybe I could repurpose my purchase. "The oven has this big space in the center with shelves where I can keep books, Kay," I said. But I could get some nice shelves at Office Depot that were a heck of a lot cheaper, and still enjoy maybe 4,681 dinners out.
Tammy Barker said, "You know, 7,328 dinners equates to a very expensive microwave. You would be better off investing in a restaurant. Or hiring a personal chef."
Stacie Neu Varland only made my mistake seem worse when she said, "Yes, dining out adds up pretty fast. It is also nice to go out and not have to cook, too."
Not to mention have someone else clean up, wash the dishes and put them away.
But Nora Hunter nailed it. "This stove looks like it's smiling at you! Get rid of it . . . now . . . while you still have time."
"You're right, Nora," I said. "It's like something from a Stephen King movie."
And I know why it's smiling, too.
That demon stove ate my money in one gulp.

Rats. It's over.

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

Rats.

Bouchercon is over for another year. Like Brigadoon—only, thank goodness, a little more often—our favorite mystery conventions appear out of the mist, and for a precious few days we all get to hang out together, talking about our work and our lives, welcoming new residents, and lifting a glass to those who can no longer join us. And then we all scatter to the four winds and return to our everyday routine.

That's not entirely a bad thing. With any luck, we have returned to our keyboards and yellow legal pads with new energy, new insights, new inspiration, new tricks and techniques. If nothing else, at least if we were lucky we got some time away from the work in progress. Like any other relationship, that between an author and her draft can often benefit from time spent apart. (I bow my head in silent sympathy for those with looming deadlines who were holed up in their rooms with their manuscripts while the rest of us were carousing.)

I didn't get home till Tuesday night, and this morning I'm hanging out in the customer lounge of my Honda dealer. On my way up to New Jersey to join forces with my friend Dina for the drive to Toronto—yes, drive; plane flights tend to make me sick so I drive to Brigadoon whenever its location allows—a stray rock seems to have hit the undercarriage of my car, so that I arrived with a plastic doohickey dragging on the road (see photo above). Fortunately the doohickey turns out to have been a shield intended to protect a much more vital part of the car's anatomy, so it died doing its job. Also fortunately, I could duct tape the doohickey in place, drive the car home, and have the work done here, which meant I got to sleep in my own bed last night for the first time in over a week and attend a meeting of my awesome writers' group. (With many thanks to the good folks at Mahwah Honda, who would definitely get my business if I lived up their way. Still wondering what they thought of the duct tape with cats printed on it.)

Right now my suitcase and most of the other stuff I took on the trip are spread all over the floor of my living room. My to do list for the day includes cleaning out the car. Unpacking. Putting everything away except for the stuff that needs washing before I put it away. Getting to a followup appointment with my allergist. Cleaning out the fridge and refilling it with stuff whose “best used by” dates are in the future instead of the rear view mirror. Visiting Mom at the assisted living. Catching up on some MWA and SinC work. Return an overdue library book. And--

You get the idea. I always overwork myself before a trip, trying to leave my life in good shape, so that when I return there's no need for any frantic catching up and apologizing for things. Didn't work this time. Can't remember when it did work. One of these days I may actually pull it off. Not this time though. So for the next few days I will be running around frantically, getting useful and practical things done.

Unless, of course, I decide to throw usefulness and practicality to the winds and dive back into my manuscript. Use all the energy and inspiration and new ideas while they're fresh. Not the adult thing to do. But definitely the writerly decision.

So . . . adulting or writing? Which will win out?

I'll let you know when I find out.

Meanwhile, here's a shoutout to Bouchercon 2017--many thanks to Janet Costello and Helen Nelson and their hard-working committee. I already miss Toronto!

 

 

Lattitude or Attitude?

Hello!

This has been a big week for me. I attended my first Bouchercon then returned home in time to write my first Femmes Fatales post. Next, I'm off to my first solo site inspection for my day job. Firsts are happening back to back to back. I'm always nervous about writing blog posts, especially for a new blog. What if I don't have anything to say? Worse, what if I have something to say an no one wants to read it?

I also worried about having something to say during my one and only Bouchercon panel, North vs South. I think someone mistook my novels' southwestern Ireland setting for the southwestern United States. But my main character, Gethsemane Brown, is from Virginia, which comes up often in the books. I worked with what I had. I didn't contribute much to the discussion of drugs and guns as neither feature in my novels. (I think I was the only cozy author on the panel.) I counted whiskey as a food so I'd have something to say when the questions took a culinary turn. I could've answered the weather question as fog and rain show up in Dunmullach all the time but that question didn't go to me.

A couple of points raised during the panel resonated with me. One of my fellow panelists argued, with some passion, about how the effects of socioeconomics and population density outweighed the effect of distance from the Mason Dixon Line on behavior and personality. For example, poor rural Southerners had more in common with poor rural Northerners than they did with well-to-do Southern city dwellers. He had a point. I've spent time in big cities and small towns all over the U.S. Dallas, TX has more in common with New York City than it does El Paso, TX. Atlanta, GA and Charlotte, NC share more with Northern urban centers than just traffic. They have the big city vibe you don't find in small towns. What you do find in small towns, whether in the South Carolina Pee Dee region or the Illinois Lake Shore area, is a sense that who you know—or who you're related to—matters more than what you know, you're not a local if you weren't born there, and you have to watch what you say because gossip spreads like fire and the person you're speaking to may be acquainted with the person who you're speaking about.

An audience member later asked a question about culture clash. Did our characters ever find themselves in conflict between their culture of origin and the culture of the area where they currently lived? I think she meant did Southern ways clash with Northern ones and vice versa but I approached the question another way. Gethsemane experiences an internal culture clash. The rural culture of her maternal grandparents doesn’t always mesh with the upper-middle class, upwardly mobile culture of her parents. When Southern African Americans made it off the farm and into college and, in many cases, resettled north of their hometowns, they often rejected the old "country" ways, for many reasons. Memories were too painful to talk about, they wanted to look toward what they hoped was a brighter future instead of back to a dark past, they needed to appear sophisticated to better navigate the sometimes unwelcoming world they were trying to enter. Old knowledge risked being lost as a generation, Gethsemane's generation, grew up not knowing much about where their ancestors came from. Dealing with the paranormal forces Gethsemane to admit that the "stories" her grandparents whispered to her when her mother wasn't around weren't merely "country" fables unneeded and unheeded by citified folk. They were lessons and cautionary tales as relevant now as they were "back in the day".

So, even though I felt a bit out of place on the North vs South panel, I did come away with a better sense of how similarities and differences run much deeper than the way you pronounce pecan and whether you follow football or hockey.

What do you think? Is a big city a big city, wherever it is? Are small towns the same everywhere? 

What Do You Do All Day? She Asked Me (And a Giveaway)

 

People have a lot of misconceptions about the life of an author. When I give presentations, they often ask me, "Do you work on just one book at at a time? Do you have a staff that helps you do your marketing? Do you work every day?"

The other day, a friend asked, "What do you do all day?"

I laughed. So much of what I do is invisible to anyone looking on. However, I do manage to keep myself busy. Somehow. LOL.

Gosh, I can't remember the last time I just had one project going. I rarely take an entire day off. I do have help with my mailing list management. I have a cover designer and a team of editors and beta readers. But most of the work on my books and all of my marketing, I do myself. I guess it's because I'm a control freak.

Yesterday a box arrived with copies of Fall Into Crime.   I repackaged a digital book (Happy Homicides 4: Fall Into Crime) to make it a perfect gift for the season. Nine authors' stories are in this edition. I did the covers and formatting myself, and I'm pretty pleased with how it looks. It took me two whole days to get the cover just right. The format was not working. Finally I shipped it to my friend and partner in this project, Linda Gordon Hengerer. She called to say, "You'll laugh about this in a year." I had the dimensions wrong! You can get a copy at http://bit.ly/FallintoCrime 

 OR you could win a copy by commenting below!

As for marketing, almost every author I know is involved in his/her own marketing these days. I'm always trying to think up fun ways to keep my readers engaged. Since today is Friday the 13th, it seemed fitting that I run a contest to make this somebody's LUCKY day.  You can enter by going to http://gvwy.io/neeu0s3 on your mobile device or by going to https://www.facebook.com/JoannaCampbellSlan/app/228910107186452/  I'll choose the winner at midnight EST. Included is that adorable basket, black and orange candied popcorn, a can of gourmet cocoa mix, a sweet little SPOOKY mug to drink the cocoa from, and a cute set of Halloween dish towels. I mean, who can't use more dishtowels?  Please be aware that various browsers do NOT play well with each other, so if any link doesn't work, try changing your browser.

 

 

Meanwhile, I'm in the midst of editing Happy Homicides 6: Cookin' Up Crime, a cozy anthology that'll be our biggest anthology ever! We have 15 authors participating, sharing mysteries with a culinary theme. The book will be out October 20, and I'll share the cover with you then. Linda is working on this project with me. Our emails zing back and forth all day and night.

I'm also putting the final touches on an enhanced and re-edited Killer, Paper, Cut: Book #9 in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series. I've been re-releasing each of the Kiki books, one at a time. Each week the new book is available for 99 cents for two days only. Next week (Oct. 18 and 19), Killer, Paper, Cut will be on sale. I really, really love the new covers!

 

 

 

I'm also editing Fatal, Family, Album: Book #13 in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series. An entirely new book that'll be released November 13.

Next week I have my first BookBub ad! It will feature the first book in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series, Paper, Scissors, Death (a finalist for the Agatha). The digital version is already discounted. You can grab a copy for 99 cents right now. Here's the link: http://bit.ly/PSDKL1

If you aren't a BookBub subscriber, you should be, as they send you an email with greatly discounted books. Many are by names you'll recognize.

 

And yeah, that pretty well covers what I do all day, except working on a new dollhouse project, finishing a needlework miniature rug, and running my coloring club. My motto is, "It's never too late to have a happy childhood." I'm living proof of that. Here's the tiny rug. There are 2,000 French Knots per square inch and the total size is 5" in diameter. I've been working on it for months!

So...what projects are you busy with? Tell me and I'll give one lucky commenter a copy of Fall Into Crime!