Author R&R with Margaret Morgan

Margaret Morgan grew up in a rural area in Shropshire, England and turned her hand to teaching, both in the UK and overseas. But after a tragic medical diagnosis led to early retirement, Margaret’s husband suggested she write to avoid dwelling on missing her colleagues. Instead of starting slowly and perhaps gaining experience with short stories, Margaret leapt straight into researching a period of history she knew little about, but wanted to know more.

The result was Mrs. McKeiver’s Secrets, the first book in a planned trilogy set in a fictional area of limestone hills and a microcosm of England in the late 18th century. The themes involve all the problems facing rural villages—such as the horror of landlessness, the price of food and the threat of starvation as a once settled rural community is rocked to its core by the effects of the Hills' Enclosure Act 1795—all seen through the eyes of the midwife, Mrs. McKeiver.

Morgan stops by In Reference to Murder to take some "Author R&R" and talk about how her family history inspired the novel as well as her research into the real-life events that are at the heart of the book:

 

I was born in 1950, which I feel now was another age.

Our farm was two and a half miles from the village of Leintwardine, where I went to primary school. My elder sister, Kate, two years older than me was already there. Our younger sister Liz wasn’t born until 1957.       

The farm was built in the 1750’s and had not changed since then, except for the addition of a black grate and oven in the kitchen. The bits to the spit remained, as obviously one would need it, which Mum did when feeding lots of shearers etc. Water came via a pump in the yard, or a well in the orchard; light from a candle; or a lamp, strictly after tea, of course.

The yard was a beautiful cobbled pattern, I remember, until my father concreted it during his ‘concrete period’ in 1957, as it was so slippery. Gone were the days of many cheap hands on farms, to do all the sweeping and upkeep needed.

We had electricity when I was about four and water when my father paid for it to be brought in 1962. The thrill of a bathroom I can still remember; as we’d had an Elsan in the attic, as well as a two seater ‘around the corner’ in the orchard, previously. I don’t expect many rural children in the Herefordshire area had much different in the 1950’s.

From primary school at eleven, I didn’t follow my sister to Ludlow High School, but went to a small prep school in Leominster. From there I went to a brand new secondary school in a nearby village, Wigmore. In 1966 I became Head Girl, which was a great step in the right direction for me. For A levels I attended Ludlow Grammar School, until 1968.

I decided to teach Physical Education, so trained at Weymouth College of Education, part of the University of Southampton. I taught PE in Bournemouth until 1978 and changed to EFL teaching to go overseas with my husband. We lived in various African countries and Malta. In 1985 we returned and lived in London for sixteen years, teaching in privateprep schools. By now I was teaching junior girls for the London Day Schools’ Entrance Examination at 10+. However, I was finding life increasingly difficult.

Looking back, it seems strange that no one put two and two together earlier than 1995. I had been attempting to find out what was wrong with me for nearly twenty years. Terrific head and lower back pain, projectile vomiting coupled with deteriorating ability to walk, meant nothing to a long list of doctors. Indeed, I was sneered at on my medical notes. ‘Very into alternative therapies ha ha’.

At last I saw a neurologist. 1995 meant Bart’s for three days, steroids and the immediate clearing of my head. I had Multiple Sclerosis diagnosed too. The lower back pain faded and my headache gradually diminished. I still have leg pain, with excruciating right big toe pain. It seems that I have spinal stenosis and MS.

I had to retire in 2002, as I did a graceful collapse outside my Doctor’s Surgery and had to call my husband to drive me less than half a mile home.

After bed rest, I could feel my feet again and began to take an interest in life. It took a time for everything to sink in and that left me very lost. I missed everyone at work terribly, so my husband suggested that I write, as I had started short stories for competitions. As a child my sister and I had written ‘newspapers’, which had a limited circulation: 2 parents. I had been teaching essay writing to junior girls, but I already knew it was the thing for me.

Instead of writing short stories, for experience, I leapt straight into researching a period of history I knew a little about, but wanted to know more. Herbal knowledge and midwifery in the eighteenth century seemed to naturally evolve out of my research. Mrs. McKeiver entered my head when I first thought of a character to hold everything together in the Hills; my fictional area.   

I expect she is an amalgam of my mother and her two grandmothers. Coming from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire they were fearless, strong women. One was a land worker, living until her seventies; having a home and family. She was reputed to be able to make soup from ‘the dishcloth and an onion’. The other was perhaps better off, assisting the midwife at births in her rural area in Yorkshire. I know one of them would beat any official with her umbrella, if she thought someone was being harangued for being poor and needy. A great sin in pre war days. 

What I did discover from my research, was the appalling effects of Land Enclosures on the rural poor. It equals mistreatment of a country’s own working people, anywhere in the World. They must have died in hundreds, as charity was very limited, even up to the early twentieth century. Punishments for poaching were increasingly horrific too; for taking an unwanted rabbit to feed hungry children.

At the moment I am editing and improving Book 3; thinking about Book 4 and writing Children’s books that are one page bedtime stories.I belong to a very small Writers’ Circle, sisters and sister in law, but we do an activity every fortnight and enter competitions. My sister in law has had many stories published in women’s magazines.In addition, Morton and Smith are publishing three of my teenage stories, in their termly School’s Catalogue.

In my children’s writing the main character usually has to cope with a parent’s illness, and/or death. I think that is so important, as in my experience many children today have to face someone in the family having treatment for cancer. The main character cannot cope at the beginning, but gradually realises others need support as much as them. They reach out and are rewarded.

The second Mrs. McKeiver book is Mrs. McKeiver’s Solutions, which is now published as an ebook by Troubador. Book three, Mrs. McKeiver’s Remedies, will see ‘chickens coming home to roost’. Just desserts come to the right people and the mystery baby is born.

 

Mrs. McKeiver's Secrets is available as an ebook via Amazon and also in paperback. For more information on the author and the book, visit the publisher's website.

A Visit to Will Poole's Island

Based in Vermont, author Tim Weed teaches at GrubStreet in Boston and in the MFA Creative & Professional Writing program at Western Connecticut State University. He is the winner of a Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Award and a Solas Best Travel Writing Award and also has published many short stories and essays. In addition to his writing work he has more than two decades’ experience developing and directing educational travel programs around the world and is currently a featured expert for National Geographic Expeditions on traveling programs to Cuba, Spain, and Patagonia/Tierra del Fuego.

Tim Weed’s first novel, Will Poole’s Island is set in New England, 1643. A meeting in the forest between a rebellious young Englishman and a visionary Wampanoag leads to a dangerous collision of societies, an epic sea journey, and the making of an unforgettable friendship. Will Poole's Island is a tale of adventure, wonder, and mystery in which a young man discovers that he is destined for more than his narrow upbringing led him to expect.

Tim Weed stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about how his interest in family history led him to research that inspired the events of this novel:

 

Several years ago I got interested in family history. Tracing the Weeds back through the decades and the centuries, I found that the first Weed, Jonas, had come to America in 1630, on the ship Arbella, with Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts Bay Colony. Another ancestor was a young widower named Thomas Trowbridge, who crossed the Atlantic with three young sons and a household servant in 1637 to become one of the founders of New Haven, Connecticut. In 1645, Thomas Trowbridge sailed back to England to help Oliver Cromwell fight against king Charles in the English Civil War. He was killed in battle, leaving the three young Trowbridge orphans in the trust of their father’s servant, Henry Gibbons. Gibbons turned out to be corrupt, and basically swindled the boys out of their fortune.

Left on their own to survive in the wilds of America, the boys became merchant sea captains. One, William Trowbridge, was captured by the French and later became the subject of a sermon by the famous Puritan cleric Cotton Mather. Anyway, all of this was fascinating to me, and those who have read the book may recognize echoes of these ancestral histories in the story of my protagonist, Will Poole, his brother Zeke, and their legal guardian, the servant James Overlock.

I also have Native American ancestors – my great grandmother was half Cherokee – and I was fascinated by that heritage. So I wanted to find out more about the New England Indians too. I started reading a lot of primary resources, mostly accounts written by early English travelers and colonists. These books were very interesting, but they were of course written purely from the English perspective. Most of the observations of Indians by these early English described them as tall, handsome, healthy, with exceptionally good teeth. And then there was the fact that English captives, especially young ones, were often reluctant to return to the settlements after they’d been ransomed or rescued – because the freedom and ease they found in Indian society compared favorably to the strictness and repression of Puritan society. I found this most provocative, and it gave me an important insight into the character of my protagonist, Will Poole.

In 1614, six years before Plymouth Rock, an English sea captain named Thomas Hunt kidnapped twenty-seven Algonkian-speaking Indians from different spots along the New England coast and sold them as slaves to the Spanish. Among this group was a Patuxet Wampanoag who called himself Tisquantum, a name that was later shortened to “Squanto.” Tisquantum managed to escape slavery in Spain and made his way to England, where he was taken up by a group of investors interested in colonizing the New World. Tisquantum spent five years in England and found his way home in 1619, only to discover that his entire band had perished in a devastating plague. There is a character in my book, Squamiset, who has a very similar story.

Anyway, in the course of all this research I was beginning to develop a mental picture of New England in the 17^th century. The thing was, the picture wasn’t complete. It wasn’t vivid or alive in my mind. And so in a sense the novel came to me because I passionately wanted to know more about the time and place, and I was only getting a dry and limited vision from my research.

And when it came time to transition from the research phase to the novel-writing phase, I began to get a feeling of accumulating energy, as if the story were telling itself. It was as if my early American characters had an important message they wanted to communicate - a new way of thinking, perhaps, or a reminder of a very old way of thinking. Novels are obviously limited in what they can achieve, of course, and in the end this is just a story. It’s a story about the friendship between a young man and an old man, their adventures and struggles and the landscapes they travel through, and the people and beings they interact with. I hope you enjoy it!

 

You can find out more about Tim and the book via the author's website. Will Poole's Island is available via Amazon US and Amazon UK in digital and print formats.

Progeny of a Killer

Today's guest post is from British author JM Shorney, author of Progeny of a Killer.

Undercover agent and assassin, Aidan McRaney, is sent to infiltrate the lair of fellow Irishman, Daniel Corrigan, by his boss, wheelchair-bound Sir George Treveleyan. Only Corrigan and Treveleyan know of McRaney’s secret past. Aidan has no idea of his mother’s affair with wanted I.R.A man, Connor McMartland, who was also Corrigan’s father. This shocking news triggers a chain of unprecedented events that sends Aidan into the world of white slave trafficking and puts Aidan's own son in harm's way.

Shorney stops by In Reference to Murder today to share her inspiration for her books and some insights into her research:

 

As three of my novels Stalking Aidan, The Devil in Soho and Staying Out are related to gangsters, what better way of recounting my experiences in the area of research, than to actually revisit  the early years when I once dated a man actively involved in gangland. This was before marriage and children, but it was an experience I have drawn upon for my novels.

As I was about to become engaged to him, he had gone from being penniless and unemployed, to throwing his money around. It turned out that he, and other members of his hoodlum fraternity, had held up and robbed a post office in Chesterfield. It was this incident that perhaps led me to immerse myself in the gangster/crime genre. Watching countless movies and reading non-fiction crime books has also acquainted me with this twilight world of nightclubs, drugs and prostitution.

Of course, visiting the places has added more feeling and sensation to my writing. Nothing is more powerful and atmospheric than to visit the places you write about. I have to admit I've worn out much shoe leather walking the streets of London, particularly the East End and South London, where my stories are set.

For Progeny of a Killer I had researched Irish history extensively for many years, and gone through many Kleenex tissues due to being upset by this bloody history. I have been able to construct this story of revenge and desperate sorrow, experienced by one man, Danny Corrigan, for what he sees as acts of insurgency against the Irish nation.

In Dublin, prior to writing the novel, I visited Kilmainham gaol. I saw that small, lonely black cross over the mound of earth and knew I had to write about it. Particularly the death of James Connolly, the last of the rebel leaders of the1916 Easter Uprising. Connolly was propped up by a chair and shot, which is referred to by Danny Corrigan in Progeny. Corrigan's hatred of the British is such, that he has a plan is to bring them down, not with bombings or assassinations, but paedophilia and white slave trafficking. In the murder and torture of children lies the machinations of this man. Visiting Kilmainham and seeing the small barred cells, gave me the first hand experience no Wikipedia entry or Google search could ever offer.

To get to real grips with your story, write what you know, what you feel and what you see.

 

For more information about Storney and Progeny, check out her AuthorAmp website.

 

 

A Look at "The Rightful Owner"

Hemmie Martin has spent most of her professional life as a nurse, including being a Community Nurse for people with learning disabilities and a Forensic Nurse working with young offenders. She spent six years living in the south of France, and currently lives in Essex in the U.K. She writes crime fiction with a dark edge, including a series with D.I Eva Wednesday novel, second of which, Rightful Owner, was published this week.

When a murder occurs in an exclusive swingers’ club, D.I. Wednesday and D.S. Lennox find themselves immersed in a murky world of sex and secrets. It doesn’t take long for the members to turn on one another, and for their clandestine affairs to come crashing into their everyday lives. As Wednesday experiences the pressures of work and caring for her mother’s mental illness, and Lennox’s ex-wife has him worrying about the sustainability of his role as a father, their case brings about questions of personal freedom and they begin to wonder if we are all, in fact, owned in one way or another.

Martin stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about "Being Close to Crime":

 

I had always wanted to be a policewoman, but life took me down the nursing route, after a volunteering placement. Years down the line, I found myself working as a Forensic Nurse with young people between ten and eighteen, who had committed crimes. Their offences ranged from theft, drug or alcohol use, assault, to murder. I visited the young people in their homes, schools, hostels, or young offender institutes (prison). I was finally working alongside the police.

My experiences of visiting prisons, police cells and courts, add some (I hope) realism to my novels. I remember vividly the pressure of the job, the claustrophobic feeling of the cells, and the general malaise clinging to the atmosphere in the prisons. I was visiting an offender once, when the prison alarm rang. A fight had broken out, and lock-down was being enforced. Although I was completely safe, adrenaline riddled by body. I also remember taking a group of male adolescents to a male adult prison, with the idea of dissuading them from a life of crime. Walking within the grounds, men were hurling obscenities at myself and my female colleague, which was an uncomfortable experience.

I obviously do not use real people or their actual crimes in my novels, but I do liaise with a Detective Inspector in the Metropolitan Police Force, who advises me on procedural issues, which is a great help. As he is the same rank as my female DI, he is able to see things as she would. However, I reserve the right to use artistic licence, as sometimes the police procedure is quite a drawn-out process, which could be quite boring to read. I want an element of realism in my work, but not an out-and-out- procedural novel. I like to study the human aspects of crime, and the people behind the Detective Inspector and Detective Sergeant badges.

I am due to attend jury service in a week, which I hope will add another dimension to my writing. I’m used to being in Court with an offender, but never on the side of a jury, so I’m excited to see what that is like.

I have a plethora of books on policing, forensics, poisoning, true crime, and criminal psychology, to name but a few. I read a variety of male and female authors of crime fiction, such as Ian Rankin and P.D. James, but nothing beats human intervention, in my opinion.

When I write, I have the idea of the crime in mind, but sometimes the perpetrator changes from who I originally intended it to be, as once I start, things I could not see before writing suddenly develop. It is then I see who else would be better suited as the perpetrator, which often affords me the twist in the denouement, which hopefully thrills the reader.

This has taught me that over-planning a novel could stifle such hidden gems. I will write a mind-map as I move through the story, to check where people were when the crime took place, but I only use this overview as a guide, not a testament to follow religiously, as things always have a potential to change. But that makes a story interesting for me to write, and for a reader to devour.

 

Rightful Owner is available via Amazon. For more information about the author, check out her website, Twitter account, and Facebook page.

Ready for Some Influence

Chris Parker is a specialist in Communication and Influence, a Licensed Master Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and instructor, an experienced martial artist, and columnist and features writer. He's also written, or contributed to, over 20 fiction and nonfiction books.

His new thriller, titled Influence, centers on internationally-renowned consultant, Marcus Kline, who shares his expertise with world leaders, corporate giants and global media stars. Arrrogant, self-assured and controlling, Marcus revels in his unparalleled skill. Yet when a series of murder victims bear the horrific hallmarks of an intelligent and remorseless serial killer, Detective Inspector Peter Jones turns to Marcus for help – and everything changes. As the killer sets a deadly pace, the invisible, irresistible and terrifying power of influence threatens friendships, reputations, and lives. When events appear to implicate the great Marcus Kline himself, everyone learns that the worst pain isn’t physical.

Parker stops by In Reference to Murder today to discuss the power of influence:

 

Influence...It’s inevitable

by Chris Parker, author of Influence

 

We are all subject to influence. That’s what the research tells us. People, places, memories, expectations and a whole host of other stimuli influence us. In the main they influence us subconsciously. In other words they get into our heads and into our psyche, they affect the ways we feel, the things we say and the decisions we make without us even realising it.

This isn’t a one-way street, though. We influence others, too. Whether we mean to or not. Sometimes we create influence – either positive or negative - and we are oblivious to the fact. Sometimes we set out to create a specific type of influence and we achieve the exact opposite. Just because we influence inevitably doesn’t mean that are particularly good at it. Just because we are influenced inevitably doesn’t mean that we recognise and/or manage those influences well.

I decided to write my crime thriller series based on a Master of Influence. His name is Marcus Kline. I don’t know why that is his name. It just is. I do know why I chose to create him. It’s because I have been studying communication and influence since the mid 1970s. When I returned to writing fiction I took the easy and obvious option. I based it on what I know. I teach people in all walks of life how to use language to influence deliberately and positively. So when I began the process of creating Marcus Kline and his world I was pretty sure that there was only one thing I didn’t know. That was just who precisely my killer was and what precisely his motive was.

I figured – guessed, hoped – that it would all become clear as I developed Marcus’s world and immersed myself in it fully. Thankfully that is what happened. Eventually the killer just stepped out from the shadows and gave me a knowing look. I recognised precisely what that look meant because, well, because I have been studying and teaching this stuff for decades. The killer knew that I would read between the lines. The killer was right.

From that moment on I felt in complete control of my novel. The feeling lasted less than a week. Why? Because influence is inevitable. Because Marcus Kline had had enough life breathed into him to start making his own decisions. Now it was time for him to take the lead. All I could do was create the situations and let him work his way through them. He led. I followed. To be honest, I found it quite frightening at first. This wasn’t at all how I had planned to write the book. I adapted, though. After all, if you create a Master of Influence what do you expect them to do? I, of all people, should have worked that out. I cope with it by telling myself that we are a team.

So, right now, we are working together on the second book in the trilogy. I’m doing my best to recognise all the different ways Marcus Kline is influencing me. Part of me – the competitive part – feels tested by him. I’d like to show him that I know at least some things that he doesn’t. I suspect that I am doomed to failure. There is one thing, however, that I do know for sure.

He hasn’t finished with me yet. 

Influence is published by Urbane Publications (http://urbanepublications.com) and is available from Amazon and lots of other lovely booky places http://georiot.co/21DG

Marcus Kline has his own website at http://marcuskline.co.uk

Head there if you dare!

Blood of the Rose

Kevin Murray began his writing career 40 years ago, working on the Star, Johannesburg's biggest daily newspaper. He soon became chief crime reporter in what was considered to be the crime capital of the world. He once achieved a record of more than 30 consecutive days of front page crime stories, including an aircraft hijacking, several murders, numerous armed robberies and even drug-related gang wars. Since then, his successful career has spanned magazine publishing, public relations, and strategic communications.

His new novel Blood on the Rose is set in London, 1986, where a newspaper editor is horrifically murdered, his death quickly followed by a series of more brutal, and often bizarre, slayings. The police are baffled, the only clear link between the murders being a single blood red rose left at the scene of every killing. Scotland Yard detective Alan Winters leads a hunt for the elusive prey. As the body count rises, Jennifer Chapman, renowned investigative journalist and daughter of the murdered newspaper editor, sets out on a personal quest for revenge. Drawn together in their pursuit of a deadly quarry, Winters and Jennifer unwittingly face a fatal surprise, for the killer is closer than they think.  

Murray stopped by In Reference to Murder to talk about where he finds his inspiration:

 

Inspiration? It’s criminal!

Writers are often advised to write what they know. This in itself could be a rather troubling piece of advice when you’re embarking on a novel about a remorseless, barbaric serial killer. But much of the world’s greatest fiction, particularly crime fiction, is driven by fact, and the real crimes perpetrated by others, the mysteries that haunt and challenge us. Perhaps that’s the thrill of crime fiction, the relationship with the darker side of the world.

My own fascination stems from earlier in my career when I was the crime reporter for the The Star newspaper in Johannesburg. In the mid-80s violent crime was rife in South Africa and there was no shortage of material to feed the imagination of a crime writer. Yet it wasn’t the more lurid or sensational aspects of the criminal act that fascinated me, but the forensic analysis – the careful accumulation and examination of even the most trivial of physical evidence to build, and ultimately solve, a case. You have to remember techniques and technology were far removed from the slick, almost mercurial, presentation of forensics we see now, particularly through popular shows such as CSI. You couldn’t perform a tissue analysis with a smartphone, or find DNA traces with a tablet. But this was the fascination for me, that a case could turn on tracing a partial fingerprint, discovering the relevance of an item of clothing, or matching ballistics to tie a weapon to the person who fired it.

There was one compelling mystery in particular that became the genesis for Blood of the Rose. The case? The Boksburg Suitcase Murder of the mid-late Sixties. A suitcase containing a middle-aged woman’s decapitated torso was fished from Boksburg Lake. Further badly decomposed body parts, including the unrecognisable head, were found in other suitcases. But the body could not be identified, even after pathologists worked with artists to painstakingly produce a likeness of the victim’s features. I won’t go into all the details here – they can easily be found on the internet – but it eventually took four years to formally identify the body as that of Catherine Burch. The final piece of proof? An expert in the police fingerprinting bureau found a fingerprint on a letter written by Catherine that matched those of her corpse.  

As a journalist this case was vital in sparking my interest in forensics, and how the most trivial or innocuous of items can hold the key to unlocking a seemingly indecipherable mystery. Forensic investigation was progressing rapidly and more and more cases, like this one, were being solved thanks to the unique combination of progressive science and human ingenuity. Throw in a large dose of intuition and curiosity and any crime could be solved…eventually. I simply felt compelled to take my interest from the pages of the newspaper into a fictional world – a world where a faceless, remorseless and brutal killer is pursued doggedly by a police team using every clue, no matter how small, to try and break the case. But I didn’t leave any bodies in a suitcase. Or did I? You’ll have to read Blood of the Rose to discover that for yourself….

 

Blood of the Rose by Kevin Murray, June 2014, 320 pages, Urbane Publications, ISBN: 1909273120 is available via Amazon and Urbane

Mike Monson: How I Create

Mike Monson is co-editor of the crime e-zine All Due Respect, along with Chris Rhatigan, and also the author of his own short fiction, including the collection Criminal Love and Other Stories and the noir novellas What Happens in Reno and The Scent of New Death. His latest work is the novel Tussinland from All Due Respect Books, about a desperate man trapped in a middle-class hell who develops an addiction to DM, or dextromethorphan, the drug found in cough medicines.

In honor of the book's launch, Mike stopped by In Reference to Murder to talk a little about how he goes about writing and creating his fiction:

How I Write/Create Character(s) and Plot

Since I am now gearing up to start a new novella or novel, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I write, how I create.

I know that what I want to do is sit down and create characters on paper and then outline a plot. And, then, write the book I’ve outlined. Wouldn’t that be great? Apparently a lot of fiction writers do just that and it sounds wonderful. Work it all out, step-by-step and plot-point by plot-point, then just write the damn thing. So simple, so easy, so … organized.

I tried to do it with my latest project. I had a basic idea, more of a feeling and an image and some kind of urgency to bring some story impulse to life that I just know will be original and cool.

So I sat down at the computer and started typing character descriptions and a plot summary like a real professional writer. And, guess what? It sucked. So dull, so cliché. If I had to read the book I’d outlined, I’d kill myself.

Apparently, the organized part of me is a boring asshole.

Then, as I’ve done with my previous stories and previous novellas and novels—I went back to a blank document and just started writing until I found the voice, until I found the story, the story that only seems to come along if I just open myself up to it and write with a wildness that doesn’t care about anything other than being heard.

And now, guess what? The story came to life, the narrator came to life, all the other characters came to life. A real story emerged almost immediately: Something real and true and compelling. Something that I’m pretty sure had never been told before. (Not that anyone else will think so, but that is how it felt, as opposed to the outlining method I tried before.)

Great.

There is one problem though. This method is difficult, and it kind of hurts my brain. Sometimes when I’m open, and writing and going wild, something comes up that doesn’t really work, so I have to delete, back up, and try again. And again, and again. Until what I have is something that continues to feel true and original to me.

This is hard, so hard. And a lot of work.

But, usually, after I’ve gotten about forty or fifty percent in, I can start to do some outlining, some organizing, and it seems to kind of work …. As long as I’m open to new discoveries that aren’t in the stupid boring outline.

That’s me, that’s how I write. And, guess what? I’m okay with it, as long as it keeps working.

Catch up with Mike via his website, Twitter Feed or Facebook page. Tussinland is now available via Amazon in digital and paperback formats.

Always Have a Plan B

 

Plan B Magazine debuted in 2013, the brainchild of Darusha Wehm, as a way to showcase short crime fiction. She envisioned it as a free-to-readers publication they can read and/or listen to online and also in portable, affordable DRM-free ebooks. Wehm also was determined to pay authors (which is getting rarer in the world of fiction and nonfiction publications), with hopes of attracting top notch authors and original stories. In its short history, Plan B has published a story by Mike Miner, “The Little Outlaw,” that was shortlisted for a Derringer Award, and several other Plan B authors are Derringer winners, including Patti Abbott, Nick Andreychuk, Stephen D. Rogers and yours truly.

To help keep this publication going for a third year, Wehm organized an Indigogo campaign to raise funds for the project. You can help support Plan B in levels as low as $1 (less than a cup of coffee these days), going on up to $100 to sponsor a story or be immortalized in a story by Nick Andreychuk. If you pledge in the $75 category, you can get a story critique from Wehm or Aislinn Batstone. I rather like the $40 category, where you can fill your e-reader with books from Plan B authors (including my own novel Played to Death and story collection, False Shadows).

In the past several years, we have seen the demise of crime zines including Crime and Suspense, Future Mysterious Anthology Magazine, Great Mystery and Suspense, Hardluck Stories, Midnight Screaming, Mouth Full of Bullets, Murdaland, Necrotic Tissue, Nefarious, Nossa Morte, Pear Noir, Powder Burn Flash, Pulp Modern, Pulp Pusher, Shred of Evidence, and Sniplits, among others. If you enjoy short crime fiction and mysteries, want to see them continue, and want to help out a fledgling publication, head on over to the Plan B Indiegogo page and make a contribution.

You can also check out some of the "How I Came to Write This Story" blog posts featuring Plan B fiction that Patti Abbott has been featuring over at her blog. As PEN winner George Saunders notes, “When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you.”

X Marks a Giveaway!

Author Les Roberts has penned 23 novels, close to a dozen short stories, eight screenplays and countless newspaper articles and reviews, but is perhaps best known to readers for his Slovenian detective, Milan Jacovich. What you might not know about Roberts is he's also a Hollywood veteran, producer of such shows as The Hollywood Squares, The Lucy Show, The Andy Griffith Show, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. His crime fiction success resulted nominations for both the Shamus and the Anthony Awards, and he's served as past president of the Private Eye Writers of America and the American Crime Writers League.

Roberts’s new book features the return of hit man Dominick Candiotti, a dangerous and conflicted assassin who first appeared in The Strange Death of Father Candy (Minotaur Books, 2011). In Wet Work, Candiotti has grown weary of the violence and a life of temporary identities and wants to leave the profession. His anonymous boss, code-named “Og,” isn’t happy with the decision; he turns the tables on his employee and assigns fellow agents to eliminate him. Now on the run, Candiotti fights for his life, trying to stay one step ahead of deadly pursuers while he tracks down his nemesis boss and uncovers secrets from his own past. It’s a gripping tale about the struggle for power and a suspenseful game of cat-and-mouse that leads through several U.S. cities and beyond.

The publisher is offering up three print copies of Wet Work to three separate winners! Just send an e-mail to bvlawson.com with the subject "Les Roberts Giveaway," and you'll be entered in the random drawing. Deadline for entries is Sunday, October 12.

Rogue Elements

Publishing is evolving at such a rapid rate, it's hard to keep up with all the latest news and developments. One such new approach comes courtesy of Advance Editions, which just launched this week. The company uses a twist on crowdsourcing, making books available to early readers a few months ahead of final publication, who then give feedback to the authors.

One of their first projects is Rogue Elements by Hector Macdonald, bestselling author of such thrillers as The Mind Game, The Hummingbird Saint and The Storm Prophet. Rogue Elements centers on the push by three world leaders to make drugs legal, which leads to one of them being assassinated. The disgraced MI6 spymaster Madeleine Wraye knows just the man to track the killer and keep the remaining two reformers alive. But her former protégé, Simon Arkell, hasn’t been seen in nine years. And there’s another problem: the assassin’s orders may be coming from someone dangerously close to home.

Macdonald explained more about his female spy and "The Woman’s Place in Spy Fiction"

A highly regarded figure in the British publishing establishment did me the kindness of reading an early draft of my new spy novel, Rogue Elements.  He was complimentary, but he worried that some of it was a bit clichéd: in particular, “a Mossad killer, a female boss”.  Perhaps he was right about my assassin (although I’m struggling to recall other spy novels with an Israeli finger on the trigger).  But his suggestion that having a woman in charge of an espionage operation was some kind of failure of originality did shock me.

Presumably he was thinking of Judy Dench playing M in the Bond movies.  Yes, that was quite an innovation twenty years ago when she first took the role.  But now?  Should we still think it’s remarkable to see a woman in charge?  Shouldn’t we in fact start from the position that fifty percent of fictitious spies ought to have a female boss?

I’m being slightly disingenuous.  The gender of my spymaster, Madeleine Wraye, does have some bearing on the plot, at least in her own mind.  She sees it as a contributory factor in her downfall.  For unlike Dench’s magisterial M, Wraye is not in charge of the Secret Intelligence Service; she’s no longer even employed by the organisation better known as MI6.  She’s out, an ex-spook, ousted by a cabal of male colleagues who – she believes – feared she was getting a little too close to the top.  As a freelancer marshalling other freelancers, she’s remarkably successful; as a former government servant with dashed hopes of a place in SIS history, she’s a little bitter.

No one could claim that women are adequately represented in the upper echelons of most organisations, and this is undoubtedly as true for intelligence agencies as it is for our banks, supermarket chains and governments.  But if a novelist were to include a female commissioning editor or marketing director in a manuscript, would anyone bat an eyelid?  What’s so special about female spymasters?

Admittedly, the Secret Intelligence Service has never had a female Chief, and we know almost nothing about its other senior officers.  High-ranking SIS women never get featured in “How does she do it?” columns in the Sunday papers.  But the Security Service (MI5) has had two female Directors General: Stella Rimington held the top job from 1992 to 1996, and Eliza Manningham-Buller took charge from 2002 to 2007. 

Things are even more progressive across the Atlantic.  The Deputy Director of the CIA is a woman, and a young one at that: Avril Haines is just 44.  Following the Snowden revelations last year, Frances Fleisch was given the unenviable job of Acting Deputy Director at the National Security Agency.  And the next Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency – the CIA’s military counterpart – is expected to be Lieutenant General Mary Legere.  The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Reconnaissance Office, both key members of the US Intelligence Community, are run by women.

None of which should surprise anyone with a passing understanding of what intelligence agencies actually do.  Forget the breakneck excitements of Bond and Bourne, or even the occasional bursts of action in Rogue Elements.  The job of the spy is to collect pertinent information that others would rather keep from them.  Mostly, these days, that is achieved by electronic means.  Sometimes it is still done by talking to people with access to secrets.  There is little call for machismo in espionage, as celebrated practitioners from Violette Szabo and Daphne Park to Valerie Plame and the marvellous fictional Carrie Mathison have all shown.

So I’ve kept my female boss.  She’s without doubt the most interesting character in the book.  But in no way should anyone consider her gender remarkable.

Advance Editions has launched a How to Write a Spy Thriller Series with Hector on YouTube. You can also read more about the book and catch the book trailer on Hector's website.

Locked Room Mysteries

 

PJ Bergman runs the impossible crime website TheLockedRoom.com and is currently writing his debut novel of the same name. In the book, disgraced military detective Kenneth Rhys investigates a series of locked room mysteries and impossible crimes as he attempts to repay a debt to his volatile friend Mitchell. He stopped by In Reference to Murder to talk about "locked room" crime fiction and what inspired him to take on this project:

 

What is a locked room mystery?

Locked room mysteries and impossible crime stories are a subset of detective fiction. The plots commonly involve an event or crime that seems to have occurred outside of what is physically possible. The locked room conundrum - a body is found alone inside a locked room with no possible escape route for their attacker - is generally the most popular of these and the various solutions provide some of the greatest examples of the genre.

Why choose this genre?

Locked room mysteries have always held a certain appeal. Generally the stories focus on the how of the crime rather than the who or the why, which creates a unique dynamic between the author and the reader. The reader is presented with the same facts as the detective in the story, and is challenged to work out how the crime was committed before the author reveals all.

Being baffled by an impossible crime, only to find an elegant but ingenious solution, makes for a hugely rewarding read. I’ve found that this challenge/reveal mechanic works most effectively in short stories so decided to structure my novel as episodic mysteries, each featuring its own impossible crime.

How did you research the project?

The impossible crime genre, though relatively niche now, was extremely popular in the early 1900s. Before I started writing I read as many of these examples as I could, working my way through the stories of John Dickson Carr, Jacques Futrelle, Arthur Conan Doyle and many others. More recent examples include television shows like BBC’s Jonathan Creek and Death In Paradise, or the U.S. show Monk. These were really good points of reference for modernising the concepts that were created over a hundred years prior. Detective stories before the advent of DNA and forensics often allowed a lot more flexibility for the author.

Part of the reason I launched TheLockedRoom.com was to force myself to read more frequently -  a steady stream of content and reviews requires a lot more research. Through the site I’ve come across fans of the genre, many of whom have their own suggestions or recommended reading. It’s been fantastic to engage with the community who share a passion for ingenious and unpredictable stories.

Once a few of my stories were complete (the first three impossible crimes are available for free online) I reached out to the contacts I had accrued for feedback and suggestions. This was also a really helpful process that informed a number of fundamental changes to the book.

I’d definitely encourage aspiring writers to start a site or blog about their topic of choice. Interacting with like-minded people and examining similar works has helped me to refine my own. The Locked Room is now well underway, and I’m hoping to have it finished towards the end of 2014.

 

Bio:

PJ was born in Boston (the town in Lincolnshire, UK, not the USA version) and moved to Dublin, Ireland in 2011 to work for Google. He is currently writing the upcoming novel The Locked Room and launched the website of the same name to share progress, talk about the genre, and generally avoid actually writing the book.

The first three stories from The Locked Room are available online for free. TheLockedRoom site also host a huge library of articles, reviews, and short stories from some of the genre’s most acclaimed authors.

Author R&R with Glenn Cooper

Glenn Cooper takes some "Author R&R" (Reference and Research) on In Reference to Murder today. Glenn has a degree in archaeology from Harvard and practiced medicine as an infectious diseases specialist. He was the CEO of a biotechnology company for almost twenty years, has written numerous screenplays and has produced three independent feature films. His novels have sold six million copies in thirty-one languages. 

Glenn uses his archaeology background in his latest thriller, The Tenth Chamber. It's set in Abbey of Ruac, rural France where a medieval script is discovered hidden behind an antique bookcase. Badly damaged, it is sent to Paris for restoration, and there literary historian Hugo Pineau begins to read the startling fourteenth-century text. Within its pages lies a fanciful tale of a painted cave and the secrets it contains – and a rudimentary map showing its position close to the abbey. Intrigued, Hugo enlists the help of archaeologist Luc Simard and the two men go exploring.

When they discover a vast network of prehistoric caves, buried deep within the cliffs, they realize that they’ve stumbled across something extraordinary. And at the very core of the labyrinth lies the most astonishing chamber of all, just as the manuscript chronicled. Aware of the significance of their discovery, they set up camp with a team of experts, determined to bring their find to the world. But as they begin to unlock the ancient secrets the cavern holds, they find themselves at the center of a dangerous game. One "accidental" death leads to another. And it seems that someone will stop at nothing to protect the enigma of the tenth chamber.

Glenn talked about the inspiration for the book in this "Behind the Scenes" look:

This painting which hangs over my desk was the inspiration for The Tenth Chamber.

It’s called Lascaux – The Bison Hunter, by the American artist, Thomas Baker, and it’s a faithful adaptation of one of the frescoes from Lascaux cave in France. It’s dated to 18,000 BP and is located in one of the most remote chambers in Lascaux. One of the things that makes it very special is that it’s the only human figure in the entire cave. It shows a strange priapic birdman killing a bison with a spear. Is it a faithful rendition of a warrior in a mask? Or does it represent a spiritual or magical conception? We will surely never know.

But I knew this. Ever since I first began to seriously study archaeology at university I was fascinated with Lascaux and the painted caves of France and Europe. While the birdman is primitive, the bison, horses, deer, and antelope are major works of naturalist art which place the prehistoric painters in the same league as the great masters of the Renaissance. I also knew that I wanted to write a book which had an archaeologist protagonist, not a cartoon archaeologist like Indiana Jones, but a real man, an amalgam of many of the notable archaeologists I’ve known and worked with over the years.

So I had the idea. What if a handsome, young French archaeologist named Luc Simard discovered a new cave in the Perigord, even more spectacular than Lascaux, one that’s been guarded by the residents of the nearby village for hundreds of years? And what if that cave hid a secret so dangerous that everyone involved with the discovery was in mortal danger? And what if the secret of the Tenth Chamber was so devastating that the entire world might be threatened by its revelation?

The book shuttles between the present, medieval France and the Upper Paleolithic period, some 30,000 years ago, to construct a highly researched and fast-paced thriller.

Early on in the book, the fire brigade is called out to an electrical fire at an ancient church in the fictional village of Ruac in the Black Périgord region of France. The books in the small library, including one long-lost medieval manuscript discovered behind a smoldering bookcase, sustain smoke and water damage. The local bishop has the damaged books sent to Paris for cleaning and restoration and there, an expert in medieval manuscripts, Hugo Pineau, picks up the enigmatic damaged manuscript and begins to read the startling 14th century text: “I, Berthomieu, friar of Abbey Ruac, am two-hundred-thirty years old.”

Pineau discovers the manuscript to be a fanciful tale of a painted cave and the secrets it contains. There is mention of potions and infusions and their remarkable effect on body and spirit. Included, is a rudimentary map showing the position of a cave along the Vézère River. The Black Périgord is a region swimming in Paleolithic cave art and home to the famous Lascaux Cave, and Hugo is intrigued enough to enlist the interest of a school chum and archaeologist, Luc Simard, son of an American mother and French father, comfortable in many cultures.

The two of them go exploring and find a long-buried cave mouth in the wooded cliffs above the river. Inside is a wonder, a unique treasure-trove of wildly-vivid cave art – bison, bulls, Chinese horses, stags and evocative human forms together with beautifully-rendered flowers and bushes. Luc immediately recognizes the significance of the find from Chatelperronian stone artifacts on the cave floor: this is 20,000 years earlier than Lascaux, perhaps the earliest example of cave art ever discovered, yet, far from primitive, it exceeds the younger sites in artistic grandeur. Also, the rich depiction of flora in the deepest Tenth Chamber is highly unusual. When they must leave, they cover the cave mouth and climb down to the valley but Luc has a strong sense they are being watched as they descend and stop for a meal in the unfriendly village.

Luc adds one more member to the team, an American paleobotanist, Sara Graham,  a visiting professor at the University of Paris, and uncomfortably, an ex-girlfriend. The three of them begin a dangerous journey of discovery where little-by-little they unlock the incredible secrets of Ruac Cave and the Tenth Chamber. The story flashes back and forth through time: to thirty-five thousand years ago to the prehistoric where the DaVinci and Einstein of his time makes a discovery and invents an art form; to the 12th century where a rebellious and brilliant young monk finds a cave above the Abbey Ruac and re-discovers its ancient mysteries; to the 14th century where the knowledge of the cave proves deadly to the local monks; to the present where these secrets, re-discovered yet again, point to an untapped potential locked within the mind and body of modern man. Luc, Sara, and Hugo find themselves at the center of a dangerous game as people within their inner circles are killed one by one. Someone wants them dead and someone wants to desperately protect the secrets of the Tenth Chamber.

Happily, writing the book required a long research trip to the Dordogne region of France. There, I reacquainted myself with the painted caves of the region and toured some for the first time. Unfortunately, access is no longer permitted to Lascaux which has been sealed to protect the cave from environmental mold contamination. However, a replica cave, Lascaux II, is a grand substitute and many original caves can still be toured in the Vézère valley-- Rouffignac cavern, Grotte de Font-de-Gaume, Abri de Cap Blanc, Grotte de Villars, and others. I also wanted to depict the people and villages of modern-day Périgord and while none are so sinister as my fictional village of Ruac, I needed to soak up the culture via food, drink, and conversation (yes, the really tough part of being a novelist).

Back home, there was quite a lot of research to do to write the parts of the book based in medieval France. I chose to anchor this section in the 12th century and populate it with the historical figures of the great cleric, Bernard of Clairvaux and the star-crossed lovers, Abelard and Heloise, whose deeply romantic love letters are still as fresh and powerful today as they were hundreds of years ago. Finally, I brushed up on my Paleolithic archaeology, particularly the transition period between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, and I read extensively on ethnobotany, pharmacology, and herbal medicines.

Most of my books have a kernel of fantasy or mysticism but The Tenth Chamber is  100% rooted in the hard science and fact. It’s not that everything in the book is true, but all of it could be true. The archaeologist and physician parts of me are proud of the book’s bones and the novelist part of me thinks it’s a damned good read.

Tell me what you think.

 

You can read more about the book and the author via his website, or follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. The Tenth Chamber is on sale now in bookstores and online.

What Happens in Vegas?

The 2014 American Library Association Annual Conference is coming up in Las Vegas this Thursday, June 26 through Tuesday, July 1. Among the many sessions, speakers, and awards scheduled during the event is the Pop Top Stage, which this year focuses on on mystery, crime fiction, and poetry. Among the features:

On Saturday, a "Mob Panel" (10–11 a.m.) kicks off the festivities with Geoff Schumacher, Morgan St. James, Frank Cullotta, Tony Montana, and Geno Munari. That's followed by "Women in Mystery" (3–4:30 p.m.) with Rachel Howzell Hall, Hannah Dennison, Jane K. Cleland, and Kelli Stanley.

On Sunday, there’s an International Crime Fiction presentation (10–11 a.m.) and on Monday, a panel will explores "Seedy Criminal Underbellies" (10–11 a.m.) featuring Deborah Coonts and Hank Phillippi Ryan.

Plus, the three days of readings, discussions, and presentations throughout the conference will include author event sessions in the Exhibit Hall with crime fiction notables such as Jane Cleland, Hannah Dennison, Sue Ann Jaffarian, Alexander McCall Smith, Karin Slaughter, Kelli Stanley, and Elaine Viets. (Hat tip to Publishers Weekly.)

Author R&R with Kate White

Kate White is the New York Times bestselling author of nine works of fiction—six Bailey Weggins mysteries and three suspense novels, including Eyes on You (June 2014). For fourteen years she was the editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, and though she loved the job (and the Cosmo beauty closet!), she decided to leave in late 2013 to concentrate full time on being an author.

Her books have received starred reviews from a variety of publications and she has been covered everywhere from The Today Show to The New York Times. Her first Bailey Weggins mystery, If Looks Could Kill, was named as the premier Reading with Rippa selection and soon shot to number one on Amazon. (And it’s now being made into an opera). She is published in 18 countries around the world.

Kate stopped by In Reference to Murder today to take some Author R&R (Reference and Research), talking about her experiences researching her Bailey Weggins mysteries and her latest standalone suspense novel, Eyes on You, especially how much fun she has with research—she once had her daughter stalk her through the woods so she could better describe the sounds of someone being followed.

Researching

It was kind of an act of desperation. I was working on my sixth Bailey Weggins mystery while also holding down a demanding, full time job as the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, and I needed to get to the Dumbo (Down under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) section of Brooklyn to reacquaint myself with the area for a scene in my book. But no matter how hard I tried to shift things around on my schedule, I couldn’t come up with three hours to spare.

Fortunately, the Internet saved me. There were not only photos of Dumbo streets online but also videos of those streets, and they gave me a decent feel for the look and layout of the neighborhood.

Though I rescued the situation, I hated having to take that kind of shortcut. You see, I LOVE doing research. I adore prowling around neighborhoods, combing through resource material, and interviewing people who know things I don’t. To me, spending an hour on the phone with an expert on the death cap mushroom is pure bliss. I promised myself then that one day I’d have time to really research my books.

And finally that day came. A few years ago I resigned from Cosmo to work full time as an author. Admittedly the main reason was so I could experience the pleasure of working on my own while I still had the chance and also concentrate more fully on writing, but a lovely offshoot has been the ability to research my pants off.

Last Monday, for instance, was a delicious day for me. I’m currently at work on my fourth stand-alone novel (the third, Eyes on You, just came out in June), and I wanted to set some scenes in Nolita (the area North of Little Italy in Manhattan) and also around Wall Street, neighborhoods I’ve certainly visited as a New Yorker but am not completely familiar with. I spent an entire day exploring these spots, walking up and down streets, taking notes, snapping photos with my iPhone, even stopping at a French bistro for lunch with a glass of rose (and writing it off as a business expense!).  

Researching not only provides an author with critical info, but it also offers moments of exhilaration, as you finally stumble on something that’s been stubbornly elusive.

There can be an almost magical element to research, too, the way it sparks your imagination. Research can generate whole new plots twists, ones you never saw coming before. There have been countless times when I’ve ended up adding a new scene or turning point or even a new character to a book because of details I’ve dug up.  

In many ways, researching is like solving a mystery, with you as the private eye or the amateur sleuth.

Occasionally, however, doing one’s homework can get you into trouble. I’ve been yelled at for being in places I shouldn’t have been (“Excuse me, miss. What are you doing here?”) or rebuffed by someone who thought I was being nosy. And when I was writing my stand-alone Hush, I had one particularly awkward moment. The book is set in the world of fertility treatment and so for research I snuck over during one of my lunch hours to attend a free, open-to-the-public workshop at a fertility clinic. All of a sudden one of the other participants strolled over to me and said, “Wait, aren’t you the editor of Cosmo?” I knew she must be wondering what the heck I was doing there, since I was in my fifties and had two grown kids. I also worried that she might be indiscreet. It wasn’t hard to imagine the headline that might appear a day later in one of the tabloid gossip columns: “Bump Alert! 50-something Cosmo editor considering another baby!”

But fortunately my secret was safe! And nothing since has deterred me from the sweet pleasure of playing amateur sleuth when it comes to finding the facts. And today, thankfully, I have more time than ever to do that.

About the author

In addition to her mysteries, Kate is currently editing the Mystery Writers of America cookbook, a selection of recipes from many of the top-selling authors. Kate is also the author of several very popular career books, including I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This: How to Ask for the Money, Snag the Promotion, and Create the Career You Deserve, and Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do. Visit her via her website, blog, Twitter, and Facebook.

A Noir Affair

Every two years, fans of the devilishly dark and the tortuously twisted descend upon Philadephia for NoirCon. As the organizers note, "The sins, moral failings and dark truths of the human condition find a home at NoirCon—a forum where writers, filmmakers, publishers, and other noir fans share the trials of uncovering the dark side of life for readers and viewers. We look into the minds of tortured fictional characters and see real people, the mirror images of ourselves, coping with deep longing and inevitable disappointment."

In addition to a varied slate of authors and panels and films, NoirCon also bestows the David Goodis Award for Literary Excellence upon such noteworthy individuals as Ken Bruen and George Pelecanos. But it's not all dark and deadly; each conference sponsors one organization that helps those in need, such as the Awassa Children’s Project, helping Ethiopian orphans battle AIDS, and Project H.O.M.E.

This year, the journal NoirRiot will be published in conjunction with the conference for the first time, featuring original stories, essays and poems. I am honored to have two of my poems included and look forward to reading all the other contributions to the publication, edited by Lou Boxer and Matthew Louis.

Some of the featured authors scheduled to appear at NoirCon 2014 from October 30 to November 2 are Charles Benoit, John Connolly, K.A. Laity, and Fuminori Nakamura (this year's Goodis Award recipient). There will also be some surprises, which in the past have included performance art and musical guests. And, since the fest happens to occur on Halloween, the Saturday night award dinner will be themed accordingly.

To keep up with all the latest NoirCon news, follow the blog or their Twitter feed. To register, click on the Society Hill Playouse venue link, print out the PDF form, and mail it in along with your registration fee. Hurry and reserve your space - attendees to previous NoirCons have remarked on how much easier and fun it is to rub elbows with authors and fans at a smaller conference like this one with a more personalized experience.

All Things Anthology

Summer is a great time to catch up on reading, even if you only have short bites of time here and there. And what better to fill those short bites than some short stories?


New anthologies that may be of interest include Faceoff, edited by David Baldacci and sponsored by the International Thriller Writers group. The volume includes eleven tales that match up two protagonists from different authors. For instance, "Rhymes with Prey" by Jeffrey Deaver and John Sandford has Lincoln Rhyme and Lucas Davenport working a case together, while "Gaslighted" by R. L. Stine and Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child pits Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy against Aloysius Pendergast.

 

The New Black: A Neo-Noir Anthology, edited by Richard Thomas, is a collection of twenty dark stories from various genres including horror, crime, fantasy, and science fiction. Sample stories include Kyle Minor’s "The Truth and All Its Ugly," about a substance-abusing man who takes his teenage son down the same dark slide after the wife/mother abandons them. 

 

Explosions: Stories of Our Landmine World, edited by Scott Bradley, has 25 stories from bestselling authors such as Jeffery Deaver, James Grady, John Sayles, C. Courtney Joyner, and Peter Straub. The stories are again on the dark side, although like The New Black, they run the gamut of genres. The connecting theme is that each story touches on landmines - proceeds from this charity anthology go to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization MAG (Mines Advisory Group).

Author R&R with Jenny Milchman

Thriller writer Jenny Milchman stops by In Reference to Murder today to take some "Author R&R" (Reference and Research):

Research is Murder: AKA How Not to Do Any For Your Book

I have a confession to make. No, I didn’t bury any dead bodies, but research often feels like it will be the death of me. When I was a child, my research projects would descend all too quickly into flights of fancy. I’m a suspense writer, and I prefer to make things up.

Luckily I don’t write historical novels, or ones with a lot of technical detail. I took part in a Skype chat once when Lee Child explained that he doesn’t do much research himself. Well, I’ve read every single Reacher novel. There’s a reason the man is a #1 New York Times bestseller. If I tried to imagine the interior workings of a gun, I would probably make it shoot backwards.

Now there’s a twist.

I buy myself out of the research problem by writing what reviewer Oline Cogdill calls family thrillers, about ordinary people who happen to find themselves in extraordinary situations. The ones none of us would ever want to be in—but can imagine all too well. You wake up in the morning and know that something is wrong. A bed is empty when it should be filled. The knock on the door doesn’t sound friendly.

This approach to constructing stories didn’t arise as a solution to my research problem, although it may have a pleasant synchronicity with my personal likes and dislikes. But the truth is that I am fascinated by the thin gray line. The horizon of the Before and After. As for heroes, I prefer constructing everyday ones. People who are a lot like you and me.

In my debut novel, Cover of Snow, Nora Hamilton wakes to find her husband missing from their bed. She discovers what happened to him all too quickly…and that is when the real danger starts. In my recently released follow-up, Ruin Falls, Liz Daniels has just set off on a family vacation when her children disappear. Liz finds out who has taken her kids in one terrifying slash of realization. Now the journey will begin to get them back.

Readers have pointed out to me that there are areas that call for research in both these novels. Nora is a restorer of old homes; Liz is an organic gardener. There is an autistic character in my first novel, and one who is dealing with a traumatic brain injury in my second. But you see, these are all subjects I know about from the inside out. I worked as a psychotherapist for ten years and saw patients with both forms of cognitive challenges. My first home was a dilapidated Victorian. No one with children these days can help but feel both the liberation and vise-like grip of the so-called organic movement.

Bought out of research…again.

I see a different kind of line coming, however. One I may very well need to cross. The new story blooming in my head will take on a subject I know nothing about. I sense a fork in the road, and am struggling with it.

Should I write this book and make everything up in the way that would best suit my story? I’ve done that in the past with unpublished manuscripts—and gotten fairly close. I’ve made up details about the law, journalism, and architecture, and when I went back and checked, they turned out to need little in the way of revision. But most of us know at least something about these topics. The one I am considering now is completely outside my wheelhouse.

It’s always a question as a writer how much work you want to put in up front, and how much you are willing to go back and revise in subsequent drafts. Part of me is tempted to let this exciting new story spin out, then go back and retrofit it if necessary. But part of me thinks that I should listen to the wisdom compiled in the pages of this blog, and do what all those other brave suspense and mystery writers do.

Research.

Don’t they say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?

Jenny Milchman's journey to publication took thirteen years, after which she hit the road for seven months with her family on what Shelf Awareness called "the world's longest book tour." Her debut novel, Cover of Snow, was chosen as an Indie Next and Target Pick, reviewed in the New York Times and San Francisco Journal of Books, won the Mary Higgins Clark award, and is nominated for a Barry. Jenny is also the founder of Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day and chair of International Thriller Writers' Debut Authors Program. Jenny's second novel, Ruin Falls, just came out and she and her family are back on the road.

Author R&R with Mike Monson

Mike Monson is co-editor of the crime e-zine All Due Respect, along with Chris Rhatigan, and also the author of his own short fiction. His latest literary creation is the noir novella The Scent of New Death, about successful, unassuming bank robber Phil Gaines who marries a young, wild, and very kinky local bar maid. When the new bride runs off with Phil's business partner and his life's savings, he pursues them across the countryside as they lose themselves in a psycho-sexual killing spree.

If you're wondering how a writer researches topics like that, Mike stopped by to take a little Author R&R (Reference and Research) to explain:

My novella The Scent of New Death, did not require a lot of special, in-depth research.

It is the story of revenge among criminals in the Central Valley of California, specifically in and around the town of Modesto and a little bit in the Bay Area communities just east of San Francisco. Since I had lived in Modesto for about 20 years when I wrote it, and lived or worked in the Bay Area even longer than that, I didn’t have to do a lot of research to capture the settings. Here, though, by bullet points, is the research I did conduct:

• Bank robbery. My main character was a career bank robber, a very successful bank robber. Now, I am not a bank robber and I never have been a bank robber. All I knew about it was what I saw in the news and on TV and in movies, or read about in books. However, I felt certain that all of that information was romanticized and inaccurate. So, I went on the internet and read every article I could about actual bank robbers. Then, I found that the FBI site has a lot of information on real-life bank robbers. From the FBI I found out that the overwhelming majority of bank robbers are drug addicts who are not professionals, and who only rob banks because they are desperate for money. These criminals almost always get caught within six hours. There was another large group as well, and these were the non-addict, semi-professional bank robbers who were often able to pull off a dozen or more bank robberies before an arrest. But, this second group, according to the FBI, would almost always get caught eventually, as long as they kept pulling robberies. This was because of a few basic errors. So, the sort of person I was writing about – a man who could make a living for 12 years robbing banks while escaping detection – may not even exist in real life. But, I figured that since I was writing fiction, I could create such a person. The person I created, Phil Gaines, was notorious in the criminal community partly for the fact that he was that rare person, someone who actually defied the odds and made a living on bank jobs. I made him a guy who was as aware as I had become about all the reasons bank robbers get caught and who made sure to not make all the usual mistakes.
  
  
• Pawn brokers. Two important characters in the book were Carl Schmitz and Jack Dixon. The two had grown up together. Carl was a rich man who owned three pawn shops in Modesto. Jack was a thief and a fence. I needed for Jack to be resentful and jealous of Carl because Carl was rich while Jack was just getting by. So, I went to various State of California sites to find out the law regarding pawn brokers. I found out that if a person has a felony record or any record involving stolen goods, they can never get a pawnbrokers license in the state. This worked perfectly for me. As I wrote it, since Jack was a felon, and Carl was not, only Carl was able to get a license, thus preventing Jack from progressing as a legitimate business man.
  
  
• Geography and hiking. I did have one major bit of geography to research. I needed my character to hide out in the mountains and forests east of Modesto, near Yosemite. He needed to ditch his car, walk many many miles off-trail and out of sight of roads; camp near a small town; have breakfast in that town; somehow get all the way to the San Francisco airport using only cash and then over to Berkley on the BART train; and then get off on the right stop where there would be a Walgreens to buy a throw away cell phone near a place he could eat a snack that would have the news on the TV. And, I needed him to get on the right street from there that would take him up to the Berkeley Hills (you know, where Grandpa Zeke and Millie live in the TV show Parenthood?) I needed him to do all of this by just after 12 p.m. Again, I was able to use the internet. I knew of a road near Yosemite called Evergreen. I had Phil drive up that road in his Jeep and then hide the vehicle about a mile from any pavement. I knew of a foothill town called Groveland and it was perfect for me. And, from the spot where he ditched the car to Groveland was about 20 miles, so I had to do research to find out how long it takes the average person to walk 20 miles off-trail. Then, I found a breakfast place in Groveland on Yelp and I found a transportation company that would drive people all the way to the San Francisco Airport. I called this company and found out how much the drive cost and how long it took. Then, the rest, the Walgreens etc., was easy. By the time I was done I felt confident my depiction of events was entirely accurate and reasonable, which is very important to me.
  
  
• Zen in America. This wasn’t too hard because I already knew a lot about the subject from my own practice in Zen centers and from voracious reading and participation in internet forums. But, I did at one point have to give a character a Japanese Zen name. It turns out that there are websites for exactly that purpose, that provide a long list of typical Zen names for monks and priests and the English translation of same. This was very helpful.
  
  
• Guns. I gave Phil Gaines a Colt .45 automatic. I didn’t know that was what it was, I just had a picture of the gun he’d use in my head and I searched the internet until I found the gun that matched my imagination. Then, I learned everything I could about the gun in case I’d need any special facts in the narrative. Also, I wanted Phil to have a small gun that he could conceal, and, again, I found the perfect one on the internet that I was able to describe with absolute accuracy.
  
  
• Lock picking. At one point I needed Phil to very quickly and professionally pick a lock. And, again, I wanted his method to be accurate and I wanted to be able to describe it in perfect detail. Guess what? There are a lot of articles about lock picking, even instructional videos on YouTube. I found a common technique using something called a ‘bump key.’ It was reasonable for Phil to know how to do this and reasonable for him to have the proper equipment with him at all times. Again, this worked out great.

For more information about Mike and his writing (what he calls his "dark and creepy crime stories), check out his website and blog, which also has links to where you can purchase The Scent of New Death and his other fiction.