WHY MYSTERY AUTHOR AMY M. READE WORRIES THE FEDS MAY COME KNOCKING

Bestselling author Amy M. Reade writes cozy, historical, and Gothic mysteries. Learn more about her and her books at her website.  

Research:  It’s all Fun & Games Until the FBI Comes Knocking 

When I meet a new reader, one question I’m often asked is how much research I have to conduct to write a book.

 

The answer is always the same. It depends. 

 

It depends on the book, the series, the complexity of the subject matter, and the amount of time I’m able to spend on it. 

 

Before I go any further, you should know something about me: I am a research addict. I would research random stuff all day long if I thought I could get paid for it. And though I don’t want to go so far as to say it’s my favorite part of writing, it’s pretty high on the list. 

 

Because I’m almost ready to delve into laying the groundwork for my next two books, I’ve got research on my mind. I thought I’d share with you some of the off-the-wall, I’m-probably-on-a-watch-list stuff I’ve had to study while writing my books. 

 

Some of you will know that I write mysteries. Even the most bare-bones mystery writing lends itself to a lot of questions about bodies, murder weapons, motives for committing crimes, etc. 

 

For example, once a mystery writer settles on a murder weapon, there’s often a good amount of research that must be done before the first murder scene can be written. Does it matter if the weapon wielder is right-handed or left-handed? Is that weapon something that could realistically be obtained by the person committing the murder? How much does it weigh? What does it look like? Could it cause injury to the murderer, too? Can it be used without leaving a trace of DNA behind? Does it require any special ability to use?

 

Likewise with bodies. What are the stages of decomposition? Can you smell a body that’s been dead less than twenty-four hours? 

 

I could go on, but I don’t want to gross you out completely. You get the idea. Even for contemporary mysteries that seem to involve straightforward murders (if there is such a thing), you can bet a lot of reading and studying went into writing about it. 

 

So without further ado, here is my list of the ten most memorable things I’ve had to research in pursuit of a good story:

 

1. How much blood has to leak from a body to turn the water pink in a 25,000-gallon swimming pool? (Alas, this particular bit of research also required some math.)

 

2. What organs is a knife likely to nick in a stabbing of one’s lower torso?

3. What are the symptoms of poisoning by a particular radioactive isotope?

 

4. How much money do good strippers make?

 

5. How long does it take someone to drown?

 

6. Would one’s skin smell if he or she were hit with a hot fireplace iron?

 

7. How likely is it that a broken rib will puncture a lung?

 

8. If a wolf eats a person, do they leave any bits behind?

 

9. What happens if you poke a shark in the eye?

 

10. How long does it take for a decomposing body to begin to emit foul odors in a hot, humid environment?

 

As always when I start working on a new book, I look forward to adding more items to this list!

 

What about you? What things have you read about or written that might make the feds come knocking?

 

St. Patrick’s Fray

A Juniper Junction Cozy Holiday Mystery, Book 7

 

Lilly could use a little luck o’ the Irish...

 

When a business tycoon winds up dead shortly after unleashing a scathing and humiliating criticism of Lilly and her jewelry designs, Lilly finds herself under suspicion of committing murder. And though she has an alibi, the only person who can confirm it is a two-month-old baby.

 

To make matters worse, Lilly’s shop is the target of a shocking St. Patrick’s Day smash-and-grab robbery by an unlikely and frightful assailant. The real horror, though, comes after the robbery, when Lilly and her husband become the targets of an extortionist who’s willing to go to frightening lengths to get what he wants.

 

Can Lilly turn her luck around before the killer strikes again and she loses the people most dear to her?

 

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AUTHOR M. ELLE KELSO ON RESEARCHING FOR RANCH-SET NOVELS

M. Elle Kelso is a Canadian writer who crosses genres from western/action, paranormal and suspense. But they all have one thing in common—a little hint of romance. Learn more about her and her books at her website. 

Git along little dogies…

...not doggies, as I see written in some places. And for those of you who don’t know what a dogie is...it’s a motherless calf. 

 

That's just one of the mistakes I’ve seen in books when authors, like me, don’t know everything there is to know about their subject, yet write as though they do.

 

One of my favorite things to hate is reading about cows. Cows are a thing. But the chances of every animal in the herd on a good-sized cattle ranch being a cow are slim and next to none. Maybe even none. The actual fact is that a lot of that herd will be steers. That’s a neutered bull calf allowed to mature to beef weight. Or some may be heifers (pronounced heffers for all you non-farm people.) That’s the young females who haven’t been bred yet. The rest will be cows, and maybe, depending on the animal himself and the time of year, one or even two, could be bulls. 

 

The reason I say time of year is that there likely wouldn’t be a bull in a pasture full of cows who are ready to be bred unless that is why the bull is there in the first place. And if that’s the case, there won’t be any steers in the pasture or likely even heifers unless they’re to be bred to that specific bull as well. Hormones are just as wild in animals as they can be in people.

 

The same thing can apply to horses in many ways, but there are definitely some things you wouldn’t want to do. You’d never put more than one stallion in the same pasture with another if there is even the slightest possibility of one of the mares coming into heat, and it is usually inadvisable to pasture two stallions at any time. Stallions and gelding will get along since the gelding isn’t moved by hormones—his or of any other horse. Mares cycle on an approximately 21-day cycle of seven days in heat, fourteen out. Length of daylight will affect most mares, and they will be out of heat from autumn, through winter and back in come spring. 

 

And again, terminology in horses can be hard to understand and get right.

 

Foals are all babies. Colts are male foals up to three years old. Then they are assumed to be ready to be used for breeding and are called stallions or studs. Fillies are female colts up to three years old, then are called mares and are usually ready to be bred. 

 

Other horsey terminology are things like the type of horse: draft (working horses, usually bigger and heavier than) light or saddle breeds (those horses used in many sports such as rodeo, jumping, eventing, driving) I could write an entire book on just how many breeds there are, what their uses are and how to identify them, but instead I’d advise you to go to your search bar and type in ‘types of horses’. Then go to the Wikipedia page. You’ll find more than you ever wanted to know on that site. 

 

Just know that if you don’t do that and describe a Quarter horse as a dressage horse, you’ll be laughed at, or the book will end up against a wall.

 

Once you have figured out what kind of cattle or horses your ranch will be stocked with, make sure to find out exactly how many of each kind can be supported by the land mass you’ve chosen for the ranch. Like I said in an earlier blog, 100 cattle on ten acres won’t fit—they’d be standing on top of each other.

 

In No Bull I used quarter horses and Herefords. Both are farm or ranch use animals. Hereford cattle are beef cattle. Unless you’re talking about a dairy farm, the word Holstein should never show up in a ranching book. 

 

That’s just some of the problems with linguistics you run up against when writing western placed novels. Tread carefully to avoid becoming a laughingstock.

 

If you need help, feel free to contact me at mellekelso@gmail.com. I’m happy to assist if I can.

 

Ring Shy

Cyber Cowboy Series, Book 1

 

Meet the Cyber Cowboys—a tough bunch of private eyes who know computers and the law inside out and backward. Every time they step out of their computer-P.I. boots—answer a call that doesn’t include black-hat hackers, online hustlers and fraudulent con artists—they meet nothing but trouble. Attempted murder, arson, rustling, and abduction they can handle. Falling in love sends them looking for the ‘help’ button. Computers? Artificial intelligence has nothing to do with it! In every case, these laid back investigators have to get down and dirty to save the women they love. They help multi-national companies and governments fix their problems...but when trouble hits and love gets involved? They’re the ones who need rescuing

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The Corbin, Taylor & Wynn Investigative Agency is three men (Blake Corbin, Jared Wynn and David Taylor) who’ve been in business together for years. The agency is headquartered in Cheyenne, Wyoming when the series begins but soon moves to the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. Business is so good they hire additional investigators and even the new guys aren’t immune to the trouble love can cause.

 

The Cyber Cowboys series is four stories of romantic suspense and skullduggery set in Wyoming and Oregon. Additional stories may augment the series based on the characters who work for the agency. 

 

In Ring Shy lawyer-rancher-investigator Blake Corbin is hired by Kaycee Morgan’s father Patrick to find out who is trying to kill her. Vandalism escalates to arson and attempted murder in a vendetta against Kaycee and her show dog kennel. Black, the help from his partners and a few friends in the Portland Police Department, corrals the bad guy and lassoes the girl.

 

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#TRAVEL FOR RESEARCH WITH GUEST AUTHOR KATHERINE RAMSLAND

Paris Cemetery

Katherine Ramsland teaches forensic psychology and has consulted for CSI and Bones. She’s published 58 books and over 1,000 articles, mostly devoted to crime, forensics, and serial murder. She also writes a blog for Psychology Today. Hearts of Darkness is a paranormal murder mysteries series. Learn more about Katherine and her books at her website.

Use “Thought Paths” for Texture and Mood

My best research for fiction is situated: I seek ways to experience a place, item, procedure, or issue that I want to use for my characters. It’s like living in a house that I’m renovating while I’m writing about its renovation. Travel is part of this process. Visiting my settings is one of the best ways to situate a tale. In part, it’s to see them, and in part, it’s to feel them.

I have always traveled for research. Why should I use someone else’s photo of a broch in Scotland when I can tramp through fields to stand in front of one? Of course, I would go to Maui to find Lindbergh’s isolated grave, or spend four hours in Cimetiére de Montmartre to ensure there’s a tomb of adequate size. For my Hearts of Darkness series, The Ripper Letter and Track the Ripper, my primary settings were in New York, London, and Paris.

For context, I often pick locations according to “thought-paths” – the trace of creative juices from thinkers, artists, and writers who worked in a specific place. Thought-paths provide subtle texture. Gestalt psychology holds that we can see the details of a figure only against a background. This also applies to our characters: they need settings. We don’t notice the background, but it still sheds feeling tones. A white figure against black, for example, feels different from white on gray. Or red. Characters entangled on a bed feel different from those characters on a table or inside a freshly dug grave.

For me, thought-paths feed the background tone and mood.

For Track the Ripper, I visited areas on the Left Bank in Paris where writers had lived, dined, and met for consolation and admiration. At the Café de Flore, you feel the ghosts of Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus discussing the vertigo of free will. You sense Hemmingway in a warm brasserie on a cold winter day, scribbling precious words. I gave my characters a residence here.

For murderers and magists, I looked for darker thought-paths. 

In London’s Whitechapel neighborhood, my research on Jack the Ripper had turned up an interesting fact, which launched The Ripper Letter. During the Ripper’s murder spree in 1888, hundreds of letters arrived to police and news outlets purporting to be from the killer, including one that offered the enduring moniker, “Jack the Ripper.” Although we don’t know if the killer sent any letters, some Ripperologists view the “From Hell” missive as the best candidate. It arrived with half of a preserved human kidney (and a kidney was missing from victim #4). Crime historian Donald Rumbelow discovered that the original From Hell letter was missing from police files.

So, who has it, and why? I focused on a suspect whose background offered intrigue. Dr. Roslyn “D’Onston” Stephenson was a former military surgeon who’d studied magic. I linked him to a series of contemporary murders in New York and created my female detective, Dianysus Brentano. To use the Big Apple’s settings for mood, I explored distinct areas of Brooklyn and Manhattan, such as the Met and Belvedere Castle in Central Park. Being at these locations not only yielded texture but also ideas about hiding places and escape routes.

For Track the Ripper, I needed to map out Whitechapel, to learn about it during the Ripper’s murders and also today. I can’t very well set something in a building on Leman Street if I don’t know what this street looks like. (Google Maps delivers these images in 3D, but not the all-important feeling tones from a busy street.) I took the crowded Tube, as my characters did, so I would know the right stops.

Ripper Alley

My Ripper suspect had mystical alliances in Paris, so I learned about the Society of Mutual Autopsy (a real organization) and a French “magist,” Eliphas Levi. I visited the Saint-Sulpice cathedral where Levi had his religious training. When I saw the soaring columns and vaulted ribs to the dome, I was better able to appreciate his ideas about magic and immortality. I also went to the Montmartre arrondissement, to see its winding streets, the Basilica de Sacre Couer, and the cemetery.

For background tones, I listened to the rhythms of French, watched the ebb and flow of people, and noted places where a plot could unfold. I merged figure with background to situate my story with grit, to better see my characters in motion. I know how Dianysus feels when she wanders through a crowded maze of mossy tombs or sees the Basilica’s ceiling mural. I felt heat simmering off the overlook on a summer day. I even drove a motorcycle.

It’s easy to forget the importance of background, but going out to experience your settings will remind you of how they can set a mood, move a plot, and deepen characters. You cannot see figures clearly without background, and the more you work at situate your background, the more grounded your story will be. I prefer to use thought-paths, but you might find a different route.

The Ripper Letter: Book One of The Hearts of Darkness Series

Ancient codes and a legendary killer lure a young detective into a dark and dangerous world. When a murdered historian is marked with a mysterious code, homicide detective Dee Brentano worries about his colleague – her missing father, Alexandre. FBI special agent J. R. Pierce tells her that Alexandre is wanted for this murder. Desperate to find him first, she discovers that Alexandre has items that several people – including Pierce – would kill to possess. One is a letter attributed to Jack the Ripper. Another is an erotic cryptograph. Dee encounters a potential ally in Detective Gregory Brenner. She’s attracted to him, but fears that he’s playing her to find her father. She’s also drawn to her father’s protégé, Scott Bateman, who can decode the Ripper letter’s secret message and the symbol on the murdered historian. It’s bait for luring supernatural entities. It’s also a map to locating her father. Dee must choose her path wisely. One leads to a supernatural lover, the other to an immortal serial killer.

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