Audio Bones

 by Carola

The official release date of the audio version of my 8th Daisy Dalrymple mystery was yesterday, though I heard at least a week ago from people who had already bought it!

Be that as it may, the Apatosaurus is back--scientists have even agreed to restore its old name, Brontosaurus, the name by which Daisy would have called it when she saw the vast skeleton at London's Natural History Museum. 

 

But it was amidst the smashed bones of a Pareiasaurus skeleton that Daisy found the body of the most-disliked curator in the museum...

                                             
I had a lot of help with research from the Archivist at the museum. He answered all my questions, supplied a plan of the building, and could have told me the names of the cleaners who went in at night to polish the glass cases in Daisy's time, had I wanted them. He even gave me a tour of the areas closed to the public, the research rooms, the backstairs, and the basement.

Quite apart from the displays, it's a fascinating building, well worth a visit just for the architecture.


http://www.nhm.ac.uk/

http://www.amazon.com/Rattle-His-Bones-Dalrymple-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B004XJ5MNO/












Daisy books now available in Audio:
Death at Wentwater Court,
 The Winter Garden Mystery,
 Requiem for a Mezzo,
 Murder on the Flying Scotsman,
 Damsel in Distress,
 Dead in the Water,
 Styx and Stones,
Rattle His Bones,
 Mistletoe and Murder,
 and Fall of a Philanderer.

Guest blog links

by Carola

I'm posting a couple of links today as I'm knee-deep in taxes AND having fits about my approaching deadline.

Here's a post about Zeitgeist--If you don't know what that is, click here http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/2014/03/zeitgeist.html?showComment=1394564077097#c181693304197194834

The Book People are a British bookseller who take a selection of books to workplaces. People can look at them and order what they want on the spot. Great idea! They asked me to answer some questions in connection with their promotion of one of my Regency trilogies, but they carry my mysteries too and my answers include both subjects.

http://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/blog/index.php/2014/02/25/an-interview-with-carola-dunn/

Meanwhile: 
The first Daisy Dalrymple mystery was picked as the February book for GoodReads' Cozy book group.

If you belong to Goodreads, do join in!
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1683000-daisy-dalrymple-death-at-wentwater-court---carola-dunn

 


What you might call "Death galore!"











And while I'm about it, the latest three Polish Daisy covers:

Stuff I left out....

by Carola

Inevitably, when researching for a book, one accumulates a lot of fascinating information that just has no place in the book. Here are some pics of places in Worcestershire that I visited while investigating the part of Worcestershire around Daisy's fictional home, Fairacres, for HEIRS OF THE BODY.

 

The City of Worcester has many historical associations. These pics are from the Commandery, which in medieval times served as an almshouse as well as a place of hospitality for pilgrims and other travellers. During the Civil War (British not American!) it was the headquarters of the forces of Charles I against Cromwell's Puritan army (Cavaliers v. Roundheads).

 While exploring Worcester, we toured the factory where Royal Worcester china used to be made. (Interesting, but not useful for my story!)

Above is a view of Worcester from the river, and on the right, the Cathedral gatehouse.






This is a house my friend and I visited on the opposite side of the Severn from Fairacres. Unfortunately it doesn't work as a model for Fairacres, but we enjoyed touring it nonetheless.

The house, believe it or not, was once occupied by a boys' school. What they thought of the presiding ladies' physical endowments is lost to history. Perhaps fortunately...

Much of the interior has beautiful old plaster mouldings. The occupants after the school were a group of Buddhists. They painted the normally white mouldings in vivid colours. Desecration, some might say, but I think they're beautiful.

Below are the old "pepperpot" church tower and a narrowboat on the river at Upton upon Severn, the nearest small town to Fairacres.

 Both are mentioned in the book but aren't important to the story.



On the other hand, I also came across unexpected information that changed the course of the story. I learned that the village, though it seems well set up from the river, regularly floods when storms in the hills from which it flows dump heavy rainfall upstream.
 
 As a result, the local doctor can't get to Fairacres, and Daisy can't take to him the body that's sitting beside her in the car...












Heirs of the Body is the 21st in the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series. It will be out in December in the US and UK and elsewhere, as well as in e-book formats.

Support indie mystery bookstores, order from http://seattlemystery.com/  or http://www.mystgalaxy.com/
or
http://www.amazon.com/Heirs-Body-Dalrymple-Mystery-Mysteries/dp/0312675496/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384813164&sr=8-1&keywords=heirs+of+the+body

Daisy in Polish

by Carola

My Daisy Dalrymple mysteries are now coming out in Poland. The Polish publisher bought the translation rights to the first 10, and I gather they're putting out one a week. This is the cover of the first, Death at Wentwater Court:

Cute and eye-catching, if somewhat inaccurate as far as the story's concerned. Very different from the original cover:

and the large print:













Not to mention the equally cartoonish US paperback:

and the UK edition:

Or the audio and two German editions each with different artwork!
They're calling the series Daisy D. I wonder if Dalrymple is impossible for Polish-speakers to pronounce.

There seems to be a boxed set of all 10. I'm not sure exactly how this works. Perhaps readers can buy the box along with one book and fill it as they come out? Or perhaps once all of them are out, they'll start selling the boxed set already filled. This box has the cover of the second in the series, The Winter Garden Mystery.

The spines of the volumes are very clever, producing a cat that strongly reminds me of the Pink Panther, which also adorns all three front covers that I've seen. Here's the third, Requiem for a Mezzo:

Interesting--especially as I can't remember ever writing about a cat in any of the Daisy books. There may be a casual mention somewhere in the 21 I've written to date, but I'm a dog-person and so is Daisy! Her stepdaughter's dog, Nana, appears in several of the books, finding a body in one and digging up a Clue in another, only to run away with it and rebury it. Nana even graces one cover:

I'd never actually described her appearance in detail, so now the artist has defined her.

With the help of friends and relatives, I've managed to put a welcome message in Polish on my website. A couple of days later I got more than twice as many hits than ever before--though I can't tell whether there were a lot of Poles!

While on the subject of cover art, I'm thrilled that the artist who's done so many great covers for Daisy (including Black Ship, above, but not Wentwater Court) is passing through town today and we're hoping to arrange to meet. I'm trying to decide which is my favourite, in case he asks.

Daisy po polsku

by Carola

The first ten books of my Daisy Dalrymple series are coming out in Polish. This is the cover of the first, Death at Wentwater Court.

Cute, right? But wait... They're putting them out as compete boxed sets, each set with the cover of one of the books, and all with a clever and even cuter motif on the spines:

You may note that Daisy's last name has been dropped from the series title--because Poles can't pronounce Dalrymple, I wonder?

These three are all I've seen, so I'm just assuming the rest also feature the black cartoonish cat. To me, it brings to mind the Pink Panther, and the theme of the movies comes into my head every time I see it.

The odd thing is that, as far as I remember, there are no cats in any of Daisy's adventures. Me, I'm a dog-person!

Now that's more like it...


 Find Daisy (in English) on Amazon

And read about Cornish Mysteries release in UK here 
Amazon US  Amazon UK
 

Heirs of the Body

by Carola Dunn

I'm happy to report that Heirs of the Body, the 21st Daisy Dalrymple mystery, is finished and has winged its way to my editor. It will be out in December in the US, January in the UK.

This is the fabulous US cover: 

And now it's time to tackle my taxes...

Free short stories

by Carola Dunn

My deadline is rushing ever closer, so I'm just going to post links to three free mystery short stories. I wrote these for anthologies, two of which were published and the third never came to fruition. They're available for download in a variety of formats.

The published ones are both Daisy Dalrymple mysteries, set in London in the 1920s, featuring the main character of my 20-book series (it's the deadline of #21 that is almost upon me).

STORM IN A TEA SHOPPE: Daisy and her friend Lucy go out to lunch and find themselves in the soup...

http://www.belgravehouse.com/online/freestorm-in-a-tea-shoppe-p-465.html

UNHAPPY MEDIUM: A seance takes a deadly turn:

http://www.belgravehouse.com/online/free-unhappy-medium-p-466.html

 The third story is set in 1830, at the opening of the first public passenger railway in the world, from Liverpool to Manchester. It's closely based on the real event, but my elderly sleuth, Miss Primrose, discovers that the accidental death of the local Member of Parliament was no accident:

MISS PRIMROSE AND THE MARCH OF PROGRESS

http://www.belgravehouse.com/online/free-miss-primrose-and-the-march-of-progress-p-480.html

Enjoy!

You can find a list of all my mysteries in the correct order at:
http://www.cozy-mystery.com/Carola-Dunn.html

Pet peeves

by Carola Dunn

Trying to get ms finished as there is now a pub. date (December) which, though far in the future, is not far enough for me.

They've already produced the cover art!

 So here is a link to a blog about "pet peeves" in mysteries.  Chester and I both contributed via DorothyL.

http://istoriabooks.blogspot.com/2013/02/mysterious-monday-pet-peeves-in.html

Do leave a comment about your own particular pet peeves--so that we can try to avoid them! 

Downton Abbey, Barnes & Noble, and Me

by Carola Dunn

A few weeks ago, my editor told me Barnes and Noble had picked my 19th Daisy Dalrymple mystery, Anthem for Doomed Youth, to be part of a nationwide promotion for Downton Abbey. Yes, I was excited!

The third season of the popular series is set in England between the wars--WWI and WWII, that is. Besides books about the period, B&N were looking for novels set at that time. They planned to have 5 or so copies of each chosen book on display near the checkout counter, in every store in the US. St. Martin's was to do a special reprint of the paperback edition for them.

My editor said the four-week promotion was to begin on January 8th. So on the day, I trotted along to the local store. I must have circled the store 3 times before I decided I just wasn't going to find the display. All the booksellers were busy, so I came home disappointed and tried to call them. Impossible to speak to a Real Person, or to leave a message, or even to stay on hold. At last, later that evening I got through.

The person I spoke to had never heard of a Downton Abbey promotion. He looked it up on his computer, and couldn't find anything that mentioned it. :-( 

I emailed my editor. I also asked my Facebook friends to pop into the nearest B&N if they happened to be passing and see what they could see. My editor contacted Macmillan's "B&N person," who promised to get onto it.

The responses I had from FB friends were not encouraging:

"There is a Downton Abbey display here in Naples, FL, but no Anthem for Doomed Youth."

"Checked the store in Fort Gratiot, MI. No Downton display but Anthem is on display in the new Mystery section."

"This was unfortunately the case last night at the W. 82nd location in Manhattan as well. I had called ahead and put Anthem on hold, but before I retrieved it, I sought out the Downton display to check out what else they had out. I found it on the endcap of the aisle that contained Mystery. So when I didn't see Anthem on display, I found it only a few feet away. I feigned ignorance tho just so I could ask an employee to find it for me and then mention I thought it was part of the Downton promo. I doubt it did any good, but I did want to mention it to them. Still glad to have a brand new copy of Anthem, which I hadn't read yet, but it was disappointing."

"I found the Downton Abbey display at the Ithaca Barnes & Noble - it was about 7 books on an endcap (no "Anthem"!). I caught a fellow and asked where the "Anthem" books were. He pulled out a paper with the particulars about the display, and it didn't include yours. He checked the computer and they had 5 new "Anthem"s, it said they were supposed to be in a "Cash Wrap" (?) "up front". We found them stacked on a desk; so I don't know where they are going to end up. But I did impress upon him that all your "Facebook friends" would be looking for the "Anthem"s." 

And have to laugh at this one, I guess: "Went to B&N in Woodland Hills yesterday and they were gone. Had been there just before Christmas. The sign said they closed 12/31/12."

I forwarded all these and more to my editor, at his request. Whether they helped or not I don't know, but I'm very grateful to all those who took the time to check. Three cheers for Facebook friends!

On Sunday, I returned to the local (Eugene) store. There was Anthem, right by the cash registers, with a selection of other books set in the time period! I asked if they'd like me to sign them, which they did, and even dug out some of my other titles for me to sign.

When I got home and turned on the computer, there was an email from my editor--he had found the same in his local B&N.

I'm not sure what the moral of this story is. Be patient and they'll get around to it? Or persistence pays--keep bugging till they act?

One way or another, I'm happy to announce that if you go into a Barnes and Noble store in the next few weeks, you may--or may not--find a Downton Abbey promotion that includes Anthem for Doomed Youth!

Read about the book here: 
http://caroladunn.weebly.com/1/category/anthem%20for%20doomed%20youth/1.html
  (scroll down a bit)

Or read an excerpt here:
http://historicalfictionexcerpts.blogspot.com/2013/01/anthem-for-doomed-youth-ii.html 

It's also available as an ebook.

How to kill people

by Carola Dunn

One of the difficulties in writing a long series is trying to find new ways to kill people. I'm not really keen on incredibly complicated devices such as some Golden Age authors used--carefully aimed rifles that were fired by invisible twine when the victim opened the garden gate, or when a candle burning down set the twine on fire, for instance.

Yet I don't want to repeat myself too much. By the time you get to the twenty-first book in a series, it's a real problem.

Let me see--I've had drowning, shooting, ye olde blunt instrument to the head, poison, prehistoric stone knife, dagger in the back, ceremonial halberd, thumbs to the carotid arteries, smothering with a pillow, blowing up with coal-gas, breathing coal-gas, breathing nitrous oxide, crushed by a stone angel, strangling with a stocking, chucking overboard, fall from a cliff...

[No, Daisy did NOT push him over!]

You see the trouble? I just may have to add "run over by a tram" to the list. Come to think of it, that's not a bad idea!

Just looked up the relevant city and this is what I found: 

"City chaos

Despite Council promises, from June 1903 until the opening day, havoc had reigned.

Tram in Broad Street copyright L Oppitz

All the main streets in the city centre were dug up for the removal of the old lines used by the former horse-drawn tramcars and for the installation of wider lines and overhead power cables for the new electric trams.

The city was cast into total chaos and the whole operation led to what became known locally and nationally as "The Tramway Siege of Worcester 1903-4".
Citizens had to get around the central area entirely on foot to shop or to do their business, some pushing prams or other makeshift two-wheeled trolleys to carry their goods.
The Council remained optimistic claiming: "What is in view is cheapness - a welcome penny fare to each boundary of the city, a more frequent service, and trams to and fro on every route every ten minutes’.

1904 tram - copyright Leslie Oppitz

All cars were fitted with slipper brakes because of gradients in Rainbow Hill and London Road."

The trams ran until 1928--the year after my book takes place, when they were replaced by buses.

Yes indeed, I think someone's going to get run over by a tram...

Friends of Daisy: can you remember any methods of murder I've forgotten?


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