How Could You Ignore Something Like This?

 By Mar Preston

Years ago a group of spiritually-minded forest lovers began hanging mementos of on the branches of a semi-circle of pines high on the side of a mountain here in California. Over time, it was called the Shrine of the Five Maidens.  Here people found solace, and buried their pets.  Others came, a drum circle, solstice worshippers among the New Age folk, the curious,  dog walkers and hikers, and the environmentalists tut-tutting over this misuse of Forest Service land. I thought it was weird, peculiar, and wonderful. Standing inside that circle of pines at dusk was a little creepy though.

Then in the dark of a moonless night vandals destroyed the Shrine.  The circle of stones was scattered down the slope of the meadow. A sign was posted that evening: Fundamentalist Christian Taliban We Know Who You Are. Then some unknown person nailed up a copy of The True Believer by Eric Hoffer on the trail of pines leading up to the meadow. Then came a religious tract nailed up on another tree.  The desecration of the trees continued in a battle between secular and sacred. Then came piles of teetering stones like cairns set in the middle of the path. This was followed by 5s painted on the trees farther up the mountain in commemoration of the Five Maidens.

This is a small enough village that everyone knows everyone and what faction they belong to. The local weekly began printing Letters to the Editor. The Christians as a bloc wisely did not respond. I have no idea who desecrated the Five Maidens Shrine.Then came a specific accusation against an environmentalist who had expressed the personal opinion that the Shrine was just a "bunch of junk." This was vociferously challenged in the stream of Letters to the Editor that followed. A national environmental organization was one of the accused perpetrators.

There is no way I can stay out of the controversy that is whipping around. I read every email and Facebook posting with scores of comments, gossip at the post office, and go to meetings where this is the hot topic. I can’t help myself.

I heard Jane Yolen at a conference once say: "I tell my children.  Don't bother me unless there are broken bones protruding or hemorrhaging." 

Please tell me how you get keys moving on keyboard no matter what? 

* Details have been obscured because feeling is still intense. 

 http://www.amazon.com/-ebook/dp/B00I82BFVK/

Some more research into the last Ice Age

These were two of the favorite topics I researched, telepathy (after I decided to make my Neanderthals telepathic) and giant beavers!

I simply loved researching for DEATH IN THE TIME OF ICE. The book is available as an e-book or paperback at Untreed Reads.

Chapter 11 – aborigine telepathy

There is little documented evidence of the ability of the Australian aborigines to convey messages telepathically, but much anecdotal evidence. The method of communication is sometimes called ‘bush telegraph’ or ‘mulga wire’. This passage is taken from

The Bone is Pointed: An Inspector Napolean Bonaparte Mystery by Arthur W. Upfield

p. 46

"I saw him at ten o'clock on the evening of the eighteenth, the day Anderson rode Green Swamp. I went as usual to the stable to see that the horse kept there for duty had been properly fed and bedded. Abie--that was his name--was then asleep on his stretcher in the adjoining stall."

"How did he receive word about the sick lubra?"

"I don't know. Mulga wire, I suppose."

Chapter 12 – giant beavers

Beavers

Family Castoridae

The biggest of all rodents during Pleistocene time—or any time, for that matter—were beavers of the family Castoridae. These semi-aquatic rodents of the Northern Hemisphere existed in North America as long ago as early Oligocene time, 35 million to 30 million years ago…

Giant Beaver (Castoroides ohioensis)

The giant beaver was the size of a large black bear and weighed 330 to 440 pounds (150 to 200 kilograms). It measured t least 9 feet (3 meters) long and stood about 3 feet (1 meter) tall at the shoulder. In comparison, the modern beaver measures up to 3.5 feet (more than 1 meter) long and weighs from 20 to 86 pounds (9 to 39 kilograms). While resembling a modern beaver, the giant beaver had a longer and narrower tail. The giant beaver had huge incisors up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) long. Researchers have found no evidence to tell us whether this heavyweight built dams or felled trees, but base on the giant beaver’s build, paleontologists believe it behaved much as living beavers do…

The abundance of fossils suggests the giant beaver’s favorite locales were ponds, lakes, and swamps south of the Great Lakes, where it ate coarse swamp vegetation.

Ice Age Mammals of North America: A Guide to the Big, the Hairy, and the Bizarre Ian M. Lange, p. 120

Two American Indian beaver legends found at http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/nalegend.html:

The Great Beaver, whose pond flowed over the whole basin of Mt. Tom, made havoc among the fish and when these failed he would come ashore and devour Indians. A pow-wow was held and Hobomock raised, who came to their relief. With a great stake in hand, he waded the river until he found the beaver, and so hotly chased him that he sought to escape by digging into the ground. Hobomock saw his plan and his whereabouts, and with his great stake jammed the beaver's head off. The earth over the beaver's head we call Sugarloaf, his body lies just to the north of it.

Field, P., 1870-79, Stories, anecdotes, and legends, collected and written down by Deacon Phinehas Field:

In History and Proceedings of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA, v. 1, p. 59.

The great beaver preyed upon the fish of the Long River. And when other food became scarce, he took to eating men out of the river villages. Hobomuck, a benevolent spirit giant, at last was invoked to relieve the distressed people. Hobomock came and chased the great beaver far into the immense lake that then covered the meadows, flinging as ran great handfuls of dirt and rock at the beaver. Finally he threw a bunch of dirt so great upon the beaver's head that it sank him in the middle of the lake. Hobomock, arriving a few minutes later, dispatched the monster by a blow with his club on the back of the beaver's neck. And there he lies to this day. The upturned head covered with dirt is the sandstone cliff of Wequamps (Mt. Sugar Loaf), and the body is the northward range. The hollow between is where Hobomock's cudgel smote down his neck.

Pressey, E.P., 1910, History of Montague: Montague, MA, p. 64.

Summer Reading List

Do you have a reading list for the summer?

This year, I’m focusing on a few cozy’s before I return to writing The Tourist Trap Mysteries in a few weeks. I avoid reading in the genre I'm writing.  When I start back with the mystery, I’ll buzz through Robyn Carr’s Thunder Point and Virgin River series.  

Usually, I try to pick up at least one classic I haven’t read. Reading under one of our shade trees seems to help get me into the story. This year I've been too busy to make my list.

One year I tried to bribe my high school age son into reading a pre-college list I'd found. He ignored me. Xbox had already claimed him. Now he reads coding books. Computer coding - non fiction. What I think is as exciting as stereo instillation instructions.

I'm considering grabbing the Hunger Games or another YA series to keep me in the story longer. 

I'm open to suggestions. So what are you reading this summer?

Lynn

Side Note – If you haven’t read GUIDEBOOK TO MURDER – A TOURIST TRAP MYSTERY, now’s a great time to pick up your digital copy.  From June 10-24^th, Kensington is running a sale on GUIDEBOOK to get ready for the July 31st release of MISSION TO MURDER (available for pre-order now.)

$1.99 is a great price to try out a new cozy series. 

 “Murder, dirty politics, pirate lore, and a hot police detective: Guidebook to Murder has it all! A cozy lover’s dream come true.” --Susan McBride, author of The Debutante Dropout Mysteries

Is Flawed Okay?

I've been to countless critiques of my own writing and that of  others. Almost all concurred that book heroes and heroines must seem heroic. An obvious approach is to present a character with sterling qualities..

Another, which takes more effort, is to present a character with major flaws, but offer redeeming qualities which will make that character sympathetic, a/k/a heroic. That's when some authors include a pet in the picture. If a mean person loves a dog or cat, that person can't be all bad, right? 

http://amzn.com/B00IPIGGMK

In the case of Cornelia (Clyde) Shaw of Social Death: A Clyde Shaw Mystery, by Tatiana Boncompagni, at first, I was  taken aback by Clyde's predilections toward alcohol and sex, and almost put the book down. Not exactly my type of heroine. 

However, I became drawn not only to her struggle to do right and overcome her past, but also to the suspense and central mystery of the story.

I couldn't stop reading.

Surprisingly, I could bond with Clyde, despite her faults. Not only that, I hated to see the book end.

What about you? Do you like squeaky clean characters, or prefer flaws? What kind of faults would turn you off and make you stop reading?

Find Morgan Mandel's Mysteries & Romances

on her Amazon Author Page at

http://www.amazon.com/author/morganmandel

For more, check out http://morgansbloglinks.blogspot.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/morgan.mandel

Twitter: @MorganMandel

The Juror's Tale

by Janis Patterson

I was called to jury duty a couple of days ago.

In a word, ick.

First, I had to clear the day of all appointments and deadlines, which meant working much of the weekend just so I didn’t fall behind in my writing schedule. Then I had to get up at an incredibly early hour and fight the gargantuan snarl that is rush hour traffic in an expedition to downtown. (To think some people do it every day – unbelievable!) The city has gotten so big and so congested that I almost never venture downtown any more. There are better stores and services in the suburbs, where we don’t have to fight narrow streets choked with traffic, an incomprehensible and illogical system of one-way streets, and ridiculous parking fees.

One thing that has not been outsourced to the more pleasant suburbs, though, is the justice system. Both the city and the county courthouses are firmly entrenched in the congested heart of downtown. And you have to be there to report in, preferably early, or they’ll come after you.

Insufficiently caffeinated, I staggered into the central waiting room, signed in on a computer system which would have been confusing even if I had been fully awake, and then sat down to wait. I had brought my ereader, and a small notebook where I could jot things down if something struck me, but I’ve never liked to read early in the morning and as far as I’m concerned writing anything more than a check by hand is cruel and unusual punishment. I’m used to working in the morning. I get up, take my first mug of coffee into my office and usually have written a minimum of 2-3 pages before The Husband staggers into consciousness wanting breakfast.

Sitting in a large, ugly, noisy room filled with all kinds of people is not conducive to creativity, even if I were to bring a purse computer. I didn’t, because there are no desks – only sublimely uncomfortable chairs – and I’ve never mastered balancing anything on my lap.

It was a wonderful place for people-watching, though. Except for royalty and street people just about every stratum of society was represented in the central jury room. The interactions between these strata was both saddening and amusing and, in one case, almost frightening. I did make a few notes on character types; being there was great research for a writer and I always try to make the best of any situation!

As for street people, I saw more than enough between the parking lot and the court building. No royalty anywhere, though.

If jury duty is even a pale reflection of jail, I am going to be much more careful about adhering to the letter of the law in the future. The surroundings are unspeakably drab. You are referred to by your juror number, not your name. You have to line up for everything. Once in the central jury room you cannot leave except when you are called for a panel and then you are escorted out under guard. You can’t leave the room otherwise, not even to get coffee, no matter how badly it might be needed. There was a big, muscled and armed guard at the door to enforce our compliance. Thank goodness there was a fairly decent restroom attached to the jury room for which no special permission or escort was needed. There was no television nor even Musak. By the time the time for lunch arrived I was already making plans on how to break out. Luckily no more juries were needed and those of us who had not been called were allowed to escape… er, to leave.

To be absolutely honest, in the grand scheme of things the experience was not overly onerous. Dangerous, no. Interruptive of my schedule, yes. Boring, definitely. I know that the right of trial by a jury of one’s peers is one of the fundamental cornerstones of our legal system, that serving on a jury is both a right and a duty of every citizen if we are to remain a free and just people. I respect the law and the belief system that brought it into being.

Our laws say that when you are called for jury duty you should appear, and I did. There’s no law that says I have to like it.

Preparing to Start a New Book

Because I'm in the final editing stages of the Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery I've been working on, it's time to start thinking about the next Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery.

On my own blog, I'm asking readers for ideas about what might happen to the ongoing characters. Somethings are fairly easy to figure out because of what happened in the last book. Of course, I want there to be conflict and emergencies--and at least a bit of romance.

Mainly though, I need to come up with an idea for the main plot/crime which will probably be a murder. So--who should it be? A good person or bad? Who would have wanted this person to die? And there needs to be more than one with motive and opportunity, since I don't want the readers to know "who done it". What should be the cause of death?

At the same time, I always like to have other crimes for the men and women on the Rocky Bluff P.D. to work on--since that's the way it is in real life. Of course I've been gathering a few ideas--but I'd like to have some unusual crimes.

With any book with new characters, I'll need names. Fortunately, I've been to a couple of graduations and have kept the programs--many, many interesting names to peruse and choose from.

I do have one character's name--the winner of my last contest, I'll just have to figure out who he'll be. I always have to make sure it's someone who won't have to be in the next book.

And then there's the title. Unlike the last book in the series where I had the title before I wrote the book, I'll have to come up with something new.

So--if you readers of this post have any ideas, do contact me. You can email me if you like at mmeredith@ocsnet.net or just write it in a comment.

Marilyn aka F. M. Meredith

The Flawed Detective

I read a lot of mystery fiction. I suspect you do too. I’m looking ahead to a couple of weeks of enforced idleness, so I’ve been loading up my Android reading machine. Lately I’ve run into a string of improbable sleuths.  They’re tall, leggy blonds who run five miles every morning and speak French. If male, they have six-pack abs, are rich, former Navy SEALS, and master chess champions. And I’m not talking romances or cozies.

Please, if you’re writing character sketches for your protagonist right now, give your detective some flaws, but nothing too crippling. Maybe he leaves the seat up. He’s addicted to fried Snicker’s bars. (That’s pretty awful.)  He’s afraid of clowns. He cheats on his income tax, or lies straight-faced to his mother.

These flaws make him human, unlike James Bond in the spy story genre. Does James Bond have flaws?

When I first began writing mysteries, I talked to a detective in the Santa Monica Police Department. He said, "Please don't make your detective alcoholic, depressed, and divorced. We're not all like that.” You want your detective to be somebody you'd like to have a beer with, or a coffee, and somebody human your reader can identify with. Your reader has flaws too. But overwhelmingly, despite his flaws, your sleuth must be likeable. You want to urge your sleuth on, root for her. You want her to win.

The tall, leggy blond?  I just hope she slips on her stiletto pumps and falls on her pert, little upturned nose. 

 

 http://www.amazon.com/ebook/dp/B00I82BFVK/