Author: patyjag

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 50 + novels, novellas, and short stories of murder mystery, western romance, and action adventure. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

Guest Blogger: Jeri Westerson

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History and the Religious Thriller

By Jeri Westerson

When you write about the medieval period, religion looms large. Of course, I’m talking the Catholic Church when it truly was a universal (catholic) church, where everyone who was Christian was Catholic and any reformists were to be condemned. In the time period that I write—late fourteenth England—being a reformist was dangerous but not necessarily life-threatening. That was later, in the fifteenth century (after all, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition).

I’m always looking for something interesting for my disgraced-knight-turned-detective Crispin Guest to deal with, besides murder. And I remembered reading about the Judas Gospel a few years ago. It’s only one of several “apocryphal” gospels, meaning “hidden”, or those that weren’t accepted at the time when the early Church fathers were deciding what to include in the New Testament, like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. But the Gospel of Judas would be sufficiently intriguing and dangerous enough for my detective to discover and try to fend off forces beyond his control. Judas is the “traitor” in TRAITOR’S CODEX, but the “traitor” is also Crispin, whose treason got him disgraced and banished from court in the first place.

By delving into its strange history, the religious reformers of the day (called Lollards), and getting him mixed up in murders and a mysterious agent of the Church out to get this book to destroy it, Crispin has his hands full doing his detecting.

The Judas Gospel, as did many of the apocryphal gospels, had a different voice from the four chosen gospels we know of today. It follows a very spiritually eastern path with its emphasis on one’s inner divinity, and that Judas was the favored Apostle not John, the one to whom Jesus entrusted this distinctly different philosophy. It’s presence certainly made Crispin think about what it means to be a faithful Christian, when the most auspicious decision one could make in the day was whether to follow the orthodoxy of the Church, or follow Lollard tenets. Lollards did not believe, for instance, that baptism and confession were necessary for salvation. They believed in the laity reading scripture in their own language and they considered asking intercession of saints and statues a form of idolatry—essentially, the beliefs that would eventually come to fruition in Henry VIII’s reformation in the sixteenth century.

When I started writing my series, I was interested in the medieval setting, with its mores and society so very different from our own. The challenge was to world-build just enough so that readers not wholly familiar with the fourteenth century and the court of Richard II, would be able to relate to my characters. Authenticity sometimes wars with accuracy (I give you the taste of the language, for instance, instead of writing it in Middle English), but history is never sacrificed for plot. Sometimes it’s tight-rope walking that fine line, but it’s never dull.

Disgraced knight turned detective Crispin Guest is caught in a deadly conspiracy within the Church to suppress what they consider a dangerous relic from falling into the hands of the reformist Lollards. But murder and betrayal are the coin of the realm amid the turmoil stirred up by a mysterious nemesis. Crispin struggles to find a killer and might have to bring a painful truth to light while avoiding falling into the lethal hands of a shadow organization within the Church.
Buy links: Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Traitors-Codex-Crispin-Guest-Mystery/dp/0727888757/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2BH7SKBABH45&keywords=traitors+codex&qid=1561419959&s=gateway&sprefix=traitors+codex%2Caps%2C248&sr=8-1Barnes & Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-traitors-codex-jeri-westerson/1130151313?ean=9780727888754#/Indiebound  https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780727888754Google Play https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Jeri_Westerson_Traitor_s_Codex?id=7MeDDwAAQBAJKobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/traitor-s-codex

Los Angeles native JERI WESTERSON is the author of twelve Crispin Guest Medieval Noir Mystery novels, a series nominated for thirteen national awards from the Agatha to the Shamus. Jeri also writes the urban fantasy series, BOOKE OF THE HIDDEN. She has served two terms as president of the Southern California Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, twice president of the Orange County Chapter of Sisters in Crime, and as vice president and California Crime Writers Conference co-chair for the Los Angeles Chapter of Sisters in Crime. See more about Jeri at JeriWesterson.com or visit BOOKEoftheHIDDEN.com

Social Media:Facebook https://www.facebook.com/author.westerson Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/jeriwestersonauthor/
Pinterest  https://www.pinterest.com/jeriwesterson/

Decisions, Decisions by Paty Jager

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I’ve been contemplating whether or not to write books out of sequence since my trip to Iceland.

The trip started out as fun way to see Iceland with other authors, but the more I thought about it, I decided to set a Gabriel Hawke book there. However, the next book in the series has already been mentioned in the last Hawke book, so I have to make sure it comes next….

But…I believe I need to write the Iceland book while it is all still fresh in my mind. One day while the tour group was having lunch, I sat with our guide, Ragnor, and asked him questions about the best way to bring my Fish and Wildlife State Trooper with Master Tracker credentials to Iceland, other than a vacation. He would never travel that far for a vacation. He would stay close to home and perhaps even stay with his mother on the reservation.

Ragnor didn’t see him coming to any conference or event that would be put on by the Icelandic police. He did say that they had a very active Search and Rescue program. *boom* That is how I will have Hawke be in Iceland. He will be doing a training on tracking for the search and rescue. I even brainstormed his superior’s sister is married to an Icelander and they are living in Reykjavik.

I still have to do the research on their Search and Rescue program and put together the who and why of the murder he’ll get involved in. But the pieces are slowly coming together and I’m getting excited to write the book.

While we were out driving around on the tour, I took tons of photos (that are a bit blurry) of businesses and things that I will mention to give the feeling of the country to the book. And good photos of the place I think will work for Hawke to take his workshop outside to do some tracking. That will be when they discover a body.

Once Hawke starts on a trail, he can’t quit. Upping the stakes, the main suspect will be the nephew of his boss back in the states. Hawke is loyal. He’ll do everything in his power to make sure they find the real killer.

So my decision? Even though it will put the next Hawke book further out on a publish date, I’m leaning toward writing the Iceland book now.

What do you think? Good plan or could it backfire in my face since there hasn’t been a Hawke book out since March and the next one may not be until the end of the year?

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Guest Blogger- Susan Cory

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How I come up with the plots for my amateur sleuth mystery series.

Have you ever wondered what could happen if you didn’t totally wipe your hard drive before getting rid of your old computer? Or what could happen if any of the blank checks sent by credit cards fell into the wrong hands?

I live in a close-knit community in Cambridge, Ma. Most of us know Joe, our long-time mail deliverer, and he knows us. So when Joe was instructed to forward a certain household’s mail to an address in a neighboring town, he knew that the family hadn’t moved. He alerted the police who discovered a ring of con artists who were diverting people’s mail in order to steal their identities and checks.

While this scam was coming to light, I was busy trying to figure out how to get rid of my old computer.  Some computer stores and charities advertise that they’ll remove your personal information before recycling your old equipment, but what if one of their employees is less than honest?

These two ideas came together to suggest a plot for my third book in the Iris Reid mystery series, DOPPELGANGER. A family of grifters uses Iris Reid’s stolen identity to commit a crime. While stripping Iris’ data off of her old computer, Rosica Bakalov, notices her own striking resemblance to this new “mark”. She becomes fascinated with Iris and starts to stalk her. Meanwhile, Iris, out on bail, is desperate to pick up her doppellgänger’s trail before her case goes to trial.

Kirkus reviews says: “The plot becomes more unnerving as it progresses, and an impressive twist leads to a lengthy final act featuring Rosica (the Doppelgänger) at her most ferocious…Cory’s concise prose establishes a consistent pace that never wavers, and even her descriptions of architecture are exhilarating. An engagingly nerve-wracking tale with gradually escalating suspense.”

I’d love to know how YOU get rid of your old computers, and also, what you think of DOPPELGANGER.

By the way, my husband smashed my hard drive with a hammer before I took my last computer to be recycled. I wasn’t taking any chances…

Let me know on my author’s facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/authorsusancory

or check out my author’s website: http://www.susancory.com/

CONUNDRUM, FACADE and DOPPELGANGER are all available here:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075V2LWNX/

Susan Cory is the author of the Iris Reid mystery series of Conundrum, Façade and Doppelgänger. She is a member of Sisters in Crime National, a local member of Sisters in Crime New England, and a regular attendee at Crime Bake. Like her sleuth, she is a residential architect practicing out of her turreted office in Cambridge. Also, like Iris Reid, she has a brown belt in karate. She lives in Cambridge with her architect husband and a bossy mutt.

It’s Audio Book Month by Paty Jager

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Do you like to listen to audio books? I have become a fan of them both as a writer and a listener.

I just finished the second book in Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s , Thora Gudmundsdottir series. They are classified as suspense, but I really enjoyed the humor that makes the suspense/ supernatural undertones not so real. LOL I know, I’m a wimp when it comes to scary. But I have to say the first two books in the series were really good.

I think what made them so good was the narrator. I loved her pauses and attitude when narrating. She had the right amount of “drama” for lack of a better word to make the books really come to life.

That’s what I’m hoping to find on my quest for a narrator for my Gabriel Hawke books. 

I have been making audio books with the talented Ann M. Thompson. You can find the first 9 books in the Shandra Higheagle Mysteries in audio book.

I’ve requested auditions from two male narrators to begin putting the Gabriel Hawke novels into audio. This will probably be harder to find a narrator than the Shandra books were.

Ann had the warm tone I envisioned as Shandra’s, but of all the men who were suggested from my description of what I wanted for Hawke’s voice, there were only two who seemed close to what I was looking for. I’m interested in hearing their auditions of the first chapter of Murder of Ravens to see if they capture how I see him and the tone of the books.

Making an audio book isn’t hard, but it is stressful and time consuming. Stressful in hoping you pick the best representative of your book to narrate it and at a price you can afford.

Time consuming is going through the book to make sure it will read well, then picking out words that the narrator may need guidance with pronunciation. Then it’s listening to the chapters as the narrator sends them to you and making sure your book is well represented without you driving the narrator nuts with changes. But you are paying them and they should be willing to work with you to make your book its best.

Do you enjoy listening to books on tape? What makes a good audio book for you? Narrator or how well the characters are portrayed?

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New Member

~ patyjag ~ 1 Comment

To fill in the fifth Monday of the month, I’ll introduce you to our new member.

We were sorry to see Sally Carpenter leave the Ladies of Mystery, but I’m excited to say I found some to take over her day.

Lisa Leoni is a writer I’ve known for many years. I met her when we were both members of the Salem, Oregon chapter of Romance Writers of America. We roomed together at a conference and spent time together being officers of the chapter.

I moved on from RWA and began working on writing mysteries, not realizing Lisa was too. When I discovered she is writing mystery books, and then Sally said she’d like to step down from the blog, I immediately thought Lisa would make a good addition.

Lisa will have her first post on this blog next Monday, the first Monday of every month. I look forward to hearing what she’ll have to add to the blog.

Here is her bio: Lisa has found a way to combine her lifelong love for happily ever afters and her (un?)healthy fascination with crime by writing cozy mysteries. She writes cozies set in her own backyard of the Willamette Valley of Oregon and writes contemporary romances set in Scotland. When she’s not plotting ways to murder people, she’s being herded by her ginger cats and juggles a dozen craft projects.

Welcome, Lisa!