Category: mystery

Riding the Camel

~ Janet Dawson ~ 7 Comments

I rode the camel. Of course I did. It’s one of those touristy things I just had to do. I was in Egypt, after all, visiting the pyramids at Giza and contemplating the Sphinx.

This once-in-a-lifetime trip to Egypt was fabulous, marvelous, wonderful. It was a Road Scholar program called “Up the Nile and Into History: Sailing Through the Stories of Egypt.” There were twelve of us on the tour, a manageable group and what’s more, we all got on famously.

Our guide, Ahmed, was personable and knowledgeable, with a sense of humor and lots of stories. He also had a face like that of the Pharoah Khafre, whose statue is displayed in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.

Khafre built the Great Pyramid in Giza. That’s where I rode the camel. The camel wore a saddle cloth with a number and the words Ali Bob Marley. I guessed this was the camel’s name, but I’m not sure. Now, I’m quite short and the camel was tall, even while kneeling. It took Ahmed plus the camel handler to get my foot in the stirrup, let alone get me into the saddle. And once I was up there I felt quite precarious, as I wasn’t seated quite right in the saddle.

I felt like I was going to fall off, especially when the camel got to its feet. The camel handler shifted me into the proper position and off we went. Two or three minutes of riding the camel was plenty for me. The camel knelt, I scrambled off, and Ali Bob Marley and I parted company.

Cairo is overwhelming, full of energy, chaos, all sorts of images. The city is home to about 22 million people and it sprawls on both sides of the Nile, a juxtaposition of ancient and contemporary. Traffic is crazy. Ahmed told me that local drivers view traffic lights and travel lanes as suggestions only. As we navigated the streets in our bus, we saw minivans used as public transit as well as three-wheeled conveyances known as tuk-tuks. And motorbikes, everywhere.

Then there’s the City of the Dead, a huge and ancient cemetery complex that in the 21st century is home to thousands of people. It’s jarring to realize that people are living in those abandoned tombs, some of them with satellite dishes on the roofs.

We visited the recently opened Grand Egyptian Museum, which is vast. Ahmed told us the museum contains over 100,000 artifacts and that it would take a whole week to see everything. As it was, we hit the highlights, including the large gallery devoted to King Tutankhamun.

We left Cairo for Luxor, where the Queen of Egypt served as our hotel. It’s a dahabeya, a traditional flat-bottomed boat, which was towed by a tugboat, though one afternoon there was enough wind for us to sail. I spent plenty of time on deck, reading, making notes, but frequently just staring at the scenery on both sides of the Nile. As we passed villages, children gathered on the riverbank, waving and calling “Hello.”

The names of the temples unwind—Karnak, Luxor, Dendera, Esna, Edfu, Kom Ombo, Philae. And El Kab, the location of a cracking good mystery by my blogmate Janis Patterson. The Valley of the Kings, where tomb KV 62 once held the grave goods of Tutankhamun. I was surprised at the small size of the tomb.

Most awe-inspiring? So many wonderful sites, almost overwhelming. The Great Pyramid, the Sphinx, the Step Pyramid, the island temple at Philae. And definitely Abu Simbel.

Two enormous rock-cut temples carved out of a mountainside in the 13th century BC, one temple for Rameses II and the second for his wife Nefertari. I am old enough to remember the heroic efforts to move the temple complex to higher ground so it wouldn’t be submerged by the rising waters of Lake Nasser when the Aswan High Dam was built and put into service. The temples were cut into over 1,000 pieces and transported to their new site, above the level of the lake. Being there and seeing the temples makes me realize what a remarkable feat this was.

I’m home now, recuperating from jet lag and getting back to my routine. And thinking about the stories I can tell, with ideas gleaned from my travels. After all, some of Ahmed’s stories about the adventures of a travel guide provided some interesting plots that need to be explored.

Travel is wonderful for a writer. Ideas abound. And one should always ride the camel.

Go Away, Mr. Co-Pilot. You are Sooo Annoying by Heather Haven

~ Heather Haven ~ 9 Comments

In the past, I have embraced AI, not as a lover but as a fellow worker. It did the grunt work I didn’t want to do or couldn’t do as well. For instance, after decades of trying to figure out the “i” before “e” except after “c” scenario I am still at a loss. This is because it isn’t an exact science, this spelling game, as in the word “science.” It’s all very weird. And I rarely spell that one right, either.

Nonetheless, I’m afraid I have to declare open war on AI throughout the land. Not as a servant which it should be, but as an equal which it shouldn’t. Let’s face it, the out-in-the-world AI has no soul, and we have to be very careful about enticing, soulless tools. These tools are going to be as honest as the person using them. And I have found there aren’t as many Honest Abes around as there used to be. But I wax poetic. Or tried to. Let’s see what AI does with that.

Lately I have been wondering why so many businesses are virtually cramming AI down our throats. Successful companies tend to have a projected plan for the future. What is the one with AI? Do they see us in ten years’ time with no longer any thoughts or will of our own? Do we just open our wallets and shell out for yet another AI product that does everything including wipe our noses? If so that means we might wind up no longer thinking human beings but drooling, babbling idiots.  As my mother said, “use it or lose it.” And I’m taking a stand that the mind is a part of this loss.

My new Windows 11 computer came with AI, a Mr. Co-Pilot. He’s everywhere. He does not sleep. He noses his way into any part of my life he can get into. I have been dealing with Siri on my phone for years. Yes, she can be intrusive, but I know how to put her in her place. All it takes is a strong “oh, yeah?” then turning off my phone. When I turn it back on, she’s gone. But this Mr. Co-Pilot, he’s a different breed. Literally. He’s always lurking around inside my computer, waiting to butt in.

I am most offended when he tries to rewrite my books as I am in the very process of writing them. After years of developing a voice, which every writer has to have, he keeps trying to take mine away. Of all the fat nerve. That’s messing with my bread and butter, mister. And he has absolutely no sense of humor. Not a drop. I can write the funniest sentence ever and all he does is try to rewrite it into something bland, bland, bland albeit grammatically correct. Turning the computer off and on again does nothing. He pops up time after time. Unlike Siri, he just can’t take a hint.

I may have been lured in with spellcheck all those years ago, but now I wonder if AI has graduated to something more sinister. Has Mr. Co-Pilot been programmed to rip off the best of my work and send it to somebody directly from my computer? “They” say no. but “they” say a lot of things. Plus, I don’t even know who “they” are. Just some unknown enticing soulless – whoops, I already said that. Sorry.

Whether or not I am being paranoid – pardon me while I take a Valium – I have good reason to think the above could happen. Seven of my novels have already been snitched off the internet and uploaded into a program that offers to write anything for a client from a eulogy to an after-dinner speech to a full-fledged novel. The middleman could have already been eliminated – the internet – and now AI could be going directly into my personal computer fattening up the databanks. I can see the ads: Yes! You, too, can be another Shakespeare. No talent, time, effort, or work required. Don’t dawdle. Send us your $$$ now!

Regarding my pirated novels, there is an ongoing class action suit involving thousands of writers and millions of dollars. Should I live long enough, I might just receive some sort of restitution from these AI pirates. Whatever the sum – it could be a dollar ninety-eight – I’ll take it. It truly is the principle of the thing.

But back to Mr. Co-Pilot, my unwanted partner in nearly everything I do on the computer. I understand it is possible to disable him. As the instructions are several pages long, I suspect it will take many hours to do so. Also, it isn’t clear exactly what else gets disabled, but there is a huge warning there can be consequences. Is that a ruse? Or will other features take a powder as well? Got me. So, I have asked my IT guy to come over and help me out. It will take some time, effort, and $$$. but it would be grand – no, a relief – to get back to writing my stories solo.

What I’ve learned from my readers

~ susanoleksiw ~ 4 Comments

Every writer learns early or late that readers have views. We’re used to the views of paid or unpaid reviewers, and learn a way to respond to them—ignore the reviews, take them personally, or some response between the two. The views of ordinary readers, those not expecting to see their opinions in print, have come to be more important to me.

One of the first reader responses came in the form of a postcard. A reader in the 1990s in the Pacific Northwest wrote to tell me, in terse language, that she’d just finished reading Double Take and she wouldn’t kill for the motive I ascribed to the killer. My first reaction was something sarcastic, but then I thought she was telling me something—this reader wanted a motive she could relate to, which in turn meant she wanted a killer more complicated, as well as more relatable. This is fair, and a pretty good lesson for any writer, so I’ve kept it in mind.

I found an unusual report on OSHA about a home-heating device that filled a home with a kind of exhaust, depriving it of oxygen. A woman arrived at the summer cottage as expected and after a while felt ill. She tried to light a match to start a fire, but the match wouldn’t light; she gave up, and went out onto the porch, where the reception was better, to call her husband on her cell. An editor found the situation unbelievable, but I cited the OSHA report. That wasn’t enough, she said, because the reader wouldn’t be likely to know this technical point, so the story didn’t work overall. The lesson there is to fit the technical information into the story before it’s necessary, or at the point where it can counter the reader’s skepticism. I followed that lesson in another story that depended on the victim having technical knowledge not available to the villain to enable her to survive.

Conferences are a great opportunity to hear from readers, as we all know, and in my experience they tell me exactly what I’m overlooking. I treated Chief Joe Silva in the Mellingham series as an iconic figure—he literally appeared in the town square in an early chapter, and I liked his independence and unattached presence. Not only did he not have a lady friend, a partner, even an occasional visitor, he never mentioned his family. And my readers felt the absence. They wanted to know about Joe’s family. While I was populating the small town of Mellingham with all the quirky souls I loved, my fans were reading between the lines in search of hints about Joe’s parents and siblings, perhaps an ex-wife or two hiding somewhere. It took me a while, but in the end Joe’s family got two books, one for his birth family and one for his own, constructed family.

I’m not always sure what the best response is to some reactions. In Below the Tree Line, the first in a series about farmer Felicity O’Brien, the action revolves in part around timbering. As a former farm owner working with state and private foresters, I knew something about managing a forest for income (it’s not lucrative). But what we call timberingin New England is called logging in the West, and this difference surprised the reviewer. I read the reviewer’s own mystery, also about a woman who owned a farm, and even allowing for the license allowed a writer of a mystery novel, I was appalled at some of her behavior. I couldn’t see it happening in New England, at least not without consequences. Certain aspects of life are more geographically defined than I realized—and this goes well beyond local accents.

In the Felicity O’Brien series I was prepared for the concern some readers expressed about cats in mysteries, and made a point of feeding my cat, Miss Anthropy, on time and giving her attention, even though she was not one for cuddling. The rescue dog, however, brought out a lot of unexpected advice, most of it unnecessary but interesting. It was a reminder of the boundaries of our chosen genre, and the core decency of our readers. Violate the standards at your peril.

The last lesson comes more from watching readers react to changes in other series, reactions I’ve heeded as warnings. In the Mellingham series, Joe Silva can grow and change in relation to the world around him. Because he is who he is, a middle-aged police chief in his prime, without the handicap of a dark past, he’s expected to grow into relationships like any other normal person. And he does. In the Anita Ray series, Anita’s environment is the hotel with her beloved Auntie Meena, the desk clerk Ravi, and other staff members from the surrounding village. This is a light-hearted, static world, and somewhere along the line I understood she could not change without disrupting that world. New hotels might go up, tourists from newly independent countries might arrive, war might break out, but Anita and her compatriots would remain the same. Joe’s world is dynamic, as is Felicity’s, but Anita’s is not. 

The interaction between reader and writer in crime fiction is one of the best features of this genre—the community is so fully engaged that we as writers can only benefit. It may not always feel that way (So, exactly why did Felicity do that?), but in the end the readers are usually on to something, and I’m ready to listen.

Five Writing Resolutions for 2026

~ dzchurch ~ 3 Comments
  • To not get wound around my own axles, via the love of research, enthusiasm for the plot, allowing the characters to do the writing, and fingers that won’t stop typing. In the end, all the above result in too much exposition (see #3) and side plots that appear out of nowhere, which need to be wrestled in or out depending on their value to the plot. As for those fingers that just keep typing, I need to keep them curbed, especially on dialogue. Too often, my dialogue requires pruning as though I were nibbling at centuries-old grapevines, hoping to produce an excellent vintage.

Or maybe I should get wound in my axles, maybe the ultimate quality of the story is a composite of all these attributes, and for me, guilty of all three, the editing process results in a more textured tale. Still, I would like to simplify my process. I am eternally jealous of all of you who can write multiple books per year across multiple series, while I untangle the string wound around my bike spokes.

  • To add more of the natural world. I always feel like I have too many trees, bushes, clouds, etc., roaming around in my books. But maybe it is not the number but the proclivity I have to write chestnut tree when I should be describing the hand-like leaves through which the sun dapples the ground? What color is the ground? Is it dusty, gravelly, filled with worn footfalls? How does fire dance other than leap, explode, cavort, or crawl? I feel that I need to make the visual world more experiential, especially with those pesky chestnut trees that succumbed to disease after my books take place. But then there is #3 below.
  • To watch for telling signs of telling. I worry that, since the Wanee books are told from Cora’s point of view, it is too easy to fall into telling. Should I add another point-of-view? Or is there another, more dynamic way to include action that happens off-stage, without having the observer relate it to the protagonist, and risk descending into telling? And what about setting the stage for a book when a few things need to be “told” to bring the reader up to date? What about that? It can be deucedly hard to avoid telling it. Though, in general, I think I do a pretty good job making it more observational than tell-y.
  • To plot more, rewrite less. As if. My brain tumbles out the story in a riot of words, leaving me to fix it all later. Because of this, my current process requires me to edit, edit again, edit some more, then more, possibly even more, then smooth, smooth, smooth. Then recheck every word that looks inappropriate for the period (See #5), even though I know I checked them before. Not to mention, checking and rechecking the dates historical items came into use, like telephones, arc lights, batteries for telegraphing and clothing – OMG. I suspect that if I took laborious notes, indexed them to their locations in the book, and added comments for each, I could save myself considerable editing. Or I can just write with abandon and make myself crazy. Is it too late for me to change? Probably, but I do have more plot notes for my upcoming book than usual. Does that count?
  • To figure out how best to use AI. From Grammarly to Autocrit, to well everywhere these days, AI is happy to judge and make suggestions about your plot, characters, and even evaluate your dialogue for appropriateness to the 1870s, as though you hadn’t done the research before using a word, phrase or cadence. Idioms can be weirdly tricky; Shakespeare’s can sound new and something like ‘it takes one to know one’ old, when the reverse is true. One AI critique noted that, on occasion, my characters’ phrasing is too modern. How does it know? Does it know every word and phrase used across the United States in the 1870s? I would say no since each word AI deemed anachronistic was used in the 1870s, but it missed a few that weren’t, which I caught on my gazillionth read. My favorite suggestion to date is an AI-generated list of overused words. So far, these oft-used words have been characters’ names and Mr. and Miss/Mrs. in a time when this was the proper form of address.

Can AI be helpful? Yes. It can, especially regarding grammar and finding pesky misspellings, though AI recently missed a homonym that had it not been caught by a human would have embarrassed me forever. Meaning, AI doesn’t replace edit, edit again, edit some more, then more, possibly even more, then smooth, smooth, smooth, but it does have a place.

Free resolution:

  • To write a new standalone thriller, because I miss the thrills. I love writing thrillers with a little romance (Saving Calypso, Booth Island, Perfidia). I do. So why haven’t I written one in over four years? Now isn’t that just a fine and dandy question?

For more about D. Z. Church and her books, check out https://dzchurch.com.

Meet the people in my newest pages

~ donaleeMoulton ~ 2 Comments
by donalee Moulton

My new book Melt is a mystery. It’s also a story about friendship. And more. I thought I’d share with you 10 fun facts about the people who populate these pages.

1. There is power in numbers.

In my previous books, there was a main character. In this book, there are three. Someone asked me which of the triad was the most important. The answer: no one. Each woman—Charlene, Lexie, and Woo Woo—is equally significant and plays a key role. They also, as friends, become greater than the individual sum of their parts.

2. There is power in PPT.

When you write a book, characters develop personality quirks you hadn’t anticipated. One character has a penchant for PowerPoint. Hint: It’s the auditor.

3. There is power in professionalism.

I did not do a detailed backstory for the three protagonists when they were first introduced in Bind. Much of how the characters evolved was organic. They seemed to tell me who they were—and what they did for a living. Can you guess who is the auditor, the comedian, the reflexologist?

4. There is power in having a puppy.

This is my first cast of characters that features a pet. Madoff is the auditor’s dog, but he becomes everyone’s favorite ball of fur, and everyone is active in his life: walking him, rubbing his belly, giving him well-deserved treats, and tucking him in when he stays up past his bedtime.

5. There is power in pasta.

As with the first book, food plays a central role in Melt. It brings the women and their friends together for pleasure, and for less-pleasurable activities. The food that is dished up also serves as a way of introducing readers to some favorite restaurants, bakeries, and delis in Halifax.

6. There is power in the pub.

In the first book, the two detectives meet for beer, burgers, and business in a pub. Pubs are part of the fabric of life in Nova Scotia. They are places to unwind, eat good food at good prices, and sip something hoppy (or otherwise). In Melt, the detectives continue to gather at the Dry Dock. In some cases, they’re joined by the three women who have also become part of the fabric of their lives.

7. There is power in a punchline.

To my surprise, and perhaps my chagrin, Melt is funny. I should be neither surprised nor chagrined by this because my writing often has an edge to it. I just didn’t see it turning up here. The characters knew better.

8. There is power in place.

I grew up and live in Nova Scotia. It made sense to locate Charlene, Lexie, Woo Woo, and their friends here. What I didn’t realize was how knowing a place well would transfer to the page. Many readers have told me how much they enjoy seeing where they live come to life. Many people  who don’t live here have told me they feel like they have come to know Nova Scotia as locals know it.

9. There is power in poetry.

For the first time, poetry makes its way into one of my mystery books. It’s an inside joke admittedly, but it is also a reminder that poetry isn’t something we learn in high school and leave behind. If we’re lucky, it’s something we take with us as life unfolds.

10. There is power in a provocative first line.

The first line for Melt came to me quickly. It made me chuckle, and it set the scene for the opening chapter. I second guessed myself though wondering if the line was too much. In the end, I ended up where I started. Happily. Let me know what you think.