AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. MAYA MAQUIRE FROM MEDICAL MYSTERY AUTHOR MILLICENT EIDSON'S MAYAVERSE SERIES

Today we sit down for a chat with Dr. Maya Maguire from medical mystery author Millicent Eidson’s MayaVerse series.

What was your life like before your author started pulling your strings? 

Before my author made me her marionette, I was the poster child for academic introversion. A shy hermit crab, I studiously avoided any form of social interaction. College at sixteen? Check. Dating? Not until I had three diplomas.

 

What’s the one trait you like most about yourself? 

I have the tenacity of a bulldog on a bone. No setback can knock me down permanently. And when I get to know someone, I relax into humorous banter and the warmth of commitment. 

 

What do you like least about yourself? 

I'm a certified member of the "What If" club. I spend more time imagining worst-case scenarios than a conspiracy theorist on a caffeine bender. I majored in Catastrophizing 101, and I graduated with honors.

 

What is the strangest thing your author has had you do or had happen to you? Crawling around in the dirt with Portuguese pigs. Forget swanky adventures; I get down and dirty with farm animals. It was like my author thought, "Why not add a touch of Eau de Pigsty to the protagonist's journey?"

 

Do you argue with your author? If so, what do you argue about? 

Oh, we have our tussles. My author wants me to be this kick-ass dynamo, but I'm like, "Let me navigate life at my own GPS-guided pace, okay?" It's a constant tug-of-war between Dr. Millie’s plot twists and my roller coaster ride through character development.

 

What is your greatest fear? 

I’m phobic about failing as a veterinarian in public health. I wasn't ready to be the James Herriot of clinical animal care. Instead, all creatures great and small are my global responsibility, and the fear of microbial mayhem keeps me up at night.

 

What makes you happy? 

Family, friends, and close colleagues are my rock stars. And nature is my Zen garden. Who knew investigating diseases could be so uplifting? I get to solve microbial mysteries, one exotic locale after another.

 

If you could rewrite a part of your story, what would it be? Why? 

I’d rewrite my personal losses, but those are the price we pay for deep relationships. At work, I had this toxic colleague and instead of reporting him, I tried to suck it up. In hindsight, I should've let the higher-ups deal with him. Lesson learned: not all doctors are heroes.

 

Of the other characters in your book, which one bugs you the most? Why? 

Same guy, Dr. Toxic Arrogance himself. His lack of boundaries was like a mosquito in a quiet room—annoying, persistent, and impossible to ignore. A confidence-crusher deluxe.

 

Of the other characters in your book, which one would you love to trade places with? Why? 

Dr. Faye Simpson, the older public health vet in New York City, is a ball of fire. She takes no prisoners, and I love her experimental spirit. But a lifetime focused mostly on work? I'd need more than a coffee IV to survive that. Pass on the all-work, little-love gig.

 

Tell us a little something about your author. Where can readers find her website/blog? 

My puppet master, Dr. Millie (Millicent Eidson), is also a veterinary epidemiologist and travel addict. She adopted a kiddo from China around the same time as my parents adopted me. Check her out at https://drmayamaguire.com/about and you can see a picture of my real-life “sister.” 

 

What's next for you? 

In the magical MayaVerse, microbes emerge alphabetically, so stay tuned for “Dengue” which drops me into Hawaii battling deadly mosquitoes. Dr. Millie promises me a “Happy for Now” ending in every book, which is a relief given all the suspense and thrilling adventures she puts me through.

 

Corona

A Microbial Mystery, Book 3

 

Veterinarian Maya Maguire approaches the end of her training as one of CDC’s elite shock troops for investigating disease epidemics. Despite unfinished business with a toxic colleague, her work and personal life fall into place. Until COVID, and its impact on loved ones. After investigating the first human case in Arizona, her focus shifts to coronavirus in animals. As a Chinese American adoptee, her origin story comes full circle like an ouroboros—a dragon eating its tail.

 

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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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GUEST AUTHOR SALLY CARPENTER ON COZY SHORTS AND KILLER PUPPETS

Sally Carpenter is native Hoosier now living in Moorpark, Calif. She’s written four books in the Sandy Fairfax Teen Idol series. She plans to launch a new cozy series soon. Learn more about Sally and her books at her website. 

Cozy “shorts” for Winter Reading

Anthologies are like buffets, you can sample new-to-you foods before committing to a full entrée.

Patricia Rockwell, my publisher, was looking for a way that readers could “try out” her authors. She’s is the founder of Cozy Cat Press, a small press with over 40 authors and 100 books.

She’s also the editor of Cozy Cat Shorts, a new anthology of short stories from 25 CCP authors hailing from across the U.S. and Canada. Some wrote a new story featuring the protagonists from their series books. Others used new characters and settings. All the tales are suitable for cozy fans, no graphic language, violence or sex.

My contribution is “The Puzzling Puppet Show Caper.” The past months I’ve been working on a new series, so returning to my old series hero was a hoot. He’s such a colorful character that I had no trouble jumping back into “his” world and finding a new mystery for him to solve.

Sandy Fairfax is a thirty-eight-year-old former teen idol making a comeback and each new gig somehow includes a body. Like the TV character he played in his teens, Buddy Brave, Boy Sleuth, Sandy starts poking around where he shouldn’t and nearly gets killed before naming the murderer.

The story idea came when I was watching DVDs of The Muppet Show and thought, “Sandy would have made a great guest star on the show!” So I put Sandy on a kids’ TV show with some rather unstable puppeteers.

Also, my high school had a TV studio and the seniors produced puppet shows on closed circuit TV for the local elementary schools. I learned about how to operate a hand puppet. In fact, my first published piece of writing was a puppet script!

While writing the “death trap” scene in the story, I had Sandy in a pickle. How would he escape? The solution made me laugh out loud for several minutes. I don’t know if other readers will find this moment hilarious, but it was one of the joys that makes writing so enjoyable.

The other stories are fun reads too. Here are the authors and their story titles,

Amy Beth Arkawy, “Rabbit, Rabbit, White Rabbit”

Allen B. Boyer, “Apology for a Mystery”

C.F. Carter, “Dead as the Dickens”

Linda Crowder, “Paw and Claws”

Glen Ebisch, “The Return of Bigfoot”

Bart J. Gilbertson, “The Leopold Test”

Helen Grochmal, “Merridy’s Happy Family”

Lorrie Holmgren, “The Locked Room”

Bret Jones, “Modus Operandi”

Mary Koppel, “Mr. Wednesday”

Elizabeth Lanham, “The Hygienist”

Owen Magruder, “The Man in Tan”

Jane O’Brien, “Murder at Pepperberry Lake”

Joyce Oroz, “Bored to Death”

David Pauwels, “Cisco Maloney and the Case of the Missing Keys”

Emma Pivator, “A Lesson for the Teacher”

Joe and Pam Reese, “The Worst Sin”

Megan Rivers, “Story Stones”

Patricia Rockwell, “Walkers”

Rita Gard Seedorf, “Hope Against Hope”

Rae Sanders and Annie Irvin, “Idle Hands”

Lane Stone, “Foreign Affairs”

Margaret Verhoef, “Missing Digits”

Carmen Will, “And the Answer Is  . . . “Murder””

Cozy Cat Shorts: “The Puzzling Puppet Show Caper”

The latest gig for former TV star Sandy Fairfax is a guest appearance on the long-running children’s TV series, “Uncle Albert’s Farmhouse,” a tired show declining in the ratings and budget. When one of the puppeteers dies during taping, Sandy suspects the unscripted death scene was not accidental. But his sleuthing lands him in the crushing arms of a huge, murderous puppet.

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