Putting Yourself in Your Book

By Chester Campbell

I'm often asked how much of myself gets into my books. Obviously an author's ideas fill his or her work, but not much of the writer's personal life winds up in the fictional world. My new book out shortly turns all of that around.

Hellbound is a suspense story that, except for the ending, takes place over a five-day period. The action during that time occurs in settings that mirror almost exactly a similar five days of my life back around 1995. The book's plot involves a busload of seniors from a suburban Nashville church who head down the Natchez Trace on a carefree journey to The Big Easy. By the fourth day they become aware that a Mafia hit squad has been playing a deadly game of tag with them.

Except for the Mafia angle and the hurricane and its aftermath, the bus journey to New Orleans follows exactly the trip my wife and I took with a group from City Road Chapel United Methodist Church in Madison, TN twenty years ago. It includes the tour of the French Quarter we took aboard a mule-drawn carriage, right down to some of the driver's spiel that I taped with a small recorder. I changed the name of the church and created new characters for the driver and bus passengers, although a few resemble actual people.

This book is more personal to me than anything I’ve written. It’s almost biographical in some respects. One of the two main characters, Marge Hunter, lived in East Nashville on Gartland Avenue in a house similar to the one in which I grew up. She attended East Nashville High School in the early years of World War II, as I did. She graduated from the University of Tennessee and moved to Madison after she was married. Same as me.

The seniors on the bus know one passenger as Bryce Reynolds, a retiree who lives not far from the church. He is really Pat Pagano, a successful Las Vegas stockbroker who was lured into handling investments for a New York crime family. After his two grown sons are killed in an attack by a rival gang and his wife succumbs to cancer, Pagano decimates the mob with his testimony in federal court. He disappears, then resurfaces in Nashville as Reynolds, a retired businessman from Oklahoma. But after years of searching, an old Mafia capo tracks Pagano to the church bus en route to New Orleans.

Hellbound is currently available for pre-order as an ebook for the Kindle at this link. It will be available shortly in paperback.

ChesterDCampbell.com
Mystery Mania blog

The Perils of Plotting

Maybe perils is a bit melodramatic, but it's eye-catching. How about dilemmas? Okay, still a little heavy, but it carries the connotation of difficulty. Things don't always pan out the way we plan. Take my new book, whose cover appears here. As I've said before (likely too many times), I'm a "pantser" when it comes to plotting. I start with a basic idea and jump in feet first.

With this book, the second Sid Chance entry, I did a bit of cogitating and came up with the idea of building the story around the subject of Medicare fraud. I got the impetus from a CBS news piece about FBI agents in Miami tracking down storefront scammers who billed Medicare for durable medical equipment, like power chairs and such. It has been a lucrative business, but I didn't recall any mystery novels delving into it. I know, somebody will write that they've read a dozen of them, but I haven't.

Anyway, I researched the subject, learning the requirements for setting us an operation able to bill Medicare. I read about the new regulations aimed at making it more difficult for fraudsters. I learned that some drug traffickers were finding it more lucrative than selling dope.

Before I plopped down on my recliner with laptop on lap, the local paper ran a few stories about the problem of killers who are kids getting tried in Criminal Court and sentenced to prison. If they weren't genuine ciminals when they went in, they probably would be when they came out. In juvenile correctional facilities, they get guidance designed for people their age.

The main story featured Nashville's youngest murderer of recent memory, a black boy who shot a man during a drug deal at age twelve. He was released from prison at twenty-five after spending more than half his life behind bars. He vowed to lead a changed life now, though he hadn't been able to find a job. I read a few months later that he'd been arrested for beating up a girlfriend, but I already had my character who vowed to go straight.

My man, Djuan Burden, appears at a Medicare scam shop in the process of closing and ready to skip town. The owner had just been shot, causing Djuan to flee in panic. A pair of Metro Nashville homicide detectives with his description and license number, plus a paper he'd left on the desk with his fingerprints and his grandmother's address, promptly arrest him for the murder.

PI Sid Chance is hired by the grandmother, who had reason to believe in Djuan's innocence, to prove he didn't murder the shop owner. Sid and his sometimes partner, Jaz LeMieux, find evidence of Medicare fraud which the cops missed because they were only interested in the homicide. Sid turns it over to an FBI agent who is a key contact as the story progresses.

Great so far, but at this point the plot switches gears. Sayonara Medicare fraud. The story turns into a tale of bad cops and other villains involved in murder and revenge and similar nastiness. There are good cops, too, of course, including Homicide Detective Bart Masterson and Patrol Sgt. Wick Stanley, who along with Sid and Jaz are members of the Miss Demeanor and Five Felons Poker Club. While writing the book, I attended the Metro Nashville Citizen Police Academy. It prompted me to dedicate the book to the men and women who wear the badge and risk their necks day and night to keep us safe.

I suppose what happened with the plot to this book illustrates why I prefer the "seat of the pants" method of plotting. I had no idea things would turn out they way they did. It's exciting to learn what characters wind up doing and how they steer the story into new dimensions.

You'll find more about the new book here at my website.

Adventures with Author Photos

By Jaden Terrell

Some of you may know that the first two books of my Jared McKean series have picked up by The Permanent Press. This means the first book, Racing the Devil, will be reissued (again) in June of 2012 and the second book, A Cup Full of Midnight, will be released in August at the Killer Nashville Thriller, Mystery, and Crime Literature Conference. We even have some interest from a few overseas publishers.

It's all very exciting, but there's one bug in the ointment--the author photo.

I don't how the rest of you feel, but for many of us, the author photo moment is a source of great angst. I mean, not only are total strangers going to be judging you--and your book--on the basis of the photo, you also become fair game for articles like this. And this.

I tried to convince the publisher that we didn't need an author photo. I made what I thought were compelling arguments. First, my protagonist is male, which is why we went with a unisex pen name. An obviously feminine photo would defeat the purpose. Second, I don't look like the writer of hardboiled PI novels. I look like a kindergarten teacher--or a special ed teacher, which is what I am--or was. People who see my picture on the back of the book are going to expect a warm, cozy read, which my books are not. They have a warmth to them, but they're far from cozy. A photo of me, I said, would give readers exactly the wrong impression. No one, I said, was going to buy a book because my photo was on it. (Unlike Graham Brown, whose thrillers are exciting and well-written, but who probably sells as many copies because of the photo on the back as for the stories themselves).

My publisher suggested I have an ambiguous photo made, a sort of androgynous look. For a woman who bears a strong resemblance to a fertility goddess, this was quite a challenge, but it seemed like a reasonable compromise. I thought that, since my PI, Jared, has horses, it might work to wear a cowboy hat and maybe an Australian-style duster. If I included the horse, it would draw even more attention away from me.

I went online and looked at dozens and dozens of photographers' websites. After days of searching, I found this guy, Jeff Frazier. You can read his blog here. His photos are wonderful, and he's a delight to work with.

I emailed Jeff and told him what I needed. He seemed intrigued by the challenge, and his prices were reasonable, so we arranged a photo shoot at the pasture where a friend of mine kept two horses. (They're my horses now, but that's another story.)

It was a beautiful fall day, and the pasture was filled with some kind of tall, golden grass that looked like but wasn't wheat. In spite of my near-phobia about cameras, Jeff made the shoot fun and took what seemed like hundreds of photos--some that obscured most of me and some I could use for head shots and other promotional materials. By the time he left, I felt like a movie star.

After my agent, my mom, and several friends had helped me narrow the choices, he sent me two retouched/polished photos, one for the cover and one for a head shot where I don't need to be obscured. The CD with the others is on its way.

Here's what we decided on for the cover. Not so ambiguous, but at least there's a horse to draw attention away from me. That's Pete--short for Peter Pan. Isn't he handsome?


What are your experiences with author photos? Love 'em? Hate 'em? Consider them a necessary evil? Do author photos influence you to buy (or not buy) a book?

An Interview with Jill McKenzie

Jill McKenzie, the distaff side of McKenzie Investigations, has never granted an interview. She isn't the outspoken type like her husband, Greg. However, with the fifth book featuring the sleuthing pair, A Sporting Murder, popping up all over the place (I hope), she agreed to sit down and share a bit about herself. Here's the interview:

MM: Why is it your best friend, Wilma Gannon, says she was born with chopsticks while you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth?

JMcK: She breaks me up sometimes. We both grew up in Nashville, but she was born in China while her parents were missionaries. I was born out Hillsboro Road, which she calls the ritzy part of town.

MM: Actually, your parents were pretty well off, weren't they?

JMcK: I don't want to sound like a braggart, but my father, Daniel Parsons, was a quite successful life insurance salesman. His clients were mostly businessmen. He handled buy-sell agreements and that sort of thing.

MM: What about your mother?

JMcK: She studied at Juilliard and played violin with the Nashville Symphony.

MM: You didn't follow in her footsteps.

JMcK: Nor my dad's. He wanted me to go to Vanderbilt, where he graduated, but I had idolized Amelia Earhart and Nashville's own Cornelia Fort. Did you know she was in the air over Honolulu flying with a student pilot when the Pearl Harbor attack took place?

MM: I wasn't aware of that. I knew the Cornelia Fort Airpark along the river was named for her.

JMcK: When I found that Middle Tennessee State in Murfreesboro had an aviation program, I knew I had to go there. I could be as stubborn as my dad, so that's where I went. I've been flying ever since.

MM: Wasn't Middle Tennessee State where you met Greg?

JMcK: It sure was. He was in his first OSI assignment at Sewart Air Force Base located in Smyrna, not far from Murfreesboro. He came over to talk to my Civil Air Patrol unit about security. I gave him a hard time, asking all kinds of questions. I think he made up some of his answers. When he'd finished, I asked if he could get me a tour of the air base. He did, and served as my escort. We were soon dating.

MM: You ran your own air charter service for awhile, didn't you?

JMcK: You've heard of Hemingway's moveable feast. That was my moveable firm. I had to relocate several times to stay near bases where Greg was stationed. I enjoyed it, though. I still have a Cessna at the Nashville airport. We've used it a few times during our investigations.

MM: How did McKenzie Investigations come about? You'd never been involved in Greg's Air Force job, had you?

JMcK: Half the time I didn't know what he was doing. When we went down to Perdido Key to find out how Wilma and Sam Gannon's son died, I helped out with questioning some people who might have been involved. I knew Greg wanted to get back into investigative work, so I suggested we go into business together. It's been a riot.

MM:Didn't you have to do some adjusting in your views on some things?

JMcK: Boy, did I. Firearms was one subject. I never liked the fact that Greg had to carry a weapon all the time during his Air Force career. I knew that's what law enforcement agents did, but I had this naive view about the propriety of such things. It just didn't seem socially acceptable. But I quickly learned in some cases you have only one chance to save your life, or someone else's. Greg taught me how to shoot, and it's proved invaluable. I've learned to be a pretty good shot.

MM: You've been in some hairy situations. Has it changed you in any way?

JMcK: It's made me stay a lot more aware of what's going on around me. I'm not as trusting of people I don't know. My experience as a pilot taught me to keep one jump ahead of what's going on. I've learned to apply that to my job as an investigator.

MM: I'm sure you'll have many more successful ventures ahead. It's been a pleasure talking with you, Jill. Good luck!

JMcK: (Wink) Good luck to you. Thank goodness I don't have to sell books.

Okay, she's right. I have a book to sell, and you can read all about it at this page on my website.

Crime of the Century

By Chester Campbell

The 20th century produced several cases that have vied for the "crime of the century" title. The Lindbergh kidnapping occupied headlines for months back in the thirties. The Charles Manson murder spree in 1969 still pops up occasionally when one of the principals generates a bit of news. And, of course, the O.J. Simpson case dragged on forever following the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole in 1994.

Although the 21st century is young, we already have a crime of the century nominee. This one isn't a murder in the normal sense, though several people have been killed. The body count could become astronomical when they start tallying up all the birds and fish and turtles. Yep, we're talking oil spill here.

For several years, my wife and I spent two weeks each March and October at a condo on the pristine white beach at Perdido Key, Florida. We aren't swimmers, but we walked barefoot in the sand most days and spent hours on the balcony watching the breakers sweep onshore. Just the thought of what will happen if that gummy reddish-black muck washes up on Perdido Key turns my stomach.

Just the possibility of what may happen has already had adverse effects on the area. Luxury condos at nearby Gulf Beach, Alabama are renting for rock-bottom prices. I've always done well at book signings in the Pensacola area and was looking forward to this fall when my new book comes out. Maybe the people will find reading mysteries a good antidote to worrying about the terrible crime that's taking place in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP is ready to attempt another method or two at stopping the flow of rogue oil that continues to pour from the well on the ocean floor. If these don't work, maybe they should try stuffing a bunch of Washington bureaucrats into the pipe. That should cause enough confusion to plug up anything that might be gushing around.

From all that's been said, neither the oil company nor it's bureaucratic overseers were prepared for such an accident. Hopefully they have learned enough to make sure it doesn't happen again. But before it's over, this is likely to go down as the worst disaster ever suffered by America's southern coast. And it may even infect parts of the east coast as well.

Speculation is that Nashville will not fully recover from the effects of last month's flood for twenty years. The Gulf Coast may be in for a similar fate.

And the Rains Came Tumbling Down

By Beth Terrell

For the past few weeks, I've caught myself singing a little song I learned in Sunday School when I was a child:

The rains came down and the floods came up,
The rains came down and the floods came up,
The rains came down and the floods came up,
And the house on the rock stood firm.

Chester has already discussed the recent floods around Tennessee, but it's a topic that's foremost in every Nashvillian's mind. Everyone has suffered a loss or knows someone who has. Homes were covered with water, only their roofs visible. There were close to 1000 boat rescues, most conducted by regular people who risked their lives to help complete strangers. Even so, the last count I heard was twenty-six dead. At least two people drowned on Interstate 40, less than two miles from my office.

My family and I were lucky, but many of my colleagues were not. Some lost their homes and/or their vehicles. At least one lost a friend. My friend and dog trainer was rescued from the top floor of her two-story home just as the water reached the eaves. She lost several of her dogs and both of her cats; their loss hurt her more deeply than the loss of her home.

Today, when I saw her, she and her husband were moving what they could salvage into a rental house owned by a friend. Other friends have pitched in to provide supplies for her, her husband, and her surviving dogs. "I always thought dogs were better," she said, "but the people...I never knew people could be like this."

The spirit of generosity has been seen all over the city--no, all over the state. As I sang that little song today, it occurred to me that, despite the damage and the heartache, Tennessee been a house on a rock. A rock of friendship, a rock of faith, a rock of determination. We have stood firm.

J.T. Ellison, a fellow Nashvillian and the author of the Taylor Jackson thrillers, has shared her thoughts about the flood in a remarkable post for AOL News. If you'd like to see some powerful images of the devastation, check out this video on J.T.'s site; it's followed by a list of local charities.

The Waters Rose...and Rose...and

By Chester Campbell

The recent flooding in my hometown of Nashville offers lots of angles for mystery plotting. Rising water from thirteen inches of rain came so swiftly that many people were not able to get out and had to be rescued by boat. A few didn't make it. Hundreds of people lost most or all of their belongings. Fortunately it didn't happen, but in all the upheaval, a homicide could easily have been missed.

After the water receded, hundreds of homes were left with major damage, some beyond repair. As residents began the cleanup, with help from thousands of volunteers, destroyed furniture, appliances, clothing, and everything imaginable were piled along the streets. Ruined carpets and floors, sections of drywall, doors warped by the water, and tons of pink insulation were hauled out into yards.

Those with upstairs rooms spared from flooding managed to salvage a lot of personal items, but these were left unprotected with doors gone and windows left open to help dry out the houses. A few cases of looting were reported but no major outbreaks. The Metro Police moved into the effected areas  in force to deter would-be thieves.

Nashville has been congratulated by visiting officials for the way its citizens reacted in reaching out in large numbers to help those in need. Tents were set up to provide food and water for workers involved in the effort to clean out homes and begin repairs. When my wife and I visited a granddaughter to pick up her small boys to babysit them, there was a parade of women along the street offering drinks and sandwiches for lunch.

Three large areas in separate parts of the county were badly flooded. Much of the damage occurred away from rivers or large streams, outside flood plains, where people never saw the need to buy flood insurance. They will likely receive only small sums from FEMA. Those unable to get loans and without funds to make repairs will lose their homes. Many small businesses will never reopen, costing more jobs.

For several days, the TV stations devoted their entire schedule to covering the flood. Miles of streets with water up to the windows or almost covering roofs were shown from the view of news helicopters. The Cumberland River rose far above flood stage, inundating parts of downtown, flooding numerous businesses and large buildings. The Symphony Center and Country Music Hall of Fame were among the victims. The Titans' stadium became a massive swimming pool.

The massive Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center was flooded, taking its 2881 rooms out of operation for at least six months. It forced the almost 85-year-old Grand Ole Opry radio show to move to various locations to stay on the air. Nashville's largest shopping center next door, Opry Mills Mall, also had to be shut down.

Nashville is still doing fine, thank you, but for many the recovery is going to be long and painful. One of two pumping stations that provide drinking water for the area was shut down, requiring heavy conservation efforts. But in most areas life goes on as usual.

With a fair-sized group of mystery writers making their home here, don't be surprised to find a flooding novel making its appearance before long. For the moment, though, it's a little too painful to contemplate.

Chase Your Scotch with Cyanide?

By Chester Campbell

In the book I'm currently laboring over, I have an attempted poisoning. I consulted two of Dr. Doug Lyle's books, Murder and Mayhem and Forensics for Dummies, which I keep on the shelf for just such occasions. I needed a quick-acting poison that would mix well with Scotch. I read the possibilities and concluded that cyanide, more specifically potassium cyanide, would provide just the tool I needed.

My next problem was I wanted the toxic ingredient to be discovered quickly. I knew enough about forensics to be aware that toxicological testing takes a good while. You frequently hear the police or the medical examiner saying the toxicology results will be available in a few weeks. Mystery plots don't have that long to wait.

So I queried the good doctor. If you haven't visited his website, The Writer's Medical and Forensics Lab, you've missed a great resource. It used to be you could email him a question and get a detailed answer shortly. Times have changed.

"Unfortunately, since we have far too many lawyers in this country and a legal system that is most often devoid of common sense," Doug says, he now requires your complete identification in a specific format before he can give you an answer. It's all to make sure you're a legitimate mystery writer and not interested in nefarious activities.

I pointed out that my plot makes the bottle highly suspect for being polluted with cyanide and asked if my homicide detective could get it checked by a simple test that wouldn't take too long. His reply:

"How long this would take depends upon the sophistication of his lab. If you are in a major city such as New York or Los Angeles where there are active and well-equipped crime labs this could take a day, particularly if this were a high profile case. On the other hand if you run a smaller jurisdiction he might have to send this to a reference lab, a state lab, or the FBI lab and this can take many weeks to get done. And anywhere in between. What this means is that you can set your story up to get the results in almost any time frame you want."

In my case, the Metro Nashville Police Department doesn't have a toxicology lab, so they would send the bottle to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Forensics Division in a Nashville suburb. My detective has a good friend in the TBI toxicology lab who gets the job done expeditiously.

Dr. Lyle also has a daily blog, The Writer's Forensics Blog, that's full of interesting stuff. A couple of days ago he had an interview with a retired bioethics professor who has written a book titled The Arsenic Century with some intriguing info on the subject. I highly recommend both the blog and his website.

By the way, next time you take a nip of Scotch, you might want to sniff it for a bitter almond smell.

Don't Mess With Texas

By Mark W. Danielson

I love Texas for its attitude as well as its landscapes. Texas is “The Lone Star State” because it was once the Republic of Texas. Paris, France, still commemorates the Ambassade Du Texas, 1842-1843, as shown in the photo. Interestingly, the Republic of Texas’ relationship with France was strong enough to warrant naming one of its towns after the City of Light. Love it or leave it, Texas is one unique state.

I spent many years living in Texas, and from its panhandle to the Gulf, Texans are full of pride. The “Don’t Mess With Texas” signs that dot its highways warn outsiders of its no-littering policy, but truthfully, this slogan is also an anthem. Where else but Texas would you find a semi-automatic pistol mailbox? ’Nuff said.

Writers love creating Texas characters because of their distinctive qualities. Movies and TV shows love to portray oil barons as rotund, boozing, loud-mouthed middle-aged men who wear cowboy boots, cowboy hats, and drive Caddies with bull horns on their hoods, and while I’ve seen plenty of Texas businessmen in boots and hats with their suits, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a bull-horned Cadillac on the street. Now gun-toting pickups are a whole different animal, and they’re certainly not on the endangered list.

Because of its stereotypes, people may not realize that Texas has as much geographical variety as California, and along with its topography, its dialects can vary by city. Even towns that are physically close like Fort Worth and Dallas have completely different feels, so if you’re going to write Texas characters into your stories, you had better know what you’re talking about. You’ll find Dallas is as cosmopolitan as Chicago while Fort Worth rivals any cow town. I suspect that Fort Worth’s “Billy Bob’s” is where the country group Alabama realized that “if you’re gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band.” Of course, some might compare Houston to Nashville because it’s turned out so many country musicians.

The point to all of this is that researching characters is as important as researching locations. Sometimes stereotypes are suitable, but most of the time they’re not, and thinking that Hollywood has done its homework is simply naïve. For example, when some Navy friends of mine spoke to the director of the movie Topgun about its inaccuracies, the director replied, “We’re not making a documentary.” While it’s true that fiction writers make up their stories, unless you’re writing fantasy, it’s best to keep your characters and locations believable. Doing so makes it easier for the reader to put themselves in the setting and become emotionally attached to your characters.

California, Here We Come

By Chester Campbell

Back in September of 2004, my wife, Sarah, and I undertook our most ambitious book signing tour, a five-day gig in Orange County, California. We do all our travels by car, so we made a two-week trip out of this one. Sharing the driving time keeps a fairly fresh pair of hands on the wheel. We switch off at rest stops or lunch breaks.

While cleaning up my desk the other day, I came across a small note pad with a few scrawled pages of cryptic notes jotted down during the trip. It’s interesting to see what random thoughts I chronicled from all we saw in traveling most of I-40 from Nashville, Tennessee to its end at Barstow, California. The pages only covered the trip out. We did our sightseeing on the way back, including a visit to the Grand Canyon.

According to my little book, we departed Nashville at 7:20 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 13. My first entry was “cappuccino in Jackson,” which put us well into West Tennessee. I might add that we became addicted to cappuccino around this time, a habit that has stayed with us to the present. We like the kind you find in truck stops and gas stations along the interstate. At home, we mix ours with powder from Sam’s.

Rain and road work were noted at 11:15 a.m. in Memphis. I remember getting slowed by construction as we neared the I-40 bridge across the Mississippi. And the rain doused us with bucketsful as we trekked across Arkansas. However, I noted the temperature in Little Rock was 94 degrees. We stopped there for lunch at the Cracker Barrel restaurant. We make it a habit of eating at Cracker Barrel. You know what to expect and it’s invariably tasty.

As the weather improved, we zipped across Arkansas and kept pressing on until it got dark on us at Shawnee, Oklahoma. We picked out a likely looking Best Western not far off I-40 and checked in. Bummer. The restaurant was closed and the pool shut down by order of the Health Department. We were too bushed to look for another place so settled into the third room they gave us (the first had no a/c, the second door wouldn’t open).

Tuesday dawned with a welcome red ball in the sky. After we crossed into Texas, my notes mention “buttes, maize, cattle.” I was also impressed by the colorful lights on the Texas troopers’ cars. Happily, they didn’t flash them for us. The New Mexico border brought a mention of the state’s 75 mph speed limit. Another salient (not the word Sarah used) feature was the rustic rest rooms at their rest areas.

The farther west we traveled, the higher the elevation. I noted the landscape consisted of “high plains with zilch,” indicating little of descriptive value as far as I could see. We cruised through Albuquerque, where I was impressed with the colorful Spanish architecture. As the sun dropped lower, we found ourselves nearly blinded by that unyielding glow on the horizon. We stopped for the night at Grants, 6,466 feet up, a little shy of the Continental Divide. My notes say we ate at the 4B’s Restaurant, although it wasn’t memorable enough that I recall anything about it.

Since we had left Tennessee and were heading for California, we came dressed for summer weather. The lofty altitude left us shivering when we stepped out of the room Wednesday morning. We also discovered that the price of gas kept going up as we traveled farther west. My notes show $1.79, which doesn’t sound bad today.

Arizona brought more high plains and lots of rock. Most noticeable were the different colors in the rock formations and the way they were piled about in places. We stopped briefly in Flagstaff to check out the Grand Canyon tours for the following week, then began the downhill trek toward the California border. This was a desolate area, with a 50-mile stretch between Seligman and U.S. 93 that was packed with absolutely nothing.

We crossed the border into the Golden State and stopped at Needles for the night. I had made a reservation at a motel there, but when we arrived they informed us the air conditioning was out. We said no thanks and went across the street to a nice Motel 6, where they had left the light on for us.

My final scribblings on Thursday indicate “Barstow 40 ends, the LA experience begins—more lanes, more traffic.” For some reason I failed to make note of the long stretch through the Mojave Desert before we reached Barstow. It was somewhat reminiscent of the landscape I experienced on a trip to the Holy Land a few years earlier.

My penultimate note indicates the freeways were not as bad as Atlanta, “just more of ‘em.” The final entry says only “Katherine’s tour.” But it was one of the highlights of the trip. Dear author friend Katherine Shephard took us on a tour of Orange County the day after we arrived. Kathy had a personality I can only describe as bubbling with enthusiasm and, as someone else said, a zest for life. She was a most gracious hostess. She had things to do but took time to drop by my signing at Barnes & Noble, where this photo was made.

Kathy was the one who had given me the contact that got the B&N signing. Sadly, about the time we were there, she was diagnosed with the cancer that took her life after a long and valiant struggle. But her hospitality was one of the highlights of our tour, which included an appearance at the annual Men of Mystery event in Irvine and signings at three Borders stores.

Internet - prime source for research

By Chester Campbell

The Internet is a great source for research on a mystery novel. When I started working on The Surest Poison, my new book due out next month, I had the basic idea for a plot contributed by a friend who’s a PI in Nashville. She’d worked a case a few years back that involved the dumping of a large amount of the toxic chemical trichloroethylene, commonly known as TCE.

My first step was to Google the chemical compound to see what it was like, how it was used, and what effects it would have on public health. I found both government and non-profit organization sites devoted to information on various pollutants, including TCE. I copied pages of details on the chemical and its health effects. I also found it was used as a degreaser in cleaning things like auto parts. All vital information for use in the novel.

I decided to locate my fictional chemical dump behind a small plant in a mostly rural county on the west side of Nashville. The other adjoining counties all had large populations and at least one moderate-sized city.

Back I went to the Internet to gather all the information available on Cheatham County. I found enough to steer me in the right direction when I made my first on-scene visit.

Since I put my protagonist, Sid Chance, in my home area of Madison, a northeastern suburb, I didn’t need the Internet or anything else to handle that area. However, I gave him a female sidekick who had inherited controlling interest in a lucrative chain of truck stops from her father, a French Canadian import.

I wanted Jasmine (Jaz) LeMieux to live in a French Colonial mansion in an affluent section on the other side of Nashville. I did a search on French Colonial houses and came up with one I used as a model. I also did a Mapquest search, both street and aerial views, to check out the Franklin Road area for a likely spot.

I also used Mapquest to look into several other areas, including the small town of Centerville, where I had them make a helicopter landing. It was also useful to figure how long it would take to drive from Jaz’s house to the location of a climactic event. And when I did the helicopter flight, I looked on the Bell Helicopter website to pick out the Jetranger III for the ride.

I set a few scenes in the fictional town of Lewisville, where Sid worked as chief of police until false accusations of bribery ended his career. I named it after explorer Meriwether Lewis, who died on the Natchez Trace near where I placed the town. I checked the Internet to be sure I had my facts correct on the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s chief.

I used the Internet in countless other ways to check out minor points. The common advice is to be careful of the facts you get off the web, as there is plenty of misinformation out there. If it was something I needed to be sure of, I always chose a reliable source, and on occasion checked another to confirm what I found.

Another use I made of the Internet was to ask questions on listserves or through emails to people like Dr. Doug Lyle, the forensic guru, or in one case, ex-policewoman Robin Burcell.

The Internet has made researching for a book as easy as sitting down at your computer. It can save hours of time and miles of travel. I recommend it highly.

Hauntings at The Hermitage

The Hermitage

By Chester Campbell

I got a different slant on Halloween Saturday night when my wife, Sarah, and I took our grandson to the 8th Annual Hauntings at The Hermitage. If you aren’t familiar with The Hermitage, it’s the restored 1,000-acre plantation home of Andrew Jackson, America’s seventh President. It was my first visit there in over forty years, and the place had really changed.

You arrive at an attractive, modern Visitor Center complete with Museum Store, Auditorium and Garden Gate Café. After paying for admission, you walk through the grounds to the Mansion, originally built between 1821 and 1831 and enlarged to its present size in 1834. Jackson bought the property in 1804 for $3,400 and lived in a two-story log cabin with his wife, Rachel, until building the Mansion. He was living in the cabin when he became the hero of the Battle of New Orleans.

After General Jackson’s death in 1845, following two terms as President, his adopted son, Andrew Jackson, Jr., took over. Junior sold the core 500 acres to the State of Tennessee in 1855. In 1889, the state turned over the Mansion and 25 acres to the Ladies’ Hermitage Association, a group modeled after the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union that bought George Washington’s estate. Over the years, the state or LHA acquired the remainder of the original plantation where Jackson grew cotton and other crops and ran various businesse enterprises.

Plopped down in the midst of a suburban residential community only twenty minutes from downtown Nashville, this is a large project. It has similarities to the Presidential Libraries and Museums dedicated to those since Herbert Hoover, but The Hermitage has no library, only a small number of documents. Jackson’s papers are at the National Archives, the Library of Congress and various university and private collections. The Papers of Andrew Jackson project at the University of Tennessee has cataloged them over the past several years and is compiling them in printed volumes.

End of history lesson. Just thought that would help set the stage.

It was getting dark when we started our Hauntings venture. There was no moon. The pathway winding through trees and lawns was lighted by lanterns placed every 100 feet or so. Somewhere back on the propery a canon fired now and then. The first thing we encountered was a group of Confederate soldiers gathered around their tents. (Historical note: the Civil War was ten years after Jackson's death, and no battles were fought around The Hermitage.) Our grandson, Justin, wore a ghoulish costume. They commented on how fierce he looked.

“We’d better let him pass,” said the sergeant.

When we strolled by a large shrub, a character who looked like he’d been spray-painted silver jumped out and screamed. We glanced back as we walked on and he stood stiff as a statue, awaiting his next victim.

We toured the mansion, where period-dressed women described how each room was used. We saw bedrooms with elaborate canopied beds, General Jackson’s office, dining rooms, sitting rooms, etc. A bluegrass ensemble played lively music next to the back porch.

After that, we headed down another lighted path to a barn where we boarded a haywagon pulled by a tractor. Sitting on bales of straw, we rode through the dark along a narrow road that wound around the farm. Every few hundred feet, ghosts and goblins jumped up from the roadside screaming like banshees.

As we passed one of them, Justin shouted, “You didn’t scare me.”

To which came the ghoulish reply, “Yes I did.”

We rode under the overhanging roof of a hay barn, where lights flashed and the demons were particularly noisy. Along the way we saw other figures beside the road that didn’t move, so we decided they were dummies.

Afterward, there were ghost stories in a candlelit cabin, pumpkin decorating in another area, and palm reading in the fortune telling tent. I skipped the latter, figuring my palms were too worn to have anything of value left to read. They should have bought one of my mystery books. Now that would have been worth reading.

Sending Justin off with a friend to do two more hayrides and visit the cemetery, Sarah and I retreated to the café for pie and coffee. The temperature had dropped considerably outside. We heard that General Jackson normally appeared along the haunting tour, but the impersonator who played the part wasn’t available that night. Too bad. I read that in his early days, the future President had a propensity for pulling pranks, cursing, and fighting. Might have made for a livelier evening.

Hurricane+Gas+Panic=Murder

How gas pumps in Nashville looked on Sunday.

____________

By Chester Campbell

We’ve gone through a good scenario for a murder in Nashville this past week, and it isn’t over yet. It started on Saturday, Sept. 13, when Hurricane Ike blasted ashore in Galveston. The rumor hit Middle Tennessee that Ike had massacred the petroleum industry in the Houston area and there would be a gas shortage. A panic began the next day, with motorists crowding the service stations.

As people continued to fill up and top off their tanks in the days that followed, the Colonial Pipeline, which provides gasoline for Middle Tennessee, was reported shut down by the hurricane. Long lines formed at stations and some began to run out of gas.

By Friday, a week after Ike hit Texas, hoses on pumps all around the Nashville area were covered by plastic bags, and prices disappeared from the signs. Middle Tennesseans wondered why there was such a shortage here, a week after the hurricane, when the rest of the country was doing fine. AAA reported gas sales in the area were double the normal amount. Panicked drivers had created their own shortage.

By the weekend, the pipeline was back in service and some gas was being delievered, but lines at service stations lengthened and tempers flared.

Enter the mystery writer. Somebody out there had to be looking for a good opportunity to eliminate a troubling rival, opponent, competitor.

The killer stalks his victim until he finds an opportunity to sneak a small explosive device with a detonator beneath the seat of his car. Then he follows the victim to a service station. Taking advantage of the situation, he races up as though trying to get ahead of the guy in line, causing lots of anger and hornblowing.

Amidst all the confusion, the assassin flips him a bird and drives off. About half a block away, he triggers the detonator. When the police arrive, the immediate assumption is that the explosion had something to do with gas station rage (a first cousin of road rage). It delays the search until the killer has had plenty of time to get away.

Okay, it’s not a very original idea. If it were, I’d be using it in a book of my own. But it illustrates the process by which “breaking news” can be turned into a mystery plot. That’s all I can say about it for now, though. I have to get busy looking for a station with gas. My fuel guage is sitting on empty.