Escape or Staycation?

 RHYS BOWEN: When you read this I’ll be on my way to the airport, flying today to Canada. My son Dominic, his wife Meredith and I have rented an AirB&B on Vancouver Island–actually on a small island off the coast of Vancouver Island. It’s on a beach, surrounded by trees.  The perfect escape, actually.  It’s what we all needed… to be in the middle of nature with time to decompress, to think, to journal and for me to adjust to a new way of life. 

A vacation with them will be perfect. They like to experience everything… so they’ll find the best artisan bakery in the area, fresh seafood, craft shops, farms where you can pick your own blueberries and with plenty of down time too.  This will be quite different from vacations with John, who would have planned out in advance what we were going to see every day. His idea of Vancouver Island would be driving several hours up the coast until we had circumnavigated the whole thing.  And if I saw a sign to a craft fair along the way it would be ignored because it interrupted his plans and we had to reach the motel he had booked by four PM check in.

So one of the things I’ll be learning to do is to go with the flow–to sit and do watercolor if I feel like it, to realize I have nobody to please but myself. Dom and Mer are so easy-going and get delight from the smallest things. They are definitely foodies so there will be a lot of trying nearby restaurants ( poutine at least once).  I can’t wait.

So how about you, dear Reds? Any plans for this summer? What is your ideal way to decompress?

LUCY BURDETTE: we will be spending lots of time with the grandchildren over the next two weeks! The family has already been to New York City (with three kids under 10 in tow) and then to Montauk to visit relatives, and next stop Connecticut. It is always a busy and fun time to have them here. After that, I can’t think of any trips on the docket this summer. So I should be able to get my work done and also do some relaxing and I hope extra reading!

JENN McKINLAY: I’m glad you’re finding a new rhythm, Rhys, and doubly glad you have Dom and Mer to ease you into it.

I just got back from a trip to Connecticut and Massachusetts and South Carolina. The trip broke down into a book thing in CT, a family barbecue in MA, and checking out my college roommate’s new home in SC–hard to believe we’ve known each other for 40 years! We spent hours on the beach in SC and I am ready to move. Seriously! 

I’ll be headed to Canada in a few weeks to our summer place in Nova Scotia and I’m looking forward to that. More beach time! But in the meantime, I have loads of work to do–revisions and proposals and promoting the streaming series based on my book Paris is Always a Good Idea, the first two episodes of which air on Hallmark Plus on July 30th! Yay!

HALLIE EPHRON: July 30 for PARIS IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA! Hallmark Plus… We’re all writing it down. 

I’m just back from teaching in Paris… there for 10 days and could easily have spent another ten. And I’m missing my Jerry who, like Rhys’s John, did the trip planning so I could just relax and be surprised. We shared the same priorities (he traveled with a little pad filled with menu translations, along with a list of where we were going and the culinary specialties in each place.)

The summer will be quieter than usual. 

Mid-June I’ll be teaching a master class on harnessing voice and viewpoint at Book Passage’s Mystery Writer’s Conference in Corte Madera, CA. Hobnobbing with Cara Black, Tim Maleeny, Elizabeth George, Lisa Scottoline, Rachel Howzell Hall, and more! I love this conference. So much heart and professionalism. 

For any aspiring mystery writer who’s never been there, write it down!! 

Then things slow down for some medical procedures (ick) and visits from my daughters and grands (yay!) Hoping I’ll be able to take a low-key week with my family on Peak’s Island in Maine. Beach. Hiking (flat!) Lobsters!

HANK PHILLIPI RYAN: Absolutely, on July 30 I will be at my TV, cheering! This summer is wild–no vacations, because Jonathan has a murder trial (he’s the lawyer, come on!) so he’s preparing But my days are super-full, because  I have a book DUE August 1, AHHHHH because then the paperback of ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS comes out  August 11, so I will be on a mini-tour …in preparation for the launch of MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER  in September! When I will be on the road again.

So it’s interesting–I have cut way back on events for the next two months to be able to focus on the writing. It’s terrific to be able to really buckle down.Okay, well,  I am interviewing some fabulous authors in person at local bookstores though–Hannah Selinger, and then Robyn Gigl, and then Riley Sager! Very exciting.

Rhys, your escape plans are perfection. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Hank, Riley Sager is going to be signing here in McKinney, and Kayti and I have tickets! CJ Box was here, too, a couple of months ago–maybe McKinney, Texas is becoming a literary destination! We also have a great indy bookstore, so if anyone wants to come here and do an event… Kayti and I are also seeing Jo Piazza at the DMA (Dallas Museum of Art) Arts and Letters Live–has anyone read her? And then, I think, Karin Slaughter, so sometime between now and mid-August I need to read some of her books!

Those are my big summer events. Otherwise I am doing loads of catch up and edits, which is all fine. Oh, and watching Jenn's Hallmark movie! So exciting! Do we have to sign up for the Hallmark Channel streaming, Jenn, since we don't have cable or satellite?

RHYS: Now it's your turn, Reddies. Who has exciting plans this summer? Who is planning on a relaxing time at home?

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I also want to know how to watch PARIS IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA while streaming! Jenn, you have to do an announcement for all of us who are your fans.

My summer plans were ALL stacked up in June: the visit from Youngest and VOC, my son flying in, two weeks of non-stop activities, several professional events and then a five-day writing retreat. Now I have nothing on my calendar until the end of August, when a dear friend’s daughter is getting married. I’m actually thrilled - this is the least scheduled summer I think I’ve ever had, giving me lots of time to enjoy Maine in its best season and get a whole bunch of writing done for my next book!

How to Die in a Brewery: a guest blog by Deryn Collier

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: You know those disclaimers you see in blog reviews? Well, I sort of have one. I gave Deryn Collier's debut mystery, Confined Space, an enthusiastic blurb for its upcoming publication this June. But here's the thing: I wasn't the first in my family to read it. The advance reader's copy arrived, and was sitting on top of the mail. Since Confined Space had been shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Award, I expected I was going to enjoy it. I picked the ARC up and read the description. 


"Ooo," I said. "The hero is a veteran of the War in Afghanistan. Cool."


Then my husband looked at it. "The heroine works in a BREWERY!" He vanished with the ARC. I didn't see it, or him, for three days.


Which leads me to suspect Deryn's combination of veterans, forensics, the beautiful British Columbia scenery and beer is going to make her a very popular author indeed. So sit back, crack open a cold one, and let Deryn tell you why brewing could be very, very bad for your health.

A closet crime fiction writer should not work in a brewery. I did, and I can tell you - it’s not a good idea.

Take for example the time I was asked to update a compendium of all the safety hazards in the brewery. I was supposed to cross-reference something or other, but was distracted by the siren call of hazards. Words like:

Working Alone…

Extreme Temperatures…

Dust Explosion…

Asphyxia…

…Words like ConfinedSpace.

Do you see what I mean? You don’t? Well, maybe it’s just me then. I read a list like that and I get all excited. To me, each one is a jumping off place for a story. A potential chapter in a book called: How to Die in a Brewery.

Take for example Exposure to Carbon Dioxide. This gas is a by-product of the fermentation process. In many breweries it is recovered and stored until it is added back (as bubbles) to the finished beer. But what if the carbon dioxide escapes?

Not much of a problem, usually. So long as you are upright, you should be fine. Carbon dioxide is heavier than air. It will sink and disperse, and you will just go about your day.

But, say you have a character - say he’s a brewery worker – and he hears a sound. What if he goes to investigate and gets whacked on the back of the head by an unknown antagonist hiding in the brewery? Your character is unconscious on the floor when the CO₂ starts to spill out of an open fermentation tank and sink. Remember - CO₂ is heavier than air. Your guy is in trouble.

Do you see what I mean now?

Part of my job involved counting beer. Every Friday I would put on my steel-toed shoes (slipping hazards) and my safety eyewear (exploding glass) and my hi-vis vest (collisions with internal transport equipment). I would head down the fermentation hallways and the ageing cellars to take an inventory of beer-in-progress.

You might say I’m more of a words person than a numbers person and after a while of adding up all those hectolitres, my mind would start to wander to more interesting questions. Like…

How high does a fermentation tank have to be in order for a person to die when they fall (or are pushed) from it?

How long would a corpse lie on the floor at the back of ageing cellar #8 before it was found?

What would it be like to fall into a malt elevator? (And how long before anyone found the body?)

I became fascinated with those places in the brewing process where people interact with machines. There is so much potential for harm. Workers, it seems, remain alive only by the grace of a thousand precautions.

The question of carelessness could occupy my mind for whole days: What if someone forgot a step? Rushed through a regulated activity? Didn’t feel like taking a precaution one day? Which exact combination of missed safety measures would it take to build a tragedy?

Say you have this character – he’s a brewery worker. He’s working alone. He’s gone into a confined space – a tank – to repair it. Then there’s this other character – we can’t see him, we can only hear him. We know he’s there. He’s come into the same place to clean that same tank…

Do you see now why it is a bad idea for a crime writer to work in a brewery? Beer will go uncounted. Spreadsheets will not be properly cross-referenced. The only thing that will come of it is some crazy story.

What about you? Have you ever had a job worthy of a crime fiction plot? Please tell me I’m not the only one.

Deryn Collier grew up in Ottawa and Montreal and is a graduate of McGill University. After a very short career as a federal bureaucrat she ran away to the mountains of BC where she has been ever since. She has worked in a log yard, a brewery, as a doctor recruiter and a communications consultant. You can find out more about Deryn and Confined Space at her website. You can also read her blog and follow her on Twitter as @DerynCollier.