Linking the Past to the Present

by  Jean Henry Mead

I enjoy research, especially when I can link historical events to the present. So when I came across the Teutonic Knights, a group established in the year 1190, as well as the Heart Mountain internment camp of World War II, I worked them both into my recent release, Mystery of the Black Cross. The Teutonic Knights was formed to establish hospitals and escort pilgrimages to the Baltics and the Holy Land. The organization evolved, however, into anarchist groups, abbreviated ABC, which still support political prisoners worldwide.

During this seventh Logan and Cafferty novel, my senior women amateur sleuths discover a black cross painted on their front door, which they learn has marked them for arson, murder and terrorism. The police chief and a rogue detective, who considers himself a latter day Don Juan, figure prominently in the plot, which led me to Wyoming's Heart Mountain internment camp for some 14,000 Japanese during WW II.

I made a trip to northern Wyoming to witness the former internment camp, which I consider a concentration camp. Four of the barracks where the internees lived still remain along with a guard tower. The living conditions were deplorable, and I read interviews with some of the people who had lived there, which I included in the book.

When the war ended, each former prisoner was given a train ticket back to the West Coast and $25 to begin a new life. And Congress finally decided in 1988 and 1992 to compensate the survivors for the loss of their homes and livelihoods. The state of Wyoming also erected a monument to commemorate those who enlisted from within the camp to serve in the army during the war. 

Working both histories into the novel was easier than I had anticipated. I also included some humor and a bit of romance to hopefully balance the seriousness and relevancy to the history we're producing today.

Mystery of the Black Cross is available at http://amzn.to/1X63EHE in digital and print editions. 

Moors, mystery, and murder

by Carola

Moorland has provided a setting for a great deal of fictional (and some real) mystery and mayhem, at least since Wuthering Heights and probably before. The example everyone knows is, of course, The Hound of the Baskervilles, which is set on Dartmoor.

Someone recently told me the stories she had read planted an image of moors in her mind that she found to be very inaccurate when she went to England and saw the Yorkshire Moors for herself. When I was in Cornwall last month, I hiked a corner of Bodmin Moor that I plan to use in my next Cornish mystery, so I'll share some pics of the hazards to be met there:

Animals, domestic and wild, and what they leave behind them

   Vicious plants

Rough country

Unexpected sink holes

 and mine shafts not guarded by restored pit-head buildings

Plenty of room for mayhem, methinks!

Guest Blog: D.E. Ireland

Posted by Carola

D.E. Ireland is a team of award-winning authors, Meg Mims and Sharon Pisacreta. Long time friends, they decided to collaborate on this unique series based on George Bernard Shaw's wonderfully witty play, Pygmalion, and flesh out their own version of events post-Pygmalion.

http://deireland.com

 

MURDEROUS HITS AND MISSES

As we write this, the film Gone Girl is still weeks away from its October release. There are legions of fans around the world hoping the book will be as suspenseful and riveting as Gillian Flynn’s corker of a novel. We’re right to be nervous about the outcome. Many excellent mystery and suspense novels have been turned into cinematic misfires. Others, however, hit their mark with deadly aim. Sharon and Meg briefly discuss their favorite film adaptation of a mystery, and ones they are still trying to forget.

Sharon: One especially egregious example was the film adaptation of Carolyn Hart’s Dead Man’s Island. This book launched the wonderful series featuring Henrietta O’Dwyer Collins, aka Henrie O, a retired newspaper reporter. Our intelligent heroine is caught up in a first-rate mystery while trapped on an island during a hurricane. With a dead body, a colorful cast of suspects, and a nice twist at the end, how could the movie go wrong? Well, it did. I knew we were in trouble when girlish Barbara Eden was cast as the no-nonsense, sixty-something Henrie O. Everything went downhill from there.

By the way, I have nothing against Barbara Eden; she made a lovely genie. But the blond glamorous Eden seemed like an Orange County housewife, and not a retired famous journalist with graying hair and a penchant for jogging suits. Eden also seemed unable to imitate a Texas accent. Actually very little about the movie was convincing or suspenseful. The film also starred William Shatner, Traci Lords, and Morgan Fairchild – which only added to the misery of watching it.

My favorite Agatha Christie novel is Death on the Nile. It is a quintessential Christie story starring Hercule Poirot, and peopled with a beautiful heiress, an archaeologist, a socialite, a spurned lover, a French maid, an untrustworthy lawyer, a Communist, and a romance novelist by the delicious name of Salome Otterbourne. Cast as Poirot, Peter Ustinov was far taller than the little Belgian. But, being the consummate actor he is, Ustinov was entirely convincing. Small changes were made to the script that differed from the novel; these largely involved deleting several secondary characters. However the alterations did not change the story arc, nor make the movie any less entertaining than the book. Unlike Dead Man’s Island, the cast was spot on, the script faithful to Christie, and all of it filmed on location in Egypt. With a sweeping musical score as well. Of course, it’s hard to go wrong with a cast that includes Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, David Niven, and Maggie Smith. I have a feeling that Miss Christie would have been as pleased by the 1978 film as I was.

Meg: For a movie I can’t get out of my head, I’ll go for the gore of Sleepy Hollow. I actually enjoyed the movie, except for closing my eyes whenever another head rolled. Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – published in 1820 – isn’t a true mystery, being based on a German folktale about a ‘headless horseman’ who rides through the wild woodlands. The lovely Katrina Van Tassel’s hand, along with a sizable dowry, is at stake. Two rivals emerge – schoolmaster Ichabod Crane (an outsider to the community) and the local prankster Brom Bones. Tensions escalate when Brom relates local legends at a party held at the Van Tassel farm. When Katrina turns down Crane’s marriage proposal, he heads home to Sleepy Hollow but encounters a mysterious figure who carries his head on the saddle. After a horseback chase, Ichabod escapes across a bridge, where the horseman throws his head in Crane’s face.

The movie with Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci and the villainous Christopher Walken certainly was a mix of both horror and mystery. Sleepy Hollow morphs the hapless, mooning schoolmaster Ichabod Crane into a 1799 New York City police constable who is sent to the remote hamlet to investigate several gruesome killings. Crane has an interest in new-fangled gadgets which help him perform autopsies and lift fingerprints (just go with it, although historically it was another hundred years before Bertillon invented the technique).

Locals blame the beheadings on a headless Hessian soldier, who takes center stage. Brom Bones is a local hero whose head rolls. The movie’s pretty cool, given the Tree of the Dead clotted with the victims’ skulls, the twisty plot and many exciting chases through the woods and into the local windmill. Overall, much better than the short story if you love a great Hallowe’en-themed movie.

As for a disastrous adaptation, I’ll choose the 1965 film of Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders starring Tony Randall. While I loved Randall’s work in other films, he was totally wrong as Hercule Poirot. He walks like an American, talks like a Frenchman (abhorrent to the Belgian character – French music even plays while Randall and Robert Morley walk in London), and his movements are stiff and clumsy. Horrors!

The dialogue in the screenplay – meant to be comical – comes off as cringe-worthy. Morley makes a goofy Hastings. Randall only stares at Margaret Rutherford who makes a cameo appearance (and an astute observation), but even that seems wrong. One would expect the two to compare notes.

The 1992 television adaptation of the novel, with the perfect David Suchet as Poirot and Hugh Fraser as Captain Hastings, as well as Philip Jackson as Inspector Japp, is far better. The book deserved better treatment. The ABC Murders is one of Christie’s most intriguing plots, with a serial killer who leaves an ABC railway guide at each crime scene. He begins with Andover tobacco shop owner Alice Ascher as the first victim, then B exhill waitress Betty Barnard, and Sir Carmichael Clarke of Churston. When the pattern is broken, Poirot falls back on a simpler solution to the murders. Christie at her best, but the 1965 film butchered it – even Dame Agatha was displeased.

Good or bad, murderous movies do give viewers a 3-D picture – but often the book is much better. Being mystery novelists ourselves, we are not at all surprised.

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Unsafe Acts

One of my claims to fame (he says, as if there were several) is that I earned an acknowledgement in Ian Rankin’s dagger prize winning novel Black and Blue. Members of the UK’s Crime Writers’ Association are asked to list any areas of ‘special expertise’ so that fellow members can contact them if they need information on different topics. I’ve written countless videos and DVDs  about offshore safety as well as actual safety induction programmes, so that was one of my ‘specialisations’. In Black and Blue, Rebus had to make a trip to an offshore platform and Ian wrote to ask what sort of thing that involved for a ‘visitor’. I wrote back and thereby got myself a mention.

So, apart from name-dropping, why am I writing this? Because I recently had to check the text of Unsafe Acts, the fifth novel in my Jack Carston series and, as the cover image and the title suggest, it involves an offshore platform and safety. It also involves homophobia and deplores the fact that, even in the 21^st century, its corrosion is still highly active.

It’s been through several drafts and, as I was reading through it again, I experienced once more the strange feeling I often get that, while I know I’d written something and my name’s on the cover, it’s hard to remember how it happened. When something’s out there as a self-contained thing – whether in tangible form as a paperback or in the same completeness as an ebook – it somehow seems instantaneous. The book has become a self-contained fact. When you’re writing, you’re always poised on the edge of wondering what the characters are going to do, where they’re going to go. The process is one of ‘becoming’ rather than ‘being’. So for me the writer, Unsafe Acts was a succession of instants which eventually stopped. But for me the reader, it’s a complete, set thing with its own internal logic and a journey which has only one path. I suppose for readers coming fresh to it, the uncertainties are still there because they don’t know where the characters will take them until they’ve arrived.

The other question I sometimes ask myself, when I’m reading a novel I’ve written, is the one that most writers hate: ‘Where did this idea come from?’ And again, it’s often difficult to answer. With Unsafe Acts, I know that the seed was sown in a casual remark from a friend, Mike Lloyd-Wiggins, who said one day ‘You ought to write about an offshore platform. There’s plenty of stuff going on out there.’ (This was the same friend who also said, a few years ago ‘You ought to write a story about a figurehead carver’. So thanks, Mike.) But that’s just the seed. When you see the dense vegetation that’s grown from it (I know, it’s a lousy metaphor, but I’m lazy) you really do wonder where all these people were hiding, what made them appear. Where did they get their attitudes?

One other interesting thing about this book (for me anyway) is that my detective is a different Jack Carston from the one I first met when I wrote Material Evidence. Of course, I’m different now from the person I was then but I don’t think that means we’ve followed the same path. He now seems so fed up with the hoops he has to jump through to satisfy his superiors and tick the right administrative boxes (this time, the metaphor’s not only lousy, it’s mixed, too), that I really wonder whether the next book will find him leaving the job altogether. The alchemy of reading is always fascinating but when it’s your own story you’re reading, the mystery has a different edge.

Tragedy in Florida

By Chester Campbell

As mystery writers, we're accustomed to delving into the finer points of criminal law, or criminal activity, to prove why our bad guys are guilty. Sometimes our protagonists are involved in proving one  of the good guys is innocent. In contrast to real life, there's rarely any doubt as to what actually happened when it's all over. We control the action.

What happened in Florida a year ago is different. There are doubts in many minds as to what transpired that night, but it's difficult to imagine unless you've been caught in a similar situation. George Zimmerman has told his story, and there has been nothing offered to prove otherwise. It was enough to constitute self defense.

Lee Lofland, in his The Graveyard Shift blog yesterday, analyzes the case and why the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. As for the main charge of second-degree murder, Lofland, the retired lawman who runs the Writers Police Academy, had this to say:

"Second-degree murder in Florida is defined as a killing carried out with hatred, ill will, or spite, but is not premeditated. Basically, the only thing separating this charge from 1st degree murder is the lack of premeditation. There absolutely was no indication of Zimmerman having any hatred, ill will, or spite toward Martin. None. Unfortunately, it appears that the special prosecutor succumbed to political pressure and charged Zimmerman merely to…well, I’ll leave opinion out of this and stick to the facts I know. And that means I have no way of knowing what Angela Corey was thinking when she brought the charges, no more than she could’ve known what thoughts were zipping through Zimmerman’s mind on the night he shot Trayvon Martin."

Lofland points out that despite the lack of evidence to prove Zimmerman was guilty of the charges, many people across the country believe the shooting was racially motivated and are taking to the streets. The young man's death was a tragedy, and I agree that Zimmerman made a poor decision in choosing to follow Travon Martin rather than merely observe his passage through the neighborhood. But the tragedy has been heightened by being blown all out of proportion by the media.

I learned from Lofland's blog that the initial impetus for turning it into a racial circus came from an NBC news report that edited out portions of Zimmerman's call to the police dispatcher. He was reported as saying, "This guy looks like he’s up to no good….He looks black.” That makes it sound like profiling. What actually occurred in the call was this:

Zimmerman – “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.”

Dispatcher -  “OK, and this guy – is he black, white, or Hispanic?”

Zimmerman - “He looks black.”

Lofland points out this is standard procedure in police work to narrow down a description of a suspect. It had nothing to do with racial profiling.

I spent several years as a newspaper reporter back in the forties and fifties, at a time when reporters concentrated on presenting the facts of a story and left opinions up to the reader or editorial writers. Unfortunately, too much of what appears these days as "news" is merely the writer's or speaker's take on what the story really means.

As a law professor quoted in the local paper yesterday pointed out, the real tragedy is the large number of black youths being killed every day by other blacks. There has to be a change in the culture regarding the value of a human life. Gun control laws won't do it. Concerned parents, families and communities need to act.

MANNA FROM HADES

 Carola Dunn

My first Cornish Mystery, Manna from Hades, is now out in paperback.

After a life of travelling the globe working for an international charity, Eleanor Trewynn retires to Cornwall when she's widowed. She buys a cottage in the fishing village of Port Mabyn on the North Coast, and turns the ground floor into a charity shop, while living above with her Westie, Teazle.

Eleanor expects a placid retirement after decades of adventure, but her  life is turned upside down when the shop receives a donation of valuable jewels from an unknown benefactor, followed by the discovery of a body in the back room.

Is there a connection between the jewellery and the murdered youth! Eleanor's police detective niece, DS Megan Pencarrow, and her irascible boss investigate.

Reviews:

...this well-plotted and atmospheric mystery has a finely calibrated edge to it, almost an attitude of defiance just below the surface, that belies the initial impression of just a nice little cosy. For Nell is a woman of substance and strengths, who knows many of her limitations and finds ways to work within and around them. And she does not actually solve the crime - that is left to the professionals - but her information and perception do help the detectives along the way, resulting in a quite satisfactory and rather more realistic solution than those which are, alas, too frequently found in cosy mysteries.

Carola Dunn's characters, especially Nell, are superb creations, for she carefully layers their personalities and attitudes, behaviors and inclinations, until these seem like people you've known for a very long time and would gladly have as friends. In addition to Nell herself, we have her niece Detective Sergeant Megan Pencarrow, one of the few women in the North Cornwall Constabulary; Inspector Scumble, opinionated, irascible and short-tempered but not too old or proud to learn something from a woman if it will help solve his mystery; an artist, an extremely organized vicar's wife and her absent-minded husband, several rather lost young folks, and a lovely little dog named Teazle. In the hands of a less gifted writer these might have been caricatures but each has a distinct personality, becoming more interesting as the story progresses. 

Reviewing the Evidence

Adept at showing character through witty dialogue, Dunn paints an amusing picture of a small town that readers will want to visit again soon. 
Publishers Weekly

  “Dunn has a knack for writing meatier-than-usual cozies with strong female characters, and she has another charming winner here.”
-- Booklist

“Eleanor is a wonderful, multi-faceted heroine and Manna from Hades is a first-rate story…Carola Dunn demonstrates the same smooth writing and seasoned storytelling that readers have come to expect from her.”
--- Mystery News

The second in the series, A Colourful Death, is available in hardcover and ebook. The third, The Valley of the Shadow, comes out in December.

The Rothschild Trilogy

by Carola Dunn

Adventure, romance, danger, war, murder, high finance, and a leavening of humour--
Coming October 4th, my Rothschild trilogy will be reprinted in the UK. Also available as e-book for Nook, Kindle and others.


The first in the trilogy: Miss Jacobson's Journey

  Miriam Jacobson refuses the man her parents chose for her to marry, instead travelling through Europe as assistant to her doctor uncle. When he dies, she's caught on the wrong side of   the Channel in wartime. Her only hope to get home to England is to accept an assignment from the Rothschilds, to smuggle gold to Lord Wellington in Spain. She sets out across enemy France with two young men who loathe each other--and her.

Second: Lord Roworth's Reward

Felix Roworth accepts a job from the Rothschilds, to follow the cream of London Society to Brussels. He is to send immediate word to Nathan Rothschild in London of the outcome of the inevitable battle between Bonaparte, escaped from Elba, and the Duke of Wellington. The son of a bankrupt peer, Felix shares lodgings in Brussels with a penniless artillery officer and his pretty sister, Frank and Fanny Ingram, as the French approach and citizens and visitors panic. When Frank is badly wounded in the Battle of Waterloo, Felix helps Fanny get him to safety. But he needs a well-born, wealthy match, for his family's sake. It's his duty to forget the attraction he feels for Fanny.

Third: Captain Ingram's Inheritance

Frank Ingram, badly wounded at Waterloo, is taken to Lord Roworth's family estate to recuperate. Roworth's sister Constantia is an angel of mercy to the invalid, but a penniless artillery officer has no business raising his eyes to the daughter of a peer.

Then an unexpected inheritance makes everything seem possible--until someone tries to stop Frank enjoying his good fortune, someone who won't stop at murder.




Available in paperback from
Amazon UK

Also available as ebooks in just about every conceivable format,
for instance
Kindle
Nook

Read an excerpt at  http://historicalfictionexcerpts.blogspot.com/

<--ebook            large print-->

This is an actual artillery officer's uniform of the period

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.

Crafting a Killer

by Carola Dunn

I'm cheating today--posting a guest blog I wrote for Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers last week (http://anastasiapollack.blogspot.com/2011/03/book-club-friday-guest-author-carola.html). It received a lot of positive comments so I thought you wouldn't mind it reappearing here.

Crafting a Killer

Killers come in all shapes and sizes. Having just finished writing the 20th mystery in my Daisy Dalrymple series, I'm constantly looking for new variations.

For a start, I prefer the word "killer" to "murderer." Not all homicides are murder. Some of the unnatural deaths in my books involve accident, self-defence or defence of others, or assault not intended to cause death. This allows some of my killers to be sympathetic characters. In turn this allows Daisy to hold—and act on—a different view of Justice from that of her husband, DCI Alec Fletcher of ScotlandYard, who's sworn to uphold the Law.

They haven't yet quite reached the point where they want to kill each other!

Of course, some of my killer characters commit deliberate murder. Their motives ring the changes on the basics: greed, jealousy, fear, revenge, anger. They are male and female, young and old, rich and poor. Some are crafty (pun intended); some are not too bright and are not arrested immediately more through luck than cleverness. They are otherwise pleasant people who would probably never kill again if they weren't caught, and unpleasant people who are a danger to society.

But however desperate for new twists, I don't create homicidal maniacs. I'm just not really interested in someone who kills for pleasure, or from an irresistible impulse to kill. I prefer to explore the motive(s) of a person who feels he or she has a compelling reason that we can understand, even if we can't imagine ever taking it to the lengths of murder.





This is the UK cover for Sheer Folly.

The one above is the US cover, now out in trade paperback.

As Susan asked, "Do you judge a book by its cover?"--just as a matter of interest, which do you prefer?









This is one of the comments I received on the Killer Crafts blog:

So Killing is usually a crime of passion or Of the Moment, and Murder has intent, and is plotted, planned and carried out? Killing is a response and Murder comes from deep within the murderer? [LibrarianDOA]

And my response:

It's not as clear-cut as that. I think, at least in
British/American Common Law, motive is generally taken into account when
it comes to sentencing, which is up to the judge. Of course, to work
backwards, the jury decides on guilt or innocence, and the public
prosecutor doesn't want to bring a charge that's likely to result in an
innocent verdict. Before that, you have the Coroner and his jury, who
decide whether there's a case to answer.

As far as Alec--the police officer--is concerned, if someone is killed by
someone else, that's homicide. Intent is more or less irrelevant as it's
not up to him to decide whether the killing amounts to murder,
manslaughter, self-defence, or accident. In the case of an obvious
accident, he might decide the evidence doesn't justify applying for a
warrant (he can only arrest without one if he actually sees a crime
committed).

It's where Daisy comes in--remembering that she's a purely fictional
character--that the grey areas widen and diffuse. At times, she's
prepared to back her own judgment and conceal information from the police
in what she perceives to be the cause of Justice.

And that's one of the things that makes it fun to write.

Airborne Opportunities

By Mark W. Danielson

As strange as it may sound, I’m not a huge fan of airline travel. Don’t get me wrong – I love flying, so long as I’m the one piloting the airplane, but being crammed in the back of a flying Greyhound bus is a whole different story. Having said that, deadheading on a passenger carrier provides wonderful opportunities for observing people

Consider this scenario: As the time to board nears, the passengers grow anxious over whether their bags can be stored in the overhead bins. Then an announcement comes stating that those passengers in Seating Areas Three and Four must gate-check their second bag. Many comply, but others hold off, taking their chances. When the boarding begins, so does the exercise in social behavior.

In a panic, passengers cram their bags into the bins as if will power and determination will make them fit. Those seated near the aisle are frequently struck by handbags and backpacks as their owners obliviously stroll by. Finally, a flight attendant takes the initiative to stack the bags like Jenga sticks. In minutes, the chore is complete and the bin doors are closed.

Soon after, light conversation begins. Toward the back, a baby cries. Closer to the front, a group breaks out in spontaneous laughter. Finally, the plane moves back and humming vibrations trickle through the fuselage as its engines start. Once the plane is taxiing, the lights are dimmed, and in unison, dozens of hands reach for the overhead reading lights. Suddenly, air blasts through the vents like an ocean wave. Someone coughs. Nearby passengers aim their vents to deflect the germs.

By the time the plane reaches cruising altitude, most passengers are silent, disturbed only by the flight attendants’ beverage cart. “Something to drink?” is constantly repeated. Playing cards are shuffled. A baby giggles, then says, “No!” Once the seat belt sign is turned off, people dart for the rest rooms, halting the flight attendants’ beverage service. An overly tanned blond gliding down the aisle is suddenly blocked by an obese man traveling in the opposite direction. The resulting stalemate forces the blond into occupied seat 22D to let him through. They pass and return to their seats without saying a word.

Now, let’s say this blond and the obese man knew each other and that their rendezvous was pre-arranged so the man could dump poison into 22D’s drink. She’s pretty enough to command attention. No one wastes their time on the obese man. Soon after the man and woman have returned to their seats, 22D spills his drink and begins convulsing. Several passengers call for the flight attendants. One of them grabs the on-board defibrillator and oxygen bottle while the other calls for a doctor. But it’s too late. In seconds, the passenger in 22D is dead. Another perfect murder. I’m glad I fly cargo.

There are, of course, hundreds of scenarios for murder on a plane. Poison just happens to be the easiest; especially with so many passengers reluctant to engage in social interaction. So the next time you fly, recline your seat, keep your eyes open, and if you’re a mystery writer, prepare to be inspired.

Frigid Opportunities

By Mark W. Danielson

What a way to welcome 2010! So much for Global Warming. January slammed the northern continents with record low temperatures. The late State of Fear author Michael Crichton would have loved to hear environmentalists like Al Gore explain this latest arctic blast. Don’t get me wrong; we can do a lot to clean up our air, but weather patterns are cyclic and ongoing, and as long as we are floating atop a molten core, we can look forward to more severe weather, volcanoes, and earthquakes.

But this cold snap also gives writers a wealth of situations for character development. The news recently reported iguanas falling out of trees when the Florida temperatures dropped below forty. Since these reptiles can’t handle the cold, their bodies go into hibernation. They’ll awake once the temperature warms, probably wondering how they got there. Now, imagine your character’s reaction while hiding in the Florida swap and one of these lizards falls on him.

Authors should welcome cold weather as an opportunity to create vivid scenes in their stories. For example, imagine a homeless man struggling to find shelter when the missions are full. Fighting for his life, his fingers and toes are numb. Since most people stay inside, there is no one to approach for help. In desperation, fight breaks out and he dies a violent death. His misery may be over, but it’s just beginning for the homicide detectives.

The detectives investigating this murder are subjected to the same cold. They find the victim’s blood frozen in the snow. There are tire tracks and footprints nearby, but did they come from the murderer? They find bare skin stuck to a metal post. Their breath is visible, their extremities numb and aching. Their mustaches are frozen from their dripping noses. The air stinks from alley fires and fireplace smoke. The dry snow crunches under their feet. A distant power plant creates an ominous cloud. Snow builds on windows as gale winds pile drifts. The white Hummer parked up the alley is barely visible in the freezing fog. Moisture from its exhaust shows its engine is running. Smoke drifting from the driver’s window shows it’s occupied. The detectives are being watched. Car chases on ice are always exciting.

Only your imagination and power of observation can limit the description in this winter murder. Next time you’re out and about in these extreme conditions, look around, take notice, and jot down your thoughts over a nice hot cocoa. After all, winter a great time for mayhem.

Murderous Motivations

By Beth Terrell

One of the most challenging facets of mystery writing is creating believable villains. One key to this is to give your villain a compelling--or at least, believable--motivation.

I've heard that there are only 4 motives for murder: love/sex, greed, revenge, and madness. There are variations on these themes--for example, obsession is a twisted form of love, greed may manifest as a lust for money or for power, and revenge may have its roots in the loss of love or in the loss of self-esteem (personal power) through humiliation--but whatever the surface motive, dig deep enough, and you'll find its roots in one of the basic four. Self-preservation could be added to the mix, but it might be said that this particular motive falls either under love (of self), greed (fear of loss of status or esteem), or madness (if the perceived threat is, in fact, all in the killer's head).

Ed McBain once wrote about a sleuth who was driven by the desire to discover an entirely new motive for murder, one that didn't trace back to one of the basic four. He never did.

P.D. James defined the four motives as: love, lust, lucre, and loathing. It's pretty easy to tie this more alliterative list to the one given above. Love might lead to a jealous rage (a husband finds his wife in bed with his best friend), a revenge killing (a woman stalks and executes her daughter's rapists), or obsession (stalker kills actress because, if he can't have her, no one can). Lust might be lust for sex or power. Lucre might lead to treachery or blackmail. Loathing might stem from the desire for revenge over real or imagined slights.

The FBI defines four basic categories of murder. Almost all (if not all) have their roots in the four basic motivations. The FBI Crimes Classification Manual describes the categories as follows:

1. Criminal Enterprise Murder
2. Personal Cause Murder
3. Sexual Homicide
4. Group Cause Homicide

The criminal enterprise murder includes all murders committed for personal gain (insurance scams, gang wars over turf, inheritance, etc.) and those committed during the commission of another violent crime.

The personal cause murder is the result of an emotional conflict. These homicides include those in which the murderer constructs an elaborate fantasy about his or her victim and will do anything to preserve it--including killing the object of his or her fascination. Other types of personal cause murders are domestic homicides, revenge killings, "authority homicides" (in which the victim is in a position of authority over the killer), extremist homicides (committed because of the killers ideology), and mercy/hero murders (such as a health care worker who acts out of a desire to put his or her victims out of their misery). (There is also what is known as the nonspecific homicide, in which the killer's motive is never discovered, but this does not generally make for very satisfying crime literature.)

Sexual homicides are those in which the sequence of events leading up to a murder have a sexual component. These homicides include children killed by pedophiles, women killed by their rapists, and the stereotypical serial killer for whom murder is accompanied by sexual gratification. Perhaps the worst of the sexual homicides are those committed by sexual sadists, who obtain gratification by means of their victims' suffering.

Group homicides are, as the name indicates, committed by multiple assailants. Motives vary, as in the personal homicides.

The Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime (by Eric W. Hickey) lists a number of possible motivations for murder. Again, all were rooted, to some degree, in the Basic Four. This is an amazing book. It can be purchased for a hefty fee; the ones I looked at started at $154. Some of the motives Hickey lists are:

Abandonment/Rejection - the killer feels unloved and either lashes out in anger (many school shootings) or kills in an attempt to keep the loved one from leaving (Jeffrey Dahmer)
Altruism - mercy killings, saving victim from a worse fate or from a sinful life
Cover-up - destruction of evidence, silencing witnesses
Alcohol and drugs - a type of chemically induced, temporary madness
Protection of self or others - ex.: a woman kills her husband to protect the daughter he's abusing
Fatal Abuse - a habitual abuser loses control and goes too far
Frustration/Anger - perhaps a mother "snaps" and shakes her crying child to death, a man beats his father who has Alzheimer's, or a frustrated, back-alley boxer bites off the nose of an opponent
Greed - committed for personal gain
Escape - the killer feels an overwhelming need to get away (perhaps from an abusive relationship or a hostage situation, but also perhaps from a situation in which the killer is a caregiver and feels like he or she has no other way out)
Fame/celebrity - the killer believes he or she will become famous because of his or her killing spree
Hate/resentment - "Mother always liked you best."; "That jerk got me fired, took my job, and now he's sleeping with my wife. Enough's enough."
Jealousy/rivalry - a motivation as old as Caine and Abel
Sexual property - the killer sees the victim as belonging to him
Unwanted Children - a young mother gives birth at the prom, strangles her baby, and leaves it in the garbage can, then goes out to dance with her boyfriend; Susan Nicole Smith drowns her two small sons after her lover breaks up with her because he doesn't want children.

Sadly, there are probably many, many more. How about your villains? What makes them tick? What makes them cross that most irrevocable line?

All You Need to Know About Murder

By Chester Campbell

Today is Education Tuesday. We’ll take an in-depth look at the subject of this often amusing, sometimes contemplative, but always entertaining blog, namely: MURDER.

Let’s start with where the word comes from. Merriam-Webster traces its etymology through Middle English murther and Old English morthor to Latin mort-, mors, death and mortuus dead.

Mysteries often deal with homicide detectives and talk about homicides. Actually, homicide only refers to the act of killing another human being. It can be accidental or purposeful. Criminal homicide occurs when a person purposely, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently causes the death of another. Both murder and manslaughter fall under the criminal homicide umbrella.

Murder (sometimes called felony murder) is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent (or malice aforethought), and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide.

Some jurisdictions define felony murder the same as first degree murder, but under the felony murder rule, an offender who kills accidentally or without specific intent to kill during commission of a dangerous felony is guilty of felony murder. Any participant in the felony becomes criminally liable for any deaths that occur. In states with capital punishment, that can make them eligible for the death penalty.

There is also a second degree murder crime that in some states occurs when a premeditated murder occurs without special circumstances, such as those that do not involve a particularly heinous death. Exact definitions of murder vary from state to state.

You are no doubt familiar with some of the many forms of homicide, such as fratricide, the killing of one’s brother or sister, or patricide, the killing of one’s father. But do you know what uxoricide is? Give up? It’s the killing of one's wife. Then there is tyrannicide. Nope, it’s not the killing of a dinosaur. It’s the killing of a tyrant. I guess that’s what Brutus thought he was doing.

Although you probably wouldn’t realize it from watching the nightly news, the murder rate has been going down in the U.S. According to the latest report available, the FBI’s “Crime in the United States, 2007,” there were 14,831 murders that year. Males are much more at risk, with 11,618 involving men and 3,177 women. The report lists 36 as unclassified. I don’t know if they were weirdoes, or there was just not enough left to tell the sex. About half were black, half white or other.

You read a lot about young teen killings, but in 2007 the largest age group was 18 and over, representing 13,013 of the total. The most at-risk group was 20 to 24-year-olds. We of the 75 and over set are least likely to be cashiered by the bad guys.

What lay behind all these murders? Arguments of one type or another represented the largest cause. Romantic triangles accounted for only 105, and gambling 4. If you’ve been worrying about a sniper attack, forget it. There was only one in 2007.

Firearms were the number one choice of evil-doers, with knives and “other weapons” next. A smaller but significant number involved “hands, fists, feet, etc.” I'm not sure how you do someone in with et cetera, but I suppose anything's possible.

If you don’t want to become a murder statistic, what places do you want to avoid? Well, California is the number one state for violent homicides with 2,249 deaths reported. In second place was the wild and woolly state if Texas at 1,419. Your best bet at avoiding a place in the 2009 report is to stick around New Hampshire. It reported only 11 murders in 2007.

We writers always talk about how important it is to make our mysteries as factual as possible. But how realistic is the virtually 100 percent closure rate of our detectives? Well, according to the FBI, in 2007 jurisdictions across the country cleared only 61.2 percent of murder and non-negligent manslaughter cases. Still, that was a heck of a lot better than rapes at 40 percent or robberies at 25.8 percent.

Now that you have become an instant expert on the subject, get out there and put your new knowledge to practice. No, don’t go on a killing spree. Get busy on creating that murder mystery that will confound us all. But you’d better solve it in the end. One hundred percent of the readers will want to know whodunit.

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.

"WASH ME!"

by Mark W. Danielson

It’s amazing how many images come from a couple of words. We’re all familiar with kids writing “wash me” on their parents’ dirty car, or perhaps it’s something a college kid might do to his buddy's, but I never expected to see those words on a commercial airliner’s wing. I must say, it made me laugh and sad at the same time.

You see, the state of the US airlines hasn’t been good since 9-11. Some of this is due to our sluggish economy, but there are other reasons you’ll never hear about. Compared to most foreign carriers, US airline service is as lacking as their image. That’s where this “wash me” comes into play. It’s only visible when the flaps are extended, so only a mechanic could have been responsible. This was probably a mechanic who has seen his or her pension slip away. He or she is also tired of seeing dirty airplanes; ones that used to sparkle with crisp, clean paint jobs. Disgruntled employees like the one who wrote “wash me” are finding creative ways to let their employers know that things aren’t so great. Personally, I thought this approach was a good one. No one got hurt, and those who notice or care get the point. Or do they?

Anyone who has flown internationally since 9-11 knows that most US carriers do not provide meal service in economy class, and it’s minimal in business/first. Compare this to foreign carriers that provide free drinks in a pleasant atmosphere and it makes the choice easy. I’m not sure what the solution is, but the “wash me” on the wing indicates that Mr. Obama isn’t the only one seeking change.

So, how does this “wash me” on a wing flap relate to writing fiction? It shows that stories evolve from a single thought, generated by one or two words. Think about the mental images created by the words rape, murder, and kidnapped; powerful words indeed. Pick a word and write a story about it. Write as if you’re having a phone conversation, or telling a story over a campfire. If you question your imagination, think of how quickly you could make up a story when you got into trouble in your youth. Never compare your writing to anyone else’s; just have fun with it. You’ll be amazed at how creative you can be.

Dang Wabbit

by Ben Small

Cottontails are eating my yard.

They have no shame. I spend half a day planting agave and other cool desert plants that won't impale me on spines, and then I sit in the Jacuzzi and watch as rabbits crawl under or around the ocotillo fencing and munch on my servings. What's the attraction? These aren't tequila-producing agaves. Have you eaten an agave leaf?

Yuk.

But there the ear-heads are, chewing on agave stalks, laughing at me, bouncing while they throw out Wayne-Newton-Dancing-With-the-Stars-like finger thrusts. Yes, and I get bunny-mooned, too. Bad enough staring at any animal's fanny. But when it's a twitchy swaying big cotton ball...well...there's a humiliation factor.

I've tried to get rid of these pests. I've put up chicken wire, but that only seems to trap really ugly lizards that are too dumb to realize that if they'd just back up, they'd be free.

Do lizards have only one gear?

And of course a stuck lizard is not a good thing. My wife starts screaming, and my manly duties are called upon. But how do I untangle Baby Godzilla without touching it and when BG only wants to go forward or to bite me? I can't kill the thing; my wife thinks they're cute. She's got a machete.

Dang wabbits.

Don't think I haven't thought about murdering me some wabbit-meat. But, as I said, my wife carries a machete. After what she did to the pool guy, I thought she'd be delighted to practice her slice-'em-and-dice-'em skills on something other than people. But she thinks rabbits are cute, too.

She told me so.

"You so much as split a bunny-hair," she said, her tone steely, her fingers sliding to the tang of her lacquered leather scabbard, "I'll split your underwear two feet up."

I elected not to push the point. Not then anyway. Gotta plan...

How do I catch a rabbit?

I researched this. Googling "Herd of rabbits" turned up 695,000 links.

A lotta people don't like rabbits.

Somebody actually analyzed rabbit body language and wrote a paper on it? Talk about having too much time on one's hands. Or was this a Washington pork project?

Anyway, I learned something about rabbit-body language:

"* Sniffing — May be annoyed or just talking to you
* Grunts — Usually angry, watch out or you could get bit!
* Shrill scream — Hurt or dying
* Circling your feet — Usually indicates sexual behavior. He/She's in love.
* Bunny hop/dance — A sign of pure joy & happiness!
* Begging — Rabbits are worse than dogs about begging, especially for sweets.
* Stomping — He's frightened, mad or trying to tell you that there's danger (in his opinion).
* Teeth Grinding — Indicates contentment, like a cats purr. Loud grinding can indicate pain."

So if I throw out cookies while my wife is at the grocery store, I can sit back, drop my pellet gun's bi-pod, dial in Gamo's Varmint Hunter optic setup to twenty-five yards, and pick 'em off one at a time with my steel-tipped Savage pellets.

Good stuff this research.

Maybe I'll get a directional mike and amplifier. Tune in to the sniffing, grunts and stomping, record the shrill scream after a pulled trigger.

Yeah, I smell a research project of my own. Wonder if I can get it funded?

Okay, you're shocked. But what other choice do I have? Poison? Then bobcats, coyotes and vultures die, too. Can't have that; I'm hating rabbits here. Trap and release? Gitmo-wabbit? Do you know how these things multiply? Plus, I gotta feed 'em. The little fuzzballs eat constantly. And what if one starves? I become PETA's poster-boy; they'll come at me with automatic weapons. A friend said my pool lured the rabbits, that I enticed them, and they decided to eat while they were here. She suggested I put kibble out, along with a tub of water and a solar recycling pump.

Yeah, sure, build 'em a spa. That'll keep 'em away.

Duck, Bugs. BooYah.

A shotgun would be fun. But shotguns are loud, and we've got an ordinance against gunfire, an HOA prohibition, too. That's why my wife carries a machete.

Can't deny a woman her jewelry.

A shotgun is too Elmer Fuddish. I'm Republican, but not a Fuddite. I prefer stealth. A pellet gun is legal. No powder, no fire; no g-u-n-f-i-r-e. Rule not applicable. And frankly, I'd rather not have cops around while I'm still stalking my neighbor, especially not with our former pool guy rotting in a hole next to my neighbor's driveway.

So Gamo it may be. The only one doing the bunny-hop around here may be me.

Pfut.

And look out Wayne Newton. You should see my finger thrusts.

Why Is It Always Murder?

By Beth Terrell

I've been wracking my brain for a topic this week, so I asked Mary Beth, our Project Monitor at work, if there was a mystery-related topic she'd like to read about.

"Yes," she said. "Why does it always have to be about murder?"

"It's because human life is so high-stakes," I said, (or wish I'd said; I'm much more eloquent after the fact than I am in real life, which is probably why I'm a writer and not an orator). "It's easy to care about who killed Colonel Mustard and if our hero/heroine can stop them before they garrote poor Miss Scarlett. It's harder to be invested in who stole Grandma's china tea set."

There are no stakes higher than human life.

Still, because I am by no means an expert in these things, I went in search of a better, less simplistic answer. My quest began, as so many modern searches do, with a bit of creative Googling. After several false starts, I stumbled across Murder Most Fair: The Appeal of Mystery Fiction, Michael Cohen's treatise on why we enjoy mysteries. While the book is not exactly about why mysteries almost always involve murder, he does touch on the subject of why so many of us enjoy reading about murders (rather than about, say, tea sets).

Please note that these are my interpretations of one small part of Mr. Cohen's much more comprehensive work, which I'm sure he'd love you to explore in more detail by buying his book. Here are a few possibilities he offers for the pleasure we derive from reading about murder.

Premise #1: Reading about murder appeals to some lingering emotions passed down from our primitive ancestors. Cohen suggests that we all know how it feels to want to hurt someone, even if only for an instant, and that when we read mysteries, we not only identify with the protagonist, but also, on some uncomfortable level, with the villain . But we quickly distance ourselves from the villain, who is portrayed as being so bestial that the protagonist is justified in defeating (or even killing) him. Thus, we can indulge our primitive thirst for violence while feeling good about our identification with the hero. There may be something to this. How many of us derive a feeling of satisfaction from the mind-numbing violence of a Schwartenegger movie, once we've been convinced of the absolute badness of the bad guys, who are so bad they deserve whatever is coming to them?

Premise #2: We read murder mysteries for catharsis, to evoke and then banish our fear of death. Cohen says, "Such stories acknowledge that death exists by showing us a murder, but they also find its immediate cause in the murderer, and by eliminating that one deadly agent, they seem to eliminate the threat of death itself." Cohen goes on to suggest that the popularity of the modern mystery may reflect a need for a larger, cultural catharsis, where we fear not only for ourselves but for society as a whole. I wrote about this very thing a few weeks ago, and both of these ideas seem true to me--or at least for me. Reading mysteries banishes the bogey man, who always gets caught in the end.

Premise #3: We're all a bunch of sadomasochists who enjoy the suffering of others. On this point, I have to disagree. I've had the pleasure of meeting a lot of people who read and write mysteries, and by and large, they are the kind of people who scoop up spiders and gently put them outside, who will get out of a warm bed at 3:00 AM to pick up a friend whose car has stalled in thirty-degree weather, who not only do not take pleasure in the suffering others but are utterly horrified by it. In all fairness to Mr. Cohen, he didn't seem all that convinced by this idea either.

So why does it have to be murder? Maybe because nothing else evokes the depth of emotion of this one despicable act. Maybe because it is the one thing that threatens that which is most precious to us all: life itself.