BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--MYSTERY AUTHOR MARILYN MEREDITH ON THE INSPIRATION FOR THE SETTING OF HER LATEST NOVEL

Marilyn Meredith is the author of many published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series. She lives in the foothills of the Sierra, a place quite similar to Tempe Crabtree’s patrol area. Today she joins us to talk about the inspiration for the town in her latest Tempe Crabtree mystery. Learn more about Marilyn and her books at her website.

A Mountain Town Inspired Spirit Wind

For many years I’ve taken the highway that goes past the mountain town of Tehachapi on my way to various destinations in Los Angeles and to Las Vegas. One of the most fascinating aspects of Tehachapi is the enormous wind machines that cover the mountainsides.

Tehachapi Railway Loop

Tehachapi is also famous for the railway loop, where long, long freight trains pass themselves while going around a large hill.

When I began writing Spirit Shapes I wasn’t quite sure how much of Tehachapi I would include in my mystery, but once I began more and more of that fascinating place became a great background and inspired many scenes and plot ideas.

Once I had most of the story written, I had to return and make sure that I got everything right. My daughter did all the driving. While there we took a self-guided tour of the wind machines, watched several freight trains go around the loop, made sure that the scenes I made up could have happened in real areas, and ate great food in several restaurants.

I visited the police station and asked some questions while I was there. The officer I spoke to seemed a bit bewildered but told me what I needed to know.

Tehachapi Wind Machines

When my daughter and I finished the tour of the wind machines, we gave a ride to a most bedraggled young man who’d injured himself while hiking on the Pacific Crest trail which passes through there.

We found houses that resembled the homes belonging to characters in the book and noted what the areas around them looked like.

And like most of the Deputy Tempe Crabtree mysteries, there is a troubled spirit and references to the local Native people.

And yes, the wind blew all the while—and of course gave me the idea for the title of the book, Spirit Wind.

Spirit Wind

A Tempe Crabtree Mystery

A call from a ghost hunter changes Deputy Tempe Crabtree’s vacation plans. Instead of going to the coast, she and her husband are headed to Tehachapi to investigate a haunted house and are confronted by voices on the wind, a murder, and someone out to get them.

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AUTHOR MAGGIE FOSTER BRINGS THE HIGHLANDS TO TEXAS IN HER MYSTERY SERIES

Photo courtesy of M. Hollis Hutchinson

In our continuing series on where authors get their ideas, today we feature Maggie Foster. Maggie writes the Loch Lonach Mystery Series, featuring modern day descendants of the Scottish immigrants who settled in Texas. Learn more about Maggie and her books at her website. 

The De’il is in th’ Details

Years ago, when Jurassic Park came out, I realized I had missed a bet. That could have been my novel turned into a blockbuster movie. After all, I had read the same National Geographic article about how some frogs, when in a same-sex environment, can change to the opposite sex, so the species can continue. “Life will find a way.”

I’m not suggesting I had the talent, experience, craft, or courage to write that novel at that point in my life. I’m just saying I noticed the detail, thought it mildly interesting, then put it away. When I saw how Michael Crichton had used that tiny bit of information in his story, it hit me like a punch in the solar plexus.

I write murder mysteries. My background is in healthcare, with an overlay of law, and a smoor of teaching. The combination has served me well in the field of creating crime, but it took me years to realize how critical tiny details were to storytelling. Now, when I read or hear something that is unusual, obscure, or rare, I write it down, then set myself an exercise in brainstorming. What if that detail was the pivotal bit of evidence that cracks the case for my detective?

This requires research, sometimes a lot of it. I don’t limit myself to the Internet, since everyone has access to the same things I can reach that way. Instead, I read. Everything. I read news articles about accidental poisonings. I read FEMA and OSHA regulations. I read dry scientific treatises on why we will never be able to clone a living human being. I read it all. The more obscure, the better. Then I pick out what I want to use and get to work.

The second stage of writing is just that – writing. Get the rough idea down on (electronic) paper and start tinkering. What is do-able, as it stands today? What would I like/need for it to do? What changes can I get away with? (This is fiction so everything is fair game, except there are rules for the genre and I must follow them or be relegated to the fires of hell.)

Plan for the writing to evolve. That lovely little kernel of an idea must become a Percheron, hauling the reader along with it, without anyone really caring how the beer got from point A to point B.

I have thousands of details lined up in my files, simmering. Most will never see the light of day, but some, like the frog sex detail above, could blossom into a classic. If you want to write and you think you can’t come up with ideas, may I suggest that instead of looking for a story that will fit the Hero’s Journey format, you consider letting your ideas grow organically. Let them lead you from the critical bit of knowledge your protagonist needs but didn’t know she had, to the inevitable conclusion of a new classic. Happy writing!

The Arms of Death

Loch Lonach Mystery, Book 1

Everyone dies. Not everyone dies because they chose the wrong ancestors. 

When one of her ICU patients dies unexpectedly, amateur sleuth Ginny Forbes finds herself on the trail of a centuries-old secret that is of no importance and no interest to anyone other than herself. Except, of course, that no tale of secrets is ever that simple and Ginny is about to find out just how dangerous idle curiosity can be.

In the manner of Peter Wimsey, Miss Marple, and Brother Cadfael comes a series of murder mysteries set in a community peopled by evocative characters that read like old friends. The distinctive Scottish voices offer a glimpse into a world not usually open to modern mystery readers and the deftly woven tales of deceit and greed will have everyone cheering the triumph of good over evil. The men in kilts just make it that much more fun.

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AUTHOR ASHLYN CHASE EXPLAINS THE CREATIVE MIND

Continuing our series on where authors get their ideas, today we welcome paranormal romantic comedy author Ashlyn Chase to explain why the creative mind is different from the “normal” mind. Learn more about Ashlyn and her books at her website. 

Creative minds and their ideas

Are creative people different? The short answer is a resounding YES! I did a lot of research into the subject and found that creative people have actually been studied, measured, and in some cases dissected. With recent inventions like MRIs, there’s more data and less need to be drastic about obtaining it.

Without my notes and bibliography (a lot of paperwork went away when we downsized) I can only report the findings, not the group performing the study—but that’s the part you wanted anyway, right? You can go online for links to the scientific groups and methods used.

There was a Harvard group that discovered the space between the left and right half of the human brain (called the synapse) is wider in creative people. They hypothesized that more information ‘gets in’ because of this. Most people have filters that keep them from becoming overwhelmed. Artists and writers, less so. Many of us will tell you we get overwhelmed and have to go off by ourselves to decompress more often than our ‘normal’ friends.

So, when people ask us where we creatives (20% of the population) get our ideas… Well, we receive a lot of random input that would bounce off a ‘normal’ brain. That’s why you’re so amazed that we come up with some of the bizarre premises and plot twists that wind up in our books. And, guess what? Sometimes we amaze ourselves!

I use this little illustration in my talks. Ed, Sally, and Sherlana visit a furniture store. They all need couches. Ed has a very tight synapse (as most men do.) He’s focused. He quickly spots a couch that looks like it would do the trick. He sits on it. It’s comfortable. He buys it with his credit card.

Sally has a moderately spaced synapse. She looks through the whole store, locates the possible couches that match the size and color she wants. She sits on a few and finally makes a decision. Then she buys it at no interest for a year and gets free delivery.

Finally Sherlana strolls through the store looking for a couch, and stops in her tracks. Out loud, she whispers, “I love that coffee table!” She pictures herself flipping it upside down, padding the seat, making the legs into arms, and hanging it from the ceiling. Pointing to the table, she exclaims, “I can have a couch and a swing!” Then she goes off to the craft store to buy the foam and fabric.

Yeah, Sally and Ed would be rolling their eyes at her. But that’s their problem, right?

Most of us creatives have felt ‘different’ all our lives without knowing why. In the early years it can be painful. Hopefully, by the time we’re adults, we’ve accepted our differences and even embraced them. Writers, poets, artists, and musicians are often prone to mood disorders, like depression. A survey found that 35% of composers suffered from depression at one time. For writers the stats increase to 72%, and for the poor poets, the number soars to 90%.  

What does this mean? Well, at this point I’d caution a creative person to take care of their mental health. Avoid toxic people. Take a mental health day when needed. Be gentle with yourself.

For the rest of the world? Be gentle with a creative soul. They need encouragement and support more than most. If you review, find some kind things to say about their work. Treat them as you would want to be treated—if you had to put up with random sh*t flying through your brain and had to make some kind of sense of it.

Tiger's Night Out 

A light paranomal romance, plus bonus novella

Thirty nine year-old English teacher Haley Hunnicutt is tired of losing out on love to younger women, and she’s not alone. One night she and three single friends perform a magical summoning of immortal lovers—guys who will appreciate mature women.

Jamir and his brother are shapeshifting Bengal tigers. Tasked by the god Vishnu, they have been guarding a sacred temple for three hundred years.

When Haley has a vision in her dirty dishwater, she sees her immortal and he sees her. But she doubts a guy in a loin cloth has an easy way to get to New York. So, a trip to India is necessary—or insane.

There’s only one way to find out…

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#COOKING WITH CLORIS--AUTHOR DAVID RYAN'S FBI AGENT COOKS UP A SPAGHETTI DINNER

Author David Ryan’s debut novel, Dead Odds, features an FBI agent who enjoys cooking. Today he shares the recipes for the apology spaghetti dinner his protagonist cooked for an Orlando homicide detective. Learn more about David and his series at his website. 

In my debut novel, Dead Odds, the protagonist is a Tennessee-based FBI agent who takes time off to handle some family business in Florida. The agent has been out of college (and out of law school) for more than a decade and is single, but he is not the law enforcement version of Oscar Madison. (For those of another generation, Conrad Keane, my protagonist, is not a slob.)

Keane finds himself in Orlando investigating the murder of his estranged and much-younger brother, and he discovers his brother did not lead the life everyone believed he did.

One of the revealing scenes in Dead Odds is when Keane, needing to apologize to an Orlando homicide detective because he stuck his nose into her murder investigation. On the spur of the moment he shows up at Det. Tina Rossi’s house and cooks a spaghetti dinner for the two of them. He knows that Rossi’s family owns and runs an Italian restaurant in Leesburg, Florida, a small city near Orlando, which probably gives him a clue to the kind of food she’d be receptive to eating without notice.

Keane doesn’t necessarily fancy himself a gourmet chef, but he takes pride in the fact that he doesn’t rely on fast food or Uber Eats. He cooks, and he’s good at it.

Enjoy. I promise you, this is delicious.

Conrad Keane's Spaghetti Dinner

Red Sauce

Ingredients:
5-6 mild Italian sausages
6 12 oz. cans of tomato sauce
1 6 oz. can of tomato paste
1 medium or large onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 T fennel seeds
2 T garlic powder
2 T dried basil
1/2 cup basil leaves, chiffonade
1 T dried oregano
1 T onion powder
3 T olive oil
Grated, shredded or shaved Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a pot and sweat onions for 4 minutes. 

Remove casings from sausages. Pinch off small portions of sausage, drop into onions mixture and brown, breaking up the chunks into smaller bits as you go. 

Remove excess grease with a ladle and add fresh garlic, stirring for 1 minute. Add tomato sauce, fennel, dried basil, garlic powder, oregano and onion powder. Stir, lower heat and let simmer for 15 minutes.

Add most of the basil leaves, reserving some for dressing. Add tomato paste to get desired thickness of the sauce. Salt and pepper to taste.

Simmer 15 minutes uncovered, remove from heat and cover.

Note: You can make this sauce one or two days ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator. I recommend making it at least one day in advance. That gives the ingredients time to marry and makes for a more developed sauce.

Garlic Bread

Ingredients:
4 cloves finely chopped garlic
4 T melted butter
1 loaf French bread

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Slice bread into desired thickness. Keeping the bread pieces in order, brush insides of the bread with butter and add garlic pieces.

Place the bread pieces back together into loaf. Wrap in foil. Bake 20 minutes.

Spaghetti

Ingredients:
1 box of your favorite dried spaghetti
1/2 cup kosher salt

Bring large pot of water to a boil. Add the salt, stir, and add the pasta. Turn down the temperature after the water comes back to a boil and cook until the pasta is al dente.

Prepare your dinner in the manner of your choice: Plate the pasta and add sauce, or mix the pasta with the sauce and then plate.

Sprinkle fresh basil and Parmesan cheese on top.

Dead Odds
A Conrad Keane Novel, Book 1

There's nothing FBI Agent Conrad Keane wouldn't do to catch his brother's killer. Will his pursuit of justice lead him beyond the law and ruin his life?

Keane's reunion with his estranged half-brother Sean is cut short by a seemingly random tragedy outside an Orlando bar. Detective Tina Rossi vows to track down the person responsible, but Keane is determined to find his own answers.

An outsider with no jurisdiction, Keane forms a tenuous alliance with Rossi to investigate Sean's life as a star college football player. But the deeper he digs, the more he uncovers that Sean led a secret life - one that got him killed.

The university president, his cadre of well-heeled friends, and a mysterious former donor keep Keane and Rossi guessing about a puzzle they can't piece together. When other men connected to the school turn up dead, Keane races to catch a killer whose sights have turned on him.

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ANASTASIA WELCOMES BOOKLOVER'S BENCH

No craft-themed post today. Instead, I want to tell all of you about some exciting news—especially for those of you who love receiving free books. (Is there anyone reading this who doesn’t?)

Author Lois Winston, my doppelganger and she who writes about me, has been invited to join the wonderful mystery authors over at Booklover’s Bench, where she’ll blog once every six weeks about all things book-related. Booklover’s Bench is not just another book blog, though. Their tagline is “Where readers are winners” because once a month they hold a drawing to give away a free book from their Book Vault, a place where their authors deposit a book each month. Blog visitors can enter the monthly Rafflecopter, and the winner gets to choose one of the books in that month’s vault. Cool, huh?

Lois will be posting her introductory blog at Booklover’s Bench on May 23rd.  Today I thought I’d take the opportunity (at Lois’s suggestion) to introduce you to the other Booklover’s Bench authors. Some of the names may be familiar to those of you who are frequent visitors to Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers because they’ve often appeared as our guests.

Maggie Toussaint 

Southern author Maggie Toussaint writes mystery and suspense. She’s won two Silver Falchion Awards, the Readers’ Choice Award, and the EPIC Award. She has been a finalist twice for Georgia Author of the Year. Her series include the Dreamwalker Mystery Series, the Lindsey & Ike Series, the Cleopatra Jones Series, the Guardian of Earth Series, and the Mossy Bog Series. Maggie is on the board of Southeast Mystery Writers of America and is Vice-President for Low Country Sisters In Crime.

She lives in coastal Georgia, where secrets, heritage, and ancient oaks cast long shadows. Yoga, beachcombing, and music are a few of her favorite things.

Nancy J. Cohen 

Nancy J. Cohen writes the Bad Hair Day Mysteries featuring South Florida hairstylist Marla Vail. Titles in this series have made the IMBA bestseller list, been selected by Suspense Magazine as best cozy mystery, won a Readers’ Favorite gold medal, and earned third place in the Arizona Literary Awards. Nancy’s instructional guide, Writing the Cozy Mystery, is an Agatha Award finalist. A featured speaker at libraries, conferences, and community events, she is listed in Contemporary Authors, Poets & Writers, and Who’s Who in U.S. Writers, Editors, & Poets. When not busy writing, she enjoys fine dining, visiting Disney World, cruising, and shopping.

Diane A.S.Stuckart 

Diane A.S. Stuckart is the New York Times bestselling author of the Black Cat Bookshop Mystery series (written as Ali Brandon). She’s also the author of the award-winning Leonardo da Vinci historical mysteries, as well as several historical romances and numerous short stories. Her upcoming new cozy mystery series are the Tarot Cat Mysteries from Midnight Ink (November 2018 launch) and the Georgia B&B Mysteries from Crooked Lane (May 2019 launch—writing as Anna Gerard).

Diane is a member of Mystery Writers of America and has served as the 2018 Chapter President of the MWA Florida chapter. In addition to her mystery writing affiliations, she’s a member of the Cat Writers’ Association and belongs to the Palm Beach County Beekeepers Association. She’s a native Texan with a degree in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma, but has been living in the West Palm Beach FL area for the past dozen or so years. She shares her “almost in the Everglades” home with her husband, dogs, cats, and a few beehives.

Cheryl Hollon 

Cheryl Hollon writes full-time after an engineering career designing and installing military flight simulators in England, Wales, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, and India. Living the dream, she combines a love of writing with a passion for creating glass art in the small studio behind her house in St. Petersburg, Florida. Cheryl is President of the Florida Gulf Coast Sisters in Crime, a member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and Novelists, Inc.

Debra H.Goldstein 

Judge Debra H. Goldstein is the author of One Taste Too Many, the first of Kensington’s new Sarah Blair cozy mystery series. She also wrote Should Have Played Poker and 2012 IPPY Award winning Maze in Blue. Her short stories, including Anthony and Agatha nominated “The Night They Burned Ms. Dixie’s Place,” have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies including Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, and Mystery Weekly. Debra serves on the national boards of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and is president of SinC’s Guppy Chapter and the Southeast Chapter of MWA.

And of course, our very own…

Lois Winston 

USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries and the Empty Nest Mysteries. She’s also published in romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. A Book-of-the-Year nominee from ForeWord Reviews, Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in her ongoing Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, also received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Kirkus Reviews dubbed Anastasia, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” Lois would like the quote etched on her headstone, although she hopes the need for such a monument will be decades in the future. Lois is also a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry.

We hope you’ll add Booklover’s Bench to your weekly blog-reading list for a chance to get to know these wonderful authors and their books. And don’t forget to enter the Rafflecopter each month for a chance to win a free book. 

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--GUEST MYSTERY AUTHOR NANCY G. WEST

Nancy G. West is a recovering business major who returned to grad school in English Literature to learn to write. She pens mystery and suspense, sprinkled with humor. Each of her Aggie Mundeen Mysteries has either been nominated or won an award. Learn more about Nancy and her books at her website/blog, where you’ll also find that Aggie blogs, too. 

Taking the Lead Character to a Beloved Place

I’ve known Aggie Mundeen and San Antonio Detective Sam Vanderhoven for fifteen years. They popped into my head when grad student Meredith Laughlin needed help with her life-threatening dilemma in my first suspense novel, Nine Days to Evil.

Aggie and Sam solved crimes through four subsequent Aggie Mundeen Mysteries despite frequently incompatible and sometimes amusing methods. I chronicled their struggles and watched their volatile relationship combust and reassemble as they combated crime in San Antonio, Texas. I enjoyed every minute of it. Readers said they fell in love with Aggie, and some wanted to marry Sam.

But I knew the couple’s dicey relationship had to either morph into greater mutual understanding and deeper affection, or they would come to blows. I decided to really test them and wrote The Plunge, the bridge to a new spin-off series, the Aggie Mundeen Lake Mysteries.

In The Plunge, Aggie and Sam settle in for a relaxing lakeside weekend and find themselves swept up in a rampaging flood of epic proportions. As they fight for survival, disaster tests their courage and strains their relationship.

Aggie, who has measured personal success by her ability to solve crimes that challenge Sam, realizes she needs to seek satisfaction outside his purview. Witnessing the grit of flood survivors and the compassionate people who help them, she finds herself drawn to unpredictable Lake Placid and the people who dwell nearby.

Plunge with Aggie Mundeen to her new beloved place.

The Plunge

An Aggie Mundeen Lake Mystery, Book 1

Aggie Mundeen and San Antonio Detective Sam Vanderhoven take care of a friend’s cottage on Lake Placid, a retreat on Texas’ Guadalupe River. Buckets of rain and gusting winds roil the lake, turning the peaceful, shady Guadalupe into an angry, raging river. As darkness descends, lightning highlights two people arguing on a dock across the river. When lightning flashes again, they are gone. Do Aggie and Sam witness an accident? A drowning? A murder?

The Plunge infects readers with the threat of looming disaster and the helplessness of being swept along by an untamable force. Do survivors really survive if disaster changes them forever?

Catastrophe propels Aggie and Sam in a new direction and threatens to pull them apart in the new spin-off series, the Aggie Mundeen Lake Mysteries. 

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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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