The Fish, the Plane Crash, and the Coyote

BREAKING NEWS!  

You can now download a HUGE excerpt of 
THE MURDER LIST free! 

 Here's the link: 

https://www.torforgeblog.com/2019/06/18/download-a-free-digital-preview-of-the-murder-list-by-hank-phillippi-ryan/

ANd now: back to our regular programming! 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: How many times! How many times have people asked: Is Charlie McNally YOU? Is Jane Ryland YOU?  Even—Is Mercer Hennessey you? (And I can’t wait to hear what they say about the characters in the Murder List.)

 But no no no. She’s not. (Except Charlie. Maybe a little.)

A dear pal and talented colleague who is fighting the same battle is our fab friend of the Reds: Lynn Chandler Willis. (Her newest mystery, TELL ME NO SECRETS, is out right now!)

 But is Ava Logan really Lynn herself? See what you think.  

The Fish, the Plane Crash, and the Coyote

By Lynn Chandler Willis

In my former life, I owned and published a bi-weekly newspaper. Circulation 15,000, thank you. Not bad for a totally ad-supported paper that covered one incorporated rural town and a couple unincorporated surrounding communities. The paper lasted thirteen years and probably could have gone on a few more but I was tired. I was tired of small-town politics, the neighbor against neighbor, the curses of angry mothers because you misspelled their kid’s name in the Honor Roll report. Or worse, spelled the Mayor’s son’s name correctly in the police report.

The paper did have its bright side and they far outweighed the down sides. I met people I never would have met and was introduced to some of the most amazing experiences – like watching the Hinshaw brothers make homemade maple syrup, meet the Budweiser Clydesdales up close and personal (and they are MASSIVE), and get courted by a guy who brought me a fish. Dead.

The guy kinda had a crush on me and dropped by the office – we’re talking rural community so the office isn’t a skyscraper – and asked me to come outside with him for a minute. He said he had something to give me. I walk outside with him and he reaches into his Coleman cooler in the bed of his truck and pulls out this massive fish. It might have been a bass, I don’t know. It was big, and it was dead. He’d caught it earlier and knew I’d be impressed because I was such a down-home type girl. I told him I couldn’t accept it because my husband might not appreciate it so he took his fish and went home. And no, I wasn’t married.

Then there was the plane crash. A small charter plane went down in a field near our neck of the woods. I head out there dressed for field trials and get right up to the crash site to take pictures. One of the large daily papers showed up but the reporter, in her high heels, couldn’t get anywhere near the site. They ended up using my pictures. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries, unless you count the reporter’s ego and sprained ankle.

Often, people would drop by the office for a cup of coffee and some chit-chat, or to offer me a fish, or a photo op.

 This particular time, an avid outdoorsman wheels up to the office in his heavy-duty truck and rushes in to get me. Bring your camera, I’m instructed. We get outside and he drops the tailgate of his truck and there’s the largest coyote I’ve ever seen. Like the fish, dead. The thing stretched nose to base of tail across the tailgate. Coyotes in our area are considered a nuisance so it’s always open season. And we have had problems with coyotes in the past so people are a bit scared of them ‘round here. So this guy wants me to take a picture for the front page – above the fold – to warn people coyotes are in the area. The problem was, the coyote was dead. With very visible bullet wounds. And blood. I could not run that kind of picture on the front page of a family friendly newspaper. The guy accused me of doing a disservice to the people and their pets and every cat and Yorkie that got attacked by a coyote was on me. I’d have the blood of many small pets on my hands. 

At least a picture of blood wasn’t going on the front page. 

I gave up the newspaper business in real life but write about it in my fiction. Ava Logan of the Ava Logan Mystery Series is – surprise—a small town newspaper publisher struggling with work-life balance, and the brutality of small-town politics. And the occasional murder.

Set deep in the Appalachia Mountains, the second book in the series, Tell Me No Secrets, involves serpent-handling churches, granny women folk healing, and muddy river baptisms. I never covered any of these in my newspaper but I did interview Prince WadaWada DuDu of the Great Zanbini’s Traveling circus one time. That interview may make it into a book someday.  

HANK: But  Ava Logan is NOT YOU, right, Lynn?

So Reds and readers, when you read a book with a strong character , even especially a first-person character, do you imagine them as the author?  Do you assume it’s autobiographical?
>>and added later--this has me thinking-do you have a small town newspaper? Do you read it?

 Lynn Chandler Willis is a former newspaper publisher and award-winning author living in the heart of North Carolina. In 2013, she was the first woman in a decade to win the SMP/PWA Best 1^st PI Novel competition with Shamus-Award finalist, Wink of an Eye. Her Ava Logan Mystery Series features a small-town newspaper publisher trying to balance being a single mom and owning a newspaper. Any resemblance is strictly coincidental. Besides, Ava is a brunette.

TELL ME NO SECRETS

In the heart of Appalachia, newspaper publisher Ava Logan should feel joy and pride as she watches her thirteen-year-old daughter being baptized in the cold water of Jackson Creek—but she can’t rejoice when thoughts of an employee who failed to show for work keep pulling her attention away. Ava’s convinced something horrible has happened to Scott. Then his backpack is found floating in the same river her daughter is being baptized in. While clue after clue leads her deeper into the hollers of Appalachia—ripe with tradition and folktales, store front religion, and the darkest of secrets, Ava discovers truths about those close to her and about her own beliefs. With her own life in jeopardy, how deep will she go to find the truth? What secrets will she expose? What secrets will she keep?

Links:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PPPTWSC/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tell-me-no-secrets-lynn-chandler-willis/1130926781?ean=9781635115192

http://lynnchandlerwillis.com/

Another Tantalizing Question!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, my gosh. I am so envious! I wish I could have seen this. I love magic, and I love things I can't explain. And the wonderful author Cynthia Kuhn--you know her, right? she's amazing--had this incredible experience that she cannot explain. And, I admit, neither can I.

See if you can. 

That Time I Did A Show With Harry Houdini

by Cynthia Kuhn

Thank you for letting me visit today! The third Lila Maclean Academic Mystery, The Spirit in Question, is set in a haunted opera house. For research purposes, my family journeyed up to the famously “active” Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, which was the inspiration for Stephen King’s The Shining. 

And there, master magician Aiden Sinclair performs at the Stanley in Illusions of the Passed: A Theatrical Séance. It was a truly remarkable experience.

Before the show began, we were invited to browse a table set up with various historical artifacts which Aiden has collected over time—for example, items from the Titanic and objects from the hotel’s original owners. But as I circled the table, it was Harry Houdini’s playing cards that drew my attention immediately. 

If you read the author’s note at the end of The Spirit in Question, you’ll see that the opera houses in Colorado did in fact host an array of luminaries, such as Harry Houdini, Oscar Wilde, and others. Fascinating stories—and pictures—kept surfacing in my research. And there were Houdini’s cards, right in front of me! Truth be told, I was itching to lift up the glass and touch those cards but managed to restrained myself. Barely.

During the show, we witnessed one amazing thing after another, performed with the help of audience members. (And maybe some ghosts? Seriously, it all remains inexplicable.) At first, we suspected the people in the audience were planted. But then Aiden asked if anyone knew what Harry Houdini looked like. My hand was in the air before I was even aware of moving—it was all that research—because yes, I did know. When he consequently invited me onstage, I immediately regretted it. Stupid hand. But it was too late, so up I went. 

Aiden pulled out the deck I’d seen earlier and reminded everyone that these belonged to Harry Houdini. After a thorough shuffle, he asked me to draw a card and look at it without showing anyone, including him. He gave me the entire deck and instructed me to place the card on top, put both hands around the desk, and think about what I’d drawn. He also told the audience to think of a card—any card—and to concentrate on it.

“Now imagine,” he said to me, while strolling around the room, “that Harry Houdini is standing behind someone and you’re going to tell me who it is. Concentrate on the card and also see him here with us now.” 

Now this part is extra-weird. As I sat there, thinking of Harry Houdini and my card, the deck seemed to generate energy—within moments, my heart was racing and my hands shook, as if I’d been given a shot of adrenaline. 

I am not making this up.

After a few minutes, Aiden asked me to point out the person I saw Harry standing behind. To be honest, I didn’t actually seea figure, but I wascompletely drawn to someone sitting in the middle of the room, so I identified her. Aiden asked her to stand and tell us what card she was thinking of, which she did. It was the king of diamonds.

Then he invited everyone who had chosen the king of diamonds to stand and, out of the hundred or so audience members, only two did. 

When he asked me to reveal my card, the whole room gasped. It was the king of diamonds. 

So, to recap, only three people had the same card in mind as the one that I’d pulled. Three. And I’d led Aiden to one of them on the first try. 

I cannot explain it. And I most certainly was not a plant. 

So...thank you, Harry Houdini.

HANK: Oooh. HOW did that happen?v I always think people are plants (you know what I mean), but Cynthia was not!  Reds and readers, what do you think?  Cynthia, on further reflection, what do YOU think?

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Cynthia Kuhn writes the Lila Maclean Academic Mystery series: The Semester of Our Discontent, an Agatha Award recipient for Best First Novel; The Art of Vanishing, a Lefty Award nominee for Best Humorous Mystery; and The Spirit in Question. Her work has also appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Literary Mama, Copper Nickel, Prick of the Spindle, Mama PhD, and other publications. She is professor of English at Metropolitan State University of Denver, president of Sisters in Crime-Colorado, and member of the multi-author blog, Chicks on the Case. For more information, please visit cynthiakuhn.net.

The Spirit in Question is now available at booksellers and online:

Amazon:amzn.to/2unzWF9
Barnes and Noble: bit.ly/2NlGFXe
IndieBound: bit.ly/2vH7ChC
Kobo: bit.ly/2NVbi71

Website: cynthiakuhn.net

Twitter: @cynthiakuhn

Facebook: www.facebook.com/cynthiakuhnwriter

Amazon Author Page: www.amazon.com/Cynthia-Kuhn

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/cynthiakuhn

Book Bub:https://www.bookbub.com/authors/cynthia-kuhn

Blog: chicksonthecase.com

Another Tantalizing Question

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I am laughing too hard. I love Nancy Cole Silverman, she's a true soulmate. But after reading this, I am even more convinced. And yeah. My answer to her question--as benighted and misguided the answer--is yes.

Confessions of an Obsessive Compulsive Wordsmith

By Nancy Cole Silverman

I fear vacations. Oh, it’s not that I’m afraid of flying or strange places or meeting new people. I love all that.  No. My fear is based on something much more mundane. It’s the fear of closing my computer, leaving behind my work-in-progress and detaching from social media. Allow me to explain.

I recently completed Reason For Doubt, the fifth book in the Carol Childs Mysteries that debuted this week, November 6th.  While this is good news, those of us who write know that once we’ve kissed our final draft goodbye, it’s time to start and maybe even complete another project. In my case, I had started a new manuscript, pulling Misty Dawn, one of the reoccurring characters from the Carol Childs Mysteries, and – fingers crossed – submitted it for review to my publisher.

Caught between the marketing for the release for Reason For Doubt, and hoping to hear back from my publisher about the new prospective series, I was, I think, understandably anxious about being out of touch for an extended period of time.

However, my vacation beckoned. A Baltic Cruise. The trip of a lifetime. A much-needed escape for my husband and me, whose schedule is as crazy as mine, and who needed this vacation perhaps more than I did. Ordinarily I’m pretty good at balancing things, and with today’s modern internet connections, travel’s not usually too much of a problem. But, when it comes to cruising, internet connections at best can be iffy. Nevertheless, I determined to soldier on.

Which meant, I’d be doing a tap dance of sorts.  In the back of my obsessive/compulsive mind, I was plotting yet another murder mystery, while in person I was Nancy-tourist, shooting photos and chatting away with strangers about the various ports where our ship had docked.  I flittered from photo shoot to wine tastings and back to tour groups, all the while feeling guilty I wasn’t meeting my daily writing quota or able to maintain my author profile on my social pages or interacting with potential readers.  But, the longer we were away, the more I relaxed I became with the idea that time off might be a good thing.

Soon I found I was checking my email less and less, and my notepad that had been scribbled with notes to myself for some future project I was planning became full of notes about Viking ships, castles, and ports of entry. Ideas for future stories.

Including one about the people of Tallinn, a former part of the Soviet Union, where our ship had docked for the day. 

Tallinn

 Our tour guide explained that on August 20, 1991, the people of Estonia declared their independence from Russia with a bloodless coup.  While Soviet Tanks rolled through the countryside and surrounded the lone TV tower in Tallinn, volunteers from the city gathered beneath the tower and began to sing.  In what came to be known as the Singing Revolution, the country was ultimately granted its independence, and today its citizens maintain they sang their way out of the Soviet Union.  

And then there was a large rock in Denmark, a pink colored

boulder our tour guide pointed out to us.  The rock commemorated the Danes and a turn-coat Nazi who saved the Danish Jews from certain death.

It was these stories and more that I filled my notepad with, and at night after we returned shipboard, that I tapped into my Ipad, exercising my anxious fingers, while I lulled my creative spirit back into its happy place.  I don’t write historical fiction, and may not use any of what I saw or learned exactly as it happened.  But the theme for them will show up somewhere in a future work when I hope to show the power of the human spirit.

Curiously enough, just as we were about to board our flight from Amsterdam back to the US, I checked my email. Good news.  My publisher Henery Press loved my Misty Dawn manuscript.  And...surprise, surprise, I even had an email from Shawn Simmons regarding Malice Domestic's 14th Anthology, Mystery Most Edible.  My short story, “The Gourmand,” was selected to be included. Hmmm… Maybe instead of fearing travel, I should go away more often?

How about you? Are you an obsessive/compulsive wordsmith as well? Have you ever been hesitant to leave your computer, worried that if you looked away or allowed your attention to be diverted, you might return and find the magic had disappeared? 

 HANK: Right? No matter what we do--are we afraid to stop? Reds and readers, what do you think about this? (And readers, um, do you even notice when your favorite authors are on vacation?

Nancy Cole Silverman spent nearly twenty-five in Los Angeles Talk Radio, beginning her career on the talent side as one for the first female voices on the air, to the business side, where she retired as one of two female general managers in the nation’s second largest radio market. 

After a successful career in the radio industry, Silverman turned to writing fiction. Her crime-focused novels and short stories have attracted readers throughout America. Her Carol Childs Mysteries series (Henery Press) features a single-mom whose "day job" as a reporter at a busy Los Angeles radio station often leads to long nights as a crime-solver. Silverman lives in Los Angeles with her husband and a thoroughly pampered standard poodle.

All About the Journey

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Doesn't it seem like everyone is taking photos of everything? It's almost as if it doesn't exist if there's no photo.  But the talented Wendy Tyson--and if you haven't read her marvelous books, you're in for a treat--uses those photos as an entree into her books.  What a great idea!

(Oh. Especially if the photos are in Italy.)

Welcome to my dear pal Wendy Tyson--who uses her photos to inspire her writing life. And, she's learned, it's all about the journey.

All About the Journey

  by Wendy Tyson

During my first fiction writing class in college, I wrote a short story titled “Transit.” It’s an admittedly somber story about a woman who becomes the family breadwinner when her husband is severely injured at his slaughterhouse job. The entire piece takes place during the protagonist’s bus ride to the slaughterhouse where she’s now going to work, and it focuses on her internal transformation as she comes to terms with what’s happened and how her life is about to change.

The summer before I wrote that story I joined two friends on a backpacking trip through parts of Spain and Portugal. We didn’t have much money, and the Eurail passes we’d purchased provided both transportation and an uncomfortable place to sleep. The trip made an impression on me, not only because of the people we met or the places we saw, but because of the opportunity for introspection that’s afforded the traveler.

Since then, my fiction has become decidedly lighter and more optimistic, but I’ve always been fascinated with the concept of the journey, however short or long. 

It’s a perfect vehicle for allowing our characters to grow or change. In FATAL FAÇADE, the fourth Allison Campbell mystery, which was released in June 2017, Philadelphia image consultant Allison Campbell travels to the Dolomite region of Italy to meet with a reclusive client. There, amongst the haunting mountain vistas and ancient castles, she finds murder—and acceptance. 

Likewise, SEEDS OF REVENGE, the third Greenhouse mystery, open with protagonist Megan Sawyer journeying home from Philadelphia during a snowstorm. She comes to the rescue of a stranded driver, and from that act mayhem and self-awareness ensue.

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But the journey isn’t an important tool only for the fictional beings among us; it can also be a source of inspiration for authors. The Greenhouse Series was born after witnessing the interactions of shop owners in a small town in the mountains of North Carolina during a book signing. 

The exchanges I witnessed were nothing unique or unusual, but the new setting, the hours I’d driven in unfamiliar terrain to get there, and the feeling of being out of my element, provided fresh perspective that triggered fresh ideas.

In fact, the act of traveling has become such an important source of ideas for my fiction that I’ve begun a photo journal to record moments that move me. Sometimes my subject is something grand that inspires a book, like an abandoned Italian castle (FATAL FAÇADE), a massive field of solar panels (BITTER HARVEST), or a walled convent (THE SEDUCTION OF MIRIAM CROSS). 

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Sometimes, though, it’s something subtle that I might revisit later. BITTER HARVEST, the second Greenhouse mystery, opens with Megan finding a red Adirondack chair that’s been left on a hiking trail, positioned so that it faces her house. That chair was real, only I came across it while hiking in Vermont (it wasn’t actually facing anyone’s house). At the time, the chair intrigued me so I snapped a photo. It wasn’t until later that I realized it would make a haunting opening to a novel.

My family recently moved from Pennsylvania to Vermont. I travel back and forth to Pennsylvania regularly now, a five-hour car ride that’s become second nature.

While I often find myself looking forward to the journey because it offers time in my head to explore ideas, there’s risk in retracing a well-worn path. To keep it fresh, I make a point of looking for something new every time I go.

A few weeks ago, during the leg of the drive that winds through upstate New York, I saw a man walking along a lake on a lonely stretch of road. Dusk was just beginning to fall, and he cast a long shadow on pitted pavement.  I couldn’t stop to take my customary photo, but the image stayed with me—and it’ll be the basis for Greenhouse Mystery number five.

HANK: Oh, I can’t wait to hear about it!

And you know, the say there are only two plots. One, a person goes on a journey. Two:  a stranger comes to town.  And, thinking about hat, that’s the same story. From different points of view. Hmm.

So Reds, if someone was walking down YOUR street, what interesting thing might they see? Hmm I see a big hedge that--overnight—was run into and smashed by…something. There’s a story, right?

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How about outside your window?  And—have you ever used a Eurail pass? I always thought that was the coolest thing.

And what's your favorite book about a journey?

Wendy Tyson's background in law and psychology has provided inspiration for her mysteries and thrillers. Originally from the Philadelphia area, Wendy has returned to her roots and lives there again on a micro-farm with her husband, three sons and three dogs. Wendy’s short fiction has appeared in literary journals, and she’s a contributing editor and columnist for The Big Thrill and The Thrill Begins, International Thriller Writers’ online magazines. Wendy is the author of the Allison Campbell Mystery Series and the Greenhouse Mystery Series.

 

SEEDS OF REVENGE

Megan Sawyer is determined to farm year-round. So much so that she braves a December snowstorm to pitch her fresh greenhouse greens to Philadelphia chefs. And then she sees a stranger stranded on the side of the road. But this woman is no stranger to Winsome. It’s Becca Fox. A love chemist (you read that right). She’s headed to her aunt’s house to sell her love potions at holiday events.  Or so Becca thinks.

Her sneaky aunt only invited Becca home to reunite her with her estranged father. It sounds noble and kind-hearted, until the man ends up dead.  Megan soon finds herself in the middle. She realizes Becca’s not the only one getting iced over. Megan’s own aunt, the famous mystery author, is dragged into the drama. Now it’s personal. Our Megan must follow a cryptic trail of literary clues, all while sifting through the victim’s sordid past. As she gets closer to the truth...the murderer gets closer to her.

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