Wednesday, December 31, 2014

What’s Your Slogan for 2015?

I used “Off to the Races” for 2014, since it was the Chinese Year of the Horse. This next one, from what I can tell, is the year of the Sheep/Goat/Ram. I’m not crazy about any slogans I’ve come up with for those. (Although the Chinese Zodiac doesn’t actually start until 2/19, so I have some time on that one.)

RAM INTO 2015. LET’S MUNCH THIS YEAR. LEAP WITH THE SHEEP.

I’ve used rhymes for my slogans in past years. KEEP ON REVVIN' IN 2011 was one. Maybe not a good one, but it worked for me. There was also DELVE INTO ’12. (These are used with an exclamation point, of course.) LUCKY 13 could probably only pertain to me, or to others who consider 13 their lucky number. I looked up a couple of even older ones, 2009 was TIME TO SHINE and 2010 was alternately GET ‘ER DONE and YOU CAN DO IT.

Here’s what I do with my slogans. I post them at the end of my daily pages every day as inspiration, motivation, and encouragement. Maybe, come to think of it, these shouldn’t properly be called slogans.

But, back to the problem. 2015? I found some rhymes at http://www.rhymer.com/RhymingDictionary/fifteen.html
How inspirational are the words spleen, teen, bean, mean. Maybe I could do something with keen. Obscene, gangrene? Submachine, kerosene. Libertine, nicotine.

KEEN ON ’15. I kind of like that.

As I left the allergy clinic where I get shots once a week, the receptionist remarked that she was glad to see this year go. I think I am, too, and I was glad to see last year go. So maybe 2015 WILL be keen. Let’s hope so!


Sometimes I just end my pages with ONWARD! That always works. You can’t go back!

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

My Morale Problem

In the face of the violence exploding all over the world, especially the deaths of so many children in Pakistan at the hands of sub-humans, I’m finding I have to gird myself to get up the gumption to write about death and murder.

I asked myself yesterday, How can I write about fictional murder when actual atrocities are occurring right now?

Not having an answer, I went ahead and got my quota for the day written. Actually, I exceeded it and had a good writing day. It’s nice to have an alternate world that I can retreat into. A world where order reigns supreme—after the disorder gets taken care of.

After quite a bit of thought, I realized that this is something I’ve told myself and others many times. What I do as a mystery writer is very different. I’m turning the tables, setting the crime on its head. In my fiction, the murderer gets caught and justice is done. In real life, that doesn’t always happen. Fiction gives me a chance to display good triumphing over evil. Fiction isn’t real life. It’s better.

Also, I never kill children.


This blog is cross posted on http://janetcantrell.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Giving Tuesday and Roof Over Your Head plus cookies

I like this holiday! It’s a great way to kick off the holiday season—if you don’t count Thanksgiving as part of The Holidays.

This is a new holiday, created in 2012, to be a US holiday. However, by 2013, it had become international, spreading to Australia, Mexico, and Canada. Other countries, including the UK have signed on this year.

If you live in England, here are 10 ways to participate without spending any cash! I wish I could find a list like this for the US.

To extend the giving tradition, today is designated at National Roof Over Your Head DayThe idea is to be grateful for the roof you have over your own head, while also taking time to volunteer at a homeless shelter, or pick a name off a Christmas Angel Tree. 


Here’s an extra heads up. Tomorrow is National Cookie Day! Maybe the idea is to reward yourself for being kind on the two days before.


Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Only as Good As?

They say a writer is only as good as her last book. True, very true. If you’ve turned out a string of pearls and deliver a lump of coal, that’s what you’ll have to overcome in the next book.

I don’t think I’ve done that yet. Not to brag (OK, it’s bragging), but one reader says each Duckworthy book is better than the last one. I’m not examining that sentiment far enough to see what it says about the first two. Nope, not doing it.

But what occurred to me yesterday, as I completed a scene that I very much like, and one that popped up all on its own, as they are wont to do, is that maybe a writer is only as good as her last chapter. Her last paragraph? Her last sentence?

No wonder writers exist in a constant state of mild anxiety, broken up by periods of sheer terror, usually induced by deadlines.

Am I overthinking this? Maybe not. After all, you can’t stick awful sentences into your paragraphs and just continue on your blithe way. They all have to be crafted. They all have to hang together. Nothing must impede the reader, speeding through your deathless prose, turning the pages into the night—ideally.

When we do put in a stumbling block, we sure do depend on our beta readers to point those out to us so we can smooth the way.

This is very much on my mind as I finish up the second Fat Cat book and embark on the third. The first one was so well received, that I can’t believe the second one will measure up, let alone the third. All I can do is write the best book I can and fling it out there. Talk about a wing and a prayer!


I will add that I depend on my publishers’ editors to keep me on the straight and narrow to producing an entertaining book. However, it’s my name on the cover, right? One of my names, anyway.

This blog is duplicated at Janet's place,http://janetcantrell.blogspot.com/. 

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Cover Reveal!

I'm so pleased to be able to show you the cover for FAT CAT SPREADS OUT, which will be published June of 2015 if everything goes well and I don't have to do lots of additional rewriting.

Here's the come-on:

Butterscotch tabby Quincy is back and hungrier than ever in this frisky follow-up to Fat Cat at Large
A booth at the Bunyan County Harvest Fair seems like the perfect opportunity for Charity “Chase” Oliver and Anna Larson to promote their Bar None bakery business. Unfortunately, plus-sized pussycat Quincy has plans for their delicious dessert bars other than selling them to customers. After tearing through their inventory, Quincy goes roaming the fairgrounds in search of more delights.
But what he finds is murder. One of the top contenders in a butter-sculpting contest has been killed, and Chase is churning on the inside when she sees Quincy’s handsome veterinarian, Dr. Mike Ramos, being led away by the police. With a little help from a kitty with butter on his whiskers, Chase needs to find the real killer and clear the doctor’s good name….

AND the cover:


You can preorder it already, too. Barnes and Noble, Books A Million, or Amazon.  


Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Post Halloween Thoughts

Thought #1. The same one we usually have. We bought too much candy. This year was worse than
some because it started raining at 7. We got 5 trick or treaters, then, I figure, the fled to the nice warm, dry mall, where candy was also being handed out.

Thought #2. November 2nd was National Cookie Monster Day, but why isn’t it National Leftover Candy Day? That would make sense. Or maybe have that one on November 1st and then follow it with the lovable Monster’s day.

Thought #3. Thanksgiving is next, although it’s hard to discern, since the only commercial value is to the grocery stores. Should we try for a fresh turkey this year? They turn out well, no thawing required. And I have a handy new meat thermometer that I can read outside the oven.

Thought #4. I kind of miss the injected deep-fried turkeys our son
used to make when he was single. And the ones Hubby used to smoke all day on the driveway. Neither of these guys are inclined to do these any more. Things change.

Thought #5. Even though I lament the early advertising for Christmas, I need to get cracking on gifts. I have two packages that I sent overseas and they need to go out this month. Pretty soon, actually. That’s why I shop for Christmas all year long.


Wednesday, October 29, 2014

The Generosity of Other Writers from Terry Shames

I'm so pleased to have Terry Shames on my Travels today! Here's a bit about her and her books:

Terry Shames writes the best-selling Samuel Craddock mystery series, set in the fictitious town of Jarrett Creek, Texas. Her first novel, A Killing at Cotton Hill (July 2013) was a finalist for the Left Coast Crime award for best mystery of 2013, the Strand Magazine Critics Award, and a Macavity Award for Best First Novel of 2013. MysteryPeople named it one of the five top debut mysteries of 2013.


The Last Death of Jack Harbin (January 2013) was named one of the top five mysteries of 2013 by Library Journal. Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek came out October, 2014. A Deadly Affair at Bobtail Ridge comes out in April, 2015.

And now, her essay on The Generosity of Other Writers, something I should blog about more often myself.

Tomorrow night I’ll be appearing at a local bookstore in the Bay Area. It’s advertised as “In Conversation” with another author, Keith Raffel. Ever since I was first published a year ago last July, Keith has kept up a constant drumbeat for my books. There’s no quid pro quo here—he does the same for other writers as well, and as far as I can tell expects nothing in return. Now as it happens, I like Keith’s books and am only two happy to reciprocate. We’re both working hard to make our books stand out in a sea of good books. And there are other authors who do the same thing—Susan Shea, Cara Black, Sheldon Siegel, and Sophie Littlefield to name a few.

I’ve had other writers offer to push my books—in return for doing the same for theirs. I’m not put off by that request. I know that all but the most successful writers struggle to find innovative ways to make their voices heard. Many of us feel embarrassed to beat our own drums. But I read a wonderful thought that made me feel better about it. The writer said not to be embarrassed, that after all we wanted people to read our books. Promotion is just a way to make sure people know about the books. We can’t make people read them or like them—but we can at least introduce readers to them.

That’s why it’s even more precious when a successful writer puts the word out without expectation of return. The first person who did that for me was Carolyn Hart. Speaking to the audience at Malice Domestic 2013, she mentioned my first book as one she had recently read and liked. Since then, I’ve been astonished by the way other writers with thriving careers take time out of their busy lives to promote their fellow-authors. I’ve been gratified when I asked for blurbs from writers I admire and they said, “of course.” For me to try to reciprocate for most of them, who are at the top of the heap, would be like adding a cup of sand to a beach.

The only way I know to pay those authors back is to pay it forward for new ones. I love it when someone at a reading asks me what authors I enjoy. I mention a few of the standards—Deborah Crombie, Michael Connelly, Rhys Bowen, and Hank Phillipi Ryan—but I also make sure to slip in a few authors I’ve recently discovered and enjoyed—Frank Hayes, Lynne Raimondo, JCarson Black, and Lori Rader-Day. People are starting to ask me to blurb their books, and I’ve been really lucky to find some gems: Andrew MacRae and Anonymous-9 to name a couple. I’m delighted to do for them what generous writers have done for me.

Writers are in a hard business—with an emphasis on the word “business.” I think we’re lucky that it’s a business full of generous people, willing to help each other out.

Who are some of the new writers you’ve discovered recently?

Kaye again. I want to tell you a bit about Terry's latest, Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek:  With Jarrett Creek bankrupt and the police department in disarray, Samuel Craddock becomes temporary chief of police by default. Faced with a murder investigation, Craddock discovers that the town’s financial woes had nothing to do with incompetence and that murder is only one of the crimes he has to solve.

Please visit Terry at http://terryshames.com/ to learn more about her and the series.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Guest Today, Mary Black, Prehistory Writer

Mary Black is a fellow writer of prehistory fiction! I'm so sorry I didn't get to meet her when I lived in Austin. But at least we're connected now.

About the Author:  Mary S. Black fell in love with the Lower Pecos more than twenty years ago.  Since then she has studied the archaeology and related ethnography of the area with numerous scholars.  She has an Ed.D. from Harvard University in Human Development and Psychology and lives in Austin with her husband, an archaeologist, and two cats.


Peyote Fire
Shaman of the Canyons


Mary S. Black

Also on Facebook and Goodreads


            Peyote Fire is set in a real place that still exists on the border of Texas and Mexico, only 4,000 years ago.  The same rivers and canyons are still there, the same dry, rugged uplands.  It’s the kind of place that if you’re driving fast on the highway, you’d never notice the beauty and mystery that exists. But if you prowl among the canyons, you discover magical art on the stone walls and other remains left there by the people so long ago. In fact, over 300 rock art sites have been documented in that area by researchers. What were those ancient people trying to say? The art is so abstract and complex, it is difficult for modern people to understand. We just don’t have the same frame of reference.
            That’s what really spurred me to write this book: wondering what the art was all about. Who were those people? What was so important that they wanted future generations to know? The art itself is known as Lower Pecos style and is painted in five colors: red, orange, gold, white and black. Some of the figures could be people, some might be animals, but many others are like nothing we know today.  The pigments were all made from natural minerals.
            The protagonist of my book is painting one of these murals, and you can actually visit it today.  I’ve been lucky to tag along with several archaeologists and others to see these paintings, and hear experts speculate about what they all mean.  Sometimes we think that nobody lived in North America until 1620 when the Pilgrims came.  At least that’s what I was taught growing up, but people have actually been here over 12,000 years! They had to be strong and ingenious to survive.
            Part of what I want to do is expand our understanding of the people who came before us, and tell a good story while doing it. The people in the book tell many stories around the campfire, and those scenes were particularly fun to write.  I based many of these on Native American myths and folk tales, so there are lots of talking animals, but be forewarned, these are not bedtime stories!

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

A GIFT FOR YOU!


I’m not posting next week, so I’ll try to make it up to my blog followers this week. I’ve had one free audio story on my webpage for some time, but just added a second one today. Two free stories!

The first is a hard-bitten little tale about love gone bad in Texas. The second is about cleanup after Hurricane Katrina. They both have good endings! I hope you enjoy them.



Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Guest Kathleen Rollins on Story Roots


I'm delighted to host a fellow writer of prehistory fiction today, Kathleen Rollins. Please join her journey back in time and across continents. She shares my idea that our ancestors were not dumb savages, but real people. It's so fun to find authors with similar views!

What Lies at the Root of Your Stories
After retiring from teaching composition and literature and doing freelance business and technical writing, I wanted to write my own stories.  Specifically, I wanted to build a big adventure series around the idea that early explorers in the Americas came from many different places at different times.  I’ve always found it hard to believe the Beringia/Land Bridge Theory, which holds that the first people in the Americas arrived here by walking across the Land Bridge from Siberia to Alaska 13,000 years ago and from there populated the rest of the Americas (diagram).  Instead, the explorers in my stories come from West Africa, the South Pacific Islands, and northern Spain.  This is not to say that some people didn’t cross into the Americas through Beringia – just not all of them.

In the Misfits and Heroes stories, I wanted the explorers finding the New World to be both heroic and flawed, capable of the whole range of human emotion and possessed of a relatively sophisticated language.  Absolutely no grunting and pointing dimwits allowed.  It’s simply not credible that people would build housing, make rope, tie knots, handle boats on rivers and open sea, and amass a huge inventory of edible and medicinal plants the way they did at the Monte Verde, Chile settlement, dated to 14,800 years ago, if they had no language.

West from Africa: A Controversial theory 
  The travelers in the first book in the series, Misfits and Heroes: West from Africa, cross the Atlantic from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico.  Though archaeologists are reluctant to admit travel across the Atlantic would have been possible 14,000 years ago, open water travel had been undertaken by the original inhabitants of Australia at least 50,000 years earlier. 

Wind and water currents would carry West African travelers across the Atlantic right to the Americas.  A young woman named Katie Spotz rowed from West Africa to South America in 70 days – solo – in 2010. 

With the help of primitive sails, the travel time for ancient seafarers could be cut in half.  A lot shorter than walking from Siberia, in any case.

Another find bolsters the West Africa thesis: Pedra Furada, a cluster of archaeological sites in northeastern Brazil, which has returned human habitation dates ranging from 32.000 to 48,000 years ago, twenty thousand years before the ice-free corridor is supposed to have allowed humans to travel from Siberia to Alaska and from there to the rest of the Americas. (Pedra Furada rock art, photo) 

The closest land mass to northeastern Brazil is Africa, not Asia.  Academic resentment and entrenched thinking stands in the way of accepting this route.  But it drives the plot in my first book.

More controversy


The group in the second book, Past the Last Island, comes across the South Pacific (marked by the
dark line on the map) starting in what is now eastern Indonesia, which would have a cross-roads of cultures from Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands). Those banished from their island homes as well as those too restless to stay put would have to set out into the unknown, forced by necessity to learn what they could about new islands, boats, ropes, tools, ocean currents, kelp, shore birds, navigation by stars, whatever anyone could teach them or they could figure out on their own.  Experimentation wouldn’t be a luxury; it would be a necessity, especially as the Ice Age faded and sea levels rose, drowning old coastal villages and the history they held.  A clever misfit might well prove to be a hero when the old ways failed.

Where the travelers in the first book are forced to learn about the sea once they’re drawn out into open water and can’t get back to shore, the expert seafarers in the second book purposely choose to see what lies beyond the edge of the world.  Not as surprising as it might seem at first.  These people were the greatest open water navigators in the world, capable of sailing from island to island, even at night and out of sight of land, charting positions by the stars and reading them by lining up marks on their boats, reading changing currents by lying flat on the floor of their boat.  They sailed from Polynesia to the Hawaiian Islands and Easter Island, both thousands of miles away from the nearest land.  Obviously, they were drawn to attempt the supposedly impossible journey. 

In the third book, A Meeting of Clans, members of the two very different groups meet for the first time and change the world.

Animism
In all the books in the series, the people share similar animist beliefs.  They feel all elements of the universe are possessed of a spirit and these spirits together power the world and influence every action within it, including human lives.  Spirits, when active, can take a variety of forms, including human. Signs and omens are terribly important.

While all areas of the natural world possess a spirit, that spirit energy is particularly concentrated in certain places, such as specific mountains, very old trees, deep forest glens, caves, rivers, waterfalls, even particular stones.

The measure of a person would be not just physical stature or possessions but rather his or her connections with the spirit power that flows throughout the universe.  (This basic animist belief is also “The Force” in Star Wars.)

By chance and by choice, some people embraced the spirit connection more than others.  Someone who chose to develop this connection became the shaman, someone who enjoyed the ability to cross between the three worlds (Underworld of the dead, Center World of the living, and Otherworld of the spirits) at the cost of never fully belonging to any of them.  He or she remained the person apart, revered, feared, sometimes resented.  In my stories, shamans have magical powers but they’re also isolated and thus less than fully human.

In rock art images, the shaman is often shown accompanied by animal guides, especially snakes.  Sometimes the shaman seems to be flying, sometimes morphing into something more than human: a human with bird claws and wings, a combination of human and mountain lion, human and stag, or others.



(Photo left: shaman, Panther Cave, Lower Pecos, Texas; middle photo: entranced shaman figures with serpents, rock art panel, Utah; right photo: winged shaman flying out of a hole, Texas)

Magical realism vs. Realism
While the concept of the shaman morphing into some other form in order to connect with the spirits may seems fantastic to us, it probably seemed normal to many ancient people. For them, the magical spirit world wasn’t unreal.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez said his fictional world, which many refer to as “magical realism” was simply the world his grandmother spoke of, in which magic was an intrinsic part of the universe, a world that included spirits as surely as it included people and insects, rivers and clouds.

I find this view easy to understand.  Ancient people saw their ancestors in the mountains and their future in the stars.  We see only rocks and points of light. They saw the natural world as their mother and father; we see it as our property to destroy as we wish.  Perhaps we have the smaller, poorer view.   

Kaye George asked if my views resulted from my travels.  Yes, definitely.  When I was in Bolivia, I joined a celebration that involved a lot of coca and home brew.  Everyone poured the first drink on the ground.  “For Pacha Mama” one man said, “For Mother Earth.”  It took me a moment to realize, “Yes, of course. She’s giving us this party.” 

In a little town in Guatemala, I visited a local cave called La Ventana (The Window).  Ancient Maya saw caves as entrances to the underworld.  Modern Maya leave piles of fresh flowers and rows of candles in La Ventana, some now bearing the images of Christ and the Virgin Mary. The cave is still a portal – a window into the home of the spirits and the dead.   
















Thank you, Kaye George, for inviting me to talk about my stories! 

Here’s the info on the books:

The Misfits and Heroes books are available on line at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.



Awards include 5-star reviews from Foreword Clarion Reviews and Readers’ Favorite (all three). Kirkus Best of 2011 (the first book), BRAG medallion (the second), Indie Reader 5-star reviews (first and third), Pinnacle Book Award winner (third).

While the books are designed to be a series, you can read and follow any one of them without reading the others.  The books have their own website at www.misfitsandheroes.com and their own blog at http://misfitsandheroes.wordpress.com though I have to say the blog has morphed into a general discussion of all things ancient and their echoes in the present rather than just a discussion of the books.  I hope you’ll check it out!

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

WPA with Kait Carson and me

Kait is one of the many writers who I met at the Writer's Police Academy in Greensboro NC this year that I've never seen face to face before. There were quite a few others, too. This, I think, is the most exciting part of a conference.

WPA, my first this year, was everything people had said about it: informative, non-stop, exhausting, and wonderful. I'll let Kait go first because she has pictures. I know some people took mine, but I didn't have my camera with me! This is getting to be my theme song and I know I have to change it. Here's Kait!

Hi Kait Carson here. This was my first WPA. I knew as soon as I saw the official program and schedule that it would not be my last.  There is too much to do. Even though the organizers tried to schedule everything at least twice, every time segment presented multiple options I didn't want to miss.  It was like trying to decide between dark rich chocolate fondant and dark, rich chocolate mousse. As we say in my native state, fugetaboutit. 

WPA is like being dipped in writer's yeast, covered with warm water, and left in a dark place to bubble. It's in the classes, and it's in the company. I've never been surrounded by so many writers. It felt like I found my tribe and I only hoped that no one would vote me off the island.


Our first day opened with a mass casualty simulation. The bloody scenario was playing out in full view of the road. I can only imagine what commuters thought seeing a destroyed car, scattered, bleeding victims, and two hundred fifty of my closest friends jockeying for position to get a better look. I grabbed a spot front, center, and as it turned out, next to the incomparable CJ Lyons. The woman was an ER physician. As the action started, CJ generously shared her insider knowledge with those around her. It doesn't get any better. Right then, I knew I was coming back.

Surprising the writers with the unexpected is expected at WPA. On Saturday as we were waiting for the buses, a sound like a shot rang out. Heads swiveled scanning the scene ready to drop and roll, after we got our detail. Turned out, some poor soul tripped over a 'caution wet floor' sign sending it to the floor with a bang. Immediately the lobby buzzed with the sound of writer's voices discussing what ifs. There may be thirty million stories in the Naked City, that morning there were at least thirty in the Marriott Lobby.  Lesson learned - use everything.


WPA is all about writers getting it right. Everyone gets involved. Waiting for a crime scene and evidence class to start one of the writers spoke up. In an accent as thick as Tupelo honey, she gave an impromptu primer on the proper use of 'y'all' and 'all y'all.' Rapid discussion ensued on the proper way to pronounce various words in the four regional accents of North Carolina. The learning never stopped. I’m definitely signing up again next year.

Kaye here, but I want to share a couple more of Kait's pictures. 
This is the door blasting demo--really loud!

Kaye George's WPA sessions 2014

My ride along

I did this Thursday night, as soon as I arrived. I was under the misconception that we would do just an hour. We were, however, scheduled for 6 pm to midnight. I missed the introduction to the academy and my first session with the Felony Murder team, but am so glad I did this. I’ve done these in Austin and Wichita Falls, TX, but this was my first in another state.

The cop I was with, the young Office Kilmer, has worked for Greensboro for 2 years doing the night shift. He was about to switch to days, although nights are his favorite. His consideration was that his daughter and wife needed him to have hours more similar to theirs. The ride was mostly uneventful. He said that in his whole experience at Greensboro, that was the first night he didn’t get a single 911 call! We answered a couple of minor traffic situations and one major. The details are all confidential, of course, but that last traffic accident kept me out until about 1 am. The morning bus ride at 7 am came early!

I’ll detail a few of the sessions I attended below.

Deep Undercover with William Queen

This ATF undercover agent got inside the notorious Mongols motorcycle gang and stayed with them for 26 months. After 24 months he was ready to go, but took 2 more to make sure he had enough to make the subsequent convictions stick to get prosecution for 54 of the men for murder, drugs, and gun running.

He readily admitted that the personal cost to him was enormous and he would never have done it if he had known.

A TV special was aired in September of 2000, narrated by John Miller, of his life as Billy St. John. The Mongol motto is “respect few, fear none” and Billy confirmed that they lived like that.

They had been in a 17 year war with the Hell’s Angels when he joined. He had to fill out a detailed application and succumb to a background check. These deep undercover operations don’t occur much, he said, but he did undercover work for 17 years. Previous to his work with the Mongols, he’d been with the Hell’s Angels. There was a little fear that he would be recognized, but he had changed his appearance drastically and never was. Facial hair is a great disguise. (That last comment is mine.)

Ninety percent of the Mongols are Hispanic. They have an organized national hierarchy with chapters, which have presidents, vice presidents, sergeants at arms, secretaries, and treasurers. He was his chapter’s treasurer, where he could keep track of all the dealings.

One of his books, UNDER AND ALONE, is about this harrowing experience. He’s not afraid any Mongols will read it. That got a chuckle out of all of us. He did not, however, allow any pictures and doesn’t want any info about him online. He knows that, if a Mongol met up with him today, they would try to kill him.

Felony Murder Investigation

It’s hard to put down just what I learned doing these sessions. An arson and robbery of a jewelry store was staged in a building used for Emergency Responders training. An actual fire was set the day before we got there. The stench was incredible and we all issued masks to enter the building and look for clues. We were told that the owner of the store had been sleeping in the back room and had died in the fire. We were given some suspects (actors) to question and were given lists of evidence found, plus the ME’s report (eventually). These sessions took place throughout the conference.

This is probably the most useful information. A mistake our group made was in questioning the suspects. We learned to mostly listen when doing either an interrogation or a questioning. We also learned the fine points of when to read the Miranda warnings and when not to. If a suspect has been apprehended and is being taken in, no warnings are necessary, as long as the police officer doesn’t ask any questions. Anything the suspect says at this point is admissible and is called a “spontaneous utterance.”

Some good questions to ask a suspect (after his rights have been read—and signed):
You know why we’re here?
You’re a smart guy (or gal). You know what’s going on here, don’t you?
What’s going on with you?

These usually get the person talking and you can slip in a cogent question later. Andy says there’s no course in how to do questioning. He learned by watching the masters he’s worked with.

Andy Russell, the policeman in charge of this, stressed many times that our job was to follow the evidence and not to make speculations on who might or might not be guilty. Evidence, he said, is for the investigation; motive is only for the DA.

Me in jail by team member Mike Riegel


Katherine Ramsland

I’ve read her books and taken online classes from her, but this is the first time I’d met her in person. Her lecture was not for anyone with a weak stomach. She went into (with pictures) some of the aberrant behavior she has studied. Her list of exotic crimes: necrophilia, sadism, dismemberment, cannibalism, bizarre rituals, strange motives, and clowns.

She said she gleans information from the news and from historical sources. In the case of the BTK Killer, she has been corresponding with him for 2 years to write a book about his twisted mind. Ms. Ramsland loves her work! She giggles when she’s talking about some of the more ridiculous behavior she’s encountered. She also laughed when she told about playing chess with the BTK Killer. He told her she couldn’t cheat. Her answer was, “You’re a serial killer and you’re telling me not to cheat?” She hired a Grand Master for her moves.

Lisa Gardner

She gave a lecture at the end of day one that everyone attended.

Ms. Gardner informs her writing in three major ways: books (secondary sources), doctors and cops (primary sources), and hands on experience such as WPA and fire arms training. She even told of doing research at the Body Farm.

Her formula for getting information from police workers is to ask questions about what is their funniest, scariest, and favorite cases. Also, what was the biggest surprise on the job, the best and worst part of the job, what do books and TV shows get wrong, and how would they commit the perfect crime.

She gave a Hemingway quote that I liked: Learn the iceberg to write the tip.

Alafair Burke

She gave a lecture at the end of the second day on Lessons From a Prosecutor. We learned that 90 percent of trial cases are settled, or resolved with a plea. She stressed that DAs and cops are not friends. They have separate duties and cultures. The judges are yet another separate kinds of beings.

She talked about the 4th Amendment, search warrants and seizures. The amendment gives protection against unreasonable search and seizure, but leaves lot of leeway. 90 percent of searches are warrantless. That is, if asked, most people permit the search without the warrant. I may not have followed this correctly, but I think she said that if a person exposes information to a third party and the government gets that information, it’s not technically a search.

She also went into many “exceptions” that allow seizure of material without a warrant.

Ms. Burke touched upon the amendments she’s most concerned with in her work. Those are the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 14th. No, I haven’t looked them all up yet.


Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Guest Kathy Aarons: Maryland is for Mysteries!


I welcome Kathy Aarons to my travels today, taking in the charming state of Maryland, where her brand new series is set. Thanks for posting today, Kathy!

Death is Like a Box of Chocolates is set in a fictional town of West Riverdale, Maryland. I liked the idea of envisioning an entire small town that would best fit my story. It would be quaint in the best possible way, with tree-lined streets, stores with cutesy names, concerned (and nosy) neighbors, and of course, murder.

My first idea for West Riverdale’s Main Street, where the shop Chocolates and Chapters is set, was similar to those in western Pennsylvania small towns where I grew up. It took a trip to Maryland to realize that Main Streets in towns that had their origins in colonial times looked different – with more narrow streets and sidewalks, buildings that weren’t perfect and sometimes leaned on each other, and gorgeous old churches that anchored the town.

I toured the seaside towns on eastern Maryland with beautiful views of the water and boats, but once I saw the towns in western Maryland, I knew that’s where West Riverdale had to be. Close enough to Antietam to have a historical flair, but far enough away that the town had to hold special events to lure tourists their way.

I was lucky enough to have two Maryland sources – my sister and my fellow RWA-San Diego member, Kristen Koster. Both answered all of my questions, even the weird and the vague. (Does anything important happen in Maryland during May? Yes! The Preakness!)

For me, visits were helpful, but real Marylanders were the best!

*****

Kathy Aarons is the author of Death is Like a Box of Chocolates, the first in the CHOCOLATE COVERED MYSTERY series by Berkley Prime Crime. It is available at your local bookstore, Amazon and Barnes and Noble on September 2nd.

Research for the series was such a hardship: sampling chocolate, making chocolate, sampling more chocolate, and hanging out in bookstores.

After growing up in rural Pennsylvania and attending Carnegie Mellon University, Kathy built a career in public relations in New York City. She now lives in San Diego with her husband and two daughters where she wakes up far too early, and is currently obsessed with the Broadway Idiot documentary, finding the perfect cup of coffee, and Dallmann’s Sea Salt Caramels.


You can follow Kathy on Facebook or Twitter or visit her at: www.kathyaarons.com.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Killer Nashville 2014

It’s refreshing, renewing, and exhausting, getting together with other mystery writers. I’m not even sure I can tell you about the bizarre (and fun) conversation at the banquet table with several mystery writers I had never met before. You know, the kind I mean. The one that would get you arrested in some places and dirty looks in all the others. I’ll just mention one small part: the opinion that the DC sniper made some mistakes and could have done it better. See?


The opulent Omni Hotel in Nashville


The forensics presentations were excellent. One by Dr. Mike Tabor, odontologist for the Tennessee medical examiner. He touched on identification by teeth, but got further into bite marks. Odontology, according to him, is a fancy word for dentistry.

Dr. Lyle did a talk on DNA and I learned the history of the different methods. It was first used for profiling in 1984 and the method now used, which needs much less DNA (even a single cell is enough), came into being in the 1990s. Now I know not to reference these things at a time when they didn’t exist.

One very weird thing he told us about is chimerism. This is where one fraternal twin absorbs the other in the womb and one child, a chimera, is born with two sets of DNA. When this happens, different body parts can have different DNA. A person also has two sets when he has had a bone marrow transplant. The blood of that person is the same as the donor, the rest of his body keeps its original DNA.


The two guests of honor were William Kent Krueger and Lisa Jackson. Listening to them was very worthwhile! I’ll blog more on that next week.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

One Last Contest for Janet and Quincy

Janet wants to give away one more book this week. Hop over to her blog and tell us what you think Quincy is thinking--we have no idea!


http://janetcantrell.blogspot.com/2014/08/last-contest-before-release.html


Wednesday, August 13, 2014

That was hard!

I'm going to point you to the blog for Janet and Quincy again today, to announce the winner(s) from the cat tale posts last week.

I had to call in reinforcements!

http://janetcantrell.blogspot.com/2014/08/that-was-hard.html

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

FAT CAT STORY CONTEST!

Please visit Janet Cantrell’s blog today to get in on a short story (very short story) contest and to see a cute picture of Marilyn Levinson’s cat.



Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Janet and her giveaway

I didn’t blog last week, being very busy being Janet Cantrell. Here’s the latest news from that quarter—a Goodreads giveaway. And there are 25 copies, from my awesome publisher.

Here’s how to enter. Go to https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/101409 between now and August 2nd. I’m not sure what time of day this will close, so maybe you’d better get there by the 1st.

If you don’t belong to Goodreads, don’t wait! Go ahead and preorder at http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Cat-At-Large-Mystery/dp/0425267423/.


Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Guest today, Pepper O'Neal!

Pepper O'Neal is here today to take us along on some of her research adventures. AND, she had a new book out last month (be sure and check the links below). Here's a bit about her.

Award-winning author, Pepper O’Neal is a researcher, a writer, and an adrenalin junkie. She has a doctorate in education and spent several years in Mexico and the Caribbean working as researcher for an educational resource firm based out of Mexico City. During that time, she met and befriended many adventurers like herself, including former CIA officers and members of organized crime. Her fiction is heavily influenced by the stories they shared with her, as well her own experiences abroad.


O’Neal attributes both her love of adventure and her compulsion to write fiction to her Irish and Cherokee ancestors. When she’s not at her computer, O’Neal spends her time taking long walks in the forests near her home or playing with her three cats. And of course, planning the next adventure.

And now, let's hear from her.

What Do You Mean You Haven’t Been There?

A lot of writers today set their fiction in places they have never been, and do it very convincingly. While this wasn’t possible as little as twenty years ago, today it’s as easy as sitting down at a computer and logging onto the Internet—well, at least if you know what to look for.

While I have traveled extensively in Mexico and the Caribbean—and I have set a novel there—I’ve also set novels in places where I’ve never been, like England and the Middle East. I currently have two series out, one about vampires and shifters (Blood Fest) set in England for the most part, and the other about the mafia and the CIA (Black Ops Chronicles) set in the US, Mexico, and the Middle East. But apparently I do it well enough that I’ve had more than one author contact me and ask me questions about places I’ve used in my novels that they want to use as well. They’re certain I’ve been there and should be able to answer their questions. I’ve also read novels written by an author friend whom I’ve known for years—long enough to know that she has never been to the places she writes about—and would never guessed, had I not known her, that she hasn’t actually been there.

So how do we do it? The answer to that is complicated. First you have to do hours of research, on the internet, or contact organizations in the target country that deal with tourism, or—if you’re lucky enough to have them—ask friends who have been there. And secondly, you have to know what questions to ask or the research you do won’t give your novel that authentic ring of truth.

Think about it. When you travel to a foreign place, what memories to you bring back with you that last the longest? And what is it about foreign places that a person who’s been there knows that someone just doing research doesn’t? The answer is one that has become a cliché of sorts. It’s the “little things,” the ordinary, everyday inconveniences and differences that have had people scraping and saving, sometimes their entire lives, just to experience these places.

For example, did you know that in a lot of places in Mexico, Central America, and South America the sanitation systems are so inferior that they can’t handle toilet paper and you have to put that in a trashcan by the toilet? Or that in most of the smaller markets you have to bring your own bags as the merchants don’t provide them? Or that many towns and villages have only dirt sidewalks and streets and that, when you walk on them, you kick up little wakes of dust behind you that can hang in the air for hours if there’s no breeze? Or that in a lot of less-than-five-star hotels and motels you’re likely to have company in the shower in the form of the largest cockroaches you’ve ever seen? Or that if there is something you routinely use, such as emery boards or certain cosmetics, and you find it at a local store, you need to buy several if you can, because the next time you need it, you might not be able to find it? Or that it’s very hard to find dark hair dye anywhere in those countries except in the largest cities? (Blonde or red, no problem, but as dark hair is the norm in those countries, stores rarely stock dark hair dye.) Or that, unlike in the US, the rules often don’t apply?

For example, one of my fondest memories from living and working in Mexico and the Caribbean comes from the time I had to take a bus trip. I worked for an educational resource firm based in Mexico City. We collected information for documentaries, many of them for The Discovery Channel, as well as for schools and universities, and for organizations preparing educational programs. This one time, my team was asked to gather some information on a particular area in rural Mexico. We usually drove wherever we needed to go, but this particular time several vehicles were dead-lined for repairs, so we were handed bus tickets. The trip was a fairly long one, so the bus stopped for a meal break at a small village restaurant. However, this busload was fuller than usual, thanks to my team, and the little restaurant was overwhelmed. And as the bus had a schedule to keep, we didn’t have a lot of time to wait for our food. So the other female on the team and I went back to the kitchen to see if we could help. Now picture this: the two women in the kitchen spoke no English and, at that time, neither my teammate nor I spoke much Spanish. So we learned to make tortillas and salsa with instructions consisting of grunts, gibberish (to us anyway), and hand gestures. Our misinterpretation of many of those instructions had the entire group in stitches. I’m not sure how much we helped, as we were probably more of a hindrance, but everyone had a blast. If the food was perhaps a little less tasty than it normally would have been, it was still the one of the meals I enjoyed and remembered the most. And the flour and tomato sauce we were covered with when we got back on the bus was an indication of how much fun we’d had—an experience we’d never have gotten anywhere in the US, as least nowhere I’ve ever been.

In my latest novel, the second in the Black Ops Chronicles series, Black Ops Chronicles: Dead Men Don’t, which came out on June 28, 2014, my female lead, Andi, is kidnapped and taken to the Middle East and my black-ops-expert hero, Levi, has to rescue her. Now while I have never been to the Middle East, Levi has, or at least his real-life counterpart has. He really did work for the British SAS as well as the CIA. So in addition to the internet research I did, I got a lot of my information from Levi. For example, there’s a sandstorm in my novel and, obviously, I’ve never experienced one of those. But luckily—or unluckily depending on your point of view—Levi has. So he was able to tell me about how strong the wind was (I guess it would have to be to blow that much sand around) and how that sand burrowed under your clothes and stung every inch of skin it could reach. It wasn’t an experienced he relished. And while he hadn’t enjoyed the experience or the memories, they were invaluable to me. Luckily, he has a great sense of humor and didn’t get too offended by my enthusiastic delight at what he suffered. I tried to be sympathetic—honest, I did—but it was hard when I was getting so much valuable information. He told the story with that dry humor the British are so famous for and, when he was finished, I felt like I’d been there. Would I have had Andi taken to the Middle East if Levi hadn’t been there? Maybe, maybe not. There are plenty of other places I could have used that I’ve either been to or have friends who have. But the Middle East worked with my plot line and, as Levi had been there and had a wealth of information I could use, how could I resist?


A strange man has come to save her...but is he friend or foe?

Anderson Merritt’s been kidnapped, but when a stranger comes to rescue her, she isn’t sure he is who he says he is. He claims to work her father’s boss. But someone close to Andi set her up, and now she doesn’t know who to trust. Every man she’s ever known has seen her only as a tool to get to her father or his money, so why should this one be any different? As the sparks between them ignite, and the danger escalates, Andi has to choose—go off on her own, or trust that some men really are what they seem.


He doesn’t want to hurt her…but he may have to if she doesn’t come willingly.

Ex-CIA black ops specialist Levi Komakov doesn’t believe in hurting women, but when the place is set to blow and Andi won’t cooperate, he has no choice to but toss her over his shoulder and carry her out of danger, determined to keep her safe in spite of herself. But the beautiful little spitfire doesn’t make it easy for him. With her abductors seemingly always one step ahead of him, Levi suspects there’s a rat in the woodpile, but who? Could it be someone close to Andi’s father, someone in the FBI, or someone in the family Levi works for? When a new threat appears, and even the CIA can’t help him keep Andi safe, Levi puts everything on the line—but will it be enough?

Pepper O’Neal—Come for the Adventure, Stay for the Romance