Agatha Christie and Me @LucyBurdette

 LUCY BURDETTE: I'm participating in a very interesting event tomorrow, a tea time celebration of traditional and cozy mystery writers, sponsored by the SW Florida Reading Festival and Sisters in Crime. (You are all invited, and I'll post the Zoom info at the end.) We were each assigned a well-known writer to discuss and compare to ourselves, and I was given Agatha Christie. (And that made me think of the New England Crimebake in 2015, where we were to dress for the banquet as mystery characters. The photo above is my writers' group, Ang Pompano and Chris Falcone, dressed as Poirot and his Marples. Or was it Poirot is losing his Marples??)

Anyway, this exercise allowed me to realize how little I knew about Agatha Christie. Of course, I know that her tea cozy provides the name for the genre of cozy mysteries, those associated with solving a puzzle without gratuitous sex and violence on the page, usually taking place in a small town with an amateur sleuth at the wheel. This is what I write.

I know I read And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express, but I may have skipped the Miss Marple books altogether--an oversight I'll have to repair. Here are just a few fun facts about what Christie and I have in common, and some we don't...

Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring Hercule Poirot, was written in 1916 and published in 1920. So yes, it took each of us four years to get that first book published!

She wrote and published 66 mysteries and another dozen collections of short stories. (Oh rats, by next August, my total will be 19.) Her two most famous characters were Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and amateur consulting detective Miss Jane Marple of the fictional village St. Mary Mead. Miss Marple appeared in twelve novels and many short stories over the years from 1930 to 1976. Christie was the first writer to receive MWA Grand Master Award. And Then There Were None is the best-selling mystery in the world, with over 100 million copies sold. The plot involves a children’s nursery rhyme, which describes the killing of 10 characters until none are left. (This is the book that scared me death, so not exactly cozy--I couldn't have written this one.)

She used bits and pieces from her real life in her books, such as Abney Hall, the Victorian mansion belonging to her brother-in-law, her experience learning about poisons while working in a hospital pharmacy during WWII, and international train travel, which became the basis of her novel Murder on the Orient Express. Her 1961 novel The Pale Horse used the knowledge of thallium poisoning gained during the war. This we definitely have in common--when I'm writing, I borrow shamelessly from people and places and events in Key West!

Apparently, Miss Marple was known and respected by ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard, Sir Henry Clithering. He often encouraged the detective in charge of a particular case to take Miss Marple’s advice seriously, when often they were inclined to dismiss her as just another interfering, elderly busybody. Hayley Snow is now married to her Key West detective, Nathan Bransford. He does not encourage her sleuthing. She has a little more luck with her pal, police officer Steve Torrence. (Who is a real pal in my life who helps me with all my police procedure questions.)

I could go on and on, but I'd love to hear from you! Were you/are you big fans of Agatha Christie? Which books were your favorites?

here's the link to join the tea celebration Saturday, 3/13 at 1 pm, plus the very clever trailer they put together!

Understanding Agatha

RHYS BOWEN:

When I’m stressed, overwhelmed, overworked, I tend to reach for a comfort read. And often those reads are an Agatha Christie book. I have them all on my shelf. All 81 books/short story collections that she published. I am reading one now (or rather re-reading, as I have read them all several times): After the Funeral. Her books are short, slight and in many ways superficial, so I’m wondering why she is so popular.

These are some observations:

1.She ever engages the reader emotionally. We do not weep for the body in the library!

2.We have multiple points of view so that we are not actually following one sleuth.

3.The book is presented more like a movie: we go from scene to scene, watch different people interacting, rather than following the journey of the sleuth until he or she solves the crime.

4.The sleuth is more vehicle than character. We know little of his or her personal life. We never see the sleuth battling their own demons, trying to make up for past mistakes or finding the crime to be horribly personal. We only know that Poirot  is Belgian, was in the police and, I believe has a brother called something else classical. We don’t know of past mistakes, loves, aspirations. We never see what traumas he overcame to escape to England during WW1. He enjoys the company of Hastings, but is remarkably without need of other people.

Ditto Miss Marple, although she seems to enjoy company more. But we know nothing of her past life (although the TV series has tried to hint at a doomed romance in WWI there is nothing of this in the books.)

5: The books focus only on the crime. We come across it near the beginning or at the beginning of every book and the story is just in service of the solving of the crime. Setting and character are merely hinted at. Houses are only described if it is important to know why slept in which room. The part of England is only alluded to if it is important, near the cliffs, on the bank of a river etc.

The characters are seldom complex. Most can be summed up in one sentence:: the nosy old spinster, the vain young actress, the not-quite-straight younger son who has charm but no conscience.

6: The motives make sense. The clues are clever. The puzzle is all important.(although she does occasionally cheat, when Hercule Poirot knows something the reader can’t, or when the narrator is the murderer and keeps that fact from us!)

7: There is a clear sense of right v. wrong and justice being served at the end of the story.

So why are they popular? For the very reasons quoted above. They do not touch us emotionally. They are terrific books to read without getting involved, depressed, scared or upset. The sort of books one can read while waiting for a flight or trying to sleep in a strange hotel room. As I write this I notice that in her later years her books did show more depth. Curtain, for example, shows a sympathetic Poirot facing his own death. And BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS puts an elderly Tuppence in danger and aware of her own limitations.

So why do I like them? Because I know what I'm going to get. I know there will be no blood and gore. I know I will not be shocked or weep for a character. It's like a pleasant afternoon tea party: satisfying but not too rich and not too long. And I have to confess, when I look at those Agatha teapots on my shelf I give her a little nod of thanks for creating a genre where I have been so happy!

How about you? Are you a Christie fan? Do you think that the evolution of the mystery into a more complex literary form is a good thing?  Do you like to have a sleuth whose personal life is important to the story, who evolves through a series, who actually matters to you? Some of the letters I get about Lady Georgie show that my readers consider her a real person, a friend. Do you want more setting, background, local color? More of what’s going on in the outside world?

I find that I do, most of the time. It’s just when I’m extra tired, stressed, tense that I reach for Dame Agatha and there is a body on the hearthrug in a small English village.

Better to Give?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: It’s a classic way to enrich and expand your characters’ personalities—what’s in their fridge? What’s in their wallet? What’s in their wastebasket?

But dear friend of Reds Laura DiSilverio has another idea. What gift do they give? And she’s giving YOU a prize—her brand new book AND a t-shirt--if you have the best answer.

Better to Give

    By Laura DiSilverio

Reading Rhys Bowen's recent post about her upcoming Molly book Away in the Manger, I realized that in my 15 published books, none has a Christmas scene. Not one. I plan to rectify that, but in the meantime, it got me thinking about the Readaholics and what Christmas would mean to each of them. 

Even though their new adventure, The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle, is set in August, I'm fast-forwarding them to Christmas and spying on their present buying.

         - Lola, with her limited budget and love of plants, gives everyone on her list (besides her Grandma and Axie), a vibrant poinsettia, or an amaryllis from her nursery, Bloomin' Wonderful.

        

- Brooke, the animal lover, tries to talk all her friends into adopting an aging dog or kitten (like this Misty-lookalike my daughter wanted a few years back) from Heaven Animal Haven and underwrites the adoption fee for them (since she married into the richest family in town).

      

   - Kerry, lover of all things practical and Heaven's part-time mayor, gives them each tickets to a singalong performance of The Messiah by the combined choirs of Heaven's churches and high schools, thereby killing three birds with one stone--increasing the audience for a town-sponsored event, boosting the coffers of Heaven's Arts Council, and giving them all a chance to celebrate the season together.

      

   -Maud gives all the Readaholics custom-made calendars constructed from photos her significant other Joe (a wildlife photographer) took of them and the beautiful areas surrounding Heaven, Colorado.       

-Amy-Faye, founder of the Readaholics, gives them all books (of course!), carefully hunted down at used bookstores and garage sales throughout the year. For Maud, she has two Helen MacInnes spy thrillers that she knows Maud has been looking for to complete her collection. For Lola, she found a signed copy of The Language of Flowers.  For Kerry, she got Nora Ephron's essay collection, I Feel Bad About My Neck (because Kerry has begun complaining in a humorous way about the downsides of aging now that she's closing in on fifty), and for Brooke she got the illustrated version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone because they read the whole series together back before there even was a Readaholics book group.

Let's take it a step farther, now that we're thinking about characters and presents. What would your favorite literary character get that special someone on his or her Christmas list? I can see Hannibal Lecter gifting bottles of Chianti, or Jack Reacher tucking a toothbrush into a stocking.  Ishmael might wrap up that special bit of scrimshaw.  

I'm giving a copy of The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle plus a Readaholics T-shirt to the best comment (chosen with total capriciousness, so it might be for the funniest one or the most insightful, or simply the twenty-second one).

HANK: Books, books! Love this.  Charlotte McNally still gives All the President’s Men, she’s old school. Jane Ryland gives the Complete Sherlock Holmes, since she’s all about tracking down bad guys and solving crimes. She’s also giving subscriptions to MORE Magazine, because, yeah. Non-book gifts?  Hamlet is giving a Magic 8 ball, to help his friends decide at least. And Lady Macbeth? Hand sanitizer. 

Please, Reds.  You can do better.
And YAY! The Readaholics gets a starred review from Booklist! Laura, tell us everything!

***********

Laura DiSilverio is the author of the Swift Investigations and Mall Cop mystery series, as week as the standalone thriller THE RECKONING STONES and the new best-selling READAHOLICS series.

After twenty years as an Air Force intelligence officer – serving as a squadron commander, with the National Reconnaissance Office, and at a fighter wing – she retired to parenting and writing full-time.

Laura says: Spying was easier.

Secrets of the Notebooks!

HANK PHILLIPPI  RYAN: I know, it wasn’t fair. When last we left the wonderful John Curran—knower of all knowledge about Agatha Christie, the first person privy to her secret notebooks and the author of two award-winning non-fiction books about the Queen of Mystery (Secret Notebooks' now out in paperback!)-- I had just asked about his favorite Poirot and Miss Marple, and then, evil me, I said we were out of time. So, now we have more time! 

And John has revealed he will come visit today to tell us some brand new Agatha info---our eyes only. Got to love it.

 (And hey—let’s give away another copy of the Secret Notebooks! (Our last winner was Susan Elizabeth. And the winner of Meg Gardiner’s RANSOM RIVER is: Lexie’s Mom. And the winner of the ARC of THE OTHER WOMAN is: Margarete. Email me with your address, okay?)

And now:

HANK:  Who is your favorite Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple?

JOHN: The best Miss Marple ever was, and remains, Joan Hickson, who, thankfully, filmed all of the novels for BBC television. Actresses, either before and since, never captured the essence of Miss Marple as she did. Some of them have been completely unsuitable and I completely disapprove of the latest idea of ‘inserting’ Miss Marple into books in which she never appeared.

And the best Poirot is, undoubtedly, David Suchet. Later this year he will embark on the last five titles to be filmed and then he will have completed the entire Cases of Hercule Poirot! Although some of the adaptations have not been good (Appointment with Death, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd), overall the standard over the last 20 years has been remarkably high. It will be a remarkable achievement when he finishes the last film.

HANK: We’ve all seen The Mousetrap. (Again and again. And anytime anyone has tickets, invite me, okay?)  But of course there were other plays.

JOHN:  Agatha Christie is the only crime-writer to achieve equal success and fame as a playwright as well as a novelist and short-story writer. Although her first Poirot play, Black Coffee (1930), is not very impressive she enjoyed writing scripts and her first big success on the stage was And Then There Were None in 1943. But she wanted more control over what happened to her books (she was very unhappy with what adapters did to, for instance, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) so she adapted The Hollow, in 1951, herself. And then she wrote original plays - in the 1950s she wrote The Unexpected Guest, Spider’s Web and Verdict directly for the stage and adapted The Mousetrap and Witness for the Prosecution.

HANK: I could watch that a million times. It’s always a surprise, and always wonderful. Charles Laughton, I mean, how perfect. All this was happening at the same time?

JOHN: Yes! During this period she had three plays running simultaneously in London’s West End, a record for a female playwright that stands to this day. In 1961 three one-act plays, under the title, Rule of Three was her last success; the final play she wrote, Fiddler’s Three, was not considered good enough to reach the West End. The Mousetrap has now been running for almost 60 years and seems likely to run forever. I hope to write about her career as a playwright in my next book in two years time.

HANK: And of course you’ll be here to tell us all about it! Do you read modern crime fiction? (How do you even have time?) Who are your favorites among living writers?

JOHN: Yes, I read and enjoy a lot of modern crime fiction although my main interest is in the writers of the Golden Age – Christie and her contemporaries, Dickson Carr, Sayers, Queen, Marsh etc. I greatly admire P. D. James and Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine; the American writer Charles Todd, whose books are set in the England of Christie – just after the First World War; Robert Goddard, who creates wonderfully complicated plots; the novels of Colin Dexter, who has now, sadly, retired; the earlier titles of Val McDermid before they became too gory; and Laura Wilson who sets her books during World War II.

HANK:    If you could ask Agatha Christie a question what would it be? 

JOHN:  My problem would be keeping it to only one! It would have to be ‘How did you do it? How did you, a woman with no formal education and no background in writing become the biggest-selling, and most translated, writer in history?’ And I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to answer me.  She would probably look amused and say ‘I really don’t know!’

 HANK: SO Reds, John will be here to discuss…what’s your favorite Christie play? Or movie?  We still haven’t decided who should play Tommy in the Tommy & Tuppence movie—and hey, wasn’t John going to give us the scoop on that. Oh, wait, he said he couldn’t. Shall we keep trying? Meanwhile, shall we cast Tuppence? And who was the young actress who was threatening to play Miss Marple? 

And John also promises some big news. 

Remember, we’re giving away a copy of  SECRET NOTEBOOKS!

The Secret Notebooks

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:   Rats. I didn't take a photo. But you should have seen John Curran hold the Malice Domestic audience captive with his stories about our goddess and mentor Agatha Christie. He got exclusive access to ALL her notes and notebooks and letters--stayed at her house, Greenway House, and was the very first person to see it all. Can you imagine? What a cache of treasures! And his stories are mesmerizing!

   So of course we had to invite the world's expert on Agatha to come chat at Jungle Red. (And we're giving away a copy of his first book--and a new one! Just answer one little question--see below!)

 

 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Okay, John. How did this all happen??

JOHN CURRAN:  I have been reading Christie all my life and although I moved on to read lots of other writers I kept returning to Christie as she was/is the greatest exponent ever of the classical detective novel. For some years I edited an Agatha Christie Newsletter and later wrote an online version of it where I reviewed Christie plays and films and new editions of her books.

In 2004 I visited Calgary in Canada to see Chimneys, a play written by Christie in 1930 and never previously performed. There I met her grandson, Mathew, and he invited me to visit Greenway House, his grandmother’s home since 1938. When I read the Notebooks, which were stored there, I asked his permission to write a book about them and he immediately agreed.

HANK: Yikes. That is—amazing.

JOHN:  Yes!  So now, two books later, I hope I have contributed something to Christie scholarship with a glimpse into how she some of the best detective of all time. Mathew and I are also working to establish an Archive of Agatha Christie’s papers for future generations of scholars.

HANK: I keep envisioning you, discovering those treasures. Tell us more!

JOHN:The biggest surprise was how disorganised they were. I had assumed the plotting would be very ordered (as her books are) but the notes that go to make up any of her titles can be scattered over half-a-dozen Notebooks. And there are very few dates included. And the handwriting was very difficult to decipher.

The other big surprise, considering the number of books she wrote, was the number of plot ideas that she scribbled down but never used. I have included many of these in my two books.

Finding the short stories was an added bonus.  It was an unbelievably exciting event for an aficionado to sit in the author’s own home and read a typescript that no-one had even seen for over 60 years. It was the first ‘new’ Agatha Christie since I read Sleeping Murder in 1976. And finding the notes for them in the Notebooks made it even better. I feel very privileged to have been able to bring them to her legions of fans.

HANK: So this must have been a huge job! Were there any obstacles? Other than the obvious?

JOHN: Without doubt the biggest problem was the handwriting especially for the years between 1930 and the mid-50s.

HANK: Uh, oh. Lucky no one is gonna care about MY notebooks… Really?

JOHN: Yes, it took me about 8 months to decipher those notes and then to transcribe them into legible documents, one file for each Notebook. Of course, it must be remembered that no-one other than Agatha Christie was ever meant to read the Notebooks! When it came to deciding which notes would be included and which left out there were difficult choices to be made. I hope I made the right ones...

HANK: But wait, there’s more?   You’re writing a doctoral thesis on Christie?

JOHN: It will deal with the Golden Age of detective fiction between the Wars when Christie and her contemporaries were at the height of their considerable powers.  Apart from the literature itself it will also look at the social conditions that fostered its growth.

HANK: Let’s go back to the beginning. What was the first Christie book you read? Do you remember?

JOHN: I read my first Christie, Peril at End House, while I was at school and I still consider it one of her best – a very clever, totally fair detective story with a very simple plot device. After that I was hooked! And have remained so ever since. 

HANK: So, what do you think is the secret of Agatha Christie? Why does she continue to attract readers?

JOHN: I think it is a combination of a few factors and this combination has never been matched:

·                    Her writing is straightforward and readable and her books are seldom more than 200 pages.

·                    She tells a story that seems complicated but is quite simple when we get the explanation.

·                    People love a puzzle and she gives us all the clues we need to solve the puzzle but we (nearly!) always fail to spot the vital piece of information that makes everything clear.

·                    She can be enjoyed by grandparents and grandchildren – and there are very few writers of whom you can say that.

·                    And, of course, she now has enormous nostalgia value. Which is why updating her stories is a disastrously bad idea.

HANK: I almost burst into tears, winning the Agatha. (Didn't you? The...synchronicity?) (Look how surprised Jonathan is!) What do you see as her legacy to detective fiction?

JOHN:  Her influence is enormous; almost every crime writer today owes her some debt of gratitude. Although the type of story she wrote – the classical detective story –  has almost disappeared today, she also experimented throughout her career – the historical crime story (Death Comes as the End 1945), the serial killer (The ABC Murders 1935), murder in retrospect (Five Little Pigs 1943), murder abroad (Death on the Nile 1937), the psychological crime novel (Endless Night 1967). She wrote detective fiction better, for longer and more often than any other writer; and she made it seem so easy. Although many writers criticize her nowadays, nobody would object to having her fame – or her sales!

HANK:  Maybe unfair, but which Christie novel (or novels) is your favorite and why?

JOHN: My overall favourite is Five Little Pigs (Murder in Retrospect) – a brilliantly clever formal detective story as well as a novel with huge emotional impact. And the story-telling technique – five separate accounts of one day – is masterly. But very close to it are And Then There Were None, her most thrilling novel; Murder on the Orient Express with its wonderfully original solution; and Endless Night, a dark and brooding novel unlike anything else she wrote with a stunning surprise ending. 

HANK: Can’t resist. Who is your favorite Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple?

JOHN: Oh, certainly, it’s…

HANK:  Oh wait--we’re out of time! Come back Saturday for John’s answer--and the Reds will include our recommended summer reads!  And today a lucky commenter will win a copy of  Secret Notebooks!

John will try to come chat--he's in a different time zone! But meanwhile--what's your favorite Agatha? Or your best Agatha experience? Do you remember your first? 

 ***********************

John Curran’s Edgar-nominated Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks (2010) won the 2011 Agatha, Anthony and Macavity Awards and his Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Making (2011) was nominated for the 2012 Edgar and the Agatha awards. Both books examined the 73 notebooks used throughout her life by Agatha Christie in the creation of her immortal stories. A life-long crime-fiction enthusiast, he is currently writing a PhD thesis on Christie and The Golden Age of Detection at Trinity College, Dublin where he lives.

What's in a Name

RHYS: A rose by any other name will smell as sweet, but would you feel as strongly about the heroine of a mystery or thriller called Ethel or Ermintrude, or a hero called Cyril or Archibald? Let's face it, we judge people by their names. We expect a Tiffany or an Ashley to be more airheaded than a Kate or a Jane. Which is why the names we choose for our characters are so important.I've been thinking about this because I've just started a new book, which means another set of names. At least I'm lucky that I have my series characters in place so It is only the occasional characters that need naming. I'm also lucky that my story takes place in 1903 so I am supposed to use old fashioned names, some of which were fashionable then, but quaint and ugly now. Would you consider calling your daughter Blanche or Flossie? There were actresses called both in Edwardian times.

I once attended a panel at a mystery convention called Kiss Me, Kate. It was composed of Laurie King, Val McDermid and Dana Stabenow--three good friends who all have heroines called Kate. In fact I suspect that if you did some research you'd come up with more Kates as mystery heroines than any other name. Why is this? Because we think of Kates as no-nonsense, capable women: Katherine Hepburn, The Taming of the Shrew, and we want a heroine who will be plucky and unflappable and track down the murderer behaving the way we would like to in our fantasies.In many ways we want our heroine to be as gutsy as any guy, hence the number of Sams and Charlies and other masculine-sounding names. I admit to a Lady Georgie so I'm part of this group, but I didn't choose it consciously to sound masculine. I wanted her to be called Georgiana because I liked the name and it sounded aristocratic.

Only occasionally have I made careful conscious choices over a character's name. Darcy O'Mara was one of them. I wanted to create an archetypal hero and the vision that came to mind was Colin Firth, as Mr. Darcy, coming out of that lake, soaking wet. So Darcy he became. I have fun with a lot of names in that series because the British have so many silly names. So I've had a Hugo Beasley-Bottome (which was misprinted once as Beastly-Bottom) and in Royal Blood I have a horsy, pushy woman called Lady Middlesex, and her companion Miss Deer-Harte. . So I'm curious--how do you choose character names? Do they just come to you? Do you agonize over them ? Have you experienced, as I have, a character who doesn't seem to be jelling well suddenly say to you, "Why do you keep calling me Richard? My name is Paul." And then you realize that of course he is Paul and everything starts flowing. Have you ever named a character with a name you've come to hate? How important are names to you?

JAN: I'm insanely opinionated when it comes to names -- I've even made friends change names in their books because I just couldn't work with them. How inflexible is that? I also get into trouble in real life because if I've just met you and think you look like a Cathy when you're name is Darrah, I'll keep thinking of you as Cathy. Even if you look like a Cathy to me, and your name actually is Cathy, I'll hesitate before I ever call you by name because I'm not sure if you really are a Cathy, or if I'm making it up.
Cathy's, by the way, should always be blonde. Also Karens, Kate's, basically any "K" or "C" name. A Patty should always have dark hair, even though one of my best friends is a blondish Patty. Mostly names just "come" to me. But I struggled for weeks over what to call Hallie Ahern's love interest. I finally went with Matt. For me, men are the hardest to name. Common names seem not unique enough. Unique names often seem contrived, un-masculine, or like a soap opera name. Nick names can come in handy.

HANK: Flossie, I love Flossie. (What was that childrens book--Freddie and Flossie?) ANd I'm Harriet, so don't talk to me about old fashioned.
I think the name-choice thing is SO important, and so critical. Charlotte (Charlie) McNally came to me fully formed--her dear "Josh Gelston" was the result of weeks of agony looking for a tough, strong, non-trendy first name: Ben? Jake? Sam? Matt? Luke? And a religion-neutral last name. SO difficult! I worried and worried over it. And then after the book came out, I got an a mail from someone named Josh Gelston!
My main name problem is that all my instant-choices begin with C or M. I was trying to think of a new main character, and had what I thought was a HUGE brainstorm! The perfect name! And it was: Callie. All righty then, not exactly different enough from Charlie. Now I keep a list, with the letters of the alphabet down one side, and plug in names as they come to me. SO everyone doesn't begin with the same letter.

ROBERTA: Since I'm working on the first book of a new series, I've had a whole slew of names to come up with. (Gosh, I sure hope they pass Jan's test...) And funny, now that you mention it, another friend (okay Hallie, if you must know:), suggested I change a character's name in A TASTE FOR MURDER. I swear this happened only yesterday...
This fellow is a tarot card reader who sets up a booth at the Sunset Celebration in Key West every night. My protagonist (Hayley Snow) often consults him for direction. I named him "Marvin." So Hallie says: "Marvin doesn't strike me as the name of a tarot card reader, can't you call him something like Lorenzo? Marvin sounds like your great-uncle or an elderly neighbor."
Marvin's a little appalled about his impending name change, but I certainly don't want readers struggling to remember who the heck he is when he comes up in conversation. And that's key, right?--make the names that tag characters distinct enough so a sleepy or distracted reader doesn't have to work too hard to keep them straight.

ROSEMARY: I love it when I hit on the right name for a character - my favorite, other than Paula Holliday, which I think is perfect for my heroine, was Guido Chiaramonte. It just rolled off the tongue. Chiaramonte is a town in Sicily. I wanted an Italian name that we hadn't heard a million times before so I looked at a map.But I generally have a hard time with names and frequently keep changing them until I'm halfway through the book. I rationalize this by telling myself that only by that time have they truly revealed themselves to me. In Slugfest, I had auctioned off so many names for charity that I barely had to think about it.Terry Ward, Jean Moffitt, John Stancik - great names! Kris Archimbault, if you're out there, you're in the next book.

HALLIE: Oh, Ro, it's so nice to hear that someone else keeps changing her character names. I'm thinking of doing a search and replace of a character in my Work in Progress, from Evie to Abby.
It's why I don't use short names. Like Ted. I once search-and-replaced, making a Ted a Brian, and ended with: "Lillian reporBrianed..." instead of "Lillian reported..." and "belatedly" became "belaBrianly." It was a mess.

ROSEMARY: Same thing happened to me when I changed Dan to Hank (a male.) What a nightmare. Good tip to avoid the short ones. I just had to change Tina to Toni - because I'm bringing a secondary character from the third book named Nina - I didn't want to have a Tina and a Nina! Nina Mazzo (another great charity auction name)is making an encore performance.
Something in the air...I have an Abby in the book I'm writing now, but it's about five women and after four books and so many female characters, I feel as if I've used most of the names I really like. Do the people who've written twenty books worry about this stuff?

DEB: After fourteen books, naming characters is a nightmare! It's not only trying to figure out what works for the character--as hard for me as it is for the rest of you--but then I have to check that the names don't sound alike (Nina-Tina) or that I have too many characters whose names start with the same letter (Robert, Richard, Ryan). Then I have to make sure that the name I'm using was popular, or at least in use, at the time the character was born. I have an old copy of the Guiness Book of Names which is fabulous. It gives the fifty most popular girls' and boys' names in the US and in the UK every five years from 1850 to 1985. But after '85 I'm sunk. . .
THEN comes the fourteen book issue. Have I used the name before??? And because I write fairly long and complicated books, chances are that I have. So if the names of my characters get odder and odder, you'll know why . . .
AND then, when I think I've got it all worked out, I discover I've done something really stupid. In the book I just finished, I named a character after a very well known (although obviously not to me!) British comedian. My British friends threw up their hands in horror. "You can't call him THAT!!!!"
Thank God for search-and-replace.

JULIA: Deb, Linda Rosenkrantz and Pamela Redmond Satran have a series of baby name books that I've collected and use religiously. They're called " Beyond Jennifer and Jason," "Beyond Ava and Aiden," etc. Each book has a lengthy section on naming patterns from the past (starting in the early 20th century) and is also excellent as a resource for currently trendy, ethnic and European names. I'm a bug about getting names right for the place (lots of Scots and Dutch names in the part of NY I write about) and for the age of the character. Nothing will snap me out of a book faster than a hip young 20-something named Doris or a sweet little old lady named Kayla.

I also agree with Ro--I love using names from charitable auctions! In the past, I've wound up creating characters I didn't expect to have, and changing the course of the novel. For instance, I auctioned off a character for a fundraiser for my children's parochial school. The winner wanted me to use her unmarried aunt's name: Lucia Pirrone. Well, there aren't a lot of really Italian names in Millers Kill, NY, so she became Sister Lucia, newly arrived in the Adirondacks to minister to migrant workers, and she met the Rev. Clare Fergusson at a luncheon, and I was off and running with the plot of I SHALL NOT WANT

.My last word on names is my own. I've just finished signing a box of front sheets (to be bound into the new book for "signed by author" copies)and after inscribing J-U-L-I-A-S-P-E-N-C-E-R-hyphen-F-L-E-M-I-N-G one thousand times, my hand feels like it's going to fall off. So if I ever write in another genre, I'm doing it as Jo Leu.

RHYS: I've also auctioned off character names many times and I'm always scared I'll wind up having to use an impossible name--a Brandi or Kylie in 1903, or a strongly ethnic name in my royal circles. So far I've made it work, even using the names of three sisters called Jensen, Danika and Reagan in one of the Royal Spyness books. And Deb, I find if I'm not careful I use the same name for more than one character.

So let's hear from all of you out there--do character names matter to you? Would Poirot or Sam Spade or Rumpold be as effective with other names?

And isn't it great to have our new JUNGLE REDs joining in their first discussion? We are so lucky to have them on board...