Category: murder mystery

Guest Blogger ~ Pamela Fagan Hutchins

~ patyjag

Vigilante with a Badge in the Modern West: Delaney Pace

My Delaney Pace Series is set in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, present-day—the real-life Modern West. It’s a setting I know well. I live there, right on the eastern face of the Bighorns near Sheridan. For the book, I created the fictional town of Kearny. Its name was inspired by Fort Phil Kearny near Story. My husband and I used to live across the street from its ruins and the museum that now stands in its place. That setting has fueled many of the books I’ve written.

But any good series is driven by its lead character more than anything, so it is with that in mind that I present to you my vigilante with a badge, Deputy Investigator Delaney Pace. My friend Daisy is the inspo for Delaney, and you couldn’t get more Modern West than Daisy—or more kick ass.

A few years ago, my husband Eric posted that we were giving away rusty, fire-damaged barbed wire. One of the takers was Daisy, who showed up with her family to claim some to use for a project.

We soon learned that she’d given up oil field trucking in North Dakota—and a side gig as a reality star— for taking over the family homestead, raising her second daughter twenty years after her first, and being a service to others through philanthropy and her physical labor. She was a key player in organizing one of the largest agricultural relief efforts in the history of the United States through a huge convoy of truckers, donors, and volunteers after historic fires devastated America’s Midwest. She and her family raise (and butcher) a large flock of turkeys every year to feed 300+ people at a free community Thanksgiving dinner.

Daisy’s the one you want as your second in a knife fight, who could have been a model or actress instead of a rodeo star and extreme trucker, and she’s the friend you can knock back a cold one with or take to meet your pastor (after you’ve done your best to prepare them for the encounter). If by some small miracle you find her in a church, you won’t see her sitting in the pews… she’s the one standing in the back.

She was forged in the kind of volcanic upheaval that can result in smoking rubble or beautiful rocky mountain ranges. Daisy, through character and force of will, is the latter. If you enjoy Delaney as much as I do, it is because of my friend Daisy. {Daisy, thank you for agreeing to let me reshape you in fiction.}

Whether it is her love for her niece, her desperate need to find her father’s killer and unravel the mystery of her mother’s disappearance, or her passion for hunting down killers (and for the handsome deputy she works alongside), Delaney goes all in. Her spirit embodies the Modern West. Rugged, self-reliant but selfless, with one foot in 1950 and one in 2024.

I think she and I have a long road to travel together, and I’m thrilled to ride shotgun on her fictional journey.

Hop in with us—we’d love to have you, too!

Pamela Fagan Hutchins

Catch Delaney Pace in her latest adventure: HER FORGOTTEN SHADOW https://amzn.to/3Nh54xYA violent storm erupts over the small town of Kearny, bringing a devastating mudslide. Amongst the debris, the worn threads of a child’s blanket, hides the body of a young girl, her long dark hair matted with the fallen earth that killed her.

When the rescue team find rope marks around the ankles of the teenage girl, they call in Detective Delaney Pace. Fourteen-year-old Marilyn Littlewolf went missing five years ago after moving to Kearny from a local reservation. Fearing she was dead, nobody expected Marilyn to ever come home. So where has she been? And why is her body covered in bruises?

Delaney thinks Marilyn was held captive in the mountains that tower above the town, but with acres of remote wilderness to search, the investigation seems impossible. Diving into Marilyn’s case, one name stands out that makes her blood turn cold as ice: her friend and longstanding babysitter to her two adopted daughters, Skeeter Rawlins.

Racing to his home, she finds it in disarray, it’s clear he left in a hurry. In disbelief, Delaney takes in the empty whisky bottles and wonders if she was wrong to trust her reliable old friend with her darling girls?

As evidence piles up against Skeeter, Delaney’s heart shatters when another girl is reported missing. Tracing her to a remote cabin deep in the woods, she fears she’s about to finally uncover the truth about her once-trusted friend. But when she bursts into the disheveled shack nothing could have prepared her for what she finds. Was she wrong to suspect Skeeter as the twisted mind behind the missing girls? And is she already too late to save another innocent life?

Pamela Fagan Hutchins is a USA Today bestselling and Amazon All Star mystery/thriller/suspense author with books in ten languages, who believes in soulmates, loves to laugh, travels too much, and lives out the adventures in her books at a rustic lake camp at Maine’s Mooselook Lake and in an off-the-grid lodge on the face of Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains with her husband, sled dogs, and draft horses. She’s currently along for her husband’s year-long assignment on the Mediterranean coast of France, writing her fifth Delaney Pace crime thriller in a tiny village where no one speaks English or has ever seen Alaskan malamutes before… and loving it.

Website: http://pamelafaganhutchins.com

Mailing list with free starter library: https://pamelafaganhutchins.com/pages/the-next-chapter-with-pamela-fagan-hutchins

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/pamela-fagan-hutchins

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Pamela’s Posse for Readers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/pamelasposse

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/pamelafaganhutchins Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pamela_fagan_hutchins/

My Brain Is Taking a Break

~ Pamela Beason ~ 4 Comments

Ack! My post is scheduled for tomorrow, and my mind is blank. Not a single pithy idea is pinging around in my head. So, I’m just going to blather on about what’s going on while my creative brain is taking a vacation. I’ve finished the manuscript for my latest mystery, IF ONLY, which is a crossover novel between my Sam Westin Wilderness series and my Neema the Gorilla series, and trust me, it was not easy to mix those two very different settings and groups of characters, but I believe I pulled the blend off smoothly, although it took me a long time.

But then I ran into two snags. One, my editor is very busy and has been sick, so my manuscript has been held up in the final edit. Two, I planned for this book to be positioned in both the Sam Westin series and in the Neema series, cleverly eliminating the need to write another book for each series. But it turns out that Amazon will only allow me to place the book in one of my series, which then caused a need to make cover changes and dream up creative ways to make it clear that the book also fits in the other series.

I still have all the minutiae to complete after I make final manuscript changes: register ISBN numbers for both print and ebooks, make an ebook version for Amazon with links to my other books, make an ebook for Draft2Digital without those links, write the description for the book page, find appropriate keywords for the listing, etc., etc. Being a self-published author can be tedious, but at least I’m in control and making far more money than I did with a traditional publisher.

So, while I’m waiting for the final edit to arrive on my desk, I’ve been giving my brain a break with reading. I always read, and although I tend to prefer mysteries, I also read all sorts of other books, and I often read more than one at once. Right now, I’m reading two very different books, and they are both unusual picks for me. First, Jodi Taylor’s The Long and the Short of It, which is a collection of wacky humorous short stories. I rarely read short stories, and even more rarely read humorous stories, but these are much more entertaining to me than most, as the plots involve historians who travel back in time and accidentally muck up the details of historical events. Second, I’m reading Camp Zero, a post-apocalyptic story about groups of people who have been posted in the arctic for mysterious reasons having to do with discovering pristine air and livable places for humanity as the southern half of our planet devolves into climatic and political chaos. However, in Camp Zero, it’s clear that men, and not necessarily honorable men, are in charge of all these experiments, so it’s never clear what is going to happen next.

These make a great break from my normal reading. Lately I’ve been plowing through Sara Driscoll’s FBI K-9 series, which has great suspense and action as the protagonist works on life-and-death cases with her canine partner. I will definitely return to that series later. I adore stories that honor the abilities and intelligence of animals, although my cats often express the wish there were many more books that feature feline heroes.

Soon IF ONLY will be out, and my attention will then be diverted to marketing, which I am generally terrible at. But for now, my mind is having a great time in the virtual worlds created by other writers.

My Writing List

~ patyjag ~ 8 Comments

Every writer has their mantra, motto, or theme for their writing. I have a list of items I try to hit with each book I write.

The list is:

  • Character endures longer than plot.
  • Action intrigues the reader more than passive language.
  • Scenes excite the reader more than narration.
  • Dialogue interests the reader more than exposition.
  • Nouns & Verbs trump adjectives and adverbs.

I’m not sure where I found this years ago, but the saying has hung either from my monitor or as now, on my whiteboard plotting calendar by my desk. These five things are what I strive for in each book or short story I write.

I want the readers to love my characters whether they are the main characters or the secondary characters. Because if I don’t care or like them why would a reader want to read about them? From the reactions of my readers when I ended the Shandra Higheagle Mystery series, I believe they fell in love with my characters. Which makes me happy and I try to do the same with all my other series characters.

As for action, I like stories that aren’t bogged down with descriptions. I want to know what the characters are doing and have their actions and reactions move the story forward. I like books that carry me along on the ride without distracting me with mundane things.  

Sometimes I wonder if I put too many breaks in some chapters, but they are usually ones where the characters are jumping from scene to scene as they move forward to question someone or look for a clue. All the scenes whether they are long or short keep the story moving.

I prefer to write dialogue that informs the reader either about the past, present, or to show the character’s character. I try not to use too much narrative to inform the reader. It can end up feeling like an info dump. As much as I can, I try to keep information in the dialog and not do any dumps.

There have been times after I’ve written and published a book, I think, “Man, I should have described this or that better.” Then I get a review with how well I showed or revealed an area or place and I think, “I guess I did okay.” I am not a wordy person in real life. I don’t care for small talk and I like to get to the point of things. I’ve found I’m the same way with my writing. I use words sparingly and make sure the words I do use inform without having to add three words for the one. I do use some adjectives but only if they are necessary to show what I want to show, not to flower up the pages. When I read a book with lots of description, I’ll jump over those paragraphs to get to the action.

The books I like to read are ones with strong likeable characters and action that moves the story forward. That shouldn’t come as a surprise after reading this post. If a character grabs me in the first chapter, I will finish the book unless the story is slogging. I came across a book recently that the premise intrigued me but I couldn’t finish the book because I didn’t like the main character and some of the things the character did seemed dumb. I put a book like this down and start another one. I have lots of books on my TBR pile and limited time to read.

So when I read for pleasure, I want the book to make me think about it even when I’m not reading. That is a good book.

What is a good book you’ve read lately?

I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you about my newest release.

Down and Dirty

Book 6 in the Spotted Pony Casino Mysteries

The Spotted Pony Casino’s head of security, Dela Alvaro, receives a late-night call that takes her to a deserted walkway along the river. After confronting a woman babbling about love and bodies being buried, Dela stumbles over a corpse and discovers her knife covered in the victim’s blood.

Dela and Tribal Detective Heath Seaver find themselves working with FBI Special Agent Quinn Pierce when the murder seems to be connected to a drug cartel. Dela nearly becomes the victim of a hit-and-run while someone is trying to frame her for the murder.

Proving her innocence has Dela interviewing past acquaintances and members of a drug cartel, all while trying to decide if the woman she met the night of the murder is truly crazy … or the killer.

Universal buy link: https://books2read.com/u/bagQ66

Guest Blogger ~ Margaret Mizushima

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

Moving and Moving On

This is my first guest post for Paty’s Ladies of Mystery, and I’m so happy to be here. I write the Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries, a series comprised of eight published books and a new episode titled GATHERING MIST that launches on October 8th. I’m excited for this book to be released, because it’s set in an entirely different place than the rest of the series, resulting from a move that my husband and I made in 2022.

Our move across country from northern Colorado to the state of Washington began two years prior to the actual event. My husband Charlie is a veterinarian who established his practice of forty-two years on our property outside the city limits of a small town north of Fort Collins, CO. We also raised a herd of Angus cattle, quarter horses, and a multitude of pets there. It was our beloved home, and we planned to stay there forever.

But then…the school district bought the plot of ground next to ours and began to build a three-school campus, complete with football, baseball, and soccer fields. Oh my! The construction noise rocked our home. The atmosphere of our peaceful country life was destroyed. We looked at each other and said, “We’ve gotta move.”

Fortunately, it was time for my husband to retire. It took two years to disperse our cattle herd, sell our farm equipment, close the vet practice and get ready to go. We decided to head to Washington to be closer to one of our daughters. Because of the boom in the real estate market, cash buyers reigned. Since no one would entertain an offer from someone with a contingency, we were unable to buy a place to move to until after our property sold.

The last month before we left was intense. We pared down our belongings and loaded what was left into one stock trailer and a container strapped to our hay trailer, which we stored on our friends’ property. We loaded our two German shorthaired pointers into the car and headed west to Washington State. What a trip! Both dogs and humans were shell-shocked when we arrived.

Our daughter had found a place for us to rent near her home in a beautiful river valley. It was on a rural property surrounded by giant Douglas fir that smelled amazing at night. Our landlady let us bring our dogs and they had a large meadow they could run in each morning. We’ll always be grateful for her gracious hospitality.

Four months later, we found our new home and made the final move. We settled in and I discovered a wonderful setting for the ninth book in my series, a fictional spot on Washington’s Olympic peninsula.

In GATHERING MIST, Deputy Mattie Wray and her K-9 partner Robo leave their home a week before Mattie’s wedding to join a search and rescue mission for a celebrity’s missing son. They face unfamiliar territory and unfriendly locals on the misty, rain-soaked Olympic peninsula, and they uncover secrets that have lain buried in the dense forest. When it becomes apparent that there is something more sinister than a lost child in play, the searchers grow desperate as they strive to find the missing boy before he is lost forever.

We’ve not only found a new home here in Washington, but I found a new setting that I loved using in this book. I invite you to read Mattie and Robo’s adventures that are set in both Colorado and Washington, starting with book one, KILLING TRAIL. Or, if you prefer, start anywhere in the series, because the mystery in each episode stands alone. I hope you enjoy the books!

GATHERING MIST

Secrets hide within the fog deep in the mossy forests of the Pacific Northwest, in this ninth thrilling installment in award-winning author Margaret Mizushima’s Timber Creek K-9 Mystery series.

Deputy Mattie Wray, formerly Mattie Cobb, is summoned to Washington’s Olympic peninsula for an urgent search and rescue mission to find a celebrity’s missing child. With only a week left before her wedding, Mattie is hesitant to leave Timber Creek, but her K-9 partner Robo’s tracking skills are needed.

Dense forest, chilling rain, and unfriendly locals hamper their efforts, and soon Mattie suspects something more sinister than a lost child is at play.  When one of the SAR dogs becomes ill, her fiancé Cole Walker suspects poison. Fearing for Mattie’s and Robo’s safety, Cole joins the search and rescue team as veterinary support.

Secrets that have lain hidden within the rugged terrain come to light and when it is uncovered that the missing child was kidnapped, the search becomes a full-blown crime scene investigation, forcing Mattie, Robo, and Cole into a desperate search to find the missing child before it’s too late.  

Here is a buy link:https://www.amazon.com/Gathering-Mist-Timber-Creek-Mystery/dp/1639108947

Buy Link in Tiny URL:  https://tinyurl.com/5n9xx8un

Margaret Mizushima writes the internationally published Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries. She serves as past president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and was elected Writer of the Year by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. She is the recipient of a Colorado Authors League Award, a Benjamin Franklin Book Award, a CIBA CLUE Award, and two Willa Literary Awards by Women Writing the West. Her books have been finalists for a SPUR Award by Western Writers of America, a Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award, and the Colorado Book Award. She and her husband recently moved from Colorado, where they raised two daughters and a multitude of animals, to a home in the Pacific Northwest. Find her on Facebook/AuthorMargaretMizushima, X @margmizu, Instagram @margmizu, and her website www.margaretmizushima.com.

Guest Blogger ~ Kathleen Donnelly

~ patyjag ~ 8 Comments

Crime Solving K-9s

As a retired K-9 handler for Sherlock Hounds Detection Canines, I spent the last 19 years working to help keep schools safe with my four-legged partners. We used friendly dogs to find drugs, alcohol and gunpowder. When I started this career, I had no idea how much it would influence my writing and genre.

I have so many stories and memories about my experiences with the dogs. One that always comes to mind happened with my first dog, Sammy. Sammy and I arrived at one of our schools and the principal said, “I believe we have a kid dealing drugs here, but we’re not sure where he’s keeping them. Do you mind if we check the parking lot?”

KATHLEEN & SAMMY

I agreed and off Sammy and I went to sniff around some vehicles. I insist on keeping any checks random so that we’re never targeting a student, but I did ask the principal to tell me the color of the car. It was black. So that day, we started checking black cars in the parking lot. After checking a few vehicles, we came upon a black four-door coupe and Sammy’s body language changed. Her tail pointed straight up in the air and her muscles tensed. Even her breathing changed as she inhaled the air and worked to pinpoint a scent. She alerted on the front passenger door.

But she didn’t stop there.

Whipping around, she ran back in front of me and went to the trunk of the vehicle, promptly alerting there as well. The phrase, “trust your dog” kept repeating through my head. I told the principal that we needed to check not only the interior of the car, but also the trunk. Sammy had alerted on both spots on the vehicle for a reason. I would soon find out it was a very good reason.

In the front glovebox, there was marijuana. But what was in the trunk? The student didn’t want to open it and I soon discovered why. When he did, there was a sawed-off shotgun. I rewarded Sammy with her toy and praised her for a job well done. She’d not only helped to keep a school safe and maybe even saved a life, but she had also solved a mystery.

NELLIE WORKING A LOCKER

As I continued to work and gained experience with more dogs, I started to realize how much dogs, or more specifically their noses, could help us solve mysteries. When we would recertify with our trainer in Oklahoma, he would always show us the dogs he had in training for law enforcement. I watched him work the dogs for tracking, apprehension, finding narcotics, and much more. Our trainer had arson dogs and even told stories about training dogs to find human remains.

Meanwhile, I was pursuing my other passion of writing. As I learned more about writing mysteries and thrillers, I thought, why am I not including a K-9 character in my books? They are the ultimate crime solving partners. At this point I had worked K-9s for about ten years and I had a better understanding of the bond between dog and handler. I knew that my next book would have a K-9.

That was the beginning of the National Forest K-9 series. Now, three books in, with the latest release being KILLER SECRETS, I have found as much passion for writing dogs on the page as I did working dogs. In fact, this fall I am not going back to school. I am now a retired K-9 handler. I’m looking forward to continuing to write my stories and let my main character, US Forest Service law enforcement officer Maya Thompson and her K-9 Juniper, a two year old Malinois, solve mysteries in a fictional Colorado forest.

I love weaving in the strong bond between dog and handler. Along with Maya and Juniper, I have a new series coming out in late 2025. This is a romantic suspense series and the first book will feature an FBI Crisis Canine and his handler. As I wrote a new canine character, I enjoyed diving into a different type of K-9 work. They are amazing animals.

I’m not the only one who thinks so. In fact, I think over the past few years, there are enough K-9 crime solvers that I would say it has become its own genre. I’d love to know, do you love K-9s in books? I look forward to hearing from you and I also want to thank the Ladies of Mystery for inviting me to their blog as a guest.

Killer Secrets:

A small town’s deadly past is exposed in the newest installment of the suspenseful National Forest K-9 series by Kathleen Donnelly.

Until an avalanche ripped down a mountainside, exposing a serial killer’s dumping grounds, Antler Valley, Colorado was a quiet town. Now Forest Service officer Maya Thompson and her beautiful K-9, Juniper, must catch the murderer before they become the next targets.

With the neighboring town’s new overconfident sheriff deterring the entire investigation, a murderer on the loose and heartthrob deputy Josh Colton racing through her mind, Maya is at a crossroads. Josh is ready to go all in, but Maya has one foot out the door. As she lets her guard down, she needs to accept that she’s falling deeply in love with him, no matter how risky it may be.

When evidence from the Antler Valley victims links the murders to deaths in other ski towns, secrets long buried are unearthed. Maya and Juniper must run toward an answer, though finding it might lead them directly into a fatal trap…

Where to Purchase:

My Website—Killer Secrets—Book #3 in the National Forest K-9 series

Amazon: https://a.co/d/7e62hR9

Award-winning author Kathleen Donnelly is a retired K-9 handler. She loves crafting realism into her fictional stories from her dog-handling experience. Her debut novel, Chasing Justice, won a Best Book Award from the American Book Fest, a PenCraft Award and was a 2023 Silver Falchion finalist in the Suspense category and Readers’ Choice Award. Her second book, Hunting The Truth, was a Colorado Authors League finalist in the mystery category and a Silver Falchion finalist for the Readers’ Choice Awards. She lives near the Colorado foothills with her husband and four-legged coworkers. You can sign up for Kathleen’s newsletter to receive her free short story eBook collection, Working Tails.

Website:

www.kathleendonnelly.com

Newsletter Sign-up:

https://kathleendonnelly.com/#newsletter

Social Media:

Facebook–@AuthorKathleenDonnelly 

Twitter–@KatK9writer

Instagram–@authorkathleendonnelly

Goodreads–https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22280955.Kathleen_Donnelly