Nancy Cole Silverman--The Navigator's Daughter

DEBORAH CROMBIE: What an inspiring week we're having! I've been looking forward to Nancy Cole Silverman's THE NAVIGATOR'S DAUGHTER, which debuts next Tuesday, June 7th.

It's just the sort of book to get stuck into for a good summer read, and I love her answer to the perennial, "Where do you get your ideas?" I've heard some authors get a little impatient with this question but it is always one of my favorite things to talk about, and I'm equally fascinated by other authors' answers. What could be more interesting than the magic of the creative process?

Inspiration!  From Whence Does It Come?

BY Nancy Cole Silverman

As writers, we’re always being asked where we come up with our ideas or the inspiration for a story?  For me, that initial spark can be anything; a sight, a sound, or even a smell—like a sweet perfume or the briny scent of salt air. For an instant, I get a picture in my mind’s eye, a flash of an idea that like an earworm, won’t leave me alone until I’ve put something down on paper.  

Sometimes, I describe that story-flash like the cover of a jigsaw puzzle. It comes to me briefly like a colorful picture on a box then when I sit down to write, it crumbles in front of me, as though someone has turned the box upside down and all the pieces have fallen in a mix onto my desk.  It’s then I know my job is to comb through the tabs and put the picture back together again.

That’s how the story for THE NAVIGATOR’S DAUGHTER, captured me.  I was sorting through old family photos shortly after my father passed, and I came across of picture of dad with his crew taken in Italy towards the end of the war.  Dad was a navigator/bombardier, and they were shot down over Hungary on their 13th mission.   

I had heard the story since I was a young girl, but looking at the photo, I couldn’t help but wonder about what had happened to dad and members of his crew while they were MIA? He had never told me.

Then, years ago, after the Iron Curtain fell, my dad got a letter from a young man in Hungary who said he had found my dad’s plane. Dad asked me to correspond with the man and eventually, he even asked if I might like to come to visit and see the country. Holding that letter in my hand and looking at the photo of my dad and his crew, was the spark that started me thinking...what if?

What if, is the phrase that sends me and writers like me running to the keyboard.  What about you? What is that sparks your creative thought process? 

DEBS: I LOVE this story! Nancy, you'll have to tell us if you went to Hungary. And which one of those handsome young men is your dad? I also love your image of the shattering puzzle. I've had that experience, where you suddenly get the whole book in one piece, then once you start picking apart the story it falls apart. Then, of course, you start the painstaking process of sticking it all back together.

Here's more about THE NAVIGATOR'S DAUGHTER:

Getting caught in the middle of an international art theft ring wasn’t supposed to be part of the deal Kat Lawson made with her dying father. But when her father receives a mysterious letter informing the former WW2 navigator/bombardier that his downed B-24 has been found and asking him to come to Hungary, Kat suspects this is all part of some senior rip-off scam. Her father insists she goes, not only to photograph the final resting place of his plane but also to find the mother and son who risked their lives to rescue him and hid him in a cave beneath an old Roman fortress. Kat’s trip uncovers not only the secrets of the cave where her father hid and of those who rescued him but a secret that will forever change the direction of her life—that is—if she can get home safely.

You can pre-order it here!

After twenty-five years in NewsTalk radio, Nancy Cole Silverman retired to write fiction. Her Carol Childs Mysteries features a single mom whose day job as a reporter at an LA radio station often leads to long nights solving crimes. Her Misty Dawn series is centered on An aging Hollywood Psychic to the Stars, who supplements her day-to-day activities as a consultant to LAPD. Silverman’s newest work, The Navigator’s Daughter, is scheduled for release June 2022. Silverman lives in Los Angeles with her husband and a thoroughly pampered standard poodle.

READERS, are you interested in where writers get their ideas?

The People Next Door

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: When I was…oh, I guess sixteen, I was out on a sort-of “date.” Those  were few and far between and I remember nothing about it except: When I called at 10 to see if I could stay out later, my mother said: “Come home right now, the barn is on fire.”

When we arrived, there was a conflagration, and firefighters everywhere, and the ladies auxiliary had set up a picnic table in our front yard with hot dogs and lemonade. Weird, huh?

Anyway, turned out, we began to hear, the kid next door, a very strange 10 year old, had set the fire. The family soon left town.  

Yeesh.

These days--I realize—I know who lives right next door to us on both sides. And they are not pre-adolescent arsonists.  But the next houses? NO idea.

The wonderful Nancy Cole Silverman has her own “house next door” story.

Family Secrets and Urban Legends

By Nancy Cole Silverman

When I was a little girl, my family and I used to visit my grandmother’s home in Seattle. She had lived there since she had been a young bride and had many stories to tell about the neighborhood and times past.  

One of the more curious tales concerned a mysterious house next door, a turn of the century Craftsman with a large front porch and a view of Puget Sound.  Gramma said the house had once been the prettiest on the block with hanging fuchsias and Boston ferns, but that the lady who lived inside, hadn’t been seen in years.

Rumor was there had been a murder in the house. Some suspected the woman had killed her husband, other suspected something far more sinister.  

Whatever it was, my grandmother didn’t tell me. Only that it was something, a young girl didn’t need to worry herself about.  Grandma was like that.  If you didn’t have something nice to say, she didn’t say it.  

All I knew for certain was that the cops had come, the cops had left, and nobody – particularly the women in the neighborhood – were talking about it.  It was my first experience hearing about an unsolved crime and a recluse, and I was determined to see if I might spot her. 

I don’t know what I expected, probably something very Hitchcockian. Maybe a little, old gray-haired lady, dressed in black mourning clothes and carrying around a candle while peering out laced-draped windows.  Despite my staying up way past my bedtime and sitting by the guest bedroom window and straining my young eyes to see if I might catch a glimpse of her, I never did.  But my memory of my nighttime posts, and later some of the urban legends about reclusive old ladies and serial killers was seared in my mind. For years when I’d visit my grandmother, I couldn’t help but flash back to the memory of the strange house next door and wonder about its occupant. 

But time and distance faded those memories, and I hadn’t thought of that incident again until I started research for Room For Doubt, book four of the Carol Childs Mysteries.  About that time, there were a couple of stories  in the paper; one about a group of bad cops on the take and another where two sweet looking little old ladies had been accused of multiple murders. The story was slugged, Black Widow Murders: Two elderly women found guilty of conspiring to kill homeless men.

The story reminded me of Joseph Kesselring’s Arsenic and Old Lace. 

Kesselring based his light-hearted mystery on the serial killings of Amy Archer-Gilligan, who was believed to have killed between 20 and 100 people, including several of her husbands.  Kesselring turned what was a horrendous news story into a popular piece of light-hearted fiction. 

The story triggered memories of the mysterious house next to my grandmother and its even more mysterious occupant.  Why hadn’t anyone followed up on the idea that she might have been a serial killer, and why hadn’t the police arrested her or at least conducted a more thorough investigation?  I couldn’t help but wonder, was there a reason why nobody dared speak of whatever happened inside that house?

Imagination, it’s a wonderful thing.  It got me researching all kinds of urban legends.  One of which was the basis for my new book Room For Doubt. 

How about you? Any childhood memories or urban legends influence the theme of your work?

HANK: And let me ask you this, Reds and readers—do you know who lives next door?

ROOM FOR DOUBT

Yes, showing it again, why not? xx Hank

When radio reporter Carol Childs is called to a crime scene in the Hollywood Hills at five thirty in the morning, she’s convinced it must be a publicity stunt to promote a new movie. That is, until she sees the body hanging from the center of the Hollywood sign. The police are quick to rule it a suicide, but something doesn’t add up for Carol. Particularly after a mysterious caller named Mustang Sally confesses to the murder on the air and threatens to kill again.

With the help of an incorrigible PI, her best friend, and a kooky psychic, Carol is drawn into the world of contract killers and women scorned. As she races to find the real killer, she finds herself faced with a decision that will challenge everything she thought she knew.

• NANCY COLE SILVERMAN
• Nancy Cole Silverman enjoyed a long and very successful career in radio before turning to print journalism and later, to fiction.
  As a graduate of Arizona State University with a degree in Mass Communications, Nancy was one of the first female on-air television reporters in her hometown of Phoenix. After moving to Los Angeles in the late 1970’s she turned to the business side of broadcasting, becoming one of the top advertising sales executives in the market. After stints at KNX, KFWB, KABC and KXTA radio, she was appointed General Manager at KMPC, making her one of only two female managers in America’s second-largest radio market.
  But in her heart of hearts, Nancy thought first of herself as a writer. In 2001 she left the radio business to found and edit The Equestrian News, a monthly publication for equine enthusiasts. “That’s when I really began to write,” said Silverman, “toggling between writing articles for the News and fiction I’d been thinking about for years.”
  Today Nancy is a full-time author. Her new series, The Carol Childs Mysteries, with Henery Press, is available in bookstores and online.

Inside the Mind of a Mystery Writer, a guest post by Nancy Cole Silverman

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING:  Henrey Press is getting  reputation as the go-to small press for well-written mysteries of a certain bent: stories that blend crime with romance, women's fiction, humor, chick-lit - it's hard to define, exactly, but you know a Henery Press author when you read one. (Our own Hank edited their nonfiction WRITES OF PASSAGE last year.) So I was delighted when  editor Kendal Lynn (virtually) introduced me to today's guest blogger, Nancy Cole Silverman.

Nancy began her working life as an on-air TV reporter, but switched, when she moved to LA, to the business side of media. She climbed the ranks as a sales executive, and later became one of only two female General Managers in the second largest radio market in America. But, like many of us, she had this urge to write...

Founding The Equestrian News got her started, as she went back and forth between articles and fiction. She experimented with self-publishing short fiction and - this is different - audio fiction. She debuted her series about Carol Childs, a reporter for a Los Angeles talk radio station, with SHADOW OF A DOUBT, and its sequel, BEYOND A DOUBT, will be out this July.

I’ve just returned from the California Crime Writers Conference, spilling over with ideas and motivation. It’s a welcome relief to find a community of twisted minds that appreciate a good murder and don’t mind sitting around dishing the details, no matter how morbid. I mean, how often can a writer ask questions like, exactly how one would go about hooking up an exhaust hose to the tailpipe of car or what type of poison could someone mix into a cocktail without affecting the taste or color? Conversations like these, in the lobby of any other hotel, would have strangers retreating across the room and alerting security. Happily none of this happened. Although one writer, who shall remain anonymous, did confess to me over drinks – writers do spend their fair share of time at the bar – that she had been practicing with a set of lock-picking tools on the doors of her hotel room.

“And they worked!” She sounded delighted. Like a kid at Christmas who’d gotten a new toy. She reached into her pocket and produced two small hairpin sized items that fit neatly into the palm of her hand.

“Aren’t those illegal?” I looked over my shoulder. I was pretty certain they were. Suddenly the needle on my crime writer’s curiosity meter was in the red zone.

“Yes, but if you know someone, illegal is really more a matter of semantics.” She smiled sardonically, took a sip of her wine then slipped her illicit tools back into her bag.

I didn’t pursue the conversation. My vision of my friend, crouched down outside the doorway of her hotel room door, jimmying the lock, was more than enough information for me to process at the moment. Beside, as we say in Hollywood, a bigger name – in this case, a bigger curiosity – had just sat down on the barstool next me.

The Bug Man.

He was probably the only person in the room I feared. A forensic entomologist, a conference guest whose stories and pictures I found more terrifying than any I could imagine. Bugs and creepy crawlies that could carry away twenty to thirty percent of a dead body before the coroner even arrived.

I leaned closer to my lock-picking friend and asked him, “Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Like an ant to a corpse on a hot desert day. Cheers.”

As a former journalist, I feel obligated to say, the above is loosely based on events that may or may not have happened at CCWC. But they happened in my mind, which may explain why I feel a certain comradely with my crime writing buddies. They get me. And I get them. Perhaps it’s because of the bizarre interests we share, the secrets we harbor for one another, or maybe because I’ve been bitten by some strange crime-writing bug the bug-man let loose in his seminar. But I’m oddly fulfilled after spending time with other writers. My head is clearer. My goals more defined.

Anne Perry, one of our Keynote speakers, said writers get to do it all. Create the crime and carry it out – on paper anyway. And one of the best things about writing a mystery it is that it could be anywhere, any time in history or any type of crime. She admits to several chilling untimely ends for some of the characters in her books, including boiling them in oil. For crime writers it doesn’t get much better than that.

But what I liked most, and what I took away from the conference, was that we, as writers, not only get to tell stories, make up fantastic tales and memorable characters. We get to share what goes on in the heads of our characters and in doing so an opportunity to burrow into the minds of our readers. Good writing makes us think. Our characters make us feel and sometimes, if we’re lucky, when a reader finishes a book, we may have helped to open their eyes to seeing the world differently or a least a part of it they may not have known. It’s a creative challenge and a responsibility I find not only chilling but rewarding. It makes me excited about being a writer.

In my new book Beyond A Doubt, Carol Childs uncovers a sex-trafficking ring when she is called to the scene of a body dump. For many, prostitution is a line-in-the-sand, a legitimate business or a crime that should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Carol’s caught in the middle. Girls are disappearing. The white knight who offers shelter for girls able to escape is a former sex industry worker, and the city’s sterling police commissioner less honorable than his public persona.

Is this a cozy?

Readers can relax. Explicit sex and violence are off the page. Instead, in true Carol style, ingenuity, smarts, a microphone and a little bit of humor carry her through an investigation.

I’ve long believed the story chooses the writer. Not the other way around. Several years ago helicopters circled an area above my home in the Hollywood Hills. The body of a young girl, no more than twenty-something, had been dumped in the canyon. She was a model who had gone to do a shoot with a photographer she didn’t know. I never forgot it. The story stuck with me, and as I sat down to write BeyondA Doubt, my research led to a number of other missing young girls. Most fortunately don’t end in a body dump, but many of the missing, are similar. They’re young girls in search of the glitz and glamor of Hollywood.

It was a story I had to write. Girls in search of a career and ironically, like Carol, a reporter struggling to prove her worth, faced with choices and challenges that don’t always end well.

My goal wasn’t to write about the sex trade. I didn’t set out to convince my readers one way or another about prostitution. My goal was simply to advance Carol as an investigator and what came out of it, was the importance of the choices women make.

While many readers may get caught up in with the who-done-it of my mysteries, I have found the subplots equally as complex. The choices women make: their jobs, their families and their relationships with each other, both in the work place and outside, are infinitely as compelling. Since I first stepped foot in the workplace leaning-in and taking jobs that few women, if any before me ever had, I've been conscious of our role. 

Perhaps one of the most rewarding parts of my job as a writer is to channel Carol's balancing act at work, at home and romantically. Like Anne Perry said, getting the reader to see something of life they might not have seen before and understanding the choices people make with a new perspective.

Nancy is offering one lucky commentor a signed copy of her upcoming book, BEYOND ADOUBT!

When reporter Carol Childs is called to the scene of a body dump she has no idea she’s about to uncover a connection to a string of missing girls: young women drawn to Hollywood via an internet promise of stardom. A judge’s daughter and a trip down Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame lead Carol to a high powered real estate mogul and a human trafficking cartel.

Old Hollywood has its secrets,  and when Carol gets too close, she finds her career threatened and herself a target who, like the girls she’s seeking, may disappear without a trace...

You can find more about Nancy Cole Silverman and her book at her website. You can friend her on Facebook, discuss reading with her on Goodreads, and follow her on Twitter as @NancyColeSilve1