A Bouchercon To-do List--G.M. Malliet

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Fans of G.M. Malliet's Father Max Tudor books can rejoice! There's a new Max Tudor book on the horizon, THE WASHING AWAY OF WRONGS, coming on Kindle in September and in paperback in January.

But first, there is Bouchercon, and

G.M. has some tips to get us ready:

Ah, Bouchercon! That annual mecca for mystery lovers is just around the corner, and this year it’s in San Diego. Writers, readers, and mystery fans: Are you ready? Here’s a partial to-do list:

 

The Swag Hunt

You’ll need to rustle up some irresistible giveaway items. Bookmarks? Pens? This year I have coffee coasters displaying the fabulous map drawn by Rhys Davies for my newest book, Max Tudor #8, now on preorder from Hachette / Little, Brown. It is called THE WASHING AWAY OF WRONGS. 

 

The title is taken from a Chinese handbook for coroners written by Song Ci in 1247.

 

I also have new business cards with the book’s jacket and my contact information. 

The fox features in the story and helps Max solve the crime. The QR code takes you to information about all my books.

 

The Grand Auction Offering

Sure, you could offer up a signed first edition or an exclusive sneak peek into your next thriller. Readers love that. But this year, I’ve offered to gift pages from a television script for the Morse series, given to me by none other than Colin Dexter years ago at the St. Hilda’s Mystery Conference in Oxford. This donation is to benefit local literacy charities , so be sure to bring money so you can bid high. Are you as sad as I am there will be no more Morse stories?

 

The Great Packing Dilemma

To pack the swimsuit or to not pack the swimsuit? That is the question. Remember, Bouchercon is in San Diego. Sunny beaches, lovely weather… But this is a writer’s convention with little downtime and lots of walking between sessions. So, swimsuit, maybe. And comfortable shoes, definitely. Something nice to wear for the awards dinner. But don’t forget the PI trench coat!

 

The Weather Watch

San Diego has surprised us all this year with a stormy plot twist. A tropical storm and, further north, an earthquake. I’ve been texting friends and relatives who say they escaped the flooding and they’re used to the earthquakes. But now the forecast for the conference beginning August 30 is for the usual sunny San Diego skies.

 

The Reunion

Reunions in crime novels are generally times for knives out and watching one’s back, but perhaps the most happy aspect of Bouchercon is reuniting with friends, some of whom you might not have seen since the pandemic. Will they recognize you without your Zoom background? I’ve been scheduling meet-ups and coffee / dinner / party dates for weeks. But I will keep an eye out for suspicious characters. It is, after all, a mystery convention.

 

So, as you prepare for Bouchercon, remember this: While the journey might be filled with its own set of challenges (Where did I put my tickets? My reading glasses? Did my iPad make it through the TSA scanner or did it end up in lost-and-found, as happened on my last flight?), the destination promises intrigue, fun, tons of new books, and perhaps… the inspiration for what to read or write next.

 

My panel is Saturday morning at 10:10. Please join me and Maddie Margarita, Linda Sands, Mark Stevens, Sara E. Johnson, and Sylissa Franklin as we discuss “Place as Character.”

Here's more on THE WASHING AWAY OF WRONGS:

Max Tudor thought he’d left the world of deceit when he resigned from MI5 to become an Anglican priest. Then his bishop asks him to return to his Oxford college, St Luke’s, to investigate the death of its chaplain, and Max realizes there’s no leaving the past behind.

At first, Max agrees with the official police verdict of death by natural causes. The Rev. Ace Graybill was as harmless a man as ever lived. It’s difficult to see how he managed to cross anyone capable of murder.

And the suspects are all above reproach: the celebrated Principal, the cautious bursar, the wise librarian, and a raft of benign students and academics.

But someone in the college wanted the kindly chaplain dead… and looks can be very deceiving.

Agatha Award-winning G.M. Malliet is the acclaimed author of three traditional mystery series and a standalone novel set in England. The first entry in the DCI St. Just series, Death of a Cozy Writer, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel and was nominated for many awards, including the Macavity and the Anthony.

DEBS: Who else is ready for Bouchercon?? I can't wait for the reunion part. So many friends I haven't seen in much too long!!

G.M. Malliet--Augusta Hawke

DEBORAH CROMBIE: My editor told me that during the pandemic authors seemed to  have either written like crazy, or been totally blocked. I'm happy to say that our guest today, G.M. Malliet, was one of the former. (Not talking about where I fall on that spectrum...!) I have long been a fan of her Max Tudor (dishy former spy, now vicar--what's not to love?) books and her D.C.I. St. Just books, and now there is a new series to love as well. Now, if only some of that productivity would rub off on me...

“From you have I been absent in the spring”

by G. M. Malliet

And the summer, winter, and autumn.

That’s a quote from the incomparable Shakespeare, of course. Sonnet 98. There’s a school of thought he wrote this sonnet during one or another of the plagues that beset London, forcing him to flee, and causing his separation from his beloved, whoever that was. The Dark Lady or the Fair Youth—we may never know.  

Agatha Christie adapted the title for one of her most successful non-mystery novels, writing as Mary Westmacott.

From March 2020, officially the start of our modern pandemic, I have largely been absent from the writing scene. My husband and I, at our ages not willing to play about with this, took the official advice and hunkered down, emerging towards the end only for delayed funerals of family members and for one mystery writers’ conference.

Meanwhile, to pass the time, I wrote. Constantly and as a distraction from reality, as I’ve always done, although this was a bit more intense, more enforced, and resulted in the completion of the better part of five books.

For those who don’t know me, and I’m assuming by now that is most of you, I write as G.M. Malliet and because of all this industry, and thanks to a dynamic new agent, I'm currently juggling three series. DCI St. Just of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary was the protagonist of my first series, started about 15 years ago with DEATH OF A COZY WRITER, and he was revived last year by Severn House with DEATH IN CORNWALL, St. Just #4. 

Max Tudor is my vicar sleuth – former MI5 and devilishly handsome. I did seven of those books for Minotaur starting with WICKED AUTUMN and will do an eighth for Little, Brown next year (THE WASHING AWAY OF WRONGS).

AUGUSTA HAWKE is my new series starring a first-person female protagonist, a mystery writer who notices her neighbors have gone missing. About the same time, she is becoming bored with her writing (which should sound familiar to many authors) and decides to up her procrastination game by investigating. By the second book (AN INVITATION TO A KILLER), coming soon from Severn House, she is still writing mysteries but now she has a PI license.

I also write short stories, and I’m proud to say my story appearing in the July/August 2021 edition of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine was just nominated for a Macavity Award. Winners in all categories will be announced in September at opening ceremonies @Bouchercon2022. 

If it all seems like a lot, it is, but my husband and I recently celebrated just plain surviving with a trip to Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. I’ll spare you the millions of travel photos except for this one, which is of a place I love. 

It is Stirling Castle where Mary Queen of Scots was crowned Queen of Scotland at the age of nine months. It was pretty much all downhill for our stubborn and willful Mary after that, who was beheaded at the age of forty-four after spending nearly twenty years of her life imprisoned. Somehow, despite her colossal lack of judgment, Mary remains a favorite. Perhaps because I can relate.

Godspeed and good luck and, as the Irish say, may the road rise up to greet you all. It’s great to be back.

Sometimes it's safer not to know your neighbors' secrets.

Where are Niko and Zora Norman? Crime writer Augusta Hawke puts her sleuthing skills to the test to solve the mystery of her disappearing neighbors in the first entry in a new series.

While Augusta Hawke is a successful author of eighteen crime novels, since her husband's death she's been living vicariously through her Jules Maigret-like detective Claude and his assistant Caroline. Then a handsome police detective appears investigating a real-life mystery.

Where are her neighbors, the Normans? No one has a clue what's happened - except Augusta. Although she isn't nosy, spending all day staring out the windows for inspiration means she does notice things. Like the Normans arguing. And that they've been missing a week.

Once the Normans' car is found abandoned, Augusta senses material for a bestseller and calls on the investigatory skills she's developed as a crime writer. But she soon uncovers long-hidden secrets and finds herself facing real-life dangers her characters never faced . . . ones she can't write her way out of.

G.M. Malliet is the award-winning author of four St. Just mysteries, seven Max Tudor mysteries, the suspense novel WEYCOMBE, and numerous short stories collected in crime anthologies or published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (EQMM) and The Strand. New short stories will appear soon in EQMM ("The Pact" and "Something Blue"). A new mystery series (AUGUSTA HAWKE) debuts in July 2022 and a fifth St. Just novel will appear in August 2023.

DEBS: Congratulations on the Macavity nomination, Gin!! And we are all certainly glad you're more than back! 

REDS and readers, did isolation make you more productive?

G.M. will stop by to chat, so maybe she will tell us her secret!