A CHAT WITH TEMPE CRABTREE FROM AUTHOR MARILYN MEREDITH'S TEMPE CRABTREE MYSTERY SERIES

Today we sit down for a chat with Tempe Crabtree from the Tempe Crabtree Mystery Series by Marilyn Meredith.

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

First, I am Native American. I worked as a resident deputy in the mountain community of Bear Creek. As a young widow, I raised my son on my own until I met, fell in love with, and married a pastor. 

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

I care about people and what happens to them. That’s why I never give up when trying to solve a mystery.

What do you like least about yourself?

That I didn’t learn much about my Indian heritage until I met Nick Two John who has helped me learn about the spirituality and mysticism of my culture.

What is the strangest thing your author has had you do or had happen to you?

Ghosts and spiritual beings becoming a part of my life. I’ve been visited many times by the spirits of murder victims—and even demons and angels.

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

Not so much argue, but I do make her understand and see what I will do when something happens to people I care about, or to me. 

What is your greatest fear?

That something might happen to my husband Hutch because of something I’ve done, or someone I’m investigating.

What makes you happy?

Solving a case and helping a soul to find rest. And because I now have a grandchild, being a part of his life.

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

I’d learn about my heritage much sooner than I did. Because Nick Two John opened my eyes to a whole part of my life I should have known about.

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

In this particular book, it’s the husband of the murder victim. He is not the person I thought he was. 

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

I don’t think I’d trade places with anyone in this book or any of the others. I’ve had a great life. Yes, there’s been some heartache, but I share a great love with my husband, raised a son who is now grown, married, and a father. I’ve had a great career as a deputy, had some amazing adventures, met many intriguing people, and solved a multitude of puzzling mysteries.

Tell us a little something about your author. 

Marilyn Meredith is the author of more than forty books, including the Tempe Crabtree Mystery Series and the Rocky Bluff P.D. series. She lives in a place with a great resemblance to Bear Creek, where I worked. Readers can find her at her website and blog.

 

What’s next for you?

A Final Farewell is the last book in the series. My husband and I are starting a new life, one you’ll have to imagine.

 

A Final Farewell

A Tempe Crabtree Mystery, Book 20

 

A woman’s body found in a neighbor’s pond piques Tempe’s curiosity. It isn’t long before she is enmeshed in the intrigue and gossip surrounding the mystery.

 

Miqui Sherwood has two handsome suitors both wanting to marry her. Does either one have any ties to the murder victim?

 

Tempe’s life is threatened, and the health of Tempe’s friend and mentor, Nick Two John, is failing.

 

Buy Links

paperback

ebook

AUTHOR DONALEE MOULTON ON SETTING A MYSTERY IN HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Donalee Moulton is a writer and freelance journalist. Her mystery short stories have appeared in Cold Canadian Crime and Black Cat Weekly. Hung out to Die is her first full-length mystery. She’s also the author of The Thong Principle: Saying What You Mean and Meaning What You Say and the co-authored of Celebrity Court Cases. Learn more about Donalee and her books at her website. 

In the right place

Locating your characters where they belong

 

Céad míle fáilte. This Gaelic expression means “a hundred thousand welcomes.” If you live in Nova Scotia, as I do, this is an expression you will have seen for much of your life. (Pronouncing it is a different issue altogether.) A hundred thousand welcomes in any language speaks to the type of people you are likely to encounter when you come here and the values they place on such encounters.

 

Riel Brava – attractive, razor-sharp, ambitious, and something much more –

is the lead character in my new mystery, Hung Out to Die. He lives in Elmsdale, Nova Scotia, about a 40-minute drive from Halifax, the province’s capital. In East Coast parlance, Riel is a come from away. 

 

Fact is, I could have placed Riel in the middle of anywhere. The murder is not location specific. The victim does not fall from the Brooklyn Bridge or mysteriously appear atop Old Faithful, places that are singular. Nova Scotia made sense for me as a writer, and it made sense for Riel as a character. I live here; I know this province better than any other place. I can write about it with ease, and with a personal perspective.

 

For Riel, who lives uncomfortably in a world where people hug each other because they care and share the pain of others because their brain is wired that way, being in a place where he does not have roots, where he is an outsider, mirrors what goes on within Riel. It’s the right place for him.

 

Because I am from Nova Scotia, I can also authentically and naturally insert elements of life here. Take the language, for instance. You may discover some new words such as bejesus and tinchlet. There will be expressions common to the area. “Bless your heart” is one you’ll hear a lot in Nova Scotia, and Riel hears it as well. 

 

There is also food that has Nova Scotia marinated into it, as Riel discovers when he has a donair for the first time Donairs are a Halifax specialty and considered by some to be Nova Scotia’s official food. Aficionados spend a great deal of time discussing the nuances of the dish, thin slices of spiced beef on a warm pita, sprinkled with diced onion and tomato, and swimming in a sweet, garlicky sauce. 

 

One of the things I have learned as a writer is that I am in control, and I am not in control. I can decide to situate a character in a particular place, and the character will let me know if that is the right place as the writing unfolds. In the case of Riel, he ends up in the dark of winter at a deserted row of cottages called, what else, Céad míle fáilte.

 

I did not see that coming. I have a feeling Riel did.

 

Hung Out to Die

 

Meet Riel Brava. Attractive. Razor-sharp. Ambitious. And something much more. 

 

Riel, raised in Santa Barbara, California, has been transplanted to Nova Scotia where he is CEO of the Canadian Cannabis Corporation. It’s business as usual until Riel finds his world hanging by a thread. Actually, several threads. It doesn’t take the police long to determine all is not as it appears – and that includes Riel himself.

 

Pulled into a world not of his making, Riel resists the hunt to catch a killer. Resistance is futile. Detective Lin Raynes draws the reluctant CEO into the investigation, and the seeds of an unexpected and unusual friendship are sown. Raynes and Riel concoct a scheme to draw a confession out of the killer, but that plan is never put into place. Instead, Riel finds himself on the butt end of a rifle in the ribs and a long drive to the middle of Nowhere, Nova Scotia.

 

Why would someone want Norm dead, innocuous Norman Bedwell? A motive for murder is buried somewhere, and self-professed psychopath and cannabis production manager, Riel Brava, works with Detective Lin Raynes, aided by endless exotic coffee blends, to find it. As the noose tightens on an increasingly smaller number of suspects, who knew finding a murderer would be so simple? 

 

In the end, of course, it isn’t.

 

Buy Links

paperback

ebook

MYSTERY AUTHOR MERRILEE ROBSON ON THOSE NASTY NEIGHBORS AND THE NEW GUPPY ANTHOLOGY

The Neighborhood

Merrilee Robson’s short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, The People’s Friend, Mystery Magazine, and many other magazines and anthologies. Her traditional mystery, Murder is Uncooperative, is set in a non-profit housing co-op. Along with serving on the boards of several writing organizations, she’s served two years on the Vancouver Police Board, which provides civilian oversight to the Vancouver Police Department. Learn more about Merrilee and her mysteries at her website. 

There Goes the Neighborhood

My neighbors are lovely. I live on a street with block parties, an active neighborhood watch program, and outdoor caroling events each winter. We share gardening tips over the back fence and invite neighbours over for a glass of wine on summer evenings.

 

So why is my short story, “The Ass-in,” recently published in Hook, Line and Sinker: The Seventh Guppy Anthology, about a very bad neighbor?

 

Maybe it’s because almost everyone has had experiences with problem neighbors. Maybe the older woman in the apartment who pounded on the ceiling and complained to the landlord whenever the students above walked across the floor in their own home. The people borrowing things they never return. Or the guy learning to play the bagpipes!

 

Or maybe the idea was prompted by temporary irritation at the electric saws and hammering that are part of the inevitable home renovation projects necessary in my neighborhood of 100-year-old homes.

 

In any case, although my short stories are often traditional mysteries solved by amateur sleuths, one of the things I love most about writing short stories is the chance to try writing different types of crime fiction. I thought it would be fun (and funny) to write about an apartment building occupied by Wally, a problem neighbor.

 

But it wasn’t. I wasn’t happy with my first draft. Written from the point of view of Keira, the victim of her criminal neighbor, it was more in line with the traditional mysteries I usually write.

 

But it didn’t work in the way I wanted. Keira wasn’t really taking action. She was simply reacting to the things Wally was doing. It wasn’t interesting. And it wasn’t funny.

 

In a writing class I once took, the instructor advised us that, if a scene wasn’t working, try writing it from the perspective of a different character.

 

Bingo.

 

Wally’s voice took hold. He was taking action, however haplessly. It was funny. At least I thought so.

 

So, when I saw the call for submissions for Hook, Line and Sinker, looking for stories of grifters, con artists and their victims, I knew this story had found a home.

In this new anthology, twenty-three authors have taken the common theme and created an array of very different stories, from cozy to noir and from historical to contemporary. Vulnerable seniors or small town innocents turn the tables on slick con artists, and things don't always work out the way the grifters expect.

Of course, as Wally explains in my story, none of this was his fault. It was all because of the dog.

 

Hook, Line & Sinker

The Seventh Guppy Anthology

 

Mystery deep inside, in that place you hide from the world, have you ever considered how you would carry off a great con? Or maybe secretly plotted revenge for falling prey to a grifter, liar, or cheat? As these twenty-three authors of devious plot twists show, whether it’s running a con or extracting revenge, it doesn’t always go the way you expected. In this seventh anthology of short stories from the 1,100 - member Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime, the stakes are high: money, power, love, and life itself. The stories range from Tudor England to tomorrow’s headline after another fish takes the bait. Hook, line, and Sinker.

 

Buy Links

paperback 

ebook 

AN INTERVIEW WITH MRS. ALEXANDER FROM AUTHOR MARY VEE'S DETECTIVE CARHILL MYSTERY SERIES

Today we sit down for a chat with Mrs. Alexander (Elizabeth to her close friends), the main character in Justice for Elizabeth, the second book in the Detective Carhill Mystery Series by author Mary Vee. 

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

My estate is in Manhattan, and my husband is an accountant and partner at Markus, Alexander, Richards, and Chesterton, that is, he was. He is currently a resident at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. The truth is, I pulled Mary Vee’s strings. I needed Detective Carhill’s help and had no other way to ask him without her writing my story. You see, my family’s name was at stake, and the gossipers refused to believe my husband is innocent! I had no other choice. She had to stop all her projects and write this story.

 

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

I have four friends who are very special to me. We’ve formed a group back in high school French class and called it Cinq Amis. Although we’ve lived all over the world since graduating, we’ve kept in touch, met in Paris several times, and speak only French to each other. Hah. The stories I could tell about Paris. Mmm. Yes. What a delightful city. One of my friends, Sylvia, went missing last Christmas. Her daughter called Detective Carhill to solve the case. He’s such a dear. I feel I could call no one else to help my Phillip.

 

What do you like least about yourself? 

I can’t imagine anything not to like about myself. I’m charitable, run my household, organize parties and teas. I’ve raised a high society daughter to carry on the family and employ a large staff. I hardly understand why the question was asked. 

 

What is the strangest thing your author has had you do or had happen to you? There was the time the maid was murdered in the kitchen. The whole event was quite frightening and ghastly. I don’t recall it helping us solve Phillip’s case. If anything, it complicated things. She’d only worked in the mansion a few days. I suppose I wonder why it couldn’t have happened elsewhere. Like in the woods beyond the grounds where it wouldn’t have created such a mess.

 

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

We debated whether I should attend the fundraiser or not. I missed Phillip terribly that day, and a few gossipers had dug their claws into our name. I simply didn’t want to go. I was tired and didn’t want to deal with any person. Mary Vee, though, felt I should attend since I had organized the event. She suggested the gossipers would have more to say if I had stayed home. We compromised. I went but left early.

 

What is your greatest fear? 

That I’ll lose my husband. If he is found guilty and sent to prison, I don’t know what I’d do. Can you imagine the children’s hospital calling on a convict’s wife to organize a fundraiser? As it is, my hairdresser says several of her clients will change hairdressers if she continues doing my hair. I’ll have nothing to do. My life will be over. 

 

What makes you happy? 

Before page one of this story, I wanted nothing more than to have every event I organize turn out perfectly, my house in perfect order, and our name spoken highly of. After the last page? To be kissed by Phillip.

 

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

Naturally, I would prefer my husband had never been set up for a crime he didn’t commit. With him in prison, I can’t attend events. A married woman of my stature should not make an appearance without an escort. Think of all the social obligations I’ve missed. I haven’t bought a new pair of shoes in days. The judge froze our assets. I explained what would happen if Mary Vee forced us to endure this travesty. We’d lose everything. Most importantly our good name. We’d reach the bitter end. But she insisted readers would want to walk this journey with me.

 

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

Lincoln Chesterton. Definitely. I truly am sorry his wife passed and can understand his feelings of loneliness. But I’m married. All right, so my husband Phillip is in prison during the trial leaving me alone in this huge estate. This doesn’t mean I want to renew a relationship with a man I dated in high school. From the moment he first asked to spend time with me, I knew he was the one who set up my Phillip. He has always disliked my husband.

 

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

Well, I hardly think I would delight in trading places with any other character. No one could run my household or live up to the expectations placed on a woman in my class, much less know which fork to use for the dessert. It’s not their fault. They haven’t been raised in high society as I have.  

 

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

Mary Vee writes Never Give Up Stories (her brand). She was homeless for a time then earned an MA in Counseling and became a caseworker for low income and homeless people. She has worked with villagers living in the drug cartel mountains in Honduras and Native Americans living in tribal areas in Montana. She married an Air Force veteran and settled in Michigan. Mary writes for her King.

 

Mary attends one to two writing conferences every year, reads books on writing annually, and has completed years of writing courses. She uses what she has learned when writing articles posted on her website: TodaysWritersWorld.com where easy solutions for busy writers and readers can be found. 

 

Mary tutors young writers including international students, some she has met through her Instagram account. She speaks in schools as well as adult classes on writing topics. Her articles have been published in Horizon, Faces (distributed to schools across the nation), Focus on the Family Clubhouse Jr., ACSI Exemplary Programs, and others. 

 

Learn more about Mary and her books at her website. https://TodaysWritersWorld.com

 

What's next for you? 

With the case solved by the last page of my story, Justice for Elizabeth, Phillip and I have made plans to take a cruise. We need to talk. Far away from here. Get to know each other. Do you know he kissed me this morning and said he liked my dress! Oh, and we’ve decided to adopt the maid’s son. I simply couldn’t send him off to an orphanage.

 

As for Mary Vee, she is working on her next book, reading, and writing articles for her website when not traveling. I hear she is planning a trip to Greece this fall.

 

Justice for Elizabeth

A Detective Carhill Mystery, Book 2

High society woman, Elizabeth Alexander, can’t possibly fulfill her societal obligations with her husband locked away in prison.

 

The gossipers won’t believe he is innocent. Her family’s name is at stake unless she finds the person who set up her husband.

 

Detective Carhill recently helped one of the Cinq Amis, Elizabeth’s dearest friends. The man kept the entire ordeal from inking the papers and solved the case quickly, as he promised. 

 

Elizabeth is running out of time. Unless Carhill solves the case, and soon, the Alexander family name will forever be worthless.

 

Buy Links

paperback 

ebook 

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.

 

Buy Links

paperback 

ebook 

AUTHOR DONNA B. McNICOL SETS A MYSTERY SERIES IN THE OTHER KLONDIKE

Donna B. McNicol is a retired IT professional who started writing fiction after retirement. Her preferred genre is small town mysteries with a dash of romance, but she has also tackled children's stories, fantasy and smalltown romance. In addition, her short stories have been included in several anthologies. Learn more about Donna and her books at her website.

Klondike, PA Mystery Series

Why are my Klondike books not set in Alaska? That’s a good question and one that frequently comes up. In the late 1990s, my husband and I left our high pay but high stress jobs, sold our home, and hit the road in our motorhome. We went to work as contractors for a company installing part of the internet backbone. Our biggest contract was in middle Pennsylvania, and we fell in love with the state. We started looking at property and bought a small cabin in the north-central part of the state. 

 

We made some amazing friends during our time there and they encouraged me to write a book set in the area.

 

Several years went by, my husband passed from cancer, and I eventually remarried. I never forgot that little place in the woods and my friends there. In 2012, I started dabbling with fiction writing. I took a dream I had written down some years earlier and made it the prologue of my first mystery novel in the Klondike Mystery Series, Not a Whisper. 

 

Wikipedia: “Klondike is an unincorporated community in Corydon Township in McKean County, Pennsylvania, United States. Klondike is located along Pennsylvania Route 59/Pennsylvania Route 321 east of the Allegheny Reservoir.” 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike,_Pennsylvania

 

Set in Klondike, the books in the series are small town, traditional mysteries. I class them as police procedurals. Nothing overly graphic, but there is some language. A dash of romance but it stops at the bedroom door. There is a wide cast of characters, some are in all the books, others come and go.

 

You can get a free download of the short story prequel, Just a Stranger, for signing up for my newsletter. You can also download a set of interviews with several of the main characters at the same time.

 

These books hold a special place in my heart, and I hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.

 

Not a Whisper
A Klondike Mystery, Book 1

 

When a retreat becomes a nightmare...

 

When Cherie Marshall catches her fiancé and best friend in a compromising position, she cancels her upcoming wedding and jumps at the chance to escape to quiet Klondike, Pennsylvania to care for her elderly aunt. She thought her biggest issue would be adapting to life in the middle of a National Forest, so very different from her upbringing in the deserts of Arizona.

 

But that was before she met State Trooper Fire Marshall Jamison "Jazz" Maddox at the scene of a mysterious fire. As they both become acquainted with the close-knit Klondike residents, things get complicated as Cherie and Jazz find themselves in the middle of a local crime wave where arson, kidnapping, embezzlement and a decades-old murder are just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Buy Links

paperback 

ebook 

THE WRITING LIFE WITH MYSTERY AUTHOR ALICE ZOGG

Mystery author Alice Zogg was born and raised in Zurich, Switzerland.  She moved to New York City and then relocated to Southern California, where she has resided for more than forty years. She is an avid traveler and plays racquetball and golf. Learn more about Alice and her books at her website. 

When doing a panel event, we authors are often asked, “What made you become a writer?” or, “Have you wanted to become a writer since childhood?” Most of my peers answer the first question with an elaborate account of having always been passionate about the art of creative writing, and the second with a definite “yes.”

My answer to question number two is, “No.” As a child, I could have never sat still long enough to write a few paragraphs, let alone an entire book. As to why I became a writer, I’m a bit embarrassed, but the following is the truth:

Between Christmas and New Years’ of 2002, I went to the local bookstore looking for new reading material. I had read all the books ever written by my favorite authors— Agatha Christie, P. D. James, Dick Francis, and others—and I hoped to find some mystery novels penned by more contemporary authors. I came home two hours later empty handed. Here is the dialogue I had with my husband:

“Where are the books you bought?” he asked.

“I couldn’t find any that appealed to me.” 

“If you’re so picky, why don’t you write your own?”

His sarcastic remark went ignored at the time. But a couple weeks later, I thought, why not? And so I gave it a shot. In October of 2003, I published my first mystery novel. It was not as simple as I make it sound, but I basically taught myself how to write and do research. Since then, I have penned ten books in the R. A. Huber series and four stand-alone works. I write in the traditional mystery genre; in other words, neither cozy nor hardcore. 

My series’ protagonist, R. A. Huber, was born in Switzerland and came to the United States as a young woman, where she made her home. Longing for excitement after she retires, Huber starts a second career and opens a private investigating business in Pasadena, California. With each book the gutsy private eye’s cases take her on new journeys. She is called to places like Catalina Island, Lake Tahoe, and the Central Mexico region, all the way to Davos, Switzerland, then back in the US to the Big Bear Lake area, the balloon festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and to a location near Solvang, California. 

In Murder at the Cubbyhole, she stays close to home in Pasadena, where she gets a glimpse into the theater world, and in Guilty or Not, an investigation takes her and her sidekick Andi on a cruise to Alaska. Evil at Shore Haven is my tenth and final mystery in the series, where Huber goes undercover. She checks herself in as a resident at a senior community near the Ventura pier to investigate several sudden deaths that occurred at the facility.

I am working at improving my writing with each new book, and I am particularly proud of having penned my stand-alone mystery novels, A Bet Turned Deadly, Accidental Eyewitness, The Ill-Fated Scientist, and the most recent, No Curtain Call. I write for my own pleasure, and if readers enjoy my stories, I consider that a bonus.

No Curtain Call

When the curtain falls, the story begins...

Nick Fox, a retired sheriff’s department lieutenant, is trying to get his act together after nearly being blown up in a targeted explosion that cost him the loss of part of his leg and a kidney, resulting in his subsequent retirement. 

Then a friend asks him to investigate the death of his son, who died from an opioid overdose at the end of a musical performance at Citadel High School three-and-a-half years earlier. His friend insists that his kid would never do drugs or commit suicide. Instead, he suspects murder. 

Despite the trail being cold after the time lapse and a crisis within his own family, Fox cracks open the inactive case and takes another hard look. Can he finally raise the curtain on the killer?

Buy Links

hardcover 

paperback 

ebook 

#COOKING WITH CLORIS--TACO SALAD FROM MYSTERY AUTHOR MARILYN MEREDITH

Marilyn Meredith, who writes the RBPD mystery series as F.M. Meredith, is the author of more than forty published books. She once lived in a small beach town much like Rocky Bluff, and has many relatives and friends in law enforcement. Learn more about Marilyn and her books at her website and blog.

Kayla Makes Taco Salad

In the latest mystery of the Rocky Bluff mystery series, Bones in the Attic, teenager, Kayla Duvall makes a taco salad to serve to her father and his guest, his romantic interest, Chandra Taylor.

We have Taco Salad a lot at our house and it gets made many different ways depending on who decides to put it together, and what ingredients happen to be on hand.

The basic ingredients are:

Lettuce, shredded, Iceberg or Romaine

Tomatoes, cut up—or grape tomatoes.

1 can black olives

1 can kidney beans, black beans, or pinto beans. (My family prefers pinto beans)

Sharp Cheddar cheese, grated

1 red onion, chopped

Tortilla or taco chips, crumbled into fairly large pieces.

1 lb. lean ground beef, cooked. (Could add taco seasoning when cooking.)

(Any kind of dressing, whatever your family prefers—or use taco sauce)

Mix it all together and top with sliced avocados if you like.

And you can have sour cream available to dollop on top. 

Best if eaten right away. 

When my grandson makes it, he always uses Thousand Island dressing.

My daughter-in-law likes to add chopped cilantro and use mango salsa for the dressing.

We have a houseful of family all the time and I love it. Makes for great times around the table.

Bones in the Attic 

In a small town like Rocky Bluff, personal and professional often overlap, so Detective Doug Milligan is not surprised when his daughter Beth is the one who informs him a body has been discovered.

What is surprising is that the body is in a long-abandoned home that Beth and other students are turning into a haunted house as a fund raiser. The city granted permission for the project as long as it was limited to the downstairs for safety reasons. But one student, Mike Patterson, couldn't resist the temptation to look in the attic.

Detective Milligan stepped carefully a trunk and peered inside. Only a musty unpleasant smell emanated from the contents, not the noxious decomposition odor he'd expected. The skeleton crammed inside was still clothed in the remnants of what may have been pajamas.

Buy Link

#COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST MYSTERY AUTHOR TERRY SHAMES WHIPS UP TEX-MEX CORNBREAD

Multi-award winning mystery author Terry Shames writes the Samuel Craddock series, set in small town Texas. Along with her numerous other awards, Terry has been named one of the top five Texas mystery authors. Today she joins us to talk about the eighth book in her series and share a recipe for Tex-Mex cornbread. Learn more about Terry and her books at her website.

I once attended a talk by writer Joan Didion, in which she advised writers to put “everything you know” into every book. She said that you might feel like you should keep something back for another book. But she said that when you started to write your next book you had another whole book’s worth of things to say. When I write the Samuel Craddock books, that’s the approach I take. I fling everything I know into the plot and the characters. I think that’s the way to make it seem real. Life has a lot of undercurrents, and so should the books we write. There’s always more when you’re ready for the next one! 

I wrote a few books before I realized that almost every book I had written had come from a real life event. Sometimes it’s things I experienced, sometimes things I witnessed, and sometimes things I heard about.

A Killing at Cotton Hill had art at the center of it. When I was a child, I saw a picture my uncle had painted and thought it was wonderful that someone I knew had painted a real picture. I’m also passionate about contemporary art, and wanted to include an element of that in the book. It turned out that Samuel Craddock has a wonderful contemporary art collection!

In high school I knew a boy who went off to war and was badly wounded. I never saw him again, but his story haunted me and I wanted to write a book that was something of an homage. The Last Death of Jack Harbin featured a war veteran who had been gravely wounded.

The idea for Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek was born when a town near where I live went bankrupt. As a side note, I wanted to make Samuel Craddock the chief of police again, so he wasn’t just on the sidelines solving crimes. When the town went broke, they couldn’t afford to pay a full-time cop, so Craddock was the natural heir to the title of Chief.

Years ago, my mother had confessed to me that someone she knew thought her son had killed his first wife. What a delicious idea for a murder mystery! In A Deadly Affair at Bobtail Ridge, it became a great back story.

Lies and secrets always make good stories, and in The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake, they led to misery for a family. The main character, Nonie, was based on someone I actually knew who not only kept secrets, but lied about them.

Easily the most “real” of my books was the prequel, An Unsettling Crime for Samuel Craddock. For this book, I took liberties with an actual murder that occurred in the town that Jarrett Creek is based on. When I decided to use the real case, I looked it up and found that a year earlier, the man convicted of the crime had been freed by the Innocence Project. It made my story feel even more urgent to me. It was important that Chief Craddock find out what really happened in order to avoid in my fiction real life fate.

A Reckoning in the Back Country was my hardest book to write, not only because it was based on something I know to be real in Texas—dogfighting—but because the victim was someone I wanted to kill in real life! A doctor botched my shoulder replacement in real life, so I decided to kill him in my book. The problem was that I made him so awful in the first draft, that I realized no one would care whether his killer was found!

Which brings me to my latest, A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary. This is probably the first book I have written that did not come from real life. It grew out of my wanting to put one of my recurring characters, Loretta, in danger. Loretta loves to cook, and brings baked goods to all her friends. When she fails to do so for several days, they realize something is amiss. It turns out that Loretta was looking for someone to date on an online dating site, and got herself into trouble. After writing the previous book, I enjoyed this one because it’s full of humor.

In honor of Loretta, I’m bringing you the recipe for:

Tex-Mex Cornbread

Ingredients: 

2 eggs

2 cups buttermilk

2 cups cornmeal (Yellow or white, fine, or medium grind)*

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. salt

16-oz. can hominy (white or yellow), drained

1 small can Rotel Tomatoes with Green Chiles, drained (I have tried other salsa-type mixtures, but nothing is as good as Rotel)

2 T bacon drippings

Note: If you like it spicy, add a minced Jalapeño pepper.

Preheat oven to 475 degrees.

Beat eggs in medium bowl, add buttermilk and stir. Mix dry ingredients together and stir into buttermilk mixture. Add hominy and Rotel tomatoes. Stir in bacon drippings.

Pour into well-greased 10-cast iron skillet. Bake 25-30 minutes. Check halfway, and if too brown, cover loosely with foil.

*I used medium grind. It falls apart more easily, but I like the texture.

Warning: This recipe is not good for you!

A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary

A Samuel Craddock Mystery, Book 8

A FAVORITE SERIES CHARACTER FINDS HERSELF IN HARM'S WAY.

After using an online dating site for senior citizens, town favorite Loretta Singletary--maker of cinnamon rolls and arbiter of town gossip--goes missing. Chief Samuel Craddock's old friend Loretta Singletary--a mainstay of the Jarrett Creek community--has undergone a transformation, with a new hairstyle and modern clothes. He thinks nothing of it until she disappears. Only then does he find out she has been meeting men through an online dating site for small-town participants. When a woman in the neighboring town of Bobtail turns up dead after meeting someone through the same dating site, Craddock becomes alarmed. Will Craddock be able to find Loretta before she suffers the same fate? Finding out what happened to Loretta forces him to investigate an online world he is unfamiliar with, and one which brings more than a few surprises.

Buy Links

paperback

ebook