Lifus Interuptus by Paty Jager

March 14, 2016 ~ patyjag ~ 7 Comments

This photo is why my post is late. Grandkids have taken over my office!

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I started out 2016 telling myself I wasn’t going to push so hard. Last year I wrote and published four mystery novels, three western historical romance novels, and one novella. The three projects at the end of the year were almost more than I could handle. That’s when I made my decision for 2016 to write two novels and a novella in the mystery series and two historical western romance this year.

However, due to catching the virus going around and family visiting, I’m already behind my slower pace for this year. Killer Descent was to be published by now but it is a week to two weeks out.

Killer Descent book five in the Shandra Higheagle Mysteries

Abuse…Power…Murder

Once again Shandra Higheagle finds herself a suspect in a murder investigation when an ex-lover is found murdered on a Huckleberry ski run. A past she’d planned to never divulge now must be shared with the first man she’s trusted, Detective Ryan Greer.

Ryan puts his job in jeopardy when he’s booted from the case and uses all resources plus a few extra to prove Shandra is innocent. The information leads them down a road of blackmail and betrayal of the ugliest kind.

This past weekend, one of my daughter’s went with me on a road trip to a book signing. On the way back we started brainstorming the Christmas mystery I’ve been thinking about writing this year. It was fun, since she’s read the books in the series and knows the characters. She gave me some fun ideas. Have any of you ever read a book where and animal is the main suspect? I’m thinking about making Sheba, Shandra’s canine sidekick,the suspect.

And I plan to introduce a couple of new characters into the next couple of books to also use as suspects. That is the fun of writing a mystery series, incorporating characters you know will be suspects or the killers in books to come. I’m always thinking two to three books ahead when I write a book to drop small clues to what may be a next book.

As a reader do you you like clues to a possible next book dropped in? Or does it make you upset if that little nugget isn’t the next book in the series?

SH Mug Art (2)

patyjager.net

Writing into the Sunset

Researching a Mystery by Paty Jager

February 8, 2016February 5, 2016 ~ patyjag ~ 5 Comments

SH Mug Art (2)

I’m not a forensic coroner or a lawyer or even a law enforcer. I’m the wife of a rancher and I write murder mystery.

As I write this next book in my Shandra Higheagle Mystery Series I’ve come across questions that have required answers by professionals. When I start a book I know how the victim will die and where. But I ultimately need to know what their injuries would look like say if they fall off a cliff or are stabbed with a blunt object or shot at close range with a small caliber gun.

These are all things coroners have seen and can tell me. But how do I get a coroner on speed-dial or in my case speed e-mail? I’m part of a yahoo loop that is filled with every kind of occupation a mystery or murder writer might need expertise about. The yahoo loop is crimescenewriter@yahoogroups.com

That’s how I connected with a coroner who not only answered my question I put on the loop but also emailed back and forth with me as I asked more questions and what-if’s. She has lots of knowledge and being a budding writer is willing to help out fellow writers.

Writing the opening and how the victim is killed and what is discovered went well, knowing I had the correct information and knowledge. Then I brought in some secondary characters and a sub-plot. For the sub-plot I needed some legal information. I turned to my niece who is a para-legal and what she couldn’t answer she knew where to send me to find the information. After my niece and I discussed the issue I wanted brought up in my book and how I wanted it dealt with, she suggested I contact a law enforcement officer. I happen to have one in the family. 😉

I sent off an email explaining what I wanted to do, how would it be handled, and after some back and forth ,that element of the sub-plot was worked out.

Writing mystery books is my favorite writing experience. Not only do I have to puzzle out a mystery that will keep the reader thinking, I have to make sure the forensics and laws will work in the story and enhance the overall realness of the crime and the killer.

Have you read books where you could tell the writer hadn’t researched the laws or forensics? Did it bother you while reading the book or is that something that doesn’t bother you?

~*~

Award-winning author Paty Jager and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. She not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it. All Paty’s work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Her penchant for research takes her on side trips that eventually turn into yet another story.

You can learn more about Paty at:

her blog; Writing into the Sunset

her website; http://www.patyjager.net

Guest Blogger -JL Greger

January 16, 2016January 6, 2016 ~ patyjag ~ 3 Comments

Mystery Writers Are Like Scientists

No way you say.

Wait! I think I can convince you that writing a mystery novel is similar to conducting a science experiment.

Writers and scientists both do a lot of sleuthing. Granted, scientists try to quantitate their observations more than writers. And writers’ descriptions of their observations are hopefully more colorful than journal articles.

They both organize their observations into a whole, which writers call plots and scientists call hypotheses.

They both test and refine their “whole.” Writers edit their prose; scientists run additional experiments.

Both require a lot of hard work to gain occasional flashes of insights. To paraphrase Thomas Edison, they’re “one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Why did I drag you through this discussion? I’m trying to explain why so many scientists and physicians became writers of mysteries and thrillers. Consider Michael Crichton (a physician by training), Kathy Reichs (a forensic anthropologist), Robin Cook (a physician). I’m also explaining how as a retired biology professor I came to write mystery/suspense novels with tidbits of science. My latest thriller is I Saw You in Beirut.

Through this discussion, I hope you learn how bits of science add realism to a mystery.

Did you know? In the early 1960s, scientists identified zinc deficiency in peasants in Iran. At that time, two to three percent of the villagers in some regions of Iran didn’t pass the physical for the army because of stunted growth. Dr. James Halstead, Sr. who was married to President’s Roosevelt’s daughter, Anna, headed the research team at Shiraz. Surprised?

I created Doc Steinhaus, a fictional character in I Saw You in Beirut, who worked on the project in Shiraz as a grad student. He was a logical way to “show not tell” readers about Iran and advance the plot. Let’s face it most foreign agents don’t look or act like James Bond, but they can be a lot more nuanced.

What’s thrilling in I Saw You in Beirut? A mysterious source of leaks on the Iranian nuclear industry, known only as F, sends an email from Tabriz: Help. Contact Almquist. Intelligence sources determine the message refers to Sara Almquist, a globetrotting epidemiologist, and seek her help to extract F from Iran. As Sara tries to identify F by dredging up memories about her student days with Doc Steinhaus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her work in Lebanon and the Emirates, groups ostensibly wanting to prevent F’s escape, attack her repeatedly. She begins to suspect her current friendship with Sanders, a secretive State Department official, is the real reason she’s being attacked.

Maybe, John Addegio’s comments will convince you that smart scientists make this mystery a real thriller. “Greger writes about international agencies and scientific exigencies with authority, and I SAW YOU IN BEIRUT is a thrilling spy tale with compelling female actors asserting their intelligence in both exotic and domestic, male-dominated, high-stakes political environments.”

Where can I get I Saw You in Beirut?

The paperback at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610092201 and the eBook from Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/i-saw-you-in-beirut-jl-greger/1123184446?ean=2940158046957

Bio: JL Greger’s thrillers/mysteries include: Malignancy (winner of 2015 Public Safety Writers’ annual contest), Ignore the Pain, Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight, Coming Flu, and I Saw you in Beirut. The Albuquerque area is the home base for her stories, but Sara (like the author) travels to Cuba and Bolivia in Malignancy and Ignore the Pain, respectively. Her website is: http://www.jlgreger.com

How long should a Series be? by Paty Jager

January 11, 2016January 6, 2016 ~ patyjag ~ 12 Comments

paty shadow (1) When I came up with the idea for a mystery series, the second thing I thought about after bringing Shandra Higheagle to life was: Can I write enough stories to make this a long running series?

So I sat down and thought about where she lives- a ski resort; what she does- a potter; and then the people she is closest to. Her family history and heritage also can play into several story lines Bookmark Front . All of these things figured into stories I could write to expand the series.

I’m also finding that as I write a story, something will pop up that sends me to my list of story ideas and adding another one. Also, things I hear and see on the news starts and idea for a premise of a story.

I figured if Sue Grafton could write 26 books with the same sleuth, Janet Evanovich went for Tricky Twenty-Two, and Tony HIllerman put out 19, I should be able to come up with that many mysteries for Shandra to solve without her or the stories getting stale.

Right now I’m researching for Book 5. I know who will be killed and who will be suspected, but I still need to write up my suspect chart, which will happen after I know more about the murder venue. Usually by this stage I have a title for the book. This one isn’t coming to me as easily. But I’m sure by the time I get to the middle of the book, I’ll know my title.

If you read series, has there come a time when you’ve found the series going stale? Why do you think that happened?

www.patyjager.net

Writing into the Sunset

Guest Blogger – Keenan Powell

January 9, 2016January 3, 2016 ~ patyjag ~ 3 Comments

Writing mysteries is hard. Like other writers, we try to create engaging and sympathetic characters caught up in a story that moves along, yet has depth (and loads of tension) set in an evocative location. Unlike the task of those other writers, we need to frame the story within a puzzle.

I love the puzzle. I love reading a good story that keeps me guessing. I love it when I find out who did it at the end of the book and I had actually considered that person but eliminated him from my list of suspects. If the culprit is someone I didn’t suspect, I’ll go back through the book to look for clues just to make sure the writer was playing fair. It’s rare when I correctly guess the murder early and when I do, I’m disappointed. But when I reach the end of good mystery and I’m surprised by whodunit, I get a little splash of pleasure – like when I was a kid and found an Easter egg.

So when I write a story for my fellow mystery fans, I try to build a puzzle the solution of which gives them that same little splash of pleasure.

The puzzle I build looks like a maze inside my head with lots of wrong turns, dead-ends, and circuitous routes. What I try to do is create that same maze inside the reader’s head. But the reader doesn’t have the omniscient view I have, she can only see as far as the next turn.

In guiding the reader through the maze, I try to use her human tendencies toward suspicion, sympathy, confirmation bias (looking for evidence to support an opinion), and anchoring (the tendency to rely on the first piece of information one acquires) as well as the sophisticated mystery reader’s familiarity with certain devices like the red herring and the double-blind solution. These tendencies can be exploited to guide, or misdirect, the readers as she wanders through the maze.

It’s not a contest of who is smarter: writer versus reader. Writing mystery is like hostessing an Easter egg hunt on a fine spring day. We’re all wearing lovely white Victorian gowns and frolicking through the rose hedges on a lush green lawn as we sleuth out the solution. I, as your hostess, have devised the entertainment. I hope you enjoy.

***

Keenan Powell.2 (169x300) Keenan Powell is a practicing attorney in Anchorage, Alaska, and the author of the Maeve Malloy legal mysteries set in contemporary urban Alaska. Visit her at: