Mystery Melange

The National Bouchercon Board has selected author and Sisters in Crime Executive Director Julie Hennrikus as recipient of the 2026 David Thompson Special Service Award. Named after David Thompson, a beloved Houston bookseller who passed away in 2010, the Special Service Award recognizes people and organizations who have demonstrated extraordinary efforts to develop and promote the crime fiction field. In addition to being SinC Executive Director, Julie has several mysteries published under the names Julie Hennrikus, Julia Henry, and Julianne Holmes. The David Thompson Award will be presented at the Bouchercon opening ceremonies in Calgary on October 22.


The Bloody Scotland festival returns to Stirling in six weeks, from September 18-20, but if you can't make it to this year's event in person, the conference is making available a digital-only series. Highlights include Festival Chair Denise Mina in conversation with Lee Child about his career and bestselling Jack Reacher series; Mina will also be chatting with multiple-award-winning author SA Cosby (Razorblade Tears; Blacktop Wasteland); plus, Dept Q showrunner Scott Frank and stars Matthew Goode (DCI Carl Morck), Kate Dickie (Chief Superintendent Moira Jacobson), Alexej Manvelov (Akram Salim) and Leah Byrne (DC Rose Dickson) will discuss how the TV series has achieved cult status and reveal behind-the-scenes secrets; and much more. Tickets are available as one-price-gets-all or you can purchase individual event tickets. To view all of the digital events, visit the official website and search for the term "online" in the search box.


On September 5, Sisters in Crime South Australia will present "Authors of True Crime and Crime Fiction," a panel discussion on writing and self-publishing in the crime genre, in the town of Charles Sturt at the Ngutungka West Lakes Library. Authors taking part are Samantha Battams, Diane Hester, H R Kemp and Dorothy Shorne. This event is free to attend, but registration is required.


On September 12, the Halifax Public Libraries are presenting Crime Will Tell, a free celebration of crime writing of all kinds, from cozy mysteries, to true crime, to thrillers. Author Tom Ryan (The Treasure Hunters Club) will host a panel of crime-writers, including Jane Doucet (Blood Typed), Vicki Grant (Death by Whoopie Cushion), Malcolm Kempt (A Gift Before Dying), and Marci Lin Melvin (Wednesday Night Whites). The authors will discuss their work, their craft, and what makes crime so compelling for readers and writers alike. This event will also launch the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia’s crime fiction anthology, The Blue Lobster Detective Agency.


On October 3, the Chorleywood Library in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire in the UK will be the site for the first Global Noir crime writing festival in partnership with the Chorleywood Bookshop, and in support of the Wycombe Homeless Connection charity. The event will include a series of panels featuring Nordic Noir, whodunnits, psychological crime, cozy crime, and thrillers. Authors scheduled to take part include Vaseem Khan, Sólveig Pálsdóttir, Tim Sullivan, Jón Atli Jónasson, Felix Francis, AA Chaudhuri, Erlender Arason, Paul Waters, and Quentin Bates. Plus, you can also book a one-to-one session with celebrated literary agent Nicky Lovick of WGM Atlantic and pitch your own book or idea. For ticket information, follow this link.


On October 10, Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, will present the panel, "From the Classics to the Contemporary: How Does Crime Fiction of the Past Influence the Present?"  at Avon Free Public Library, in Avon, CT. The panel will feature authors Chris Knopf and Steve Liskow with moderator Erica Obey.


On October 17, the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, will also present the free event,  "A ticking clock: how do mystery writers keep the pace moving to raise the stakes of the story and create suspense?" The panel by local mystery authors Ann Aptaker, James McCrone, Mark McNease, and Rich Zahradnik will reveal techniques for moving the story forward and keeping the tension high.  


The Mystery & Detective Fiction Area of the Popular Culture Association invites proposals for the annual conference in Boston, Massachusetts, March 24-27, 2027, to be held at the Boston Marriott Copley Place. The deadline for submission is October 31, 2026. This year’s PCA conference theme is “Revolutions & Revisions in Popular Culture.” Presenters in Mystery & Detective Fiction are invited to consider how their work might engage with questions of transformation, reinterpretation, innovation, resistance, adaptation, or cultural change. You'll need to join the PCA in order to participate, but you can find more information about that via this link.


The Traveling Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy is currently on tour in the U.S. The 90-minute themed immersive pop-up experience allows guests to step into an intimate gothic setting where live performers bring four of Edgar Allan Poe’s works to life through dramatic storytelling, theatrical performances, and carefully timed cocktail pairings. It is scheduled for a limited number of performances in each venue before disappearing once again, capturing the fleeting "catch it while you can" speakeasy vibe. Guests are treated to four themed drinks throughout the evening, each crafted to complement a different tale and accompanied by its own dramatic introduction.


Writing for Forbes, David Lagercrantz compiled a "Scandi Noir Syllabus" starter list for readers to investigate Scandinavian crime fiction.


The Mercury News reported on "Crime writers’ new conundrum: How to get away with murder when cameras are everywhere," noting how cellphone data, license plate readers, and other digital trails are forcing authors to create smarter villains and faster-moving plots (or as many do, simply set their books in historical pre-tech eras).

Writing for Ellery Queen Mystery Magaznie's blog, Something is Gong to Happen, Josh Pachter explained how he happened to co-write a brand new short story in the magazine with William Bankier—who passed away in 2014.


Kevin Tipple's Thursday Treats blog post has news of new short crime fiction in The Yard: Crime Blog; Starlight Pulp Review; Black Cat Weekly; AHMM; EQMM;, the new anthologies, Sleuths Just Wanna Have Fun: Private Eyes in the Material World and Capital Crime Writers Presents: A Capital Mystery, and more.


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Cutting Room Floor" by Chad Parenteau.


In the Q&A roundup, E.J. Copperman (the nom de plume for Jeff Cohen, writer of humorous murder mysteries) applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Where There’s Smoke, the second in his Haunted Paint Store Mystery series; Deborah Kalb chatted with Jennifer Ashley, the author of the new novel, Murder in Blackfriars, the ninth in her Below Stairs mystery series; Garry Disher, "Australia’s King of Crime," spoke with Crime Fiction Lover about his latest Hirsh novel, Mischance Creek, and his first ever crime standalone, Under the Cold Bright Lights, featuring retired cop turned cold case detective Alan Auhl; and Deborah Kalb welcomed Judy Foreman to talk about her new novel, The Scallop Plot.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:


THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Jason Clarke (The Last Frontier and Murdaugh: Death in the Family) has joined the cast of Supermax, the new action-thriller from Amazon MGM Studios and Miramax, although details about his character are unknown. The Australian actor is the second of the week to join following Jaafar Jackson, the breakout star of Lionsgate’s Michael, joining Will Smith and AnnaSophia Robb, who play two FBI agents investigating a seemingly impossible murder within the impenetrable walls of a maximum-security prison. David Gordon Green is directing from a script by David Weil and David J. Rosen. Jason Clarke will also be seen coming up in the Taylor Sheridan-penned action thriller film, F.A.S.T.


Kate Beckinsale (Underworld), Dermot Mulroney (Chicago Fire), Robert Knepper (Prison Break), and rapper Sticky Fingaz have begun filming the action-thriller, Drifter, throughout Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. Directed by Randall Emmett, the film also features Bill Sage, Beau Bommarito, Ema Horvath, Maia Kai, and entrepreneur and media personality John Cerasani. Set in a quiet Midwestern town, Drifter follows Wendy Ford, an interim police chief determined to prove she’s worthy of her late father’s badge. But when she arrests a mysterious drifter with a hidden past, Wendy finds herself trapped inside her isolated police station as impostors posing as FBI agents and a heavily armed mercenary team launch a deadly assault to free one of her prisoners. Forced into an uneasy alliance with the enigmatic stranger, Wendy must uncover the truth behind the attack before her town, and everyone inside the station, are wiped out.

 
TELEVISION/STREAMING

Andy Berman is eyeing a return to the USA Network with Sherlock’s Secretary, a new procedural based on a true story. The series follows a quirky London woman whose job is responding to the thousands of letters addressed to the world’s greatest detective. After years of answering them, she unknowingly becomes the closest living thing to Sherlock Holmes — and begins investigating real mysteries arriving at 221B Baker Street. Previously, Berman spent eight seasons on the hit detective series Psych, rising  from staff writer to co-executive producer while writing and directing many of the show’s fan-favorite episodes.


The rest of the cast has been announced for the upcoming adaptation of Hercule, based on the character of Belgian detective Hercule Poirot from Agatha Christie's novels. Joining Edward Bluemel in the title role are Henry Ashton (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms), James D’Arcy (Oppenheimer), Calvin Demba (Supacell), Phil Dunning (Smoggie Queens), Jack Gleeson (House of Guinness), Tamsin Greig (Riot Women), James Nesbitt (Cold Feet), Guy Remmers (The Buccaneers), Rebecca Rittenhouse (Maggie), and Mawaan Rizwan (The Split Up). The six-part adaptation will chronicle how Poirot became the world’s greatest detective and is billed as an intimate study of Hercule Poirot the man and a portrait of Britain between the world wars. It will center on three of Christie’s early stories, while also introducing Poirot to future friends and allies and, producers said, one particular nemesis.


Paramount+ has greenlit Ascent, a character-driven thriller series starring Oscar and Emmy winner Viola Davis. It is created by three-time Oscar nominee John Logan (Skyfall, Gladiator, Michael), who will serve as showrunner. Set in the dangerous world of global corporate crisis and damage control, Ascent centers on elite corporate fixer Catriona Vail (Davis), who must weaponize the ruthless skills that have made her indispensable to billion-dollar clients when her estranged daughter is in danger.


MASTERPIECE Mystery! on PBS announced the premiere dates for its Fall 2026 shows, including The Marlow Murder Club (September 6); Marble Hall Murders (September 6); Maigret (October 18); and The Gold (October 18).


ITV confirmed that the new season of Professor T will premiere on August 19, more than two years after the season three finale aired in May 2024. Professor T stars Ben Miller as the titular Professor Jasper Tempest, a genius criminologist from Cambridge University who has OCD and lives with his mother. The local police force often ask for Jasper's assistance as he is an astute crime solver. The much anticipated season will pick up from season three's heartbreaking cliffhanger, which saw DS Lisa Donckers tragically struck in a hit and run. The new episodes of the crime drama – which is based on the Belgian series of the same name – will chart a new path with original stories, having extended past the Belgian series' three seasons.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO
 
The Better in Person podcast welcomed thriller author Harlan Coben to answer the question: "Does it Take a Twisted Mind to Write Twisted Stories?"


On the Get to Know podcast, Kathleen Antrim and DP Lyle were in conversation with George Pelecanos, author of twenty-three novels and story collections set in and around Washington, D.C.  He was a writer and producer on HBO’s The Wire, The Pacific, Treme, The Deuce, We Own This City, and the feature film D.C. Noir.


On Crimetime FM, Michael Amos Cody chatted with Paul Burke about Avalon Moon; cultural mythology; education and young people; Walnut, North Carolina and the Appalachian mountains; saw mills and more.


Murder Junction hosts, Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee, discussed the five brilliant books shortlisted for the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize and continued the Scottish theme by exploring the life of Sawney Bean, Scotland's most notorious cannibal.


The Sisters in Crime podcast chatted with Douglas Dorow, a thriller writer from Minneapolis, Minnesota, about his FBI thrillers and short stories.


Elaine's Literary Salon welcomed Richard H. Smith, MSc., a futurist, technologist, and science policy expert, about his first full-length novel, the techno-thriller, WhiteGrass.

Sunday Music Treat

What does it sound like when 1,000 high school choir students pay tribute to Prince? Tesfa Wondemagegnehu was in Los Angeles, California, a few years ago guest-conducting the Los Angeles Master Chorale's annual High School Choir Festival, which brought the high school singers to a concert at Disney Hall. This "Purple Rain" tribute was part of the evening's festivities:

 

 

Quote of the Week

 

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: The Spoilt Kill

Mary Theresa Coolican Kelly (1927-2017) was born in London but ended up a Scotland gal. She received an M.A. degree from University of Edinburgh in 1951, married Dennis Charles Kelly in 1950, and became a teacher. Her first mystery series featured Inspector Brett Nightingale of Scotland, starting with A Cold Coming in 1956. But after only three entries in that series, she switched to a series with freelance detective, Hedley Nicholson, as protagonist, with the first installment, The Spoilt Kill, earning the Gold Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers Association in 1961. She was also a member of the Detection Club and served as secretary..

Apparently, starting on a new literary track worked well for her, because after only two books in the Hedley Nicholson series, she switched to standalone novels, the first three (beginning with March to the Gallows) all nominated for the Gold Dagger in 1964, 1966 and 1969. She also tried her hand at a short story in 1971, "Judgment," chosen for inclusion in 1984's anthology The Best Crime Stories published by Hamlyn, putting in her the same company as Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Unfortunately, in 1974 she stopped writing for good.

In The Spoilt Kill, P.I. Nicholson is hired to discover who is copying new pottery designs from the Shentall Pottery Company of Stoke-on-Trent and selling them to foreign competitors. It seems fairly straightforward until a body is found in a closed "kill" (local dialect for "kiln") filled with liquid clay. Nicholson soon finds himself falling for the chief suspect in both crimes, talented designer Corina Wakefield, the only employee not native to the area—who also has a drinking problem and a failed marriage that turns out to be relevant to the case..

Kelly structures the plot to start off with the discovery of the body in the first section ("What Happened"), just one chapter, in essence a prologue, then doubles back to a prequel of events ("What Happened Before") in the middle section, before returning to the denouement in part three's "What Happened After." The author does a nice job of immersing the reader into the atmospheric setting of the industrial area in the Midlands and of the pottery world, with passages such as the following:

"...A row of bottle kilns blocking the gap between blackened brick buildings, and beyond them a factory chimney and the peak of a slag heap, wraiths even in the middle distance. There was no far distance, only a grey blankness of cleaned smoke mixed with the drizzle that seeped from low-lying clouds."

Kelly had a foot in the very end of the Golden Age of detective fiction, and was a somewhat rare example of a female British writer penning a professional male private eye at the time. As such, Spoilt Kill has the feel of a hybrid cozy/traditional mystery blended with the P.I. form. Some may quibble that Kelly doesn't quite nail the male first-person POV all the time, and the ending a tad telescoped, but the characters are well drawn and engaging, and the true mystery Kelly portrays is the psychological puzzle underlying human relationships.

Mystery Melange

This Saturday, August 8, award-winning short crime fiction writers Barb Goffman, Josh Pachter, and Michael Bracken will lead the free online panel, “The Keys to Writing and Editing Outstanding Short Stories,” a discussion hosted as part of the Grand Canyon Writers Sisters in Crime chapter's monthly meeting. You can learn more and register via this link. Michael Bracken will also be teaching a class on how to write gripping short stories for publication via a zoom talk, "Writing for Anthologies: How to Slip Between the Covers," .August 18 at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET. For more information that program and to register, follow this link.


Bantam Books has acquired two new thrillers by author Lee Child featuring Frances Neagley, the iconic former U.S. Army Master Sergeant, from the bestselling Jack Reacher novels. The first novel, Zero Margin, will be co-written with Yasmin Angoe and be published in March 2027. Yasmin Angoe is the author of the critically acclaimed international espionage thriller, Her Name Is Knight, the domestic psychological suspense novels, Not What She Seems and Behind These Four Walls, and the young adult fantasy horror novel, She Drinks the Light. The news follows on the heels of the new Neagley Amazon Prime Video television series, starring Maria Sten, which debuts in September on Amazon Prime.


News of a less-successful book deal broke this past week, in which a high-profile publishing deal (with substantial Hollywood interest) for a debut crime novel, Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body by Nigerian author Jerry Falade, was withdrawn from sale by its agent. This, despite reportedly receiving an offer for more than $2m from Minotaur as part of a 14-way auction, with a plan to publish it in 2028. The reason? The publishers could not 100% verify the work didn't use AI in its creation. Allegedly, halfway through the submissions process, an editor raised concerns that the book had signs of potential AI use, and after “aspects of [Falade’s] story changed.” the agency decided to cut ties, citing the “need to have total faith." Falade, who is Black, rejected claims he had used AI and said the response reflected racial bias in publishing. The agent and editor, however, are standing firmly behind their decision.


There is a new call for papers for a Clues: A Journal of Detection themed issue on the work of mid–twentieth-century American female crime writers. The guest editors are Erin A. Smith (University of Texas at Dallas) and Clare Rolens (Palomar College).  Proposals are due January 15, 2027, with full essays of 5,000 to 6,000 words due 1 August 2027. (HT to The Bunburyist)


Congrats to the Mystery Lovers' Kitchen blog, which was named one of the Best Culinary Blogs to follow by the blog aggregator, FeedSpot. Blogs are curated and ranked "based on multiple factors, including content relevancy, subject expertise, posting frequency, and freshness of content."


Kevin Tipple's  Thursday Treats has news of the latest short crime fiction from Guilty Crime Story Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, a reissue of Sleuths Just Wanna Have Fun: Private Eyes in the Material World, the upcoming SMFS Mystery Magazine (which I have referenced here before) and much more.


Speaking of short crime fiction, Joseph S. Walker, the current president of the Short Fiction Mystery Society, has posted all the latest news from various corners of the mystery story realm, as well as a couple of essays on related topics.


Some sad news this week:  author Sunny Frazier passed away following persistent health issues after a bout with Covid. Frazier trained as a journalist and wrote for a city newspaper, military, and law enforcement publications, and worked for 17 years with the Fresno Sheriff’s Department on an undercover narcotics team. After turning her hand to writing mysteries, she penned novels featuring Christy Bristol, astrologer and clerk in the San Joaquin Valley, California, Sheriff's Department, as well as various mystery short stories and also served as acquisitions editor for Oak Tree Press.


Art Taylor's "The First Two Pages" blog featured an essay by Daniel Bartlett, discussing his short story, “A Complicated History,” first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and later selected for one of EQMM‘s anthologies, Twisted Voices.


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Wound Us All" by Craig Kirchner.


In the Q&A roundup, Deborah Kalb spoke with J.T. Ellison about her new thriller, You Know Why, a suspenseful domestic thriller about identity, revenge, and the dangerous secrets kept hidden from the ones we love most; Rachel Peterson applied the Page 69 Test to Killing Sadie, new new young adult thriller that unspools the truth behind a tragic murder through multiple unreliable narrators who all have secrets to keep; Katie Tallo applied the Page 69 Test to Where Her Secrets Lie, moody thriller about a reclusive grandmother forced to confront her darkest fears to protect her family from a ruthless foe; and Hungarian author Daniel Laz chatted with Crime Fiction Lover about his latest mystery, VOSS: Scene Documentation: Saint Petersburg, and how he approaches things slightly differently in his series asking not "who did it?" but "what does the evidence actually tell us?" as his protagonist Frankie Voss, a forensic consult, determines whether events are supported by the evidence.

Author R&R with Terry R. Bacon

Terry R. Bacon is a poet, playwright, and novelist, author of the Sonny Marshall series of suspense thrillers and The Cerulean Ark, a science-fiction thriller. He is also the award-winning author of a dozen non-fiction titles, and was named one of the Top 100 Thinkers on Leadership in the World by Executive Excellence magazine. He has a Ph.D. in Literary Studies from the American University and a B.S. in Engineering from West Point. In his varied career, he has been a soldier, an intelligence agent, an educator, a political activist, a corporate leader, a global consultant, a musician, a blogger, a student of history and cosmology, and a world traveler. His latest project is the futuristic Sonny Marshall thriller, Storm Damage.

In the book, musician and reluctant hero Sonny Marshall faces a new storm brewing in San Francisco. A wave of horrific, random violence sweeps the city, turning ordinary citizens into savage killers. The cause: a deadly designer drug called Zombie. At the same time, another drug, Rapture, promises a blissful escape that ends in a catatonic state—a fate that befalls Sonny’s own bandmate. With detective Kat Hastings, Sonny hunts for the ghost-like chemist behind the chaos, a brilliant and ruthless mastermind playing God. They must stop him before his storm of engineered madness consumes the city entirely.

Terry R. Bacon stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing the book:

Hearing the Mystery: How Sonny Marshall Solves Crimes Through Music

By Terry R. Bacon

Every detective needs a way of seeing the world. Sherlock Holmes notices details others dismiss. Hercule Poirot studies psychology. Philip Marlowe expects everyone to be lying. Sonny Marshall listens.

Sonny is a saxophonist, a blues and jazz musician who approaches a mystery much as he approaches a piece of music. He listens for recurring phrases, notices variations, and senses when something has fallen out of rhythm. He believes scattered clues are not isolated facts. They are notes in a composition. Find the pattern, and you can hear the melody. Hear the melody, and you can begin to understand the story.

A collection of unrelated tones is noise. It is chaotic, formless, and indecipherable. Music has structure. A phrase creates expectation, a rhythm repeats, and one chord introduces tension that another resolves. Even experimental music establishes some relationship among its sounds. There is an underlying logic, whether the listener recognizes it immediately or not.

Sonny believes criminal behavior works much the same way. Criminals may want the police to think their actions are random. They may alter certain details, plant false evidence, or deliberately create confusion. But most criminals do not reinvent themselves every morning. They learn from experience, discover what works, abandon what does not, and develop habits. Those habits become a modus operandi.

A burglar learns which windows are easiest to force. A kidnapper develops preferred methods of surveillance, capture, transportation, and concealment. Criminals adapt, but their adaptations create patterns. In Sonny's mind, criminals are composers, although usually not very admirable ones. Their actions form the song of their criminal behavior. Every decision becomes a note. Every repeated technique becomes a refrain. Every deviation may signal a mistake, an improvisation, or a change in the person playing the tune. The detective's task is to listen carefully enough to recognize the composition.

Imagine that a girl is kidnapped by a man dressed as a security guard. That is the first note. By itself, it tells the investigator something important: the kidnapper used the appearance of authority to approach the victim without immediately alarming her. The disguise was part of the strategy.

Then comes the second note. Witnesses report that the supposed security guard placed the girl in a car driven by someone else. Now the investigation has direction. This was no soloist. It was a duet, and maybe an ensemble. The kidnapping required coordination, planning, and assigned roles. One person made the approach while the other drove the getaway car.

The third note arrives when the car is found burning near a freeway entrance. That changes the composition again. The kidnappers disposed of evidence. They picked a disposal site that offered a quick escape, which suggests another vehicle was waiting nearby. The burning car was not an act of panic. It was part of the plan.

Three clues do not solve the crime, but they begin to reveal the kind of song the criminals are playing. Investigators can now ask better questions. Where did the abductor get the uniform? Who did the burning car belong to? Was it stolen? If so, where and when? How much planning went into this abduction? And was the victim random or chosen?

Once Sonny begins to hear the melody, he can anticipate where the music may go next. This does not mean he possesses some supernatural power to solve crimes through jazz. His musical thinking is a form of pattern recognition. He holds the clues in his mind, listens for relationships among them, and searches for the structure that turns apparently disconnected facts into a coherent sequence of decisions. Other investigators may arrange evidence on a board. Sonny arranges it in his head like a musical score.

Repetition matters because it reveals preference. Preference reveals habit, and habit reveals the person behind the crime. Perhaps the offender repeatedly chooses similar victims, attacks near highways, or uses the same kind of deception. The surface details may vary while the underlying purpose remains the same. To another investigator, these may be recurring details. To Sonny, they are musical phrases.

But Sonny also listens for variation. A skilled jazz musician does not simply repeat a melody exactly. He bends it, extends it, answers it, or departs from it before returning. Criminals also improvise. They encounter witnesses, resistance, mechanical failures, or a collapsing timetable. The resulting deviation may be especially revealing.

When one crime differs from the others, investigators naturally ask whether it was committed by the same person. Sonny asks another question: Is this a different song, or is it an improvisation on the same melody? That distinction can determine whether an inconsistency is meaningless or whether it exposes the offender's circumstances. A hurried disposal may indicate interruption. A new target may reflect desperation. A changed location may suggest lost access to a familiar place or fear that police are closing in. The wrong note is not always a mistake in the investigation. Sometimes it is the most important note in the score.

Sonny's musical approach is not only analytical. It is also emotional. Blues and jazz tell stories through longing, grief, anger, humor, defiance, and hope, often without words. A musician learns to hear not only what is being played but what is being felt, and that sensitivity helps Sonny understand people.

A witness may be factually accurate while withholding the emotional truth. A suspect may answer correctly but sound rehearsed. A grieving relative's anger may actually conceal guilt, fear, or helplessness. Sonny listens to speech as a musician listens to phrasing. He notices pauses, repetitions, changes in tempo, and the emotional weight placed on particular words. He hears when a person's story remains technically consistent but no longer sounds true. This is not magic but attention. Music has trained him to recognize that meaning often exists beneath the literal surface. The notes matter, but so do the spaces between them.

Sonny's musical mind is not accidental. It grew from my own experience with music. I learned to play the saxophone in junior high school, played in the school band, and later joined a rock band that became mildly successful in my hometown. I was never the musician Sonny is, but music became deeply embedded in the way I experience the world.

I also experience musical ear syndrome. During virtually every waking moment, I hear an internally generated soundtrack behind my conscious thoughts. As a result, music occupies an unusually large part of my mental landscape. Melodies surface without invitation, rhythms repeat, and one phrase leads to another. Music is part of the machinery through which my mind organizes experience.

That explains why Sonny Marshall became a saxophonist. Authors distribute pieces of themselves among their characters: doubts, anger, humor, and sometimes the courage they wish they possessed. Fictional detectives may be especially revealing because their methods reflect the way their creators believe truth can be discovered. Sonny is not me, but his relationship with music comes from me.

He is also, admittedly, a bit of wish fulfillment. I was never as accomplished a musician as I imagine Sonny to be. One privilege of fiction is creating characters with abilities you once dreamed of developing. Sonny can play the saxophone with the fluency I would have loved to achieve. He can sit in at a blues club and speak through his instrument as naturally as another person speaks across a table. He can also take the patterns I hear in music and use them to solve murders. That seems like a reasonable promotion.

A mystery presents readers with two stories. The first is visible: a body, a disappearance, suspects, evidence, and the tightening investigation. The second is the hidden story: what actually happened.

Every clue belongs to that concealed narrative. The clues may appear disordered because the detective encounters them out of sequence. A burned vehicle may be found before anyone understands its significance. A false statement generally occurs before the hidden truth is known. A trivial object may acquire meaning much later.

Sonny's gift is his ability to listen past the disorder. He assumes the notes belong together. Somewhere beneath the lies, distractions, coincidences, and false leads is a composition with its own internal logic. Someone chose the victim. Someone selected the location. Someone took precautions, made errors, changed plans, and tried to escape the consequences. Those decisions form a pattern, and the pattern forms a melody. When Sonny finally hears the entire melody, he understands not only who committed the crime but the story the criminal has been telling from the beginning. The criminal may not realize he has written a song, but Sonny is listening.

You can learn more about Terry R. Bacon via his website and follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Goodreads. Storm Damage is now available via Amazon.