Tracing back, themes that repeat

TRUMPET FANFARE!!!
Congratulations to Hank for winning THE SIMON & SCHUSTER MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD for her fabulous ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS (Macmillan Publishers – Minotaur Books) !!!

HALLIE EPHRON: Most everyone knows I have a definite familial "through line." My parents were Hollywood screenwriters. My sisters write fiction and movies. I reluctantly succumbed in my 40s and started writing fiction, too.

I also do a lot of teaching, and when I talk to writers about using ChatGPT well, I talk about how concerned we all should be about how it will be putting workers (content creators, in particular) out of work.

The other day, my daughte and I sat down to watch one of my parents' movies: THE DESK SET.

It's a romantic comedy featuring Katharine Hepburn as the head of the research department for a big corporation. Spencer Tracy plays a gruff efficiency expert whose job it is to bring in an enormous computer (think: Mac truck) to take over her (and her co-workers') job.

Needless to say, sparks fly. 

I was surprised at how, even then (1957), people understood how computers and AI could end up putting people out of work. 

Then I remembered something about my father's misspent youth. Before he got himself thrown out of Cornell, he starred in a college production of THE ADDING MACHINE, a play written in 1923 by Elmer Rice.

My dad plays MR. ZERO, a lowly bean counter at a big company, who discovers (after 25 years at his job) that he will be replaced by an adding machine. And, by the way, his wife is cheating on him.

He snaps and kills his boss. And goes to jail. And gets executed. (Not a happy ending.

Here's a picture from the Cornell alumni magazine showing my dad playing the part...

I'd never put together this early dramatic role in The Adding Machine with The Desk Set screenplay he and my mother wrote thirty years later.

And now writers is struggling with the very same implications of machines replacing people. 

When I teach, we often cover how (and whether) to use generative artificial intelligence. Will a machine have written the next mystery novel you zip through and put the next generation of writers out of work? I wonder what my parents would have had to say on the topic.

Are there any through lines for you and your family, going back to parents and on to offspring? Maybe some political activism? Passion for food or travel? Music or art?? Morphing from generation to generation but still a constant.

Jamie Ding... does the name ring a bell?

AND THE WINNER of yesterday's giveaway,  a copy of A POISONOUS POUR by Maddie Day, is Susan! (Susan, please send your contact information to Edith at edith@edithmaxwell.com)

HALLIE EPHRON: Raise your hand if you've heard of Jamie Ding?

I have, I have!

For the past month I've been tuning into CBS at 7:30 and following his trajectory as a contestant on “Jeopardy!”

Episodes have followed a pattern with Jamie (he's got the kind of approachable personality that makes me want to refer to him as Jamie) gathering momentum and buzzing in first, over and over, making modest wagers, and calmly answering (asking!) correctly, question after question, on every topic imaginable... and clobbering his two opponents. 

Rarely guessing wrong and without breaking a sweat.

But last week, after 31 wins, he lost.

His streak is the one of the longest in “Jeopardy!” history and he finished with more than $880,000. His nemesis was Greg Shahade, an International Master in chess who was lightning-fast on the buzzer.

Jamie calls himself as a “faceless bureaucrat.” He tended to look faintly surprised whenever he got an answer right. And his easy banter with Jeopardy host Ken Jennings was priceless.

He has the ideal nerd pedigree, asthe son of a neuroscience professor and a high school math teacher. He competed on high school quiz bowl team. Went to Princeton and has a job (he calls himself a bureaucrat, and I'm quite sure he is meticulously great at it) where he's working to address the housing crisis (and a social conscience!)

Didn't watch Jeopardy regularly until recently. Didn't start practicing to be a contestant until earlier this year.

A true Everyman.

As his clothes attested his favorite color is orange. And he's cool, calm, collected,  with a reliable intuition about where the daily doubles lie...until this final game.

A fan on Substack opined: “Put Jamie Ding on the $20 bill." As for me, I think he should run for president. And a cocktail in his honor wouldn't be amiss.

Do you follow Jeopardy and have you been watching Jamie's incredible winning streak? 

Edith Maxwell (aka Maddie Day) asks: WHY CAN'T I? (#BookGiveaway)

HALLIE EPHRON: It's always a pleasure to welcome Edith Maxwell, in her myriad of guises, back to Jungle Red. Today she's celebrating her newest mystery, A POISONOUS POUR, the third Ceci Bartom mystery, which releases TODAY!

EDITH MAXWELL: Thanks for inviting me back to the top side of the blog, Hallie. I’m so pleased to celebrate A Poisonous Pour, the third Cece Barton mystery, which releases today!

The beautiful Alexander Valley is in the northern part of Sonoma County about ninety minutes north of San Francisco. It’s a rich wine-producing region but less well known than Napa. For this series, I made up the town of Colinas (appropriately ‘hills’ in Spanish), which I plopped down in the valley somewhere near Geyserville, Cloverdale, and Healdsburg. (Don’t look too hard at a map – another town doesn’t really fit.)

I needed to populate Colinas with businesses, restaurants, markets, and churches. By now, three books in, I wish I could visit some of those fictional places! First, I invented the Vino y Vida wine bar, which Cece owns and manages.

I pictured a cluster of antique adobe buildings backing up to the Russian River. The buildings have been reinforced and modernized. Vino y Vida (which mean, yes, ‘wine and life’) has a polished hundred-year-old redwood bar inside and an outdoor patio perched above the riverbank with a big old live oak tree shading it.

Wouldn’t you want to have a glass of wine or two there?

Two of Cece’s friends are a couple who relocated to California from cutthroat jobs in publishing and finance in New York City. Henry Cruvellier owns an art gallery in another of the adobes near Vino y Vida, and his husband Ed Ramirez, who’s from the area, owns and runs Edie’s Diner. Cece eats at the fifties retro diner a lot, and it’s good local place to pick up gossip.

My inspiration for the diner was the real Edie’s, where I ate many years ago a few hundred miles farther south in Corona del Mar, California. Ed’s version features more avocadoes and includes menu items like salmon bacon, perfect for pescatarian Cece.

My mouth waters when I think up some of the meals she orders, and I wish I could perch on one of the red stools at the counter next to her. I even include the real diner’s slogan, “God bless America and Edie’s Diner, too.”

Another fictional place Cece frequents is the Hoppy Hills brewpub. It has a side patio, and strings of hop-shaped lights give the area a warm glow. The beers are excellent, and they serve things like deep-fried artichokes. Yum.

JJ’s Automotive is featured in several of the books. Josie Jarvin only works on cars made before computers were in the engine compartment, and Cece takes her sixty-six Mustang convertible to Josie for service. As befitting California, Josie can open the back of the garage to essentially work in the fresh air. If I still had my dad’s sixty-seven VW Bug, I’d take it there.

There’s also a Japanese restaurant in Colinas run by Cece’s friend Yukiko, and a gourmet market and deli, Exchange Bakery and Gourmet Provisions. Their slogan is, “The Source for All Your Wine-tasting Picnic Needs—Except the Wine.”

Cece and friends head to the weekly outdoor farmer’s market on Sunday afternoons. In addition to year-round fresh produce, she shops at Sam the Cheese Man’s stall, picks up local olive oil and fresh bread, buys wine from the police chief, and always ends with a visit to Tia Tamale, the tamale food truck.

When I write those scenes, I don’t understand why I can’t teleport myself in space, time, and reality to grab my own fresh hot tamale in a little paper boat.

Photo credit Sharon Hahn Darlin, CC BY 2.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0]

Readers: What’s a favorite fictional place you wish you could visit? I’ll send one commenter a copy of the new book.

A POISONOUS POUR: At the Memorial Day weekend classic car show and wine tasting, northern California wine bar owner Cece Barton witnesses heated discussions with local vintage car owners and overbearing association director Regan Greene. After Regan is later murdered, Cece once again enlists her twin, Allie, as her partner-in-sleuthing to clear the name of Cece’s elderly but muckraking neighbor. But they have to act quickly to investigate various suspects in the case before the trail goes sour.

Maddie Day writes the Cece Barton Mysteries and other gentle and historical mysteries; as Edith Maxwell, she writes Agatha-Award nominated short crime fiction. She’s a member of Mystery Writers of America and a proud lifetime member of Sisters in Crime. Originally a fourth-generation Californian, Maxwell/Day lives north of Boston with her beau and their cat Martin, where she writes, cooks, gardens, and wastes time on Facebook. Find her at edithmaxwell.com and at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen.

Picky, picky, picky...

 

HALLIE EPHRON: It’s nearly impossible to find a decent bagel in New England. I say this as someone who grew up in California within striking distance of fabulous, authentic Jewish delicatessens (Nate ‘n Al’s, Linney’s…) and then in Manhattan (Zabar’s, H&H, Russ and Daughters, Katz’s, Barney Greengrass…)

My ideal bagel is small (think hockey puck, NOT frisbee). Yeasty, with a shiny, crackly crust and a dense interior. Chewy! Close your eyes and you’d never imagine you were eating a muffin or a cookie or a piece of cake or the heel of a french bread.

I confess I’m addicted to the New York Times WIRECUTTER feature where they compare brands of everything from bed sheets to fever thermometers to… bagels. So that’s where I went hunting for a frozen bagel (no, there will never be good locally made bagels here, sad to say) readily available in my supermarket.

Sure enough, their #1 recommendation which I found at my local Stop ‘n’ Shop, delivers the goods. Ray’s New York Bagels! The quest for them took me to the BREAKFAST foods in the freezer section. (Did you know you can buy frozen scrambled eggs? Bleh.)

Thawed and toasted with some good cream cheese! It’s the closest thing to the taste of my childhood.

What’s a taste from your past that you haven’t found in any of your local food stores?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: The quest for a good bagel is SO important! And I am thrilled to hear about Ray’s, thank you.

My grandmother made delicious chopped liver, and that’s impossible to find. I remember Teaberry gum, oh, and Juicy Fruit, but I think those went away. We used to go to a deli called Shapiro's–isn't that a coincidence?--for corned beef sandwiches, and not only the corned beef but the rye bread used to be better. (But Indianapolis is not New York, I know.)

Hmm. Cokes used to be better, didn’t they?. And Fritos.

JENN McKINLAY: I went to school in New Haven and there simply is no pizza on Earth like New Haven brick oven pizza.

I’ll put Wooster Square’s Sally’s Apizza and Pepe’s Pizzeria up against anyone anywhere anytime. I’ve never found a pizza I love as much as the white clam pie at Pepe’s, cut into squares as God intended. Wait, maybe the squares are Sally’s. Lucy, do you recall which is which?

LUCY BURDETTE: You’re right Jenn, the squares are Pepe’s and their white clam is outstanding. I like the crispy pepperoni even better!

From my childhood, my sibs and I all yearn for a sausage and pepper sub that came from a deli downtown. Have never found exactly that sandwich again. As for bagels, we are very lucky to have a good bagel shop in both CT and Key West. I’ll take you to the Key West shop next winter Hallie!

HALLIE: I'm in!!

I know you already have world class doughnuts in Key West, plus every possible iteration of Key Lime Pie, including my favorite with a graham cracker crust and whipped cream on top.

RHYS BOWEN: When I go back to England I always have to have childhood food treats: good fish and chips, sticky buns, Crunchie bars.

Luckily they still all exist. But the snack called Twiglets that I used to love is now made differently and doesn’t taste right.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Maybe this is why I've never been crazy about bagels–maybe I've never had a really good one! I do love bagels and corned beef–salt beef in Britain–from the famous shop in the East End called Beigel Bake. As for childhood things, I've never had a Snickerdoodle cookie that tasted as good as my grandmother's.

I'm with Rhys on the British things that America doesn't get right. Fish and chips, sticky toffee pudding, and especially chocolate. Cadbury's US doesn't taste like Cadbury's UK. Nor do American KitKats taste the British ones. Those are my secret vice whenever I go to England, so maybe that is a good thing…

HALLIE: So what about you? What's a taste from your past that you long for, or is something miraculously still available, just as good as you remember it??

What We're Writing: Jenn's in Copyedit Mode

 JENN McKINLAY: One of my favorite phases of book producing is the copy edits. Hopefully when the edits arrive, enough time has passed that I've forgotten the book and can now look at it with fresh eyes. I am currently working on the edits for WITCHES OF QUESTIONABLE INTENT and I just got the cover art, which is absolutely stunning but I can't share the whole cover yet. 

I can, however, share an itty bitty piece of it and I'll share a snippet of the story so you know what the glimpse of cover refers to. 

Here's the bit of the cover:

 

So, who/what is this little fella? Here's the snippet from a scene where the protagonist Zoe is visiting a magical midnight market: 

     I glanced around Marvello’s trove of items. There were clocks, mirrors, sets of dishes, maps, lanterns and books…so many books. It was easy to see why Tariq loved Marv’s booth the most. I began to sort through the titles of books, looking for items of interest. I was reaching for a volume on a nearby shelf when a tiny flicker of flame shot out at my fingers followed by a puff of smoke.

     “Ouch!” The flame had grazed my finger but hadn’t burned me. “Marv, I don’t want to alarm you. but I think there’s a fire in your books!”

     “Oh, no!” Marv and Tariq hurried over to the shelf.

     “Right there!” I pointed. Sure enough another little lick of flame appeared.

     Marv laughed and said, “Oh, don’t worry that’s a bookwyrm hatchling.”

    Tariq noted my confusion and explained, “A baby dragon.”

    I clapped my hand against the side of my head a few times as if I was trying to dislodge water. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that because it sounded like you said a baby dragon?”

     “I did.” Tariq gestured to where Marv was moving aside books and reaching into the shelf.

     I felt my jaw drop when Marv pulled his hand out of the opening and pinched between his thumb and forefinger by the scruff of its neck was a tiny black dragon, no bigger than a baseball.

     “That’s not…you’re pranking me,” I said.

     “Hold out your hand,” Marv said. “This little fellow is named Titus. He won’t hurt you.”
     My hand shook a little bit but I held it palm up and Marv dropped the bookwyrm hatchling into it. The little fellow stretched his neck, sniffing the air between us. He was stupid cute and I desperately wanted to pet him or squeeze him, but I didn’t want to terrorize him as he was so tiny, so I didn’t do anything.

     He circled my palm, his tail twitching and his tiny leathery wings flapping, like a dog trying to settle into the best position for a nap. Once he settled, he folded up his wings and tucked in his tail. A puff of smoke came out of his tiny nose and he closed his eyes. I would have thought I was hallucinating but I could feel the pin pricks of his tiny talons on my palm, his steady heartbeat, and his slow inhale and exhale.

     “But…I don’t…isn’t it dangerous to have a little guy who emits fire near all of your books?” I asked.

     “Oh, he’s not the only one,” Marv said. “I have five bookwyrms. They eat mold and dust, and they’re fire is like witch fire where it doesn’t burn but it does clean the books quite nicely.”

This is one of those moments where I desperately wish that what I write could be real. Wouldn't it be cool to have a bookwyrm, maybe two to keep each other company, on your bookcase? 

Reds and Readers, what/who/where is something you've read in a book that you wish was real?

WITCHES OF QUESTIONABLE INTENT comes out Nov 10th. It was originally Oct 27th, so who knows if it will move again, but it'll be this autumn either way. Here's a more detailed description: 

A librarian witch must use her bookish knowledge to track down a dangerous, magical tome, in this enchanting novel from New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay.

Thanks to her training as a librarian and her newfound magical abilities, Zoe Ziakas thinks she has a handle on her job at the Museum of Literature safeguarding the secret collection of enchanted tomes known as the Books of Dubious Origin. But when Jasper Griffin—the colleague she’s been crushing on—reports that their most volatile acquisition, The Book of Shadows, has been stolen, Zoe’s carefully cataloged world unravels.

This isn’t just any magical text. It carries unquestionable power, twisting truth into illusion and turning allies into enemies. Once its power is unleashed, no one can trust what they see or who they are.

To track down the book, Zoe, Jasper, and the rest of the BODO team plunge into a perilous hunt that takes them from shadowy midnight markets to demon-infested streets, all while wrangling an unpredictable hellhound puppy. But when the thief begins to invoke the book’s darkest spells, Zoe faces an impossible challenge: How does she stop a curse that can rewrite reality itself?

If she can’t separate fact from fiction, the story won’t just end—it will be erased.

What We're Writing Week: Julia is Catching Up and Checking Out

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Don't be alarmed by the title; I'm not checking out of hotels or my day to day activities. I used the phrase because I love me some alliteration, and the writing I've been doing lately is all of a sort - reaching out to readers.

 

I have to admit, when I was pouring over issues of WRITERS DIGEST and reading mystery novels to learn the craft, I never expected the life of the author to involve so much, well, communication. Ironically, many of us are well suited as writers because we love to sit in a small room by ourselves and not have to talk to anyone. We're not misanthropes - a visit to any mystery conference will disabuse you of that idea - but we all like spending a lot of interior time. I suppose if we didn't turn to the written word, a lot of us would do well as contemplative monks (although Jenn and Hank and Rhys would be HIGHLY energetic ascetics.)

 

But I began my career at the dawn of the social media age. The first change was the author website, which enabled readers, for the first time, to connect to their favorite writers without showing up at a bookstore or library. As more and more people got online, we switched from physical newsletters (yes! I had one, done by a lovely local printing business!) to email newsletters. 

 

Then came the social media sites that are now part of our day-to-day lives. I can't recall if anyone was using MySpace professionally (anyone remember how big MySpace was for about five minutes?) but once Facebook stopped being just for college students, the whole world joined up, and authors came in droves as well. Then, for a while, the novelty of YouTube meant Book Trailers - a whole business popped up around producing them! Facebook stayed, and grew, but YouTube was quickly colonized by content producers putting out stuff that was, let's face it, much more entertaining than book trailers, so authors migrated to the cool new world of Instagram.

 

You also had to be on Goodreads, and LibraryThing, and everyone became bloggers, and it was about then when you'd start to hear writers huddled together at conferences asking each other how much social media was the right amount, and how did everyone manage to get any actual, you know, writing done while also posting and mailing and Tweeting and commenting.

 

Don't even get me started on Tik Tok. No. Not gonna go there.

 

Most of us have settled down to a few, reliable ways to connect with our readers, in part because EVERYONE has gotten a bit tired and jaded with the social media world. Quality, not quantity, has become the new standard. Which leads me to my catching up - on FB comments and writers' emails, and checking out - other authors' newsletters, because I'm restarting my own NEWS FROM THE KILL and I want to make sure it's up to date; ie, giving readers what they want and nothing they don't.

 

So, dear readers, tell me: what sites online do you find gives you the best value when interacting with writers? And, if you subscribe to any, what do you like to see in author newsletters?

And Debs Is...Still Writing

DEBORAH CROMBIE: The last several times What We're Writing has rolled around, I've sworn that Kincaid/James #20 was ALMOST finished and that the next time I checked in, I'd be able to show you a neatly typed THE END.

But, no, alas, I am still writing.

The pages are piling up (yes, I do still print manuscript pages, because I always find mistakes in printed copy that I don't see on the screen, and as a "just in case" because even though I back up regularly, digital catastrophes do happen.) I still use the manuscript format I was taught as a very newbie writer, Courier, double-spaced, twenty-five lines a page, which averages 250 words a page. My current page count is 503, or roughly 125 thousand words, and I am imagining the publisher's horror as they are calculating the cost of paper and printing–this is a very big deal.

And I am not finished.

Actually, this book is not all that long for me. The first draft of A KILLING OF INNOCENTS clocked in at 650 pages, which my then-editor happily slashed by a hundred pages, I'm sure making it a much better book in the process. WATER LIKE A STONE was long, as was NECESSARY AS BLOOD, but GARDEN OF LAMENTATIONS takes the cake–it was so long that my editor said it should have been two books, and it is my longest published book to date.

I suspect this current book has another 50 or so pages to go, and then we'll see what comes out in the wash, so to speak. It's pretty terrifying, I have to admit, working with a new editor and not really knowing what to expect.

It's also scary, so close to the end, to wonder if the finished book will live up to that "Platonic book" I first conceived. I've filled three spiral notebooks with notes, and now I'm wondering what bits of all those ideas I've left out. And there are so many series characters I love that I just couldn't squeeze into this book–not unless I want it to run double that 500 pages!

I am excited to be so close to the end, and frustrated that I can't write it faster. 

And now for some really good news!

Kincaid/James #20 is scheduled for publication in Winter '27! I don't have the exact date yet, but things are moving fast. Cover art is in the works! 

And it looks like my working title is going to stand, so the book is called

 

THE LONG COLD SLEEP

You can see I'm really under the gun! 

Dear Reds and readers, how do you feel about long books? I know you can get away with really long novels in sci-fi and fantasy, and in historical fiction or family sagas, but how do you like your crime novels? I worry that if a book isn't long enough, my readers will feel cheated.

What We’re Writing: Lucy’s Still in Paris

LUCY BURDETTE: I lost a week while we made our way north from Key West to Connecticut (not complaining after the winter New Englanders suffered), but gosh it’s chilly! Other writers manage to keep writing while on the road, but I’m not one of them. It took a few days to get reoriented to my draft and figure out what to tackle. So as of now, I’m back with Natalie (the protagonist of The Paris Recipe) in Paris. She’s temporarily staying on another Chef’s houseboat and trying to find her place in the fancy kitchen at Chez Cassan, as well as in her heart. It isn’t going well…

When Natalie woke early the next morning, the sky was only marginally lighter than black. All night she’d dreamed of the zucchini flowers and goat cheese. It felt like forever since she’d cooked anything, and she missed it so much. She loved that first spark of delight when she read a recipe that she thought would turn out so delicious that her stomach rumbled before she’d even set foot in the kitchen. She loved to read about food too, even though that was one step away from eating. She couldn’t imagine being a critic for her life’s work, prepared to take down a chef and his recipes as she went into the evening. What a waste, a tragedy almost, if you weren’t enjoying the food as you ate it, savoring each bite in the moment. Instead, everything had to be dissected, compared, contrasted, and possibly condemned. She could still recite a line she remembered from the movie Ratatouille, which she’d watched many times. The movie starred a rat who was a chef and managed to win over a food critic, who’d finally admitted: "But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."

She could lie here for another hour and a half until the light expanded, ruminating about the fact that she’d heard Giselle come onboard the houseboat late last night. She’d heard them arguing again, followed by the enthusiastic noises of their lovemaking, which bothered her more than it should have. Natalie’s presence on this houseboat was not Didier’s choice, and Giselle had clearly been identified as his girlfriend. Why would she allow herself to think that her dinner with him was anything more than a small kindness to a lost soul who’d suffered a shock?  

    She could waste time waiting while the sun rose and then walk to the restaurant to begin her day, or she could go now and use their kitchen to try the recipe that she couldn't get out of her head. She had the cheese and the honey, and she knew there was a farmer's market that opened at 6:00 AM. She also knew that the exact chives she needed to tie up her little squash bundles were growing in the backyard of Chez Cassan. She glanced at her watch. If she hurried, she could prepare the dish, take some practice photos, and get everything cleaned up before anyone else arrived. The only evidence that would remain in the kitchen would be the slight scent of fried flowers. Hopefully no one would notice, and that lingering scent would soon be overtaken by the sauteing of onions and simmering of stocks.

I wish I could show you the real kitchen at Chez Cassan, but I've made it up this time. There won't be a bar with seating as in this photo, but there is a big stainless steel island. Are you a big fan of settings that are real places, or are you happy to go along wherever the writer takes you?