Tough Dames by Mark Troy

Mention fictional female private eyes and people immediately think of characters such as Sharon McCone, Kinsey Milhone, V.I Warshawski and others who appeared on the scene in the 70's and 80's. Ask who was the first female private eye and most people will tell you Cordelia Gray or Sharon McCone, or even Delilah West. For the record, Cordelia debuted in 1972, Delilah in 1974 and Sharon in 1976. Also for the record, they weren't the first female private eyes.

One candidate for first female PI is Polly Burton, the narrator of Baroness Orczy's Old Man in the Corner series which appeared in 1901. Polly was a journalist, so she fits the definition of private eye as set forth by the Private Eye Writers of America:

. . . a person paid for their investigative work but not a member of a unit of government.

Journalists who do their own legwork qualify under this definition. But did Polly really investigate? Mostly she quizzed and challenged the old man who deduced the facts while playing with string. So maybe she's a precursor to a private eye.

As an aside, sleuths such as Miss Marple and Nancy Drew, competent though they might be, were not private eyes by this definition, because they didn't get paid for their investigative work. The definition also excludes Baroness Orczy's other character, Lady Molly of Scotland Yard, because of her, admittedly tenuous, connection to a government agency.

The honor of first female PI goes to Trixie Meehan, the creation of Thomas Theodore Flynn in 1933. Trixie was a partner with Mike Harris of the Blaine Private Detective Agency. Mike was tough and wise-cracking. Trixie was cute and pert. Or so you would believe if you didn't know her. According to Mike,

Trixie was smart, shrewd, fearless, and tireless on a case. And her temper would make a scorpion blush and her little tongue would peel the hide off a brass bound monkey. And when Trixie and I crossed trails on a case, it was usually my hide that took the peeling.

Grace "Redsie" Culver, a secretary and sometimes operative for the Noonan Detective Agency who was usually involved in cases right up to her neck, is the first female eye who didn't share the lead with a male colleague. She was smart, competent, brave and independent. Grace was created by Roswell Brown, a pen name of Jean Francis Webb, and appeared in twenty stories in The Shadow Magazine from 1934 to 1937.

Nora Charles, wife of retired private eye, Nick, appeared in Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man in 1934. Nora was rich, beautiful and independent-minded. She appeared in only one book, but the duo were highly popular on radio and in the six Thin Man movies in which she was played by Myrna Loy.

The first truly hard-boiled female private eye is probably Violet McDade, created by Cleve Adams, who, with her partner Nevada Alvarado, made her debut in 1935. Shrinking, Violet wasn't. She was a former circus fat lady who tackled her problems with two fists or the two guns she carried up her sleeves.

Here's Nevada describing her boss:

Violet him him. Not hard, just a backhanded sweep across the room.

Nevada was a slim, dark-haired beauty who was just as hard-boiled as her boss. Together, these two made the McDade and Alvarado Detective Agency a force to be reckoned with.

Sarah Watson, by D. B. McCandless, was neither young nor beautiful. She was, instead, middle-aged, heavy, dowdy, and relatively charmless. The stories, however, are humorous and charming. Sarah had a tough side. She confesses at one point that she'd like to

". . . beat up a man proper, for once! I'd begin on the nose...The nose is a nice tender place to begin. Maybe I'd break it -- after a while."

She was a regular in Detective Fiction Weekly from 1936 to 1937.

Carrie Cashin was the owner and chief operator of the Cash and Carry Detective Agency. She was young, attractive, and one of the most popular of the lady dicks. Carrie got the job done. She was not above breaking and entering, lying to the police, and armed robbery if that's what it took. Foreshadowing Remington Steele by half a century, she expected a lot of people would have trouble hiring a woman dick, so she hired a man named Aleck to front the agency. She would pose as his stenographer, but would, in fact, solve the crime.

Carrie was the creation of Ted Tinsley and appeared in 38 of the 50 Crime Busters/Mystery Magazine issues from 1937 to 1942. Whenever Carrie appeared on the cover, often showing a glimpse of shapely leg and thigh holster, sales of the magazine spiked. It was rumored that there were plans to give her her own pulp.

Theolinda "Dol" Bonner was an early creation of Rex Stout. She had the lead in only one novel, The Hand In The Glove in 1937, but she appeared in several Nero Wolfe stories and seems to be one of the few women Wolfe could tolerate. Dol was a young socialite whose family was wiped out in the depression. She ran the Bonner and Rafferty Detective Agency in Los Angeles and didn't shy away from guns.

In 1992, NBC produced a TV movie, Lady Against The Odds based on The Hand In The Glove starring Crystal Bernard.

Bertha Cool, created by Earl Stanley Gardner under the pseudonym A.A. Fair, was a large, penny-pinching woman who ran B. Cool Confidential Investigations with her partner Donald Lam. These were a mismatched pair and great because of it. Where Bertha was large, Donald was small; where Donald bent and twisted the law, Bertha broke it.

Bertha was known for such sayings as

"Well peel me for a grape,"

and

'Well can me for a sardine."

Cool and Lam were the result of some of Gardner's best writing. Had Bertha been given her own TV series, she might have attained more popularity than Perry Mason. The series lasted 31 years from 1939 to 1970 and was the longest running female private eye series until 2008 when Sharon McCone surpassed her in Burn Out.

Mark Troy's website
Mark Troy's Hawaiian Eye Blog

This and That About Mystery Writers and What They Get Away With

Next week I'm going to Epicon, the electronic writers convention. While I think about what to take, and old friends I hope to see again, new friends I hope to meet, I got to thinking what an odd bunch writers are and mystery writers in particular.

It isn't the least bit surprising to read posts on Sisters in Crime or the Mystery Writers of America's lists asking for the best way to murder someone and get away with it. The particular question may be about mis-use of medication, drowning, poisoning by all sorts of ways, or it could be about guns, or any unusual sort of mayhem.

I've often wondered if these lists are ever looked at by real detectives or FBI agents who might wonder about the people asking these gruesome questions. There's also a website called Dr. Lyle, where the good doctor will answer all sorts of questions about the ways and means of getting rid of someone.

And to make it even more interesting, often you'll see someone on these list requesting a roommate for a particular conference. Now, you can see where my mind is leading. A wonderful mystery could be written about someone rooming with a perfect stranger who had murder on the mind.

I've delved into this roommate business a bit more on my own blog, but for here I'll confess that I'm guilty of finding a roommate for a conference on line and in two cases, it was someone I really didn't know ahead of time. I can assure you though, once you've spent a long weekend with someone you truly do know them.

You'll know if they snore or not, if they get up a lot in the night (I'm guilty of both), if they hog the bathroom, if they are an early or late riser, if they're messy or neat and before the weekend has passed, you will have learned how to get along.

And, even if you pick mystery writer, you probably don't have to worry about being murdered in your bed.

Marilyn aka F. M. Meredith
http://fictionforyou.com

Dialogue or Description, What's Your Forte'? By Morgan Mandel

I find it easy to create dialogue, but difficult to provide descriptions. Maybe that's because I'm in my characters' heads and concentrating on solving their problems and not on describing what they look like or where they are.

My characters and I already know those things. Unfortunately, the reader doesn't. Because of that, I need to make a conscious effort to remind myself to provide descriptions.

My editor, Helen Ginger, pointed out portions of Killer Career, my work in progress, where adding descriptions would enrich the novel. While attending to my edits, I'll pay close attention to providing more descriptive details to make the scenes come alive in the readers' minds.

What about you? Are you better at writing dialogue or description? Which do you enjoy most? Please Share.

When Other People Say It Better...

Part of writing is marketing and publicity. I know that. I spend a fair amount of time working the internet social networking sites(although not nearly as much time as I'm told I SHOULD spend), doing library panels and other author events, and reading other people's advice on how to further promote my works and writing career. Like everything else in life, it's a balancing act of time and energy spent in the right areas..and for this post, I've found a clever way to balance out my need to work on my latest WIP (due May 1st) and deliver my Make Mine Mystery Post.

It's LINK time!

Aside from my impending deadline, my excuse for referring you to other sites today is whenever I read well-thought out articles on publishing and marketing strategy, written so much better than I could ever write it, I feel like Ralph on the Simpsons, with nothing to add to the discussion beyond, "My cat's name is Mittens!" Which won't get anyone very far in terms of sensible marketing advice, will it?

Sia McKye has a fantastic post on the realities of getting published and POD publishers at her blog.

Pat Bertram of Book Marketing Floozy has a guest post by Edward Talbot about marketing, publicity and promotion, as well as some great links within this post.

Links within links within links, like a picture of a never-ending reflection. It's both the wonderful and addictive thing about the Internet - you can fall in and get lost in an endless scavenger hunt of information. And with that thought, I am now going to quit Firefox for the day (okay, the hour) and get back to work on my WIP!

Naproxin, please...

by Ben Small



On the way home from an especially fun book signing in San Diego, my wife and I stopped off at the Imperial Dunes, a sea of massive sand dunes just twenty miles west of the California/Arizona line.

These dunes stretch for over fifty miles, from Sonora, Mexico well into the California interior just east of the Salton Sea. It’s a spectacular stretch of shifting yellow, reminiscent of some of the harsher areas of the Sahara. Dunes three hundred feet tall are common; they’re formidable, with bladed edges, curving crescents, and plunging cliffs off the leeward side. The sand dune scenes of the original Star Wars trilogy were shot here. One half expects R2D2 or maybe a camel to make an appearance.

There’s no fence across the border here. And until Interstate 8, there were no roads here either, unless one counts the wooden planks dropped down in the early 1900s. You may encounter illegals on ATVs or even Humvees. Maybe that’s why one sees green-striped Border Patrol vehicles everywhere.

Luckily, we didn’t see any news reports about shoot outs with drug runners in the Imperial Dunes Recreational Area until we got home. Seems it’s not an unusual occurrence, although night battles are most common.

We rented ATVs, and for old farts, did a credible job attacking these powdery monsters and laying our tracks. (Relax, tree-huggers, there were no fragile plants to trample or rip, and blowing sand soon covered our passage.) With just a little practice, I was soon ripping across wind-blown speed bumps, using my legs to absorb the pounding as I built up speed to challenge a nearly vertical three hundred foot climb.

Too little speed and one learns the hard way how to turn around a five hundred pound vehicle on a vertical face in knee deep sand. Too much speed, and you fly over the crescent and drop thirty or more feet, screaming because you know this is not good news. Ostriches do face plants; people tend to break their necks. Just a few weeks ago, the Border Patrol had to helicopter out a woman who’d tried to play ostrich.



Needless to say, my wife was a bit more cautious than me, but then, she’s got some common sense. I’m a guy; guys do stupid things, it's in our genetic structure. I thought I'd lost my stupid guy trick-bag sometime during my fifties, when my wife was re-ordering my priorities and forcing me to grow up, but put me on an ATV and Wa-Hoo, testosterone and idiocy blossom once again.


Watch out Poncho. The Cisco Kid is back.

We sandblasted our exposed body parts for an hour-and-a-half. Enough for a first taste. But we’ll be back. Fun like that doesn’t come every day. Next time we’ll plan a weekend, and maybe rent more powerful machines.

In the meantime, we’re struggling to figure out how get the sand out. Two showers later, and we’re still finding sand: in our mouths, our eyelashes, our hair ― even under our nails.

You see some strange things in places like this. Like some guy in a late model SUV, flying an enormous Italian flag, backing up a quarter mile, and then roaring forward, getting a head of steam as he charges up a three hundred foot vertical face. He gets to the top and turns around, charges down the face again. He gets out and waves the flag, then climbs back in and does it all over again.

Don’cha just love Italians?

I’m so sore, I may not move for a week. Pass the Naproxen, please.

Researching on the Web

By Christine Duncan

Using the web for research can appear to be the easiest way to research your topic. But beware! You always need to check your source. When I researched domestic violence statistics for my mystery, I ran into a range of numbers that set domestic violence in the U.S at anywhere from one in ten women to one-half of all women. I chose the statistics that could be backed up by the FBI's Uniform Crime reports as being the most accurate and up to date.
Before we get to the list of helpful websites, I just want to note that the first place you should probably start with research on the web is again--close to home. If your area writer's group has a list serve or chat group, let your research needs be known. I did this when I needed blood splatter information and in one email to my area writer's group let over 200 writers know what I was looking for. Better yet, I got an answer from a fellow writer who volunteered her FBI crime scene detective husband as a research source. The upshot of this was that not only did I get my questions answered, but when the group heard what happened, they invited the FBI man to talk to the group about crime scenes. So we all benefited. Don't be shy! This is the ultimate way to network.
If your research needs are complicated, don’t forget that there are many courses offered online.

And last but not least, the reason you're reading this article: a few places that mystery writers can use for research. So scroll down and see if you can find a jumping off point for your own research needs.
As always though, I have to add the disclaimer--do your homework and check out the people giving you the answers. Just because a web site appears on this list doesn't mean it's right for you. It is just a site that I've run into at one time or another that I thought to be helpful..
Also remember that all sites have a bias of one sort or another. A lawyer may not see things the way a cop does or the way a criminal would.


Forensics

Carpenter's List of Forensic Science Resources: Just what it says--a list of links on everything from Arson to locating Forensic experts.

The Graveyard Shift A blog about police procedure and investigation


Crimescenewriter@yahoogroups.com To quote from the group description “A forum for asking and answering crime scene investigation, applied forensics, and police procedure questions for fiction or non-fiction writers.” They encourage questions.


Police

Real Police Great looking site. Articles and info about cops. The ask-a-cop message board promises that messages are monitored by real cops who will answer your questions.

Weapons

Guns America
A site to buy or sell guns. Since the guns are for sale, they've included pictures, which I found helpful, along with a brief description. Sorted by date as well as by type of gun,--interesting stuff for an historical mystery--or a modern day one.

Weapons_info@yahoogroups.com This group says in its blurb that writers make many errors regarding weapons of all types. They want to help. The bios of the moderator and consultants are available.


Medical
National Institute of Health
Tons of information. Diseases, symptoms, drugs and their side effects, it's all here.

Poisons
Botanical.com

And finally a site that has even more links to a ton of research sites for every mystery writer’s needs-- Write-Brain.com


Christine Duncan is the author of the Kaye Berreano mystery series.

What Makes It a Mystery? by Libby McKinmer

According to About.com a mystery is:

Definition: Mystery is a genre of fiction in which a detective, either an amateur or a professional, solves a crime or a series of crimes. Because detective stories rely on logic, supernatural elements rarely come into play. The detective may be a private investigator, a policeman, an elderly widow, or a young girl, but he or she generally has nothing material to gain from solving the crime. Subgenres include the cozy and the hard-boiled detective story.

That seems pretty simple and straightforward, doesn't it? But it sure gives us a lot of latitude. My mystery can be a police procedure with accurate details in the day-to-day work of a police investigation -- kind of a CSI type mystery. Or a Women's Murder Club.

My mystery can be an unsuspecting young woman who has to figure out who killed her boss and why, before she's the next victim, although that does certainly give her a real something to gain, other than material gain! My detective can be a Miss Marple, Harry Bosch, Nancy Drew or Gil Grissom type. My mystery can be a murder, a robbery, a kidnapping or any other crime.

Your mystery can be whatever you like -- the kind of detective and crime you like to try to figure out. It can be whenever and wherever you want it to be. As a writer, you can write the mystery you love to read. As a reader, you can seek out the writers who write what you love to read.