Why Do We Love to Read About the Evil Rich? by Tara Laskowski

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I know, you're thinking that title doesn't seem to go along with our Christmas theme this week! But you're wrong, dear readers. Because you're about to get cash, or gift certificates, or just plain old "treat myself" and you KNOW you're going to want a gorgeous thriller to curl up with the day after Christmas. Lucky for you, Tara Laskowski's latest tale of the diabolical doings of the elite, THE WEEKEND RETREAT, is landing in bookstores on Boxing Day (the Feast of Stephen, for you musically minded.) It's set in my old stomping grounds, the Finger Lakes, y'all! But in a place I'm pretty sure I'd never get invited to. 

Tara's here today to tell us just why rich people behaving badly is so irresistible...

 

Our family saw Wonka this weekend at the theater. One of the elite chocolatiers, Fickelgruber, is only concerned about keeping his and his friends’ monopoly on the confections business. Money and power are his main—and only—focus. In fact, any time someone says the word “poor,” he physically contorts and “throws up in his mouth a little.” Suffice to say, everyone in the theater is rooting for his demise by the end of the movie.

It's fun to root against evil rich people, isn’t it? Why, though?

When I wrote my debut novel One Night Gone, I didn’t realize that writing about out-of-touch wealthy people was going to become a part of my “brand.” And yet the three books I’ve written so far have all kind of centered on, at their core, a group of affluent people who think they can get away with anything (and often do.)

People have said that they enjoy my books even if they love to hate my characters. And weirdly, I enjoy writing my characters even though they are, at times, absolutely despicable people. 

 

The characters in my stories often have a sense they are somehow above the law. That the rules don’t apply to them. Many times it’s because that’s true—they’ve managed to get away with something terrible in their past and they don’t believe it’s going to ever come back to bite them. It’s not even about their wealth as much as it is about their power. Power can go a long way toward people bending wills to get what they want. Power and influence can easily lead to corruption.

 

Take, for example, the Van Ness family in my latest novel, TheWeekend Retreat. They are an influential and somewhat notorious bunch who’ve managed to piss off a lot of people in their lives. They own an upscale winery in the Finger Lakes of New York, and they travel their every year to celebrate the birthdays of the eldest twin siblings. Of course, this year, things aren’t going to go as planned.

 

The Van Ness siblings are complete snobs, and yet they have a sense of entitlement that’s intoxicating. I enjoyed writing about them because they are delightfully awful. Harper owns an online beauty company and touts herself as a feminist even though she’s horrible to her all-female staff. Richard is a control freak who looks down on anyone he deems lesser than him. Zach is an entitled golden boy who has had pretty much everything handed to him his whole life. And their significant others aren’t much better—desperately trying to get a piece of the family’s wealth and influence or hiding other agendas. 

 

All that said, I love them and their horribleness. They were intensely fun to write because I know all their fears and vulnerabilities. Because beyond the airs they put on to protect themselves from hurt, they are people with insecurities and challenges. They make terrible choices, but they do it with a gusto. It’s hand-me-the-popcorn fun to watch them slowly march toward a downfall—and feel guilt and glee at the same time. Glad it’s not you.

 

And maybe that’s at the heart of why we like to read about rich people getting destroyed—it’s often self-inflicted. They bring it on themselves. They are out of touch with reality, they don’t realize their privilege, they are too ruthless—and those flaws make us feel like we’d surely never make those same mistakes. We can safely judge and condemn without ever worrying the same fate might happen to us. We say, “If I won the lottery, I’d do all the right things with the money” or “If I was independently wealthy, I’d never let it go to my head.”

But would we? Or would we be the stars in our own tragic thriller novel, destined to a terrible fate?

And would we—sipping our fine wine and laying into our satin sheets, staring out at the view off our terrace—really care?

Until it’s too late, that is.

 

Tara Laskowski is the Agatha, Anthony and Macavity Award winning writer of both suspense novels and short stories.  You can read more about her at her website, follow her on Instagram as TaraLWrites and chat with her on Twitter as @TaraLWrites. Her newest thriller, THE WEEKEND RETREAT, will be out on December 26, 2023.

Pivoting to the Dark Side: Unsafe Haven @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: As you, my Jungle Red family, are well aware, I’m mostly known in the mystery world for my series featuring a food critic living in quirky Key West. Over the years, darker ideas have come to me that would not have fit in that genre. I filed away snippets of characters and plots that seemed too gritty or dark for a cozy mystery even though I recognized them as elements of a good story. For example, what if a terrified young girl handed you a newborn—and then vanished?

That's the question that lies behind the new book, Unsafe Haven which is out in ebook form today. I do not exaggerate when I say that writing this book has taken FOREVER. I think this was the first time I mentioned it on our blog.

But I have notes and emails and photos going back to 2009, including opinions from classes I took and my trusted writing pals. The one thing I knew all along was that the driving force behind the story would be teenager Addy Carl, who gives birth alone in a New York subway, and hands off the baby to an unknown woman. I'd begun to save headlines from the news that might explain Addy's actions. These were stories about young women who abandoned hours-old infants in astonishing places. (I'm not even counting Julia's character from IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER.) One newborn was left in a restroom in the Hilton Hotel in Key West. Another headline told the story about a teenager attending a dance who went to the ladies’ room because of cramps. Not realizing that she was pregnant, she delivered her baby right there, left it in the trash, and returned to the dance. Another baby was stashed in a nativity scene outside a church. What kind of girl or woman would abandon a newborn this way? These stories haunted me—I wanted to understand how a new mother might make this seemingly impossible choice. 

As I thought about writing Addy’s story, I did not picture her as a young woman who didn't care about her child. I imagined this book to be about a girl who was desperate and scared about something; so desperate that giving birth alone and pushing the new baby into a stranger’s arms felt like the best decision—the only decision—she could make in that moment. I hoped that readers would come to understand and share the agony of her choice and the fear that was driving it. 

I had also begun thinking about this second woman, Elizabeth, whose life had hit a major turning point. She’d planned a fancy New Year’s Eve wedding to her college boyfriend, but he’d shocked her by calling it off three days before the event. Everything she thought she knew about her future was suddenly turned upside down. 

As Addison, the new mother, emerges from the bathroom in a New York City subway station with her newborn, her eyes meet those of Elizabeth, the jilted bride. Addy thrusts the baby into Elizabeth’s arms and bolts. One minute later, another train, those women’s paths would never would have crossed. 

Exactly as my characters had, my writing reached a turning point. My writer brain understood that these characters and this story would not fit into the framework of a cozy culinary mystery. The challenge became whether I could tell Addison’s story in a different voice—dark, compelling, emotional, relatable—with a gritty city as the backdrop. The result is Unsafe Haven. 

I hope you’ll give it a try. You can read chapter one here.

If you read primarily in one genre or subgenre, what does it take for you to decide to veer off course and try something new?

Ways to order your copy of UNSAFE HAVEN:

Book depository 

Indiebound 

NOOK book at Barnes and Noble 

Kindle ebook at Amazon 

"In a major departure from her lighthearted Key West mysteries, Burdette invites readers into the world of a chilling thriller. (Unsafe Haven is) a page- turner highlighting the problem of exploited runaways."

—Kirkus Reviews

“Lucy Burdette shows us that she can write dark as well as light. Brilliantly plotted with characters we come to care about."

—Rhys Bowen, NYT bestselling author of the Venice Sketchbook and the Royal Spyness and Molly Murphy mysteries

"Lucy Burdette's Unsafe Haven is a gripping rollercoaster of suspense—you will root for her characters through every twist and turn of this beautifully plotted novel."

—Deborah Crombie, NYT bestselling author of A Bitter Feast

"Devastating, heartbreaking and completely immersive. This riveting story of fear and redemption, motherhood and second chances, and our responsibility to strangers is a powerful thriller proving one split-second decision can change our lives forever. Unsafe Haven has Hollywood written all over it!" 

—Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author of Her Perfect Life

On the Road Again by Paige Shelton

Jenn McKinlay: There is nothing I love better than a good road trip and Mary Higgins Clark Award Nominee (you had to know I was going to work that in, Paige) and dear friend, Paige Shelton, is here to tell us about one of hers! Welcome Paige!

Paige Shelton: I don’t know how we managed to pull it off, but back
when I was nineteen (1984), my best friend and I took off and saw the world, by ourselves. Well, it wasn’t the entire world, it was . . . east of Iowa. That’s the direction we wanted to go, and that’s what we did. 

When we were sixteen, we told our parents we were going to do it. We’re pretty sure they thought we were kidding, but we weren’t. I still remember them looking at us as we drove away, their expressions a combination of disbelief, worry, and certainty that we’d turn around in a day or two. We were gone for thirty. 

We had a CB radio. We had cassette tapes with all the Springsteen anyone could want. We camped out on Lake Erie. We slept in the car – got cleaned up wherever we could. We also had friends and family we stayed with on some nights. We drove and walked all around New York City. We saw Waylon Jennings walking into a studio in Nashville. We drove right into the middle of a shift change on a dock in Newport News. My goodness, we were lucky. We had one car issue, but a sympathetic mechanic (probably had a daughter or two) just took care of it and sent us on our way. We made friends with truckers and had meals with them. We never felt uncomfortable around them, and they welcomed us and watched over us. I wish I remembered the CB names we gave ourselves, but I don’t. I can’t even imagine us getting away with such a trip nowadays. I wouldn’t have let my son take a road trip with a couple of buddies when he was nineteen. The times have certainly changed. 

However, I still love a good road trip and try to take a couple every year. My husband and I even took one during the summer of 2020. We spent most of the time in his truck (a pick-up, not like the big rigs from the earlier road trip) or doing outside things as we traveled up to Omaha to see our son and his fiancé. We wore masks everywhere. Once we’re vaccinated to the max – Maxinated, I call it, we’ll still wear masks but we’re hitting the road again.  



I think my love for road trips started when I was a kid, as, it seems, our genuine loves typically do. We would drive to visit my grandparents in Missouri for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. My mom slept, but my dad and I sang. I know many old country western songs. Those were also the days when kids sat on their parent’s laps and held onto the steering wheel. I remember those curvy Missouri back roads well. It’s a wonder I’m still here. 

 Driving through Rolla Missouri was when I learned about Route 66. Though on June 27, 1985, it was declared to no longer be a U.S. Highway, there are still many parts that are preserved and can be seen if you veer off the nearby main roads, which are now mostly I-40 and I-44. I still take that back way every once in a while, and I’ve made some fabulous discoveries. My favorite is Arlington in Missouri. 

Arlington is an old train station and ghost town, near Jerome, Missouri, and it’s fascinating. Train tracks run next to the old station and then lead to a bridge over the Gasconade River. There are a few other houses around and I think it was also an RV resort at one time but not anymore. I highly recommend you take a look if you’re anywhere near there. I hear the bridge might be torn down soon. Oh, I hope not. 

Here’s a picture: 


Photo from: www.Hookedonroute66.com
 

Cool, huh? How about you? Do you have a favorite road trip, a favorite place to pull over and look at the scenery? I’d love to know about it. 

 The fabulous Jenn McKinlay invited to me to post today and talk about my upcoming Scottish Bookshop book, DEADLY EDITIONS.

Thanks to Jenn and all the Jungle Reds and readers. Forgive me for being so distracted by the idea that a road trip might be in my very near future, that that’s what I was compelled to write about. I would be thrilled and honored if you checked out the book though. It was a blast to write (Jekyll and Hyde and Scottish pubs abound). It’s book six in the series and it publishes April 6. See, that’s kind of like Route 66. Thank you!

A treasure hunt through Edinburgh gives way to a search for a villain terrorizing the city in the sixth Scottish Bookshop Mystery.

It’s a quiet, snowy morning at The Cracked Spine bookshop, when bookseller Delaney Nichols receives a mysterious visitor, a messenger. He presents her with a perplexing note: an invitation to a meeting with eccentric socialite Shelagh O'Conner, who requests Delaney’s participation in an exclusive treasure hunt. Delaney is intrigued, but also cautious: Shelagh, while charming in person, has a reputation for her hijinks as a wealthy young woman in the '70s. She was even once suspected for the murder of a former boyfriend, though ultimately cleared of all charges.

But Delaney is enticed by the grand prize at the end of the treasure hunt: a highly valuable first edition copy of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. The winner is also to receive the contents of Shelagh's vast library, and all participants will earn a large sum of cash.

The night after the first meeting of the treasure hunters, however, several homes in Edinburgh are robbed in a manner reminiscent of Shelagh's old tricks. And when a man connected to Shelagh is killed, suspicion builds. Except Shelagh herself has disappeared from her home, seemingly kidnapped by the villain.

Terror mounts throughout the city as Delaney attempts to solve the mystery, while trying to evade the killer's clutches. But it’s hard to know who to trust when around every corner, a new monster could be lurking.

 

Paige Shelton is the New York Times Bestselling author of the Farmers' Market, Country Cooking School, Dangerous Type, and Scottish Bookshop mysteries. She's lived lots of places but currently resides in Arizona. Find out more at www.paigeshelton.com

Planes, Trains, and Snowmobiles by Paige Shelton

JENN McKINLAY: I have a high bar for friendship, which basically consists of do you have a sense of humor and do you like baked goods. My friend, Paige Shelton, made me laugh out loud  the first time we met and we share a deep and abiding love of cake. As you can see, she's my people and her latest book, Thin Ice, is coming out in just a few weeks! I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek and it's fantastic! Here's Paige to tell us more about her journey to Alaska, the setting of Thin Ice.

Available December 3rd!

PAIGE SHELTON: I was watching the news the other night, and it seems a few airports are going to allow non-travelers through security so they may greet their loved ones at the gates, just like in the old days. I guess that’s a step forward, except I can’t think of many people I’d walk through the security line for just to greet as they deplane. Still, I appreciate the idea. 

I love to travel – but probably only in theory. In truth, unless it’s a road trip with no strict rules attached, the travel part of any good trip has turned into the worst part of the adventure. 

I do love to be at my destination, my bag hoisted up onto one of those folding luggage racks, the idea of unpacking already forgotten for the chance to head out and explore. That’s the good part, the destination.  

Except when it comes to traveling in Alaska. Not only was my research trip for THIN ICE made up of wonderful and interesting destinations, much of the travel was fun, too. 

The Juneau airport was a joy. It’s small, but not too small, and very easy to get from plane to luggage to rental cars or cabs. They even have giant freezers inside the airport to hold tourists’ caught fish until it’s time to head home. Everyone was polite, helpful, and didn’t seem to be in a crazy rush. When we landed, I wondered if we’d have the same luck when we took off for home again; we did. 

Though we rented a car, we used Uber a couple times in the city. One of our vehicles also contained a beautiful, friendly, and well-mannered Husky dog, so win-win-win there. I didn’t even know dogs weren’t supposed to be on board until recently, but I wouldn’t have protested anyway, and I will request a guest Husky every time I Uber now.

We took an Alaska Marine highway ferry over to Gustavus, which is where Glacier Bay National Park is located. The scenic route gave us four hours of good views, time to enjoy some snacks, and a moment or two for naps, though no whales were sighted. As we boarded the ferry, I noticed a job posting on the dock that said something like: “Tired of the same old, boring office job. Come work for us and you’ll never settle for ordinary again.” I thought briefly about taking the bait. 

We boarded a big tourist boat for the trip out to the glaciers. No napping on that one. Too much to see – birds, bears, sheep, tired kayakers who needed rescue (yes, really happened), although no whales there either. I was pretty sure they were watching us, though. I mean, it seems as if all the whales in the world travel near Alaska; I’ve seen the pictures. 

We finally found them! They were all around us as we roamed the ocean in a small fishing/whale-watching boat. Seeing the whales might have been the best part of the whole trip, even if the boat was small and the ocean was really, really big. We saw so many whales, I lost count. 

Photo of whales in Alaska from Pixabay

There were plenty of vehicles, like cars and vans, in the small town of Gustavus, but tucked inside barns and under tarps, snowmobiles and dog sleds awaited winter. I was told that the few paved roads are sometimes cleared, but other modes of transportation become necessary when the dark, snowy winters hit. I’ve ridden snowmobiles before, but never in Alaska. I’ve never ridden a dog sled. Maybe I’m going to have to go back in the winter. 

Just so we could experience it, we took a seaplane back to Juneau. I must admit, I was terrified, but the trip in the small plane, flying so low, was extraordinary. Like exercise though, I was glad I’d done it but don’t look forward to doing it again. Ever. 

I wish we’d had the time to hop on a train. I’ve heard that all the trips out of Anchorage are amazing.  Maybe I’ll have to go back in the winter and the summer. 

As expected, there were lots of cruise ships everywhere. We thought about taking a cruise, and it would have been wonderful, I’m sure, but I’m glad we saw some of Alaska the way we did. I loved the ferries and the other boats, and even the seaplane (kind of), but you can’t go wrong. No matter how you venture out to see this gigantic state, the transportation truly is as much fun as the destination.  

Safe travels!

So, how about you, Reds and Readers, what's the craziest travel transportation you've ever taken?

Paige Shelton is the New York Times Bestselling author of the Farmers' Market, Country Cooking School, Dangerous Type, and Scottish Bookshop mysteries. Her first suspense novel is Thin Ice, debuting in 2019. She's lived lots of places but currently resides in Arizona. Find out more at www.paigeshelton.com

Having Fun Again By Vicki Delany

Jenn McKinlay: One of the people I most love to see at mystery conferences is the fabulous Vicki Delany! Super talented and (bonus points) she always makes me laugh, she's here today to talk about her multi genre world.

Vicki Delany: I started my writing career writing standalone novels of psychological suspense, what’s now so hugely popular under the label of domestic suspense; I then wrote an eight novel police procedural series. In between those I wrote a historical series set in the Klondike Gold Rush and novellas for adult literary. 

And now I’m writing cozies. Why the change?

About six years ago, I was starting to get a bit... shall we say burned out?  I was seriously thinking about giving up writing. I can’t really say why, maybe I wasn’t having fun with it any more. Tough stuff, even fictionally, is tough to deal with sometimes.  

None of my suspense novels or the police series were exceptionally graphic in their descriptions of violence (not going there!), but they dealt with the ugly side of life. As my protagonist Constable Molly Smith said:

       “When I decided to become a police officer I knew I’d have to deal with the hard side of life. Beaten children, raped women, accident victims, blood and gore. But that’s not the hardest part, is it? It’s the goddamn tragedy of people’s lives.” 

--Among the Departed, by Vicki Delany

In one book, Molly Smith kills a man; in them all the fall-out of the murder or crime is wide-spread and devastating. I dealt with the murder of a mother, the disappearance of a father, the suspected betrayal of a spouse, the death of adult children (not touching little kids), a man who went to prison for twenty-five years for a crime he didn’t commit, and an ex-soldier with PTSD and a gun on his lap.

The standalones were about dysfunctional families and the lasting repercussions of wartime trauma. I completed a book (never published) about a tough-as-they-come former cop whose niece is sold to a sex-trafficking ring and tries to find her.  

I had a vague idea for a new standalone, maybe something about a WWII era ghost living in an abandoned barn that’s being developed for a new winery, when I was asked by Kim Lionetti of Bookends if I’d like to try my hand at the Lighthouse Library series work-for-hire Berkley was offering. 

Sure, thought I. Might as well. I gave it a go, got the contract, and I’ve never looked back. 

Because I found that writing could be fun again. I love writing cozies.  One thing led to another and I’m now writing FOUR cozy series. That’s three or four books a year. I approach every day (well, almost every day) excited to get back to the computer and the story. 

The word I often use for the cozies I write is FUN. They should be fun for the author and fun for the reader.  Not all cozies are humorous, but I hope mine are. Writing humour, I’ve found, makes me smile. (The master, if I may say so, of the laugh-out-loud cozy is Jenn McKinlay!)

Jenn: Aw, shucks. Thanks, my friend, I feel the same about yours! Humor is the secret sauce, in my opinion, to a good cozy series.

Cozies are intended to be nothing more than an entertaining read. You won’t learn many lessons about the human condition, no one is suffering from angst or threating to kill themselves because of depression. No PTSD. No terrorist attacks or serial killers. Just people with friends and lovers and community. And the occasional enemy. And a murder of course.

Cozy mysteries are not trying to make an important statement about the human condition, or hoping to change the world. A cozy mystery tells a story that attempts to be entertaining, that’s about people much like us (or like us if we were prettier, or smarter, or younger!) and our friends and family. 

Cozy mysteries are about real people living real lives (except for that pesky murder bit), although writ large. Everything is exaggerated. The nosy neighbour is nosier, the ditzy friend is ditzier, the mean girl is meaner. And the handsome man is, well, handsomer.  Even better if there are two of them. 

Case in point: My newest book is the fourth in the Year Round Christmas series, Silent Night Deadly Night, coming August 27 from Berkley.  It’s set in the week before Thanksgiving when Merry Wilkinson’s mother hosts her college friends for a reunion.  What’s Thanksgiving but family, friends, food? Oh, and a decades-long resentment that finally spills over. Literally over, into the pot luck supper.  Take a look at that cover – I bet it brought a smile to your face.

Readers who enjoy cozies often tell me they read them to escape from the real world. They get enough bad news on TV, and sometimes even in their own life. Cozy mysteries really are an escape.  

I get a lot of letters asking me to write a new Constable Molly Smith or another standalone. And maybe someday I will, but right now I’m loving the opportunity to write cozy mysteries. 

As a writer, I might be committed to cozies now, but as I reader I really do like to mix it all up. I’d love to know what type of novels Jungle Red readers prefer. Are you into the dark gritty stuff, or do you seek escape in your reading? Maybe both?

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She is the author of more than thirty-five published books, so far: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane, the Year Round Christmas mysteries for Penguin Random House, the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington and, as Eva Gates, the Lighthouse Library series, for Crooked Lane Books.  

Vicki lives and writes in bucolic Prince Edward County, Ontario. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. Vicki is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing.