AUTHOR SHARON MARCHISELLO CRAFTS A MYSTERY SET IN THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS

Sharon Marchisello is the author of two mysteries, short stories, nonfiction, training manuals, and screenplays (as well as a blog and book reviews.) Learn more about Sharon and her books at her website.  

Setting a Mystery in the Galapagos

For an animal lover like me, visiting the Galapagos was a bucket-list trip. And in 2014, I got to fulfill that dream when my husband and I took a cruise around the islands.

 

Located 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, the Galapagos archipelago is 97% national park; humans inhabit only four of its twenty-one volcanic islands. Straddling the equator, the UNESCO site is situated at a point in the Pacific Ocean where three ocean currents collide, which contributes to the diversity of wildlife found nowhere else. And because they’re so isolated, most of the animals have no natural fear of people.

 

If I’d known I was going to set a book in the Galapagos, I might have been able to write the trip off on my taxes. But I didn’t get the idea until about six months later, when I was driving back from a conference late at night with another author.

 

As I related an experience that happened to my husband and me on our cruise, she suggested it would make a great opening scene for a mystery. Normally, the guides on our cruise were conscientious about counting heads and watching over all the passengers in their charge whenever we were away from the ship. But on this day, my husband and I left another activity to join a snorkeling excursion already in progress, so neither of the guides assumed responsibility for us.

 

We were swimming along, marveling at the vast array of underwater life, when I surfaced to see both Zodiac boats motoring back to the ship—without us! I can still feel the panic of being left alone in the middle of the ocean, treading water off the coast of a deserted island.

 

I waved and screamed, and fortunately, someone spotted me, and one of the boats turned around to pick me up. I didn’t see my husband right away, but I told the guide he was still out there. In a moment, he’d swum up and climbed aboard. All was well.

 

But what if.... I thought. What if the protagonist’s companion didn’t get picked up? And what if the person was left behind on purpose?

 

When Secrets of the Galapagos begins, my protagonist, Giovanna Rogers, is snorkeling with her new friend, tortoise researcher Laurel Pardo. The two get separated from the group, and Laurel disappears. And then no one on the ship will acknowledge that Laurel didn’t make it back.

 

While trying to determine a motive, I recalled a conversation I’d had with one of our guides during a visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station in Puerto Ayora, the largest town on Santa Cruz Island. “I know a secret about Lonesome George,” he said. “But if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.” Lonesome George was a Galapagos giant tortoise made famous for being the sole survivor of the Pinta Island species. Unfortunately, efforts to breed George were unsuccessful, and the ancient tortoise passed away in 2012.

 

But what if someone discovered another giant tortoise from a different subspecies also thought to be extinct? And then a tortoise researcher unearthed some information about the animal that certain individuals in the tourist industry didn’t want released?

 

You’ll have to read Secrets of the Galapagos to find out what happens next.

 

Secrets of the Galapagos

Shattered by a broken engagement and a business venture derailed by Jerome Haddad, her unscrupulous partner, Giovanna Rogers goes on a luxury Galapagos cruise with her grandmother to decompress. At least that's what her grandmother thinks. Giovanna is determined to make Jerome pay for what he's done, and she has a tip he's headed for the Galapagos.

 

While snorkeling in Gardner Bay off the coast of Española Island, Giovanna and another cruise passenger, tortoise researcher Laurel Pardo, both become separated from the group, and Laurel is left behind. No one on the ship will acknowledge Laurel is missing, and Giovanna suspects a cover-up.

 

When the police come on board to investigate a death, Giovanna assumes the victim is Laurel. She's anxious to give her testimony to the attractive local detective assigned to the case. Instead, she learns someone else is dead, and she's a person of interest.

Resolved to keep searching for Laurel and make sense of her disappearance, Giovanna finds that several people on board the cruise ship have reasons to want Laurel gone. One is a scam involving Tio Armando, the famous Galapagos giant tortoise and a major tourist attraction in the archipelago. And Jerome Haddad has a hand in it. Thinking she's the cat in this game, Giovanna gets too involved and becomes the mouse, putting her life in jeopardy. But if she doesn't stop him, Jerome will go on to ruin others.

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--MYSTERY AUTHOR ELAINE VIETS TAKES RESEARCH TO A WHOLE OTHER LEVEL!

Elaine Viets has written 34 books in four mystery series. You may know her light-hearted Dead-End Job mysteries. Lately, she’s been writing darker mysteries, the Angela Richman, Death Investigator series. Elaine trained for the ultimate Dead-End Job when she took the Medicolegal Death Investigators Training Course for forensic professionals. Today she tells us about it. Learn more about Elaine and her books at her website. 

Death Investigator: The Ultimate Dead-End Job

Life Without Parole, my seventh Angela Richman mystery, begins this way: 

Four in the morning. I was wrapped in the arms of my lover, sleeping the sleep of the satisfied, when my work cell phone rang. Damn. Someone was dead, probably murdered. Why couldn’t people die at a decent hour?

 

And Death Investigator Angela Richman is off to work, where she learns Chouteau Forest’s wealthy residents are targeted by the Ghost Burglars, who are killing the rich in their marble mansions. Publishers Weekly says “Life Without Parole’s”  “colorful characters match the crafty plot twists. Viets consistently entertains.”

 

I took a break from my Dead-End Job mysteries to write about a real dead-end job – death investigator. The Angela Richman series is set in mythical Chouteau County, a “ten-square-mile pocket of white privilege” near St. Louis.

 

Death investigators are sort of like forensic paralegals. They are trained, but don't have medical degrees.

 

Angela works for the Chouteau County medical examiner. She investigates all unexpected and unexplained deaths: accidents, murders, suicides. She's responsible for the dead person. The police handle the scene – everything but the body.

 

To make sure Angela had the most accurate forensics, I went back to college and took the Medicolegal Death Investigators Training Course, given by St. Louis University’s School of Medicine. Death investigators started in my hometown of St. Louis, Mo., in 1978 because there was a shortage of forensic pathologists.

 

My two-credit college course was five days, from eight in the morning to five at night. Students came from as far away as Australia. I sat between an Illinois police chief and a working DI from Austin, Texas.

 

Here's one day's agenda for the death investigator course:

In the morning, we learned about gunshot wound fatalities, explosion-related deaths, motor vehicle fatalities and drowning. At lunch we watched a video about teen driving and alcohol that made me want to trade my car for an armored personnel carrier. 

 

Then it was alcohol-related deaths, suicide, blunt-trauma fatalities and more. I was grateful that the airplane crash investigations weren't on the same day I flew home to Florida. 

 

For more than eight hours, the death investigator course listened to lectures by police and pathologists. We studied photos and videos from crime scenes and autopsies. I'm sure if I saw – and smelled – real autopsies, I'd be pea green and upchucking. The photos gave me enough distance that I could tolerate the gruesome illustrations. By the end of the course, I even watched an autopsy video during lunch.

 

The course gave me an appreciation of forensics – and made me a temporary vegetarian. It was months before I could eat pasta with red sauce or cut up a chicken. After all, people are a hundred-plus pounds of raw meat. 

 

One pathologist showed us slides of his tattoo collection. A spider web tattoo can hide the track marks of a drug user.

 

If you see someone with a "Born to Lose" tattoo, look out. That tattoo almost guarantees you'll live up that promise. I lost count of how many times I saw that tattoo in autopsy photos. 

 

The most dramatic was a man with “Born to Lose” in black Gothic letters on his forehead.  

 

Right under the bullet hole.

Life without Parole

An Angela Richman, Death Investigator Mystery, Book 5

Chouteau Forest’s wealthy are being targeted by the Ghost Burglars, who’ve carried out twelve burglaries over two weeks. So far, there’s been no bloodshed . . . until Tom Lockridge is brutally slain inside his marble mansion during the latest raid.

 

Angela Richman, death investigator for Chouteau County, is called to assess the scene and the body by Detective Jace Budewitz. As they investigate, Jace becomes obsessed with proving the Ghost Burglars weren’t involved in the murder.

 

Can the burglars be ruled out so easily? Is there more to Cynthia Lockridge, Tom’s wife, seeking solace in the arms of the ambitious local lawyer Wesley Desloge? What about Tom’s long-suffering daughter, or his loose-lipped housekeeper or office manager? Everyone is keeping secrets, but whose erupted into violence that fateful night?

 

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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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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--A LOOK INTO THE WORLD OF THE GYPSY TRAVELLERS WITH MYSTERY AUTHOR SASSCER HILL

Multi-award winning author Sasscer Hill was involved in horse racing as an amateur jockey and racehorse breeder for most of her life. She sets her novels against a background of big money, gambling, and horse racing. Her latest book, a standalone mystery-thriller based on the con artists known as Irish American Travelers, is a departure from that world but not from horses. Learn more about Sasscer and her books at her website.

I’d like to tell you a little about the strange culture of the American gypsies known as Irish American Travellers.

My new novel, Travels of Quinn, a dark-cozy mystery, is based loosely on the largest clan of these people in the US, located only thirty-five minutes from my house. Some might remember a reality show called “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.” It was filmed in the town, Murphy Village, South Carolina. 

The culture of the Travellers is strange, to say the least. Children are taken out of school no later than seventh or eighth grade. Girls stay at home and are locked into marriage contracts, often when only five years old. Locally, we've seen little girls with diamond engagement rings, and they are always dressed to kill. Full makeup, and "big hair" with teasing, mousse and extensions, and sometimes even wigs. These people are extremely insular, sticking to themselves, and avoiding outsiders as a way of preserving their culture. 

Like grifters, the men and boys travel out of state, during warm weather, running home improvement swindles. Many Travellers speak a secret language, a mixture of Gaelic and English called “Cant”– useful when pulling off a scam. But many people who know them say most Travellers are honest hard-working people. 

Researching this story, I met with law enforcement officials including the head of the county detention center and a criminal defense attorney who represents Travellers. I met with the county prosecutor, and the judge for the second Judicial Circuit in South Carolina, who has presided over their cases. I was so fascinated by these people, I wanted to drive into Murphy Village and see if the stories about their McMansions and the trailers they often continue to live in were true.

People told me, “Don’t go there, it’s dangerous. They will run you out. You could even get hurt!”

 But we all know writers are crazy, so off I went with my iPhone video camera and my husband at the wheel. Murphy Village, called “Tinkers Town” in my novel, had one way in with cross streets ending in cul-de-sacs or dead ends that forced us to make awkward K turns to get out. That made me feel vulnerable, except no one bothered us. 

As promised, there were McMansions, trailers, and numerous statues of Catholic saints in the yards outside. A number of huge front doors had orange stickers on them. We couldn’t imagine what those were for. We drove slowly through the village for at least twenty minutes shooting video, and no one cared. The place was dead quiet, and I decided the people who’d uttered dire warnings didn’t know what they were talking about.

Imagine my shock the next morning when the newspaper announced that the day we’d been there, twenty-two people in Murphy Village had been arrested on fraud and racketeering charges. No wonder nobody bothered us! We just got lucky. Oh, and those orange stickers? They were forfeiture notices. The feds were confiscating these people’s homes.

Imagine if you will, the story of Quinn O’Neill, a nineteen-year-old woman who was born into this culture. Imagine she wants out, but she’s torn with indecision. Her parents signed her into a marriage contract to a young criminal she doesn’t love. But does she really want to leave everything she knows and be ostracized by her family? Is there a way she can escape?

Travels of Quinn

Born an Irish American gypsy Traveller, Quinn’s father and step-family raise her to be a con artist. Can she escape a dreaded marriage contract and a life of crime?

Jailed for theft, Quinn pays restitution by working on a horse farm. Unfamiliar with horses, her love for them surprises her. They make her hope for a better world.

Until the farm’s owner is brutally murdered and Quinn is the prime suspect.

On the run, Quinn uses every scam and con she knows to save herself. Can she find the real killer before she’s imprisoned for life or murdered because she knows too much?

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--HISTORICAL ROMANCE AUTHOR JACQUELINE SEEWALD

Jacqueline Seewald, has taught creative, expository, and technical writing at Rutgers University as well as high school English. She also worked as both an academic librarian and an educational media specialist. Twenty of her books of fiction have been published including books for adults, teens, and children. Her short stories, poems, essays, reviews, and articles have appeared in hundreds of diverse publications. Learn more about Jacqueline and her books at her website. 

Romance and Research

You’ll notice that a lot of romance writers set their novels in places they either live in or have lived in. This may seem provincial, but in fact, it makes for good writing. If writers know a place well, they can create a realistic setting, an intriguing background for their novels. Setting is one of the important components of any piece of fiction.

But what about writing historical romance, writing about times and people long ago?

The answer here is that writers need to do extensive research. The fact is every novel requires a certain amount of research, some more than others. I believe the best novels combine elements of what we actually know with research into what we need to find out. I’m no fan of info dumping in fiction, but writers need to read and discover a lot more information than they will actually use in their novels before they begin writing. 

In my latest historical romance, Sinful Seduction, I’ve tried to seamlessly incorporate the culture and history of the turbulent, passionate period of American Revolutionary War history into my novel. The characters represent the viewpoints and prejudices of those times. 

A good way to find out about a particular period in time is to find available reference books at the local library on the period. Reference librarians can provide helpful input. We examine time lines first. What important events were happening in the world, in that particular country and in the geographic area, historical as well as political? How did people dress? What did they eat? What were their general beliefs?  How were women treated? The library catalog also allows readers and writers to locate appropriate books that can be borrowed. 

One historical novel author suggests writing the book first and then researching the areas that need filling in. But I prefer immersing myself in an historical period and setting before starting to write. It’s true there will always be some essential information that requires further research. However, that should be part of the revision process.

In Sinful Seduction, I wrote about people in New Jersey because I was born, raised, and have lived my life in this state. I am fascinated by NJ history during the American Revolution, since my state has been described as the cockpit of the Revolution.

Finally, there’s a lot of satisfaction in both reading and writing well-researched historical fiction.

Sinful Seduction

Anne McIntyre, a schoolmistress in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey at the outset of the American Revolution, is serious-minded, intelligent, and patriotic. Anne supports her sister in her marital problems and helps the ironmaster’s widow manage a difficult situation with her daughter.

Peter Kensington should have been an earl, but thanks to the duplicity of his younger brother and his own reckless nature, he has ended up an officer in the colonial war. Spying is alien to his gentlemanly code. Yet he must do exactly that. Anne is suspicious of him from the first but as passionately attracted to him as he is to her.

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GUEST AUTHOR AUTUMN JORDAN'S CONFESSION

Award-winning author Autumn Jordon writes romantic suspense, romantic mystery, romantic thrillers, contemporary romance and romantic comedies. She is known for writing compelling emotional stories with characters so realistic you’d swear you knew them. She writes both sweet reads and steamy reads. Learn more about Jordan and her books at her website. 

I CONFESS

Most people don’t ever meet an FBI agent and a good percentage of them who do, don’t want to. So, which one do you think I am?

I’m one who has met several agents under circumstances that I wish had never happened. I’m an ordinary Jane Doe, just like you, but at the time of the (cough) incidents I was also a budding writer. Was it Twain or Aristotle or some other author/philosopher who said Write what you know?  Whomever, I had the message in my head, the situation in front of me, and boldness coursing through my veins. I seized the opportunity to gather information for my plots and started asking the government agents with fancy suits and credentials what if questions.

As the interviews grew in length and both the agents and I relaxed somewhat, I asked a few personal questions. Heck. They’d asked me personal questions about myself and my family. Tit for tat, right?

I was surprised they answered my questions, however. Who knew FBI Agent So-Tall-He-Nearly-Had-to-Duck-Coming-Through-The-Door and S. A. Could-Be-Tom-Cruise’s-Twin were regular guys with families and pets? Don’t get me wrong, these guys were always professional, but they were also willing to be Average Joes. Maybe acting like an Average Joe was their tactic to get more information from me. Shrug.

To make our stories believable, getting to the source is what us writers do. I got those agents cards before they left my office with the invite to call them anytime—which I have.

On a flight to Arizona I sat next to a U.S. Marshal who guards our boarders. It was the best flight ever, and I have his number on speed dial since I’m writing a series involving an elite undercover U.S. Marshal team.

I’ve spoken to national guardsman, military personal from all branches, fireman, police officers—both large cities and small town—fireman, national park guardsman, college professors, surgeons, journalists, politicians, the woman who lost everything she owned in a fire, and the list goes on and on. Through those conversations, I’ve learned so much about the world and the passionate hearts that live in it, and I write stories about everyday Janes and Joes whose ordinary worlds are turned upside down in a moment.

My characters need to learn a lesson about life to make everything okay again in the world, and in the process, they also find the love of their lives, which makes their world better than it was before.

So, do you want to know why the agents came to see me?  If you read the blurb for His Witness To Evil, you’ll get an idea. Pick-up any of my books, and you’ll step into my world, including my newest release Perfect Fall.

Perfect Fall

Just when she thought love had left her behind, along came the man of her dreams

Every team wants third baseman Hudson Mitchel for his skill on the field. Every woman wants him for his bad-boy looks and money. Every fan wants his jersey. And Sport's World Magazine wants to label him their Sexiest Sports Idol. There's not a part of Hudson's life that doesn't feel toxic. Burnt out, he walks away from intense contract negotiations, dodges the paparazzi, and assumes an identity as a photojournalist in a tiny Vermont village. The last thing he expects to encounter in Black Moose, Vermont is a female who possesses all the qualities he's imagined in a life-partner. Unfortunately, she's the only woman on earth not impressed by his charms. Each time he goes to bat, she shuts him out. It's a good thing Hudson's never been afraid of a challenge.

Managing her family's golf course, planning her best friend's wedding, and fending off the takeover of the town's fall festival by a rich entrepreneur keeps Sileen Wright too busy to pursue her dreams. She's even too occupied with other's problems to notice the handsome guest in cabin twenty until she's literally pinned under the Adonis inside her pickup. The recluse chips his way into her dreams and is stealing her heart-- until his identity is revealed. Knowing a fling with the hunky sports idol would only lead to misery, she calls the game.

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR CAMILLE MINICHINO

Camille Minichino, a retired physicist turned writer, is the author of twenty-five mystery novels in four series. She currently serves on the board of NorCal Mystery Writers of America. She's on the faculty of Golden Gate U. in SF, and teaches writing in the San Francisco Bay Area. Learn more about Camille and her books at her website. 

Caught Red-Handed

My husband catches me on the Internet again, at about three in the morning. Usually, I hear him coming, and I'm able to move my cursor quickly to the little x in the corner, and close my screen. But I'm engrossed, and don't respond in time.

Embarrassing!

"What are you doing looking at a map of New Hampshire?" he asks, standing in his pjs in our California house.

"I was just—"

The light dawns, he screws up his mouth, and accuses me.

"You're doing research, aren't you?"

Busted!

We have this conversation about once a book. There have been twenty-five of them, plus about a dozen short stories, so that's a lot of rehashing.

"It's fiction," he says every time. "Who cares how many miles long New Hampshire is?"

"It has the shortest coastline of any state," I tell him. "Eighteen miles. I need that fact for my story."

"As if," he says, and shuffles back to bed.

I'm convinced that I'm right—that readers do care. What if a book club in Manchester-by-the-Sea chooses my book for discussion. Do I want some conscientious fact checker to announce that I have my details wrong, that I've sent my character on a trip to Augusta, Maine and back in under an hour?

I remember a movie where a guy is sitting in a bar in Oakland, California at 11:50 PM and realizes he can save a man from execution in Sacramento (82 miles away) at midnight. He rushes up there and makes it just in time. That's a 2-hour trip in 10 minutes. No wonder that's all I remember about the movie.

Even as I wrote the Periodic Table Mysteries, a topic I know a lot about, I checked my information and made sure a couple of beta readers were scientists with a different specialty from mine.

I have the most fun when I'm writing about what I don't know. I've called on experts in fields as far from my academic wheelhouse as the Lincoln-Douglas debates and veterinary medicine; as foreign to me as ice-climbing and tap-dancing; as diverse as hotel management and waste water treatment (I don't recommend this tour without a personal supply of oxygen).

I'm on speaking terms with a police investigator, an airplane parts factory owner, a documentary film producer, a small town postmistress, and a freelance embalmer (my cousin once-removed, who says I'm the only one who asks for details about his work). I've read blogs by bail bondsmen and New York City doormen.

 

I've found that most people are willing to talk to me well beyond my specific needs for one paragraph of a novel. They give me unsolicited books, magazines, and video links to back up their information.

All of this is by way of respecting my characters and story enough to let them shine, and not be dulled or shunned because I have facts or details wrong.

Of course, now and then something slips through. My most well documented slip-through is in The Hydrogen Murder, my first novel. My protagonist, a retired physicist and inveterate East Coaster refers to Cinco de Mayo as Mexican Independence Day. Oops, I heard from as far away as Mexico City on that one.

I'm so glad I had a chance to clear things up in the edition of The Hydrogen Murder that appears in Sleuthing Women – a nice segue to a thank you to Lois Winston, who masterminds that project.

Now I'm off to do another search—researching the best way to poison someone, mimicking a heart attack.

It's 3 AM. I hope my husband doesn't catch me.

Addressed to Kill, Book 3 of the Postmistress Mysteries

Love is in the air for postmaster Cassie Miller and the residents of North Ashcot, Massachusetts. Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and the town is gearing up for a special dinner dance at the senior center. With the local musical group performing at the dance displaced from their regular practice location, Cassie is all too happy to host them during off-hours at the post office.

But not everything is coming up roses. When one of the musicians, Dennis Somerville, is found shot in his home, rumors swirl over who might have wanted him dead. Cassie must determine if there is a link between a string of recent break-ins and Dennis's murder before another victim winds up with more than a broken heart.

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST AUTHOR LEEANN BETTS

Leeann Betts writes contemporary suspense, while her real-life persona, Donna Schlachter, pens historical suspense. She has released five titles in her By the Numbers cozy mystery series. In addition, Leeann has written a devotional for accountants, bookkeepers, and financial folk, and with her real-life persona, Donna Schlachter, has published a book on writing, a compilation of essays, articles, and exercises on the craft. Learn more about Leeann and her books at her website and blog.  

Hidden Assets – the Story behind the story

Stories are everywhere, if we simply look for them.

I spent some time last year with a friend who had just taken a train ride from Denver to San Francisco. She gave me a lot of insight into how the ride went, about the dining room, the movement of the train, the miles during the night where there isn’t much to see, and how she’d read three books in three days, which was a real treat for her.

I got to thinking how much more exciting the trip would have been if she’d stumbled across a body. Or saw someone being thrown from the train. Okay, I love Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie.

When I sat down to start writing Hidden Assets, the latest book in my By the Numbers mystery series, I just knew there had to be a train involved somehow.

Except, the bulk of the story takes place at a B&B in Wyoming.

But then I remembered Carly’s second book, There Was a Crooked Man, and how an unrelated mystery happened on their plane ride to New Mexico. So I decided to change it up a bit by making the mystery on the train part of the overall story.

I did some research on train travel, and I’ve been to Wyoming a number of times, so pulling together a mystery set in a small town in rural Wyoming wasn’t too difficult.

Carly Turnquist, forensic accountant, visits a friend in Wyoming who is in the midst of a nasty divorce. Her friend thinks her soon-to-be ex is stealing assets and hiding them so he won’t have to split them with her in the divorce, and asks Carly to look into this. When the ex turns up dead, Carly’s friend is suspected. Toss in a body thrown from a train, and Carly is up to her nose in trouble again.

As I said, stories are everywhere. We simply need to look for them and ask the big What If? questions.

Hidden Assets

Carly Turnquist, forensic accountant, responds to a call from her friend, Anne, who is in the middle of a nasty divorce, and travels to Wyoming to help find assets Anne thinks her husband has stolen. But the mystery begins before Carly even arrives when she sees a man thrown off a train. Except there’s no body. Husband Mike uncovers an illegal scam in a computer program he has been asked to upgrade, and then Anne is arrested for her ex’s murder. Can Carly figure out what’s going on, and why a strange couple is digging in Anne’s basement? Or will she disappear along with the artwork, coins, and money?

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#TRAVEL TO A RECONSTRUCTED ROMAN FORT WITH GUEST AUTHOR SANDRA SCHWAB

The main gate of the Saalburg

Sandra Schwab is an author, artist, and translator with a PhD, a sketchbook, and a very large library. Since the release of her debut novel in 2005, she has enchanted readers worldwide with her unusual historical romances. She lives in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Learn more about Sandra and her books at her website. http://www.sandraschwab.com

I blame it all on Twitter. Yes, indeed, Twitter made me do it.

Back in the summer of 2014, I joined a combo on Twitter where readers talked about the relative lack of romances set in Ancient Rome. I mentioned that I happen to live near a former border of the Roman Empire, the Upper Germanic Limes—and the next thing I knew, I had somehow been talked into writing a romance set in Ancient Rome. When I had only ever written historicals set in the Regency era or the Victorian Age. Splendid.

What do you do in such a case, apart from buying oodles of new research books? You go on a field trip! Luckily, I don't just live near a former border of the Roman Empire; more importantly, I live near a reconstructed Roman fort.

The Saalburg lies on the crest of a range of hills called the Taunus, and along those hills ran the border, which at first was nothing more than a series of watchtowers connected by a path. It was the Emperor Hadrian who ordered the border to be strengthened by a wooden palisade (~ AD 130). Around the same time, the small timber fort on the site of the Saalburg was replaced by a larger fort with stone walls.

The military standards at the Saalburg

The Saalburg has the same basic layout that can be found in all forts and fortresses across the Roman Empire: The headquarters building, the principia, that also houses the shrine of the standards, stands in the middle of the fort, along with the praetorium, the residence of the commander. Granaries and workshops are close by, with the wooden barracks typically situated in the front and back of a fort. Tugged along the ramparts, you could find bread ovens as well as lavatories. Some forts also had a hospital and a bathhouse; however, in many cases, the latter could be found outside the fort itself and was part of the vicus, the civilian settlement next to a fort. The vicus housed the families of the soldiers (who couldn’t legally marry, but often entered informal connections) and also included the workshops of craftsmen, eateries, shops, and temples.

Centurion Ducky sitting atop the remains of the walls of the bathhouse

Living at the edge of the Roman Empire did not mean that you had to go without niceties. Finds from the Saalburg, which are exhibited in the reconstructed granaries, include pretty leather shoes, beautiful brooches, jewelry, and lovely tableware, among other things.

Kitchen vessel and pretty brooches from the Saalburg

Excavations at the Saalburg started in the mid-19^th century—before that time, the locals used the site as a stone quarry—and the first phase of the reconstruction lasted from 1897 to 1907. The Kaiser himself supported the project, and while this was no doubt beneficiary, he also influenced aspects of the reconstruction. The most obvious example of this is the legionary eagle standard in the shrine of the standards: Like most other forts along the borders of the Roman Empire, the Saalburg only ever housed auxiliary troops (which were recruited from inhabitants of the provinces) rather than a legion (soldiers serving in the legions were all Roman citizens).

Moreover, new research in the 20^th and 21^st centuries has proven some of the assumptions made during the first phase of reconstruction to be incorrect. Thus, we now know that the defensive walls as well as the stone-buildings in the fort would have all been plastered white with mortar seams painted on in red. The whole effect must have been striking!

I made the Saalburg the setting of my second Roman novel, Eagle's Honor: Ravished, but it wasn't just the museum itself that inspired me. There are numerous workshops and festivals throughout the year where visitors can learn many more details about Roman everyday life. Last year, I attended a Roman cookery workshop…

…and earlier this year, I attended a Roman market at the Saalburg, which also included a military show. Very inspiring indeed!

Eagle’s Honor: Ravished

A barbarian warrior, an enemy of Rome.

A sheltered young woman, the daughter of a Roman officer.

An unlikely love, threatened by the bloody strife at the borders of Roman Empire.

AD 190: When a fever ravages her father’s fort and kills her family, Livia has to leave Britannia behind and make a new home for herself in Rome. Lost in a world of grief, she finds little delight in the glittering capital of the empire. Nothing can penetrate the grey fog of her grief—except for the cool blue eyes of the slave Leontius, a barbarian warrior, a former gladiator, a man she ought to fear. And yet, she cannot help but crave his touch, even though he is an enemy of Rome; even though, should he ever manage to flee, he would unleash the anger of his tribe upon the border of the empire.

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