Chasing the Blues by Writing

November 9, 2016

I have a bad case of the Blues today. Better than last night around midnight, but still feeling sad. In my struggle to avoid a gloomy day, I searched my memory for a happier time.

A conversation held at a Malice Domestic Conference sprang to mind. A guy who happened to be another cozy mystery writer said, “My whole day goes better if I write.”

“Really?” I said, “So does mine.” The other authors gathered with us agreed.

So today, in pursuit of a lighter heart, I sat my fine broad butt in the chair in front of my computer and continued working on my newest project. This cozy mystery has the working title of CORPSE IN THE SAGEBRUSH. It’s set in the Oklahoma Panhandle a little farther west than my just published suspense novel MURDER AT THE EDGE OF NOWHERE.

Sunset on the Plains

Photo by Rhonda Smith Hodges

These two books are very different, but my therapy will be the same: Telling a story from my heart.

Here’s wishing all my readers and fellow authors that their day be filled with joy.

Cheers,

Jackie King

GUEST BLOG: MARY COLEY

Posted by Jackie King

Mary Coley is an Oklahoma writer. During her professional career, she has worked as a journalist, a park planner, an environmental educator and a public relations officer. A native of Enid, Coley lives in Tulsa, where she is an active volunteer for Oxley Nature Center. She holds membership in state and national writers groups, as well as the Tulsa Chapter of the Women in Communications.  Coley uses her scientific education to create believable backgrounds for her suspense novels. 

Mary Coley, Environmentalist and Author

Finding a Fresh Storyline

by Mary Coley

We've all heard that there are no new story lines, they have all been used before. Not good news, especially for mystery writers. A limited number of motives for murder exist and only a limited number of ways to do the deed. So how do you make your mystery new and relevant? Incorporating a topic of current interest into your story is one way to do it.

For my second mystery, Ant Dens, I found a topic I had seen in the headlines and even on a  billboard with a 1-800 number. But I had never read anything about it and had never attached a human face to it. It was only a phrase; I didn't pay much attention.

While researching, I discovered a shocking issue: the kidnapping of children, young women, young men and even adults for use in the sex trade or servitude. Could I incorporate the issue of human trafficking in a mystery I had just finished drafting?

In the second mystery in my Family Secret Series, Ant Dens, the main character's stepdaughter disappears. Jamie wonders if Rebecca ran away or if she had been kidnapped. Wouldn't the tension be increased if it was possible that her stepdaughter had been trafficked and might be existing in a living hell? That would add a whole new twist to the story, and provide a way to make the mystery current but also timeless.

People have been sold into slavery, or trafficked, throughout the history of mankind. This horrific crime is not new, but most of us don't think much about it. That is, unless we personally have a missing loved one.

I began to delve into the emotions those family members feel when a loved one disappears. What horrible fears and imaginings must go through the minds of those left behind! I can imagine my character wanting to shrug it off, to refuse to believe the worst, but what if it becomes almost a certainty that her worst fear has been realized? And worse yet, what if the disappearance was not random, but might be related to her stepdaughter's father, her deceased second husband?

My character, Jamie, does what I hope I would do. She becomes consumed with finding her stepdaughter. It does not matter that she was not particularly close to the young woman. Rebecca is family -- she is all that remains of the husband she loved and misses horribly.

In Ant Dens I chose the setting of New Mexico, a state well aware of tragic disappearances, as the Hispanic population is often victimized in trafficking crimes. And Rebecca is half Hispanic. I added an additional conflict by including Rebecca's mother, Jamie's husband's first wife, in the mystery. Maria comes to stay with Jamie as they investigate the girl's disappearance.

I hope that the resulting newly crafted mystery, Ant Dens:A Suspense Novel provides a new awareness of this horrifying and prevalent crime as well as a chilling ride for the reader! I hope you'll check out my Amazon Author page too, after you visit my book link.

2nd book in the Jamie Aldridge Series

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Learn more about Mary on her website, www.marymcintyrecoley.com, or at her blog, http://marycoley.wordpress.com. 

Her books are available at Amazon.com.

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  1st book in the Jamie Aldridge Series

Call Me A Weenie

Mug shots: Pix of Thomas B. Sawyer (top) and William Bernhardt (bottom) came from the Web. I snapped the photo of Ridley Pearson at Left Coast Crime-Monterey 2004.

By Pat Browning

I’m a weenie. Can’t stand suspense. Makes my skin itch. I’ve been known to turn to the last page of a book to find out who lives, who dies, and then go back and finish reading the book. A story is a story. Even if I know how it ends, I want to know how it gets there from here.

I’ve recently read three excellent suspense novels by seasoned authors. All three books are different, but all three are page-turners.

You might assume from the riveting first pages of Thomas B. Sawyer’s NO PLACE TO RUN that a guy named Bill Lawrence is the protagonist. You might be right. You might be wrong. Things are not always what they seem in this Byzantine tale of the discovery of certain facts about the events leading to 9/11 – and the desperate, damn-the-costs attempt to prevent them from emerging.

What rogue federal agents do to protect a powerful Washington figure with a connection to the terror attacks of 9/11 makes for nasty business. Sawyer brings it down to human levels with a 24 year-old sister and her young brother running for their lives, trusting no one, not even the agent intent on saving them, as they try to solve cryptic evidence uncovered by their father.

Sawyer is a TV/film veteran and it shows in the quick cuts from scene to scene, with no wasted motion. Along about page 50 the story stretches out a little with a bit of back-story. But don’t get comfortable. The whole thing blows up with a shocking twist, and takes off in a different, unexpected direction.

NO PLACE TO RUN is an exciting, satisfying, thought-provoking stomach-churner, one worth staying up late to finish.

Ridley Pearson’s KILLER SUMMER is a kind of “Mission Impossible” in reverse. The bad guys are the derring-do team, led by master thief Cantell, planning the perfect heist down to the smallest detail. Idaho’s Sun Valley and environs (towns Hailey and Ketchum) make a perfect setting. The occasion is the annual wine auction, a high society fundraiser. At stake are three old bottles of wine, said to be gifts from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams.

The stage is set. What can possibly go wrong? Just about everything, beginning with a scholar who claims the wines are fakes. Sheriff Walt Fleming and his deputies are a half step behind all the way.

Walt Fleming is an interesting character. Nothing flashy about him, but he’s a good, solid lawman and an expert tracker of those on the wrong side of the law. The last part of the book gives a totally unexpected twist to the heist, ending in a nail-biting pursuit through Idaho’s rugged terrain.

I tried to look up the places where the action takes place, but Idaho looks like one big national forest and wilderness area in a road atlas. Even online maps were no help. This is one time I would have enjoyed seeing a map at the front of the book. I’m a fan of Pearson’s Lou Boldt series, and have added his newer Walt Fleming series to my favorites list.

CAPITOL CONSPIRACY by William Bernhardt has two settings, Oklahoma and Washington D.C. Bernhardt’s contemporary Oklahoma settings are so real it’s like being set down in a particular neighborhood, being part of the action. Offhand I can’t think of another writer who does it as well, except for Robert Fate in his BABY SHARK books.

What kept me turning the pages of CAPITOL CONSPIRACY was the depiction of Washington shenanigans out of sight of reporters and cameras. It’s revolting, and ultimately discouraging. This book was published in 2008 but it might have been written this morning. The tenor of the times is the same.

In Oklahoma City for an anniversary commemoration of the Murrah Building bombing, the President is caught squarely in the midst of an apparent terrorist attack, barely escaping with his life. Others are not so lucky, or well protected.

The country is paralyzed by shock and fear. The President calls on Congress to amend the Constitution by suspending the Bill of Rights. At the center of the action is Ben Kincaid, a newly appointed senator filling an unexpired term.

Kincaid is a low-profile Tulsa lawyer. He’s married to his chief of staff who’s a real firecracker. Together they negotiate the treacherous halls of Congress and the national uproar over constitutional rights. The surprise ending is a testament to greed and ambition at high levels.

CAPITOL CONSPIRACY is 16th in Bernhardt’s Ben Kincaid series. Number 17, CAPITOL OFFENSE, will be released Sept. 29, and 18 in the series, CAPITOL BETRAYAL, is due out from Ballantine in March 2010. I hope to go back through the list and read some of the earlier ones.

All of a sudden I seem to be hooked on suspense novels. Right now I’m two-thirds of the way through A PLAGUE OF SECRETS, a legal drama by John Lescroart. If Lescroart knows what he’s talking about, a U.S. attorney’s reach and power is worse than scary.