Category: murder mystery

Guest Blogger ~Michelle (M.M.) Chouinard

~ patyjag ~ 1 Comment

It all started in my car, outside a veterinary office during the pandemic.

You remember how it was back then, how you had to wait outside while your beloved pet disappeared into the bowels of the building, not sure which of the two of you was more freaked out about the separation. I knew it was going to be a long visit (it ended up being over four hours, but I digress) so I had a bunch of true-crime podcasts lined up and ready to go. I started with one about The Doodler, a San Francisco serial killer who’s never been caught. As I sank into the story, the references to places in San Francisco rankled my exposed emotional nerve endings—at that point it had been close to a year since I’d been able to go pretty much anywhere, and the mental images set off a strange form of homesickness. “I’m so tired of this,” I blurted out aloud. “When this pandemic is over, I’m going to go to every single place they mention in this podcast. I’m going to do my own little tour, like a serial-killer tour of San Francisco—”

 My brain stutter-stepped over the phrase. Not so much as a concept for an actual walking tour of San Francisco—although that would definitely be awesome and I’d go on that tour in a hot second—but as a concept for a book. How cool would it be to write about someone who gave true-crime tours? Someone who knew of all the most notorious crimes that had taken place in the City, and who used their extensive knowledge of true-crime cases to help solve murders that came their way?

As I waited for my sweet kitty to return to me, my mind raced on down those mental tracks. What sort of person would find themselves making a living giving serial-killer tours? What sort of ‘wound’—life trauma they were still working through—would draw them to such a profession and keep them stuck in that world? The answer came to me in a rush: someone related to a serial killer.

I’d seen more than one interview with parents, siblings, and children of serial killers, and had always wondered what it would be like to live with that legacy. How did people treat you when you were related to a serial killer? Did they assume you must have known what the killer was doing? Did they assume there must be something in you that could do the same thing since you share some portion their genes? And what would that do to your own psyche, to wonder about those shared genes? Was it easy to dismiss any possible similarities you shared with the killer, or did little doubts always linger at the back of your brain about what might be buried deep inside you?

And so Capri Sanzio, granddaughter of the fictional serial killer Overkill Bill, was born. Or rather, she was the granddaughter of the man who’d been convicted of the Overkill Bill murders, but who’d always protested his innocence. Separating her by a generation would allow me to explore how different people in the family had been impacted by Overkill Bill, and how they dealt with that relationship differently. In Capri’s case, since she never really knew her grandfather, she’d spend her life wondering whether he’d been telling the truth or really was a serial killer, and she’d be desperate to get those answers. Except that Capri’s father, the son of Overkill Bill, would forbid anyone from ever mentioning the name Overkill Bill in the house, because of the judgment and bullying he’d had to endure his whole life because of what his father had purportedly done. He just wanted peace, to be able to move on with his own life, and despite Capri’s obsession with knowing the truth, she loved her father dearly and didn’t want to hurt him. So, they’d be caught up in an uncomfortable detente where neither of them really got what they wanted and the generational trauma simmered under both of their surfaces.

Until something came along to boil that trauma right over the top—a series of new murders that copycatted Overkill Bill’s distinctive methods. To paraphrase Michael Connelly, the most interesting mysteries are the ones where the murders involved tap into whatever trauma the protagonist is trying to avoid dealing with; so of course Capri would become a suspect in the investigation of those new murders—I’d make sure of that by making one of the victims her ex mother-in-law—and she’d have to solve both the contemporary murders and the vintage Overkill Bill slaying in order to keep herself out of jail. But, by raking up the past, she’d have to risk fatally damaging her relationship with her father.

And with that, I was off to the races, and I’ve never looked back. Writing Capri has been one of the deepest, most interesting journeys I’ve taken with any of my characters, and I quickly fell in love with her. She’s flawed, she has self-doubts, and nobody would call her choices safe—but she’s passionate about the people she loves and about getting justice for victims who can’t get justice for themselves.

And, in the process, I get the perfect excuse to write up real stops on that awesome serial-killer tour of San Francisco that I promised myself in the vet parking lot that day. 

A Tour to Die For: 

In Michelle Chouinard’s A Tour to Die For, Capri Sanzio is back, giving a true crime tour her guests won’t soon forget. After all, a tour guide who specializes in serial killers knows better than most that San Francisco is a city with killer charm.

Capri Sanzio knows that when you give serial killer walking tours for a living, unexpected situations are more common than San Francisco’s famous fog. So, when one of her guests claims to see a woman being attacked during a tour, Capri remains unphased. The police search the apartment in question and find no evidence of anything amiss, so they chalk it up to a false report from a true crime fanatic looking to be a part of a case. And Capri thinks they might be right, since lately her tours have been attracting even more obsessives than usual—as it turns out, finding the actual serial killer who committed the “Overkill Bill” murders didn’t stop the constant questions about her grandfather’s supposed crimes, it only intensified them.

But Capri would never forgive herself if someone is in trouble and she walks away. Plus, something about the whole situation has every one of Capri’s investigative journalist instincts going haywire—why would someone lie about seeing an attack? So Capri starts to dig, and when her questions lead to a body, she finds herself at the center of another murder investigation.

Buy link: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/a-tour-to-die-for-9781250910011/

Michelle (M.M.) Chouinard is the Mary Higgins Clark Award nominated, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and San Francisco Chronicle bestselling author of The Serial-Killer Guide to San Francisco series, the Detective Jo Fournier thriller series, and the standalone psychological thriller The Vacation. She has a Ph.D in developmental psychology from Stanford University and was one of the founding faculty members of U.C. Merced. She enjoys caffeine in all forms, amateur genealogy, crafting, baking, and Halloween. She’s owned by three cats and a dog, and is held together by caffeine and dry shampoo. 

Website: http://www.mmchouinard.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mmchouinardauthor/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/m_m_chouinard

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mmchouinard/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@m.m.chouinard?lang=en

Too Much Imagination?

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

Writing has always been therapy for me. A way to put my vivid imagination to good use instead of making me fearful and worried.

Early in my married years, when my hubby was a truck driver, my imagination would play scenarios in my head about things that happened to him while he was driving. Or if my parents were coming to visit and they were late, my mind would jump to all the tragic things that could have happened.

Once I started writing, sitting down nearly every day and putting my imagination to work writing stories, I rarely envision harm coming to people I know anymore.

What does happen is that my mind is constantly finding ways to bump off people in my mystery books. Ways that are unusual or that are everyday things that can become deadly. I haven’t asked other murder mystery writers if they do the same thing. I need to do that the next time I’m at a conference.

My latest was an innocent trip to the local theater group to watch the play “Oklahoma!” I had been toying with going, and then a friend said the Elgin Opera House put on the best plays, that most of the actors were actually people wanting to get into the field, and used the Opera House as a way to pad their résumés.

So I called my daughter, who lives halfway between the Opera House and me, to ask if she wanted to go with me. She said yes and I purchased the tickets online.

I have driven by the Opera House a hundred or more times, but I’ve never been inside the historical building built in 1912. We parked and entered the building, purchasing water and popcorn before finding our seats in the balcony section. I was impressed by the tin ceiling, the sloped seating, and the excellent sound. Very historical looking. The chairs were a bit hard, even though they were padded. I’m pretty sure it was the old wood shaving stuffing that had been packed down over decades of use!

We were a little bit early and entered the balcony from the top, found our seats, and took in the surroundings. After visiting and talking about the stage and my daughter having been in the building before, when her daughter was in a play, we decided to use the restroom before the play started. I stayed seated as my daughter went to use the facilities. The balcony didn’t have any lights on. The light came from down below on the stage. My daughter doesn’t like heights,. She came back from the restroom and said she didn’t like walking along the edge of the balcony to go to the door leading down to the restrooms.

I laughed at her and said, at least it wasn’t as high as the Church tower we’d climbed up to in Holland. Then I went down to walk along the balcony railing. It came to my knees, and the walking area between the railing and the front row seats was maybe 24 inches. I stopped to look down at the seating below and felt a little dizzy from the darkness above, the light below, and the sense that I was tipping toward the railing.

I continued on and then as I came back, the idea hit me that having a character be at the opera house for a play and seeing a person fall from the balcony would make a good start to a murder mystery. And as I sat in the balcony watching the play, more and more scenes flashed through my mind.

At the end of the play, when the spectators in the balcony had left, I sat in the front row and envisioned how someone could orchestrate an accidental fall.

So stay tuned for book three in the Cuddle Farm Mysteries. The death at the beginning of the book may or may not have been an accident! 😉

I’m having a 20th-anniversary bash to mark 20 years of being a published author. Follow my Facebook page or sign up for my newsletter to be part of the celebration and win prizes the whole month of May. I’m giving away a prize every day on my Facebook Page and giving my newsletter subscribers a Bingo game to play for a chance to win prizes.

Link to Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorPatyJager

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Guest Blogger ~ Greta Boris

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

The Lighter Side of Death

Greta Boris

It was March 19, 2020, and I was in San Diego at the Left Coast Crime Convention. I was just leaving my first (or maybe second) panel discussion when an announcement came over the loud speakers. The conference was being cancelled. The governor had just shut down the state. I grabbed my bags and headed for home.

During lockdown a lot of authors shut down just like the country. Their stories dried up. They were too distracted by the pandemic and all it’s accompanying fears to write.

Not me. Writing became my sanity.

There are two basic ways people deal with difficulties. Some are internal processors. They need to sit quietly and think things through. This is the kind of person I wish I was.

I am the second kind, however. I’m an external processor. Often, I don’t really know what I think about things until I get them out of my brain into the atmosphere.

Thankfully for my husband, I’m also a writer. Talking works, but so does writing. It’s saved our marriage. He can only handle so much of my mental meanderings.

Anyway, back to 2020. I was sure, like the rest of you, that this whole pandemic thing would be over in a hot minute. As the weeks of isolation dragged on, however, I realized I was going to have to do something with the growing fear within.

At the time, I was wrapping up book five or six of a seven book psychological suspense series now titled The Almost True Crime Series. It’s written as a if its a true crime podcast with each book representing one season of the show. My podcaster, Molly Shure, delves into the minds of the killers, trying to understand the “whys” behind the crimes. This is a topic that fascinates me, but it’s a little on the dark side.

In the middle of COVID, with all the darkness that it brought, I felt the need for something lighter and brighter. Being the kid that did NOT pull the covers over my head when something went bump in the night, I knew I had to tackle the current zeitgeist head on. I had to find the lighter side of death.

Coincidentally, my daughter had recently introduced me to a YouTube channel—The Ask a Mortician Show. Caitlin Doughty, an actual mortician, was funny and real and so, so interesting. She tackled topics like embalming procedures for people who’d died in various gruesome ways, strange burial rituals from around the globe, and why green burials were the wave of the future.

She, I thought, would make an excellent amateur sleuth. But how or why would a mortician be privy to things the authorities weren’t? By the time she got her hands on a corpse, medical and law enforcement professionals would have already investigated if an investigation was warranted.

Then, I remembered a conversation I’d had at the salon back in the good old days when we were allowed to groom ourselves. A stylist told me about another stylist who moonlighted in mortuaries doing hair for the dead.

What if my character got a request to style a deceased client for that client’s funeral? What if she discovered a hitherto unknown talent when she did? What if she could feel the final emotions or sensations of that person when she touched their hair? And what if the person demanded justice by haunting my main character until the murderer was exposed?

That had legs. I had an interesting protagonist with an interesting gift, a reason she would know things the police and coroner wouldn’t, and most importantly, a reason for her to encounter lots of dead people. No shade on Miss Marple, I love those stories, but the murder rate in St. Mary Meed was hard to swallow.

Thus To Dye For, book one in The Mortician Murders was born. I’m currently writing book nine in Imogene Lynch’s story. She’s found more than a gift and a slew of murderers. She’s found family, a legacy of power, an arch enemy in the Orange County Medical Examiner, and an evil cult she must ultimately confront. She’s also found love with Greener Pastures Mortuary’s hunky night watchman, Elmore Leonard Brown, who later in the series becomes an Orange County Sheriff.

The Mortician Murder world has been a respite for me from the tumult of the 2020s. The scary things Imogene has braved have helped me face my own fears during COVID and beyond. Through her, I’ve discovered a secret weapon—laughter. As hyperbolic as it might sound, writing this series has taught me that embracing the lighter side of death helps to diffuse the power of darkness.

Viva la Cozy Mystery!

To Dye For – A Ghostly Mortician Murder

Death is Permanent. Unless It’s Not.

Imogene’s client has an unusual request. The only problem? She’s dead.

Hairstylist Imogene Lynch agrees to do a simple, if creepy, favor—styling the hair of her favorite client for her funeral. Things take a chilling turn when the body refuses to stay still. Either Imogene is losing her mind, or something far more sinister is at play.

Determined to untangle the mystery, she joins forces with the mortuary’s infuriatingly handsome night watchman. What do they uncover? Turns out her client’s death, like her hair color, wasn’t exactly natural. And worse—she’s not the only victim.

Someone is thinning out the population of Liberty Grove, and if Imogene isn’t careful, she’ll be next.

For fans of reluctant heroes, ghostly mysteries, and murder with a side of dark humor.

Buy link:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09WG2SVDC

Greta Boris is the USA Today Bestselling author of The Mortician Murders, a ghostly mystery series, and The Almost True Crime series, stories of psychological suspense. She hails from sunny Southern California, where—based on her books, which are all set there—things are darker than you’d expect. 

She’s also a popular workshop instructor with books and online courses on a variety of writing topics.

Author Links:  http://gretaboris.com and  https://www.facebook.com/greta.boris

Moving + Writing = Behind

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

I am just about moved into our new-to-us home. One more week and I’ll have everything moved and will be settled into the smaller house. Downsizing is not easy! After 47 years, 4 kids, 12 grandkids, 2 great grandkids, I have boxes of photos that I’ve been going through. getting rid of duplicates and bad images from the days when you took the film in to be printed.

I have more furniture than this house can hold, but at the same time, I need to purchase furniture to fit in smaller spaces.

And don’t get me started downsizing from a walk-in closet to a 7 ft long closet in a 1952 older house. I see some remodeling going on in the bedroom down the road. Right now we are concentrating on making the kitchen and dining area larger.

  • Many of the things I’m doing to move relate to my writing.
  • Watching for duplicate words or words that aren’t strong enough.
  • making better word choices that fit the scene or the character even if the word had worked well before.
  • Shortening sentences to be more concise and not take up so much space in the story.
  • And expanding on the mystery and subplots to show the development of my characters and explore more reasons for the murder.

While I’m making the 4-hour drive back and forth from the old place to the new, I’ve summoned up several scenes and reasons for the actions of my characters in the work in progress.

But the words aren’t popping up on the computer screen because when I do finally have time to sit down at the computer, I have emails and promotions to tend to before my brain gives out.

In the last couple of days, I’ve thought about moving my deadline for this book out, but then it feels like I’m copping out. Instead, I’ll spend the rest of the month pushing to finish the book and know it will be published a bit later than I’d planned, but I managed to write it within my deadline.

That is the hardest part of writing for me. Not lambasting myself when I miss a deadline. When I put it out to the universe that something will happen or be finished, I don’t make excuses. I push and make it happen. It is my greatest strength as a writer. Self-discipline.

I can’t remember if I mentioned that Book 8 in the Spotted Pony Casino is now available in print and ebook.

When the past knocks on their door, the future they planned begins to unravel.

On the brink of their wedding, Dela Alvaro and Heath Seaver’s plans shatter when a ten-year-old boy appears, claiming to be Heath’s son. The truth is even darker: the boy’s mother—the woman Heath thought died years ago at Pine Ridge—was an FBI informant hidden under a new identity, left to raise his child alone before dying of addiction.

As Heath wrestles with awe for the son he never knew and fury at the FBI’s deception, the past turns deadly. When the agent who lied to him is found murdered in Pendleton, the FBI shows up on Dela’s doorstep, bringing danger straight to their home.

With their future on the line, Dela and Heath must confront a web of secrets before it destroys the family they’re just beginning to build.

Universal book link: https://books2read.com/u/3LzAxJ

Buy direct from the author: ebook – https://www.patyjager.net/product/full-house-ebook/

Autographed print book – https://www.patyjager.net/product/full-house/

You can also now purchase Merry Merry Merry Murder in audiobook format.

Where comfort and cheer meet scandalous secrets—A holiday mystery set in a small town.

Audiobook website – https://www.patyjager.net/product/merry-merry-merry-murder-audiobook/

In my next post, I’ll be talking about my 20th anniversary as a published author.

Transitioning

~ patyjag ~ 12 Comments

Life has chapters, just like books.

Right now I’m transitioning from rural life to town life. We purchased the house in town the fall of 2024 because we were putting our farm up for sale and wanted to know where we would be going when it sold. That chapter was exciting and full of wistfulness of finding the right home.

We did. I love the view from all of my windows. We are isolated enough that we aren’t looking into any neighbors’ windows and we have a gorgeous view of the Eagle Cap Mountains that I write about in my Gabriel Hawke books and the Elkhorns which will be referred to in my Cuddle Farm Mystery series. Out the dining room window we see a couple of rooftops and a hill my hubby knows elk are going to come over when there is a bad winter. 😉

Eagle Caps from my living room window.

It’s an older house so there has been painting, fixing, and soon a remodel because the kitchen and dining room are too small. But first I will be moved into the house by April 1st. That’s when we are to be off of our farm. Hubby will stay on helping the dairy that he’s been managing hay fields for the last twelve years. Just for this summer to help the person taking over. He’ll stay there in a mobile home on the hay ranch and come help make out new place the way we want on long weekends.

I’m excited about a smaller house to clean, I can run to the store whenever I want, not make a list when I run out of things and have to wait until someone goes to town. I’m excited for the things I can attend without having an hour drive to and from the event. I’m also close to all the areas I write about in my mystery series. That is a real plus. I hope to get to more Native American events and culture a few more connections.

Hiking a wash in Hurricane, UT.

This is not the last chapter in my life but it is certainly one of the most looked forward to. I’ll continue to write, but we also hope to do a bit more traveling around the U.S.

We spent a week last month in southern Utah, hiking in parks and enjoying the weather and scenery. We plan to do that for a couple weeks every winter to get out of the longer, colder (usually) winters than we are used to.

I’m excited to see how the changes, might enhance my stories by living so much closer and being able to do even more trips to locations. I’m only an hour and a half away from the Umatilla Indian Reservation the location of my Spotted Pony Casino Mystery series.

Right now, I’m trying to get all the rooms ready to put the furniture that will fit in and try to keep up with writing on my current book, Captured Hummingbird, book 15 in the Gabriel Hawke novels.

As a reader can you tell when a writer knows the area they are writing about?

Writers, do you like to see places first hand if you write about real places?