For the Love of Jessica Fletcher by Barbara Early

LUCY BURDETTE: I love this essay from Barbara Early about Jessica Fletcher's history--she's now writing for the Murder, She Wrote series--it's fascinating! 

BARBARA EARLY: Murder, She Wrote recently celebrated a birthday. Fall of 2024 marked the 40th anniversary of the first episode hitting the airwaves. I suspect what initially attracted viewers was the star power: a Hollywood legend like Angela Lansbury taking the lead role, William Windom playing the loveable yet curmudgeonly small-town doctor, and a likeable Tom Bosley (after his fatherly role on Happy Days) assuming the equally likeable, if sometimes bumbling, role of sheriff of a small, picture-perfect coastal community in Maine. Guest stars abounded, drawing from Lansbury’s friends from the silver screen: Ernest Borgnine, June Allyson, Milton Berle, Kathryn Grayson, Jane Greer, Buddy Hackett, and so many more, as well as a host of television regulars and future names, like George Clooney, who was just starting his acting career.

But beyond the star appeal, Murder, She Wrote was revolutionary. Yes, there had been female detectives on television shows before, but most had a certain--what shall we call it--jiggly quality about them. Even if they were intelligent and capable, those attributes were coupled with also being young and sexy. And then here comes a fifty-something English teacher-turned novelist-turned amateur sleuth, and America—and the world—ate it up, with the series finishing among the top 15 shows in 11 of its long 12-season run.

It's hard not to think of Jessica as a pioneer paving the trail for those who followed. While cozy mysteries have existed since the Golden Age of Mystery in the 1920’s and ‘30s, I wonder how much of the explosion of the sub-genre in the ‘80s and ‘90s might be attributed to Jessica’s popularity. And without her, how would the mature female sleuth on television have fared? Would there be a Vera? An Agatha Raisin? A Harry Wild? A (Whitstable) Pearl Nolan?

Forty years later, new viewers and old are still finding Jessica on multiple cable channels and streaming services. There’s talk of a movie in the works, and NECA just released an action figure, complete with miniature typewriter. Of course, I bought one! And I was ecstatic to be offered a chance to write the sixtieth—yes, that 60—entry in the Murder, She Wrote book series. Along with Jessica Fletcher, of course. (wink, wink) 

For those fans of Terrie Farley Moran’s Murder, She Wrote books, don’t worry: she’s not done yet! It just seems that Jessica has been so busy discovering dead bodies that it’s taking more than one author to keep up with her! 

For my first entry in the series, I wanted to set it in that beloved town of Cabot Cove in the wintertime, with Jessica recovering at home from an accidental fall: lots of friends and neighbors stopping by, a copious amount of tea, and just a hint of Rear Window.

But don’t worry: the victim was only visiting, so no need to change that population sign on the road into town. Again.

Whether she’s a cop, a private eye, or an amateur, who is your favorite female television sleuth and why?

In a nod to Rear Window, this newest entry in the USA Today bestselling Murder, She Wrote series finds Jessica Fletcher coping with an injury that leaves her homebound—and a murder just outside her window!

Jessica Fletcher has taken a nasty spill on the ice, leaving her in a wheelchair for several weeks. She tries to work on her latest manuscript but finds herself distracted by a new neighbor moving in across the street. There’s good reason for her to be distracted, because soon after unpacking his sparse belongings, Mr. Rymer is out in the front yard, building somewhat risqué (read: naked) snow sculptures.

While Cabot Cove debates whether the sculptures are a protected form of art or a public display of lewdness, someone starts destroying them at night. Rymer doesn’t seem upset. He just makes new ones. No need to get the police involved over a little snow, he says. Especially when there’s plenty more of it and a blizzard in the forecast.

The morning after the storm, Jessica looks out the window to see a new sculpture across the street—and the body of Mr. Rymer half-buried in the snow. Can Jessica catch a cold-blooded killer from her chair by the window?

Murder, She Wrote: Snowy with a Chance of Murder by Jessica Fletcher, Barbara Early: 9780593820049 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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Bio: Barbara Early earned an engineering degree, but after four years of doing nothing but math, developed a sudden allergy to the subject and decided to choose another occupation. Before she settled on murdering fictional people, she was a secretary, a schoolteacher, a pastor’s wife, and an amateur puppeteer. She and her husband live in Western New York State, where she enjoys cooking, crafts, classic movies, campy vintage television, board games, and spending time with her two granddaughters. Before teaming up with Jessica Fletcher, she wrote the Vintage Toyshop Mystery series and the Bridal Bouquet Shop Mysteries (as Beverly Allen).

SOMETHING'S FISHY

JENN McKINLAY: There was a murder in our house this week. Or so I thought. 

The origin story: Way back in October, Hooligan 1 and his Plus 1 arrived at our house with a sad looking goldfish that Plus 1 had won at a carnival game at October Fest. They already had their quota on critters, so Hub and I happily adopted the little fish, naming it Shohei Ohtani because Hub's beloved Dodgers were in the World Series.

Surprisingly, our cats all ignored little Shohei...well, all except one.

Tig was rather obsessed with Shohei and liked to "help" me feed him. For his part, Shohei didn't seem to mind the chonky cat, as if knowing Tig couldn't reach him and his life was such an upgrade from carnie life that he frequently did zoomies around his tank and was a talented rapper, his fave being Eminem's Lose Yourself (see video - which I hope managed to capture the audio).

Fast forward to this week, Hub and I left the menagerie to play in our weekly volleyball league (where we froze but that's another blog post). Tig had "helped" me feed Shohei before we left and I thought nothing of it. 

When we arrived home, I went to switch off the tank light but little fish did not come to rap at me. Huh. I looked to see if he was hiding in his house. Nope. There was no sign of him. Little Shohei was GONE and there was no sign of a struggle. The tank was intact, no water anywhere, nothing. 

I was distraught. Shohei had brought me much joy over the past few months and I adored him.

I wanted to know what happened to him, but there was absolutely no evidence. Still I had my suspicions...my "helper" Tig must have done it! Hub pointed out the impossibility of the cat opening the tiny food door, grabbing the fish, and closing the food door without making a mess but I was still unconvinced. I mean look at this face. It has apex predator all over it!

I called Hooligan 1 and he was very sweet about the loss. When I talked to my mom the next morning she suggested the "fish rapture" might have taken Shohei. LOL. I kept giving Tig a side eye, wondering if he'd burp up some fish bones. He did not.

Then Hooligan 2 stopped by with his Plus 1 (they'd snagged me a cupcake to help push through my deadline) and I told them the story of the mysterious disappearance. They were also sad (we all adored Shohei). And then Hooligan 2 said, "Mom, he's in the bottom of his cave. Very dead."

What?! I went racing over to check and sure enough there he was. Y'all, I checked that tank with a flashlight. He was not in there! I have no idea where little dude was hiding his dead self for 24 hours, but he managed it. This morning, I buried him in our backyard pet sematary cemetery with a simple somber service. 

Now here's the take away: This is exactly how people believe an innocent person did something that they didn't do! I was thinking with my heart and not my head, looking for a culprit when it was natural causes (in my defense if Shohei's body had been visible from the beginning, we could have avoided all of the unpleasantness, but I digress). For what it's worth, I profusely apologized to Tig for all of the dark looks I sent his way and gave him extra treats. "When I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong." (Who knows what movie that quote is from?).

Anyway, anyone else misjudge their pet as badly as I did? Or have a goofy pet story to share? Happy Friday!

 

RESEARCH REVELATIONS by Jenn McKinlay

JENN McKINLAY: After sixty books written, I have to say I’ve had to research a wide variety of topics from hoarding to driving in Ireland. But in A MERRY LITTLE MURDER PLOT (coming out on Oct 8th), I had to research the possibility of death by electrocution using a string of holiday lights…well…oh, wait, I can’t tell you anymore because it might spoil the book. Suffice to say, it is very possible. 

PRE-ORDER NOW

Now tell me, Reds, what is the most interesting/oddball/alarming thing you learned while researching one of your books?

HALLIE EPHRON: How easy it is to kill with an overdose of Tylenol. It’s scary how little it takes. Also: dead bodies don’t bleed. If it’s bleeding it ain’t dead (yet). Also: It’s pretty easy to “accidentally” kill someone in an MRI lab (between the super-powerful magnets and the massive amounts of liquid nitrogen, easier than you want to know). It’s amazing that mystery writers can even sleep through the night.

RHYS BOWEN: as Hallie said, in real life too many people get away with murder. How easy it is to tell an elderly person he’s forgotten to take his pills so that he gets a double or triple dose. And if an autopsy is done you say “ he was getting so forgetful!”

 

My garden is full of oleander. While not as deadly as rumor would have it it looks like a bay leaf in a casserole.

The most interesting research I ever did was asking John to help me in a scene where Evan has to wrestle a gun away from a man on a steep mountainside. We tried to act it out and ended up in an interesting position entwined on the floor, much to the horror of one of our kids!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, so much fun! And if someone looked at my search history, they would really be perplexed. How long does it take to drown in salt water, what does someone look like when they’ve been asphyxiated. Can you make mac & cheese with bananas? Seriously, I cannot tell you why I looked that up.

 

There are always, always, wonderful things you find that you were not looking for. For instance, my character Jane Ryland is called Jane Elizabeth. Her idol is Nellie Bly, the reporter. Guess what Nellie Bly’s real name was? Elizabeth Jane. I just loved that, and I did not know it when I wrote it.  

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Just think what our collective search histories would look like! a veritable smorgasbord of murder methods! Jenn, I electrocuted someone in my very first book, and learned why it's not unreasonable that regular outlets are not allowed in bathrooms in the UK… Also for that first book I remember posing myself on the stairs as if I'd been pushed down them–ouch! And like Rhys, we've done our share of role-playing. The lengths we will go to for our plots!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I went down a rabbit hole while researching the 1930s scenes in OUT OF THE DEEP I CRY and wound up learning how to harness a horse team for plowing. I actually used some of, too, as Harry McNeil questions someone! 

Weirdest research was with the help of my dear late friend, Tim LaMar. Tim was my go-to guy for guns and violence. Despite being a gentle and very physically unimposing man, Tim knew his stuff, and he walked me through how to turn a sapling into an offensive weapon, and what hitting someone's head with a big rock sounded like. 

And I second the concern over our search histories! You can imagine the sorts of things I was Googling for when researching the upcoming book, which is about a Neo-Nazi militia. Please don't come for me, FBI!

LUCY BURDETTE: The searcher would find my history heavy on poisons as well! Lily of the Valley? Check! Some kind of poisonous nut that would work well in a pie crust? Check! I also loved my research for the golf lovers mysteries–I went to actual LPGA tournaments to talk with the players, and even bought a slot to play in the professional/amateur tournament. It took most of my (admittedly small) first advance, but I wouldn’t trade that memory for anything. John caddied for me and was paid $50 at the end:)

How about you, Readers, what bizarre information have you learned while reading or researching that you didn't know before?

The Revenge of the Teaching Gods

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I remember when I took trigonometry, and I pleaded with my teacher to “Tell me ONE reason I’m going to need this in my real life!”

Mr. Miller told me that trig was the way they figured out the placement of parking spaces in a parking lot– whether they’d be straight or angled, and how many, and how wide, and how they decided which way the cars would enter and exit.

I thought that was really cool, and I actually still think about it whenever I'm in a parking lot.

And even though now parking garages play a huge role in my new book (yes, they really do!), I still do NOT need to know how to design the spaces in one of them.

Today our dear Friends of the Reds Maureen Boyle discusses the powers of the superheroes she calls…the teaching gods.

Science and Murder

by Maureen Boyle

What you don’t know comes back to haunt you as a writer - things like science, math, geology and those other pesky subjects in school that didn’t involve reading stories. Those were subjects you avoided, the ones where you earned Cs (and that was a stretch), because you figured you would never need to know that stuff. I wasn’t going into medicine or architecture or accounting or any of the fields where that information was critical. I just needed to know how to write, research and interview people. Right? The teaching gods quickly got the last laugh. Over and over.

In each of my true-crime books, science played a key role in the stories. Some of it was pretty basic, like how the dogs searching for the dead are trained (it’s both fascinating and cute in a way only those readers of mysteries and true crime can appreciate) or how fingerprints are lifted from different objects or what the medical examiner can tell you about the dead.

But then I faced taking a deep research dive into how bodies can be recovered – even decades later - for my latest book, Child Last Seen: The Search for Patty Desmond. The scientific textbooks were ordered and chapters highlighted. The expert studies downloaded. Terms were Googled. Then the folks who do that work were interviewed. Repeatedly.

Then I needed to translate it all into simple and non-graphic language for readers. I’m not a big fan of gore or obscenity, either in film or in books. People get squeamish if a scene is too explicit.

I came across the story of Patty Desmond while wrapping up my second book, The Ghost: The Murder of Police Chief Greg Adams and the Hunt for His Killer. That book detailed the 1980 murder of a police chief in the small town of Saxonburg, Pennsylvania and the decades long search for the man who fatally shot him. It was a twisted tale spanning multiple states before its strange ending in Massachusetts.

While talking with one of the retired Pennsylvania State Police investigators for The Ghost, he mentioned the case of Patty Desmond that he worked on. The teenager slipped out of her home in December of 1965 following an argument with her mother to meet an older, married man. She never returned home.

Despite an on-again, off-again investigation, it took decades before authorities learned what happened to her. Child Last Seen is a story of a naïve girl from a small town, an era where missing teens were considered runaways and how one heroic person helped solve a case. It is a story about the grey areas of life and love and the secrets kept.

Here's a brief excerpt of Child Last Seen. And then I have a question for you.


It was unseasonably warm for December when 15-year-old Patty Desmond slipped out through the basement of her family’s rented home on McCalmont Road in rural Renfrew, Pennsylvania, a community a little over 30 miles from Pittsburgh. The teen carefully picked out her outfit: a yellow short-sleeved blouse, a white sweater, black stretch pants with stirrups popular in 1965, and black flats. She had no coat—earlier that day temperatures logged at 45 degrees—and had no purse.

She might have been wearing two pieces of jewelry: a bracelet and necklace. No one knew she was gone until well after she snuck out, driving off with Conrad Eugene Miller and a few of his friends.

The hour before Patty disappeared into the darkness of the winter night on December 5, 1965, was one spent arguing. Her widowed mother, Anna, wanted her to stop hanging around with the 19-year-old Miller, a married man with a teenaged wife and one child. Even if he weren’t married and a father, Conrad was still too old for Patty, who was still in high school. Anna had a bad feeling about him. He had brushes with the law that were well-known to those in the area. He was just plain trouble and not someone a teenaged girl should be around.

“Stay away from him,” Patty’s mother told her. Stay far away.



And then the book goes on, and I hope I have tempted you to read more! So, here’s my question, Reds and readers. Did anything mysterious ever happen in your neighborhood that remains a question?

HANK: Oh. Definitely. We were never formally told by law enforcement who it was that burned down the gorgeous old barn behind our house. But–we knew. His family moved away soon after. More I cannot say.

How about you, Reds and readers?

Award-winning journalist Maureen Boyle is the author of three true-crime books. Child Last Seen: The Search for Patty Desmond (Black Lyon) is out in June 2023. Shallow Graves: The Hunt for the New Bedford Highway Serial Killer was published in 2017 and The Ghost: The Murder of Police Chief Greg Adams and the Hunt for His Killer (Black Lyon) was published in June 2021.She was named New England Journalist of the Year three times and has been honored for her work covering crime, drug issues and human-interest stories both regionally and nationally. She is now the journalism program director at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts.

(For more of CHILD LAST SEEN and my other books, go to Barnes & Noble and follow me on Twitter, on maureenboylewriter, and Facebook )

Hallie kicks off What We're Writing Week with a real mystery

HALLIE EPHRON: Welcome once again to WHAT WE’RE WRITING WEEK!

Right now I'm focused on launching CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR... never mind that the pub date is months away (August, 2019).

It's exciting, but it's also nerve wracking. I've finished the final-final edits. Advance readers copies (aka ARCs) have gone out. And in the pool of silence that follows, insecurity breeds. It all feels very unreal until a box of advance readers' copies arrives. And here they are!!

To celebrate, today I'll be giving away an ARC to a lucky commenter...

So back to what I'm writing. Last month I finished polishing an essay for an anthology (spring, 2020) entitled  Private Investigations: Mystery Writers on the Secrets, Riddles, and Wonders in Their Live. Our challenge from anthology editor, Victoria Zackheim, was to write about something mysterious that really happened.

This turned out to be harder than I expected. I’ve not had a very mysterious life. No unsolved murders. Or thefts. Or even things that went bump in the night. Growing up with alcoholic parents

had its share of drama and trauma, but none of it was mysterious. In college I had a roommate who wanted to kill me, but it never came to that.

But I did have a friend whose brother was murdered. There was no mystery about who did it. The killer was arrested and tried and found guilty. Decades later, he’s still in jail. What was mysterious was what happened to my friend in the aftermath of her brother’s murder. She had experiences for which there is no easy explanation. (I call the essay "Ghosted.") If I didn’t know her as well as I do, I’d have written them off as hallucinations and delusions. So I wrote an essay about that, and my own struggle to understand what it was all about.

My first attempt at writing a novel was based on that friend’s experiences in the aftermath of her brother’s murder. I called it EXIT WOUND. Excavating through saved files, I found transcripts of long conversations I had with my friend after the murder, as well as the manuscript of a novel that I tried to write about it. Looking at it with fresh eyes, I realize it’s not as bad as I thought it was. I also understand why it wasn’t snapped up by an agent.

Here’s an excerpt from the day of the murder, a morning when my friend had stayed home from work to take her son Josh to see the doctor. She got an emergency call to come into the office of the family business to deal with what she thought was a car accident in the parking lot. 

I drag Josh out of the house and we race to the office. The first thing I notice is that there are a lot of flashing lights—more than I expected. I thought I’d be going in the ambulance with someone, so I expected to see an ambulance. But I didn’t expect to see so many police cruisers. Then I see a newspaper reporter who I know. A newspaper reporter at a parking lot car accident? This makes no sense. 

I walk over to Bill who works with us and ask, “What happened? What kind of an accident?”

He says, “There’s been a shooting.”

Then I know immediately it’s something terrible.

He says to me, “David has been shot.”

I ask, “Is he okay?”

He answers, “David is dead.”

This is the part I don’t remember. Afterwards they tell me that I hit him, smashed my fists against his body, screamed and yelled. My pocketbook went flying.

This huge cop comes over to me. When there are murders, they have special cops to deal with people. This guy is big, well over six feet. I start banging him on the chest, too, craning my neck to look at him and saying, “Tell me that this isn’t true. Tell me that this is some stupid joke.

He puts his hands on my shoulders and presses down. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

I keep banging and banging him. All this time, Josh is still sitting in my car just watching. He gets out and walks over to where I’ve thrown my purse and picks it up. He hugs it to his chest. Then he waits.

 

I never sold that book. The writing is, as you can tell, not fully developed. But in the process of flailing, I discovered that drama and suspense are my sweet spots. I learned that murder, even a fictional one in a murder mystery, should never be reduced to a plot point.

I also learned that when it comes to my writing, I should never throw anything away. What I wrote twenty-five years ago doesn’t smell nearly as bad as I thought it did when I wrote it, and it still has the power to inspire me.

Have there been any real mysteries in your life, or even riddles and wonders that you're still pondering? 

COMING, spring 2020 from Seal/Hachette " Private Investigations: Mystery Writers on the Secrets, Riddles, and Wonders in Their Live," personal essays written by top mystery writers.
EDITOR: Victoria Zackheim

CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS: Tasha Alexender, Cara Black, Rhys Bowen, Lynn Cahoon, Steph Cha, Jeffrey Deaver, Carole Nelson Douglas, Robert Dugoni, Hallie Ephron, Connie May Fowler, Sulari Gentill, Rachel Howzell Hall, Ausma Khan, William Kent Kreuger, Caroline Leavitt, Kristen Lepionka, Martin Limón, Anne Perry, Charles Todd, and Jacqueline Winspear.

 

Thinking about--well...Murder

 HANK: I am in airports most of today, and hope I'll be able to join the discussion.  But while I'm battling airport security lines and the guy next to me is taking the armrests--the wonderful Jeannette de Beauvoir has been thinking. About murder. And she wonders what you think.

Murder, We’re Writing

   by Jeannette de Beauvoir

  

Why is it that women become so engaged with murder mysteries?

Here’s the thing: while only about a third of published authors in almost all genres are women, women have long made up the majority of adult readers. We read. A lot. And, more and more, both as readers and as writers, we’re turning to crime… the crime of choice being, of course, murder.

And I’m not just talking about a gentle PBS-Geraldine-McEwan-as-Miss-Marple kind of murder, either: we’re going for violent death as wholeheartedly as have our male counterparts. Think about it: the mysteries that involve a clever theft, or blackmail, or deceit of some sort usually seem, to a seasoned mystery reader, all a little… flat. But put a little murder into the mix, and we perk right up.

Why?

The most obvious answer is that death ups the ante, makes it something worth thinking about, worth puzzling over. Reading about death (and especially, perhaps, violent death) allows us to vicariously experience something that we’re afraid of and—most of the time—don’t talk about. It’s a truism that death has replaced sex as the taboo topic of social intercourse; but our psyches still need to deal with it, and preferably in some way far removed from our eventual personal demise. It’s the only explanation I can find for the morbid curiosity that keeps people hanging around the scene of an accident or behind police tape after any tragedy, a sort of fascinated schadenfreude; and it’s a good explanation for why we read murder mysteries.

But it’s not the only one. We also like to see justice done, especially when we perceive that the real world isn’t playing fair with us. If the guilty party is caught and punished in the fiction we read, then perhaps we regain the sense of order that’s lost whenever we hear the news. Every day, we see situations that have us baffled, and our minds seek to cope with them: it often feels that everything is getting way too far out of control. Reading about Inspector Whatever arresting the culprit restores a little harmony, a little control, a little of a feeling of safety.

Ah, safety. To my mind, that’s the real pointer toward why women love murder mysteries. Safety is, for us, an all-important consideration. As women, we understand what it feels like to live with fear humming constantly in the background of our lives. Most of us grew up being consistently told—by the media, by our protective parents, by horror tales at summer camp, by the experiences of our older sisters—just how vulnerable we are. We’re not to wear short skirts. We’re not to walk alone at night. We’re not to smile at men in bars. We’ve been told effectively that just by virtue of being female we’re wearing a big sign proclaiming, “Victim here! Victim here!”

I’m not saying that any of us have consciously adopted that mantle; what I am saying is that most of us were socialized to at least be aware that bad things could happen to us. And they do; statistics show they do. One out of six women in the United States will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. I’m one of the one-in-six. Perhaps you are as well. And even if we’ve never personally experienced violence, we live in the awareness that it’s out there, that it’s always a possibility. We listen for footsteps behind us on city streets at night. We keep out keys in our hands, ready for quick escapes. We lock our doors. We have male friends leave greetings on our voicemail.

That low hum is always there in the background; but when we read or write crime fiction, we can explore our fear safely—and we can see it resolved.

Okay, the reality is that women are frequently the victims in murder mysteries. In real life, of course, men are actually more frequently the victims of violent crime (for a number of reasons, a few of which should be immediately evident); but it’s different in fiction: from mid-century pulp fiction onward, women are routinely stabbed, raped, shot, and battered, leading a number of writers to criticize the genre for a perceived misogyny.

I think they’re missing the point. True crime that focuses pruriently on female victims may well be misogynist; but remember that we’re dealing here with fiction, and as other writers have said far more eloquently than I can, fiction is all about metaphor.

And so are its victims.

It’s a truism that those investigating a crime must often remind themselves that it’s the victim who is at the center of the drama, and not the murderer. The hunt for the killer is so intense, the need to live inside that person’s mind and life, sift through clues to find motive, means, opportunity, to pinpoint the fateful moment when their path crossed that of the person they killed, that it can be easy to remember how the whole case began: with the ending of a life.

So in a sense the victim is really only the starting-point, the launch of the hunt for the killer. Victim as accessory.

And not just as accessory. Woman as murder victim is an exact embodiment of what many cultures are constantly informing women (and men) that women should be: a collection of body parts. In murder mysteries, those body parts are disassembled, dissected, and weighed in autopsy suites. In pornography, those body parts are used, assembled and reassembled, augmented. In capitalism, those body parts are used to sell lipstick, clothing, and plastic surgery. In all of those cases, the body parts are isolated from the woman herself: her mind, her soul, her life, her being.

The truth is that we’re used to being reduced to our body parts. In real life, it’s radically damaging. In fiction, however it can be empowering. When we’re young we’re expected to chase beauty; when we’re mature we’re expected to chase invisibility; but crime fiction gives our rightful place back to us—we don’t have to be either beautiful or invisible. Crime fiction awakens the Medea in each of us: it gives us permission to unlock all the things that we really feel about that victim in the autopsy suite. We feel rage. We feel aggression. We feel vengeful.

We feel powerful.

The woman victim in a murder mystery is Everywoman. She is vulnerable. She has absolutely been used and thrown away. She is a potent symbol of our struggle to get away from all the words that define us: wife, mother, slut, caretaker, mistress, bitch. Those words represent life-sucking roles; in crime fiction, we reject them all. We have been victims, and we will have our revenge for it. We will fight it. Whether we are the detective avenging the crime or the criminal exulting in her decision to act, we have reclaimed our power. We are that body in the autopsy suite, and by God, we will rise from it fierce and renewed.

And many of our crime novels feature a woman protagonist, the solver of crimes, the avenger of the innocent. She’s usually more harried than her male counterparts: they tend to be divorced loners—she’s still trying to hold it all together. Yet she’s the one who takes that body emotionally home with her, she’s the one who always remembers that it’s the victim, and not the killer, who is central to her case. As women readers, we identify with this female protagonist. As much as the victim in the autopsy suite, she is us, too: she is working hard to make the world a better place while remembering to pick her 12-year-old up after hockey practice and getting the mammogram scheduled and buying the broccoli and trying to figure out whether her 15-year-old is smoking pot. And yet with all her imperfections, she’s the one who’s going to solve the crime. She’s the one who will restore our faith in balance in the world. She’s the one who will speak for the victim.

And that’s a very good reason to read mystery fiction.

 

 ***************************

Jeannette de Beauvoiris the author most recently of Deadly Jewels from St. Martin’s/Minotaur, the second book after Asylum in the Martine LeDuc Montréal mystery series. 

Someone was murdered in Montréal during World War Two over some stolen diamonds (from the British crown jewels, no less), but Martine finds that the murders aren’t over yet as she investigates neo-Nazis, diamond merchants, fake jewels, and very present motives that reach back into the concentration camps and forward into her own family. 

More at jeannetteauthor.com.

Little Luxuries by Krista Davis

Lucy Burdette: Most of you will have met my good friend Krista Davis in previous posts--she writes the delightful domestic diva mysteries, and she's also the brain behind a culinary mystery website, Mystery Lovers Kitchen, and she helps run Killer Characters. Don't even ask me where she found the time to write a brand new series, but it's coming in December and it sounds like so much fun! So I invited her here to talk about her inspiration. Welcome Krista!

Krista Davis: So pleased to be here! 

Have you seen the TV show Million Dollar Shoppers? Personal shoppers buy clothes for women who have more money than the national debt. Recently, one woman simply had to have a Birkin purse. More specifically, a purple crocodile Birkin purse.

Where have I been that I haven’t heard of these handbags? They’re nice looking rather proper ladies-who-lunch sort of bags made by Hermès. Very structured and elegant. Grace Kelly would have carried them. Definitely not for the slouchy shoulder bag or ginormous tote gang. Turns out there’s a waiting list for these babies. You can’t even look at them at Hermès online. Here’s the kicker. You can expect to pay $20,000 or more. Definitely more for purple crocodile, like around $82,000.

That started me thinking about luxuries. Would I even want an $82,000 purse? Are they like cars? Does the value go down as soon as you walk them out of the store?

In my new mystery series, the protagonist, Holly Miller, lives and works at the Sugar Maple Inn. There are drawbacks to living at your job, of course. Bed and breakfasts, inns, and hotels are the ultimate 24/7 businesses. If you live there, you’re on call all the time.

Years ago, I was an assistant manager at the largest convention hotel in Washington, DC. Fabulous hotel, and it was a wonderful job – the kind where you can’t believe they pay you to go to work every day. The general manager and regional manager lived on the premises, which meant they both showed up for crises, even in the middle of the night.

There were some nice perks to living there, though. Daily housekeeping of their apartments. On site dry cleaning. Bellmen to walk their dogs. If they felt like fresh strawberries and French pastries in the winter at nine o’clock at night they just popped into one of the kitchens and helped themselves. The Sugar Maple Inn isn’t quite that large but living there comes with some lovely perks. In the second book, I’ve added an aged English butler who delivers croissants and piping hot tea to Holly’s quarters in the morning while she’s still sleeping. Isn’t that heavenly? It’s like being a princess!

The fridge in the private kitchen is always well stocked with leftovers from breakfast, lunch, and teatime, so Holly rarely needs to cook. And her apartment is cleaned daily, even the litter box. Of course, she can’t afford a purple crocodile Birkin. But I don’t think she would even want one.

So what one luxury (only one, it may be imaginary but we don’t want to be greedy) would you truly love to have?

a) A purple crocodile Birkin
b) Croissants and hot coffee or tea delivered just before you wake.
c) Daily housekeeping.
d) A personal chef.
e) A personal driver.
f) Someone to do laundry and iron.
g) A personal assistant (no housework included)

And breaking news: To celebrate the launch of their mom's new series, Buttercup, Queenie, and Baron and their cat siblings, Mochie and Twinkletoes, are looking for dogs and cats to join their street crew. They're giving away Murder, She Barked bandanas to dogs and cats all month long! One lucky dog or cat who leaves a comment here today (it’s okay if their people leave comments for them) will win a bandana.

 Photos of winners (hopefully wearing their new Murder, She Barked bandanas) will be posted on Krista's website and on a Pinterest board so winning dogs and cats can share with their friends.

Krista Davis’s new series for animal lovers debuts on December 3rd, with MURDER, SHE BARKED. Like her characters, Krista has a soft spot for cats, dogs, and cupcakes. She lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia with three dogs, two cats, and no Birkins. The Diva Frosts a Cupcake is the seventh book in her Domestic Diva Mystery series. Three of those books have been nominated for Agatha awards and three have made the New York Times Bestseller list.  You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

 and PS from Lucy: Tonka has already joined the street team:)--he thinks it's a blast!