AUTHOR F.M. MEREDITH TACKLES A THORNY ISSUE IN HER LATEST ROCKY BLUFF P.D. #MYSTERY

Rocky Bluff Beach

F.M. Meredith is the author more than forty published novels; Not As We Knew It is the latest in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series. As Marilyn Meredith, she writes the award-winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, the latest, End of the Trail. She taught writing for Writers Digest Schools for ten years, was an instructor at the prestigious Maui Writers Retreat, and has taught at many writers’ conferences. For more than twenty years she lived in a beach town much like Rocky Bluff. Learn more about her and her books at her website and blog. 

Compelled to Write Something, Knowing it Won’t Be Popular

 

That was the situation I found myself in when I wanted to write my next Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery. Because this series is set in more-or-less real time, I felt I needed to add something about the Corona virus. I’d read a lot from other writers that they would not be including what was going on, and from readers that they didn’t want to read a book with the virus in it.

 

So what was I to do? I wrote the book I felt I had to write. After all, my characters live in the real world—the world I’ve created for them. How could I ignore something all of us are experiencing in one way or another?

 

The Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery series is as much about the families of the police officers as it is about any crimes they must solve. And to be perfectly honest, I had fun figuring out what each person might be facing as well as their opinions about the virus. After all, in my own family many diverse opinions were being expressed.

 

To find out how police departments were handing the mask situation, I talked to a grandson who is a police officer. And as for civilians in the story, I had plenty of experience of my own.

 

Something else that was going on during the time I was writing the book was the not-always-so-peaceful demonstrators who invaded towns. And yes, I thought this could make for an exciting plot twist, and once again I consulted my police officer grandson.

 

For anyone who might think the story is political, believe me, it’s not. What I’ve tried to do, as I’ve done in all the books in the series, is show what life is like for those in law enforcement and their families. To make this latest one real, I didn’t see how I could ignore what is going on in the world today, and what the characters might be experiencing.

 

Besides what I’ve shared already, the plot of Not As We Knew It has a lot more going on, including a missing woman and a deadly house fire. And for those of you who’ve never read a Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery, the setting is a small beach town between Ventura and Santa Barbara. 

 

Fortunately, it has received good reviews.

 

I’ve come to know these characters so well since I’ve written so many books about them, they seem real to me. I hope that my readers feel the same.

 

Not As We Knew It

A Rocky Bluff P.D. Mystery, Book 16

 

The challenges come one after another for the Rocky Bluff P.D. to handle, from a missing woman to a house fire.

 

Detective Doug Milligan is faced with new and unusual problems to solve, some on the job and others related to his family.

 

Gordon Butler isn’t too happy with the fact his wife was chosen to train the latest new hire.

 

With the department short-handed, Chief Chandra Butler must make some brave decisions in order to protect the town of Rocky Bluff.  Her romance with the mayor, which had been put on hold, is refreshed when she seeks his help.

 

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AUTHORS WILL ZELLINGER AND JANET ELIZABETH LYNN WRAP UP THEIR SKYLAR DRAKE #MYSTERY SERIES

Married authors Will Zeilinger and Janet Elizabeth Lynn wrote individually until they got together and created the Skylar Drake Mystery Series. The fifth and final book in this hard-boiled series based in old Hollywood of 1956-57 is now available. Learn more about Janet and Will and their books at their respective websites.  

Creating a Satisfying Conclusion to a Series

My husband, Will Zeilinger and I co-write the Skylar Drake Mysteries, a hardboiled detective series that takes the reader to 1950s Los Angeles and other areas of the west. Our new book, Game Town, is set in Hollywood and exposes a scandal that rocks the toy industry in Los Angeles.

The Skylar Drake Mystery series ends with Game Town. We found ourselves spending more time outlining this final book than the others. In the end we scratched our head and wondered "Why was it so difficult?"

We wanted to tie up plots and sub-plots rather than just not answer series questions.

The conclusion of a series is just as important as the beginning of a series. The reader has to be satisfied that there may not be a happy ending. After all, in mysteries, lovely characters die or don't get what they want or deserve. However, things need to end okay, so the reader who has been following the series feels satisfied.

Ending the series can also be a big letdown for the writers. Remember, we have been living with these characters for years. In our case, for five years.  During this time it was not unusual for our characters to follow us into the car and argue in the back seat over a moot point we hadn't addressed. Or we could have been happily writing an intense scene that took blood, sweat and tears by the time we finished, only for the character to put their foot down and demand a change because-it didn't work in the book.

The important thing in ending a series is to deliver on the vow made in the previous books to take the reader on a journey they will enjoy to the end and leave with memories of the trip.

Game Town

A Skylar Drake Mystery, Book 5

Skylar Drake is hired as a bodyguard for two young starlets. He delivers the actresses home after the Emmy Awards ceremony, but stumbles onto the murder of Silver Brovor-Smith, the mother of one of his charges. The FBI is on-scene. He wonders why they are there for a simple murder.Drake and his partner, Casey Dolan, are now on the case as suspicion shifts between the victim’s husband and her three brothers. Drake and Dolan are misled while kidnapping and mysterious deaths take them into the world of Hollywood backroom deals. They must keep the high-profile family from becoming front page news. Drake meets the perfect woman to help him move on, but is she a suspect? The letters P-E-G-O seem to appear everywhere. He thinks they may be connected to the crimes.Follow Skylar Drake to Hollywood parties where the forbidden is accepted and games played are for keeps.

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GRACIE ELLIOTT IS BACK IN A NEW MYSTERY

Today is the official release day for Literally Dead, the second book in author Lois Winston's Empty Nest Mystery series featuring amateur sleuth Gracie Elliott and her college professor husband Blake. The series was inspired by my love for the classic Thin Man movies starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, but my take on the husband/wife duo employs a modern spin.

Gracie and Blake were first introduced in Definitely Dead. Gracie is a textile designer whose career has been outsourced to a Third World nation. She’s also lost her pension, and she’s desperate to find a new career that will not only prevent her and Blake from spending their retirement years living above an auto repair shop but allow her time to pen her future bestselling romances—not that she’s actually finished a book yet.

Fast-forward to Literally Dead, and Gracie has indeed completed her first contemporary romance. She’s even won a writing competition that awards her with attendance at a weekend writing conference in New York. The book opens with Gracie experiencing the ultimate fan girl moment as she enters the lobby of the hotel and finds it swarming with many of her favorite authors.

However, Gracie soon realizes she’s stepped into a romance vipers’ den of backstabbing, deceit, and plagiarism. Luckily, she finds a friend and mentor in bestselling author Paisley Prentiss.

Hours later, when Gracie discovers the body of Lovinia Darling, the Queen of Romance, in the hotel stairwell, she’s not convinced her death is an accident. Too many other authors had reason to want Lovinia dead. Ignoring Blake’s advice to “let the police handle it,” Gracie, aided by Paisley, begins her own investigation into the death and quickly discovers romance has never been so deadly.

Literally Dead is now available as both a paperback and an ebook.

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FASHION WITH GUEST AUTHOR LOIS WINSTON

New Sleuth on the Block

by Lois Winston

Is Westfield, NJ big enough for two amateur sleuths? Hey, we’re talking New Jersey here—home to crooks, crime, and corruption. Mafia and murder. Of course, it’s big enough! However, I wondered if Anastasia would be willing to share the sleuthing limelight with another neighborhood sleuth.

When I posed the question to her, she didn’t exactly mince words. “Are you kidding, Lois? You think I’d be upset to have you leave me alone for a change while you pick on someone else and wreak havoc on her life? Give me a break!”

Which is exactly what I did. So with Anastasia’s blessing, I’d like to introduce you to Gracie Elliott, the protagonist of Definitely Dead, the first book in my new Empty Nest Mystery series.

As Gracie puts it:

All I wanted to do was sit at my computer and write romance novels while Blake sat across the room and two-finger pecked away at Pop Goes the Culture, his epic tome on twentieth century culture and counter-culture and its influences on the media. Or vice versa. It was a real chicken-and-egg sort of thing as far as I was concerned, even if it was my husband’s passion. Anyway, dead bodies weren’t part of our empty nest blueprint.

When her career as a fabric designer is outsourced to Asia, fledgling romance author and empty-nester Gracie Elliott realizes she needs to find another job or she could very well wind up living above an auto repair shop in Newark. With double college tuitions for their twins, she and husband Blake can’t afford her penchant for designer shoes and handbags— the tie-in to Thursday fashion blog posts ;-) —much less anything else, on his professor’s salary.

However, Gracie’s options are soon reduced to either retail sales or asking, “Do you want fries with that?” So she decides to open Relatively Speaking, an introduction service, becoming a wing woman to the senior set. Since her clients need several hours each morning to find their teeth, lube their creaky joints, and deal with lower GI necessities, and they always turn in after the early bird specials, she has plenty of time to pen her future bestsellers.

Gracie deliberately avoids mentioning her new business venture to Blake until she’s signed her first client. After a scene best left to the reader’s imagination (this is, after all, a cozy mystery,) Blake joins the company as a not-so-silent partner, tagging along to make sure Gracie doesn’t cause a septuagenarian uprising.

All is going quite well until Gracie discovers Client #13 murdered in the parking lot behind the Moose Lodge. She quickly realizes that no matter how much Blake might protest otherwise, she can’t wait around for the police to find the killer if she wants to save her livelihood. Along the way she considers turning her contemporary romance into a romantic suspense—if she survives her foray into sleuthing.

The Empty Nest Mystery series is a wink and a nod to Dashell Hammet’s Thin Man movies with Gracie and Blake as a modern day spin on Nick and Nora Charles. You can read an excerpt here. 

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Look for more books in the Empty Nest Mystery series in the future, as well as the next Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, currently in the plotting stage. 

You didn’t think I’d leave Anastasia off the hook for long, did you? 

AN ANASTASIA POLLACK CRAFTING MINI-MYSTERY

We don’t usually post on Saturdays, but author Lois Winston has sent me on another adventure, and this baby is hot off the cyber-presses. Did you notice the new cover over on the right sidebar? Crewel Intentions is an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery. For those of you anxiously awaiting next month’s release of Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, think of it as a little appetizer to tide you over while you await the main course.

In this short story addition to the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series about moi, I receive a desperate phone call from former American Woman fashion editor Erica Milano. You remember Erica, don’t you? She was fashion editor Marlys Vandenberg’s assistant in Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun and took over as fashion editor when my glue gun dispatched Marlys to that big catwalk in the sky.

Erica is now in Witness Protection and living under a new identity in Western Pennsylvania. But someone is stalking her, and she has compelling reasons why she can’t go to the police or notify her Witsec handlers. I’m the only person she can trust to help her (lucky me!) and she knows I won’t let her down. After all, she once saved my life.

But will I be able to return the favor before the stalker strikes?

Want a nibble? There’s an excerpt on Lois’s website.

Crewel Intentions is available as an ebook only from Amazon right now. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can borrow it for free. Otherwise, it’s a mere $1.99.

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY -- GUEST AUTHOR LAUREN CARR

Dear Readers, I regret to inform you that our much anticipated visit from the great Robin Spencer had been cancelled due to her unexpected death this spring. The author of eighty-seven murder mysteries, most of them best sellers, plays, and movies, Robin was the undisputed American Queen of Mystery. She will be greatly missed all over the world by her fans. However, her assistant, Archie Monday, was kind enough to visit to tell us about what has been happening at Robin’s estate on the shores of Deep Creek Lake in Maryland since her long lost son Mac Faraday moved in.

You can read more about the goings-on at Deep Creek Lake from author Lauren Carr at her website http://laurencarr.webs.com/ and blog http://writerlaurencarr.blogspot.com/. Lauren is also offering a copy of It’s Murder, My Son to one lucky reader who posts a comment to Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers this week. -- AP

Thank you, Anastasia, for letting me fill Robin’s very big shoes--and I don’t mean that literally! But, after working as her editor and research assistant for over a decade, I knew that Robin wouldn’t have it any other way. Robin was like a mother to me and she’d want her fans to know what has been going on at Spencer Manor.

Most of you are probably surprised to find out that Robin Spencer even had a son. He was the Spencer family’s deep dark secret. While Robin was in high school, she and her first love had a baby together. Her folks forced her to put the baby up for adoption and shipped her off to college. Meanwhile, her first love, Patrick O’Callaghan, got married and went on to become Spencer’s police chief. I only found out about it a few years ago when Robin asked me to find her son for her.

I found him in less than three weeks. If there’s a record of something anywhere in cyberspace, I’ll find it. That’s what I do.

Would you believe it? The baby of the world’s most famous murder mystery writer had grown up to become a top-notch homicide detective. It has to be in the genes.

I don’t think any of Robin Spencer’s fans were as surprised to find out that she had a baby out of wedlock as Mac Faraday.

After twenty years of marriage, Mac’s wife had left him for an assistant district attorney who used his influence to get Mac taken to the cleaners in his divorced. She got everything! So lawyers were not Mac’s favorite people.

Robin’s lawyer was finally able to catch up with Mac on the day his divorce became final to inform him that he had inherited an estate worth two-hundred-and seventy million dollars, give or take a million. That includes Spencer Manor here on the Point on Deep Creek Lake. But Robin had stipulated that I get to continue living in the guest house on her estate as long as I want. I guess you might say I came with the house.

His ex-wife’s loss is my gain. (Oh! Did I really say that?)

Mac is still trying to settle into life at Spencer Manor.  I could tell the first day that he wasn’t going to be your average millionaire playboy rubbing elbows on the golf course at the Spencer Inn. For example, he’s been trying to hire a housekeeper and cook, but so far he’s had no luck. He had one likely candidate, but she ran screaming from the house when Gnarly, Robin’s German shepherd, dragged a dismembered head with a bullet hole in it into the living room.

Spencer’s police chief, an idiot appointed by the town council after Pat O’Callaghan died, assumed it belonged to Katrina Singleton’s killer and closed her case as a murder-suicide.

Well, having investigated well over a hundred murder cases during his career as a homicide detective, Mac was shocked to see a case closed so fast without any investigation. And when the police chief got snooty after Officer David O’Callaghan, Mac’s half-brother, pointed out evidence that didn’t fit with a murder-suicide—Well, the game got afoot really fast!

Who’s Katrina Singleton? Katrina was our next door neighbor. She was found in the family room with her throat crushed the day after the Valentine’s Day blizzard.

No one could understand Katrina’s murder. Her first husband had been killed less than two years before she was murdered. He had been attacked and killed up at Abigail’s Rock. Katrina swore that the killer was a disgruntled client of hers from Washington, but he had an alibi. Months turned into years and Katrina said that her stalker was still after her, but no one could ever catch him.

Then, the blizzard hit Deep Creek Lake on Valentine’s Day. Katrina was dead and Gnarly, her German shepherd, almost died trying to protect her.

Robin saved Gnarly and adopted him. Mac and Robin’s dog got off to a rocky start when Gnarly tried to kill Mac when they first met, but they get along okay now, as long as Mac doesn’t try to sit in Gnarly’s love seat.

Well, I’m running out of time, and I would love to tell you how, with the help of Robin’s journal, this retired cop put all his detective skills to work to pick up where the local police had left off to follow the clues to Katrina’s killer.  But I guess you’re going to have to find that out for yourself. Order your copy of It’s Murder, My Son by author Lauren Carr today.

Thanks for the lowdown, Archie. And thank you, Lauren for offering a copy of It’s Murder, My Son to one of our readers this week. Remember, if you want to be entered in the drawing to win a copy of It’s Murder, My Son, post a comment to the blog. -- AP

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY -- GUEST AUTHOR SHEILA LOWE

Our guest author today at Book Club Friday is Sheila Lowe. Sheila has one of the most interesting professions I’ve ever come across. She’s a handwriting analyst and has given that profession to the amateur sleuth she created in her Claudia Rose mystery series. Sheila is giving away the book of your choice from her series to someone who posts a comment this week. You can learn more about Sheila at either of her two websites, Www.claudiaroseseries.com or Www.sheilalowe.com, and you can follow her on Twitter: @sheila_lowe. -- AP

HOW A HANDWRITING ANALYST CAME TO BE A MYSTERY WRITER

On my eighth birthday, my favorite gift was a book by beloved British children’s author, Enid Blyton. The Rockingdown Mystery was part of a series featuring four kids a little older than me, who had all sorts of scary, mysterious, wonderful adventures. That’s when my lifelong love of mystery fiction was born.

I was fourteen when my family moved to America and I started writing my own stories. The Beatles were just getting famous and as I was an insane Beatlemaniac, my stories were about the Fab Four, and I was married to Ringo. Yeah, man, grotty. My new friends at Fremont junior high in Anaheim were impressed with my fishnet stockings and Carnaby Street togs, and they champed at the bit, waiting for each installment—heady praise, gave me an inflated sense of my own worth, no doubt, but loads of fun.

Throughout my high school years I read a gothic mystery a day—no wonder my grades were lagging—and along the way, a desire to write my own mystery novel began to simmer. I tried my hand at a historical mystery-romance, thinking that my writing followed the style of my favorite author of the time, Victoria Holt (don’t laugh!). Fast-forward a lot of years...

About ten years after having two non-fiction books published on handwriting analysis, which is my main profession, I finally got my wish to publish a mystery. Well, that makes it sound easy, and it was anything but.

Some of the thousands of handwriting samples I’ve analyzed for psychologists, attorneys, law enforcement, businesses, and just plain folk were novel-worthy tales that contained the seeds of a good mystery, and I found one that particularly resonated. Still, it was another seven years of rejections, revisions, and heartbreaks before that first mystery, Poison Pen, saw print. But when it did it got a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly, and that led to a contract with a big publishing house, and here we are, three years later with the fourth book in the series, Last Writes, about to be released on July 6th. My love of mystery reading continues unabated and so does my love of writing them.

Thanks so much for joining us today, Sheila!
Remember, if you’d like a chance to win a copy of your choice of a book from Sheila’s Claudia Rose series, post a comment to the blog. And don’t forget to check back tomorrow to find out if you’re the winner. -- AP

CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--GUEST AUTHOR AND SCRAPBOOK CRAFTER JOANNA CAMPBELL SLAN

Today I have something a bit different for all you crafts and mystery lovers.  Author Joanna Campbell Slan is our guest crafter.  Joanna is the author of the Kiki Lowenstein Scrap-N-Craft Mystery Series.  Kiki is a scrapbooking amateur sleuth, and Joanna includes scrapbooking projects and tips in each book, along with a coupon for a special offer for crafters. The first book in the Scrap-N-Craft series—Paper, Scissors, Death—was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Mystery. The third book in the series—Photo, Snap, Shot—has just been released. Publisher’s Weekly has praised it as “a cut above the usual craft-themed cozy.”

Joanna has graciously offered a copy of Photo, Snap, Shot.  So be sure to post a comment this week to be eligible for the drawing.

Joanna also teaches projects at scrapbook stores and scrapbooking conventions around the country and has written for most of the scrapbooking magazines. Visit her at www.JoannaSlan.com where you can sign up for her free newsletter.  You can also catch her weekly blog at http://www.KillerHobbies.blogspot.com and her personal blog at http://JoannaSlan.blogspot.com

-- AP            

GLITTER UP!

By Joanna Campbell Slan

Readers tell me they love Kiki’s down-to-earth personality. She’s a lot like most of us. She loves too much, worries too much, and eats too much. But when someone she loves is in danger, Kiki rises to the occasion. Recently Kiki became part-owner of Time in a Bottle, the store where she works. While she’s always been very creative, the fact she’s financially responsible for the store’s success has made Kiki even more creative about her craft.

Lately Kiki and I have both noticed that glitter is HOT!

If you love the look of bling—and who doesn’t?—here’s an inexpensive way to put a bit of glitz in any hum-drum project. It’s easy to make your cards, invitations, and scrapbook pages sparkle!

Supplies: A stamp, an inkpad, and paper to create an image OR a piece of patterned paper OR a ready-made embellishment. A piece of typing or copy paper to catch the excess glitter. Some clear drying glue, a few toothpicks, a small watercolor brush, and glitter.

1. Stamp your image and color it in.

 * Tip 1: I don’t worry about coloring outside of the lines when I plan to cut out my image.

 * Tip 2: Blend your pencil colors together expertly by overlaying your colored image with a lighter shade. After I finished coloring, I went over the entire tea cup with a white lead pencil. The layer of white blended my colors and brought a smoother, more finished look to the final image.

Alternately, choose a patterned paper or a ready-made embellishment and skip to Step #2 below:

2. Using a toothpick, spread clear-drying glue on the portion of the image you want to sparkle. I spread the glue inside the flower on the teacup.

* Tip 1: A toothpick dispenser built like a salt shaker is perfect for scrapbookers. The holes in the top allow you to shake out one or two toothpicks as needed, using one hand!

* Tip 2: Always test your glue to be sure it dries clear. Some of those glue makers lie!

3. Sprinkle the glitter onto your project. Lightly tamp the glitter down with the tip of your finger.

* Tip 1: Fold a plain piece of typing paper in half and put it under your project. That way when you are done, you can tap the project against the typing paper, tap the glitter into the fold, and return the extra glitter to its container. Replace the glitter one color at a time so you don’t dilute the colors.

* Tip 2: The smaller the image, the finer the flake size of the glitter you’ll want to use. On this project, a large flake glitter would have obscured the borders of the flower.

4. Before the glue dries, use a clean toothpick to “clean up” the edges of your stamped and glittered image. You can wipe away any excess glitter with the tip of the toothpick.

* Tip: Use a small watercolor paint brush to brush away stray bits of glitter.

           

5. Let your project dry thoroughly before you cut it out. (How many times have I hurried through this step and messed up? You don’t want to know!)

6. Adhere your new and improved embellishment to your project.

And that’s what I call, putting on the glitz! It couldn’t be easier!

Thanks for stopping by, Joanna!  So, readers, have you glittered up anything lately?  Tell us about it.  You may be the luck winner of Photo, Snap, Shot.  Remember, anyone who posts a comment this week is entered to win.  Check back Saturday to see if you’re the lucky winner. -- AP