Category: murder mystery

Let It Go by Karen Shughart

~ kshughart47 ~ 6 Comments

There’s a certain amount of pressure for all authors, regardless of how they’re published, that’s self-imposed. We set out to write a book and determine the time frame for finishing it, and therefore must adhere to some sort of schedule. And for those of us who are with traditional publishers, there’s the added pressure of submitting our book at an agreed upon deadline,

When I started writing my Edmund DeCleryk cozy mystery series, I wrote every day. I didn’t set a specific number of hours but instead spent time at the computer until I was either so exhausted that I literally couldn’t see straight or was happy with the advancement of the plot. In the past this has worked well for me, but this summer it didn’t.

Let me explain.  We live in a resort village that is a bustling hive of activity during summer months. Our beautiful scenery, gorgeous waterways, pristine beaches, and a multitude of activities centered around what we call Summerfest results in visits from family and friends, picnics, cookouts, concerts, festivals, outdoor movies, yoga classes, boating excursions and, on cool nights, time spent with friends drinking wine around a blazing fire pit watching the stars.

This year in particular, I was also happily bombarded with invitations to do book talks and signings, sometimes more than one a week. In addition, we took three short trips: to visit family; for a couple’s getaway; and when I participated as a panelist at a  mystery lovers’ conference in another state.

I must admit, at first I felt anxious about my inability to carve out time to continue writing my fourth novel, Murder at Chimney Bluffs, after making good headway last winter and spring.  Then I took a deep breath and thought. ‘It will be done, and isn’t a big part of life enjoying experiences that could help make my writing be even better? Let it go.’

And I did. When my publisher emailed me to get a sense of when she could expect my next book, I responded that I thought I could submit it to her a year from this coming November or maybe even December, but not before. She thanked me and said no problem. When I gave talks and attended signings, which I really do enjoy, I wasn’t the least bit anxious about not writing.

At the entrance to a town a little west of us there’s a huge sign that announces “Where Life is Worth Living”.   And that’s certainly true about this place we call home.  I finally conceded to the pressure to write and allowed myself to enjoy every minute of every day and relax about not keeping to a schedule. I’ll get it done, I know. There’s something to be said for letting go.

Karen Shughart is the author of the Edmund DeCleryk cozy mystery series published by Cozy Cat Press. She lives on the south shore of Lake Ontario in a village in New York state that’s the prototype for Lighthouse Cove, the s fictional setting for her books.

Guest Blogger ~ Kathleen Kaska

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

Another Hotel, Another Murder, Another Sydney Lockhart Mystery

My idea for my Sydney Lockhart mystery settings came from historic hotels my husband and I have frequented. These old hotels are usually in the town center and are often community gathering places. Having cocktails in the lounges allowed us to meet the locals who would often share the most entertaining, unique, and unusual places to visit, which was excellent fodder for additional scenes in the books.

The series is set in the early 1950s. Sydney is a sassy, determined young woman trying to make it as a private detective in a man’s world. Her journey begins when she checks into the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas, only to find a dead man in her bathroom. The man had been murdered, and she is the main suspect. I chose the Arlington as the first location because it is like my second home. Adding up all the nights we’ve stayed at the Arlington equals about four months. I’m familiar with all the nooks, crannies, and hidden places the average hotel guest is unaware of. Many local business I mentioned in the book have been in operation since the 1930s and are still open today. And with Hot Springs’ notorious history of gangsters running the city, it was easy to create a feasible plot. In fact, Al Capone once lived in the Arlington Hotel.

Since then, I’ve used the Luther Hotel in Palacios, Texas, the Galvez Hotel in Galveston, Texas, the Driskill Hotel in Austin, and the Menger Hotel in San Antonio. They all possess a unique history, which I weave into the stories.

My latest mystery, Murder at the Pontchartrain, which was release on June 28, occurs in one of my favorite cities, New Orleans. The Pontchartrain, located in the Garden District, was opened in 1927 as a luxury apartment building. In the early 1940s, it was turned into a hotel. This is where Tennessee Williams wrote his classic play, Streetcar Named Desire. This vibrant, exotic city begs to have a mystery set there. Just ask Anne Rice.

I brought Sydney to New Orleans because she and her fiancé/partner in crime, Ralph Dixon, had some unfinished business to attend to. But in less than twenty-four hours, someone is murdered in their hotel room, and Dixon is arrested. Sydney is in a race to solve the murder and free Dixon before she ends up in a cell next to him. When word back home in Austin gets out, Ruth, Sydney’s bubble-headed blonde cousin, and Sydney’s twelve-year-old charge, Lydia LaBeau, arrive to give Sydney a hand. Ruth is assigned to snoop around the hotel. At the same time, Lydia appoints herself as the investigator of the French Quarter, where she ends up helping out at the Voodoo Shop and making friends with Pat O’Brien’s head bartender. Yes, I know the girl is only twelve, but age has never influenced what Lydia does.

While wandering the streets in New Orleans, I envisioned Sydney darting down the back alleys of the French Quarter, tracking a suspect near Audubon Park, and almost meeting her demise in the Lower Ninth Ward.

If readers know of great hotels for my future setting, I love to hear about them. The requirement is that the hotel was in operation in the early 1950s and is still in business today.

I’m Sydney Lockhart. I solve murders, most of which I’m the primary suspect. My fiancée, Ralph Dixon, and I came to New Orleans to get married. Instead, he’s been arrested for a double murder, and I’m hunting for the real killer. Assisting me are a twelve-year-old voodoo queen, a ghost detective, and my crazy cousin Ruth. Wish me luck. I’ll need it.

https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Pontchartrain-Sydney-Lockhart-Mystery/dp/1941237940

Kathleen Kaska is the author of the awarding-winning mystery series: the Sydney Lockhart Mystery Series set in the 1950s and the Kate Caraway Animal-Rights Mystery Series. She also writes mystery trivia. The Sherlock Holmes Quiz Book was published by Rowman & Littlefield. Her Holmes short story, “The Adventure at Old Basingstoke,” appears in Sherlock Holmes of Baking Street, a Belanger Books anthology. She is the founder of The Dogs in the Nighttime, the Sherlock Holmes Society of Anacortes, Washington, a scion of The Baker Street Irregulars.

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Random Ramblings

~ patyjag ~ 2 Comments

My summer has been busy! More so than usual. The only upside is I have been gone so much I didn’t have to help with as much hay harvesting. 😉 However that running around has drained me and made it take longer to get my next book out.

I told myself when I planned my 10 day trip to Hawaii that I would still work on my writing for half of the day. Well, I didn’t. And that put a book that I was already struggling with too much of a lag between starting and finishing it. Thank goodness my beta readers and editor found the places where I changed someone’s name or had a character looking at something they couldn’t have seen because the other character hadn’t been home to leave it. Little timeline things that I was sure I’d written but obviously only in my head.

Turtles on the rocks in Hawaii

As a writer, do you have instances like that? I have on several books known I’d written a scene that led up to something and neither I nor a beta reader can find it. It was a scene I’d played over in my mind while I was walking or driving and then when I sat down at the computer I started with the scene after it and was sure I’d written the one that was still in my brain. That’s frustrating. At least the scene is there, and usually, I can write it better than it played out in my mind.

In the book that is off to my final proofreader, I had many spots that I had to “fix” after the beta readers read it. I also had more scenes and paragraphs that I took out or manipulated to make my character more sympathetic to the victims in the story. I have never had so many saved documents of partial scenes that don’t make it in the book. I sure hope my readers like this one. It’s a true Hawke story but it does delve into something more controversial than his other books.

I spent Labor Day Weekend at a Flea Market where I and another writer friend usually have brisk sales. This year there were so few people who wandered by our trailer, it was kind of eerie. I only sold about a third of what I normally sell. Most of those were to my return readers.

This week, I’m headed to Mt. Angel, Oregon to sell my first in series books along with books by other NIWA (Northwest Independent Writers Association) members. It should be a fun weekend.

As soon as I return from there, I’m diving into a Shandra Higheagle Christmas mystery. I’ve had a multitude of Shandra fans ask me for one more book. I’m writing a Christmas novella to hopefully give the readers closure. I hope I can get it out before Christmas!

Right now you can pre-order Damning Firefly. It will release on September 25th.

Book 11 in the Gabriel Hawke Series

A church fire.

An unconscious woman on Starvation Ridge.

Gabriel Hawke, fish and wildlife officer with the Oregon State Police, helps with a fire at The Lighted Path church before heading out to check turkey hunters. He discovers a car wedged between two trees and a woman with a head injury reeking of smoke. Is she the arsonist?

Hawke encounters the county midwife gloating over the burnt church and learns she and the victim in the car know one another.

Two seemingly separate events lead Hawke to a serial rapist and a county full of secrets. 

Universal Book Link to Pre-order: https://books2read.com/u/bQeBDZ

The Importance of Research by Karen Shughart

~ kshughart47 ~ 7 Comments

 I recently attended a conference in Pennsylvania called Murder As You Like It that was for writers and readers of mysteries. I was fortunate to have been asked to participate with a group of other authors on a panel where we discussed the importance of research in our books.

My books are cozies that take place in the present in the fictional village of Lighthouse Cove, NY, modeled after the village where I live. Each has a historical backstory that provides clues as to why the murder occurred, all of them based on an actual period of history in our community.  Although for the most part my characters are fictional, King George, III; Abraham Lincoln; Frederick Douglass, and Susan B. Anthony are among real characters I name as part of each back story, and real universities, museums, and tourist attractions as they fit into each plot.

My sleuths follow clues that lead them to Rochester, NY; Niagara-on-the-Lake, Gananoque, and Toronto, Canada; London, England and Charleston, SC. I’ve visited these places and creative license aside; my descriptions are fairly accurate. While I don’t use the names of real newspapers, concerned that my reporters wouldn’t reflect their editorial policies and methods, I have used the name of one of our regional magazines, with permission.

When I started writing the series, I decided that it was also important to make the investigative procedures as accurate as possible, so the books had believability. I was fortunate to have been accepted into a citizen’s police academy sponsored by our local sheriff’s office – once a week for nine weeks, six hours each time- where I learned about the criminal justice system in our county. We ate lunch in the jail, watched K 9 demonstrations, and heard speakers who were experts in their fields.

My favorite research tool is talking with professionals who know how investigative procedures work. I’ve been able to interview our DA, a professor of criminal justice, a retired police officer, a commander for regional police force; medical professionals.  In book two of the series, Murder in the Cemetery, the sleuth has a friend who is with the CIA whom he calls upon for advice. It took a bit of chutzpah, but I decided to contact the real CIA to see if I could interview someone there with questions, and low-and-behold, it worked. They reviewed my credentials, and I got a call from their public affairs officer shortly after. It never hurts to try.

Yachts in present time and rumrunning boats during prohibition figure into the book I’m writing now. A friend of mine, after retiring, got his captain’s license and now appraises boats for insurance companies. He’s been a treasure-trove of information.

 Realistic research adds authenticity to the stories, and I think it’s the interplay between fact and fiction that’s so much fun for me to write and I hope, makes the stories interesting to my readers.

Happy Dancing

~ patyjag ~ 6 Comments

I don’t know about other authors but there are times my husband and family give me a look that says, they wonder about my sanity. 😉

Last month, I drove to Wallowa County where I set most of my Gabriel Hawke Novels. He is an Oregon State Trooper with the Fish and Wildlife division. The reason for my trip was to:

1) Do reconnaissance of the area where Hawke finds an unconscious woman in the wilderness.

2) Discover why Starvation Ridge was named that.

3) Attend a powwow in Wallowa County so I can have Hawke and his partner Dani attend one in the next book. I also wanted to see if I could connect with a Nez Perce tribal member who would help me add more of the culture to my books.

As usual, I dragged my sis-in-law and brother into my hijinks. Thankfully, my brother being an artist, he understands my need to see things for my books. And I’ve taken my sis-in-law along on other research adventures. First, we made the trip out Starvation Ridge so I could see it better. I’d used Google Earth and an Oregon Gazetteer to try and come up with a plausible explanation for the car stuck between two trees in the middle of forest service land. But I wanted to see the terrain better and I’m glad I did! The way I had my character discover the vehicle wouldn’t work for the area. When I came home, I rewrote the scenes where and how the car was found. Not only did I get a good look at the area, but I got a better feel for it too. And my brother added nuances to it because the story is set in April when there would still be some snow and lots of mud. Which I had written into the story, but he explained it a little bit more. Wind can blow the snow off the very top of the ridge and it’s just mud where there is snow in the trees.

Road on Starvation Ridge

Sis-in-law and I went to the museum in Joseph to find out if there was a way to discover why the ridge was named Starvation. And while we saw some great photos of the past and learned a bit more about the county’s history, we came up empty on the reason for the name. Of course, as we were driving around up on the ridge, we came up with all kinds of grisly reasons for the name. But the next day at the suggestion of a local historian, we went to the Wallowa Museum and the woman there found a book and we discovered the reason for the name. And it was nothing like what we had thought. In fact, it was pretty pathetic. According to the book, it was named Starvation Ridge because a man named Billy Smith came up on the ridge and discovered that a large herd of sheep had eaten all the grass off the ridge. He called it Starvation Ridge and it stuck. Kind of lame and not worth putting in my story. I’ll let the readers fantasize about the name as we had.

The Tamkaliks Celebration was as moving and colorful as I remembered. I’d attended this powwow a number of years ago, but after taking a class on writing Native American characters and the teacher suggested attending powwows and taking in the ceremonies and talking to people, I decided I needed to get to this one again. I also plan to have my characters attend the powwow in the next Hawke book. The songs, the welcome they give everyone, the friendship dance (we danced), and the reverence they pay to one another was so worthwhile.

Ceremony of the riderless horse. symbolizing the ancestors and those tribal members lost the past year.

The best part of the whole day was a woman that sat down in front of us. She openly explained what was happening to those around her and taught a young couple how to say her dog’s name which meant, Moose. This isn’t how you write the word, only how you say it, “Sauce Luck.” And she taught us how to say Good Morning. Again, not the way you write it but how you say it, which she explained. “Tots MayWe.” After watching her so enthusiastically sharing her culture, I sat down beside her and thanked her for explaining things and asked if she’d be interested in helping me bring more Nez Perce culture to my books. She was excited to help me! She told me about her education and her B.S. in American Indian Studies and Business and her new job that was basically teaching the Nez Perce culture to those who were interested. We exchanged names, emails, and phone numbers. I have sent her an email and she responded right away. I’m excited to have found another connection to help me make my books true to the Nez Perce culture.

And that, my friends, is why I am happy dancing!