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Book Topics Archive 2 (not as old)

                                      Book Topics Archive 1 (oldest) 
                                     

Tucson Festival of Books, 2012

Joel Fox, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Pascal Marco

Moderator Mark McLemore with Yvonne Navarro and Cynthia Garner

Angela Knight, Cherie Priest and Kevin Hearne

Cozies Need Respect Too!

Moderator Lesa Holstine, with Kate Carlisle, Earlene Fowler and Avery Aames

 Book 

The Girl Next Door by Brad Parks

Every time I pick up a Brad Parks book, I'm waiting to see what kind of trouble his newspaper reporter, Carter Ross, can get into. This time, he "Wasn't put off by the potential loss of his job, by hits to his reputation, or even the threat of jail." If you like witty characters, the newspaper business, and a reporter who makes just about the worst mistakes he can, you'll enjoy The Girl Next Door.

It started out as a simple obituary. Carter Ross, a veteran reporter at the Newark Eagle-Examiner, read obits for inspiration for stories. He convinced his editor, Tina Thompson, that he wanted to write a story about Nancy Marino. Nancy worked as a waitress, but she was also a delivery person for the newspaper, a union representative. Everyone seemed to like her. "She worked two jobs, kept her mother company..." He called the piece, "Fanfare for the Common Woman." And, that worked, until her sister prodded Carter, saying the hit-and-run accident might have been murder. And, Carter couldn't let go of the story, especially with the link to the newspaper. What if the link to the newspaper was bigger than anyone thought?

Carter enlists the help of a friend on the paper, Tommy Hernandez, and an intern nobody respects, Kevin Lungford. But, even his friends can't save Carter when he goes too far with his investigation, attracting the attention of the publisher. It's going to take dogged determination to keep going when wiser heads warn Ross off the story.

Carter Ross is my kind of character, one who stands up for the underdog, and persists against all odds. And, in The Girl Next Door, he persists in continuing his reckless actions, almost to the point where he's TSTL. TSTL, "Too Stupid To Live" is a complaint readers have when sleuths are reckless with their own safety. Carter is only saved by his final awareness as to how stupid he was. And, it isn't as if he deliberately set out to endanger himself. He actually tried to tell everyone, from his editor to the police, what he thought was happening. But no one would listen.

Brad Parks knows how to create characters. Carter Ross and the staff at the newspaper are brilliantly written. Tommy Hernandez, the gay Cuban-American reporter, is wonderful. Other than Carter Ross, though, Parks' best characters, book after book, are the different newspaper interns. They're all original, and funny.

But, Carter Ross is the heart of these stories. He loves the newspaper business, loves Newark with all its flaws, and, really, just loves people. He's witty and bright, and, sometimes, he's his own worst enemy, as in The Girl Next Door. He's also the first one to admit he isn't perfect, and that makes him lovable.

I'll admit right now that most readers will see the solution to this case long before Carter Ross does. Knowing he's heading in the wrong direction is part of the fun of this book. You won't want to miss the latest installment in Carter Ross' adventures, The Girl Next Door.

(Please come back tomorrow when Brad Parks is my guest blogger. His subject just might surprise you. And, Brad will be appearing for Authors @ The Teague on April 5 at 2 p.m.)

Brad Parks is a winner of the Nero Award and the Shamus Award. His latest book, The Girl Next Door, releases from St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books on March 13. For more Brad, sign up for his newsletter

Rhys Bowen, Cara Black, and Libby Fischer Hellmann
 for Authors @ The Teague

What a wonderful afternoon! I had the chance to go to lunch with Rhys Bowen, Cara Black and Libby Fischer Hellmann before their appearance for Authors @ The Teague. And, we celebrated downtown Glendale. Libby and Cara wanted to go to Bitzee Mama's, across from the library. They said they always go there when they appear at Velma Teague. We followed it up with a trip to A Shot of Java, so Cara could have espresso. And, of course, I gave them the French mints from Cerreta Candy Company. All the authors who appear at Velma Teague get those.

Rhys Bowen, Cara Black and Libby Fischer Hellmann

And, we had a nice audience for the event, including a number of new people in attendance. After the introduction, Rhys Bowen started the program by saying she and Cara have a symbiotic relationship. They often tour together because they both have books out in March. And, they've had some unusual signings, including one at a nudist colony. Fortunately, it was a cold night, and most people came clothed, except for one man. He was a large bearded man who wore nothing but a little backpack, and paraded back and forth as the authors talked. Rhys assured us she could handle anything that might happen during the program.

Rhys said she and Cara also see the same things in the universe. Last year, Bowen's Molly Murphy book, Bless the Bride, came out, and it was set in New York's Chinatown. Cara's new book is set in a Parisian Chinatown. Rhys is anxious to see how the experiences compare.

In Bless the Bride set in early 20th century New York, the Chinese were excluded from society. They had no rights. And, they looked different. The men wore blue outfits, and had long pigtails, queues. They didn't want to cut their pigtails because they hoped to return to China. If they cut their pigtails, it was a sign of disrespect to the Emperor, and that meant instant beheading. But, the Chinese were also terrible gamblers, and gambled away their earnings. So they didn't have the money to return home.

Rhys said she's lucky to use the various environments of New York for her books. She can explore the deep dark parts of the city, such as opium dens, for one book. Then, she set this year's book in what she calls New York's Downton Abbey. The cottages in Newport, Rhode Island were actually summer palaces for families such as the Astors and Vanderbilts. They were fabulous homes, without many bedrooms. They enjoyed parties, but didn't want people to spend the night. Those mansions, used only for six weeks or so in the summer, are all along a spit of land in Newsport.

Because of a case, Molly and her new husband, Daniel Sullivan, were forced to cut their honeymoon short in Bless the Bride. Now, in Hush Now, Don't You Cry, a New York alderman lent them the guest cottage on his estate. But, Molly is always suspicious. Why is this politician being so nice to an ordinary policeman? Then they learn the rest of the man's family has been invited to spend the weekend at this house, usually only used in the summer. This newly built house, looking like an Irish castle, already has secrets.

Cara Black joked that she always follows Rhys. In her latest Aimée Leduc Investigations, Murder at the Lanterne Rouge, Aimée is finally back in the Marais. Marais, which means marsh in French, was once a swamp until it was drained for houses for the aristocrats. The fourth and third arrondissements are in the Marais. This book takes place in the third arrondissement, in the northeast part. It's set in the smallest and oldest Chinatown in Paris. Black was in Paris, and went down a narrow street, and came across a fourteenth century building. Then she heard Chinese, and the click of mahjong tiles. A mercantile group of Chinese live in just a few narrow streets there. They are entrepreneurs. Then, she heard a rumbling noise. What was behind that noise? Machines. People were working on machines in sweatshops at night, behind the front of luggage and wholesale jewelry shops.


Four years ago, Cara was meeting with a friend, a member of the intelligence branch of the police force in Paris. He made the comment, "No one dies in Chinatown." She asked him what he meant by that, and he said, "You're a writer. You figure it out." Why wouldn't people die in Chinatown? Because, to register a death, they have to have papers. Identity cards are passed around in Chinatown, so no one has papers.


And, of course, Black had to include the Knights Templar in this book because this was their area. One day she saw courtyard doors open, and she wandered in, as she often does. There were Polish workmen working in the courtyard, but there was also the base of a medieval tower, a Templar tower. Napoleon destroyed most of them because Marie Antoinette had been imprisoned in one before she was executed, and he didn't want the Royalists to rally around the towers. The only other thing Cara would say was love doesn't work out for poor René, Aimée's business partner.

Libby Fischer Hellman's forthcoming book, A Bitter Veil, is set in Iran. But, before writing that, she wrote two mystery series. One series features Ellie Foreman, a single mother. She said she also has a similarity to Rhys' books. One of the Ellie Foreman books takes place in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, called the Newport of the Midwest. In that book, she showed the contrast between the rich and those who serve. Libby loves to include historical elements in her books. Her book, Set the Night on Fire, is set in the late 60s. Even though many of us lived through the 60s, unfortunately, that's not considered history. It's a standalone thriller.

 ABitterVeil is another thriller. It features a young woman who graduated in 1978. She met a young Iranian engineering student while they were in school in Chicago, and they fell in love. They married and moved to Tehran. Unfortunately, they moved there just before the Shah was deposed and the rise of the Islamic Republic.

Hellmann did an enormous amount of research about the Iranian Revolution. She said the mystery community is very close and supportive. She put out the word that she was looking for Iranian-Americans who were there during the revolution, and within a few weeks, had contact information for five of them. One was a woman from Cara's book group. She had such an intriguing story that Libby used some of that in A Bitter Veil. She had her vet the manuscript to make sure it was right. Her publisher had it vetted again, and then they had someone check on the pronunciation to ensure it was right for the audio.

A Bitter Veil comes out next month in print, audio, and ebook. It takes place from 1978-80.

When Libby asked the others about research, Rhys answered first. Molly lives in New York City, which hasn't changed a lot since 1904. She selected her house in Greenwich Village deliberately. A professor at Fordham University contacted Rhys and said, "I'm living in Molly's house." He sent her pictures of the inside and out, which is just as Bowen pictured it.

Bowen said she received a gift once when she was there and came across a festival in that area. There were little booths, and cooking food. The booths were on both sides of the street, and the crowds were channeled in the middle. The sound bounced back from the tenement walls, and Rhys realized how loud the streets were, and that would have been just what it was like when Molly lived there. She saw a sign that said, "Freak Show. Come and See the Snake Woman - 50 cents." She used that in Oh Danny Boy. You can really experience Molly's world in New York.

She also told us Google Earth has been great for her to see where Molly would walk, and she can check back on the site. In addition, 1903 was the age of the Brownie camera. There are lots of photos of New York in 1900, and Rhys can go back and look at those photographs. Then, there is the New York Times for every day.

It's possible, though, to over-research. You can get consumed with getting it right while creating our own world. Rhys said she's one who reads a book, and notices if something is wrong. She loves Connie Willis, whose book, Blackout, is about the blitz. And, at one point, a landlady tells a character how much it will cost to use the phone. But, she used a coin that wasn't yet in use. Once she used the wrong monetary system, Bowen didn't trust anything else in the book.

Cara loves to do research. A photographer took photos in 1890 of the streets, and she wanted to see the medieval streets. The photos were taken at dawn when no one was there. But, the streets haven't changed, and it was like looking at the past and the present.

Cara Black's books are set in the 1990s, and the latest is set in 1998 when the money was still francs, and there was still smoking in cafes. When she does research, she wants to know what the big world events were. Who was visiting at the time? She also looks at the ads. In Murder at the Lanterne Rouge, the January sales are going on. It's shortly after Princess Diana's death, so the investigation is still going on. The World Cup will be in six months.

Libby said she was also lucky. The Iranian Revolution was well-covered with pictures. She had the chronology. A Bitter Veil is seen through the eyes of a young American woman. Hellmann watched the first speech Khomeini made after returning to Iran. She couldn't understand it, but then she realized her character, Anna, wouldn't have been able to understand it either. He started slowly and then built up to his denunciations of Americans.

Black said many of the Chinese came to France in 1912 from Wenzu province. The French boys were in the war, so the country needed workers. They imported them from China. Ho Chi Minh and Chou En Lai both worked in Paris. Young single men worked there, and then many returned home. There are four Chinatowns in Paris, and Black's book takes place in the smallest, oldest one.

Hellmann asked the others about writing characters. Are Molly and Aimée still the character they thought they'd be when they started writing about them?

Bowen started with Constable Evans. She liked the series, but he was just too polite. She wanted to write a feisty, first person female, a character a lot more like Rhys. She went to Ellis Island while trying to decide where to set Molly Murphy. She thought she knew what to expect, but she was overcome with emotion. And, her family were not immigrants. The walls seemed to be shouting at her. She felt great joy, and that people had escaped from great horrors.

In Murphy's Law, Molly accidentally kills the man, the son of the landowner, who was trying to rape her. She flees, taking another woman's name. But, when she gets to Ellis Island, there is a murder, and that name is the name of the prime suspect. When she set it in Manhattan, she thought I've just committed myself to doing research for every book for the rest of my life because she didn't know New York history. Hush Now, Don't You Cry is the eleventh book in the series. Molly is four years older, a little wiser. She just got married. She's still imprudent, though, and doesn't think things through.

Cara said she isn't French. But, she grew up in a Francophile family. Her father was a Francophile who loved French food. Her mother had to cook Julia Child's recipes. And, Black went to French Catholic schools where she was taught French by nuns. She was an eighteen-year-old, backpacking in Paris, and determined to use her French. One man listened to her, and then, with a British accent, told her you're using words we haven't used since 1900. The nuns taught an older version of French. To this day, France feels familiar, but different to her.

In 1984, a friend took Cara to the Marais, to the fourth arrondissement, the lower part, and pointing to a window, said, "That where my mother lived during the German Occupation." She was fourteen, wearing a yellow star and going to school. When she came home one day, her family was gone. The concierge and others took care of her during the war. In 1944, when the war ended, there  was a place people could go to get help finding their families. People put up signs asking if you have seen this family. A woman came up to Black's friend's mother, and said, "I saw your sister get off the train at Auschwitz."

Ten years later, Cara was in France with her family. She put her son to bed, and walked down the street, thinking what would these cobblestones say. What would have you done to survive? It took her three and a half years to write the first Aimée Leduc Investigations mystery, Murder in the Marais.

Black said she loved Sara Paretsky. She wanted her detective to be strong, but vulnerable. She has issues. She was raised by her father, a policeman, and there were police around the table at night. Aimée makes mistakes. Now, she's four years older. It was Rhys who mentioned that if anyone saw Midnight in Paris, they saw Duluc Detective Agency. That's the firm Cara  used as the basis for Leduc Investigations.

I wrapped up the program by asking the authors where they were going with their books. Rhys Bowen said she writes a series besides Molly Murphy. Her Royal Spyness series features a minor royal in the 1930s. That's the series she chuckles over. The last book in that series was Naughty in Nice. The next one in that series will be a Christmas mystery coming out in November, The Twelve Clues of Christmas. Rhys calls that series, "Downton Abbey with bodies." That series has been optioned for a movie. Now, they're saying it should start shooting in England in the third quarter of this year.

Cara Black told us she had submitted her manuscript to her editor for the next book in the Aimée Leduc Investigations. It will be set three months after Murder at the Lanterne Rouge.

Libby Fischer Hellmann's next book is set in Cuba. It's her last revolutionary novel. She's still working on it. The book begins during the revolution. The second part takes place in the early 90s in Cuba when the economy collapsed. The third part will be in Chicago at the present time. The book covers three generations of the same family. Then, Hellmann will go back to her Georgia Davis series.

As always, it was a treat to welcome Rhys Bowen, Cara Black and Libby Fischer Hellmann to the Velma Teague Library for Authors @ The Teague.

Left to right - Rhys Bowen, Lesa Holstine, Cara Black and Libby Fischer Hellmann

=============================================

Murder at the Lanterne Rouge by Cara Black

I've never been to Paris, but every time I read one of Cara Black's Aimée Leduc Investigations, I feel immersed in the city and the culture. The stories are rich with detail, dense, complicated mysteries in which Paris comes to life. In Murder at the Lanterne Rouge, Black takes us into one of the four Chinatowns in the city in January 1998.

 Book Review - Desert Wind by Betty Webb

Desert Wind by Betty Webb

On the jacket of Betty Webb's latest Lena Jones mystery, Desert Wind, David Morrell is quoted as saying, "A must-read." It is. Webb has tackled tough subjects before, everything from polygamy to genital mutilation on young girls, but Desert Wind may be her most controversial and powerful book yet. It's a book that should scare everyone living in the Southwest.

In 1954 in Snow Canyon, Utah, Gabe Boone was a horse wrangler on the set of the filming of The Conqueror, a film that starred John Wayne as Genghis Khan, and Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead. Gabe idolized Wayne, who treated all the cast and crew as friends, including the Paiute Indians. But, Gabe did notice that the red dust got in people's lungs, and there were even blisters in the mouths of the horses. The Paiutes themselves had blisters in their mouths. Although Gabe didn't realize it at the time, he was witnessing death.

Almost sixty years later, Lena Jones arrives at her office at Scottsdale, Arizona's Desert Investigations to find her partner, Jimmy Sisiwan, missing. Her uneasy feeling only grew when she received strange messages saying he'd be out for a week or longer, so she tracks him down in Walapai Flats in northwestern Arizona. His brother had been put in jail as a material witness in a murder, and now Jimmy is in jail as well. Lena interferes with Jimmy's plans, and takes it upon herself to find the person who killed the PR man for Black Basin Uranium Mine. The mine, just about to open, is controversial. Many of the residents hope for jobs at the mine, but Jimmy's sister-in-law, an outspoken opponent, was killed in a shooting, and that killer is still loose.

Lena finds resistance in the community, people unwilling to answer her questions. And, Gabe Boone, with his knowledge of the past, might have the key to reveal the secrets of Walapai Flats. Generations of lies and secrets, of scars,  may have led to murder in present-day Arizona.

Each time readers pick up a Lena Jones mystery, we hope to learn a little more about Lena's mysterious past. There have been glimpses into her traumatic childhood, and her time in foster homes. Webb still gives us a glimpse here and there in this book, but Lena's past isn't the focus of this latest crime novel.

Instead, this is about crime on a grand scale, with implications for all Americans, especially those of us who live in the Southwest, I'm not going to spoil Webb's story by giving away too much. She unravels the past beautifully, along with the repercussions. I'll just say, Desert Wind, the latest Lena Jones mystery, is powerful, political, and a book that serves as a warning. David Morrell is right. It truly is "A must-read."

Betty Webb's website is

Beth Aldrich for Authors @ The Teague

Aldrich's book contains a ten part plan to help people have a love affair with food, yet still lose weight or maintain the weight they want to be. The book's content will help readers enjoy food, but not become caught up in the food.

Beth Aldrich is a holistic health counselor. She once had her own PBS TV series in Chicago, but she was in a serious car accident there one January. It made her re-evaluate her life. She loved food and cooking. She loves the smell of food, and loves to prepare food. She even went to culinary school. She decided it was time for a shift in her life. She stopped filming, and went back to school. At the time, she went one weekend a month in New York to become certified through Columbia University and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. She had classes with Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Oz, and other well-known practitioners. Now, you can take those classes online.

Aldrich is a health counselor, not a registered dietitian. She looks at a person's entire lifestyle. The holistic health model covers four areas: spirituality, career, relationships and exercise. It looks at all aspects of life. Aldrich breaks diets apart.

People have love affairs with eating. Aldrich examines the beginnings of our excitement about food. There is nostalgia wrapped around food. Think about Sunday dinner at Grandma's. She examines our eating habits and where they come from. Real Moms Love to Eat contains various vignettes in which Aldrich reminisces about moments in life that influence our relationships with food. There are emotions attached to food, and it's important to honor where we come from. At one point in the book, she asks readers to list ten foods they like, and ten foods they don't like. Then, she helps people customize plans to plug in what they love in their diet, and take out the foods they don't love. Throughout the book, she tells stories people can relate to. Everyone has love affairs with their favorite meals.

It's important to indulge in the foods we like. But, we can indulge in a little cupcake, not the entire cake. She encourages people to indulge in four colorful foods a week, and gradually make changes in their diets.

Beth did say you don't have to be a mother to read this book. However, in order to market the book, it had to be positioned for a certain market. That market was mothers.

She told us she includes tips for sustainability in the book as well. There are opportunities within your own kitchen to live a more sustainable life. Look at the containers used, pots and pans. Be aware of what's going on. She also includes holistic health tips between recipes in the book.

Beth Aldrich concluded by telling us the chapters of Real Moms Love to Eat are densely populated with information to help readers do an entire makeover. Looking at life as a whole is the holistic model.

Beth Aldrich blogs at

Hilary Davidson for Authors @ The Teague & The Poisoned Pen

 

The recap of Hilary Davidson’s Phoenix-area appearances is split between two events, a Feb. 21 event at the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, and the Authors @ The Teague event on Wed. Feb. 22. Hilary appeared both places on her book tour for The Next One to Die, the second book to feature travel writer Lily Moore.

While we viewed slides of the markets, Hilary told us there are 800 kinds of potatoes in Peru. According to an article in Smithsonian, before the Europeans took potatoes back, there had never been enough food in Europe. The population boomed because potatoes became a vital food staple.

They also mentioned coca tea, which is in urns in all the hotel lobbies. People are encouraged to drink the coca tea, and are told it will help them adjust to the altitude. Coca comes from the same plant as cocaine. People chew the leaves. There's coca candy. Coca Cola was called that because cocaine was an ingredient in it at one time.

Hilary mentioned that she has a gluten-free website because she has Celiac Disease. She didn’t know what she could eat in Peru, but it’s gluten-free paradise with potatoes, corn and quinoa. The Incas farmed for self-sufficiency, and the terraced hills at Machu Picchu were designed so the community would be self-sustaining. Asked how people made a living there, Davidson told us there is a theory that Machu Picchu was a royal retreat. It may have been a summer home, and the nobles built houses around it.

She and Barbara both mentioned there is a medication to help people breathe at the high altitude. You need to start it 48 hours ahead of time. If not, you can end up breathing so shallowly that you’ll wake yourself up at night, thinking you’re suffocating. That scene when Lily has that problem in the book is realistic.

Davidson also told us about the Cuzco School of Art. Artists came from Spain to work with the native artists. However, the native artists put their own interpretation on the religious art. For instance, there’s a painting of the Last Supper in a cathedral. Jesus and his apostles are eating guinea pig. And, the native artists did not think it was respectful to portray Jesus in a loin cloth. Instead, they painted him in the linen skirt of the Inca nobility.

They both discussed the train in to Machu Picchu. There’s no road. And, if there’s an accident, people have to be airlifted out. People do fall and die at that remote location.

Hilary made her trip to Peru at the start of the rainy season at the end of October. She stayed for three weeks, and she was hard hit by altitude sickness because she tried to go without the medication. She was still doing travel writing at the time, and her trip to Peru convinced her to set up the Gluten-Free Guidebook, an online resource. She learned a lot in three weeks.

On Wednesday, Hilary introduced her character Lily Moore to the audience at the Velma Teague Library. Lily first appeared in the Anthony Award-winning mystery, The Damage Done. She was a travel writer living in Spain, who was called back to New York because her sister had died. But, when she arrived, she found the body was another woman who had stolen her sister’s identity, and was living in her apartment. This is a dark book, and Lily spends the rest of the book looking for her sister. By the end, she discovered she had been betrayed by lots of people who were close to her.

The Next One to Fall starts three months later. Lily still trusts her best friend, Jesse. He’s a travel photographer who asks her to accompany him to Peru. He wants to spend time with her, for one thing. And, he’s been to Peru before, and finds it beautiful, just breathtaking. He thinks a trip there will get her out of her dark mood. But, they hear a couple arguing, followed by a scream, and then they find a woman at the bottom of a stone staircase. Before Jesse runs for help, Lily glimpsed a man running away from the scene. With Jesse gone, the woman reveals information about the man, and then dies.

Lily knew the dead woman was traveling with a man, but he doesn’t come forward. And, the police dismiss it as a woman on drugs who had an accident. Lily hunts for him, and finds he’s the son of a very wealthy man, and there are a number of dead and missing women in his past. His first wife died in an accident. His second disappeared in Peru. Now, this woman died. Lily feels he must be stopped, and she wants justice for the women.

Once Hilary introduced her books, we showed a slide show about Machu Picchu that she has on her website. Machu Picchu is the Lost City of the Incas, although it was not lost to the Incas. The Spaniards never found it. 2011 was the 100^th anniversary of the rediscovery of the city. It’s remarkable because, although it’s in an earthquake zone, it was not damaged by earthquakes. All the damage there is man-made.

She told us Cuzco, the Inca capital, became a Spanish city. They knocked down the Inca temples and used the stone for their churches.

Davidson told the audience that her three week trip there in 2007 inspired this story. She was there during the rainy season. When the fog burned off, she said, “This would be a perfect place to kill someone.” Her husband, who was with her, said he didn’t think he wanted to travel with her again.

She also mentioned the breathing problems people have at the high altitude in Cuzco. They become sleep-deprived, and can’t fall asleep. Lily was in that state at the beginning of The Next One to Die, and she had trouble trusting her own perceptions.

When questions were asked about tourism and crime, Hilary said tourist sites are reluctant to publish information about deaths at the sites. The Natalie Holloway case is a good example. No one wanted to deal with her disappearance, but the suspect was arrested later for murdering a woman in Peru. He’s in prison now. It’s easier for people to get away with committing crimes in foreign locations.

Asked about rules for tourism at Machu Picchu, Daivdson answered there are now new rules since so much of the damage there is man-made. They’re trying to limit the number of tourists. The site has been loved to death. At its peak, there were 3500 visitors a day. The site wasn’t built to handle that many people. Now, the maximum number allowed per day is 2500. And, a permit is required to go to Machu Picchu. It costs $150 per person per day. In the last ten years, Peru has tried to preserve its history. Hiram Bingham, who rediscovered Machu Picchu took many of the artifacts back to Yale. Yale has told the Peruvian government they will return them once Peru is able to be caregivers for them. Until now, they have not been able to do that.

 

Hilary told us she’s fascinated by the Incas. The character of Jesse reflects that interest. He describes many of the Inca traditions in the book. For instance, the stones in their buildings fitted together without mortar. And, they couldn’t use llamas to transport much of the stone because llamas can’t carry heavy weight. And, this was a society that never discovered the wheel. There’s no description as to how they transported all the stones. They didn’t really have a writing system. Their method of tying knots to communicate is described in the book. And, they had symbols imprinted on silver and gold to communicate. Some of those symbols explained their theory of the cosmos. But, that silver and gold was shipped back to Spain and melted down. Everything they represented in silver and gold has been lost. They were astronomers. And, the Temple of the Sun has a series of windows through which constellations could sometimes be seen. But, no one knows how they utilized that knowledge.

Peru attracts some bizarre tourists. There are drug tourists because there are drugs that are legal to use in Peru. Marijuana is legal there. There’s also a natural LSD that is legal, and it’s traditional for tribes to take it together and have group visions.

Then there are the people who go to Peru to find UFOs. There was a pre-Inca civilization who carved designs in the earth. They’re called Nazca Lines, and many of them depict animals. But, the designs can’t be seen from the ground, only from the air. So, there’s a culture of UFO hunters in Peru. They’re part of the book, but not at the core of the story.

Hilary Davidson concluded the presentation by discussing her third book. She always had three books in mind, although she initially had a two-book contract. She has another two-book deal. The third Lily Moore story is the first of those two books. It’s set shortly after the end of The Next One to Fall. It starts in Acapulco, which has been luring travel writers. Lily goes there with another journalist, and the other woman vanishes. It’s then she learns the property where she is has been bought by her former boyfriend’s company.

Hilary Davidson takes readers into Lily Moore’s world, and the world of Peru in her latest book, The Next One to Fall.

Hilary Davidson's website is www.hilarydavidson.com

The Next One to Fall by Hilary Davidson. Tom Doherty Associates, ©2012. ISBN 9780765326980 (hardcover), 352p.

Hilary Davidson and Lesa Holstine

Lesa Holstine, Library Manager, Velma Teague Branch Library
Receives the 2011 Arizona Library Association's
Outstanding Library Service Award

  By Bette Sharpe Glendale Daily Planet

Lesa Holstine, Library Manager for Velma Teague Branch Library, received the Arizona State Library Association's 2011 Outstanding Library Service Award.  Lesa was nominated by members of her staff, Barbara Peters, The Poisoned Pen Bookstore and Editor, Poisoned Pen Press; and Talia Sherer,Director, Library Marketing Macmillan.

Lesa knew she wanted to be a librarian since she was a young girl.  She loved reading mysteries as a child and it is evident that her passion for books, reading and mysteries is still with her and seems to be growing even stronger.

In Lesa's own words,"When I was sixteen, I found my life's passion, working in the public library.  It's been a joy to share my love of books and reading with the people in the communities where I've lived and worked, as well as the community of far-flung readers on the Internet." 

"To me, the public service award recognizes the people who have given me a gift, a love of books, libraries, and people, and the opportunity to bring them together."  Thank you for honoring all those people who gave me roots, and all those people in the communities I've served, by presenting me with the award."

Lesa admits, authors are her rock stars.  She shares her enthusiasm and passion for books and reading through her work at Velma Teague where she has to wear many hats.  She is often providing adult and youth reference services, and holding quarterly Brown Bag Luncheons where she shares 15 book titles (fiction and non-fiction) that are worth considering as possible reads.  Also, Lesa holds monthly lunchtime book talks where library staff talk about books they have read.  This helps to multiply the number of book titles library staff is familiar with which is really a mini course in Reader's Advisory.

Lesa's love of reading is one reason she chairs the library's Readers Advisory Committee.  Her reviews can be found in such publications as Library Journal, Generflecting, and Mystery Readers Journal, and The Strand Magazine.  Lesa started the Authors @ the Teague program several years ago.  This program has brought local, national and international authors to downtown Glendale.  The faces from the back of the book jacket come to Glendale, in person, to talk about their writing, personal lives and of course about their books. 

Talia Sherer, Director, Library Marketing Macmillan wrote this in her nomination letter.

"She is absolutely selfless when it comes to promoting books and reading.  Whether it's on her blog http://lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com/, at the staff-focused Brown Bag Lunches, or her participation at the "Back to the Beach" program - there is a fire inside here and a passion for books that is inspiring."

Lesa's internationally known and nationally syndicated book blog, http://lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com/, and has won the Spinetingler Award for Best Reviewer in 2009 and 2010.  Bestselling mystery author Louise Penny, is one of many well know authors that have acknowledged Lesa's contribution to libraries, readers, and authors.

Lesa is an editor at Glendale Daily Planet and presents articles on Arizona writers and book related items in her Book Topics section on the 'Planet.  Glendale Daily Planet publisher Ed Sharpe stated, " Lesa's material is timely, captivating and entertaining… Her award winning contributed work is responsible in part for the  Glendale Daily Planet obtaining a Hermes Creative Award and a  MARCOM Award in 2011, and many other awards in previous years."

Barbara Peters, The Poisoned Pen Bookstore and Editor, Poisoned Pen Press made these remarks to the AzLA Service Awards Chair.  "It has been my please to work with Velma Teague's Lesa Holstine for a number of years and in a variety of reader, author, and community outreach programs.  Plus she's the best blogger I know, a model to everyone who wishes to communicate a love of reading and news of publishing.  I'm not too shabby at this myself so to say I wish I could emulate her is a measure of how great is her reach and influence."

For Lesa, it is about the books and libraries and bringing the two together.  Congratulations Lesa.

Sketch Me If You Can by Sharon Pape

I had been hoarding the books in Sharon Pape’s Portrait of Crime mystery series, so when she told me the third one was due out soon, it was time to go back and start the first book, Sketch Me If You Can.

Authors @ the Teague  -
 Author Kris Neri Brings “Magical Alienation” to the Library
Saturday, December 17

             GLENDALE, Ariz. – Award-winning local author Kris Neri will discuss and sign her latest mystery, “Magical Alienation,” during the upcoming Authors @ the Teague event at 2 p.m. on Saturday, December 17 at Velma Teague Branch Library, 7010 N. 58^th Ave.  

            Fake psychic Samantha Brennan and genuine Celtic goddess/FBI Special Agent Annabelle Haggerty return for more madcap magical mayhem in this second entry in the Magical Mystery series, the sequel to “High Crimes on the Magical Plane.” Shape shifters, gods, Roswell, Area 51, rock stars, and a harmonic convergence in Sedona conjure up another deviously twisty, fast-paced, “funny, pell-mell romp of an adventure.”  (Diana Gabaldon, “New York Times” bestselling author of the Outlander series on “High Crimes on the Magical Plane”)

            Owner of The Well Red Coyote, repeatedly voted Best Bookstore in Sedona, Kris Neri teaches crime writing online for the Writers’ Program of the UCLA Extension School.  Also known for her Tracy Eaton mystery series, she is a two-time winner of the Derringer Award as well as a Pushcart Prize, Agatha, Anthony, Macavity, and Lefty Award nominee.  For more information, see her website at http://www.krisneri.com.

The program is free.  Books will be available for purchase and signing.  For more information, please call 623-930-3439.

Jeri Westerson for Authors @ The Teague 

 

 

Author Rebecca Cantrell is right. When Jeri Westerson appears for an author event, she brings cool toys. She recently appeared for Authors @ The Teague on her Troubled Bones tour. Anyone who wanted to handle her medieval weapons was welcome to try them out. Jeri does a terrific program, fun and informative.

Westerson calls her style medieval noir. She said she was first writing historical fiction at a time when Publishers Weekly called historical fiction dead. She tried to sell it for ten years, and saw her agents come and go. One of those agents said, why don’t we try mysteries. After more rejections, Jeri thought maybe she should try mysteries. She decided to write medieval mysteries. She always loved Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael. But many of those medieval mysteries have a slower pace with a monk or nun as the protagonist. Westerson wanted to do something much different. 

 

 

Westerson was reading Chandler and Hammett, so she decided to create a hardboiled detective in a medieval setting. Then, he would be hired to solve mysteries. She made him the typical lone detective. Crispin Guest is hard-drinking and hard-living. He gets beaten up. He’s a sucker for a dame in trouble. But, he also was a knight, so he’s educated, and has the skills he needs to be an investigator. He can read and write. He knows several languages. He has in intense sense of justice and honor.  When Crispin Guest was convicted of treason, he lost his knighthood. Everything that defined him was taken. Guest redefines himself as “the Tracker.”

London becomes another character in Westerson’s books. Each book deals with a religious relic or venerated object. Troubled Bones, the latest book, deals with relics at Canterbury Cathedral, the bones of Thomas à Becket. Crispin got in some trouble in London, and the sheriff offered him options, go to jail or do a job for the Archbishop of Canterbury. So, Guest agreed to guard the bones of Thomas à Becket. The Archbishop was afraid the Lollards would steal them. Lollards were members of a reformist movement, and they didn’t believe in relics. While Crispin was in the cathedral, a pilgrim was murdered.

Westerson told us she had been waiting to do this book since she knew she was setting her series in the 14^th century. She wanted to do this story. Jeri’s parents were rabid Anglophiles. They were history buffs, particularly British history buffs. Their collection included fiction and nonfiction from authors such as Thomas B. Costain and Norah Lofts.

As a kid, Jeri read a child’s version of The Canterbury Tales when she was eight nor nine. It had great illustrations. She loved the pilgrims. Then the afterword said Chaucer died before he finished The Canterbury Tales, and she was upset. Naturally, some of the bawdier tales were left out of the child’s version.

Jeri’s mother had a record of The Canterbury Tales. It included the prologue and some of the stories, written and read in middle English. Westerson loved the lyrical flow of the language.

 

When Westerson was young, her parents took the family to lots of museums. For a family of five, it was cheap entertainment because admission was free. One they visited was the Huntington Library. It had a Gutenberg Bible. There was one of Shakespeare’s quartos, and one of his bad quartos. And, there was the Ellesmere Manuscript. It was commissioned after Chaucer’s death. It was written by hand, and contains illustrations of all the pilgrims and Chaucer. 

So, Westerson has been waiting to get to the right year to write about The Canterbury Tales and Chaucer. In Troubled Bones, Crispin Guest meets the pilgrims and Chaucer. Chaucer was quite an interesting person. He was a knight, a poet, a spy for the king. His sister-in-law was the mistress of the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt.

Westerson said she does most of her research in university libraries. There are a number of archives on the Internet. Many of the small archives are thrilled to answer her questions. She’s only been to Europe once when she was eighteen. She was there for a month in England and northern Europe.

It was Canterbury Cathedral that struck her, and touched her the most. Westerson showed us a diagram of the Cathedral, showing it built outside the town. The monastery was there as well, and it was self-sufficient. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the voice of Rome, had his own manor house. She showed us a picture of the narrow gate leading to the cathedral, perfect as a gate to get to the heavenly cathedral. The west gate was still being built in Crispin’s days. There were towers and guards. Mercy Lane, on the way to the cathedral, was a medieval lane. Canterbury Cathedral is very much a character in Troubled Bones.

 

Thomas à Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral. At one time, he was King Henry II's best friend. Henry II was the father of Richard the Lionheart and King John. Becket was Chancellor of England. Henry II had a problem with the Church. He wanted to try clerics in court, and the Archbishop of Canterbury told him no. They had to be tried in Church courts. Then, the Archbishop died, and Henry seized the opportunity. He had Thomas made Archbishop, even though he wasn’t a priest.

However, Thomas took his job seriously, and the next time Henry II brought up the subject of trying priests, Thomas said no. The priests were under the jurisdiction of the Church. Henry was frustrated, and, at court, asked, “Who will rid me of the troublesome priest?” Four barons killed him while he was at prayer in the cathedral. The people immediately declared Becket a saint, and the Church made it official only a year later. Canterbury Cathedral became a place of pilgrimage.  Henry II said, please forgive me for having him murdered, and wore sackcloth. Pilgrimage sites were very popular at the time because people could get points off their time in purgatory by making a pilgrimage.

Westerson showed us illustrations of Becket’s shrine. A canopy was lowered over it to protect it at night. During the day, though, people could touch the bones. It’s just that some started to take home bones as souvenirs. There was a charge to come and see the shrine.

The shrine to Thomas à Becket is no longer there. There was another Henry who had problems with the Church. Henry VIII took over the Church of England. He dissolved the monasteries, and destroyed shrines, particularly this one. It was a shrine to an Archbishop who opposed a king named Henry.

The coffin of Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince, is also there. His surcoat, helm, gauntlets and sword are on display. It’s unusual to have the originals in a museum.

Jeri told us she likes to write about medieval times because she likes to play with the weapons. She does pack them in her luggage when she flies. The TSA always picks her luggage when they do random searches. She thinks they actually take everything out and play with them.

 

Then, Westerson took time to show us the weapons she brought. The broadsword weighed three pounds, and was forty-four inches long. It was a one-handed weapon, more or less. It was designed as a hacking and slashing weapon. It was not used as a foil, as it is in many films.

She said everyone needed a good dagger. If you’re caring a small shield, a buckler, it’s also good to have a dagger. That’s where the term swashbuckler came from. A man could block a broadsword with a dagger and a buckler. Women wore jewel-encrusted daggers. Westerson even recommended a particular dagger because if someone was stabbing with a dagger, there would be momentum with their hand, and when the dagger stops in the body, the hand might continue, and the person would be cut. So, she said you wanted a dagger with a piece to stop the hand from being cut.

Jeri had a piece of mail in her possession. She said it was part of a piece sent to a museum for repairs. It would rust, so it needed to be cleaned in sand. She demonstrated the use of a little battleax, saying it would be used on horseback, and the user would slash away. She showed us what most of us would have called a mace. But, hers is a flail. Attached with a chain, it’s a flail. Without a chain, it’s a mace. That would be used on horseback.

 

She showed us the gauntlet, then the sugarloaf helm. It was called that because sugar came in a container of that shape.

Jeri Westerson's next book, Blood Lance, has jousting in it. She'll have a powerpoint in which she’s on a 2000 pound Percheron dressed as a knight. It’s hard to see with the helm. But, the knight on that horse would plow through foot soldiers.

Asked to talk about Crispin’s apprentice, Jack Tucker, Westerson said she introduced him in the first book, Veil of Lies. He was an orphan, eleven years old, and a cutpurse. Each book is now a year later, so Jack ages.  Westerson has turned in book five, and is working on six. Jack is a Huck Finn, Artful Dodger character. He’s all kinds of things to Crispin, including the child and family he’ll never have. After a couple books, Crispin takes him under his wing, seeing him as his legacy. In Troubled Bones, Jack has his own chapters, and many readers say those are their favorites.

Westerson likes writing a series because she’s writing the world’s largest novel. She knows the backstory. Jack’s growing up, and, someday, Crispin might.  Jack starts at eleven, and he’s now thirteen/fourteen. The characters change in the course of the series.

Most of the books are set in London. Maybe one will be set in France. Chaucer is in the next one. In this series, she can follow Crispin, but also can follow the historical timeline. She can include the politics of the time, and sometimes, more of the actual characters who lived.

To finish up, members of the audience tried on the helm and gauntlet, and played with the medieval weapons while Jeri Westerson signed books. This program combined books, history and weapons, a little different for Authors @ The Teague.

Jeri Westerson's website is www.jeriwesterson.com 

Troubled Bones by Jeri Westerson. St. Martin’s Minotaur. ©2011. ISBN 9780312621636 (hardcover), 288p.

 

 

 

Desert Sleuths for Authors @ The Teague - SoWest, So Wild  - Panel Discussion!

Group Photo by Ed Sharpe,  Glendale Daily Planet

 

The Desert Sleuths were supposed to appear at the Velma Teague Library on Saturday, but, because the electricity was off for three hours, we moved to Plan B, and moved the group to a meeting room next door. Thirteen members of Desert Sleuths, the Arizona Chapter of Sisters in Crime, showed up to promote their new mystery anthology, SoWest, So Wild. Roni Olson, president of the group, moderated the program.

 

Roni kicked off the program saying Desert Sleuths is the state-wide Sisters in Crime chapter for Arizona. Sisters in Crime was started twenty-five years ago to promote the work of women crime writers. Sara Paretsky and the other founders saw a discrepancy in the treatment of female writers. Today, the group consists of authors, readers, and people who love both.

 

Then, Roni asked each author to just do a short introduction for their stories. She started with CR Bolinski, author of “A Tumbleweed Mystery.” Carole said she knew her story had to be set outside, with lots of tumbleweed. SoWest, So Wild was perfect for that setting.

 

 

 

CR Bolinski and Susan Buadavari

Susan Budavari’s story is “The Danger of Impulse Shopping.” It’s about a woman who stops at a convenience store, a divorced woman at a time a serial killer was loose. Susan said when the Baseline Killer was in Phoenix, she had a number of friends who were afraid to go to various parts of the city. They might expose the next serial killer.

 

 

Howard “Doc” Carron wrote “Moshe Goes to Arizona.” It’s about a cattle drive. Doc grew up in New York, and he had already written westerns, so he had some experience with the background. His story is set in the 1880s. It was originally set in Wyoming, because Carron was familiar with Wyoming, but the editors gently suggested he move it to Arizona.

Howard "Doc" Carron and Leslie Kohler

                                                                                                    

Leslie Kohler’s story is “Shadow of Darkness,” about an escapee from Folsom Prison. Kohler grew up close to Folsom Prison. She could see the guards in the turrets, with their rifles. She and her family shopped at the prison gift shop. Her father had toured it, but, at time, women couldn’t tour Folsom Prison. Since then, her sister has worked for the prison system, and has been in prisons all over. Folsom Prison is no longer a maximum security prison; it’s a medium prison. And, the area where Kohler grew up, is now filled with million dollar homes. Leslie did say if you’re going to live near a prison, it’s best to live near a maximum security one, because the prisoners rarely escape.

 

Does Merle McCann's title, "Murder at Rocking Witches Ranch," sound as if it's about French grape growing stock in Arizona? Merle usually writes historical fiction. The story is based on historical fact, facts that McCann uncovered through a circuitous route. Email from someone about the Jerome Winery gave her the best clue. It mentioned mission grapes. The Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Brownsville, Texas, was built in 1850, ten years after the Civil War. Winemaking nuns accompanied a Frenchman there. Then, the Church as named a Cathedral in 1874. McCann knew she could do something with this material.

 

Merle McCann and Toni Niesen

Toni Niesen was asked about calendar sticks since her story is, "A Pair of Calendar Sticks." She said she first became interested in them when she was working with the Salt Water Pima, and they called their resort "Talking Sticks." She said calendar sticks are historical, but there wasn't a lot written about them that was accessible. Then, she found information written by Frank Russell who studied the Pimas in the early 1900s. That information, along with information from Arizona Highways led to her story with calendar sticks and a water theme.

Amy Schuster

Amy Schuster's "Fowl Play" is set at a clown college. Why a clown college? She told us she's always been drawn to the absurd.

Deborah J. Ledford and Roni Olson

Deborah J. Ledford is one of the editors of SoWest, So Wild. Her story is, "A Tombstone Epitaph." Roni asked her about that, saying Deborah normally doesn't write period pieces. Deb said she never does, but, with the theme, she thought she should, and she expected to have all kinds of period pieces. Instead, hers was the only entry about the Old West. 

Roni Olson and Virginia Nosky

Virginia Nosky's "All Four One" asks if identical quadruplets can get away with murder. Virginia told us if it was a perfect crime, no one would no about it. But, this one offers a perfect crime, with a perfect alibi. Four gorgeous sisters set out to murder their nasty stepfather.

In Nancy Newcomer's "Coyote's Bones," a coyote digs up bones in a backyard, human bones. Nancy told us it's based on her own experience. In the '90s, she moved to Fountain Hills. Her backyard ended in a wash, and there was lots of wildlife. One day, she looked outside her back window, and there was a coyote out there digging in the dirt. He dug up a bone, probably a rabbit leg. Nancy changed that in her story, and it became a human bone.

Nancy Newcomer, Judy Starbuck and JoAnne Zeterberg

Judy Starbuck's

In JoAnne Zeterberg's "Ghost in the Rocks," a medicine man is held at gunpoint. JoAnne said she starts with characters, and puts them in inopportune moments. She was lucky enough to camp with a Navajo family once, and the man described his uncle, a medicine man.

Roni asked them why they write mysteries. Deborah Ledford answered, "They're the ultimate escape." Doc Carron said it's good and evil. He told us he often has a solution that the law wouldn't take care of, but justice is different than law. He said during the Depression movies flourished. People needed a break. Now, they do it with books. Virginia Nosky said it's fun to put yourself in the situation. Could you have done it better?

One audience member asked if their anthologies were available on Kindle. She's in a book group, and they all use Kindles. Ledford answered that they're in the process of making them available. However, some of the authors have their own books available on Kindle. Leslie Kohler is the author of Sins of the Border. Deborah J. Ledford has written Staccato and the Hillerman Sky Award Nominee, Snare. The Fall From Paradise Valley is Virginia Nosky's book.

Merle McCann told the audience that four or five of the stories from How Not to Survive a Vacation are available online through ipulp fiction.

There have been three anthologies published by Desert Sleuths. The first was How Not to Survive the Holidays. Then came How Not to Survive a Vacation. SoWest, So Wild shows that the West is still wild. The stories are all set in the Southwest, most in Arizona. It's a diverse collection.

Roni's next question involved setting. Howard Carron's stories are all based on places where he's been. One third of his life was spent overseas. He had to do research to write this one, set in Arizona. But, he's a reference librarian, and enjoys doing research. He wants to have it accurate. Orthodox Jews eat kosher food. They can't work on Saturday. This became a problem for Moshe, his character, who was on a cattle drive. There's interest in expanding Moshe's adventures to a novel, so Doc is doing more research. He's probably going to set it in Wyoming, though, not Arizona. He's familiar with the Jews in Brooklyn. He learned there were 75 Jewish families in Cheyenne in the 1880s. That leaves opportunities for Moshe. Research is key.

Leslie Kohler's story is told from the perspective of a young girl. She knows that from her own life. But, she didn't know Folsom Prison was built to provide labor for Folsom Dam so a wealthy logger could bring his logs down by river.

Carol said Arizona is a big part of her writing. She lives outside Prescott in Chino Valley. Her neighbors are gophers, rattlesnakes, cows, coyotes. They all interest her. She wanted to use tumbleweed in this story because there was so much tumbleweed up north. Roads were closed, and tumbleweed was all over. It became an issue, and the mayor asked people to take the tumbleweed away and burn it. It became funny. So she wanted to use it as a basis of a story.

Judy Starbuck has six short stories in anthologies. Some are set in places where she's never been, but places that interested her. She's fascinated by setting. Her story is based on Patagonia, a place that has birdwatchers, drug dealers, tourists.

Virginia Nosky would like to go back to using Arizona as a setting. There's so much here, desert, mountains. And, everything is harsh, weather, the heat. There's snow and cold. Everything bites or scratches. Setting is almost a character in Nosky's books.

Merle McCann said it's convenient to use Arizona. Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff represent the metropolis. But, there are huge horse ranches, dog shows. There's a great deal of animal activities here. Washes are used in Scottsdale, and wild animals are found in suburban and urban communities. There are javelina, bobcats, and there was a mountain lion sighted in McCann's neighborhood recently.

The final question of the day related to work habits. Roni said their writing conference in August featured this topic. She said everyone has different habits. She's just settling in to write 2000 words a day. But, it's important for writers to get in a chair and get their fingers moving every day.

And, Leslie said she often leaves the house, and tries to avoid online distractions.

Howard summed it up, though, agreeing with Roni Olson. The key is to write every day.

Actually, though, I ended the program. I brought out the celebratory cake. I had a special cake made at Shelly's Bakery in downtown Glendale. It was done in the colors from SoWest, So Wild and featured the same weapons on the cake. It celebrated the 25th anniversary of Sisters in Crime with a "25" under a magnifying glass. And, everything on the beautiful cake was edible.  Thank you, Shelly!

Cake Photo By Ed Sharpe

SoWest, So Wild by Desert Sleuths. DS Publishing. ©2011. ISBN 9780982877418 (paperback), 209p.

 

lholstine@yahoo.com

Jeri Westerson will be appearing for 
Authors @ The Teague on Monday, Oct. 24 at 2 p.m.

Troubled Bones by Jeri Westerson

I just fell in love with a character, Jeri Westerson’s Crispin Guest. Troubled Bones is the fourth in her medieval noir series. Now, I have to go back and read the three earlier books. Fortunately, they’re in that bottomless pit I call a closet.

Death by the Dozen by Jenn McKinlay

Who wouldn't like a mystery that features cupcakes? I'll admit there are a number of reasons I enjoy Jenn McKinlay's Cupcake Bakery mysteries. They're set in Scottsdale, Arizona, and I recognize a number of the sites in the books. It's hard to resist all those recipes for cupcakes. It’s fun to watch the three protagonists challenge each other to movie quotes. I know and like Jenn, a fellow librarian.  But, the best reason to read her third book in this series, Death by the Dozen? It’s the best yet, with great characters, and a terrific, tightly written plot.

 Interview with Denise Hamilton

She will appear  at Velma Teague Branch Library in downtown Glendale AZ on Wed., Sept. 14 at 2 p.m - Be There!

I've read Denise Hamilton's Eve Diamond books since the series started, so I jumped at the chance to host her for Authors @ The Teague Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 2 p.m. She's on tour for her latest standalone, Damage Control. It was a little intimidating, though, to agree to interview a journalist.

Lesa - Thank you, Denise, for taking time to answer some questions. I know your first crime novel came out in 2001, however I'd still like you to introduce yourself to my readers, please. Tell us about yourself.

Damage Control is a political thriller about a female PR executive who finds herself representing a U.S. Senator whose beautiful young aide has been found strangled. It deals with celebrity culture, surf noir, and the powerful bonds between two high school girls whose friendship is destroyed when something awful happens on a beach one night. Fifteen years later, my protagonist walks into the high-rise conference room at her firm to meet her new client the Senator and realizes he's the father of her long-lost friend. And then the plot thickens.

Denise Hamilton's website is www.denisehamilton.com

Damage Control by Denise Hamilton. Simon & Schuster. 2011. ISBN 9780743296748. 384p.

 

 

The Review!

Denise Hamilton will be appearing for Authors @ The Teague on Wed. Sept. 14 at 2 p.m.

Damage Control by Denise Hamilton
by: Lesa Holstine Glendale Daily Planet Book Topics Editor

 

Denise Hamilton takes readers into the world of the rich and powerful, a world where celebrities can pay for media control, where ordinary people can be used to cover-up the sins of the wealthy. It's the world of Damage Control.

Maggie Silver works in the world of crisis management. The Blair Company is the top crisis management firm in L.A. At thirty-six, Maggie enjoys the adrenaline rush, dealing with celebrities and their scandals, acting as their spokesperson to the media. But, it's a job that takes a toll physically, a twenty-four hour on-call job, and Maggie survives by taking Adderall. It's the way the business works, and Maggie's boss dishes pills out in company envelopes to the staff. She's going to need those pills to stay on top of their latest story. Senator Henry Paxton's young female aide has been murdered, and he and his family are in the spotlight.

Maggie is handpicked to handle the Paxton case because of her background as the teenage friend of Paxton's daughter, Anabelle. But only three people, Maggie, Anabelle, and Anabelle's brother, Luke, know why Maggie and Anabelle drifted apart after a tragic night of partying when they were teens. Now Maggie is thrown back into that world, as one catastrophe after another hits the Paxton family. She's caught up in a world of lies and secrets, both at the Paxton house and at work, a place where secrecy and cover-up is the name of the game. Maggie's bosses count on her memories and connection to the Paxton household from her teen years. But those years were the start of a downward path for so many people. What is the high cost of survival in that world?

Denise Hamilton created Maggie Silver as a naive woman, still infatuated with the life she knew as Anabelle's friend. She's the perfect pawn caught in a dangerous game. And, it's hard to image what anyone would do in Maggie's place, as she balances job security, the needs of a sick mother, and the need for secrecy and lies. Damage Control is a story of suspense. Who actually knew what happened to Senator Paxton's aide? Why are lives spiralling out of control, as one event piles up on another? And, more important, who can Maggie trust as she tries to maneuver the dangerous path between friendship and cover-up? Damage Control is more than a business. It becomes a matter of life and death for Maggie Silver.

Denise Hamilton's website is www.denisehamilton.com

Damage Control by Denise Hamilton. Scribner. ©2011. ISBN 9780743296748 (hardcover), 384p.

 

J.A. Jance at the Foothills Library  7/16/2011

 

Jance told us After the Fire is her autobiography, a book of poetry that chronicles the years with her first husband. He died of chronic alcoholism at 42. He was hospitalized nine times in six years. He came to a tee ball game for one of their kids, and afterward, he was so sick he had to crawl to the car. It was at that point, after eighteen years of loving him, Jance realized she couldn't save him. She divorced him to save her and the kids.

In 1982, she was in Seattle, trying to write. She was a single parent with two kids, working full-time for an insurance company. She wrote every morning from four to seven because that was teh only time she had to write. When she hears people say they want to be a writer, but it isn't the perfect time, she knows they'll never write because writers write when life is imperfect.

Beaumont is told from a man's point of view. While Jance was trying to understand why her husband would rather be in a bar than home with her, she would go to the bars and listen to the men talk. It was research. She learned what made men tick.

They always say write what you know. Beau did the kind of drinking that Jance lived with for years. Jance was in Portland at a B.Dalton's, signing the fourth book, Taking the Fifth, when a woman came up to her. She said, J.P. Beaumont drinks every day. It's interfering with his work. Does he have a problem? She answered. "These are books." Jance said the author is the last person to know, but alcoholism is a disease of denial.

In the sixth book, Beaumont has his first blackout. He wakes up with splints on his hands, and doesn't know how he got them. In the eighth book, he goes into treatment. Now, J.A. Jance is in Glendale, Arizona in 2011, with Betrayal of Trust, the twentieth book. Beaumont has been sober for twelve books longer than he was drinking. Still there are people who say they liked him better as a drunk. Jance worries about them.

Years ago, Jance was at the Texas Book Festival, and she could see a young guy waiting in line with a little girl in a stroller, and he was grinning at her. When he finally got up to her, he said, "My name is Rob." He was in Rosehill Junior High when he first encountered Beaumont. He wanted to be a cop after he read the frist Beaumont. He went into the service, and served as an MP. He became a raging alcoholic, but he still wanted to be a police officer. He was hired, but knew he had to get sober. So, the day he graduated from the police academy, he went into treatment. He's now the police chief of that town. And, he introduced her to his daughter, Morgan. He said, "My wife wouldn't let me name her J.P." There are unintended consequences of books.

J.A. Jance said she always read murder mysteries. She read the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. She read John D. MacDonald as an adult. He taught her it was possible to write a series of books for adults. But, even though she read John D. MacDonald, there was something irksome about Travis McGee. He never got smarter. He always went for the wrong women. He'd get into fights, and two pages later he'd be fine. That was irksome.

Jerry Janc was Jance's first husband. When his forebears landed at Ellis Island, the last name was longer, but it was shortened. The family got tired of people pronouncing it wrong, so in 1983, they went to court and bought a vowel for $400, and Janc became Jance. Four years later, when Bill asked her to marry him, she said yes, but she had just paid for a new name, and wanted to keep it.

When Jance took her first manuscript to her agent, she knew it was about a 40-some male homicide cop. She retyped it, and put the name J.A. Jance on the manuscript for Until Proven Guilty. When the publisher read it, he said that guy was a good writer. When the agent said, what if I said the author was a woman, he said, I'd say she's a hell of a good writer.

Jance thought she was writing a standalone until the contract came and it was for a series. Then marketing became involved. Jance's first name is Judy. Marketing said they wanted to keep the initials, J.A. Jance. She said, "God love them!" It's a gender-neutral name, and her real name is Judith Ann Jance.

The first six Beaumonts were published with no author photo/biography. In Seattle, a retired homicide cop was rumored to have written the books. When the seventh book came out with her photo, rumors were that she was just the cover for a retired homicide cop who had written the books.

In the next five years, Jance wrote two Beaumonts a year.  By book nine, she was tired of Beaumont. In Until Proven Guilty, he makes a Travis-McGee like mistake and falls for the wrong woman. They're together just for days, and then he leaves his life changed. They married, and then she committed suicide by cop after the wedding, using Beaumont to pull the trigger.

At that time, Beaumont didn't trust his partner, Ron Peters. On the wedding night, after Anne Corley died, Peters comes back to the apartment, and finds the leftover wedding cake. He takes the wedding cake, and puts it down the garbage disposal. Beaumont knows they'll be good partners and friends. The problem with Anne Corley, though, is she didn't hang around long enough to be annoying.

Jance went to Bisbee High School, and Doug Davis was two years ahead of her in school. He was smart and athletic and handsome. From Bisbee, he went to West Point, and then Vietnam. He came home in a body bag.

After nine Beaumonts, Jance wrote Hour of the Hunter. Then the Beaumonts became fun again. Then her agent suggested maybe she wanted to alternate with Beau. She did know about being a single parent, and knew a lot about the desert. So, that became Joanna Brady's background. In Desert Heat, Joanna Brady's husband is dead. He's buried in Graveside Cemetary in Bisbee, the same cemetary where Doug Davis is buried. In Caifornia, someone read that book. A woman came up to Jance two years later at a signing, and asked, "Have you ever been to Bisbee?" When Jance said she went to school there, she asked her if she knew Doug Davis. Jance said she had. The woman said, my sister was engaged to marry him, and she was packed to join him for R & R when he died. When she bought Desert Heat, and read the scene at the cemetary, she thought the author might have known Doug Davis. She carried the book around with her for two years. J.A. Jance and Bonnie became friends. Bonnie didn't know any of Doug's Bisbee friends, so she was able to learn about his life there from Jance. She married after losing Doug, but the marriage didn't last. Her husband couldn't compete with the legend of a dead guy.

She tells this story because J.P. Beaumont couldn't let go of his wife's legend. He only had a brief relationship with her, but it hung on.

Jance told us Beaumont does talk to her. She'll be writing along, and he'll say something that makes her laught. She'll write it, but he said it.

In the last Beaumont book, Fire and Ice, he was attending a family reunion at Disneyland. He has a motion sickness problem, but he went on the Teacups. He ended up at the infirmary after riding them, and the nurse asked, if you know you have motion sickness, why did you go on the Teacups. His answer? My granddaughter asked me.

J.A. Jance had just fnished an Ali Reynolds book. She writes boooks, and Bill writes checks. She watches characters. He watches the cash flow, which can have peaks and valleys. She had just sent the manuscript off to her editor on a Friday afternoon. At dinner that night, Bill asked, is what he thought was an inoffensive fashion, have you given any thought to the next Beaumont book. She said, as a matter of fact, it's going to be about the Washington state governor. He wasn't impressed, but she started writing it on Monday. It's about the Washington state governor. It took her two months to write it. Don't discount the effect of a head of steam when mad. The next Ali Reynolds took her nine months to write. Betrayal of Trust took two.

Jance needed two points of information from Beaumont's past for this book. But, she had written nineteen books about him, and these were unimportant details. She writes a blog on her website,

lholstine@yahoo.com
book blog: http://lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com
Twitter @LesaHolstine

Hounded by Kevin Hearne 

I'm a big fan of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, but Jim Butcher doesn't write fast enough. I just discovered a new author, though, whose first urban fantasy book introduced two characters that were just as much fun as Harry Dresden and Bob. In fact, there's more wordplay and humor in Kevin Hearne's first book in The Iron Druid Chronicles than in the Dresden Files. Make no mistake. Hearne takes his story, the mythology, and the action seriously. But, his characters are two of the best characters I've ever read about in a fantasy novel. Hearne's Hounded sold me, and I've already picked up the second book, Hexed. I'm quite content to read about Atticus O'Sullivan and his Irish Wolfhound, Oberon.

Atticus O'Sullivan is a Druid who has lived for twenty-one centuries, but looks to be twenty-one, a perfect appearance for living in a college town. He now resides in Tempe, Arizona, where he owns an occult bookshop, Third Eye Books and Herbs. He's perfectly content to operate his store, spend time with his Irish Wolfhound, Oberon, and hang out at his favorite Irish pub, Rúla Búla. Unfortunately for Atticus, one of the Celtic gods, Aenghus Óg, is not happy that Atticus has a magical sword, Fragarach. Aenghus Óg has been tracking Atticus for centuries, and, with the help of some witches, nightmarish creatures, and even some local police, he's found him. Atticus is going to have to call on his own power from the earth, along with his lawyers; a werewolf and a vampire, and a few semi-friendly Celtic gods in order to survive the wrath of an angry god.

lholstine@yahoo.com
book blog: http://lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com
Twitter @LesaHolstine

No Rest for the Dead

In introducing No Rest for the Dead, David Baldacci said, "The lineup of writers who have contributed to this mystery is akin to the Murderers' Row of the 1927 New York Yankees." He's right. Twenty-six authors, including Arizona favorites J.A. Jance and Diana Gabaldon, along with Jeffery Deaver, Tess Gerritsen, Jeff Lindsay, Kathy Reichs, and Jonathan Santlofer joined forces with editors Andrew F. Gulli and Lamia J. Gulli to tell one story.

Former homicide detective Jon Nunn introduces the story, ten years after Rosemary Thomas' execution for her husband's murder. And, although Nunn's testimony helped send her to death row, he's not convinced she actually killed her husband. After Rosemary's death, Nunn's obsession with the case cost him his job and his marriage. So, when the invitation arrives from a board member at San Francisco's McFall Art Museum to attend a memorial service a decade after Thomas' execution, Nunn is eager to see all the players back in one place.

The book is divided into two parts. The 1998 section tells the story of the crumbling marriage between Rosemary Thomas and her cheating, crooked husband, Christopher, curator at the McFall Art Museum. Each author adds a little bit more to the story, revealing Christopher's schemes and character, leading up to his disappearance and the discovery of the decaying body in a Berlin museum. While Nunn investigates, he grows to like Rosemary, but can do nothing when all evidence points to her guilt.

Ten years later, the detective has lost everything but his conviction that an innocent woman was executed. When the board president invites all the players back to the museum for a memorial service, the stage is set for a final confrontation. But, remember, this is a book written by twenty-six of the prominent authors in the crime fiction business. There will be a number of surprising twists before the reader learns what really happened to Christopher Thomas.

I was surprised at how well this story worked with twenty-six writers. And, at times, their distinct styles were very evident, particularly in the first half of the book. Some of the authors created much more readable episodes than others. As a fan of cold cases, I particularly appreciated the second half of the book in which the characters looked back at the case from a ten-year perspective. I found Marcus Sakey's concluding chapter a little outrageous, but, considering the characters, even that fit in the story. And, Jon Nunn's diary entries served to tie the story together.

Looking for a fast-paced, intriguing mystery for a quick summer read? No Rest for the Dead should serve nicely. And, proceeds from the book benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

No Rest for the Dead. Simon & Schuster. ©2011. ISBN 9781451607376 (hardcover), 272p.

lholstine@yahoo.com
book blog: http://lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com
Twitter @LesaHolstine

Robert Dugoni for Authors @ The Teague

Robert Dugoni appeared at the Velma Teague Library on his book tour for Murder One. He told us the Phoenix area was his last stop on an extensive tour. He spoke at the library, and he was speaking for the Poisoned Pen Conference over the weekend, ending the trip with a class on the craft of writing on Sunday. Then he was heading home to Washington state.

He did get to lay by the pool on Thursday, but it was a difficult trip. There were a number of changes in flights due to all the storms in the south. One night, when his flight was canceled, he was faced with sleeping in the Charlotte Airport. The hotels had no vacancies at 1:30 in the morning. When a Holiday Inn van came around, he jumped in with a bunch of other people. The others put their baggage in the bag, but Bob knew they'd have to wait to unload their baggage, so he held onto his. He hurried into the hotel, and, even then, was fourth in line. He kept hearing the question, "Do you have a reservation?" When he got to the front, and was asked, "Do you have a reservation," he pleaded with the line from the Steve Martin/John Candy film, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, "Have mercy." They found him a room, and he went to sleep at 2:30, only to get up at 5:30 to get to the airport. He had a 7:40 flight to Hilton Head. Then, that was canceled, so he had two flights out of Charlotte canceled.

Dugoni said he never thought he'd write a series. When he wrote the first David Sloane book, The Jury Master, he never thought he'd see the character again, so he tortured him. Then, when it hit the New York Times Bestseller list, his editor told him they wanted more David Sloane. Murder One is the fourth one in the series. It's had fabulous reviews, and even Publishers Weekly liked it. He's had a number of starred reviews. Bob did a large amount of research for this book.

According to Dugoni, the book you see isn't what he started to write. He starts with a big idea, but he takes it down to the personal level. You used Wrongful Death as an example. He had a friend whose child died due to a toy. So, Bob researched the toy industry. But, Wrongful Death became the personal story of someone who wanted justice, and contacted David Sloane, the lawyer who couldn't lose, to try to get justice.

With Murder One, Dugoni researched the Russian mafia, since it's very big in Seattle. He thought Sloane was going to take it on. He researched about the fall of Russia, the drug trade. The Russian mafia viewed capitalism as a legal way to steal. Four or five months after he started his research, the catalog copy for Robert Dugoni's new book came out. Bob read it, and contacted his editor, telling her that's no longer what the book is about. His editor, who is also his publisher, said, talk to me. Bob said the book is a personal story about a woman who lost her daughter to a drug overdoes. She asks Sloane to go after the Russian mafia in a civil case. Dugoni told his editor he saw it as a cross between Presumed Innocent and Basic Instinct. Afterward, Bob thought, "Oh, my God. What did I just do?" The book has to be a criminal trial book. Sloane is a civil lawyer. He doesn't do criminal law. Robert Dugoni doesn't do criminal law either.

There was a capital murder case being tried in King County just at that time. It was a horrific crime. A young man slaughtered two women and two children. It was unusual for King County to have a trial with four capital murder charges because Washington is a liberal state. The senior prosecutor was a friend of Dugoni's, and he was able to get in to watch the trial. For three months, he sat in the back and watched it. A criminal case is like a play on stage. When the jury is out, everyone is quite casual, with jackets off, and talking together. When the jury comes back in, jackets are on, ties are up, and it's business-like. Dugoni recommended that the audience see a criminal trial if they get the chance. Part-way through the trial, the judge called counsel into his chambers and asked, who is the guy in the back taking notes. He was told it was a novelist who wasn't writing about that case, but needed information.

Eventually, Bob was able to go to lunch with Brad Porter, the homicide detective from the case. He walked him through the investigation. Then, he said, "But, you know, you really should talk to a CSI homicide detective. So, he toured the Washington Crime lab. Then, someone said, "But, you know, you really should talk to Kathy Decker, a man-tracker." She can look at vegetation, and tell when someone walked through it. She worked on the Green River case. So, he met her at Starbucks. She was quite tan, and he asked her if she played sports. No, she had her tan from working outdoors. She spends a lot of time looking for bodies. She can look at footprints on a lawn, and say how long they've been there, the weight of the person who made them, and, if there are overlapping footprints, who stepped there first.

Then, she said, "But, you know..." The investigators would have brought a dog. So, she hooked him up with a sergeant, a man nicknamed Ziggy, who handles canines. And, he told him he should see the dogs in action, so he was to meet them at midnight at a warehouse. The dogs actually scent skin cells. They can even scent people in water. Then, when Dugoni thought he was done at 2 a.m., he was told, "But, you know...," you need to talk to a ballistics expert.

So, Bob was to meet the head guy for the Washington State Criminal Lab at a Starbucks. And, he got there, and waited, and finally he saw a guy who looked about 14 watching him, and he asked, "You, Bob?" He was in his forties, but when he got out of school with a degree in English, he couldn't find a job. So, he got a low-paying job with the criminal lab, and it turned out he was good at blowing things up and shooting things. He has a talent for simulating shootings. But, he told Bob there was a lot of stuff they needed for the lab, so he was hoping Bob would put the stuff in his book so they could get it. There were so many people that helped him with the research for Murder One.

Even with all that help, Dugoni still had to find a way to get David Sloane into criminal court. Then he realized this is the fourth book in the series, but really a sequel to Bodily Harm. David is coming out of grieving. He connects with Barclay Reid, the attorney he was up against in Bodily Harm. Now, she's a mother who lost her duaghter.

In thirteen states there is a "Drug dealer liability act." You don't have to show why a drug dealer is responsible for a death, just that the guy deals heroin, for example, and you can go after him. But, Washington doesn't have that law. Barclay has been lobbying for the legislature to pass it, but the system fails her. So, she goes to David, the attorney who can't lose, and asks him to sue in civil court. Before he can take action, the drug dealer she blames ends up death, and all evidence points to Barclay. She insists that Sloane take the case, and he agrees to defend her.

This is the story Dugoni sent his editor, and then he waited. Finally, he got a phone call saying it was great. Murder One has received great reviews. But, Bob's favorite came from a blogger in Washington who said the book is a cross between Presumed Innocent and Basic Instinct. Dugoni is happy with the book, and happy he didn't shy away from criminal court.

One question from the audience referred to the man-tracker. They wanted to know who she was teaching her skills to. Dugoni said she's part of the search-and-rescue team in Washington. Homicide there is divided into six divisions. It takes 1200 hours of time in class and working before you can be certified as a man-tracker. It's a job that is mostly finding bodies. And, sometimes the bodies have been dead for decades, as in the case of the Green River killer.

Dugoni modeled the homicide detective, Kinsington Rowe, in Murder One, on Brad Porter, the detective that helped him. He's contemplating doing a second series. He'd like to bring back Kinsington Rowe. He also had the chance to meet Washington's only female homicide detective, and she was honest, telling him how no one wanted to work with her. If he does that second series, he'd do two books a year.

Bob has started another book, but it's hard to write on the road. That book would be out in June 2012. It's another David Sloane. This time, though, his publisher made him work from an outline. That book will be Jake's story, the story of Sloane's son. He realized they have parallel lives. Both Jake and David watched their mothers die violently at a young age. He's going to deal with the psychological and legal elements.

With Bodily Harm, Dugoni took a leap of faith that his readers would follow him. Other authors told him not to kill off Sloane's wife. But, Dugoni never intended to write a series, and he doesn't ever want to write the same book over and over. He won't cheat the reader with a cheesy ending. Every book has to stand on its own, and he doesn't want readers to say they could predict the ending. He wrote Bodily Harm when he himself was dealing with grief because he had lost his father that year. Everyone has to deal with grief sometime, and he wanted his character to have to go through the same thing. In that book, Sloane showed that he could be vulnerable, angry, rage, and want revenge.

Asked about writing time, Bob said he doesn't follow a certain schedule; he just writes. He starts as early as he can, and just goes, without setting limits. He may go until 3, when it's time to pick the kids up. He's a father of two who are involved in sports, and he enjoys sports. In the evening, he'll work on Facebook and Twitter.

He said his characters do talk to him. He might go through a book forty times. He views it as a blank canvas for an artist, and each time he goes through it, the details become clearer. He didn't see at first that Jake and Sloane were leading parallel lives.

In  closing, asked about the writing classes, Bob Dugoni closed by saying this weekend he was teaching a class on creative pageturners, how to maintain suspense. He said the characters need to entertain, not the writer. The number one purpose of the writer is to entertain.

Bob Dugoni's website is www.robertdugoni.com

Murder One by Robert Dugoni. Simon & Schuster. ©2011. ISBN 9781451606690 (hardcover), 374p.

lholstine@yahoo.com
book blog: http://lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com
Twitter @LesaHolstine

Jane K. Cleland and Rosemary Harris 
for Authors @ The Teague

Left to right - Jane Cleland and Rosemary Harris Photo by Bette Sharpe - Glendale Daily Planet

Like Avery Aames and Kate Carlisle, Jane Cleland and Rosemary Harris frequently do book tours together, so they played off each other beautifully for their Authors @ The Teague presentation. Jane kicked off the program by saying her latest book, Deadly Threads, is the sixth in her Josie Prescott series, but you can read any of them without starting at the beginning. She said Deadly Threads is about a cat that fetches, betrayal, and vintage clothing.

Cleland wanted to start by telling us about the cat in the story, Hank. Jane needed a cat that would fetch as part of the story, and Maine coon cats do fetch. When Jane first received the cover art from her publisher last summer, she said she loved the cover art, but the cat in the artwork was a tabby, and not a Maine coon cat. So, she sent them a picture of her own cat, Louie, who is a Maine coon cat. The next time the saw the artwork, it was Louie's picture on the front, but Louie had been photoshopped and made thinner.

Why is the cat named Hank? Cleland's husband is a musician. He's playing right now for The Lion King. For quite a while, he played with the touring production of Les Mis. When Jane would visit her husband, she would also visit with a cat named Hank who traveled with the show. Steve, an electrician with the company, owned an orange tabby named Hank, and the top of the electrician's trunk would open up with a place for Hank at the top. When the tour moved from city to city, Steve and Hank would board the crew bus together. Well, a new crew member joined the tour, and he was allergic to cats, so Hank got booted from the bus. Hank needed a ride to Fresno, and since Jane was visiting, she and her husband, Joe, were driving a car to Fresno, and Joe said, sure, they'd take Hank. When the day came, Steve, this big teamster, brought Hank in his carrying case, gave him a kiss, and said, "Be a good boy, Hank. It's your only chance." So, now whenever the tour moves on, Hank gets a ride with someone going by car.

Jane got to thinking. Steve's been with the show for eight years, with Hank as his constant companion. And, lonely travelers need someone to keep the lonely buggers at bay. It reminded Jane of her character, Josie Prescott. At the beginning of the series, she's a stranger at a difficult time. She had left New York for the rugged coast of New Hampshire, and she's trying to find a community, trying to fit in. Hank is now part of her community.

Rosemary Harris pointed to her book jacket for Slugfest and said you'll notice there is no pet slug on the cover. In fact, she had to fight for the title. Her Dirty Business mystery series has a gardening thread. She said her books don't contain gardening tips and details for gardening in Arizona, but she does know that slugs are a fact of life anyplace.

Rosemary said she has volunteered at the information booth for the Philadelphia Flower Show for ten years. People bring in samples, and, now, even small pictures on their cell phone, and expect the volunteers to be able to look at those and tell them what happened to their plant. Asking if anyone had seen the movie Best in Show about the dog show world, Harris said people can be just as neurotic at flower shows. She's seen people at 7 a.m. with their misters and cuticle scissors so they can tend their plants.

Slugfest is the fourth book in Harris' series. This time, she takes her amateur sleuth, Paula Holliday, to New York City. It's helpful to take an amateur sleuth out of their small town once in a while. She said she knew the audience all knew about Cabot Cove Syndrome in small towns. It's pushing the envelope to have so many dead bodies in small towns. So Paula helps a friend out at a fictional flower show. That allows Harris to introduce an interesting cast of characters, somewhat edgier than they might be in a small town.

Rosemary said the box of chocolates I gave her from Ceretta's reminded her of the beginning of her story. She had already received the Authors @ The Teague mug on a previous visit, so this time I gave her a box of candy. A box of candy was the trigger for her first book, Pushing Up Daisies. Harris read an article about a mummified body being found, and, just like an amateur sleuth, she snooped. She was lucky enough to have a telephone interview with the doctor who autopsied the body, and he said it wasn't 100% identified. But, he did say it was found with a box of chocolates. That was Rosemary's "what if" moment. She thought that box of chocolates had to be a clue, and she was hooked from that.

Jane told us with the publication of Deadly Threads, she's holding a contest on her website to give away a vintage Pucci purse. No one has to guess the right answer. It's just a random drawing at the end of the month. Her website is www.JaneCleland.net.

Cleland's character, Josie Prescott, is originally from New York. Asking us if we remembered the price fixing scandal involving auction houses a few years ago, Jane said that happened to Josie, and she was the whistleblower

.Cleland once owned a rare book store in Portsmouth when she was in her 20s. She was asked to appraise books once for a woman, and, going to her house, found that every inch of wall was covered in art. Her breath was taken away by a Rembrandt, a self-portrait. And, the woman said, "That's a little something my brother brought back from the war." She didn't think much more about it until twenty years later when stories came out about ill-gotten gains from the Nazis. Elizabeth Taylor was sued over a painting, although she won the case. The Nazis stole 1/3 of all Western art. They knew what they were doing, and boxed it up. But, there are over 100,000 pieces missing yet. All of that came together. Cleland thought, what if Josie discovered art that had been stolen by Nazis.  That became her first mystery, Consigned to Death.

Harris remarked that both authors were inspired by news features. Harris' Dead Head came about because of a story she read about a California woman yanked from her Lexus in her driveway. She was a fugitive from the law who had three kids, and an upper middle class lifestyle. But, someone informed on her. She was an escaped convict whose grandfather had helped her flee prison. But, it was easier to create a new life in the 80s. Harris researched how you could disappear yourself. Cleland said she once read a book about how to hide assets and disappear forever.

Going back to the covers, Harris said she would have at least liked a silvery slug trail on the cover of Slugfest, indicating people leave trails wherever we go. She usually has input into the covers.

Harris said she has no input as to the cover. She does a clause saying she's to be consulted about the covers. She likes a more serious, photographic style, as in the latest book. When she received the artwork for Consigned to Death, she wrote the publisher saying she liked the color, but not the cover. It was too cartoony. She heard back from the publisher. "We're glad you liked the color."

Rosemary said they both had ended up with the dreaded pink cover on one of their books. For some reason, publishers want women's books to be pink. But, to her it's a signal that it's girly chick-lit, not as serious as most mysteries are. Rosemary said she's funny, but she takes the investigation of a murder seriously. Jane said she herself is likable, but not funny. Mysteries are serious.

How did they start writing? Cleland wrote four nonfiction books in the field of business communication since she's a trainer. Her last one, Business Writing for Results, included a number of anecdotes, and her agent said maybe you want to try your hand at fiction. Jane only reads murder mysteries. So, she wrote one about a hot male P.I. in New York. She loved it. But, her agent sent it out, and after four or five rejections, she asked her to withdraw it. She kept hearing the same thing. No one was interested in male private investigators in New York in the early 2000s. But, one editor did say, if she wrote about a female amateur, not in New York, he'd like to see it. Jane worked hard on the first twenty pages, and asked the agent to send that because she wasn't going to continue if she wasn't on the right track. The editor said yes. It took her ten months to write it. That book became Consigned to Death.

Rosemary said that article about the mummified body is what inspired her to write. She thought, I'll write a story about that. She had never written anything longer than an email or a thank you note. But, she wanted to write that story and see how it went. She wrote and rewrote it. A friend said she thought it was publishable. At the time, Harris thought that was an insult, but now knows it was a compliment. She had three rejections from agents. Then she went to the public library, and looked in the front of mysteries that seemed similar to hers. She sent letters to ten agents who represented those books telling them why they should represent her.

Cleland told us she and Harris have very different writing styles. Jane writes notes on little pieces of paper or cocktail napkins, but that's the last thing she writes out. Everything else is done on a computer. She's finishing book seven in the Josie Prescott series now, tentatively called Dolled Up for Murder. She has a computer folder called "Extra Stuff," and she can search the folder by keyword search.

On the other hand, Rosemary writes with pencil on a legal pad. She does everything in longhand. She'll write one chapter at a time, and then put it on the computer.

Jane Cleland recently interviewed four bestselling authors for an article about the writing process, Lee Child, Charlaine Harris, Gayle Lynds, and Wendi Corsi Staub. None of them does anything similar in the writing process. Jane writes the plot first, then goes back to write exposition and emotion, and then to tweak it. Rosemary gets the story down. Then she'll go back over it for humor. Then, she does character and description, but Harris doesn't include a lot of description. She has a character, Babe, a former backup singer who now runs the diner where Paula hangs out. At a recent library event, people around the room gave their ideas of Babe's appearance. They described her as looking like Goldie Hawn, Susan Sarandon, and even Pam Greer, a black actress.

Jane said she also goes through her work for timing. You can't mess that up. People will call you on timing and distance - you can't get to that place in that amount of time. Rosemary said a man wrote to her who now lived in North Carolina, but once lived in Connecticut. He took exception to the height of a mountain in one of her books, saying there was no mountain that high in the area. Harris actually hadn't given the height.

Cleland has a funny story about Paul Revere's abacus, and a reader. She's a devoted fan of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe, and she often integrates trivia from the Nero Wolfe books into her stories. In one of the stories, Archie Goodwin has to get in to see a man who won't talk to him, but he knows the man collects silver, so he says he has Paul Revere's abacus. When she used that in one of her books, a man called and told Jane that Paul Revere never made an abacus. Cleland asked him how he knew that. A lively conversation ensued.

What's really in their books? The books feature antiques and gardening, and they're fiction. Rosemary said in one of her books she made a wisecrack, "There is actually a state of Connecticut, and a University of Connecticut, but everything else is fiction." Someone even argued with her about where Springfield, Connecticut is located. There isn't one in Connecticut, although it's the most common city name in the country. She likes it, though, that people read her books so closely. Jane admitted she was called on a time zone problem for Silent Auction, but Harris said that was something an editor should have caught.

The authors were asked if writing mysteries was a lucrative business. They said there are a handful of authors who make a lot. But, most authors pay for their own tours. They get by. They drag their husbands along as chauffeurs. It's not that lucrative.

Jane and Rosemary discussed the economics of the business. Jane said she gets an advance, half when she signs the contract, and then half when the book is delivered. Then, you get royalties. She gets a share when it's picked up by book clubs, or large print. You start with a small advance. You don't want a big advance that doesn't earn out, meaning the publisher loses money on you.

Rosemary said the big authors don't always earn out, though. Her husband is a publisher with Random House, and, since he was in the audience, he admitted the publisher can still make a profit. There may a small printing cost, and the publisher gets the difference between the cost of printing, and the sale price. The author might not earn out, but the publisher does OK on the big authors anyways.

Harris told us most mystery authors are not in it for the money. They love writing mysteries, and they love the mystery community. She always wants to write a better book. It's a great gig. She's met wonderful people, and then some like Jane. (Great deal of laughter there.) They've traveled all over together. Jane has family all over the country.

So, the next question was, what makes a big name author successful. That's the $64 million dollar question, the number Rosemary used, saying Janet Evanovich was able to get that figure from HarperCollins. Luck has a great deal to do with it. Something strikes a chord with readers. Some of it is timing.

However, Lee Child set out to write a bestseller. He looked at Greek myths and fairy tales that endured, and saw that many involved the lone man who rides into town, cleans it up, and leaves. So, Jack Reacher was born.

Harris mentioned the never-ending Jane Austen thing. Janet Evanovich writes humorous mysteries. She has a distinct voice, and people responded. But, she said, if writing a bestseller was easy, everyone would do it. Characters resonate with people. Lee Child's Jack Reacher resonates. He says when he's in Germany, people say, Reacher's really German, isn't he. And, when he's in Australia, they say, he's really an Aussie. It's Lee Child's voice. When he was first published it was probably Robert Ludlum's spy novels and Robert B. Parker's Spenser books topping the bestseller lists. Child was fresh.

Cleland went back to the Jane Austen reference, saying she was named after Jane Austen, her mother's favorite author. Rosemary said her mother was a reader of mysteries and Harlequins, because they were inexpensive and quick reads.

Jane said her Deadly Threads has actually been reviewed as a romance, love gained and love lost. She didn't do that on purpose, though. That reminded Rosemary of Malice Domestic, a mystery conference held in the D.C. area with over 100 authors. She and Cleland teamed up for Malice-Go-Round, in which they talk about their books for a minute and a half and move on to the next table. By the end, they know each other's pitches.

The audience knew that Jane Cleland's next book is Dolled Up for Murder, so they wanted to know about Rosemary's next one. She hopes that it will be The Fifth Woman, a standalone mystery set in a neighboring town. Paula Holliday is a secondary character in it. And, there are some other favorite characters. But, it's a different story, and she had to write it. She hopes it's her next one. But, her publisher might disagree. Readers often want the next one in the series, and the publisher has invested in the series. The next Paula Holliday one will be Burning Bush, in which the crime is arson.

Jane has written a murder mystery play, "Back to Jack," about three women who dated a guy named Jack. He disappeared for a while, and now he's back. He also drives them to drink Jack Daniels. He's murdered at the end of Act 1. Cleland has been working on her MFA in playwriting, partially titled, "Women Who Love Men They Hate." Harris' latest project? She hopes to get back to her garden. She tours for 90 to 100 days, usually in the spring, and misses her garden.

For me, the perfect ending of this program was Jane Cleland's signature in my copy of Deadly Threads. That might be a picture of her cat, Louie, on the cover of the book, but it looks just like my beloved Nikki. Jane's note was a perfect Mother's Day weekend signature. "For Nikki's mom, from Louie's mom! Thank you, Lesa."

Jane K. Cleland's website is

 Zoë Sharp, Libby Hellmann and Cara Black at the library!

Usually, that heading says for Authors @ The Teague or at The Poisoned Pen, but since I not only hosted Zoë Sharp, Libby Hellmann and Cara Black at the library, but also went to see them at The Poisoned Pen, this is a lengthy combined post.

Libby Hellmann acted as panel moderator, saying when she and Cara toured together, they usually referred to it as the Thelma and Louise tour.  But, Zoë said she really didn't want to play the Brad Pitt role.

Cara Black started by discussing her new book, Murder in Passy, the eleventh book in the Aimée Leduc series. All of her books are set in Paris. This one is set in the 16th arrondissement, a neighborhood so large it has two zip codes.  And, it's so chic that the maids wear pearls. 

Cara picked this arrondissement because of her interest in the Basques. She lives in San Francisco, near a Basque center. When Black's son was young, the family did a house exchange and went to France. They stayed in Basque country, and found everyone warm and welcoming. But, then they decided to go to Spain for a day to have tapas. And, they became lost in the Pyrenees in the days before GPS. All the street signs in that area had been defaced by Basque nationalists. And, they came across the rubble of a house that had been bombed by the ETA, the Basque nationalist and socialist group. The signs of violence in such a peaceful setting was disturbing. When Cara learned there had once been a Basque cultural center in the 16th arrondissement, she knew she had found her next story. She wanted to write about overtones of Basque terrorism in the elite neighborhood. 

Zoë Sharp was next to discuss her latest book, Fourth Day. That's the eighth book in the Charlie Fox series, featuring the female bodyguard. This one is set in California. Sharp wanted to do a book about cults. But, she wanted to twist expectations as to what a novel about cults would be. The cult in this book isn't a normal cult. And, she went at the story from a different angle.  Sharp read about Waco and Ruby Ridge. And, she talked to law enforcement about those places, asking what they would have done.

 Zoë picked California for her setting because it had the type of geography she wanted. It's partially set in a desert location. It's a story about Charlie's search for redemption. The Fourth Day cult believes that people can't be rebuilt until they're broken. And, Charlie's searching for answers. Sharp mixed all of this into her book.

Libby Hellmann told us Set the Night on Fire is her seventh novel. She writes two series. They feature Ellie Foreman and Georgia Davis. Libby wanted to write a standalone thriller, an adrenaline filled book. So, she tried to think of the most frightening thing that could happen to people, while avoiding threats to children and pets. What if you were being followed and someone was trying to kill you, and you don't know who or why? That's what happens to Lila Hilliard. While she tries to answer that question, she uncovers information about her parents' past that she never knew.

Lila's parents' story goes back to the '60s in Chicago, including 1968 and the Democratic convention. There were six young people who lived together. The story of what happened then is the mid-section of the book. Two parts are set in the present, and one part of the book in the past. Hellmann said she found it most exciting that she had permission to use four lines from the Doors' Light My Fire as the epigraph, and it didn't cost her a fortune.

Libby asked the authors to tell us about their latest books. Cara started with Murder in Passy. Aimée's relationship with her godfather, Morbier, has always been uneasy. He keeps secrets from her about her family's past, including stories of her mother as a terrorist. In this book, Morbier is accused of murdering his girlfriend, and Aimée doesn't know if she trusts him to tell her the truth. This book explores the issues of trust.

Black said Passy was a village until 1860 when it became part of Paris. Empress Eugénie III, wife of Napoleon III, used to go to Passy to take the waters. Balzac hid there to escape his creditors, drinking fifty cups of coffee a day as he frantically wrote. The village feeling still exists in Passy. Cara has a friend whose great aunt was a maid in village. When they picked her up to take her to a retirement home, she was crying, "I want to die in Passy!" She didn't want to leave the village. Asked why there was a Basque cultural center there, Cara answered that it wasn't always expensive to live in Passy. It had proletarian roots.

In Fourth Day, Sharp's novel, Charlie and her partner, Sean, are hired to go into Fourth Day to extract Thomas Witney who went in five years earlier to prove that Randall Bane, the charismatic leader, murdered Witney's son. Now, Thomas says Randall didn't kill his son. But, soon after Witney comes out, he meets a tragic end. So, his ex-wife wants to know if he was brainwashed. What happened to Witney while he was there? And, she wants to know if a child in there is Thomas' grandson.

So, Charlie goes in to Fourth Day. She's looking for redemption, and thinks she might be able to find the truth if she goes into that environment. What is the truth? The book goes against preconceptions.

Zoë did a great deal of research about Waco and Ruby Ridge. She enjoys doing research, but then you throw 90% of it away when you write. She learned little points. There were hundreds of federal agents at Waco. There were also two members of the British SAS there as observers. When the ATF agents prepared to go in, the military knew they weren't suited for the job. So, they told them to write their blood group on their neck or forearm. Can you imagine a job so dangerous, you had to write that on your body? Sharp used that in her book.

Libby Hellmann said people ask her why she wrote about the '60s. She's originally from D.C., although she's lived in Chicago for the last thirty years. But, when you grow up in D.C., and talk about the neighbors, you're talking politics. Libby was in college in 1968 when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. And, her college boyfriend had been tapped to head the youth for Robert Kennedy campaign. So, Libby planned to drop out of college in the fall, and work for him. She was home for the summer, and turned on the TV to learn Kennedy was shot. Her friends were being drafted. She thought, why work through the system if it didn't work for us. So, writing about those two years was an exorcism for Hellmann.

Libby said she and her friends didn't succeed or change anything. The system and the government are what it always was. But, she's not the person she was at that time. She loved writing about the '60s, finishing the book, and putting it behind her. It was an exorcism. Zoë said someone said, "Whoever you vote for, the government always gets in."

Cara said when she told Libby she was writing about the Basques, Libby said she'd been friends with a Basque exchange student in D.C. Elizabeta spent the '60s in Spain under Franco. She was part of the protests, and spent time in prison for protesting. The Basques wanted to keep their own language. Eventually, she fled to France by boat to hide out. Sharp said there's no substitute for finding a person who was there, even in the days of the Internet.

The authors were asked how they keep their series fresh. Zoë answered that you take characters you care for, and create conflict. There's pressure testing the character. So, she takes Charlie Fox and tests her, or creates conflict. Charlie taught self-defense. So, in Second Shot, Sharp had her shot twice on the first page. She doesn't have her physical self-assurance. She spends half the book on crutches. Each of Sharp's books is a standalone with the story of that book. At the same time, she's relating the journey of the character in the series. The individual story is the length of one book, but the character's journey goes on.

In Murder in the Bastille, Cara Black asked how she could hobble Aimée Leduc, and still allow her to do her job. Cara said a woman in her writing group was blinded for eight months because of a virus. She eventually got her eyesight back. So, in this book, Aimée is blinded. But, Black was thirty pages into the writing of it, and felt like a fraud. How can she describe Paris when Aimée can't see it? So, René, a dwarf, and Aimée's business partner, had lots of pages seen through his eyes.

Black's character continues to grow. She's searching for her mother. What happened to her father. In Murder in Passy, she's pulled into defending her godfather, Morbier, because no one else will.

Libby said she keeps her series fresh by starting new ones. She calls her four Ellie Foreman books a cross between Desperate Housewives and 24. Ellie was a video producer, as Hellmann was. And, after a while, Libby was having a hard time finding credible reasons for a video producer to be involved in murder investigations.

But, in book two in the Ellie Foreman series, Hellmann introduced a cop named Georgia Davis. And, she knew Georgia would have her own book someday. That book became Easy Innocence. Georgia had been suspended at the end of book three. She became a private investigator in Easy Innocence. Doubleback brings Ellie and Georgia together. Readers don't know Georgia as well as Ellie. Georgia has baggage. Ellie's the type that will tell you everything. But, it is Georgia's job to investigate crimes. Readers do find out a little more about her background in the third book. Hellmann will be going back to Georgia eventually.

An audience member asked the women what they're background was before they started writing. Hellmann went to grad school in film, but ended up working in network news. Her last job in news was at the overnight desk at NBC News in D.C. She quit that to take a job in P.R. in Chicago. She did that for eight years, and fell into writing. It took her four months to write her first book, the worst book ever written. Now, it takes her eighteen months to write a book. She has more control over words than she did film.

Cara Black came from a family of readers. They went to the library every Saturday morning. Even at the end of his life, when her father had Alzheimer's, Cara's father read seven books a week. Her father once suggested she read P.D. James, and she kept saying no. After school, Black went to Europe, and backpacked. When she came home, she became a preschool teacher. Then, she stayed home with her son.

Why write? A friend took Cara to an apartment in the Marais in Paris, and told her that was where her mother lived during the German occupation. She wore a yellow star, and lived there alone, since her parents had been taken. She later learned her parents had died in Auschwitz. Black wanted to tell that story.

Once Black put her son in preschool for two hours a week, her husband said she should take that extra time to take writing classes. She learned the detective novel provided a great structure for her to tell her story. It took her 3 1/2 years to write her first book, Murder in the Marais.

Zoë told us she was embarrassed to say she opted out of mainstream education at the age of twelve. Then, she decided at fifteen that it was time to get a job. She did everything, including delivering yachts. Sharp did lots of strange stuff, but nothing is ever wasted as a writer. For example, they were in New York at Christmas, and she cut her finger with a knife. It was a deep cut that bled all over. She realized how hot blood is, and that she must use that experience some day.

Sharp had a short lived job selling advertising for a newspaper. She hated the job, and asked if she could write for the newspaper. They said no, she wasn't qualified, so she became a freelancer, and was paid to write for four years. She wrote for magazines. When she writing freelance for one job, there was a time whenever her photo would appear that she would get death threats. The police never found who sent them. So, Zoë decided to take it a step further. What would it be like to be followed whenever you went out? That scenario became the idea for Charlie Fox, and the first book, Killer Instinct.

Libby's first book published was actually her fourth written. After the second book, she got an agent in New York, and thought she was on her way. Six months later, he told her he couldn't sell her book. He suggested she change the voice, her plots, her characters, and, by the way, her agent. He didn't want to represent her anymore. But, then one short story she wrote did well.  It was set in the 1930s, so she thought maybe she could do something with that. But, she didn't want to write about the '30s, so she took the story, moved it sixty years in the future, and made it about her character's daughter, Ellie Foreman. So, she really needs to thank that literary agent who dropped her for starting her literary career.

Sharp said the editor who refused to take her on at the newspaper because she wasn't qualified, later took her to an expensive lunch and offered her the editorship of a newspaper. After enjoying the lunch, she told him he couldn't afford her.

Asked about the writing process and writer's block, Zoë answered that she doesn't get it. She often finds solutions to problems in the shower. She does outline her books, and uses those outlines as a road map. She knows her destination. Then, she can enjoy the journey.

Sharp's books are a first person narrative. She has to get inside Charlie's head. So, she writes the jacket copy first, and tells her agent what it says to see if she likes the idea. That jacket copy provides the focus of the book, and helps Sharp pull the book back into focus if she gets lost half way. She does a huge outline, writing everything from everyone's point of view. Then, she does an outline only from Charlie's point of view, showing just what Charlie knows.

Cara is a seat of the pantser writer. She has to find a part of Paris that intrigues her, bothers her. She starts with a sense of place. What makes that area unique? Why would a crime happen here? Black mentally "Lives there for a year." Why would Aimée Leduc be involved? It's more important that Aimée be personally involved. Why would she be involved?

After finding that sense of place, Cara goes back to her preschool days, and does a timeline on butcher paper. The timeline begins with Monday, and where her characters are. She uses post-its on the butcher paper. By page 100, she needs to know who the most important character is, the villain. When the villain enters the story, a crime happens. Why is the villain doing this? Learning all of that is like peeling an onion.

Libby is also a seat of the pantser. She uses notes. She thinks she knows who did it, but there may be changes. She's had a person she thought did it, but he didn't because he was just too good. She couldn't have that person do it. So, she called Cara, and talked through her characters until she discovered who did it.  Hellmann knows her characters. She knows them well because she wrote backstories for them. The plot sort of falls into place. There's conflict and action. Libby has an innate sense of pacing that comes from her film background.

 Zoë outlines to know the structure of the plot. She doesn't plan the reactions of her characters, though. She said there is no secret to writing. Everyone does it differently. Sharp's characters surprise her. New characters introduce themselves to Charlie. Sharp doesn't do backstory for her characters.

Black said she's a tactile person, and needs materials. She goes to flea markets and picks up items, or brings back napkins from restaurants. Those help her to bring back the time and place in Paris. She mentioned that Elizabeth George does chapters of backstory for her characters. Cara gave us an example of using tactile materials. She found an old wallet in a thrift shop, and she sees it as Morbier's. She put things in it that Morbier would carry.

As to voice, Zoë said she tried writing Charlie in third person, and it just wouldn't come. Libby wrote the Ellie books in first person, and that provided an intimacy. Now, she mostly uses third person. Cara uses third person and multiple points of view. But, it's a close third person. Sharp experiments with voice in short stories. She has a story set in second and third person, present tense, for the next Mystery Writers' of America anthology.

Do they become better writers over time? They said their craft gets better. Zoë said when her first book was reissued, she could have made changes, but decided not to, since she would have entirely rewritten the book. She wouldn't have used foreshadowing in the book, that "Had I but known."

Cara admitted she did get to change things in Murder in the Marais, for the twenty-fifth anniversary publication. After that book came out, she had a man come up to her, tell her he liked her book, but he was a Baudelaire scholar, and she had Baudelaire buried in the wrong cemetery. So, she changed it in the new edition. When she first wrote the book, she told Aimée's age on the first page. But, French women don't tell their age. She thinks of Aimée as ageless. So, she got to change that. She's written eleven books, and only covered four years.

Sharp mentioned that when Robert B. Parker first wrote the Spenser books, he made Spenser a veteran of the Korean War. As the series went on, he never mentioned that in later books.

Asked how they got started, and how they first published, Libby said it's important to get an agent first. After she wrote the first Ellie book, she revised and revised it. She's been with the same writers' group for fifteen years. She found a new agent, and that agent sold the first Ellie book in a three book deal. Hellmann had been writing for five years at that point, building her craft. She said it was important to find a writing group. Her group meets weekly, and they read out loud, seven or eight pages. But, you have to have a thick skin. Libby said when she was the new person in the group, she felt as if they went after her.All three authors are in writing groups. Zoë said someone once said, "Writers have to take more criticism in a year than most people take in a lifetime." And, she closed the program on the perfect note, saying a writer has to be passionate to tell the story.

After dinner with Zoë and her husband, Andy, I was in the audience at the Poisoned Pen for the evening program, when Barbara Peters interviewed Black, Hellmann and Sharp. She started out by asking the audience how they learned of the program, and most people answered through the newspaper. Peters said they had some good reaction to social media, such as Facebook.

Because much of the material was covered in the morning, the Poisoned Pen recap will touch on highlights, topics not covered earlier in the day.

Peters and Cara Black share a French connection. Peters studied French at Stanford, and corresponds with Cara in French. Cara's first book, Murder in the Marais, was set in November 1993. Eleven books later, Murder in Passy, is set in November 1997. It's Aimée Leduc's first day back to work after the ending of Murder in the Palais Royal. Her godfather, Morbier, asks a favor of her. He's a suspect in his girlfriend's murder, and no one believes he's innocent. This novel has everything from a Basque connection to a Spanish princess. In 1997, the Basque ETA were in the news. Now, most people who were in the ETA live in Bilbao, Spain.

Peters said one problem with police sleuths is that they are limited to one area. By writing about private eyes, these authors' characters can go anyplace.

Zoë Sharp's Charlie Fox is British ex-army. She's a bodyguard who works for a firm out of New York. She chose California as a setting for Fourth Day because she wanted to subvert people's expectations of a cult. She went at it from a different angle. This story works on several levels. Charlie and Sean are asked to do a straightforward extraction, taking Thomas Witney out of the Fourth Day cult five years after he went in to try to prove that Randall Bane killed his son. This book strips Charlie back to her roots to find out what she's made of. She has to go out into the desert to do that. The basic tenet of Fourth Day is that you can't be rebuilt until you're broken.

Peters mentioned that Sharp's books were supposed to come out from Busted Press, but that was dissolved on the death of the owner. The books are tied up in probate, and no one knows what will happen. She said that is one role e-books can play, when publication of books are held up or the books disappear. For instance, the leading e-book title for Poisoned Pen Press is Monkey on a Chain by Harlen Campbell, a book that disappeared after it was published.

Peters went on to say that in the 1990s, mysteries were big. And, there's an inevitable cycle. They're coming back, but many of the books are in different forms. Following a little industry talk, Hellmann said all of her books are on ebooks. In talking about her characters, Libby said Ellie Hatcher is an amateur sleuth, who was a film producer as Libby was. She lives in a suburb of Chicago, as does Hellmann. Ellie has a teenage daughter, as Libby did at the time. There are four books in that series. Now, Hellmann is writing historical thrillers. She said she was a history major, and there is history in all of her books.

Cara Black mentioned that Soho Press actually has The Aimée Leduc Companion to download. It includes maps of the district, a glossary, and a list of characters. She said her next book will be set in a small Chinatonw in Paris. Rhys Bowen, who was in the audience, just set her most recent Molly Murphy book, Bless the Bride, in Chinatown in New York. Black said there are four Chinatowns in Paris. The people that live in the three to four blocks Black is writing about are not political exiles, but business people.

When Peters said Paris and London aren't recognizable as the same cities they were, with the large influx of immigrants, Zoë said she still lives in a place that is British, but it's 300 miles north of London. It's countryside, and you can still see the stars there at night.

Cara was asked about Morbier's name. It seems Morbier is a famous cheese. She laughed and said Morbier is the "Big Cheese" at the police station. Then, she was asked about René, the dwarf who is Aimée's business partner. Black said he's a brilliant computer hacker. But, people only notice his size. She wanted to play with what people can do. She had such an experience when she was on a hiring committee, and failed to hire a woman. She realized later she was looking at her disabilities, and not her abilities.

Zoë Sharp's Charlie Fox has been compared to a female Jack Reacher. She's smart, tough, and combat ready. Sharp loved reading thrillers, such as Alistair MacLean. But, the only women in those books fainted, or were weak traitors. Zoë wanted to write about a woman who was in the rescue party, not needing rescuing.

Sharp wrote her first book at fifteen, and it received rave rejections. Her father typed it on his electric typewriter, and he still threatens to get it out and put it online. But, what she really wanted to write was nonfiction. Zoë became a freelance writer, but she started to receive death threats cut out of newspapers. That was scary. But, although the notes said they knew where she lived, the letters went to the magazine's address in London. The first Charlie Fox book came from that.

 Asked if the SAS trained women, Sharp responded that she never said Charlie was SAS. Charlie was Special Forces. Speicial Forces were undercover in northern Ireland, but not the SAS. She said the SAS places a high value on the mercenary market. There was discussion of domestic terrorism that led to Libby Hellmann's comment that she has a trailer on her website, thirty seconds of footage from the Democratic National Convention that she was allowed to use by the artist.

In speaking of 1968, Sharp said her father was a textile consultant who traveled all over the world. He was sitting in a New York diner when the news flashed up, "King assassinated." And, he asked, "King of where?"

Peters said anyone who saw The King's Speech knows that those speeches on the radio were a major rallying point for the country. Now radio technology is so old. The discussion of technology led to an enthusiastic discussion of ebooks. Peters concluded the program by reminding the audience that all of the authors, along from staff from the Poisoned Pen, would be at the Tucson Festival of Books over the weekend.

Cara Black's website is http://www.carablack.com/

Libby Hellmann's website is http://www.libbyhellmann.com/

Zoë Sharp's website is http://www.zoesharp.com/

Donis Casey for Authors @ The Teague

Snare by Deborah J. Ledford

I don't read mysteries or thrillers for the frantic pace. I read for character and plot, which is why I don't read many thrillers.  But Deborah J. Ledfords' Snare offers a depth of character, and an eerie feeling of atmosphere that isn't always present in thrillers.  It's tense, but, at the same time she allows the story to develop at a natural pace, without forcing the suspense. The book deserves its nomination for this year's Hillerman Sky Award.

From page one, we're drawn into the tragedy of young Katina Salvo's life as she listens to her mother's last fight with her abusive father.  And, even at twenty-three, fifteen years later, she's fleeing from her past.  It's no wonder the successful Native American singer/songwriter has never appeared in public.  But, that's about to change, and her first concert will be in North Carolina, where Deputy Steven Hawk is charged with keeping her safe.  It's too bad neither Hawk nor Katina know all the reasons someone might want her dead.

Despite all precautions, Katrina and Hawk are caught in a trap the night of the concert. When Hawk is seriously injured, something prevents a greater tragedy, a presence they both sense. While Hawk has to recover physically, Katrina has to recover emotionally from the events of that night.  She turns to her past, her aunt's home on the Taos Pueblo Reservation in New Mexico for answers, and Hawk accompanies her, not knowing if he's looking for her father or a man from the reservation who comes and goes like a ghost.  But, both of them sense that answers will only be found there.

Ledford's novel is so much more impressive than so many thrillers, with its depth of character.  Hawk is fully developed as a black deputy, very much aware of some feelings against him in North Carolina.  At the same time, his strong family ties gives him a grounding, a safety net in life that Katina lacks.  It's Katina's story that slowly unfolds in the course of the story as the true tragedy of her life is told.  Ledford even tells the parallel story of Katrina's father, an ex-con who only learns of his daughter's success after he's out of prison.

The story has an atmosphere of impending doom that hangs over the entire book. Some of that comes from the use of nature and symbols.  Ledford shows a great respect for spiritual beliefs of Katina's people and Hawk's. Those beliefs are essential to the story, beliefs in spirits and their roles after death, beliefs in the messages sent by the birds and nature. The beauty of the two settings, North Carolina and the Taos Pueblo Reservation, are in stark contrast to the dark atmosphere hanging over Katina's life.

With its atmosphere and strong characters, Snare is a gripping story of a woman trapped by her past, and the past of her dead mother. It's also the story of a lawman who chose his profession to make a difference in his community. For once, he has to leave his life, to help a young woman survive, and find her own community.

Deborah J. Ledford's website is

Crying Blood by Donis Casey

 January 31, 2011

Pohlman said she didn't expect any of those experiences to happen to her, from the story in the book, to writing the book, so she was just going to speak from her heart.  She and her family were living in Los Angeles.  Her husband was in the radio business.  They had been married for sixteen years, together for five before that.  They had two kids, and their marriage had just run its course.  There comes a time in so many marriages when they've just run its course.  And, that hurt.  Susan was a teacher who devoted her life to supporting families.  So, she was heartbroken, but, without telling her husband, Tim, she went to a lawyer. 

You never know who will be at AUTHORS AT THE TEAGUE!

Arizona Mystery Author Donis Casey

Is “Crying Blood” at the Library Feb. 26

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Arizona author Donis Casey will discuss and sign her fifth Alafair Tucker mystery, “Crying Blood,” during the upcoming Authors @ the Teague event at 2 p.m. on Saturday, February 26, at Velma Teague Branch Library, 7010 N. 58^th Ave.  

            After finding human remains during a hunting trip in 1915 Oklahoma, Shaw Tucker is followed home by Crying Blood, a Creek Indian boy seeking his brother’s murderer.  When the boy winds up dead as well, Shaw is determined to catch the killer, while his wife, Alafair, is equally determined to keep Shaw from getting himself killed too.  A fascinating, authentic account of turn-of-the-century farm life and Native American history, “[this book] will appeal to history buffs and Hillerman aficionados.” (“Kirkus Reviews”)

            Originally a third-generation farm girl from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Casey worked as an academic librarian and a shopkeeper before becoming a full-time writer.  She and her husband now live in Tempe.  For more information, see http://www.doniscasey.com.

            The program is free.  Books will be available for purchase and signing.  For more information, please call 623-930-3439.

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