2/13/2018 4 Comments Sister in Crime: Interview at ALASunday morning I volunteered at the Sisters in Crime table at the American Library Association convention in Denver, Colorado. I had fun with my Sisters meeting librarians, readers, and vendors as I promoted SinC and handed out free books from our authors. Unexpectedly, we were approached by entrepreneur Alan Bourgeois, who is seeking to interview 1000 authors in a year. Springing impromptu interviews on introverted authors is a tricky business! We managed to remain relatively composed. Here is my interview: Catherine Dilts You can find interviews with other Sisters in Crime members who attended the ALA here: 1000 Authors
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Go For the Juggler by John H. Dirckx appeared in the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine January-February 2018 issue. I was happy to see Detectives Dollinger and Auburn again, Dirckx's recurring short story characters. A man is murdered. At first it seems a simple matter of robbery, but unexpected hints suggest Myron Wendling was not the gray little man he appeared to be. The fun is watching how the detectives sort out the clues step by step, until they arrive at the solution. APRIL: Negroni is the fourth entry in Cathy Ace's Murder Keeps No Calendar anthology. Negroni is an Italian cocktail, and Ace serves up a tasty one in this story. The premise is highly improbable yet completely charming, as fish and chips shop owner Doug wins the lottery and goes on an Italian holiday. He becomes entangled with a beautiful woman in distress, and feels compelled to shed his usual reticent nature to help her. I especially loved the scene toward the end with the police in the grotto. This was a fun read. The Adventure of the Dead Frog, by Carlos Orsi, is in the Mystery Weekly Magazine January 2018 issue. Roberto has found what he thinks is a rare frog. When it is stolen from a research lab safe, Roberto and his girlfriend try to solve the locked room mystery. I began reading Murder: Month by Month, by Cathy Ace. I have read several novels in Ace's Cait Morgan Mystery series, so I was curious about her ability with the short fiction form. The anthology follows the calendar, opening with January. This is a creepy little tale told through diary entries as a woman plots the murder of her husband. I read the story aloud on a road trip. Both my husband and I figured out something was not quite right fairly early in the story, but what that something was came as a surprise. Cait Morgan appears in February, when a student shows up in her university office. Paris Chow asks her advice for a murder mystery story he wants to tell as part of the Chinese New Year celebration. Cait suspects the story is not fiction, but listens to the end of his tale. Paris is more interested in who didn't do it than who committed the murder. Fans of Cait Morgan will enjoy seeing her in this short story. Anthologies are nice because you can set them down, picking them up whenever you have time for a story. There's no loss of continuity. I am looking forward to following the calendar with more of Cathy Ace's entertaining mystery stories. The cold blue cover of the January/February 2018 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine made me shiver. That was before I started reading the stories. Once again, AHMM is packed with good fiction. I have enjoyed every story I read so far, but I just have time to mention a few I found particularly entertaining. This issue opens with Sinners at Eight, by Michael Nethercott. Nellie is a shy, prudish young woman who is thrust into a social gathering at her mildly wild Aunt Bebe's insistence. She is scandalized that alcohol is served, despite being in the midst of the Prohibition. When a young man fills her full of gossip, Nellie nearly has a meltdown. No one at the party is as they seem, according to Sherman. "Best to assume there's something damagingly wrong with any and all of our party-mates." Among them are a reputed kleptomaniac, a lecherous old man, and a woman who believes her dead children are still alive. Worst of all, Sherman claims a serial killer could lurk among them. This is an unreliable narrator tale, as we observe the party through Nellie's naive eyes. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, despite Nellie's misdirection, author Nethercott springs more than one surprise. John M. Floyd's characters Jenny Parker and Sheriff Raymond Douglas return in Scavenger Hunt. Their relationship serves as a fun subplot to a double-puzzle mystery. How did a local scoundrel cheat Barb Sandifer, a lady who admits she likes to drink and gamble a bit more than she should, out of two grand? And did Minnie Simpson really suffer a tragic accident when she tumbled down the steps to her studio, or was she murdered, as her husband claims? In between these two mysteries, Sheriff Douglas tells Jenny about a case involving a clever solution. Add in the question of whether Jenny will agree to go out with Raymond on a date, and you have four story lines. There's a lot packed into this story, and it all works. I found Louisa and the Lighthouse, by Marianne Wilski Strong, interesting because typically when there are multiple people with a motivation to murder, the victim is a loathsome type who deserves his or her fate. In this case, Lilia seems like a pleasant woman. Amanda becomes involved when she finds Lilia's favorite necklace near the lighthouse. She solves the mystery with the help of her love of Louisa May Alcott's short stories. Robert Lopresti departed from the Shank's character I am familiar with in his series of short stories published in AHMM. Train Tracks is an historical short story based on the Orphan Trains that operated in the mid-eighteen hundreds, when orphaned children were packed onto trains and shipped to the Midwest. You can read more about this on the Trace Evidence blog. The story Train Tracks follows two brothers who are reunited after being separated as children on an Orphan Train. They plan to avenge their younger brother. I thought I was close to figuring out the story as it neared the end, but a couple surprises made this a very enjoyable tale. As I've noted on previous blog posts, I am cutting back my short story reviews to every other week, unless time permits. Happy reading! 1/9/2018 1 Comment Waiting for a ThawI'm a person who gets up when the sun rises. When it sets, no matter what time it is, my brain and body tell me it's time to crawl into my cave and hibernate. An author posted on Facebook recently that he was feeling a little panicked that his next novel idea wasn't coming. The season might have a lot to do with his feeling of being stalled. Like the creek I walk by on my lunchtime constitutionals, this is a time of year for nature, as well as human endeavors, to feel blocked. Frozen. Eventually, the heat will return, and creativity as well as water will begin to flow again. In the meantime, writers and other artists who are feeling locked up might consider working on more structural projects. Revise that manuscript. Submit that short story. Don't stop working. Just work on something requiring less inspiration. Lay down some groundwork that will pay off later, when you're in a fully creative zone again. Three Corpse Meal: A New Year’s Eve Mystery Short Story By Margaret S. Hamilton When she was a child, three men conspired to steal Christina’s inheritance and separate her from her grandmother. Lizzie is concerned her friend Christina has taken revenge when she learns the three didn’t survive a New Year’s Eve dinner party. This is an entertaining puzzle mystery you can read for free on the Kings River Life electronic magazine here. 12/30/2017 1 Comment New Year, New GoalsI read an article on resolutions on the website Career Authors. The fresh take on the tradition of making New Year's resolutions describes perfectly my desire to slow my life to a reasonable pace, to allow myself more time to think and reflect. Article author Glenn Miller writes: What if instead of resolutions, you chose not what you will do, but who you will be? My main goal for 2018 is to simplify my life. I want more time in the mountains to see creatures like this Bighorn Sheep, and to hike, camp, and fish. As I prioritize, I plan to continue writing short stories and novels. That is one thing I won't be trimming from my schedule. In fact, I hope to make more time for my writing. I will also continue my Thursday short story reviews, which seem popular. I will be cutting back to one post every other week, instead of weekly. On Tuesdays, if I post, look for more nature photos. I have more stories to tell, and not enough time to write them all down. I hope to remedy that problem in 2018. Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify. - Henry David Thoreau 12/28/2017 0 Comments No Review Today12/14/2017 4 Comments Short Story Review: The BurningThis novella has as the backdrop an environmental issue, circa 1975. My short stories often have an environmental angle, so I was curious to learn how this author would use a reality-based situation in a fictional setting. In The Burning by J. P. Seewald, George Ferris has issues. He’s jealous of his ambitious lawyer brother. George is convinced his father favored the successful younger brother. George can’t stand his snooty sister-in-law, who looks down on George’s blue-collar roots and lifestyle. When an underground coal fire threatens both his family’s safety, and everything George has worked for, he has to choose a solution. The tension builds as the reader begins to suspect something bad is headed George's way. The story focuses on the family relationships as the reader races through to the dramatic ending. This entertaining read can be found at: annorlundaenterprises.com/books/the-burning/ 12/11/2017 0 Comments Mystery & MistletoeMystery and Mistletoe WHEN:Wednesday night, December 13 - 6:30 p.m. WHERE: Colorado Automobile Dealers Association, 290 East Speer Blvd. MENU: Heavy appetizers will be provided along with light desserts, iced tea, water, and coffee. Beer and wine will be available for sale. Mystery & Mistletoe is back for another round of holiday cheer, delectable food and the culmination of RMMWA’s Six-Word Mystery Contest! And, oh yes, there will be a bar. This is the perfect evening to buy gifts for your mystery-loving friends, not to mention listen to readings from our members. Tickets are $10. The Tattered Cover will be on hand to help those shopping for holiday gifts. The public is welcome. Tickets can be purchased in advance at www.rmmwa.org. Authors will read from their work. In addition, the winners of the Six-Word Mystery Contest will be announced. Judges will select finalists in each category and winners will be chosen by those attending “Mystery & Mistletoe.” |
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