Knock-off Painkillers: A drink for sailors and landlubbers

LUCY BURDETTE: Following up on the question last week about how we feel about water...I always think the idea of a vacation on a boat sounds amazing. So a couple of years ago John and I went on a sailing vacation with my sister and her husband. This was a frugal do-it-yourself trip; we brought our own groceries and did the sailing ourselves.
 

Ha, ha, just kidding, that wasn't our boat, it's one of the abandoned liveaboards anchored off Key West that I used in MURDER WITH GANACHE. 

I freely admit that I'm not much of a sailor, acting mostly as ballast. As we set off that first morning, I had great expectations. The scenery couldn't have been more gorgeous. The company was outstanding. 

However, I was not cautious enough about my tendency to seasickness--even on calm seas. I will spare you the gory details, except to tell you that at the end of the first day I was happy to swim ashore and crawl onto a small island away from the water. With my head pounding and my world swirling, I did not even notice until an hour later that SOMETHING SMELLED TERRIBLE. When I finally sat up, I saw that I was lying in close proximity to a dead goat...

Feeling so much better--with John!

Sue and Jeff--the real sailors

After some time on dry land and much Dramamine, I recovered and enjoyed the rest of the trip. The fish were amazing--including barracudas, big sea turtles, a dancing line of squid who were as curious about us as we were about them. 

One of our favorite ways of celebrating the end of a day on the water was to go ashore and enjoy an island cocktail called a Painkiller. You do not need to wait for a sailing vacation to try this--it would work very well over the holiday weekend.

 
Knockoff Painkiller cocktail

4 ounces pineapple coconut juice (Knudsen for me)
2 ounces orange juice
1 to 2 ounces Pusser's or other dark rum
Sprinkling of fresh nutmeg 




Combine the liquids in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Stir well, then pour into glass filled with ice and garnish with a sprinkle of nutmeg. This is definitely tasty enough to serve without the rum too, if you prefer. (KILLER TAKEOUT is not in the glamour shot above, but the painkiller played an important role in that mystery.)

What will you be drinking over this long weekend? Care to share the recipe?

KILLER TAKEOUT is here! @LucyBurdette

 
HALLIE EPHRON: A few weeks ago I visited Lucy in Key West (and yes, I felt as if I was walking around in Hayley Snow’s shoes with the cat man and Lorenzo the Tarot card reader) and a mutual friend who’s not a fiction writer asked a question that stopped both Lucy and me in our tracks: Why do you write? 

Lucy’s answer tells you as much about her as it does about her series. Today, as her fabulous new Key West Food Critic mystery, KILLER TAKEOUT, hits bookstore shelves, I’m posing the question to her again. Why DO you write, and why this series?

LUCY BURDETTE: To put this question in context, Hallie and I had confirmed with our friend Pat that earning big bucks was NOT the reason we write! (Though I am open to that in the future, should the universe be listening.) But a million other thoughts came to mind…

First, I write because I can't imagine not writing! What would I do with the ideas that crash into my mind at all hours of the day and night? And more seriously, how would I spend my time if I wasn't doing this thing that I love?  
And there are so many gratifying moments. Like the morning when a lousy collection of words get shaped into a decently told story. And typing THE END, that's definitely a top moment LOL. Then seeing the book in a store or library. And struggling with a plot thread that won't seem to resolve and suddenly coming upon the answer as I walk the dog or talk it over with a friend. 

Speaking of friends, I love the colony of writer and reader friends that I've gotten to know since I began writing (that's you guys!) I love the support and enthusiasm and and affection, and the way mystery writers assume they they will pay it forward. And there's nothing like fan mail from a reader who totally understands my characters. Or a review that nails themes that I didn't consciously plan for.

Lucy with Dominique the Cat Man

HALLIE: One of my favorite things about your series is Key West. The Place. There’s nowhere else quite like it, and your delight in it is infectious. It’s sweet, silly, outrageous, beautiful… And when I visited there I wasn’t surprised to find it exactly the way you describe it. The food. The people. The sunsets.

 

LUCY: I love being able to share with readers the quirky island of Key West that I've grown to love over the past ten years.

HALLIE: And it feels as if you’ve tapped into a particularly deep well when it comes to these characters.

Lorenzo at work

LUCY: Thanks for that! Some people have asked whether it isn't boring to write a series--or if not dull, at least harder then starting fresh.  

But I'm crazy about writing series because in each book, the shape of the characters and their backgrounds deepens. And I enjoy imagining how difficult events will affect their lives going forward, and how they work out old dramas in new and better ways. And I love being surprised. In the first book, An Appetite for Murder, I didn't spend much time imagining Hayley Snow's neighbor at Houseboat Row, Miss Gloria. But now she's become the character that I hear most about from my fans, except of course for Lorenzo the Tarot card reader.

HALLIE: Before we let you go, can you share one new thing - a place or a character or a twist in a character’s life — that snuck its way into this book when you weren’t looking?

LUCY: I have to say I'm so pleased with the way Hayley has grown up. Some of the earliest reviews pegged her as ditzy and possibly shallow. But she has absolutely learned from her mistakes and become a loyal friend who is no longer motivated by jumping into the arms of the first guy to show some interest. (You'll see what I mean:), I hope!)

Thanks for reading! KILLER TAKEOUT is available wherever books are sold! Writer Reds, why do you write? Reader reds, what makes you want to spend time with a new book?

What I was #Writing that You Can Read Next Week! @LucyBurdette #giveaway

LUCY BURDETTE: I can't really concentrate on anything except for the fact that KILLER TAKEOUT will be out next Tuesday. So I'm sharing a few snippets from that book, the 7th Key West mystery. (The quotes are all in Hayley Snow's voice, of course.)

Lucy with the cast of Wizard of Oz, FF style

Me? I'd rather eat canned sardines from China than march down Key West’s Duval Street wearing not much more than body paint. But 100,000 out-of-town revelers didn’t agree. They were arriving on the island this week to do just that—or watch it happen—during Fantasy Fest, the celebration taking place during the ten days leading up to Halloween, including a slew of adult-themed costume parties culminating in a massive and rowdy parade.

Food is a major deal in my family—life-sustaining, of course. But it also provides clues to the cook’s inner life, like a psychologist’s inkblot test. According to my mother, and her mother before her, the menu that the hostess selects always, always sends a message to the guests.

 I’d added the mango dog to our order at the last minute, thinking it would be more Sam's speed than mine. But the combination of the fragrant grilled all beef hot dog, wrapped in crispy bacon and slathered with slices of bright yellow mango, red onion, and jalapeno pepper, and topped with some kind of pink sauce looked irresistible. (Mango hot dog recipe.)

 

I retrieved my bike and peddled over to the Atlantic side of the island, and then up the bike path toward Fort East Martello, next to the Key West airport. As I rode, more zombies on bikes filled in the empty spaces ahead and behind me. There were Santa zombies and retiree zombies and wicked witch zombies, and zombies of uncertain lineage heavy on dripping blood.

I DID ask his permission

Robert, a life-sized stuffed doll with a creepy face who was dressed in a sailor suit, had been enclosed in a big glass case. On the wall, letters were displayed from visitors who had not taken the proper precautions of asking his permission before taking his photo. Or worse still, made fun of his evil powers. He was famous for cursing tourists who didn’t treat him with respect.

Bransford managed a pained smile. “None of Hayley’s friends are capable of murder—she tells me that every time we have an incident.”

“Not funny,” I said, and took the glass of white wine from Sam’s steady hands, my own fingers shaking.

Shortly after I’d moved down, Key West seeped into my system like a sweet poison, and now I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. And I probably bragged about how lucky I was to be on this island more than I should.

The tropical depression that forecasters had worried about for the last several days was still hanging heavy east of Cuba. The longer it stalled, the more organized grew its internal rotation, said the hurricane specialist. Which spelled more concern for Florida, especially our fragile keys, tossed across the ocean like a string of antique pearls.

People were like that, full of psychological wrinkles and shadowy corners—even the ones you’d known forever harbored secrets.

KILLER TAKEOUT will be out on Tuesday, available wherever books are sold! But I'd love to give a copy away to one of our wonderful Jungle Red Readers! Leave your email with your name to be entered in the drawing.

What We're Writing Week: @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: The seventh Key West foodie mystery, Killer Takeout, will be on bookshelves soon (April 5.) Last month, that seemed a long distance away, but now the time will rush by. I have blogs to write, and proposals for new books to create, and recipes to develop, and the Key West Friends of the Library newsletter to produce. In other words, I am all over the place with what I'm writing. If I started to list it all, I fear I'd spin off into a great big ball of anxiety. 

So instead, I thought you'd enjoy a little peek into the cover story for KT. I've mentioned before that I create a Pinterest board as I work on each book. This seventh book in the Key West series takes place at Fantasy Fest, a New Orleans-style 10-day adult-themed party. As you can imagine, adult themes and cozies mysteries are not a natural mix. So I edited what I pinned to my board, so the powers that be would not freak out. No naked people in other words. I concentrated on costumes and food and pets--things that might give the cover artists a good starting point. (PS, I love my cover artists!)

Here's the first draft of what they sketched. All going in the right direction, though I wasn't sure what was up with the expanse of pavement...or the stop sign...or the blue building in the background. None of this reflected the reality of the scene (which is okay, really.) But it also distracted the eye from the fabulous display on the picnic table, including requisite cat--this time on the hunt for a lizard. My editor agreed, so back it went for another draft. I should also mention that I was writing the book as this was going on, so the artwork sometimes changed what I had imagined in a given scene. For example, I added the food truck that they had drawn in the scene...such a cool process!

Here's the second draft, minus stop sign and with reduced blacktop...and with the addition of some kind of bead shop, who knew? And notice that the truck's name has changed to Beach Eats (suggested by Celia Warren Fowler.)

Back to the drawing board for more blacktop reduction. (I'm not kidding!)

And here's the "final" draft--but purple? Oh no, I had been lobbying for orange. Because the purple seemed too close to the blue of FATAL RESERVATIONS. We certainly didn't want readers getting mixed up and thinking they already bought the new book! 

Was I wrong? I didn't think so. Was I displacing all kinds of other writer worries onto this cover? Absolutely!

Meanwhile, my editor had taken to Googling Fantesy Fest. And she'd come across photos of many naked people, albeit, painted. She called.

"Roberta, I can't quite believe what I'm finding online."

Me: "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, some of it is a little x-rated. But don't worry, I didn't write about that stuff. None of that's in the book, you'll see." 

Not much anyway. And then I begged for a chance to have orange on the cover.

She went to bat for me. Did I mention I love my editor?

You are invited to preorder KILLER TAKEOUT today!

(And PPS no, I am not going to post the naked people here either...only thinking of Hank, who is very modest. Though the truth is I do have some photos, because these painted people are not one bit shy about posing for a camera. Yeah, Hayley didn't get it either...)

What We're Writing @LucyBurdette #giveaway

LUCY BURDETTE: What we are writing week seems to come around very fast, especially if we're not writing something we can share! I have completed the copy edits for KILLER TAKEOUT, and now await the page proofs. This is always a fun stage, because seeing those pages makes the book feel so real.


I'm also noodling around with an idea for an eighth Key West book, should the publisher clamor for that. It's too early to say much about it other than it would take full advantage of the changing climate with Cuba. (Remember, Key West is only 90 miles from Havana.) (And if you are anxious for another installment, the best way to make that happen is to preorder KT.) And I have been working on the proposal for what might be called a novel of suspense. So plenty of balls are being juggled!


I thought I'd share a scene from KILLER TAKEOUT that takes place on the dock where Hayley and Miss Gloria live in their houseboat. I have a lot of fun jamming local people and places into my books, including the names of pets. Schnootie the schnauzer came from an SPCA auction, and now her brother, Dinkels, an elderly black cat, will be making an appearance. Another friend was very disappointed that her cat didn't make the cut, so Jack has been layered in too. You might remember that both Hayley and Miss Gloria have cats, so of course they are in this scene as well. (Don't even think about all those litter boxes on the high seas!)


As I puttered up to the parking lot in front of Tarpon Pier, feeling the breath of relief and gratitude that always greets me when I realize I’m at home, I heard a huge ruckus on the dock. The racket radiated from Schnootie the schnauzer, whose barking echoed hysterically from the Renharts’ houseboat. As I strode up the finger, I spotted Miss Gloria on the Renharts’ deck. This never happens because Mr. Renhart abhors socializing. Over the incessant yapping of the schnauzer came the shrieking and growling of what sounded like hyenas. A lot of them.

I was pretty sure I recognized Evinrude’s angry cat voice among the yowls.

I broke into a trot, arriving just as Miss Gloria dove into a cartoon maelstrom of spinning legs and feet and fur and emerged with my tiger cat.

And that break in the action gave enough space for Miss Gloria’s black cat Sparky to rush back into the fray. So much was happening that I wasn’t certain who was fighting—or how many of them. But when Schnootie lunged into the whirling fur, I saw my chance and snatched Sparky out. Her chest heaving, Mrs. Renhart wrestled down two other long-haired cats, one pure black and one furry gray with a white face and neck and striking green eyes.

“Oh my gosh,” she said, her voice squeaky with exertion. “What a way to meet the new neighbors. And I so hoped my new kitties could be friends with yours.” She looked utterly bedraggled and forlorn, the two big cats clutched under her arms.

“These belong to you? Let us put our guys away,” I said, gritting my teeth as I smiled. “Then we can have a proper introduction.”
Miss Gloria and I carried our squirming, growling felines back to the dock and locked them in our houseboat. “What in the world was she thinking?” I muttered.

“I think she’s mostly lonely,” said Miss Gloria. “She sees how our animals get along so nicely and she wanted to copy us.” She shrugged and grinned, the skin around her eyes crinkling with laughter. “Take it as a compliment.”

“You’re right as usual,” I said, and gave her a quick hug. Another way I felt lucky in my life—this amazing and unlikely roommate. When I first met her, I sized her up as a frail but quirky old lady, a relic living out her last shaky legs on Houseboat Row. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

We started back to the Renharts’ houseboat, where our neighbor had—thank goodness—put Schnootie away in their cabin. Her new cats had retreated under the deck chairs. And Mrs. R was laying out a gallon jug of inexpensive white wine and a plate of Oreo cookies.

“I’m so sorry about all that; I just wasn’t thinking.” She poured the wine into three plastic glasses and passed them to us. In the background, Schnootie yelped and slammed her weight repeatedly against the screen door—a one-dog percussion section.

“It was our cats’ fault as much as anything,” said Miss Gloria, and thunked her glass against each of ours in a plastic toast. “They love a good fracas. Now tell us the story of these new kitties. Are you fostering?” She wiggled her fingers at the black cat who approached her cautiously and sniffed.

Jack Melendy

I scratched the big gray cat behind his ears. He closed his eyes for a moment as if to enjoy the rub, then darted under Mrs. Renhart’s chair. I took a sip of my wine and a bite of the cookie, neither of which fit into my calories-for-today plan. But our neighbor had never invited us over before, and she seemed desperate to keep us there for a bit. “Red velvet Oreo? Delicious,” I said, as I knelt down on the deck and ran my hand over the big black cat’s back. “Who is this beauty?”

Dinkels

“That’s Dinkels,” said Mrs. Renhart, breaking into a huge smile. “He’s almost fifteen. Can you imagine sending a fifteen-year-old cat to the animal shelter? The workers said he seems to think he’s a dog.”

“He’s got gorgeous eyes,” I said. “And a powerful presence.”

“And beautiful fur,” said Miss Gloria dutifully. “And who is this other handsome fella?” She leaned down to peer at the gray cat.

“That’s Jack,” said Mrs. R. “They think he’s even older than Dinkels, but he’s sweet and dignified.” Her eyes teared up and she ran her fingers through one cat’s fur and then the other’s.
“I don’t know what came over me. I was sitting here yesterday thinking about how happy I was to have Schnootie in my life, and how I should give back what she’s given me by adopting more animals. And the next thing I know, I’m running a home for elderly felines.” She hooted with laughter and took a slug of wine. “Mr. Renhart, as you can imagine, is not amused.”

We laughed along with her, probably howling a little louder than was polite.

Meanwhile, if you are still short on stocking stuffers, you might enjoy browsing my Pinterest board with tons of suggestions about mysteries that would slide nicely into a stocking! If you like Christmas-themed cozies, don't forget DEATH WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS.

In fact, I think we should give away a signed copy of DEATH WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS to go in someone's stocking. Leave a comment with your email to be entered.

And how could I resist sharing this photo from last weekend's Key West Christmas parade?

Lucy with Officer Joe

What I Was #Writing @Lucy Burdette

LUCY BURDETTE: I told you during the last What We’re Writing week that I was working on KILLER TAKEOUT, the seventh Key West food critic mystery, coming out April 5, 2016. This book takes place during Fantasy Fest, a giant, crazy costume party running over the week leading up to Halloween. 

But on my last assigned WWW day, I fell ill with a vertigo attack and Hallie kindly filled in for me. So I’m taking today to tell you what I would have said. I’ve just turned the draft into my brand new editor, now comes the nail-biting wait for comments. (Here’s my other editor, Yoda. He says: You’re going to make this pile of notes into a book?)

Jennifer paints John's base coat

While I was doing the research for this, John and I participated in one of my favorite Key West events, the zombie bike ride. And where I go, of course, Hayley goes. We went to get our faces painted by a professional face painter—Hayley does too.
 

This is a very crazy scene—10,000 people on bikes, most of them dressed up and made up like zombies. I made the decision early in the draft that the crime should occur during the bike ride. I had no problem setting this up. The questions came later, when I was trying to figure out what kind of murderer would attempt such a thing in an enormous crowd—and how! And why? 

 

You might think it ridiculous that someone would begin writing without those answers, but I assure you that I do it every time. And interesting to me that Nathan Bransford (former literary agent, now novelist, and yes, the namesake for Hayley’s detective heartthrob) addressed this very question in his recent blog. His advice (which thank goodness I was already stumbling through) is first to identify what you’re trying to solve, and then create some structure around it. What needs to happen before you can reach that solution? Break it all down into manageable steps and it starts to feel possible.

zombies have brains too

And here's a bit from that scene in KILLER TAKEOUT:


We got onto our bikes and began to pedal. The crowd pressed in on either side. I dodged a wobbly elder zombie on a three-wheel bike to my left and three tricycles loaded with the Andrews sisters zombies on my right. A radio in one of their baskets played a tinny version of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. I snapped photos to the left and the right, and held my phone up to take a short video of the crowd following behind me. Two very drunk zombie girls in black dresses whose hems fluttered dangerously close to their bike spokes approached from either side of me ringing their warning bells. 

“Zombie on the left!” cried one.

“Zombie on the right!” said the other.

“Zombie down!” came another call from behind. 

Scary zombies!

“These people are having too much fun. They have to learn to pace themselves over the week,” I muttered to Connie. “You go on ahead, I think it’s safer to ride single file.” Not that I hadn't done my share of partying back in the day, but I'd learned my lesson. There was a good reason that one of the liquor stores in town was called The Lost Weekend.

I spurted ahead of the others, staying to the right of the pack, concentrating on not getting run into the curb.

“Zombie down!” echoed a call through the crowd.

This time, the “zombie down” was not a cry of wolf. I stopped riding and spun around to see what was wrong. A zombie was splayed out on the pavement. The two tipsy girls swerved past, barely missing the figure in the road.

“Zombie down!” the shouts grew louder and more shrill as the costumed revelers passed their call up the slow-moving bicycle cavalcade to the front of the parade, like a twisted version of telephone. 

As none of the zombies around me were stopping to help, I got off my bike and crouched beside the person on the ground. Her face was painted mostly white, with patches of black and red almost the opposite of my pattern. She was dressed in a flowing white gown that made the most of her buxom figure, streaked with the requisite blood stains and red glitter. Her headdress, which looked like a Cinderella tiara, zombie-style, had been knocked off her head and scattered a foot away. I snatched up the crown so it wouldn’t get trampled and shouted over the noise around us.

“Are you all right?” I asked. “Can you get up, or should I call for help?”

She answered with a low groan. My gaze flicked over her body, her arms splayed out, her legs akimbo. So much fake blood had been painted on the costume that it was hard to tell if she was really in trouble. I took her hand, which was cool, bordering on icy. Her pulse was racing.

And then I noticed a froth of red in the corner of her mouth. This problem was no fake. 

Killer Takeout will be out on April 5, 2016, but you can pre-order it now!

And thank you again to my friend Hallie for filling the hole!

What We're Writing Week @LucyBurdette

John on duty during the parade

LUCY BURDETTE: You wouldn't believe the things I do in the name of research. Last fall, we arrived in Key West earlier than usual--October--so I could observe the wildest festival of the year--Fantasy Fest. Even after the week was over, I couldn't pretend to understand the grand appeal of walking up and down Duval Street basically naked except for creative body paint. But hey, it makes for a fabulous backdrop--though sorting through what can go into a cozy mystery from this week of events was a bit challenging. 

But John and I promptly signed up to train as Fantasy Fest parade ambassadors, and I ordered tutus in several colors (the men got camo tutus, including Tonka,) and made appointments for face-painting for the Zombie bike ride.


So that's the book I'm writing now! Without further ado, here's the opening for KILLER TAKEOUT, coming to bookshelves next April:

-->

KILLER TAKEOUT: Chapter One

  

Resident islanders couldn’t remember a hotter Key West summer. Not only hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, they agreed, but hot enough to crisp bacon, too. So far, the advent of fall was bringing no relief. Today’s temperature registered 93° and climbing--fierce-hot for October, with the humidity dense like steam from my grandmother’s kettle. And the local news anchor promised it would get hotter as the week continued, along with the party on Duval Street.

Me? I'd rather eat canned sardines from China then march down Key West’s Duval Street wearing not much more than body paint. But 100,000 out-of-town revelers didn’t agree. They were arriving on the island this week to do just that—or watch it happen—during Fantasy Fest, the celebration taking place during the ten days leading up to Halloween, including a slew of adult-themed costume parties culminating in a massive and rowdy parade.

Worse of all, the Weather Channel was tracking the path of a tropical storm in the Eastern Caribbean. They had already begun to mutter semi-hysterical recommendations: Visitors should prepare to head up the Keys to the mainland and take refuge in a safer area. But based on the crowds I’d seen, no one was listening. These hordes weren’t leaving until the event was over. Besides, with a four-hour drive to Miami on a good traffic day, getting all those people out would be like trying to squeeze ketchup back into a bottle. Might as well party.

Since no right-minded local resident would attempt to get near a restaurant this week, I had fewer food critic duties at my workplace, the style magazine, Key Zest. I was looking forward to covering some of the tamer Fantasy Fest events for the magazine, including the Zombie bike ride, the locals’ parade, and a pet masquerade contest. And since restaurants are my beat, I’d promised my bosses an article on reliable takeout food too. If that didn’t keep me busy enough, my own mother, Janet Snow, and Sam, her fiance, were arriving for the week to visit with my dear friend Connie’s new baby, and then get themselves hitched on the beach.

In a weak moment, I’d allowed Miss Gloria, my geriatric houseboat-mate, to talk me into being trained as a Fantasy Fest parade ambassador. Our job would be to help patrol the sidewalks, which would be lined with costumed and tipsy revelers scrambling for the colored glass bead necklaces thrown off the floats.

“If we aren’t going to go to the foam party, or the Adam and Eve bash, or the Tighty Whitey party, we should at least attend the parade,” Miss Gloria said.

I closed my eyes to ward off the image of my elderly friend at any of those events.

“And if we’re working as ambassadors, we’ll be stationed inside the crowd control barricades. We’ll have the best seat in the house. Get it? Seat.” She broke into helpless giggles.

            At the time, the idea seemed palatable. Barely.

Meanwhile, FATAL RESERVATIONS will be here July 7, but I'd be so thrilled if you'd order it now!