In summary

~ donaleeMoulton ~ 2 Comments

by donalee Moulton

When I completed my first mystery novel, Hung Out to Die, I quickly discovered that the novel would not stand alone. A synopsis was required. As a freelance journalist and communications specialist, I’ve put together a lifetime of pitches and proposals. Still, I spent some time reading up on what makes a successful synopsis. Then I wrote my own.

My synopsis did not follow the traditional pattern, but most of the required elements were there. I wondered if it would pass muster. Overall, the people I shared the synopsis with liked it. One person didn’t like it at all and said neither would publishers. I took a long hard look and, respectfully, disagreed.

This was nerve-wracking. I knew it would be easier to simply follow the path well taken, but I felt I needed to branch out. I entered a shorter version of my synopsis in the Synopsis Skirmish contest – and won. The judge (one of my favorite people) had this to say: The author’s handling of voice in this synopsis is so powerful, it made me want to read the novel right away. The synopsis is unusual and intriguing—a winning combination. When the acquisitions editor at BWL Publishing (another of my favorite people) reached out to me requesting a full copy of my manuscript, she noted, “We were quite taken with your synopsis.”

The synopsis issue has driven home to me the need to listen to yourself, that inner voice that knows you better than anyone. At the same time, it has taught me more about flexibility and being open to feedback. There is nothing as helpful as constructive criticism (whether accepted or not) and editors are worth their weight in gold.

I thought I’d share my synopsis – my very first – with you. I’d love to know what you think.

book cover from Hung Out To Die

Synopsis
Hung Out to Die: A Riel Brava Mystery
By donalee Moulton

Let’s start with the obvious.
Meet Riel Brava. Attractive. Razor-sharp. Ambitious.
Riel, born and bred in Santa Barbara, California, has been transplanted to Nova Scotia where he is CEO of the Canadian Cannabis Corporation (CCC). It’s business as usual until Riel finds the company’s comptroller hanging by a thread. Actually, several threads. It doesn’t take the police long to determine all is not as it appears.

Let’s dive beneath the surface.
Meet Riel Brava. Observant. Cautious. Psychopathic.
Not the Dexter-Hannibal Lecter-Norman Bates kind of psychopath. The kind who live and work among us, mostly unnoticed, often successful, always on full alert their differences will be uncovered. Riel is personable, even charming. He’s keen to understand how the human mind works, so he’ll blend in. After all, his goal is to be president of the United States. (An aspiration that will feature in future books.)

Let’s talk plot.
So Norm Bedwell has apparently hanged himself in his office at CCC. Emphasis on apparently. It takes Detective Lin Raynes mere minutes to suspect the obvious is deceiving and what appears to be death by suicide is actually a murder. Over the course of 13 chapters (there is also an introductory chapter), he works to uncover and discover who would want Bedwell dead and how they could have pulled the murder off.

He’s not alone. In an unusual pairing, Raynes and Riel work together to chase down leads – the bully who tortured Bedwell’s son at school, the mysterious orange truck that belongs to no CCC employee but was parked in the company lot the night Bedwell was murdered, the employee, who despite stringent security measures, has managed to steal weed from CCC and start a healthy little illegal business.

Raynes manages to engage Riel, albeit reluctantly, in the hunt for Bedwell’s killer, and in the process, the seeds of an unexpected and unusual friendship are sown. (These seeds will blossom in subsequent books.)

Various motives are explored through a number of suspects – revenge, fear, greed – but ultimately, it’s love that becomes the reason Norm Bedwell no longer lives. Unfortunately, the evidence is circumstantial. Raynes and Riel concoct a scheme to draw a confession out of the killer, but that plan is never put into place. Instead, Riel finds himself on the receiving end of a rifle in the ribs and a long drive to the middle of Nowhere, Nova Scotia.

Let’s look at the core cast of returning characters. You’ll like them all.

Tiffany Brava. Riel’s wife and loyal supporter. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, Tiffany knows Riel is not quite like everyone else – and why. For now, that door is closed. What’s openly obvious is her affection for her husband, her loyalty, and her acumen. Don’t count Tiffany out as the dumb blonde. Oh yes, she’s vegan.

Franklin Raynes. The Halifax Police Department’s lead detective on this case is Black, quintessentially Nova Scotian, and a consummate charmer. He can read the room and respond accordingly. He takes a shine to Riel, and also realizes how helpful the psychopath can be in solving this case. (Yes, Lin Raynes is privy to Riel’s deepest secret, but he doesn’t admit it to his new friend – just yet.) Oh yeah, Raynes also does this thing with his left eyebrow.

Senator John Williams. Tiffany’s dad | Riel’s father-in-law is the Democratic Senator for District 19. A seasoned and senior politician, Williams is a co-owner of CCC, although it’s not an asset he talks about with constituents. He’s brusque, except where his daughter is concerned, and well connected, even in Canada.

Zahra Bashir. A practising Muslim and savvy TV reporter who’s always on the lookout for the inside scoop. Bashir makes many of the other characters very nervous despite her friendly demeanor.

David Clements. The recreational cannabis sector in Canada is heavily regulated. Clements is the federal DOJ’s contact for Riel. Their relationship is one of power and powerful expectations. Clements holds that power. A minor character, Clements plays an important role. He’s the first person to use a special word.

There are other characters introduced in this book who will also return but play a smaller role in this mystery.

Let’s look at the cast of characters in the book. You won’t like them all.
* Faye Bedwell, distraught and disrespected wife of Norm Bedwell.
* Bran Bedwell, the Bedwell’s 12-year-old son who takes a liking to Riel. Good grief.
* Thorne, media consultant and very protective of Riel
* The bully and his parents.
* The poor sod who owns the orange truck.
* The killer.

What’s familiar about Hung Out to Die to make mystery fans feel at home
It’s fast-paced. It lays out a path of breadcrumbs that lead, ultimately, to the killer. First, of course, it branches off in several misdirections. It creates suspense. It builds understanding and affection for key characters. It leaves readers wanting more.

What’s novel about the book to make the mystery stand apart and readers turning pages
It introduces a unique character that, ironically, we empathize with. It’s funny as hell. It’s written by an award-winning journalist who knows how to tell a story and how to use words to maximum effect.

Riel Brava: Vital Statistics
Height: 6’1
Weight: 165 pounds
Waist: 35 inches
Age: 37
Spouse: Tiffany, the vegan
Job: CEO, Canadian Cannabis Corp.
Location: Elmsdale, Nova Scotia, Canada
Ambition: President of the United States of America
Favorite food: Donairs (definitely not vegan)
Top personality trait: Psychopath
Burning question: What the hell’s a chunderf**k

Guest Blogger ~ T.L. Bequette

~ patyjag ~ 2 Comments

Venturing Out

I am the author of the five mysteries that comprise the Joe Turner Mystery series. Like Joe, I am a criminal defense attorney practicing in Oakland, and my thirty years in the courtroom have provided a trove of stories. Write what you know, I suppose.

Joe is a more interesting version of me—younger, better looking, drinks more, quicker on his feet, and more daring in the courtroom. Most of my stories find Joe Turner defending young black men in Oakland. They resonate, in part, because of their authenticity, as my real-world experiences make their way into the courtroom. Sometimes, the inspiration for my characters is even recognizable to my colleagues. This became a problem once when fellow attorneys began placing bets on the inspiration for a particularly incompetent judge.

However, in my latest book, Holler Whispers, I decided that it was time for Joe to get out of town. He ventured to a small town in Georgia to defend an autistic teenager accused of murdering the local high school football hero. I knew there would be research but mainly thought of the project as an enjoyable adventure. When writing about a particular jail or courtroom, I’d felt constrained by their reality. Now, I would be free to let my imagination create its own reality. While this did come to pass, the greater benefit came from researching two vital aspects of the story—autism and the Deep South—and from considering how inadequately the criminal justice system serves those in the neurodivergent community.

In many ways, writing Holler Whispers was a lesson in its own subject matter, a story of education, inclusivity, and acceptance. While someone close to me is autistic, to be fair to the neurodivergent community, I researched the autism spectrum and did my best to put myself in the shoes of one of the story’s main characters and his family members. Writing in Carl’s voice helped me to appreciate his profound daily challenges, and I strove to do so with respect and dignity.

Likewise, while my father grew up in the South and I’ve enjoyed my time there, I am not a Southerner. I enjoyed researching the area of my fictitious small town of Barton, Georgia, on the edge of the Oconee National Forest. With the help of my father’s memories of childhood adventures, I hope I accurately described not only the native plants of the region but also the hollers’ unique feel.

I hope I did justice to those who inhabit both places—the autism spectrum and the South.

Writing the story also brought into focus a problem I knew existed. As a criminal defense attorney, I have seen firsthand how poorly our criminal justice systems deal with people along the mental health continuum. Almost by definition, the rigidity of the law prevents it from considering the nuances necessary to ascribe culpability to those in the neurodivergent community accused of crime.

Writing Hollers Whispers was both cathartic and educational in this regard. If you read the book, I hope you enjoy some of these same lessons.

Holler Whispers

Oakland defense attorney Joe Turner ventures to a small town in the deep south to defend an autistic teenager accused of murdering the local high school football hero. Joe must overcome a biased jury pool, an ornery judge, and a seemingly airtight case. The roller-coaster trial is seen through the eyes of the jury—a diverse group that struggles with their own preconceptions about autism and nearly crumble under the weight of their decision. But is there a plant on the jury and whose side are they on?

Desperate to shield his vulnerable and endearing client from prison, Joe is assisted by his girlfriend, Eddy, and Chuck, his colorful investigator. Together, the three urbanites navigate a world of southern charm and hillbilly legend where secrets whisper through the hollers, just out of reach.  

Written by a trial attorney, Holler Whispers captures the raw emotion of the courtroom and depicts a criminal justice system fraught with human frailty. Enjoy unravelling this twisty whodunit that tugs at your heartstrings.

Purchase: https://www.amazon.com/Holler-Whispers-Turner-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/B0G5L3D6VK

Todd Lewis Bequette is a criminal defense attorney turned writer from Lafayette, California. His latest Joe Turner Mystery, Good Lookin’, was just named a Kirkus Indie Award Finalist. Much of Bequette’s law practice involves defending young men from Oakland accused of murder, so his day job provides a trove of plotlines waiting to be written. A Georgetown Law Graduate, he serves on the faculty of the Stanford Law School Trial Advocacy Clinic. He enjoys playing with a tireless border Collie mix, Russet, and will remain a lifelong fan of the Oakland A’s.

https://www.instagram.com/tlbequette

Finding Ideas in Odd Places

~ patyjag ~ 8 Comments

It always amazes me when I’m listening to something or see something, and it triggers a book idea.

I just finished book 2 in the Cuddle Farm Mysteries, Monologued to Death. It’s with my beta readers, and I’m gathering the information and doing the research for the next Spotted Pony Casino Mystery book. I’m on the fence with the title. I decided to make it a holiday-time-frame book because it will release in November. If it wasn’t a holiday book, then I’d need to wait until January to release it, or it would get lost in the holiday reads.

So, I’ve been tossing around titles with gambling terms and holiday words. Because the Spotted Pony Casino books all have gambling terms in the titles. Right now, the frontrunner is Santa’s Beard– beard being a term for someone placing a bet for someone else. The premise is I have a person who is high up in the tribe and is known as a “Santa” type of person having someone else buying up allotments on the reservation for him.

Another author I was talking to thought the title sounded like something readers couldn’t figure out. But I’m betting, pun intended, that most readers will get it by the end of the book, and I will make sure the victim is referred to by the title at the end of the book when it is all solved.

The premise for the story came about from an online class I’m taking from a Nez Perce Professor who is teaching us the history of the Nez Perce. It’s a non-credit class I sit in on every Thursday night. It started 6 weeks ago, and we have about 2 more weeks to go.

I’ve learned things I didn’t know, and I’ve had things I’ve read reinforced. I found the information about the allotments given to tribal members on the Lapwai reservation informative. Learning how only 18% of the reservation is actually owned by tribal members because when the Whites wanted more land in the reservation, they bought allotments from tribal members for far less than they were worth. Or the Indian Agents sold to the White people they liked. When the Nez Perce couldn’t get the hang of farming, they leased the land to their White neighbors who eventually purchased it. And through the generations, it isn’t always handed down to the tribal members in the family.

Learning all of this, I started researching the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation, where my Spotted Pony Casino books are set. They also had allotments assigned to families through the Slater Act of 1885. They have some similar situations that have made the tribe and tribal members land holdings at 52% of the reservation land. They are better off than the Nez Perce, but there is always ongoing animosity and people who are non-tribal who want the land.

There have been a couple of other points and reactions of the person teaching the class that will end up in either more of the Spotted Pony Casino books or the Gabriel Hawke novels. Because while I enjoy writing murder mysteries, it is the characters and how they live and what they think that I am the most interested in enlightening the reader about. As the professor said at the last class, “I am 60 years old, have multiple BAs and my PHD, I still respond fearfully to law enforcement, even though I have never been in trouble with the law, but they will pull me over because they see I’m Indigenous.”

This class has been helping me learn more about how my Native American characters should feel. It is also giving me more inspiration for stories that I can use to enlighten readers about the culture.

That is why I write indigenous characters and try to shed light on the MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women). For me it is a passion to show the culture and the people who were here before anyone else and treated so poorly.

Les vacances et l’ecriture*

~ Margaret Lucke ~ 2 Comments

* Vacations and Writing
by Margaret Lucke

“A writer never has a vacation. For a writer,
life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.”
–Eugene Ionescu

Ionesco may be right. Even when writers take time off, our brains keep chugging away on the story. Plot details pop into mind at odd moments. Characters whisper secrets in our ear. No matter what we’re doing, the story is humming in the background.

So, yes, we’re always writing. But that doesn’t mean we have to stay chained to our desks. Sometimes a change of pace in a fresh environment—in other words, a vacation—is exactly what our creativity needs.

A writers group I belonged to for many years used to have a wonderful tradition. Each autumn, we held our own writers retreat. We rented a pair of cottages in the nearby seaside town of Stinson Beach and spent a week there writing. No phones. No TV. No families. No errands to run. Just our stories and the companionship of other writers. We each had our own room to work in and a long beach to walk on. Fresh air. The sounds of the wind and the gulls. Everyone brought her own food for breakfast and lunch. In the evenings we took turns making dinner and gathered by the fireplace for wine and conversation. We went home with our spirits rejuvenated and lots of work accomplished.

Then our horizons expanded. One of our members, Joan, was offered the opportunity to spend September and October of that year in a grand maison in a medieval hilltop village in Provence. The cost was extremely reasonable, and the house would accommodate a large number of guests. Why not, she suggested, hold our annual retreat there?

So off we went to Venasque, which is to be considered one of the most beautiful of Provençal villages. It sits east of Avignon in the midst of vineyards and lavender fields, near the slopes of Mont Ventoux, the southernmost peak of the Alps. Its church was built in 1100s, next to a baptistery that dates all the way back to the 6th century. It is said that the baptistery was built on the site of a temple to Venus, the goddess of love who is still honored in the village’s name.

Not all of our writing group members could stay for the full two months but each of us got there for at least a few days, as did some of Joan’s other friends. I spent all of October in France, one of the most memorable months of my life.

The days quickly settled into an agreeable rhythm. Churchbells woke me at seven. I’d read in bed or write at the table in my pretty blue bedroom until nine. That gave me time for breakfast before the daily tour began at ten. Several of us would take off in our leased car to visit a museum or a monastery, or explore a Roman ruin or another medieval town, or stroll through a picturesque outdoor market. We’d stop at a patisserie with an outdoor terrace for a café crème and a pain au chocolat, then head home for dinner and a glass or two of the local wine. Around nine we’d start drifting to our rooms, some to sleep, others like me to write for a couple of hours.

We were enthusiastic tourists, yet we got a lot of work done. There was no computer, no phone, no TV, no billboards along the roads, no job to go to—just as at Stinson Beach, we had none of the constant distractions and demands for attention that we experienced in our normal lives. And there were plenty of new sights, sounds, and scents to stimulate both our senses and our mental story engines. Going home was hard, yet the positive effects of the trip lasted for a long time. I still get a boost just from the memories.

France was a hard act to follow, and that trip proved to be the writing group’s last retreat. The next year, and again the one after, we couldn’t find a week when we were all free to go to Stinson Beach, and sadly the tradition died.

Right now, as the summer vacation season wraps up, I’m feeling the stirrings of writer’s wanderlust. Surely a sojourn like my adventures in Stinson Beach and the south of France would help me move forward with my current novel-in-progress. If the power of positive thinking really works, I’ll soon find a good way to combine les vacances et l’ecriture—vacation and writing—no matter what Ionescu says.

The painting of Venasque is by artist Lawrence Yamamoto, a member of our group. 

* * *

This fall I will be teaching a course called The Craft of Writing for UC Berkeley’s Extension program. Ten Thursday evenings, September 10 through November 12, 6–9 pm Pacific time. If you are interested in learning more, you can find out by clicking here.

Real Murder

~ Nancy Lynn Jarvis ~ 4 Comments

In my last post I promised a cover reveal and more interesting outtakes about “A Faire to Remember,” the book my editor is reviewing, in this month’s post. Now, that lighthearted missive isn’t going to be posted until September.

I write murder mysteries for fun and hopefully for my readers entertainment. I’ve had my protagonists, Regan McHenry from the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series and more recently Pat Pirard of the PIP Inc. Mysteries series find bodies and sometimes know the murder victim. I ‘ve done my best to have them react realistically to what those discoveries and events felt like. What I wrote doesn’t come close to what it really feels like to have someone you know die, a real victim of murder.

There’s an order and logic to the murders I make up. The victim did something in the past that caught up with them; their existence is an obstacle between the killer and something they want; they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and heard or saw something that threated their killer.

From the killer’s perspective, there’s a solid reason for committing murder: money, sex, revenge or to avenge a real or perceived injustice. At the very least, their victim poses a threat to them. During the final scenes in my books as in all cozy mysteries, the murderer explains why they did it. Most of my killers rationalized what they’ve done because, in their eyes, murder was justified or necessary. In fourteen books I’ve only written one murderer who was completely evil, the rest were flawed people, and in a couple of instances I expected my readers to sympathize with the killer.

When I killed a character who is still one of my favorites in the first book I wrote, it upset me so much that my husband found me curled up on the sofa shaking and sobbing; It all seemed so real to me. But, no matter how much I imagined it, it wasn’t real.  On July 21st I found out exactly what it feels like to lose someone you know in a senseless murder.

Rachell Summers was stabbed to death on a pleasant summer day just before 1:00 in the afternoon. Her killer is a nineteen-year-old man she didn’t know and had never met. He turned himself in within an hour of her death. He said he wanted to murder someone and she came into view.  He said he stabbed her eleven times as she cried, “Help me.” There is no order, no logic, in why she died and that is almost as troubling as her death.

Discovering that Rachell, the manager of a store that carries my books, had been murdered started out slowly with curiosity. News stories said a woman had been stabbed to death near the food court exit at the Capitola Mall. Wow, that’s the door I use when restocking books at Art of Santa Cruz because it’s close to the store. The next time I saw her, I was going to have to ask Rachell what the commotion inside the mall was like when the police were searching for the killer.

As the day progressed, news dribbled out mostly about the killer. I tried calling the store several times; no one answered and there wasn’t an outgoing message explaining why. That was odd. Like my protagonist chasing down clues I became suspicious and started doing research.

Someone released a post saying the victim’s name was Rachell Summers. It was taken down immediately. The police announced that her name was being withheld pending notification of her next of kin. I started to feel ill. I couldn’t remember Rachell’s last name, but I knew she spelled her first name in an unusual way. Had I misread that quick release? I had sent her messages so I knew she would be on my contacts list. I typed in “Rachell” and her last name and email address popped up. No. No, it can’t be. Confirmation came later in the day, and when it did, it felt like a gut punch.

I’ve thought about trying to write a book where a murder like Rachell’s happens. I won’t, though because I know I couldn’t make it work. Her death was unimaginable.