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Marching into the Future: The Parkland March for Our Lives

By Elaine Viets of the Femmes Fatales.

That's me on the right in the photo. I was one of the 20,000 people who joined the March for Our Lives at Parkland, Florida, to protest gun violence. That's my friend Kay on the left. Her white T-shirt says "Hey, Hey, NRA, how many kids did you kill today!" Curly-haired Andrea is next, and Chris in the tan visor was our leader.
We were marching at Ground Zero – Parkland. The Stoneman Douglas massacre that shattered 17 lives was 20 miles from my home in Fort Lauderdale. Parkland is a rich community on the edge of the Everglades. 

The streets are new and wide, the lawns are expensively manicured and the place is speckled with mansions like a granite kitchen counter top.

Parkland is "this-doesn't-happen-here" territory. Except it did. And that woke me up, along with legions of others. 
The stories following the Stoneman Douglas massacre were horrifying: A ten-year-old boy made his will before he went to school. My friends' kids gulped Xanax because they were afraid they'd be shot in school. A teacher friend was ordered to assemble a first aid kit for her students (the district didn't have the money to buy the kits) and make sure she had enough tourniquets. Tourniquets! So the children wouldn't bleed out before help arrived. This was monstrous.
When I was in school, my biggest fear was nuns with rulers. 
And so I marched.

On the day of the march, we met at Chris's home and carpooled to a nearby stadium for the free shuttle buses. Andrea made signs for us. Mine said, BURY GUNS, NOT KIDS. The other signs she gave away on the bus. 
The march was amazingly organized and orderly. Buses lined up to take us to the march at Pine Trails Park. Volunteers boarded the buses and told us what to expect. No purses or backpacks were allowed, only clear bags and carriers.
At the park, volunteers and police guided us to the site. Streets were closed to accommodate the march. Tents were set up to register new voters. Pallets of water were stacked five feet high to keep us hydrated.
From about 11 to noon, we listened to the student survivors, and the parents who'd lost their children. Their courage was inspiring. I have no idea how those poor parents were able to get up on a stage and talk about their lost children. One father wept when he mentioned his son going to band practice. 
The students were wise. Many of the signs in the crowd openly blamed the Republicans in general: "The Only Thing Easier to Buy Than an Assault Weapon Is a GOP Candidate" and our senator, Marco Rubio, in particular. Rubio took a whopping $3.1 million from the NRA.

The students cautioned us not to place blame on one party, but to vote out any politician who refused to legislate sensible gun laws.
Samantha Mayor, who was shot in the leg during the massacre said, "As I am aware that the tape that plays in my head can never be re-winded, I am also aware that the need for change is also overdue. Change was due before 17 lives were brutally taken from such innocent souls. I acknowledge that change comes with time, but when time is so precious, it is hard to wait."
The student survivors, many wearing maroon T-shirts with the names of the Stoneman Douglas dead, declared, "We march for those who cannot."
They led the march, an amazingly diverse group. I saw a pipefitter, old hippies, suburbanites, doctors, clergy, Vietnam veterans, and parents with children. There were black, brown and white people, old and young. Children carried signs that asked, "Am I next?" A mother of twins had this sign on her stroller: "Help me protect my boys."
The marchers included people in wheelchairs and motorized scooters, men and women with canes and walkers. A Miccosukee tribe member wore a headdress and pounded on a drum. 
The students led the chants: "Vote them out!"
"What do we want? Change! When do we want it? Now!" 
"Hey, hey, NRA, how many kids did you kill today!"
The marchers were courteous and orderly. Despite the jokes about that generation being glued to their electronics, the Parkland students are intelligent, passionate and motivated. 
The fatal shots were heard round the world. The Parkland march was one of 800 events around the globe, from the vast Washington DC March to Femme Marcia Talley's tiny protest in Hope Town, Elbow Cay, Abaco, Bahamas.

The Parkland march was officially two miles in the hot sun, but Andrea, whose iPhone kept tabs on our treks to the buses and the park, said we actually walked four miles. I've saved my sign. I know those four miles are just the start.
By 3:00 p.m., we four protesters were back at Chris's car, hot, exhausted and exhilarated. I left the march filled with hope: for the future, for the cause, and for my poor, divided country.

 

The Number One Rule of Writing Fiction

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: You know Jeffery Deaver? Of course you do. He’s the amazingly talented and incredibly successful thriller author, who has the creepiest characters ever. (And some of the most wonderful.) This weekend he gave a terrific seminar for MWA. And one of his absolute credos—well, so funny that it’s exactly the same thing that the revered John Carenen explores today!

NUMBER ONE RULE 

by John Carenen

There's a saying around mystery writers that you can kill off all the people you want, BUT YOU BETTER NOT KILL THE DOG! Human beings can be mean and evil, killers, rapists, and all kinds of scum, but the dog is man's best friend, and he'd better not be killed.

One of my favorite writers is the late Robert B. Parker, best known for his "Spenser" private detective series set in Boston. A constant in Spenser's world is his German Shorthaired Pointer, Pearl. (Prior to Pearl, there was a white Bull Terrier whose name I have forgotten, maybe because it didn't last long at all in the series, or real life.) Pearl is badly spoiled and referred to as "our baby" by Spenser's main squeeze, a Harvard-educated psychologist. Unfortunately, Pearl adds nothing as far as crime solving is concerned, but does provide a consistent part of the setting.

On one occasion, and one only, Pearl alerts Spenser's girlfriend, Susan, that there is trouble ahead on the street by her home. Just that once. When one Pearl ages and dies, Spenser replaces her with another German Shorthaired Pointer, also named Pearl. This was true in Parker's personal life as well: same dog, same name - up until Parker passed away.

Of course, one of my favorite dogs is Fang, from the Harry Potter series. Fang is a Mastiff, one of the largest of all dog breeds. He is huge and fierce looking, but he is a "bloody coward," according to his keeper, Hagrid. Fang is afraid of spiders, strange sounds, and loud noises. He appears as visual comic relief, more than anything else.

And speaking of big dogs, I have a special place in my heart for Hooch, from the movie, "Turner & Hooch." In that movie, Tom Hanks co-stars with Hooch, a Neapolitan Mastiff with a penchant for eating furniture. Hooch also makes others suffer due to his problem with flatulence. I won't say what happens to Hooch.

I happen to like big dogs, and in my personal life we've always had good-sized canines. There were Golden Retrievers, English Bulldogs, and a couple of rescues with pit-bull lines. All wonderful. As a writer, though, I think the protagonist having a dog adds an extra dimension to the complexity of the hero, more so than if he had, say, a pet iguana.

 

In my Thomas O'Shea novels, the main character has Gotcha, an English Bulldog that adds humor, but also lends a hand (paw?) when bad guys show up. In a stand-alone novel I'm just starting, there's a giant dog (Bluto, a Cane Corsi/Bullmastiff mix) that is the only friend the protagonist, a reclusive widower, depends on for companionship.

And speaking of dogs, there's "Old Yeller," but I'm not going to say what happens to him, either, being true to the writers' creed.

HANK: Oh, no, don’t tell! Femmes who’s your favorite fictional dog? I’ll take—Asta! (And I don’t think I have a favorite fictional iguana…)

 

John Carenen, a native of Clinton, Iowa, graduated with an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from the prestigious University of Iowa Writers Workshop and has been writing ever since. His work has appeared numerous times in Reader’s Digest (including a First Person Award), McCall’s, Dynamic Years, and other periodicals. He has been a featured columnist in newspapers in Morganton, North Carolina and Clinton, South Carolina. His fiction has appeared in regional literary magazines. A novel, Son-up, Son-down, was published by the National Institute of Mental Health. He is happily married to (long-suffering) Elisabeth, and they have two grown daughters, Caitlin and Rowe.

When he isn’t writing, he thinks about getting in shape, cheers for the Iowa Hawkeyes and Boston Red Sox, and takes frequent naps. He has traveled extensively, having visited 43 states and 23 countries. He is a USAF veteran, having served in the Philippines and Massachusetts.

A retired English professor at Newberry College in Newberry, South Carolina, he is hard at work on another novel.

Hey, Nobody's Perfect

The Agatha Award Best First Novel Nominees take over Femmes Fatales today to discuss their Character’s Biggest Flaw

Micki Browning:
Marine biologist Dr. Meredith Cavallo, an incredibly intelligent woman with a big heart, can be socially inept at times. She’s a bit like author Kathy Reichs’ forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan in that respect. Mer’s mind tends to outpace her internal filters, and while the words she speaks may be true, her delivery can blunt. (Sadly, she inherited her sarcastic streak from her creator.) In Adrift, Mer recognizes her shortcoming and genuinely regrets when she hurts someone’s feelings. That said, she has created more than one unnecessary problem for herself.

V.M. Burns:
Samantha Washington’s biggest flaw is insecurity. Sam has spent her entire life being responsible and practical. She worked as a high school English teacher for many years, but dreamed about writing British historic cozies and owning her own mystery bookstore. Her husband’s death motivated her to take action. She realizes life is short and finds the courage to quit her job, buy a building, open a bookstore and write. Even after taking those (for Sam) major life changing steps, she is still reluctant to share her writing, even with those closest to her. Thankfully, she has people in her life who love her and help her overcome her fears.

Kellye Garrett:
Like all of us, my main character Dayna Anderson has a myriad of flaws, some more serious than others. She’ll eat ice cream for breakfast. She’s horrible with money. She tends to quit things when they get too hard, be it Monopoly or acting. But the biggest flaw might be that she tends to act before she thinks. She camps outside suspects’ houses. She straight up accuses them of murder. At one point she even performs a little lightweight breaking and entering. All in the name of the investigation, of course! As a writer, I love it because it certainly ups the drama factor and is so much fun to write—especially since Dayna is the one risking her life and not me! Unfortunately, her friends don’t agree with me. And best believe they let it be known. And Dayna knows her BFFs are right. I swear she does. She always tells herself she won’t do it next time but then next time rolls around and there she is...chasing a suspect down the street while wearing 4 inch designer heels.

Laura Oles:
Jamie Rush is a woman who will have your back. It’s getting her to trust you first that’s going to be the problem. Coming from a family where she can’t rely on a single member, the guard gates to her heart are stronger than most. While this level of defensiveness has protected her so far, it has also kept an important relationship at bay, kept her from building new friendships and a new romance. This flaw of extreme distance has served its purpose but it has also kept her inner circle very small. Jamie would say her defensiveness isn’t a detriment but an advantage. However, a time will come when she has to trust someone her instincts tell her to avoid. She will have no choice.

Kathleen Valenti:
"Flaws? Imperfections? Quirks? Maggie O’Malley has them to spare.
When I set out to write Protocol, I knew I wanted a hero who was not naturally heroic. The world, literary and otherwise, is full of strong, independent women who take charge and wrestle challenges into submission. But it’s also full of people who don’t know their own strength until life hits them between the eyes and they need to dig deep to find it. These are Maggie’s spiritual kin.
Maggie is a messy, clumsy, blushing twenty-something whose brilliance is sometimes obscured by the stains on her blouse and her inability to find a working pen in her purse. Yet the greatest of her flaws is her reluctance to ask for help.
Over the years, Maggie has built a wall around her heart. Asking for help would create a crack in the armor she meticulously crafted and would require her to face the possibility that she might need someone, that she might feel something. This reluctance to reach out for help or reach inward to plumb the depths of her emotions sets the stage for actions that propel her toward danger. She must learn that her greatest strength may be admitting that she’s not made of steel, but of flesh and blood and need.
The truth is, I adore Maggie not in spite of her flaws, but because of them. For me, the fact that she must figure out not only the mystery that surrounds her but the one within her makes the journey to The End that much more satisfying.

Bios:

A retired police captain, Micki Browning writes the Mer Cavallo Mystery series set in the Florida Keys. In addition to the Agatha nomination for Best First Novel, Adrift has won both the Daphne du Maurier and the Royal Palm Literary Awards. Beached, her second novel, launched January 2018. Micki’s work has appeared in dive magazines, anthologies, mystery magazines, and textbooks. She lives in South Florida with her partner in crime and a vast array of scuba equipment she uses for “research.” Learn more about Micki at MickiBrowning.com.

 

V.M. (Valerie) Burns was born in Northwestern Indiana and spent many years in Southwestern Michigan on the Lake Michigan shoreline. She is a lover of dogs, British historic cozies, and scones with clotted cream. After many years in the Midwest she went in search of milder winters and currently lives in Eastern Tennessee with her poodles. Receiving the Agatha nomination for Best First Novel has been a dream come true. Valerie is a member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and a lifetime member of Sisters in Crime. Readers can learn more by visiting her website at vmburns.com.

 

 

 

Kellye Garrett writes the Detective by Day mysteries about a semi-famous, mega-broke black actress who takes on the deadliest role of her life: Homicide Detective. The first, Hollywood Homicide, was recently nominated for Agatha, Lefty, and Barry awards. [And won the Lefty! Congratulations! --AG] The second, Hollywood Ending, will be released on August 8, 2018 from Midnight Ink. Prior to writing novels, Kellye spent eight years working in Hollywood, including a stint writing for the TV drama "Cold Case". The New Jersey native now works for a leading media company in New York City and serves on the national Board of Directors for Sisters in Crime. You can learn more about her at KellyeGarrett.com and ChicksontheCase.com.

 

 

 

Laura Oles is a photo industry journalist who spent twenty years covering tech and trends before turning to crime fiction. She served as a columnist for numerous photography magazines and publications. Laura’s short stories have appeared in several anthologies, including Murder on Wheels, which won the Silver Falchion Award in 2016. Her debut mystery, Daughters of Bad Men, is a Claymore Award Finalist and an Agatha nominee for Best First Novel. She is also a Writers’ League of Texas Award Finalist. Laura is a member of Austin Mystery Writers, Sisters in Crime and Writers’ League of Texas. Laura lives on the edge of the Texas Hill Country with her husband, daughter and twin sons. Visit her online at lauraoles.com.

 

Kathleen Valenti is the author of the Maggie O’Malley mystery series. The series’ first book, Agatha- and Lefty-nominated Protocol, introduces us to Maggie, a pharmaceutical researcher with a new job, a used phone, and a deadly problem. The series’ second book, 39 Winks, releases May 22. When Kathleen isn’t writing page-turning mysteries that combine humor and suspense, she works as a nationally award-winning advertising copywriter. She lives in Oregon with her family where she pretends to enjoy running. Learn more at www.kathleenvalenti.com.

 

Cheery Cherry Blossoms: A Free Short Story and a Giveaway

A Free Short Story and Giveaway

We had a snow day up here in DC, so I decided a new Kiki Lowenstein Short Story was in order.

Anya has mono, and that means she's going to miss the school trip to see the cherry blossoms in DC. Read it here: http://joannacampbellslan.com/kiki-lowenstein-and-the-cheery-cherry-blossoms-comment-to-win-your-own-cheery-cherry-blossoms/

 The story will be available for a limited time. The giveaway ends tonight, March 23, 2018, at midnight.

Comment on the story and you could win a cherry blossom mouse pad, a cherry blossom sachet, a cherry blossom pencil and postcard.

Cherry Blossom Facts

Here are a few fun facts about cherry blossoms:

1. "Sakura" is the Japanese word for cherry blossom. The blossoms symbolize the beauty and transience of our lives.
2. This year's peak viewing is estimated to happen from March 27th to 29th.
3. Peak viewing is when 70% are blooming, and the Tidal Basin is a favorite spot for enjoying the trees.
4. The trees are the result of a gift from the mayor of Japan. The first shipment of cherry blossom trees arrived in 1910 and were so infested with bugs that they had to be destroyed. In 1912, a new crop arrived--and happily they were healthy.
5. There were originally more than 3,000 trees planted.
6. Helen Taft, wife of President Taft, presided over the initial installation. Since then, the cherry blossom trees have been a favorite projects of many First Ladies.
7. Cherry blossoms come in both pink and white.
8. Many DC area eateries offer special foods celebrating the cherry blossoms. There are also all sorts of cool cherry blossoms souvenirs you can buy.
9. Here is the link to the official cherry blossom site: https://www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org/about/history/

They All Ate and Were Satisfied

I’m struggling with a dilemma I never thought I’d face—what to serve at a book signing. Cheese? Wine? Cheese and wine? Sandwiches? Wraps? Chicken wings? What about dessert? Cookies? Cupcakes? Should I serve something nutritious? Fruit? Vegetables? Will I be stuck with a bunch of uneaten carrot sticks?

I don’t throw parties. It’s not that I don’t know how to hostess. I do. Make sure your guests are comfortable, well-fed, and well-hydrated. Especially those last two. Where I come from, people will talk about you (behind your back, of course) if you invite them over but don’t offer them something to eat and drink. You don’t have to serve a six-course, sit-down meal with a linen table cloth and the best china but you’d better at least offer some sweets and something other than water. Your guests may politely decline (and you may secretly hope they do) but to not offer is a cardinal hostessing sin. Serving something that’s “not quite right” (say, stale Ritz crackers you scrounged out of the back of the pantry and tap water in Dixie kitchen cups) may not earn you the dreaded label, “tacky,” if your guests think you “just didn’t know any better, bless your heart,” but the pitying look folks will cast in your direction as they glance at the contents of your shopping cart when they run into you at the grocery store forever after may be just as bad their scorn. It’s not that people are greedy or starving and see you as their only source of sustenance. Serving your guests decent food and drink shows you care about them. Your thoughtfulness signals you welcome them in whatever space you’re hosting them, whether it be your home or parish hall or rented venue, and you truly appreciate their coming to visit you or attending your event. (For those of you who think I’m exaggerating: My mother complained about the time she and some friends drove many miles to visit an acquaintance who neglected to offer them food during the visit and the long drive home on an empty stomach—fifty years after the fact. Granted, this was back in the day when African Americans couldn’t stop and eat at any restaurant they happened to pass—unless they were willing to deal with the humiliation of being served out back—so she and her friends were seriously hungry by the time they returned home but the ungraciousness of their hostess stuck with my mother half a century later as much the injustice of Jim Crow.)

I’ve got enough hostessing sense to ignore the advice of the person who suggested I "just pick up a cheese tray” in an off-hand manner. I can do better than “just a cheese tray”. My quandary is how much better should I do? Running out of food is not quite as bad as not serving any but a supreme hostess always has enough to be able to insist guests “take a plate” with them as they leave. Deciding how much is enough for extras without getting stuck with leftovers to feed the entire neighborhood for a week is a fine art. Since I don’t throw parties on a regular basis (I prefer the company of myself and my pet.), “how much” perplexes me. To complicate things more, this book signing is a drop-in, open-house style affair so I don’t know how many people to expect. Could be two, could be twenty. Martha Stewart, where are you when I need you?

I’m taking a cue from Jesus (seriously—take a closer look at the Bible and see how He comes through with food and drink. I want Christ to be my caterer.) at the wedding at Cana. I will have enough wine. Plenty of wine (four reds, four whites) means happy guests. It keeps, so leftover bottles won’t go to waste. (Don’t worry, I’ll have soft drinks, too.) I’m also going with cookies custom made at the local bakery. Judging by the Saturday morning crowd (and my own “taste-testing” *wink, wink* visits), the baked goods from Gerhard’s never miss. Leftovers, if there are any, will go to work with me the next morning. Finally, I’m serving a cheese and fruit tray, an antipasti tray, and deviled egg tray. Hors d’oeuvres easy to manage with a glass of wine in your hand. My guests may or may not buy a copy of one of my books—I hope they buy every copy I bring but I’m mentally prepared for the possibility of not selling any—but, regardless, they will feel welcome in the space to which I’ve invited them. And they won’t give me sad looks in the grocery store.

If you happen to be in the Chicagoland area tomorrow night, Wednesday, March 21, you’re invited. 6:30 pm at Lifeworking Coworking, 717 Forest Ave, 2^nd floor, Lake Forest, IL 60045. You won’t go hungry.

What are your favorite book signing snacks? What do you serve at your parties?

How Do You Like My New Cover?

 

By Elaine Viets

So, what do you think? Here's the cover of my short story collection, Deal With the Devil and 13 Short Stories, published by Crippen & Landru.
I was honored when Jeffrey Marks, the new publisher, asked me to do a short story collection. Crippen & Landru has published short story collections by my idols, including Peter Lovesey, Craig Rice, Margaret Maron, and The Columbo Collection by William Link.
Just to think I'd be in that company sent shivers down my spine – my real spine, not the book's.
The cover is by Gail Cross, who does covers for Stephen King, including Gwendy's Button Box.

It was fun to see the original sketch for my cover. We asked for a few changes – the devil drove a 1986 Mercedes convertible, not a hardtop – and Gail made them. The cover devil looks exactly like the man I encountered, right down to the cigar. And we all know the devil drives a Mercedes.

About that short story in the title, "Deal with the Devil." That's based on something that really happened to me in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I was in a bank drive-in line with my car, Black Beauty. In the next drive-in lane was big, red-faced man with a cigar stuck in his mouth. He was driving a vintage red Mercedes two-seater convertible. On a broiling summer day, he had the top down.
I was waiting for my deposit receipt when he said, "Nice car."
"Thanks," I said. Blackie is nice. He's a 1986 Jaguar with red leather interior.
"How much?" the guy said.
"What?"
"I said, how much?"
"He's not for sale," I said.
"You live around here?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You have a house? How much you want for it?" he asked.
"It's not for sale, either," I said.
"You're nice, too," he said.
Then, for reasons I couldn't explain, I told the cigar chomper, "I like your car."
My deposit slip arrived with a thunk! and I roared out of there, wondering what the hell was I doing. Why did I feel compelled to talk to – worse, to compliment – a cigar-chomping stranger?
That scene rattled around in my brain for a couple of years, before it became the short story, "Deal with the Devil," the title story of the new anthology. I decided only a devil would be driving in the Florida heat in a convertible with the top down.
It was fun to collect my favorite short stories. I had some from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, including "Gotta Go," the short story that introduced the Angela Richman, death investigator series, and "Vampire Hours," from a Charlaine Harris anthology.
Crippen & Landru is the perfect publisher for mystery short stories. It was founded by Doug Greene and his wife, Sandi, nearly 25 years ago. Doug is now senior editor and Jeffrey Marks, a mystery biographer who was nominated for the Edgar, the Agatha, the Macavity awards, and won the Anthony award, is now the publisher.
Crippen & Landru is named after two killers. Henri Landru was the French Bluebeard, who killed ten women between 1914 and 1919, along with the teenage son of one victim. He was guillotined, and his severed head is displayed at the Museum of Death in Hollywood, Calif.
Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen only killed one woman, his wife, in 1910, but his capture was a transatlantic thriller. Crippen tried to escape to Canada on a ship with his lover, Ethel Le Neve. She was dressed as a boy.
The ship's captain, the story goes, "recognized the fugitives and just before steaming beyond the range of his ship-board transmitter" the captain sent a wireless telegram to the British authorities. A Scotland Yard inspector took a faster ship and arrived in Canada before the couple. The inspector arrested the guilty lovers, and Crippen was hanged.
You gotta love a publisher with a name like that.

Deal with the Devil and 13 Short Stories will debut April 28 at the Malice Domestic mystery convention in Bethesda, Maryland. It will be published as an $18 trade paperback. The signed and numbered cloth-bound collector's edition with an extra story is $45.
Pre-order your copy now. Email the publisher, Jeffrey Marks, at [email protected]

Recent Reads

Having final finished the manuscript I thought would never be finished, I've had time recently to read and thought I would share the fruits of that reading. Particularly since I have read some excellent books (and in a couple of cases, re-read them).

Canadian writer Iona Whishaw is the author of a new series of historical mysteries set in British Columbia after World War II. The first book, A Killer in King's Cove, introduces  Lane Winslow, late of the British intelligence service, who has come to western Canada in search of escape from her former life. She settles on an old house near Nelson, BC, with its resident ghost, its former owner (this according to the owner's son and his fie, her nearest neighbors). All seems idyllic, despite some decidedly odd neighbors, until Lane and one of these neighbors, an unfriendly, irritable WWI veteran, find a dead body in the creek that is their water supply. The body of the young man yields no clues, other than a sodden piece of paper with Lane's name on it. The aptly named Inspector Darling and his subordinate, Ames, begin to investigate. Lane appears to be the chief -- and only -- suspect, but slowly details begin to emerge, and Darling, who is reluctantly drawn to Lane, tries to avoid arresting her. The scenery is vividly described -- you'll want to visit 1946 British Columbia after reading this -- and the plot is complex with some interesting twists. Above all, there is Lane Winslow herself, an enigmatic, yet appealing, character. There are four books in the series.

 

Amanda Allen (also known as Amanda Carmack and Amanda McCabe) has begun a series set in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the early 1920s. First up is Santa Fe Mourning, and it introduces aspiring painter and war widow Madeline Vaughn-Alwin. Having settled in Santa Fe during a trip west with her cousin, Maddie is happy to escape the stifling confines of her upper-class New York family, to follow her muse and to recover from the death of her beloved husband. Ably looked after by her Native American housekeeper, Juanita Anaya, and her family, Maddie is troubled to observe marital discord between Juanita and her husband Tomas. When Tomas is murdered and his young son arrested, Maddie investigates with the help of a handsome English doctor who has come to Santa Fe to work in the nearby tuberculosis sanatorium. Evocative of time and place, and of the vibrant arts community at the time, Santa Fe Mourning is an auspicious debut for this historical mystery series.

 

The late Edith Caroline Rivett is better known to classic crime fans as E.C.R. Lorac and Carol Carnac. Connoisseurs of Golden Age detective fiction have long appreciated Lorac's hefty contribution to the genre, but today's mystery readers are largely unaware of her work. The British Library Publishing Division, in its Crime Classics series, is releasing two of her books, both of which I recently re-read, having first read them around thirty years ago. I have a near-complete collection of Lorac/Carnac, lacking only one book which is incredibly scarce. The first of the reprints is Bats in the Belfry (1937). Set in chiefly the Notting Hill and Regent's Park areas of London, the story focuses on the disappearance of novelist Bruce Attleton and the discovery of his suitcase and passport in a dilapidated artist's studio in the Belfry, a derelict house. Inspector Macdonald, the laconic Scot who is Lorac's series detective, ably sorts it all out.  Fire in the Thatch (1946) is one of several of Lorac's novels with a rural setting. Lorac actually spent time in the English countryside, and her experiences lend authority to her depiction to the settings and rhythms of country life. In this case, a soldier released from duty after an accident, takes refuge in Devon, renting a thatched cottage where he sets to work farming, renovating the cottage, and raising geese. A bored, flirtatious woman from a nearby farm brings a parade of fashionable visitors to the countryside, and when Vaughan's cottage is destroyed by fire, Macdonald must uncover a motive for murder. Lorac has long been a favorite of mine, and these are two excellent examples of her work. Another book available from a different publisher is Murder by Matchlight, set in London during the Blitz.

If you'd like to retreat into the past for a while, you can do so most enjoyably with any of these books.

 

 

 

 

Comfort Through Cardio

Forgive me the nearest thing I've ever written to clickbait, only I was listening to a BBC R4 Food Programme on comfort food while sweating and puffing through half an hour on the cross-trainer and coming up with this top-five comfort-food list was the only thing that saved me. I heartily recommend The Food Programme (click here) but they've had a run of gym-torture topics recently: not just comfort food, but also crisps, Christmas dinner and bacon!

Note, I don't seem to take pictures of comfort food. Ugly-Delicious, they call it, right? So here's a picture of me cooking nothing from this list.  And in no particular order:

 

Jewish Penicillin 

Sorry, vegetarians, but chicken soup has got be in here. The chicken soup of my homeland - cock-a-leekie - is quite good but it's not my personal comfort-food version. I like chicken soup made with a whole boiled chicken, zinging with ginger and garlic and bright with chili flakes and snipped herbs. Puts hairs on your chest, as they used to say. (That used to be a good thing before the waxing craze, I'm guessing.) The Rabbi on the comfort-food programme, when asked about "real Jewish chicken soup" gave a great answer. "There are Jews all over the world. The chicken is key and everything else is commentary." I kind of love her now.

 

Modern British Curry

Let me explain. There's authentic Asian sub-continent curry - freshly ground spices and exotic vegetables and all that. Then there's old-style British curry (from that time we colonised India, that we don't talk about) - yellow curry powder, lots of coconut and salted peanuts on top. But I'm talking about modern British curry, brought to the UK by 20th century immigration, mostly from Bangladesh but also Pakistan and India, and served in tens of thousands of curry houses throughout the land. (My stomach is rumbling, just thinking about them.) At home in the domestic kitchen, the magic word is "Patak's". Patak's curry paste, added to onions, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, meat, and mushrooms gives you (two hours later- with some peas and spinach dropped in at the end) a curry to die for. 

 

Cream of Tomato and Grilled Cheese

The thesis on the Food Programme was that comfort food is the food of your childhood. Well, maybe. But when you move, aged forty four, to a country with a comfort-food option like this little gem, childhood be damned! I've taken to CT&GC like a toddler to Pringles. It's sooooo good! And sooooo easy. Campbell's cream of tom made with whole milk, and a sourdough grilled-cheese sanny (UK readers - this is a toastie, not toasted cheese and it's fried, not grilled) made with salted butter on the outside of the bread and extra-sharp, extra-matured cheddar on the inside of the bread. Well, if the curry hadn't killed me already, I'd die for this. With a big glass of water, I have to say, because it is not unsalty.

 

Potatoes

Chips, fries, crisps, roasted, sauteed, boiled, steamed, rosti-ed, hashed, mashed, gratin-dauphinoised, baked, birchered . . . I do love a spud. I even like growing them. Chitting them in the house, planting them in the garden. And digging up a forkload of potatoes is more like finding buried treasure than anything else in my life. Here's the first of this year's Norland Reds, just peeping through this morning. 

 

Bread and Jam

This might go beyond stomach rumbles and drooling to actual sobs. White bread, made in my Rayburn oven in my old house, sliced when just cool, thickly spread with cold, salted butter and topped with jam, made from the gooseberries or brambles (according to season) that grew along the sides of the fields . . . eaten in the garden, at teatime, on a blustery spring day, limbs aching from a day's digging, and R4's Food Programme on the radio . . . yep, sobbing.

So what's your most beloved comfort food?  Can you still get it? I've got room for a few new favourites on my list.

 

 

 

 

On giving advice

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

Over the last couple of days I've watched an all-too familiar scenario play out multiple times on Facebook. A friend posts about something she (or he) is doing, or thinking of doing, or has recently done.

Cue the unsolicited advice.

Now, I'm a big fan of asking for advice on social media—consulting the hive mind, as I call it. In the past few weeks alone, I have sought wise counsel on the real identity of J.P. Delany (which wasn't hard to find, if you have power and full access to the Internet, but neither I nor the friend who wondered did at the time), how to get the ink off your skin if you're fingerprinted the old fashioned way (alcohol and baby wipes got the most votes), and whether mango sticky rice is hard to make (the consensus is not really, if you have the right tools and more importantly the right kind of rice). You'll note that these are minor, non-life-changing topics capable of a factual answer or at least an informed opinion and topics on which I had good reason to believe I could receive enlightenment from the members of my Facebook friend roster.

But there are also times when I'm not looking for advice. If, for example, I post—as I did not long ago—that I am without power due to the high winds that came with one of the recent nor'easters, I am probably not looking for advice. I'm looking for a little cheap sympathy, and explaining for anyone who's a chronic worrier why I might not be online as much as usual and might not respond to a question immediately.

Nevertheless, I get advice.

I usually ignore the unsolicited advice, because it is well meant, and occasionally it's actually useful. One person, for example, gave me a link to the page where my power company shows the data about where outages are happening and how soon they'll be resolved, which would have been very useful if I hadn't known it was available. As if happens, I already knew all about that page from previous outages, reported my outage there five minutes after it began, and was checking there on the status of my outage so often that it probably looked to the power company like a small, ineffective, but persistent denial of service attack. My Facebook friend didn't know this. And as advice goes, it was modestly useful and non-intrusive, and tactfully given.

Where unsolicited advice crosses the line from harmless and mildly useful to maddening or even toxic is when someone's post happens to touch on one of someone else's strongly held opinions. What if someone saw my post and replied by telling me I should go out and get a generator? This could go two ways, one of them okay and the other very bad.

Tone matters. “Have you considered getting a generator? I live in an area with frequent power outages, and I have no idea how I got along before I installed mine” is at worst harmless, at best interesting and useful. I might respond by saying that I've considered it, but feel that given the relative infrequency of outages in my neighborhood, I don't think the cost is worth it, to say nothing of the difficulty of integrating a honking big piece of industrial equipment into the landscape. Or I might just let it pass.

“I can't believe you don't have a generator!” followed by detailed explanations of how they work and where you go to get one . . . not so cool. Does this purveyor of unsolicited advice think I'm ignorant of the existence of such a thing as generators? Does he—because it's often a he—think I never contemplate the notion of generators until I'm already a day or two into a power outage? Is he implying that I wouldn't need to complain if I'd installed a generator, and that therefore, due to my feckless, generatorless status, I don't even have the right to complain?

And let's not even get started on what happens if you post about what I suppose you could lump together as life choices. Childcare. Elder care. Pet care. Relationships. Heath and wellness. Most writers have already heard the saying “no passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft.” Except maybe there is an equal: the passion to tell our friends and acquaintances, in public, that they're making bad decisions.

You see it all the time. A person announces that he's about to begin taking such-and-such a medication. Someone will immediately ask if he's aware of the horrible side effects. Someone else will ask if he's tried some other more effective/less problematic medication for his condition (in the process quite possibly jumping to an incorrect conclusion about what ailment the patient has). A third person will denounce both medications as poisons and ask if the patient has tried essential oils/yoga/stuffing live lobsters in his ears to treat the condition. (Don't flame me; I love both essential oils and yoga, but there are things they can't fix.) And before you know it, one man's passing remark has degenerated into a three- or four-way brawl. And if you add in the people who will feel obliged to chime in that the patient wouldn't have his condition in the first place if he had done this or hadn't done that in his past life—enough! Unless you're offering a time machine to enable the patient to return to an earlier stage in his life so he could eat less/eat better/drink less/exercise more/avoid becoming addicted to methamphetamine/refrain from stuffing live lobsters in his ears, just leave alone the topic of how he got where he is.

Note that I'm not criticizing people who respond when someone says something like “I've heard stuffing live lobsters in my ears will prevent migraines—does anyone have any experience with or knowledge of this?” He asked—have at it. But civilly. You're not going to enlighten proponents of otic crustaceans by flaming them, not matter how demented you think they are.

It has not escaped my notice that with this blog I am, in effect giving advice over the Internet. “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself.” I am human, and thus all too ready to inflict my opinions on the rest of my species—especially on social media.

But I'm making a vow to be more aware of when I'm tempted to do so. When I feel that irresistible urge to tell someone else—in public--how she should run her life, I'm going to take a deep breath and count to ten. And then I'll remind myself that if this was someone I knew well enough to offer an informed opinion on what she should do with her life, maybe she'd already have asked me.

You're allowed to remind me of this virtuous resolution when I break it.

 

Shameless Self Promo

Yesterday, I celebrated book release day. Henery Press released Killing in C Sharp, the third book in my cozy mystery series, The Gethsemane Brown Mysteries. Now that the book’s out in the wild, my job is to promote it. Easy, right? After all, this is book number three. I’ve done this promotion thing twice before. I’m a pro. Nope. I’m not good at self-promotion.

Or, I should say, I’m not comfortable with it. Tooting my own horn feels like bragging. Like many, women especially, I was raised to value humility and modesty. Don’t brag. Do right and do well and others will notice without you having to point it out. If you have to tell someone, maybe you’re not doing as well as you thought.

Not the best way to sell a book (or get a promotion or a raise or…). So, here’s my stab at shameless self-promotion: Killing in C Sharp, Gethsemane Brown Book Three, is available now in paperback, hardcover, and audio. Publisher’s Weekly liked it (starred review in the January 29 issue. H/T to Gigi Pandian for pointing it out.), I hope you will, too.

She saved Carraigfaire—but can she save her friends? Gethsemane Brown fought off an attack by a sleazy hotel developer who wanted to turn her Irish cottage into a tourist trap. Now she must face a vengeful ghost determined to exact revenge for her murder centuries ago. This ghost’s wrath spares no one—not Gethsemane’s students, Inspector Niall O’Reilly, fellow teacher Frankie Grennan, or a group of ghost hunters descended on Dunmullach to capture proof ghosts exist. Proof Gethsemane has to quash to keep Eamon, her resident ghost and friend, from becoming an internet sensation. As if a spiteful specter wasn’t bad enough, a crooked music reviewer turns up dead in the opera house orchestra pit, a famous composer is arrested for the crime, and Gethsemane must team up with a notorious true-crime author to clear his name. If she doesn’t, friends will die, a ghost she cares about will never know peace, and she’ll star in a final act gruesome enough for any opera

 

A writer since childhood, I put literary endeavors on hold to finish medical school and Family Medicine residency training. Medical career established, I returned to writing fiction. I completed SMU's Writer’s Path program in Dallas, Texas. Henery Press published my first novel, Murder in G Major, book one of the Gethsemane Brown mysteries, in September 2016. Book two, Death in D Minor, released July 11, 2017. Book three, Killing in C Sharp, released March 2018 and received a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly.

Murder in G Major won the Lefty Award for Best Debut Novel, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best New Novel, and was selected one of Suspense Magazine's Best Debuts.

I listen to classical music, drink fine whiskey, and blog at www.missdemeanors.com, voted one of Writers' Digest magazine's 101 best websites for writers, and http://femmesfatales.typepad.com/my_weblog/