BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--AUTHOR DIANNE DEMILLE ON WRITING TRUE CRIME

As an educator for more than 40 years, Dianne DeMille has written curriculum and co-authored the memoir of her father Leslie B. DeMille, a world-renowned. She continues to write curricula, presents at local and national conferences and works with university students becoming high school mathematics teachers in retirement. She joins us today to talk about how she came to write about a true crime DEA investigation. Learn more about Dianne and her books at her website. 

I retired from Education as a high school mathematics teacher. I spent the last eighteen years of my career at Orange County Department of Education in California where I worked with teachers and administrators and also wrote curriculum. In retirement, I continue my connection to teaching by working part-time with California University, Fullerton, supervising new high school mathematics teachers.

 

My father, Leslie B. DeMille was a well-known professional artist throughout the country and internationally, specializing in portraiture. He asked me to co-write his memoir along with his friend who was living in the same senior facility. We finished It Started with a Pencil: Memoir, Leslie B. DeMille about six months before my father passed away in 2016. 

 

A few years ago, I met Randy Torgerson, a private investigator. We lived in the same area and owned our own businesses. After talking about what we have done, he told me briefly about a case he and his friends wanted to write about. I said I would like to hear more about it. 

He then introduced me to Jeff Pearce, another private investigator. They had both worked with DEA Agent Larry Hardin in the 90s in Yuma, AZ and Mexico. The four of us had a meeting. They convinced me I should write their story. I thought, "Uh-oh, what am I getting myself into?" I kept asking questions, "Am I safe?" "Are we going to be OK?". This was a brand-new experience for me. 

 

When I heard the stories, along with their excitement and passion, I said, "OK, let's do it." 

 

I questioned whether I could do this. I am a person who often says, "Well, let's give it a try." I think my experience in working this way with mathematics problems, gives me the courage to try most things.

 

The title of the book is Path of the Devil, Camino del Diablo. We finished it in about a year and a half and it has created a lot of interest. I learned a whole new vocabulary and things happening at the border that I knew nothing about. This was a fascinating experience and continues to be as I work with these guys.

 

Larry and I wrote his second book about his personal spiritual journey called Fighting My Greatest Enemy, Myself. We also did a podcast series during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Path of the Devil: Camino del Diablo

Path of the Devil: Camino del Diablo is a story of true events that occurred from 1991-1996. DEA Agent Larry Hardin and two private investigators, Jeff Pearce and Randy Torgerson, were determined to bring down the Meraz organization along the southwestern border. For five years the three men spearheaded two separate and simultaneous investigations in different locations that eventually merged.

 

Jeff and Randy provided information to Larry to build his case when they found the Merazes were working with corrupt employees of their California client. The Meraz's attempted to murder two DEA agents (1970s) and were connected to the murders of Kiki Camerena, George Montoya, Paul Seema, Jose Montoya, Dan Elkins, and Michael Crowe. Larry was determined to indict the Merazes.

 

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BOOKCLUB FRIDAY--AN INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR JUSTIN MURPHY

Today we sit down for a chat with author Justin Murphy who writes Southern crime fiction, true crime, and biographies of often forgotten figures in the entertainment industry. Learn more about Justin and his books from his Facebook page. 

When did you realize you wanted to write novels? 

I was always a bit creative, and people told me I had an imagination. But on my fifteenth birthday, the feeling hit me like an ocean wave. It’s the moment I realized this was what I wanted to do. Within a couple months, I began writing short stories in a more serious pursuit. More or less haven’t looked back since.

 

How long did it take you to realize your dream of publication?

About four years from that moment. My first book, Dothan, released by the now defunct Epstein Publishing on December 10, 2004.

 

Are you traditionally published, indie published, or a hybrid author?

Indie to some extent. My first few books were published through Epstein Publishing and Aspen Mountain Press. But most of my books now are \self-published.

 

Where do you write?

For many years, I wrote on my PC in the family room at my home. Now I write on a laptop at the state and national parks we travel to.

 

Is silence golden, or do you need music to write by? What kind?

Fairly quiet, but I have no problem writing with the TV on or listening to my brother’s chatter (he’s autistic) as long as things aren’t too loud. I like classic rock and R&B/Soul/Motown, but I usually don’t associate them with writing.

 

How much of your plots and characters are drawn from real life? From your life in particular?

Early on, there were characters based on people I knew or stories featuring places I lived. That tapered off for several years. In the last few years, I’ve delved into more material about disability. Writing manuscripts focusing on my ordeals with Cerebral Palsy and my brother’s autism. I’ve even worked the latter into a supernatural horror story.

 

I’ve since combined aspects of these with a short story I wrote for a contes and revised as a series of detective stories. I’ve also revised a heist caper tied to disability and wrote an aftermath story. I haven’t published any of these yet. I’m still working on them. And they’re also very personal.

 

Describe your process for naming your character?

For years, the character’s name was the last thing to come to mind when creating a story.

 

With these recent stories, I’m fascinated with certain last names for characters like ’’Collins’’, ’’Harrell’’, and ’’McClaren’’. I gave a pair of sisters female variants of boy names. I’ve named some of characters after family members and people I knew. But it comes down to the name being right for the character.

 

Real settings or fictional towns?

I have used fictional towns before to avoid any negative reactions, but mostly they’re real.

 

What’s the quirkiest quirk one of your characters has?

In some of my detective stories there’s a character based on my brother. Due to his autism, his family doesn’t understand him. He’s not the most verbal but is kind and slowly learns new things. On some level, his family also learns from him and learns to love him.

 

What’s your quirkiest quirk?

There are times where I’m not the most attentive and am easily distracted.

 

Everyone at some point wishes for a do-over. What’s yours?

I wish I’d learned some things about writing a decade or more sooner.

 

What’s your biggest pet peeve?

People and life in general…lol.

 

You’re stranded on a deserted island. What are your three must-haves?

My brother, Fleetwood Mac’s Mystery To Me, and Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.

 

What was the worst job you’ve ever held?

I don’t know about the worst job, but I remember my worst period as a writer, so far. Around 2012-2013, I signed with a Film/TV Agent to get screenwriting work. Was assigned to write five screenplays, which I did. Nothing happened and she was gone within a year. At the same time, I popped out a series of short Kindle books in quick succession.

 

The combination of the two really burned me out and took me a few years to begin coming out of that slump.

 

What’s the best book you’ve ever read?

Part of me wants to say Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. After years of reading entertaining stories, this book taught me to pay more attention to wording and sentence structure. Try not to use the same word twice in a paragraph. Along with how developed the characters and settings were. It inspired me to write poems.

 

Ocean or mountains?

For now, I’ve been going to a few lakes and ponds at the state parks we’ve been to. I plan to see some mountains when we get to Yellowstone. Sooner or later, maybe both?

 

City girl/guy or country girl/guy?

A question beaten to death by relatives from my native Dothan, Alabama. City people are stereotyped as being ambitious, extroverted, and more than a tad selfish. While country types are pegged as content and introverted but very dim witted. My reality is the rural contentment with some ambition.

 

What’s on the horizon for you?

There’s still some things I want to work on with heist capers and crime stories involving disability. Also, continuing with photography and visiting the state and national parks. 

 

Anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself and/or your books?

I hope to be creative for as long as possible. I’ve been writing and publishing for a long time. The road has been bumpy and will get more so as time goes on. But it’s worth it. You have to reach within yourself to see what your’re truly capable of.

 

Gene L. Coon: The Unsung Hero of Star Trek:

Gene Roddenberry has long been painted as the visionary who made Star Trek possible. Yet not much has been written on Gene L. Coon, the real workhorse behind the original series. This man built the universe around Roddenberry’s initial concept we all know today. He almost single handedly created the Klingons and had a hand in creating the franchise’s greatest villain…KHAN! Any notion of Starfleet Command, The United Federation of Planets, warp technology, and its fictional creator Zefram Cochrane all belong to him. Coon died from cancer at forty-nine, just as Star Trek got popular through reruns and conventions.

 

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#BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST TRUE CRIME AND COZY MYSTERY AUTHOR JANIS THORNTON

Janis Thornton is the author of a true crime-oral history-memoir, two cozy mysteries in the Elmwood Confidential series, a romantic mystery, and three pictorial-history books in Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series. Her eighth book, No Place Like Murder: True Crime in the Midwest, is an historic true crime anthology. Learn more about Janis and her books at her website. 

Stories Bring Harmony to Lives, Even When the Stories Are Murder

Throughout history, even in places as unspectacular as tiny Strawtown, Indiana, an ordinary person living a predictable, everyday life suddenly snaps — a drunken father shoots his two young sons execution style, a young man with a social disorder grabs a claw hammer and pulverizes his mother’s skull, an embittered mother poisons her son’s unsuspecting wife — and the world around them shatters.

 

These are the sorts of stories I explore in my new book, No Place Like Murder: True Crime in the Midwest, a collection of 20 historic true crimes that stunned their Indiana communities, titillated the curious, and dominated newspaper headlines between 1869 and 1950. Throughout the book, I try to make sense of the previously upstanding people who crossed over to the dark side and became cold-blooded killers.

 

No Place Like Murder is my second true crime project. True crime is a topic that evolved from my passions for history and mystery, which were the genres of my first few books. 

 

I found my love of history about eight years ago as I gathered material for a book I was writing on the formation of my Indiana community. That project introduced me to many intriguing events and people that, more than a century before, had been rooted in the same patch of earth that I called home.

 

The history project was followed with a pair of cozy mysteries that featured a resourceful small-town newspaper editor, who reluctantly, but relentlessly, solves the crime du jour by cleverly outsmarting the wily characters out to stop her. 

 

I was gripped by a fascination for true crime once I began digging through official records and news reports concerning the 1965 unsolved murder of my high school classmate, who was reported missing after a Saturday night date and found dead two days later alongside a remote country road. That book was released in 2018. 

 

At first glance, these three genres may seem vastly different, but a closer look reveals that they are connected by a common thread — a strong, compelling story.

 

Story allows us to see the world through someone else’s perspective, to experience their situation, feel their emotions, accept or reject their consequences, and to make a judgement. We tell stories to bring order to our lives; or, as Bill Moyer wrote in his book, The Power of Myth, “We tell stories to come to terms with the world, to harmonize our lives with reality.” 

 

When I started writing No Place Like Murder, I vowed to capture the horror of the long-ago, despicable stories in a way that modern readers could relate to. I combined my journalism, fiction, and creative nonfiction writing skills in an effort to transcend time and ensure the stories remained as relevant and relatable in 2020 as they were to readers in 1920. 

 

In addition, I hoped readers could identify with the individuals populating the stories. The deeper I dove into the project, the more I came to know the people I was writing about in almost a personal way. I even traveled to cemeteries throughout the state to visit, photograph, and blog about as many of their graves as I could find (www.janis-thornton.com/blog). Victims became friends I admired and grieved for; while their killers — some of them repulsive monsters, others remorseful wrongdoers — became characters that both fascinated and repelled me. 

 

But it was the victims that called to me. They, more than anyone else featured in this collection of heartbreaking stories, deserve a resurrection — their moment in the spotlight — so they can be heard, mourned, and remembered. Now that my fondness for history, mystery, and true crime has manifested as a published book, my hope is for the stories to resonate with readers as much as they have with me. •

 

No Place Like Murder: True Crime in the Midwest 

A modern retelling of 20 sensational true crimes, No Place Like Murder reveals the inside details behind nefarious acts that shocked the Midwest between 1869 and 1950. The stories chronicle the misdeeds, examining the perpetrators' mindsets, motives, lives, apprehensions, and trials, as well as what became of them long after.

 

True crime author Janis Thornton profiles notorious murderers such as Frankie Miller, who was fed up when her fiancé stood her up for another woman. As fans of the song "Frankie and Johnny" already know, Frankie met her former lover at the door with a shotgun. 

 

Thornton's tales reveal the darker side of life in the Midwest, including the account of Isabelle Messmer, a plucky young woman who dreamed of escaping her quiet farm-town life. After she nearly took down two tough Pittsburgh policemen in 1933, she was dubbed "Gun Girl" and went on to make headlines from coast to coast. In 1942, however, after a murder conviction in Texas, she vowed to do her time and go straight. Full of intrigue and revelations, No Place Like Murder also features such folks as Chirka and Rasico, the first two Hoosier men to die in the electric chair after they brutally murdered their wives in 1913. The two didn't meet until their fateful last night.

 

An enthralling and chilling collection, No Place Like Murder is sure to thrill true crime lovers.

 

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#WRITE HEALTHY, STAY HEALTHY

Kay C. Burns is a Registered Nurse who writes suspense mystery. River Stalk is the first book in her Nurse Quinn Cole San Antonio mystery series. Her crime novel, Mommy’s Missing, is based on a true crime that occurred in 1946. Learn more about Kay and her books at her website. 

Write Healthy—Stay Healthy

It’s true. Writing is a sedentary and indoor profession with its own unique health risks.

As writers, how can we stay healthy and continue to rack up our word counts?

According to the National Safety Council, injuries are a leading cause of disability for people of all ages (including writers) and the leading cause of death for Americans ages 1 to 44.

June is National Safety Month sponsored by the National Safety Council. With that in mind, recall the old Benjamin Franklin saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Hope Clark of Funds for Writers talked about this in her feature: “Your brain is your writing,” she says, “and it’s only as keen as you keep it. That means healthy rituals.”

Colleen M. Story of Writing and Wellness.com answered the question; Are you suffering from Spock’s Brain Syndrome? She explains how SBS strikes when we ignore our physical selves to the point of discomfort, pain, injury or illness.

Here are some of the types of injuries or problems writers are susceptible to:

Backache

Problem:  backache

Complications:  back injuries and back strain

Prevention:  Arrange your desk and equipment to fit your body. Good posture is essential. Use good ergonomics. Straighten your back.  Sit up straight. Adjust the chair to your height.  Put all your writing essentials and reference books, etc. where you can easily reach them.

Sitting Too Long

Problem:  sitting at a computer too long

Complications: backache, increased waistline, generalized weakness

Prevention:  Straighten your back. Purchase a good ergonomic chair. Stand up. Take short breaks; a walk inside, outside if possible. Break up your day. Stretch your muscles. Get your blood flowing. Some writers have invested in a standing desk. Even a 5-minute break can help you increase your concentration and reduce stress.

Eye Strain

Problem:  eye strain: Eye muscles become strained focusing on a computer screen for too long.

Complications:  headaches, fatigue

Prevention:  Look up and on something else in the room. Look left to right. Set your alarm. Take a break. Leave the room for a moment or two. Mayo Clinic recommends you follow the 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes, take your eyes off your computer and look at something 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds. Also, consider enlarging the text on your computer to avoid squinting. Reduce the brightness on your computer monitor.

Habitual Snacking

Problem:  habitual snacking or smoking

Complications: increased waistline, respiratory problems

Prevention:  Plan meals. Pack your own healthy “desk” lunch. Yes. I will say it. “Don’t smoke.”

Wrist Strain

Problem:  repetitive strain injury caused by typing for hours and hours

Complications: chronic pain, carpal tunnel syndrome—a common source of hand numbness, tingling and pain. This is more common in women and is caused by pressure or compression on the median nerve in your wrist.

Prevention:  Use a padded keyboard or mouse pad.  Do wrist rolls clockwise and counterclockwise. Keep your wrists straight or only slightly bent. Take breaks and rest your hands. Wear a wrist splint while sleeping to keep your wrists in a neutral position. A word of caution: Talk to your doctor about any pain or swelling in your wrists as this condition can worsen over time.

Working Alone (most of the time)

Problem: Writing is a solitary profession.

Complications:  depression—Writers as a group are among the top 10 professions where people are likely to suffer from depression.

Prevention:  Find a balance between your work and real life. Know your limits. Don’t set unrealistic word count goals. Set working hours and give yourself some down time.

As Joseph Jaynes Rositano said in The Writing Life: Writing and Mental Health, “Finally, those who undergo traumatic experiences that often lead to mental health and substance abuse problems may—consciously or not—turn to writing for its therapeutic value. Research shows that by writing about their emotional experiences, people can improve their mental health and even reduce the symptoms of asthma and arthritis. Novelist and Vietnam veteran John Mulligan credits his writing with his recovery from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As he put it, “writing made me feel like I had a soul.’”

Awareness of these unique “on the job” injuries can help writers prevent them. As a Registered Nurse I have to add how important it is for writers to follow these simple stay healthy guidelines:

*Get enough sleep

*Drink lots of water

*Eat a healthy diet and stay active

*Watch your weight

*Take steps to manage stress

Spread the word about these ways to reduce your risk of injuries.

What is your favorite way to de-stress, keep healthy and injury free while “on the job” writing? 

River Stalk

“Papa promised me the eyes.”

After a freak accident maims a prominent San Antonio doll collector during a popular river parade, the victim whispers, “Papa promised me” over and over to nurse Quinn Cole, who’s assisting with the woman’s rescue.

The words come to baffle and haunt Cole who’s gearing up for the annual Fiesta competition with her brash roller derby sister--this year for the affections of a hot Private Investigator.

As usual, Cole is bent on winning, but in the days that follow, threatening notes, murder, missing dolls and the victim’s eccentric family force Cole to stop making promises she shouldn’t keep and in turn to overcome her deep-seated fear of dolls.

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY - GUEST AUTHOR KATHY BENNETT

Our Book Club Friday guest today is Kathy Bennett, a woman who is no stranger to murder and mayhem. A retired twenty-one-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, her authentic crime experience results in arresting stories. Learn more about Kathy at her website.   http://www.KathyBennett.com

Kathy has generously offered an electronic copy of A Deadly Blessing to one of our readers who posts a comment. -- AP

Authentic Crime…Arresting Stories

I'm thrilled to be a guest here on the Killer Crafts  & Crafty Killers blog. When pondering what I'd blog about, I considered discussing all the wonderful crafts I make and the clever tips I could offer about making a microwave oven out of plastic grocery bags. The only problem is, that once I became a police officer and subsequently retired from that career and became a novelist, I don't have time to do crafts anymore. And to set the record straight, I never knew how to make a microwave oven out of plastic grocery bags. I made that up.

When I was doing crafts, I used to like to paint ceramics, sew, and make latch-hook rugs. Okay, this was way back in the 1980's. Since I'm obviously out of the 'crafty loop,' I've decided I'll have to talk about Crafty Killers instead. The only problem is, I don't think I've run into a 'crafty killer.' Dumb killers, yes. Crafty? No.

But today I'll talk about a surprising killing I ran across when working as a police officer.

It was about nine at night when my partner Kathy and I, (yes, two Kathy's in a black and white police car…affectionately known as the 'K' car) got a radio call of a shooting that had just occurred at a gas station in a questionable part of our division. The call was assigned as 'Code 3,' which meant we were to utilize our lights and sirens while responding. There was only one problem. Although we'd done the mandatory lights and siren check prior to leaving the station, when we flipped on the siren, it didn't work. The lights were functioning, but the siren was dead.

So with Kathy driving at break-neck speed, I had our public address system (microphone) in the police car activated. Yes, I made loud wailing siren-like noises into the mic as we weaved in and out of traffic. Luckily, we met up with another officer working by himself who was responding to our call and we explained our situation to him and he took the lead with his working siren. 

While en route to the scene, we got the information that the suspect in the shooting was a female wearing brown pants and a tan top. When we arrived at the scene, there was our suspect standing outside of a pick-up truck. Kathy and I, along with the other officer, took the female into custody. As soon as she was handcuffed, I went into the mini-mart attached to the gas station to find our victim.

Paramedics were already working on him. The man had been shot in the chest, and I remember thinking it must have been a very small caliber gun because the hole wasn't that big and there was almost no blood. The victim was crying and sobbing that he was dying. I was kneeling by his head trying to comfort him and telling him not to worry, that he'd be fine.  Before long, the paramedics took him away and Kathy and I set up a crime scene as a precautionary measure, although both the paramedics and Kathy and I thought our victim was going to live…except he didn't.

About thirty minutes after the ambulance left, the lieutenant in charge of detectives showed up and commended Kathy and me for our foresight into setting up the crime scene and getting there so quickly in time to arrest the suspect.

Yeah, if he only knew that we'd made good speed with me howling into the P.A. system in our police car and the crime scene was set up more as following procedure than our thoughts the victim would die. We took his compliment and never said a word. We may not have been crafty, but we weren't dumb either.

LOL, Kathy! I'll bet you have hundreds of stories just like that. Readers, would you like to ask Kathy a question? Or leave a comment? If you do, you'll enter the drawing for a chance to win an e-copy of A Deadly Blessing. And don't forget to check back on Sunday to learn if you're the winner. -- AP

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY -- GUEST AUTHOR CANDACE DEMPSEY

We normally showcase fiction on Book Club Fridays, generally mystery, thrillers, or suspense. Today we have true-crime author Candace Dempsey, the award-winning Italian-American author of the MURDER IN ITALY: The Shocking Slaying of a British Student, the Accused American Girl, and an International Scandal. Candace has reported on the Kercher/Knox case for CNN Headline News, KOMO TV and Italian television. MURDER IN ITALY grew out of her true crime blog, which has attracted worldwide attention. It's hosted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and has been featured on Newsweek.com and CNN Anderson Cooper 360.
 

Candace has a master's degree in journalism from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and decades of newspaper and magazine experience. She has been a magazine editor (Alaska Airlines Magazine), a newspaper editor (the Argus) and an editor, writer and producer for MSN, as well as a freelance travel writer. Her adventure tales appear in Travelers’ Tales A Woman’s Passion For Travel, Solo: On Her Own Adventure (Seal Press), Gifts of the Wild (Seal Press) and other anthologies.  She is the former editor/producer of MSN Underwire.com, a women's website that Newsweek called "cheeky, nicely written, fun" and The New York Times saluted for "serious sisterhood." Candace has covered travel, women's issues, business and other topics for numerous magazines and newspapers, including The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Phoenix, Puget Sound Business Journal, Art & Antiques, Passionfruit and Adventure Journal.

You can read more about Candace at her website, and if you’d like to read MURDER IN ITALY, post a comment today or tomorrow. You could be the lucky winner of the copy Candace is giving away. -- AP

Why Make Up Amanda Knox Whoppers?

Short of covering Angelina Jolie, I can’t imagine a more paparazzi-perfect writing job than penning MURDER IN ITALY, my true crime book about the sensational Amanda Knox case. She’s the U.S. college student from Seattle, convicted of killing her British roommate.

Each time Amanda shows up for court in Italy, the flash bulbs pop. She can’t chop off her hair, as she did last summer, without causing international headlines. Every story dwells on her looks. She’s fat, she’s thin, she’s pale, she’s tanned. She has a cold sore on her lip.

Meanwhile the beautiful twenty-three-year old, who rides from Capanne Prison to court in a cramped metal cage inside a police van, becomes more unreal. Since reporters aren’t allowed to interview Amanda, I captured her journey from honor student to convicted killer through her own words, pulled from diaries, Facebook, MySpace, court statements, and videos. Whatever bits and pieces of the real Amanda that I could find. I did the same for the victim, Meredith Kercher. The cover of MURDER IN ITALY recreates her last walk home across the cobblestones.

Amanda’s parents say she was horrified when she recently reached the pinnacle of reverse fame. A Lifetime movie (“Amanda Knox: Murder On Trial in Italy”) based on her arrest and three-year imprisonment, starring blonde starlet Hayden Panettiere (who looks like her and did a pretty good job). I found 27 fact errors (like showing her giggling at a prayer vigil she didn’t attend), which I would’ve considered semi-hilarious and so Hollywood if Amanda’s case weren’t on appeal and these errors weren’t so prejudicial.

Why make anything up? That’s what I kept wondering. The prosecutor from Central Casting (a chubby, pipe-smoking man later convicted of abuse of office) claimed Amanda had stabbed her roommate to death with a kitchen knife during a “drug-fueled sex game gone wrong.” The alleged co-conspirators: Raffaele Sollecito, Amanda’s Italian ex-boyfriend of six days; drifter Rudy Guede, a man she’d met only once and Raffaele didn’t even know. 

Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini blamed the crime on everything from Halloween to satanic rituals, from Manga comic books to the Celtic New Year and messy housekeeping. In the end, the prosecution admitted it had no motive, claiming the trio did the murder just for kicks. They all claim to be innocent.

If you can’t concoct a cocktail esplosivo from those ingredients without fakery, then you don’t recognize a fabulous story when you see one. For me, the excitement came in trying to figure out what really happened, in doing that detective work. For what is more elusive and unbelievable than the truth, especially during a show trial?

I adore Agatha Christie and have read everything Patricia Highsmith ever wrote. But the Knox case never required fictionalization, although many news stories came close. I loved being in court, digging into documents, interviewing the big players on both sides, meeting Amanda’s friends and family members. I started covering the case from the start on my seattlepi.com blog and will keep going until the final appeal.

I’m an Italian-American journalist and I spent three years traveling back and forth from Seattle (Amanda’s hometown, where I’m based) to Italy to cover this once-in-a-century case. My ultra-wise Penguin editor, Shannon Jamieson Vazquez, said I had enough material for eight books. I still regret the juicy nuggets we had to cut because Shannon, who usually edits mystery books, said they were “tangential to the plot.” 

What’s that you say? How can real life have a plot? I wondered this myself, before I learned how to weave a real-life murder mystery from the actual facts

Truth isn’t just stranger than fiction. In MURDER IN ITALY, it’s every bit as fascinating.

Thanks, Candace! I’ve been following the case since the beginning and have been amazed by the ineptness of the Italian prosecution and their court system. I have my fingers crossed that Amanda wins her appeal and look forward to reading your book. What about the rest of you readers? Post a comment for a chance to win MURDER IN ITALY. -- AP