Cartoon of the Day: Books

How Jeff Got His Scar Tissue: Guest Post by Jeffrey B. Burton

Authors must have thick skin (perhaps scar tissue is a better word). It’s mandatory.
You WILL get rejections, lots and lots of them. I’ve received enough to wallpaper the family room with several left over for the kitchen backsplash. And, if any feedback comes along with said rejections, be sure to thank the editor, incorporate any ideas that make sense, blow off any that don’t add up, and, most of all, don’t lose a wink of sleep.
Easy as pie, huh?
Yup, I know, but sit back a minute, relax, put your feet up, and let me tell you the tale of how Jeff got his scar tissue.
My father was a paperboy when he grew up. He delivered newspapers with a childhood chum by the name of Tom Disch. The two of them shared routes and spent mornings tossing daily papers onto front stoops while making up wild adventure stories, each one taking a turn and leaving the other stuck with a cliffhanger.
Well, Tom took all this storytelling to heart and wound up an award-winning science fiction author and poet who wrote under the name Thomas M. Disch. Although Tom wrote cerebral sci-fi and dystopian novels, he may best be remembered for penning the novella, The Brave Little Toaster, which was made into an animated movie that inspired subsequent sequels.
As a child, I met Tom on a handful of occasions. Whenever he blew through St. Paul, Minnesota, he’d drop by our house to visit my father. So, let’s fast-forward fifteen years. I’m a stone’s throw out of college, working a dead-end job in order to pay the rent and, somehow—I simply can’t imagine how—it came to my attention that dad’s boyhood chum, Thomas M. Disch, was writing book reviews for Playboy. (Hey, I only read the magazine for the articles.)
At the time, I could count the number of short stories I’d written on one finger. But the story was a work of genius, I must admit. I would no doubt be going places. That was fairly obvious for all to see.
Of course, they say the human brain doesn’t fully form or mature until age twenty-five, or, in my case, fifty, but let me lay out my plan.
I would send that brilliant story of mine to Thomas M. Disch, care of Playboy magazine in Chicago. He was my father’s oldest friend; he’d owe it a read. Tom would then recognize my brilliance; he’d be so completely blown away he’d scamper down the hallway to share it with Hugh, who, in turn, would cut me a check for thousands of dollars and, in no time at all, I’d be strolling about Hef’s mansion in my robe and slippers.
So, I mailed my short story off, a month passed by, and, to be honest, I was in my early twenties and so wrapped up with what bar the gang would be meeting at each night, I’d practically forgotten about my scheme when the phone rang.
“Hello,” I answered.
“Is this Jeff Burton?”
The hair on the back of my neck began to rise. “Yes.”
“This is Tom Disch.”
Sadly, that was the high-water mark of our conversation. It slid steadily downhill from there. Passengers on the Titanic had a less grueling stretch. Tom, who’d taught creative writing at the university level, was brutally honest with me. And Tom informed me how he thought my story was, in fact, not brilliant. Actually, it was quite the opposite.
Tom did not like it.
Within a minute of picking up the telephone, my kidneys felt as though they’d been smeared against a cheese grater. Repeatedly. And the realization slowly dawned on me—I’d not be frolicking about Hef’s mansion in my robe and slippers, after all.
“I needed a stiff drink before I called,” Tom informed me with a heavy sigh.
After the call ended, I plucked the story off my desk, read through it a final time, and, yes indeed, Tom was right. It needed a major rewrite or, better yet, a quick intro to a lit match. To make matters worse, dang near every paragraph contained a grammatical error or typo of one kind or another.
I felt one inch tall. I felt I’d need the Jaws of Life to un-cringe myself. And though I was alone in my apartment, I wanted to go hide inside the wall closet in my bedroom, all fetal-positioned up, never to come out. Maybe I’d ascertain if the hanging rod could support my body weight.
It took me several stiff drinks, and several more months, before I shrugged the incident off, returned to my writing chair, and dove back in.
So, whenever I receive a rejection letter or harsh piece of criticism from an editor or publisher, I don’t meltdown and I don’t turtle into myself, because—once upon a time—at the spry age of twenty-two, the book reviewer at Playboy called to tell me I sucked.

***

 Jeffrey B. Burton's latest mystery/thriller, The Second Grave (Severn House), comes out in February of 2025. The Dead Years (Severn House) came out in March of 2024. Burton's critically-acclaimed Mace Reid K-9 mystery series (St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur) include The Finders, The Keepers, and The Lost. For more information, check out his website at www.JeffreyBBurton.com

PARTNERS IN CRIME: Collaborators Continue the Molly Murphy Series by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles

The last issue of Mystery Readers Journal focused on Partners in Crime. It was a great issue with a variety of articles, reviews, and author essays. Here's a link to the Table of Contents. I thought I'd make more of the essays available to my blog readers, so I'm posting Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles's author essay: Collaborators Continue the Molly Murphy Series.

Want to read the entire issue? It's available as a downloadable PDF.

Collaborators Continue the Molly Murphy Series by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles

    RHYS BOWEN: Two years ago my daughter Clare came to me with an unexpected proposition. She said, “I think I’d like to write the Molly Murphy series with you.”

I had put that series on hold after book seventeen because I was already writing two books a year, one of them a big historical stand-alone novel that required loads of research. I simply did not have time for a third book. But as Clare pointed out, I got a constant stream of emails saying “when is the next Molly book coming out?”

I was ambivalent about Clare’s suggestion. I knew she was a good writer, but what if she couldn’t get Molly’s voice or the tone of the novels? She was my daughter. I loved her dearly. What if I had to tell her it wasn’t working out? But I agreed to give it a try. I was so pleasantly surprised. I had expected to do a lot of hand-holding to start with, a lot of rewriting, mentoring.

Instead Clare read all seventeen books again then hit the ground running. She got Molly’s voice perfectly, and she came to that first book with so many good ideas.

CLARE BROYLES: I loved the Molly Murphy series from the first book and didn’t want the series to die. I knew that to be successful as a collaborator I had to get Molly’s voice. So I not only read through all seventeen of the novels taking notes, I also listened to the audiobooks. Early on, Rhys gave me some great advice. She suggested that whenever I felt stuck, I picture myself sitting in Molly’s house at her kitchen table while she tells me a story about her life. I try to be the listener as I write, and that it is Molly who drives the story in her own words.

RHYS: We fell into a smooth way of working. We talk through the main theme of the book, we decide on our characters and their names, do the preliminary research, then we work together on the first chapters. After that it’s all rather organic. Clare might tell me she can picture the party scene so she takes it. I read it through, sometimes tweak here and there, and go on ahead. She reads through my scenes and then goes ahead again. We talk every day, bouncing ideas off each other.

CLARE: It is such a gift to have a co-writer. For one thing, I get instant feedback on each scene that I write. Most writers have to just live with their self-doubt! And each time I write ten pages, Rhys has written ten more, so I get to be a reader as well. We spend hours discussing the tricky details of the murder. We want to play fair and give the readers clues, but also have a clever solution. In All That Is Hidden, our latest Molly Murphy, we blithely gave ourselves the challenge of a locked room mystery. And then we had to figure out how the murderer could have done it!

RHYS: Obviously books set in the early 1900s require a lot of research. Clare has turned out to be the queen of research. She reads the New York Times archives for every day we write about and has come up with great ideas that we’ve incorporated into our plots. I come with the background knowledge of having written almost twenty books set in the time and place. I know Molly’s New York intimately, having walked every street when I was writing the first books, as well as having assembled a collection of photographs of the city, restaurant menus, Sears catalog for 1900 etc etc. So when Clare is writing she will leave details of Molly walking across Manhattan and what she might have seen to me. And I leave it to her to find out details about Tammany Hall corruption, the mayor’s election, dirty dealings at the docks.

Clare, tell the readers what brilliant news items you found for our new book, All That Is Hidden.

CLARE: One of the first articles I read was about a boat catching fire on the Hudson. The New York Times gave an exciting account of the boat being engulfed in flames as the crew struggled to dock and couldn’t, then finally made fast at a small dock that promptly burst into flames. Rhys and I knew we had to put Molly on that boat. And that detail shaped a major character. We knew we wanted a wealthy man involved in our mystery, but when we decided to include the boat it led us to the docks and Tammany Hall. I scoured the Times for mentions of Tammany Hall and read about the Republicans teaming up with William Randolph Hearst’s Independence Party to try to take control away from Tammany. Those stories formed the background to the novel.

RHYS: We have just turned in our third book. This one was exceptionally fun to write because we set it in the Catskill mountains at the very beginning of the Jewish bungalow communities. Again I left it to Clare to do the research. She found videos of a train ride through the mountains, old maps and what were the plums, Clare?

CLARE: I learned that the streets of New York were paved with bluestone that came from quarries in the Catskills. In 1907 Portland cement was replacing blue stone and the quarries were in trouble. A new Catskills state park had just been formed with the first Park Rangers, and chestnut trees were still abundant, although the blight was spreading. My favorite find was an artist’s community that was a summer destination for bohemians like our characters Sid and Gus, and for many professional women. It still exists today with lodging and a theater. We decided to make a fictional version for Molly to visit and have the liberal inhabitants come out in protest against the blue stone quarrying that was disturbing the peace of the Catskills.

RHYS: So now we had plenty of conflict. Plenty of potential for clashes and motives for murder. Obviously we are writing about a community that is not our own. We felt this was okay to tackle as it is all seen through Molly’s eyes, the eyes of an outsider. However we wanted to make sure everything about the Jewish community was completely authentic so I enlisted the help of an old friend in New York, who comes from a distinguished Jewish family and we had her go through the book for us. She is a former editor and she went through with a tooth comb! And miraculously she found very little to criticize or change.

CLARE: I don’t think you could write about the Catskills without including the Jewish community. At that time the large resorts had signs saying, “No Hebrews”. It didn’t matter how wealthy or educated the family was. If you are a fan of the Molly books you know that many of them deal with a group who is excluded because of their gender, race or religion. Including, of course, the Irish who arrived in New York to signs that said, “No Irish need apply.” I hope we are able to continue to tell those stories.

RHYS: It is my plan to step back gradually with each book until I can hand the series over to Clare and I’ll lurk in the background as the mentor. So watch out for her. She’s already coming up with brilliant ideas for her own series.

Rhys Bowen was born in Bath, England, but has called California her home for many years. When she’s not writing, she loves to travel, sing, hike, paint, play the Celtic harp, and spoil her grandchildren.

Clare Broyles is a teacher, and music composer whose work for theater won an Arizona Zoni award. She is now a perfect partner in crime.

 

Cartoon of the Day: The John Le Carre´ Advent Calendar

 

Cartoon of the Day: At the Feline Museum of Modern Art

 Happy Caturday

Cartoon of the Day: The Shocking Truth of What's Going on in our Public Libraries!

 

IRISH INDEPENDENT CRIME FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR

The winners of the An Post Irish Book Awards were announced yesterday. There are multiple categories, but of interest to mystery readers, here is the winner of the:

2024 Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year

A Stranger in the Family, by Jane Casey (Hemlock Press)

Cartoon of the Day: The Inquest

Be Thankful You Don’t Have These Families: Guest Post by Barb Goffman

Ahh, Thanksgiving. A wonderful time of year when family gets together. You hug and bond and share happy memories.

At least that’s what the Hallmark Channel movies want you to think. But, c’mon, you know the truth. Every family has one member that everyone else just can’t stand. The brother who chews with his mouth open. On purpose. The cousin who won’t stop talking. The aunt who snoops around the house and then tells everyone what she found. Yep, after a few hours of wonderful family togetherness, you just might want to kill someone.

And that’s why mystery writers love Thanksgiving so much. The essence of a good story is conflict. And nothing provides more conflict than family. 

Take my character, Dotty, from my short story “Biscuits, Carats, and Gravy.” She’s a grandmother who loves Thanksgiving. The whole family comes to her home, and she gets to show off her gorgeous crystal, her perfect decorations, and her Martha Stewart-like dishes. So far so good. But then throw into the mix a twenty-year-old airhead intent on marrying into the family—and on getting her hands on Dotty’s deceased mother’s engagement ring—and now you have conflict.

Will Dotty let the airhead get her way? Are you kidding? Dotty comes up with a plan to save the ring involving cunning, deception, and some horrible, horrible gravy. Things start out okay, but sometimes the best laid plans ... well, you know.

I had a story published in 2009, “The Worst Noel,” in The Gift of Murder anthology, that started at Thanksgiving and ended at Christmas. In between was a holiday season filled with so much family-togetherness that my main character, Gwen, was pushed right over the edge. When a narcissistic mother clearly loves one sister more the other, you shouldn’t be surprised when the less-favored daughter decides to seek a little personal justice, should you?

Dotty and Gwen aren’t the only devious character running around these days. The anthology The Killer Wore Cranberry, where “Biscuits, Carats, and Gravy” appears, is comprised of nine Thanksgiving stories, each with memorable characters. Mobsters. Felons. Even turkeys and spuds. Each story is funny, and each one involves a Thanksgiving food, which is perfect, because the only thing better than mysteries with conflict are mysteries with conflict and good hearty laughs. 

Six books in total were published in The Killer Wore Cranberry series. I had stories in the first four. My story in volume two, "Murder a la Mode," involves a murder mystery during Thanksgiving at a nudist colony. My story in volume three, "Operation Knock Her Down a Peg," has cousins who work together on a cooking show despite hating each other—and then they spend Thanksgiving together. And my story in volume four, "It's A Trap!" involves estranged sisters who get together for Thanksgiving to please their dying mother. By the end, Mama might have wished she hadn’t pushed so hard. To find these anthologies, click here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Barb-Goffman/author/B00CC5NC1K/allbooks. You also can buy “Biscuits, Carats, and Gravy” as a standalone story.

So when you’re on your last nerve this week, with the children screaming and the pots overflowing, and you’re about to beat your husband with your turkey baster, stop, download, and relax. I promise, in the few minutes it takes to read one of these short stories, you’ll regain your sanity and your smile. And then you’ll be ready to spend time with your family. Well, as ready as you can be.

Happy Thanksgiving!

***

Barb Goffman has been nominated for major crime-fiction short story awards forty-three times and has won the Agatha three times, the Macavity twice, and the Anthony and Ellery Queen Readers Award once each. She is this year’s recipient of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award, which is the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s lifetime achievement award. Barb makes her living as a freelance editor, especially enjoying working on traditional and cozy mysteries. She’s also an associate editor of Black Cat Weekly and has edited or co-edited fourteen published anthologies with two more forthcoming. Barb blogs every third Tuesday at www.SleuthSayers.org. Learn more atwww.barbgoffman.com

SISTER BONIFACE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 2024

The Sister Boniface 2024 Christmas Special: "Once Upon a Time" premieres on Britbox on December 17. I love all these Christmas specials. They're usually the first episode of the next season. So look for Season 4 of the Sister Boniface Mysteries in early 2025.

Don't have Britbox? The Sister Boniface Mysteries, Seasons 1-3, will be available on PBS, on December 16, but not this Christmas special. 

Pantomime season in Great Slaughter takes a deadly turn when a cast member of the Great Slaughter Amateur Dramatics Society is mysteriously killed during rehearsals. Sister Boniface (Lorna Watson) steps in to solve the case as the local constabulary join the production of Cinderella. The drama begins when Tibbles the cat delivers a grisly surprise—a human eyeball—and escalates when an actor is found stabbed in the back. As another cast member meets a grim fate, Sister Boniface must race to catch the murderer before they strike again. But can she unravel the mystery in time to save both lives and the town’s much-anticipated Christmas pantomime?

The Story Behind the Story of my Latest Dot Meyerhoff Mystery, Call Me Carmela: Guest Post by Ellen Kirschman

It was the pandemic. I was stuck, uninspired and searching for ideas for a fifth Dot Meyerhoff book. I was also itching to try my hand at something new—a standalone based more on character development than plot. An idea had been rolling around in my head for several years, prompted by a news story about an adopted teenage girl who was searching for her birth parents. It was a compelling tale, filled with twists and turns. Reading it, I felt like I was walking through a big house, encountering a new scene in every room I entered. 

I said goodbye to Dot and hello to Aggi, my new protagonist. She came to life quickly, surly and determined to find her birth parents without regard to who she hurt in the process. Especially her adoptive parents who lived in fear that they were losing her. 

The writing went easily. Plotting is my biggest challenge and now I had a complete plot to embellish and deepen. No agonizing over who did it or why. At 83,000 words I put a final polish on the draft and sent it to my beta readers. 

To a person, they hated it. More specifically, they hated Aggi. Found her to be mean, bitter, unlikeable, and whiny. They didn’t care what happened to her and they hated how she treated her adoptive parents. No one wants to read a book if the main character doesn’t have at least one relatable redeeming quality. 

My reaction was alliterative: I was devastated, deflated, disappointed yet determined to forge ahead. This was a great story with lots of complexity. My magnum opus. I would use the feedback to make it even better. 

I went back to the drawing board. I made Aggi more likeable, the other characters more complex, and got rid of some implausible coincidences. I turned the POV from first to third and back again. I brought in more of Aggi’s ordinary world. Created more change, more nuance and sent it back to my beta readers. They were not impressed. Aggi was softer but still too mean. My secondary characters were better developed, but still needed work. This time, I felt like giving up. 

The last of my beta readers finished the manuscript a month after the others. We met for a glass of wine. The air was warm. The pandemic was still roaring. We clinked glasses and I waited for her to give me the bad news. “This isn’t a standalone, Ellen,” she said, “it’s another Dot Meyerhoff mystery.” 

Another Dot Meyerhoff? I was flummoxed. Was she suggesting I toss away 83,000 words and close to two years of hard work? I felt like collapsing. Or ordering another glass of wine. I think I said something like “Thanks a lot. You just ruined my life.” 

I told my husband what she said. He didn’t know what to say. Neither did my other beta readers or my agent. I told myself she was only trying to help. The least I could do was play with her idea. It wasn’t like I would be starting from scratch. I knew Dot well. I knew what she thought and how she felt. I knew badge-heavy Eddie in his wobbly sobriety. I knew Fran, every cop’s surrogate mother. I knew Dot’s nemesis Chief Pence, who threatens to fire her every other week. And I was just getting to know Frank, Dot’s patient yet wary husband. 

I went through the manuscript and highlighted scenes I thought were salvageable. Scenes that might transfer well. Problems popped up right away. Dot is a police psychologist. She works with cops, not temperamental teenagers and illegal adoptions. How was I going to get her involved in Aggi’s search? An amateur sleuth in a mystery series needs a reason to be involved. 

My fans expect to read about cops and their problems. Would they be interested in Aggi’s plight? Would they care about her adoptive parents who are falling apart in anticipation that when Aggi finds her “real” parents, she’ll love them more? 

There were geographical problems too. Aggi, now renamed as Ava, lives in Iowa. Dot lives in Silicon Valley, California. How was I going to get them in the same room? 

It was at this point that I started having fun. I felt happy to be back with the characters I had come to love. The problems that arose became less hindrance than puzzles to be solved. I compressed people. Turned Perky into Fran, Hiram into Lonny, and gave Cody and Iliana bigger, more nuanced back stories. I discovered Sheriff Bergen and his doting assistant, Marge. I made room for Ava to grow out of her teenage angst and bad behavior. I found a way to make Fran the linchpin connecting Ava to Dot and a plausible rationale to move the whole shebang out of Iowa back to California. Dot went along for the ride. Even Eddie got involved as did Chief Pence, although he wasn’t happy about it. 

My new and improved novel, Call Me Carmela, is now up for pre-order and launches on 11/26. Please join me to celebrate by checking my events page at www.ellenkirschman.com. 

***

Ellen Kirschman is an award-winning police and public safety psychologist. She is the author of three non-fiction books and the Dot Meyerhoff mystery series. Ellen finds writing fiction to be therapeutic because she gets to take potshots at nasty cops, incompetent psychologists, and two ex-husbands. Dot is too dedicated for her own good, takes orders from no one, including her chief, and persists in solving crimes when she should be counseling cops— often using methods that would have cost a real psychologist her license. Ellen lives in Redwood City, California with her husband, whose entire life she has plagiarized for Dot’s love interest, Frank. She adores Zumba, dogs, cats and ice cream. Sign up for her occasional newsletter at www.ellenkirschman.com.

Cartoon of the Day: Bedtime

 From Rhymes with Orange

BEYOND PARADISE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

Beyond Paradise (the spin-off from Death in Paradise) premieres on Christmas Day (12/25) on BritBox. It's a one-hour episode.  

Beyond Paradise stars Kris Marshall, Sally Bretton, Zahra Ahmadi, Dylan Llewellyn, Felicity Montagu, and Barbara Flynn

The story follows Detective Inspector Humphrey Goodman (Marshall) after he and his fiancée (Bretton) move to her hometown and he joins the small town’s police force Beyond Paradise stars Kris Marshall as DI Humphrey Goodman who left Saint Marie, the setting of Death In Paradise, to move to his partner Martha’s (Sally Bretton) hometown of Shipton Abbott near the Devon coast. Not long after arriving, Humphrey joins the small local police force, where he quickly makes an impression on the local officers. 

Catch up on Seasons 1-2 on BritBox. The Christmas Special is Episode 1 of Season 3. Future episodes should drop early in 2025. Update soon. 

Cartoon of the Day: Our Book Club

 

NOIR CITY XMAS: Who Killed Santa Claus?

NOIR CITY Xmas is on its way! Join host Eddie Muller on Wednesday, December 18, 7:30 pm, at Oakland's historic Grand Lake Theatre for NOIR CITY Xmas! To darken your Yuletide spirit, the Film Noir Foundation is presenting Who Killed Santa Claus? (L'Assassinat du père Noël), a 1941 French mystery. The evening will also feature the unveiling of the program (and poster!) for NOIR CITY 22, the 22nd year of the world's most popular film noir festival, coming to the Grand Lake Theatre January 24 - February 2, 2025. 

Tickets for NOIR CITY Xmas are available online from Eventbrite for $15 and can also be purchased at the theatre box office on the day of the show. Doors will open at 6:30 pm on the day of the event. What a Great Deal!!!

LUCY WORSLEY’S HOLMES VS. DOYLE - PBS

LUCY WORSLEY’S HOLMES VS. DOYLE: a three-part series featuring the popular British historian and lifelong Sherlock Holmes fan who seeks to answer why author Arthur Conan Doyle came to despise the character that made him rich and famous. 

Throughout the series, Worsley explores the parallel lives of Doyle and Holmes in the historical context of their times. From the dying years of Victorian England, through the imperial crisis of the Boer war, the optimism of the early Edwardian years, to the trauma of the First World War, Arthur and Sherlock lived through them all. 

LUCY WORSLEY’S HOLMES VS. DOYLE premieres Sundays, December 8-22, 2024, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET (check local listings) on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS App. 

Featured in over 60 original stories and countless film and television adaptions, Sherlock Holmes has intrigued and excited fans with his intellect and powers of deduction for more than a century. Over the course of three episodes, Worsley investigates the curious relationship between detective and author. 

In Episode 1, “Doctor and Detective” (December 8), Lucy unearths Holmes’ origins in Doyle’s early life as a medical student in Edinburgh. She unpacks the early stories, revealing the dark underbelly of late Victorian Britain, from drug use to true crime. She explores how Doyle infused his stories with cutting-edge technological developments and traces the author’s growing disenchantment with his detective, heading to Switzerland to visit the site of one of the most famous deaths in literature. 

In Episode 2, “Fact and Fiction” (December 15), Lucy explores Doyle’s desire to distance himself from Sherlock after the detective’s apparent death at the Reichenbach Falls. From the delights of the ski slopes to the horrors of the Boer War, she reveals how far Doyle went to make himself the hero of his own story. He even took on the role of detective himself in one of the most important legal cases of the 20th century.  

In the finale, “Shadows and Sleuths” (December 22), Lucy investigates the return of Sherlock. Doyle began the Edwardian age delighting in all it had to offer, but as the First World War approached, the darkness of the later stories mirrored the reality of Doyle’s life. After losing his eldest son, he became an evangelist for spiritualism, and his star declined after a public spat with a famous magician. Sherlock Holmes, in contrast, found a life beyond his author on stage and screen. 

LUCY WORSLEY’S HOLMES VS. DOYLE will stream simultaneously with broadcast and be available on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS app.

Cartoon of the Day: Writer

Bookstore Sign of the Day

THE CHELSEA DETECTIVE SEASON 3 NEWS!

Well this is good news! I've been waiting for the return of The Chelsea Detective, one of my favorite detective shows. Acorn TV has announced that the Christmas episode, starring Adrian Scarborough, will drop on December 16. This special will also serve as the start of Season 3, which will be comprised of four 90 minute episodes that will continue into 2025. (Not enough, but I'll take them!) 

Also reprising their roles in Season 3 are Peter Bankolé (DI Ray, Bodkin) as DC Connor Pollock, Lucy Phelps (Grace) as DC Jess Lombard, Sophie Stone (Shetland) as Chief Forensics Officer Ashley Wilton, and Frances Barber (Whitstable Pearl) as Max’s Aunt Olivia. 

 

THANKSGIVING MYSTERIES // THANKSGIVING CRIME FICTION

Thanksgiving is next week, so you'll want to get reading these Thanksgiving crime novel and short stories. This is an updated Thanksgiving Crime Fiction list, but let me know if I've missed any titles. It's quite the mix of cozy, noir, and whodunit.  

As Thanksgiving approaches, I give thanks for my family, my friends, and the wonderful mystery community.

I'm posting daily recipes for Chocolate Thanksgiving desserts, sides, and main courses (Chocolate Turkey Rub!) on DyingforChocolate.com.

Thanksgiving Mysteries

Victoria Abbott The Wolfe Widow

Susan Wittig Albert Bittersweet
Laura Alden Foul Play at the PTA
Dianne Ascroft Thanksgiving and Theft
Deb Baker Murder Talks Turkey
S.H. Baker The Colonel's Tale
Mignon Ballard, Miss Dimple Disappears
Sandra Balzo Hit and Run
Richard Bausch Thanksgiving Night 

Cindy Bell Fatal Festivities

Kate Bell, Kathleen Suzette Thankfully Dead
Bob Berger The Risk of Fortune
William Bernhardt, Editor, Natural Suspect
Kate Borden Death of a Turkey
Amy Boyles Southern Magic Thanksgiving
Ali Brandon Twice Told Tail

JJ Brass The Turkey Wore Satin
Lilian Jackson Braun The Cat Who Went into the Closet, The Cat Who Talked Turkey
Lizbie Brown Turkey Tracks
Catjerine Bruns In the Blink of a Pie
Carole Bugge Who Killed Mona Lisa?

Lucy Burdette A Deadly Feast
Lynn Cahoon A Very Mummy Holiday
Sammi Carter Goody Goody Gunshots
Lowell Cauffiel Dark Rage
Jillian Chance The Fall of the Sharp Sisters
Joelle Charbonneau Skating Under the Wire

George C. Chesbro Bleeding in the eye of a Brainstorm
Jennifer Chiaverini A Quilter's Holiday 
Laura Childs Scones & Bones 
Bobbi A. Chukran Short mystery stores in her Nameless, Texas series

Leena Clover Turkeys and Thanksgiving
Christine E. Collier A Holiday Sampler
Sheila Connolly A Killer Crop
Cleo Coyle Murder by Mocha
Isis Crawford A Catered Thanksgiving
Bill Crider with Willard Scott Murder under Blue Skies
Jessie Crockett Drizzled with Death
Amanda Cross A Trap for Fools
Barbara D'Amato Hard Tack, Hard Christmas
Mary Daheim Alpine Fury, Fowl Prey, The Alpine Vengeance
Kathi Daley Turkeys, Tuxes and Tabbies; The Trouble with Turkeys; The Thanksgiving Trip: The Inn at Holiday Bay, Pilgrim in the Parlor; Thanksgiving in Paradise; The Catsgiving Feast; Cottage on Gooseberry Bay: Thanksgiving Past
Jeanne Dams Sins Out of School
Claire Daniels Final Intuition
Evelyn David Murder Takes the Cake
Mary Janice Davidson Undead and Unfinished
Krista Davis The Diva Runs Out of Thyme; A Good Dog's Guide to Murder

Robert Davis Stuffed
Devon Delaney Double Chocolate Cookie Murder
Vicki Delany (aka Eva Gates) Silent Night, Deadly Night
Jana Deleon Cajun Fried Felony
Wende and Harry Devlin Cranberry Thanksgiving
Michael Dibdin Thanksgiving
Leighann Dobbs Thanksgiving Dinner Death; Turkey Tragedy 

Joanne Dobson Raven and the Nightingale

Alice Duncan Thanksgiving Angels
Christine Duncan Safe House
Susan Dunlap No Footprints
Kaitlyn Dunnett Overkilt
Lauren Elliott To the Tome of Murder

Alex Erickson Death by Hot Apple Cider
Janet Evanovich Thanksgiving (technically a romance)*
Nancy Fairbanks Turkey Flambe
Christy Fifield Murder Ties the Knot
Maureen Fisher Deadly Thanksgiving 
Courtney Flagg Criminally Ungrateful

Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain Murder She Wrote: A Fatal Feast
Amanda Flower Peanut Butter Panic
Joanne Fluke Raspberry Danish Murder
Katherine V. Forrest The Beverly Malibu
Shelley Freydont Cold Turkey
Heather Day Gilbert Cold Drip 

Noreen Gilpatrick The Piano Man
Martin H. Greenberg (editor) Cat Crimes for the Holidays
Jane Haddam Feast of Murder
Janice Hamrick Death Rides Again
Susannah Hardy A Killer Kebab
Lee Harris The Thanksgiving Day Murder
Ellen Hart The Grave Soul
J. Alan Hartman, editor, The Killer Wore Cranberry; The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Second Helping; The Killer Wore Cranberry: Room for Thirds; The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Fourth Meal of Mayhem; The Perp Wore Pumpkin 
Robin Hathaway The Doctor Makes a Dollhouse Call
Richard Hawke Speak of the Devil
Victoria Houston Dead Hot Shot
Dorothy Howell Fanny Packs and Foul Play
Linda Joffe Hull Black Thursday
Carolyn Q. Hunter Killer Thanksgiving Pie

Ellen Elizabeth Hunter Murder on the ICW
Melanie Jackson Death in a Turkey Town; Cornucopia
Sue Ann Jaffarian Cornucopia, Secondhand Stiff
J. A. Jance Shoot Don't Shoot
Madison Johns The Great Turkey Caper

Gin Jones & Elizabeth Ashby Deadly Thanksgiving Sampler

Tonya Kappes Trapping, Turkeys, & Thanksgiving 
Karin Kaufman At Death's Door
Alex Kava Black Friday
Marvin Kaye My Son, the Druggist
Faye Kellerman Serpent's Tooth
Harry Kemelman That Day the Rabbi Left Town
John Lescroat The Keeper
Clyde Linsley Death of a Mill Girl
Georgette Livingston Telltale Turkey Caper
M. Louisa Locke Pilfered Promises
Nial Magill Thanksgiving Murder in the Mountains
G.M. Malliet Wicked Autumn
Margaret Maron Up Jumps the Devil
Evan Marshall Stabbing Stefanie
K. L. McCluskey Three for Pumpkin Pie
Robert McDavis: Stuffed

Shawn McGuire Silent Secrets

Ralph McInerny Celt and Pepper
Catriona McPherson Scot in a Trap

Leslie Meier Turkey Day Murder; Turkey Trot Murder; Gobble, Gobble Murder
Wendy Meadows Turkey, Pies and Alibis
Addison Moore Thanksgiving Day Murder

Deborah Morgan The Marriage Casket
Meg Muldoon Roasted in Christmas River 

Joan Lowery Nixon The Thanksgiving Mystery (children's)
Carla Norton The Edge of Normal
Carol O'Connell Shell Game
Jack Pachuta Gobble, Gobble, Death and Trouble
Nancy J Parra Murder Gone A-Rye
Louise Penny Still Life

Cathy Pickens Southern Fried
Michael Poore Up Jumps the Devil 
Craig Rice The Thursday Turkey Murders
Ann Ripley Harvest of Murder
J.D. Robb Thankless in Death
Delia Rosen One Foot in the Gravy
M.L. Rowland Zero Degree Murder
Ilene Schneider Chanukah Guilt
Maria E. Schneider Executive Retention
Willard Scott and Bill Crider Murder under Blue Skies
Sarah R. Shaber Snipe Hunt
Sharon Gwyn Short, Hung Out to Die
Paullina Simons, Red Leaves

Page Sleuth Thanksgiving in Cherry Hills
Alexandra Sokoloff The Harrowing
Rex Stout Too Many Cooks
Denise Swanson Murder of a Barbie and Ken; Murder of a Botoxed Blonde

Kathleen Suzette Roast Turkey and a Murder; Pumpkin Pie Peril
Marcia Talley Occasion of Revenge
Sharon Burch Toner Maggie's Brujo
Teresa Trent Burnout
Lisa Unger In the Blood
Jennifer Vanderbes Strangers at the Feast
Debbie Viguie I Shall Not Want
Auralee Wallace Haunted Hayride with Murder
Livia J. Washburn The Pumpkin Muffin Murder
Leslie Wheeler Murder at Plimoth Plantation
J.A. Whiting Sweet Thanksgiving
Rachel Wood Gobble, Gobble Murder
Angela Zeman The Witch and the Borscht Pearl

***

For the Younger Set:

Thanksgiving Thief: Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew
Ron Roy and John Steven Gurney: November Night
Marjorie Weinman Sharmat, Mitchell Sharmat Nate the Great Talks Turkey

Julie Campbell: Trixie Belden and the Mystery Off Glen Road  (Trixie Belden #5)

***

Let me know if I've forgotten any authors and titles!

THE CHELSEA DETECTIVE: Christmas Special & Season 3 News!

Well this is good news. I've been waiting for the return of The Chelsea Detective, one of my favorite detective shows. Acorn TV has announced that the Christmas episode, starring Adrian Scarborough, will drop on December 16. 

This special will also serve as the start of Series 3, which will be comprised of four 90 minute episodes that will continue into 2025.  (Not enough, but I'll take them!)

Also reprising their roles in Season 3 are Peter Bankolé (DI Ray, Bodkin) as DC Connor Pollock, Lucy Phelps (Grace) as DC Jess Lombard, Sophie Stone (Shetland) as Chief Forensics Officer Ashley Wilton, and Frances Barber (Whitstable Pearl) as Max’s Aunt Olivia.

Watch the Trailer:

Thank You, Miss Valley, for Everything: Guest Post by David Freed

Some writers are born to write. Others have the craft cultivated in them. I hail decidedly from the second camp.

When I was growing up, I never imagined that my livelihood would come from the printed word. My ambition was to go into medicine—heart surgery, to be specific. That was my go-to answer, anyway, whenever an adult asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I can still remember how impressed they always were by my response. How I ended up earning my living not by cracking chests but by crafting sentences can be explained in part by the fact that I never had a burning desire to be a surgeon to begin with. In truth, I wasn’t entirely sure back then what I wanted to do with my life. But that was before I had the good fortune of encountering someone who would alter my path forever—my high school English teacher, Aurelia Valley.

Miss Valley was what many people back then called a "spinster” and what some today might refer to as a "Big Beautiful Woman", only without the "beautiful" part. Her dark hair was short and styled in an outdated bob. She wore plain, flat-soled shoes, thin wire-rimmed glasses, and house dresses that hung on her girthy frame like potato sacks. Her small, upturned nose had a piggish quality, and I remember her breathing mostly through her mouth. Smiling didn’t seem to be in her repertoire. Some of her less-kind students would mock her appearance. Full disclosure: I probably did too at times, if only to fit in with the crowd.

The small high school I attended could best be described as blue-collar. We had no honors classes, though our football team was always formidable. Few students went on to four-year colleges. The most common path for graduates was to get a steady job—often at places like the post office. The classics—Shakespeare, Beowulf, The Last of the Mohicans—were not exactly subjects that bedazzled the majority of my bored, unmotivated classmates. But that didn’t stop Miss Valley. She possessed the two essentials of every great instructor: she knew her stuff, and she was deeply passionate about it.

One day during the spring semester of my senior year, after the bell rang and everybody spilled out of her classroom like it was on fire, as they always did, Miss Valley asked me to stay behind for a few minutes. I froze. What would my friends think? That Miss Valley had a thing for me? I wanted desperately to get out of there, but she had positioned herself in front of the exit, effectively blocking my escape. “You should think about being a writer,” she said. “You have an aptitude for it.”

The rest of our conversation that day has since faded into the distant, haze-gray recesses of my memory, but her advice stuck with me. It was the first time I could recall anyone telling me I had a knack for anything other than complaining about having to do chores at home.

Fast forward a year later. I was a college freshman at a state university with a dismal 2.2 GPA. By then, I’d discovered beer and girls, and I knew that attending medical school was out of the question even if I had wanted to. As I sat in my dorm room one night, flipping through the course catalog, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, I stumbled upon the requirements for a journalism degree. In that instant, I swear I heard Miss Valley’s voice in my head as if she were standing next to me. “You should think about being a writer. You have an aptitude.”

So that’s what I did. I became a writer.

After graduation, I landed a job as a newspaper reporter in Colorado Springs. It was there that I met a smart, beautiful young woman who would later become my wife. We’ve now been happily married for over forty years. We have two grown children, three grandchildren, and a fourth on the way. We live in a lovely home by the Pacific. My career as a journalist would lead me to far-flung places, and eventually to opportunities as a screenwriter in Hollywood, as a contributor to major magazines like The Atlantic and Air & Space Smithsonian, and even to work with the CIA. My background as a reporter ultimately influenced my earning a master’s degree from Harvard University. It also played a crucial role in helping me land a publishing deal, which led to the release in 2012 of Flat Spin, the first book in my best-selling Cordell Logan mystery series. The seventh book in the series, Deep Fury, will be out in December.

None of this would’ve been possible without Miss Valley, who saw potential in one of her students, took the time to pull him aside, and encouraged him to become a writer.

Aurelia Valley passed away in 1996. I regret that I never took the opportunity to thank her for the role she played in my life. I hope this serves as a small tribute to her legacy.

Thank you, Miss Valley. For everything.

*** 

David Freed is an instrument-rated pilot, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and author of the Cordell Logan mystery series. He teaches creative writing to graduate students at Harvard University’s Extension School. 

 

Cartoon of the Day: Cats

Happy Caturday!

CALL FOR ARTICLES: Mystery Readers Journal: London; Extended Deadline Monday, November 18, 2024

EXTENDED DEADLINE: NOVEMBER 18, 2024

While the Deadline for the London issue of Mystery Readers Journal (40:4) is actually November 15, some of you might need the weekend to polish off your articles, reviews, and author essays. Therefore, we have extended the deadline for Articles, Reviews, and Author essays for the London issue of Mystery Readers Journal (40:4) until November 18, 2024. Send to  janet @ mysteryreaders. org

Mystery Readers Journal is looking for Articles, Reviews, and Author essays about Mysteries set in London. 

Author Essays: First person, about yourself, your books, and the "London" connection. Reviews and articles can include books both in and out of print that are set in London. 500-1000 words. Treat this as if you're chatting with friends and other writers in the bar or cafe (or on zoom) about your work and the London setting in your mysteries. Be sure and cite specific titles, as well as how you use the London setting in your books. Add title and 2-3 sentence bio. 

Reviews: 50-250 words/each. 

Articles: 500-1000 words.

Deadline for Mysteries in London (40:4) articles, reviews, author essays: November 18, 2024: Send to: Janet Rudolph, Editor.  janet @ mysteryreaders . org

Please let us know if you're planning to send an article, review, or author essay! Subject Line: London Mysteries

SUBSCRIBE TO MYSTERY READERS JOURNAL for 2024: Mysteries set in Southern California; Murder Takes a Holiday (Mysteries that take place while on vacation); Partners in Crime; London.

2025 Themes: Retail Mysteries; Northern California; Thrillers; one more theme TBA.

Many back issues of Mystery Readers Journal are available as single copies in hardcopy or PDF. 

Historical Mysteries I: Available as PDF or Hardcopy.

Murder in Wartime: Available as PDF or Hardcopy.

Animals in Mysteries I: Available as PDF or Hardcopy.

Animals in Mysteries II: Available as PDF or Hardcopy.

Private Eyes I & Private Eyes II : Available as PDF or Hardcopy.

Extreme Weather Mysteries: Available as PDF or Hardcopy

Italian Mysteries:  Available as PDF or Hardcopy

Senior Sleuths: Available as PDF or Hardcopy.

Gardening Mysteries: Available as PDF or Hardcopy.

Have titles, articles, or suggestions for upcoming issues? Want to write an Author! Author! essay? contact:   janet @ mysteryreaders . org

BLOGS
Mystery Fanfare
Dying for Chocolate