Annette Dashofy--A Thriller by Any Other Name

DEBORAH CROMBIE: We are always tickled to host one of our regular back bloggers and special Reds friend, Annette Dashofy, and especially when she's here to talk about a new Zoe Chambers mystery, WHAT COMES AROUND! 

And what a great cover! Today, Annette poses an interesting question of identity, with some fascinating criteria... 

A Mystery By Any Other Name…

By AnnetteDashofy

 

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself double booked. I was scheduled to appear at the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books (which is wonderful, by the way; go if you ever get the chance) at 10:30 a.m. on the Thriller Panel. I joined Nick Petrie and Joseph Reid AKA Parker Adams, two fabulous authors, who fit the thriller definition perfectly. Me? I wasn’t so sure, but what the heck.

Then I was scheduled to join Liz Milliron and Joyce Tremel at a library event at 2:00 p.m. The library was less than an hour away, so I wasn’t stressed. The ironic part is that panel was dubbed a Cozy Panel. Joyce is one of the best cozy authors I know. But cozy? Liz and I weren’t so sure we fit.

During the Thriller Panel, Nick explained that a mystery was a whodunit. A thriller was more about why something was happening and could it be stopped? He commented that he wrote thrillers with a mystery in the middle. This made me think. Later during the panel, I mentioned that I write mysteries with a thriller at the end.

Honestly, I hadn’t given it a lot of thought until that moment, but in the majority of my novels, there’s a whodunit for the first three quarters or so of the book, but once the killer is unmasked, he (or she) becomes desperate, and a thrill ride ensues.

As for cozy mysteries, the key prerequisite seems to be an amateur sleuth. I think.

In my Zoe Chambers series, both Zoe and Pete work the front lines as law enforcement, EMS, or with the coroner’s office, depending how far into the series you are. In my Detective Honeywell series, Matthias is a police detective, so no amateurs there either. Still, I find my books labeled as cozies, and if that’s what my readers want, who am I to argue?

Which is the point I’m trying to get at. Does it matter? I know, I know, booksellers want to know where to shelve the novels, and therefore, publishers want to use the right category when listing a title. But my question to the Reds and the other writers reading this is: do you think about what specific genre you’re creating when you’re planning or writing your novel? And readers, how much does it affect your buying choice whether a book is a cozy, a traditional mystery, a suspense novel, or a thriller? 

DEBS: Such an interesting definition from Nick! By those parameters, I definitely write whodunits, and my books are usually categorized as either "traditional" mysteries, or "police procedurals," and either one of those can cover an incredibly broad range. As for reading, I'm game for anything if the story sounds interesting and I like the writing.  Can't wait to hear what our readers think about Annette's question!

Just as Monongahela County Coroner Zoe Chambers-Adams decides to fire her abrasive chief deputy, Dr. Charles Davis, and put an end to his constant undermining of her position, a suspicious car crash severely injures the county’s only other forensic pathologist. To keep the office operational, Zoe has little choice but to keep Davis on staff.

When Zoe and her husband—Vance Township Police Chief Pete Adams—respond to a brutal homicide, they quickly learn the victim had come to town for the sole purpose of sharing vital information with Zoe. And the decedent’s ex-husband is none other than Zoe’s deputy coroner.

As Zoe and Pete dig deeper into the victim’s past, more questions arise along with a tangle of connections between multiple cases, including a very cold one that leads Zoe and those she cares about directly into the crosshairs of a crazed killer.

Annette Dashofy is the USA Today bestselling author of the Zoe Chambers mystery series and the Detective Honeywell series. She won the 2021 Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award for excellence in Thoroughbred racing literature for her standalone, Death By Equine, and has garnered seven Agatha Award nominations. Her short fiction includes a Derringer finalist. Annette and her husband live on ten acres of what was her grandfather’s dairy farm in southwestern Pennsylvania with their very spoiled cat, Kensi.

USA Today Best Selling Author of the Zoe Chambers Mysteries

What Comes Around: Zoe Chambers #13 Now Available!

Keep Your Family Close: Detective Honeywell Mystery #2 Available in digital!

Death By Equine: A Dr. Jessie Cameron Mystery, WINNER of the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award

www.annettedashofy.com

https://www.facebook.com/annette.dashofy/

A Visit from Nick Petrie

INGRID THOFT

Last year I had the immense pleasure of sharing a couple of tour dates with the wonderful Nick Petrie.  The author of the Peter Ash series, heir apparent to Lee Child's Jack Reacher series, Nick is a terrific writer and friend.  One of the highlights of the Toronto Bouchercon was wandering the streets on an epic 3-hour walk with Nick, during which we discussed life, literature, and the mystifying number of vegan bakeries we passed.  

Nick's newest book in the Peter Ash Series, "Light It Up" will be out on January 16, and it's fantastic.  Nick was kind enough to chat with me recently, and he'll be here today to answer your questions.

INGRID THOFT:  “Light It Up” focuses on the legal cannabis industry in Colorado and the birth of a related security industry.  I was particularly interested in learning about the intersection of those security firms and veterans, a fact that dovetails perfectly with Peter Ash’s background.  Can you tell readers a little bit about that?  

NICK PETRIE:  I first learned about this in a series of article on the subject in the New York Times.  Because of federal banking rules, the recreational cannabis industry, now legal in six states, has little to no access to the banks.  They can’t write checks or accept credit cards.  They pay their suppliers, their employees – even their taxes – in cash. And their product is lightweight, portable, and very valuable.  

At the same time, small security companies are springing up, many owned and staffed by veterans, to help protect cannabis entrepreneurs from those challenges. I’ve talked to many veterans who really miss the sense of mission and camaradarie they had in the military, and this work checks a lot of those boxes – plus it provides badly needed jobs for veterans.  

From a crime writer’s point of view, this setup was irresistible.  Guns, drugs, and money – what could possibly go wrong?


IPT:  Is there a type of scene you particularly enjoy writing?  Action?  Dialogue?  Description of settings? 

Nick braving the Milwaukee cold

NP:  I love all of those kinds of scenes, but I think my favorite is the moment of gathering tension before the characters do something big and emotional.  That might be an act of violence, a personal confrontation, or a move toward some kind of discovery or revelation.  I really enjoy that moment when the emotion and tension are building, but still held in check.  For some reason, I often set these scenes in the dark, or in a car – or in a darkened car – where the characters are with each other, but not necessarily looking at each other.  Waiting.

Funny, I never seem to write these scenes on purpose – they just develop naturally.  At first I think I’m just killing time, but eventually I realize that something else is happening.  These scenes tend to use all the tools you mentioned above – setting and description, along with dialogue, to create that mood, which usually leads to action.  

IPT:  I loved seeing the names Jon Jordan and Ruth Jordan appear as character names.  Am I right in assuming this is in honor of our Crimespree friends?  How did that come about?

NP:  This is absolutely in honor of Jon and Ruth, the founders, editors, and publishers of "Crimespree Magazine," founders and head potentates of the Murder and Mayhem in Milwaukee crime fiction conference, and multiple past co-chairs of Bouchercon.  One of the pleasures of being a writer is that you can toss in these little Easter eggs for people you love and admire.

  
I have the great luck of living in Milwaukee, just a few miles from Jon and Ruth.  Before my first book came out, they took me under their wing and gave me the best introduction to the crime fiction community anyone could ask for.  Unfortunately, as so often happens in crime fiction, Jon (the character, not the human) had to die.  But that was part of the fun.  I’m so glad and proud to be part of their community.

IPT:  What’s next for you and Peter Ash?

NP:  I’ve finished a good working draft of Peter #4, which is set in Memphis, and I’ll be diving into edits while on tour in mid-January.  Tour events are on my website, www.nickpetrie.com, and also on my Facebook page.  

Ingrid and Nick 

I’m also thinking quite a bit about Peter #5, which will be set in Iceland.  I already have a fair amount of early thinking done on it – which is very unusual for me – so I’m really looking forward to seeing that book unfold.  2018 is already getting quite full – I’ve been invited to the Tucson Festival of Books in March, I’ll be at Thrillerfest in New York in July, and of course Bouchercon in Florida in September.  Plus my son and I plan to go back to Iceland this summer, to circumnavigate the island in the name of literary research – we have a great time bumming around together.  Then there’s that book to write….

IPT:  Those pesky books!  Always needing to be written!

Not only will Nick be here to answer your questions today, but he's also giving away a copy of "Light It Up."  Just comment to enter!

Light It Up - click here to read an excerpt

In this action-packed thriller starring war veteran Peter Ash, a well-planned and flawlessly executed hijacking reveals the hidden dangers of Colorado's mellowest business, but Ash may find there’s more to this crime than meets the eye. 

Combat veteran Peter Ash leaves a simple life rebuilding hiking trails in Oregon to help his good friend Henry Nygaard, whose daughter runs a Denver security company that protects cash-rich cannabis entrepreneurs from modern-day highwaymen. Henry’s son-in-law and the company’s operations manager were carrying a large sum of client money when their vehicle vanished without a trace, leaving Henry’s daughter and her company vulnerable.

When Peter is riding shotgun on another cash run, the cargo he’s guarding comes under attack and he narrowly escapes with his life. As the assaults escalate, Peter has to wonder: for criminals this sophisticated, is it really just about the cash?

After finding himself on the defensive for too long, Peter marshals his resources and begins to dig for the truth in a scheme that is bigger—and far more lucrative—than he’d ever anticipated. With so much on the line, his enemy will not give up quietly...and now he has Peter directly in his sights.

Nick Petrie received his MFA in fiction from the University of Washington and won a Hopwood Award for short fiction while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. His story “At the Laundromat” won the 2006 Short Story Contest in The Seattle Review, a national literary journal. His first novel, The Drifter, won the 2016 Thriller Award and the 2016 Barry Award for Best First Novel, and was nominated for 2016 Edgar and Anthony Awards for Best First Novel, as well as the 2016 Hammett Prize for Best Novel. He was named one of Apple’s 10 Writers to Read in 2017, and won the 2016 Literary Award from the Wisconsin Library Association.  His books in the Peter Ash series are The Drifter, Burning Bright and Light It Up. A husband and father, he has worked as a carpenter, remodeling contractor, and building inspector. He lives in Milwaukee.

My Tour Buddy, Nick Petrie

INGRID THOFT

I had lots of fun on my "Duplicity" tour in January, largely because of my tour buddy, Nick Petrie.  Some of you may be familiar with Nick from his debut novel "The Drifter," which is nominated for the Edgar and Barry Awards for Best First Novel and the Hammett Prize for Best Novel.  The second book in the series, "Burning Bright" was released in January, hence the shared tour dates.  Nick's main character, Peter Ash, has been likened to Jack Reacher, by Lee Child himself!  His books are critically acclaimed, thought-provoking thrillers, and I have nothing but acclaim for Nick as a travel companion and friend.  He was recently in Seattle, and we caught up,

INGRID: Tell me about your main character, Peter Ash?  What inspired you to write a character who is a veteran?

NICK: Peter Ash is a highly-trained Marine Corps veteran who signed up to help his country and make a difference.  After eight years of war, he returned home with an unwanted souvenir, what he calls the White Static – an intense claustrophobia caused by post-traumatic stress that makes it hard for him to be indoors for more than a few minutes.  Like many veterans I’ve met, Peter has a deep need to be useful and a profound sense of right and wrong, which combine into a powerful drive to help others out of trouble.

I’m not a veteran myself, and for many years I didn’t think I knew many people who’d served in the military.  But in my day job as a home inspector – I’m that guy you hire to tell you (hopefully) everything wrong with your dream house – I realized during the early stages of the Great Recession that many of my inspection clients were veterans just coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan.  I’m a pretty curious guy, and I found myself having some truly fascinating conversations with my clients.  They really opened my eyes to the challenges our veterans face coming home from war.  I didn’t know I was researching a novel, but as it turned out, I’d already started writing “The Drifter” somewhere in the back of my mind.  Funny how that works.

Anyway, Peter is a lot of fun to write – he gets himself into some fairly crazy situations – and he’s a great excuse to keep learning more about the evolving lives of veterans and anything else that my oddball brain finds interesting.

INGRID: “The Drifter” takes place in Milwaukee, and “Burning Bright” is set on the West Coast, including some heart stopping scenes in a forest of giant redwoods.  Why did you change locations, and can you tell us where the third book is set? 

I love writing about place – I think of the setting of a novel almost as another character – and certain stories lend themselves to certain settings.  Milwaukee, a rust-belt city suffering hard in the Great Recession, was the perfect place for "The Drifter."  With "Burning Bright," I wanted to write about technology, and the west coast was the logical setting for that.  I also lived in Seattle for ten years, have travelled all over the west, and wanted to write about some of the places I truly love.

Another answer, to be completely honest, is that I’m deeply afraid of getting bored, and changing settings feels like a great way to keep a series fresh and evolving.  I can change the subject matter and the scale of the story easily just by dropping Peter in a new town with new characters.  Plus each new setting suggests a new plot – so the truest answer, I suppose, is that I’m kinda lazy.

My third Peter Ash book is called “Light It Up” and is set in Colorado.  Peter gets involved in the new cannabis industry – drugs, guns, and big money.  It was big fun to write, plus it gave me a great reason to go explore Denver and Boulder and spend a few days backpacking in the Rockies.  

INGRID: That's the first I've heard of the title!  Very apropos!  So what do readers think about Peter?  What kind of feedback do you get from them?

NICK: I was really nervous, writing about a veteran when I’m not a veteran myself.  This is a subject I’ve grown to care deeply about, and it was important to me to get things right.  Since “The Drifter” came out, I’ve had many conversations, both in-person and online, with veterans and their family members, telling me how much they appreciate the care I took with the emotional details.  One of my favorite conversations was at a library event.  Two sisters, whose husbands both served in Vietnam, told me the book helped them understand their husbands better.  Honestly, I can’t think of a higher compliment. 

INGRID: What has surprised you most about becoming a published author? 

Frankly, I was surprised I’d ever become a published author to begin with!  I’d written three books I couldn’t get published, and I’d given up on ever publishing anything.  I wrote “The Drifter” just for myself, writing the book I most wanted to read.  To discover not only that a major publisher wanted the book, but that so many people would actually read it and enjoy it and tell their friends about it?  Pretty much blows my mind on a daily basis.   

Another great surprise is how welcoming the crime fiction community has been.  Who’d have thought that people who write about death and dismemberment would be so nice?  (I’m from Wisconsin, so I’m required to be nice.  Otherwise the authorities make you move to Illinois.) 

INGRID: It is an amazingly supportive community.  Is there a wannabe book lurking in the back of your brain, something you would write if you didn’t have to consider agents, editors, and fans?  A romance?  Sci-fi?

Oh, I have a few ticklers in the dark recesses of my demented brain.  I’d like to write about Milwaukee again – it’s a fascinating place, with a lot of layers.  The book would be something gritty and weird and maybe internet-y.  I’d like to try my hand at writing for young adults – maybe Peter Ash’s teenage years?  I’m so impressed by good YA writers.  Those books have to be extremely tight, and I think it must be really difficult to make them look so damn easy.  But those two ideas actually seem fairly reasonable.  The true leap would be some science fiction space opera – I’m a sci-fi geek from waaaay back, so that would be loads of fun.  If I could pull it off. 

If you haven't read "The Drifter" or "Burning Bright," you're missing out on a terrific series.  Nick will be here today to answer your questions, and he's giving away a signed copy of "Burning Bright."  Be sure to include your email in your comment!

BURNING BRIGHT

In the new novel featuring war veteran Peter Ash, “an action hero of the likes of Jack Reacher or Jason Bourne” (Lincoln Journal-Star), Ash has a woman’s life in his hands—and her mystery is stranger than he could ever imagine.

War veteran Peter Ash sought peace and quiet among the towering redwoods of northern California, but the trip isn’t quite the balm he’d hoped for. The dense forest and close fog cause his claustrophobia to buzz and spark, and then he stumbles upon a grizzly, long thought to have vanished from this part of the country. In a fight of man against bear, Peter doesn’t favor his odds, so he makes a strategic retreat up a nearby sapling.

There, he finds something strange: a climbing rope, affixed to a distant branch above. It leads to another, and another, up through the giant tree canopy, and ending at a hanging platform. On the platform is a woman on the run. From below them come the sounds of men and gunshots.

Just days ago, investigative journalist June Cassidy escaped a kidnapping by the men who are still on her trail. She suspects they’re after something belonging to her mother, a prominent software designer who recently died in an accident. June needs time to figure out what’s going on, and help from someone with Peter’s particular set of skills.

Only one step ahead of their pursuers, Peter and June must race to unravel this peculiar mystery. What they find leads them to an eccentric recluse, a shadowy pseudo-military organization, and an extraordinary tool that may change the modern world forever.

 

Nick Petrie received his MFA in fiction from the University of Washington and won a Hopwood Award for short fiction while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan.  His story “At the Laundromat” won the 2006 Short Story Contest in The Seattle Review, a national literary journal.  His first novel, "The Drifter," was nominated for 2016 Edgar and Barry awards for Best First Novel, and the 2016 Hammett Prize for Best Novel. A husband and father, he has worked as a carpenter, remodeling contractor, and building inspector.  He lives in Milwaukee.  "Burning Bright" is his second novel, and the sequel to "The Drifter."