Cozies and Thrillers and PIs, Oh My!

By Jaden Terrell

Tonight, two fellow Sisters in Crime and I spoke to the Nashville WNBA (Women's National Book Association) chapter. The topic was women who write crime fiction. My two cohorts were Bente Gallagher, who writes cozy mysteries, and JT Ellison, who writes psychological suspense. I was there to represent the private detective mystery/thriller contingent. After a brief, panicked, period of tugging at the locked doors of the wrong building and (who knew the library had moved since I'd last been there?!), Bente talked me in to the parking lot of the new Green Hills Library building, where I was met by a fellow Sister in Crime, who shepherded me to the meeting room where we met with a group of intelligent, engaged women with a shared passion for the written word.

It was a comfortable, conversational panels with a lot of give and take, a few nuggets of knowledge, and a few witty comments. Bente and JT are both talented writers and consummate professionals who write full time and know all the ins and outs of the publishing business; I brought to the table some knowledge of squeezing in writing around an often-demanding full-time job. Here are a few things that came up during the discussion.

Mysteries are primarily who-dunnits, while thrillers are how-dunnits. The mystery looks into the past; a murder has been committed, and the sleuth's challenge is to find out who did it. The thriller looks into the future. We may know from the beginning who the villain is and what his or her motivations are; the protagonist's challenge is to stop the villain before [insert terrible consequence here] occurs. (Suspense, Bente said, was in the present; something dangerous and mysterious is happening in the life of the protagonist, who is trying to figure out what is happening.) By these standards, Bente writes mysteries and JT writes thrillers. As for my books, Racing the Devil is more of a mystery--Jared is framed for murder and has to find out who committed the crime of which he's accused, but A Cup Full of Midnight has strong elements of both. It begins with a crime, which Jared strives to solve throughout the book, but the primary thrust of the story involves stopping a killer--known to the reader--who has targeted someone dear to Jared.

We each talked about the tropes and challenges of our chosen genres and how we each stretch those boundaries to make our books unique. Cozies have no graphic sex, no foul language, and no graphic violence, but Bente slips in clues about the intimate relationship her multidimensional protagonist, Avery, shares with her boyfriend, Derek. JT has a strong, capable heroine whose strength comes from her own character rather than as a response to a traumatic event in her past. This is a breath of fresh air in a genre where the "damaged heroine" is ubiquitous. My strong, lone-ranger PI has much in common with those who came before him, but his emotional life is more multifaceted than is common in the genre. He has a son with Down syndrome. He's still in love with his ex-wife, with whom he has a tender, respectful relationship. His best friend and housemate is a gay man with AIDS. He's the kind of man we send off to war, or off to keep our streets safe, or off to save innocents in jeopardy, often at a terrible cost,and who we then expect to come home unscathed and be good fathers and husbands and friends. And like most of those men, he does.

Bente and I talked about the challenges of finding believable ways for our protagonists to keep getting embroiled in murders, while JT, whose homicide detective protagonist has legitimate reasons for investigating murders, said one of her biggest challenges was overcoming the readers suspension of disbelief: "How many serial killers can there BE in Nashville?"

The last topic of the evening, broached in response to a question from the audience, was digital publishing and its implications for the current industry. We discussed the current upheavals, with successful. traditionally published authors going to a self-publishing model and successful self-published authors signing contracts with traditional publishers.

"What will publishing look like in five years?" someone asked. "In ten?"

No one could answer; the possibilities are limitless. As the Magic 8-ball says, "Answer hazy. Try again later."

Killer Nashville's Coming

By Beth Terrell


It's that time again. That time of year when Killer Nashville founder Clay Stafford and I survive on four hours of sleep a night as we chip our way through to-do lists longer than our legs (and Clay has very long legs). It's all worth it, though, because the final result is going to be...well...Killer.


Jeffery Deaver is our Guest of Honor, and I hear Jeff is not only a delightful speaker, but a pretty fair guitar player as well. We're hoping he can be persuaded to join us around the pool for music and conversation. Don Bruns (who won the Silver Falchion Award two years ago for Stuff to Die For) will be there will his guitar, as will Stacy Allen, who sang for us at last year's awards dinner.


Since the conference begins early on Friday, many attendees arrive at the hotel on Thursday night. In the past, there have been no Killer Nashville festivities that night, but this year, Greg and Mary Bruss of Mysteries & More independent bookstore, are hosting Mystery Team Trivia at 7:30. Greg asked me to be sure and emphasize that valuable prizes will be awarded.

On Friday morning, the fun begins with a presentation called "CSI Don't Think So," in which law enforcement consultant Lee Lofland discusses how television gets it right--and wrong. Lee will intersperse interesting forensic science tidbits throughout the presentation. There are five tracks this year, because we had too many wonderful authors coming to fit them into four. Attendees will hear from a Marine sniper/sniper trainer, forensic psychologists, TBI agents, private investigators, attorneys, and police officers, in addition to agents, editors, and a host of terrific authors, including our own Chester Campbell (who won last year's Silver Falchion) and our own Bente Gallagher (aka Jennie Bentley). Among those attending are Charles Todd (NYT bestseller), Steven Womack (Edgar winner), David J. Walker (Edgar winner), PJ Parrish (Shamus and Anthony winner) and Annie Solomon (Rita Award winnier). There are sessions on character, pacing, dialogue, YA, historical fiction, marketing and promotion, and many that are designed to appeal especially to readers. And, oh yes, there's the mock crime scene staged by TBI agents Dan Royse and Mike Breedlove and solved by attendees.

I could go on and on, but I'd be sure to leave out something important; there's a detailed schedule on the conference site. (Warning: it's a slow-loading site.) As you can see, you don't have to be a crime fiction writer--or even a writer at all--to have the time of your life at the Killer Nashville Crime Literature Conference.

Last year, on Sunday afternoon of the conference, one of my fellow conference organizers came to the registration table where I was sitting and said, "Beth, there are writers sleeping all over the lobby."

I knew we'd done our job.