BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--MYSTERY AUTHOR BETTY WEBB ON EAVESDROPPING TO CREATE A ZOO COZY

Anteater

Betty Webb is the author of the best-selling Lena Jones Mystery Series and the humorous Gunn Zoo mysteries. Before beginning to write mystery novels, Betty spent twenty years as a journalist, interviewing everyone from U.S. presidents, astronauts who walked on the moon, Nobel Prize-winners, and polygamy runaways. Learn more about Betty and her books at her two websites: www.bettywebb-mystery.com and www.bettywebb-zoomystery.com. 

Like many writers, I write more than one series. My first mystery was, Desert Noir, in which a Scottsdale AZ art gallery owner is murdered, possibly by her violent ex-husband. Blood and gore all over the place, plus beatings, shootings, stabbings, and I don’t know what-all. Everything but poison, I think. Well, that was in the Desert series, starring P.I. Lena Jones, and since it was set in the Sonoran Desert, life was always rough. And I was a journalist, and had seen more than one dead body.

After the fifth book, however, I retired from the newspaper, and to my surprise, my soul began to gentle. Instead of starting the day with a snarl and a snap, I stretched, smiled, fed the kitties, then wandered around trying to figure out how to fill my time. Work on another Lena Jones Desert book? No, I felt too cheerful, I wanted to write something… nice.

Now, writers are terrible snoops, but we’ve perfected the art of looking like we’re minding our own business. One day, when I was relaxing over a decaf at the local Starbucks, I eavesdropped on a couple of women, both in their sixties, one blond, the other a redhead, discussing their volunteer work at the Phoenix Zoo. It sounded interesting, so I scooted closer. I learned that they both worked in a location named Monkey Village, and they were suffering a shortage of volunteers.

“Just one more would make things easier,” the redhead said. “Then we’d be able to take breaks.”

Giving up all pretense of minding-my-own-business, I slid across the sofa and said, “How does one volunteer?”

Undertaker Stork

Three weeks later, after intensive training sessions, I was in Monkey Village – right IN the enclosure – watching delightedly as a squirrel monkey named Captain Kirk ran across my foot, chased by Spock. (Yes, all the monkeys had Star Trek names). I stayed in Monkey Village for about five years, then went on to become a Trail Guide. My new life was both easier and sweeter.

Don’t get me wrong. I still wrote those grisly Lena Jones books – ten in all – but after starting to work at the zoo, I added a new series – The Gunn Zoo Mysteries. Starting with The Anteater of Death, in which a giant anteater named Lucy helps zookeeper Theodora “Teddy” Bentley find out who killed the uber-wealthy member of the Gunn Zoo Guild. The book was a hit, partially because I’d moved the Phoenix Zoo to California, and the Monterey Bay area and had given Teddy a neat little houseboat to live on. After Anteater, came The Koala of Death, The Llama of Death, The Puffin of Death, The Otter of Death, and now – ta da! – The Panda of Death!

To be clear – no animals are ever hurt in any of these books, although humans die like flies. They’re deaths aren’t grisly, though. In strict keeping with the “cozy” tradition, the deaths tend to be off-screen, and the poor wretch has usually been dead for hours before zookeeper Teddy stumbles across his corpse.

In The Panda of Death, however, someone else finds the first dead body. Teddy is at the zoo, interviewing a Tyrannosaurus Rex (in costume, of course), the lead character in a children’s TV show named Tippy-Toe & Tinker, when she gets a call from one of her friends at the harbor informing her that there’s a dead man floating next to her boat. And it looks like the dead man is the writer of Tippy-Toe & Tinker. As the book goes along, a few more humans are felled, and one of the animals in the zoo comes across a clue that solves the case. That animal is Poona, a loveable red panda who delights in being cuddled. But she does not delight in visits from killers.

In an interesting side plot, a young man shows up at Teddy’s and her new husband’s door claiming to be her new husband’s son – and that he has the DNA test to prove it. This, by the way, is not fiction. In doing my own DNA, I discovered that I had a brother I didn’t know I had, and after we met, I decided to put the experience into The Panda of Death.

And that’s probably why The Panda of Death will always be my favorite of my 18 books.

The Panda of Death

The Gunn Zoo Series, Book 6

California zookeeper Theodora Bentley is now happily married to Sheriff Joe Rejas. The Gunn Zoo is celebrating the arrival of Poonya, an adorable red panda, who forms a strong bond with Teddy. All appears fairytale blissful in the small Monterey Bay village of Gunn Landing until Teddy's mother-in-law, mystery writer Colleen Rejas, has discovered through DNA testing that Joe has sired a son he knew nothing about. Dylan Coyle, 18, arrives to meet his biological family... and then is arrested for murder.

By the end of the book, besides solving the crime, Teddy and Colleen have learned that the term "family" does not always mean blood kin. It often includes those who?although no blood relationship?are still held close in our hearts.

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--MYSTERY AUTHOR BETTY WEBB

For twenty years mystery author Betty Webb worked as a journalist, interviewing everyone from U.S. presidents, astronauts who walked on the moon, and polygamy runaways. A nationally syndicated literary critic for more than thirty years, she currently reviews for Mystery Scene Magazine. She is the author of ten Lena Jones books and five Gunn Zoo mysteries. Learn more about Betty and her books at her website. 

The Empty Nest

Although I enjoyed being the mother of two sons, I’ll admit to feeling relieved when they finally left home to begin their own lives. There was no empty nest syndrome for me. Instead, I redecorated their room, turning it into the den where I would attempt to write the Great American Novel.

Twenty years later I still hadn’t written the Great American Novel (Has anyone actually done that yet?), but I did create Lena Jones, a wounded foster child who went on to become a rough and tumble private investigator in Scottsdale, AZ. I watched her as she fought her way through her first big case in Desert Noir in 2000 and cheered her on through nine more adventures. This all ended in December of 2018 when I typed THE END on the last page of Desert Redemption, the tenth and final Lena Jones novel.

Although I hoped they would, the angels didn’t sing. No problem. As an ex-reporter, I stopped hearing the angels a long time ago. But I still heaved a sigh of relief as I wrote the accompanying letter to my editor Barbara Peters at Poisoned Pen Press, and attached the manuscript. There. I was free. Done. Finished. It was over.

My feet did a happy dance under my desk as I wiggled my butt and hummed the first part of the “Hallelujah Chorus.”

But the moment I hit SEND and the manuscript headed off into the ozone, I began to cry.

Writers are weird. Sometimes we take our fictional friends more seriously than our real ones. And even our families.

That’s because a writer’s characters become real to us. For nineteen years I would wake up in the morning, thinking, “What’s Lena going to do today? Where’s she going to go?”

I followed her through Desert Noir, as she explored the abuse of eminent domain. In Desert Wives I took her to a polygamy cult where she investigated the sexual abuse of young girls. Then in Desert Shadows, she fought against the rise of White Power groups. in Desert Run she learned that some new crimes were connected to the escape of German POWs from a Phoenix POW camp during WWII. In Desert Cut Lena confronted an ancient and vicious practice affecting young girls. In Desert Lost she learned that polygamy’s many crimes don’t affect only women. In Desert Wind she exposed the cover-up of the many deaths connected to Nevada’s atom bomb testing In Desert Rage she fought to save two teens from being imprisoned for murders they didn’t commit. In Desert Vengeance she considered killing the foster father who had raped her when she was nine, and in Desert Redemption her long search for the mother who’d abandoned her finally came to an end.

That’s a lot of history with one character, a history that made Lena Jones the daughter I was never fortunate enough to have.

Now I sit in front of my computer with a hole in my heart, an empty space that my Lena Jones used to occupy. She had her problems, sure, but her courage and compassion more than made up for her flaws. So I left her in that happy place she’d always wanted to live in (no, I didn’t kill her!) Finito, Lena, and brava. And today, to nurse my aching heart, I began writing another series.

But in a way, I didn’t really leaving my brave girl behind, because the new series is about her great-grandmother. And in that series, we’ll learn how Lena Jones wound up with her courage and compassion.

Desert Redemption

At the age of four, Scottsdale private eye Lena Jones was shot in the head and left to die on a Phoenix street. After her rescue, she spent years in the abusive foster care system, never knowing who her parents were and why they didn’t claim her. When Desert Redemption begins, she still does not know her real name.

Lena’s rough childhood--and the suspicion that her parents may have been members of a cult—keep her hackles raised. So when Chelsea, the ex-wife of Harold Slow Horse, a close friend, joins a “new thought” organization called Kanati, Lena begins to investigate. She soon learns that two communes—polar opposites of each other—have sprung up nearby in the Arizona desert. The participants at EarthWay follow a rigorous dietary regime that could threaten the health of its back-to-the-land inhabitants, while the more pleasure-loving folk at Kanati are dining on sumptuous French cuisine.

On an early morning horseback ride across the Pima Indian Reservation, Lena finds an emaciated woman’s body in the desert. “Reservation Woman” lies in a spot close to EarthWay, clad in a dress similar to the ones worn by its women. But there is something about her face that reminds Lena of the Kanatians.

While investigating, Lena’s memory is jolted back to that horrible night when her father and younger brother were among those murdered by a cult leader named Abraham, who then vanished. Lena begins to wonder if either EarthWay or Kanati could be linked to that night, and to her own near-death. Could leaders of one or both shed light on what had happened to Lena’s mother, who vanished at the same time as Abraham?

All these mysteries are resolved in Desert Redemption, the tenth and final Lena Jones case, which can also be enjoyed on its own.

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