Lea Wait's Blog, page 155

Plans, as in Floor

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today talking about one of the things I always do during the planning stages of a novel. Even if I’m going to be writing about a fictional place, I collect maps of the real surrounding area, and I choose real buildings upon which to model my fictional houses and businesses (or castles and manor houses, if it’s one of my novels set in the sixteenth century). I make changes and additions to suit the plot, but at the core there is likely to be a house I know or once knew well . . . and it’s often the same one.

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I’ve confessed in previous blogs to giving Mikki Lincoln, the sleuth in my Deadly Edits series, the house I grew up in. As my parents did, hers sold her childhood home and moved away at the same time she left town to start college. The history of the house from then on is pure fiction. Now I’m working on the fourth Deadly Edits Mystery, tentatively titled Edited Out, and for this one I decided to make use of another house that played a huge role in my childhood.

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Known only as “the farm” by family members, this was the home of my maternal grandparents. It had been in the family for generations and was operated as a summer boarding house from the 1890s until 1958, when my grandmother died and the property, which she owned jointly with her brothers and sisters, was sold. A couple of years later, the farmhouse was destroyed in a fire, but my memories of the place are still vivid more than a half century later.

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first floor

In fact, I’ve used versions of the farm before. Its floorplan was the basis for the house in Ho-Ho-Homicide, one of my Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries, and it is the central setting in a book for middle-grade readers, Boarding House Reach, that I wrote a long time ago and was never able to sell. I still like it. One of these days, if I can find the time required for such a project, I may publish it independently. It’s set in 1922 and based on my mother’s memories of life when she was a girl.

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second floor

But I digress. In Edited Out, which is due on my editor’s desk next June and won’t be published until a year after that, I’ve given Mikki an unexpected inheritance—a farmhouse that has been abandoned since 1958, when a murder was committed there. I won’t go into the plot here. In fact, I can’t really say much about it because I write by the seat of my pants and I haven’t worked it all out yet. The floorplan, however, is settled.

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I was ten when I last saw the real farm, so I asked the help of my remaining cousins on that side of the family to fill in some blanks. Adding what they could recall to what my mother told me when I “interviewed” her back in 1987 and my own memories, I was able to piece together what I think is a pretty accurate reconstruction of the layout. I’m not sure the proportions are right, since the only thing I had to go by was the position of windows in photographs of the outside of the house, but now that I’m actually writing, these plans give me a handy reference for moving characters through the rooms.

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As Mikki sets out to discover the secrets the old house holds, I get to enjoy the (mostly) good memories evoked by writing about a place I loved. I’ve even given a few of those memories to Mikki, although in her fictional world she only visited the farm once when she was young.

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the original farmhouse, back in the 1800s

I find nostalgia can be wonderfully inspiring. What about you, readers? What places from your past are still as vivid in your mind today as they were decades ago? And if you’re a writer, do those same places tend to turn up, thinly disguised, in your fiction?

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With the June 2019 publication of Clause & Effect, Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty books traditionally published. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries and the “Deadly Edits” series as Kaitlyn. As Kathy, her most recent book is a collection of short stories, Different Times, Different Crimes. Her websites are www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com and she maintains a website about women who lived in England between 1485 and 1603 at A Who’s Who of Tudor Women.

Hard Lessons

Vaughn Hardacker here. Since my wife passed (thirteen years ago on October 16) I

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Vaughn

have dreaded October and the feelings it invoked. Well, September has surpassed it by far. On September 3, 2017, my youngest grandson died from injuries incurred in a motorcycle crash–he was just shy of his 24th birthday (which is today as I write this.)

This year, my partner, Jane, lost her older brother to cancer also on September 3…what was it baseball great Yogi Berra said: It’s deja vous all over again.” Later that week an old friend of Jane’s called and informed her that his partner had passed a few days before.

I only wish that I was finished. On September 12, I lost my biggest fan, my sister-in-law passed. Other than my late wife, Shirley had been one of the most faithful and supportive forces in my writing career. When I visited her brother, my brother-in-law Jimmy, he informed me that a niece had also passed away.

This year has been horrible when you consider what  we’ve lost. In August, Lea Wait lost her valiant battle with pancreatic cancer. Throughout my life there has been any number of people who taught me (or at least tried) how to live. My late wife, Connie, and Lea showed me something that is possibly more valuable–they taught me how to die. While serving in Vietnam I saw a lot of sudden violent death; in no way does it compare to the way these brave people died. In Vietnam we knew death was always hanging over our heads, but we were able to push it to the back of our minds because when it would happen was still an unknown. Jane’s brother, Skip (Marvin Hartley Jr), kept telling everyone that he was doing fine and going to beat the cancer in his shoulder, lungs, and brain. He stayed upbeat and did all he could to take care of those around him. No one in our family knew that Shirley was dealing with major health issues. Through out her battle against cancer, my wife maintained her sense of humor laughing and joking with me while we filled out paperwork for her cremation. She consoled our grandson (the same one who I like to believe is with her now) and was so positive that we all were certain she’d win. When the end came it was quick, shockingly so.

After her diagnosis, Lea continued attending writing conventions and events. She smiled and was her usual amiable self in spite of the fact we all saw the weight she had loss and how pale she was. Because I’d fought this battle with my wife, I knew she was in pain and suffering the effects of chemotherapy. Not once did I hear her complain or ask “Why me?”

I don’t know if I have the courage to act as these brave people did. I’m well aware that death is an appointment we all have ahead of us, but we don’t know the date and time. I am now 72 and pretty much stay to myself. However, I have come to realize that there seem to be only three times when a family or old friends get together: weddings, class reunions, and funerals. Unfortunately, there seem to be more of the latter than there are of the other two. A website which keeps track of all of the Caribou High School grads who leave us has become larger and larger. It is fast reaching the point where the list of those who can’t attend reunions exceeds the list of those of us who can. If I had any clue that old age was going to be like this, I wouldn’t have worked so hard to get here.

Many years ago, the Marine Corps taught me: “When you get a chance to eat; eat. When you get a chance to sleep; sleep. You never know when you’ll get another chance.” I am realizing how valuable a lesson that was: When you get a chance to help someone–do it. When you get the chance to tell a loved one that you love them–do it. When you get the chance to forgive someone who has wronged you–do it. Because you never know when it will be your last chance.

I will always miss these people and as I look around at my immediate family I see how old we are and the battles with declining health they are fighting. I will do everything I can to help them and stay positive while around them. As I did with my wife. Until then I’ll do my crying in the dark and while walking in the rain.

 

If You Could Write Like Anyone, Who Would It Be?

Kate Flora: Many years ago, at an author event, someone in the audience asked me, “If you could write like anyone, who would it be?” At the time, I had finally clawed my way out of the unpublished writer’s corner and was still finding my own writer’s voice. The answer to the question was obvious: Like myself, of course. I wanted to write like the best darned Kate Flora that I could.

Two decades, and twenty-one books later, I know that there are many, many answers to [image error]that question. The library is full of authors whose work has magical aspects I would like to have. Of course I would like to write like John Steinbeck, the only writer ever who, after I read Cannery Row, left me writing in his style for a week or two. I would love to write his characters and his hooptedoodle chapters and just generally be able to convey his evident deep fondness for his characters. In his ten rules for writers, Elmore Leonard says this about Steinbeck:

What Steinbeck did in ”Sweet Thursday” was title his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover. ”Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts” is one, ”Lousy Wednesday” another. The third chapter is titled ”Hooptedoodle 1” and the 38th chapter ”Hooptedoodle 2” as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: ”Here’s where you’ll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing, and it won’t get in the way of the story. Skip them if you want.”

 And speaking of Elmore Leonard, who wouldn’t like to write like him, with brilliant dialogue and ways of conveying characters almost entirely through their actions. When I teach, I always read my students Leonard’s Ten Rules for Writers, https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/16/arts/writers-writing-easy-adverbs-exclamation-points-especially-hooptedoodle.html, and then tell them that they can break any of these rules if they

[image error]Writing well enough if, of course, the key. Most of us would love to be able to write like James Lee Burke, who can pull off a ghost story in the midst of a compelling contemporary mystery story in In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. An opening like this can make you glad he disregarded the advice to never open a book with the weather:

The sky had gone black at sunset, and the storm had churned inland from the Gulf and drenched New Iberia and littered East Main with leaves and tree branches from the long canopy of oaks that covered the street from the old brick post office to the drawbridge over Bayou Teche at the end of town. The air was cool now, laced with light rain, heavy with the fecund smell of wet humus, night-blooming jasmine, roses, and new bamboo. I was about to stop my truck at Del’s and pick up three crawfish dinners to go when a lavender Cadillac fishtailed out of a side street, caromed off a curb, bounced a hubcap up on a sidewalk, and left long serpentine lines of tire prints through the glazed potholes of yellow light from the street lamps.

 Go ahead and match that!

This week, I am a prepping to write a short story, due way too soon, that must take a presidential election in a different direction from the way it went. Having decided that Huey Long will be my character, I am immersed in a reread of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. I do not want to start writing like Warren, but I am definitely caught up in his long, deep descriptions of almost everything. At this point in the book (early!) our narrator, Burden, is following an early Willie Stark campaign. He is lying on his bed, listening to Stark pace the follow in the room next door, described thus:

I’d be lying there in the hole in the middle of my bed where the springs had given down with the weight of wayfaring humanity, lying there on my back with my clothes on and looking up at the ceiling and watching the cigarette smoke flow up slow and splash against the ceiling like the upside-down slow-motion moving picture of the ghost of a waterfall or like the pale uncertain spirit rising up out of your mouth on the last exhalation, the way the Egyptians figured it, to leave the horizontal tenement of clay in its ill-fitting pants and vest.

 Whew! I’m impressed but boy is it slow going, and there are 600 pages in the book. As I read, I wonder what Elmore Leonard would have to say about the book. I’m also loving the slow, stately pace of the writing and wondering how a crime scene would feel if I imported some of Warren’s style.

So since I have to get back to my homework, I leave you with this question. Whose writing impresses you? Knocks your socks off? Makes you catch your breath? Makes you want to copy out paragraphs in a notebook to save for future reference?

Happy reading!

 

 

 

Weekend Update: September 21-22, 2019

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be posts by Kate Flora (Monday), Vaughn Hardacker (Tuesday), Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Thursday) and Charlene D’Avanzo (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

Today–Saturday the 21st, at 1:00, some of us will be talking mysteries at the Hiram, Maine library. Will you be there?

Thursday the 26th, Kate Flora will be at the Auburn Library for the annual trustees meeting, doing a mini Making a Mystery program. Hope to see you there.

Here are some writers (and an invaluable spouse) getting ready for a library presentation in Freeport. Do they look anxious to you?

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Maine Crime Writers is still running the “Where Would You Put the Body?” contest – late summer/early fall edition. How do you enter? Send a photograph of your chosen spot to: WritingAboutCrime@gmail.com with “Where Would You Put the Body” in the subject line. There will be prizes for First, Second, and Third place—books of course and other Maine goodies. You may enter no more than three photographs, each one entered separately. They must be of Maine places and you must identify the place in your submission. Photos must be the submitter’s original work. Deadline: September 30, 2019.

 Kaitlyn Dunnett cover reveal! It’s up on Amazon, even though it won’t be out until next June, so here’s the cover of the third Mikki Lincoln “Deadly Edits” mystery.

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An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora

 

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WHAT I DID ON MY VACATION

Dorothy Cannell: I had a marvelous time at the Saint Hilda’s conference in Oxford.  Met some interesting and likeable people, including an aspiring writer I hope will keep in touch.  Exceptionally helpful staff at the Porter’s Lodge, comfortable accommodation in the dorm and great meals starting with a full English breakfast.  My husband, Julian, and I met up with Cathy Pickens and her husband Bob Finley at Boston Airport.  On arriving at Heathrow we decided against taking a train or coach and hired a driver to get us to our destination.  In twenty minutes we were on our way.  We had a day to rest up before the conference began.

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Energy restored, Cathy and I spent every spare minute pursuing our shared passion, hunting down bookstores wherever they sought to hide.  The standout was Blackwells, which I’d been told I mustn’t miss by one of the of owners of Left Bank books in Belfast.  Cathy already knew of it.  We made three visits there.  We also went a couple of times to Waterstones, again great, though lacking the extended history. 

We had immediately adopted a routine.  Agreeing to meet in an hour at the coffee shop, if either ran late the other was more than glad to wait.  Despite the ‘full English’ I would have a cappuccino and buttered scone.  It was fun showing each other what books we had bought and discussing our range of reading interests.  On one occasion we found we had each purchased an Anthony Trollope, in my case The Warden.  On another both had, unknown to the other, bought The World in Thirty-Eight Chaptersor Dr. Johnson’s Guide to Life, by Henry Hitchens

Maigret’s Anger

Maigret and the Killer

Maigret Defends Himself

Maigret Sets a Trap

By the way Rowan Atkinson is playing Maigret in a new series which is available on Britbox. 

This year at Left Bank books I found a couple of reprints of E.C.R. Lorac, a writer I’d never heard of.  What intrigued me was that they came with introductions by Martin Edwards, which included a mini-biography of her life work and how she was viewed during the golden age, that had come to symbolize, to many, Christie, Sayers and Tey.  At Blackwells and Waterstones, whole rows of reprints from other forgotten writers with introductions, by Martin Edwards, were prominently displayed. Of this abundance I restrained myself to seven: 

The Poisoned Chocolates Case, Anthony Berkeley

The Murder Of My Aunt, Richard Hull

Portrait Of A Murderer, Anne Meredith

The Cornish Coast Murder, John Bude

Fell Murder, E.C.R.Lorac

Verdict O Twelve, Raymond Postgate

Excellent Intentions, Richard Hull

What bliss discoveries of ‘my kind of book” are, even in the cause of forgotten or long neglected writers. I was unwilling to ignore Christie and bought:

Miss Marple

The Life and Times Of Miss Jane Marple, by Anne Hart

The bonus of our repeated visits to our desired destinations was that we walked enough to work off the ‘full English’ and got to see a good deal of the city.  Back home, I’ve had the pleasure of corresponding with Cathy about what we are currently reading. We’ve agreed we’d love to put up beds and live at Blackwells for a month, but did bring back part of it with us.  Final thought – Martin Edwards is a treasure for sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm of ‘lost’ books with us.

Happy Reading,

Dorothy

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Hitting the road for more cool Maine stuff

My sister Liz was visiting from Oregon recently, and we took the opportunity to take a day trip up to Piscataquis County, since she hadn’t been there before.

It was rainy and cool out, but that actually added to the coolness of the trip. After checking out a gallery or two in  Monson, we headed up to Greenville, where we visited the remains of the B-52 crash on Elephant Mountain.

The January 1963 crash killed  seven of the nine crew members on board. While investigators picked up much of  the debris to investigate the crash, it was returned to the site for a memorial.

The rainy late afternoon woods added to what’s a really eerie site.

It’s easy to get to, a drive and then walk into the woods. Click here for more info on the crash and directions.

My current in-progress book is in Piscataquis County, but not this part. You can bet this’ll be in some future book though.

Here are some photos (and afterward, we stopped by Lilly Bay State Park for the sunset, so there are a couple of those, too).

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Saying Good-Bye to Maine Crime Writers

by Barb, sitting in her lovely office in her house in Portland, Maine, (something that probably wouldn’t have happened without the Maine Crime Writers)

The time has come for me to say good-bye to Maine Crime Writers. It has been a wild ride!

According to Worpress my first post “My Maine Connection,” was on July 13, 2011. At the time, I only had one published novel, The Death of an Ambitious Woman. My connection to Maine was pretty tenuous. We had owned our former house in Boothbay Harbor since 2005 when we purchased it from my mother-in-law, but 2011 was the first summer I wasn’t working full-time and could spend the season in Maine.

Since then there have been

191 posts by me
1497 comments by me

a testament to my ability to go blithering on.

During the same period I have

fully retired from corporate life and become a full-time writer
started my Maine Clambake Mystery series
had seven books and 3 novellas traditionally published in the series (with another novel coming out on New Year’s Eve)
been nominated twice for an Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel, been a finalist twice and have once won the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction
been the president of Sisters in Crime New England, the co-chair of the New England Crime Bake and served on the board of Sisters in Crime National
started my Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody series and had one book published (with another coming out November 2020).

Far more important than any of these things, I have made so many friends in the deep, vibrant Maine crime writing community, and I have moved to Maine. The latter definitely wouldn’t have happened without the former. I will always be so deeply grateful to the Maine Crime Writers for all the connections and friendships.

The manuscript for the second Jane Darrowfield mystery is due January 15, and the ninth Maine Clambake Mystery is due February 15. As you can imagine, I’m a bit underwater. So I am saying so long, but not farewell. Kate Flora, our founder and schedule-wrangler, has invited me to return to guest, and I fully intend to take her up on it.

If you’re looking for me, I’m around. You can write to barbaraross@maineclambakemysteries.com, or find me on social media:

Website: www.maineclambakemysteries.com
Twitter: @barbross
Facebook: www.facebook.com/barbaraannross
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/barbaraannross
Instagram: www.instagram.com/maineclambake

In the meantime, I hope everyone has the best fall ever, the most glorious time of year in New England.

The River. Thoreau. The Dam … and the River

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This past week I lived at the  Penobscot River. For 35 years I’ve camped by its rapids and under its pines. My husband and I caught landlocked salmon and brook trout, releasing them to shove off our hands the way competitive swimmers urgently buck against a pool wall to return to the water.

It was so cold at night I read under the sleeping bag as my husband slept. I suspect he’d deputized me to dispatch large caddis flies throwing themselves at my headlamp. (I will purge the library book of caddis wings before I return Louise Penny and all her amazing Three Pines’ characters and take out another one of her novels. Like a class for me.) [image error][image error]

You’ll find the Penobscot in my latest novel and, below, here’s a taste of it. (I’m editing Deadly Turn for a late fall release, but this part where the narrator Patton lets down her guard … stays in.)

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(Excerpt) Whenever life stacked up against me, I went to the Penobscot to feel clean and whole—better than someone dressing me in a white robe, dunking me in water, and praying over my head. It was also kind of a cautionary zoo—the last wild rapids—saved—so we could see, hear, touch and smell the real river and know what we’d lost behind dams that clogged its other arteries.

It was past time to get baptized. and no one was around. I left my fly rod by the edge of the pool and stripped down to a black sports bra that covered way more than just my chest, tied a tighter knot on my short’s drawstring, and kicked off my rubber sandals.

Luscious cold bubbles crawled up my arms and legs as the current shoved me around the pool, massaging my skin into goose bumps. Goose bumps. I hadn’t felt cold for weeks. When the drawstring floated free and my shorts slipped to my ankles, I realized whole parts of my body were missing a free wet massage. I tossed my shorts and bra up on shore and floated in the current until my dog’s bark made it through the water in my ears.[image error]

Somehow, in the middle of the river, he’d crawled onto a rock and was tugging at drift wood snagged low on one ledge. When I climbed up to fetch him, I left skin from my toes, knees, elbows, and tender parts on the rock’s sandpaper face.

I didn’t look back at my car because I couldn’t bear to see if anyone enjoyed the show of a naked woman begging her dog to behave. If I had, I might have seen the rising river lick my tires in a warning.

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It rained on Thoreau, too.

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You’ll also find the Penobscot River running through Henry David Thoreau’s The Maine Woods where he writes, “On the 31st of August, 1846, I left Concord in Massachusetts for Bangor and the backwoods of Maine … “[image error]

The Penobscot rapid Thoreau describes below is still alive and “rippling.” (This is my favorite passage.)

“In the night I dreamed of trout-fishing; and, when at length I awoke, it seemed a fable that this painted fish swam there so near my couch, and rose to our hooks the last evening, and I doubted if I had not dreamed it all. So I arose before dawn to test its truth, while my companions were still sleeping. There stood Ktaadn with distinct and cloudless outline in the moonlight; and the rippling of the rapids was the only sound to break the stillness. Standing on the shore, I once more cast my line into the stream, and found the dream to be real and the fable true. The speckled trout and silvery roach, like flying-fish, sped swiftly through the moonlight air, describing bright arcs on the dark side of Ktaadn, until moonlight, now fading into daylight, brought satiety to my mind, and the minds of my companions, who had joined me.”

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Ripogenus Gorge

We almost lost this last vestige of the wild Penobscot with its deep gorge, misted rare plants, leaping salmon, and fierce rapids. (Nineteen dams have already changed the river forever.) This video takes you into the middle of the fight to save what remained from a proposed dam. There’s a much younger me in the footage and the amazing Nick Albans. We, and so many others, fought so hard.   https://bit.ly/2kAQMih

(For more on Thoreau’s Maine woods travels, enjoy this CBS Sunday Morning’s segment, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2197wgDecZk

Enter Maine Crime Writers  “Where Would You Put the Body?” contest – Send a photograph of your chosen spot to: WritingAboutCrime@gmail.com with “Where Would You Put the Body” in the subject line.  Prizes for First, Second, and Third place—books of course and other Maine goodies. Enter up to 3 pics of Maine places, each one entered separately and please identify the place. Photos must be your own work. Deadline Sept. 30, 2019

Jen Returns…With a New Book

It’s been a wild summer out here in Phippsburg, between family visits and home renovations that I was pretty sure would never, ever end (the home reno, not the family visits). I’m very pleased to announce that, despite the fervent desire to just go to the beach all day and forget about the world, I did manage to publish the third book in my Flint K-9 Search and Rescue series, The Redemption Game. It took ages to write this one, but now that it’s out (it was released on August 20), I’m pretty pleased with the result.

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The Redemption Game tells the story of an animal hoarder in Midcoast Maine who is murdered, and whose son – a man in his forties with cognitive challenges – goes missing on the heels of her death. Research for this one had to do largely with the issue of animal hoarding, which has been on the rise over the past decade. According to the Animal Legal Defense Fund, up to a quarter of a million animals in the U.S. alone suffer at the hands of animal hoarders; it is the most serious threat facing companion animals in the country.

Laws to deal with animal hoarders vary from county to county and state to state, and recidivism for the crime is a staggering 100% – in every case, if given the opportunity (and even when not given the opportunity) animal hoarders will take in more animals as soon as they get the chance. It’s hard for most of us to understand how this can possibly happen – animal hoarders are found living in unimaginable conditions, with both their animals and themselves suffering from physical ailments that include malnutrition, parasites, skin conditions, and breathing problems as a result of poor ventilation and the accumulation of feces, urine, feathers, or pet dander/hair.

This is an issue that has proven challenging for law enforcement and animal welfare organizations alike. Hoarding Disorder was added to the most recent update of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), with the following definition: Persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value. It is unclear whether animal hoarding actually falls under this diagnosis, however, because of this key aspect:

The hoarding is not better explained by the symptoms of another mental disorder (e.g., obsessions in obsessive-compulsive disorder, decreased energy in major depressive disorder, delusions in schizophrenia or another psychotic disorder, cognitive deficits in major neurocognitive disorder, restricted interests in autism spectrum disorder).

In a significant number of cases, anxiety, depression, and attachment disorder play roles in the hoarders’ accumulation of animals. Nancy Davis, the animal hoarder in The Redemption Game, was at one time a hard-working, devoted member of the animal rescue community. As of 2010, the ASPCA reported that a staggering 25% of new animal hoarding cases involved animal rescuers. This includes individuals who would simply take the money raised ostensibly for animal care and use it for their own purposes instead, essentially just warehousing animals until the authorities got involved, but the majority of cases involved those who genuinely cared about the animals and at some point became overwhelmed, lost perspective, and were unable to get the help the needed to care for their charges properly.

In The Redemption Game, Nancy is actually based on a woman I met when doing animal rescue out in Oregon. Her trailer in Molalla served as the foster home for a multitude of cats and dogs through a local, otherwise reputable nonprofit animal rescue in the area. Dogs were busting out the seams of the trailer, and I never actually went inside but got the impression from my rescue partner at the time that things were dire. Still, the woman was articulate and appeared clear-headed, and she always had a date for when things would get better (“They’ll be taking a bus-load of the little dogs up to Washington for an adoption day next weekend,” or “We just got a load from California; these guys will be gone within a week.”), so for years nothing was done – despite the fact that many (including my rescue partner and I) reported the conditions and tried to intervene.

By the time we meet The Redemption Game‘s Nancy Davis, the authorities have finally gotten everything in place to confiscate the animals and shut Nancy down…only to find in the morning that Nancy is dead, a house-load of her animals have gone rogue, and her autistic son is likewise nowhere to be found. Things are complicated that much further when someone discovers a batch of kittens in the basement along with another, more grim find: human remains.

Unlike too many real-life animal hoarding cases, those rescued in The Redemption Game have a happy ending.  The cast in this one includes a Newfoundland named Cody, a burly pit bull called Reaver, and the heroic tomcat Cash and his brood of adopted kittens. The story takes place in Midcoast Maine, which meant I was able to include a whole slew of my very favorite people from some of my very favorite places: Jack Juarez and Jamie Flint walk the Rockland breakwater, and the clue that ultimately unravels the mystery comes courtesy of the best pet boutique on the planet, the Loyal Biscuit.

The Redemption Game is on sale now, if you’d like to learn more or pick up a copy of your own. I have readings and signings coming up over the next few weeks, and am so happy to be back here at Maine Crime Writers to tell you all about them!

Jen Blood is the USA Today-bestselling author of the Erin Solomon Mysteries and the Flint K-9 Search and Rescue Mysteries. To learn more, visit http://www.jenblood.com.

 

 

 

Weekend Update: September 14-15, 2019

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be posts by Jen Blood (Monday), Sandra Neily (Tuesday), Barbara Ross (Wednesday), Maureen Milliken (Thursday) and Dorothy Cannell (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

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Maine Crime Writers is still running the “Where Would You Put the Body?” contest – late summer/early fall edition. How do you enter? Send a photograph of your chosen spot to: WritingAboutCrime@gmail.com with “Where Would You Put the Body” in the subject line. There will be prizes for First, Second, and Third place—books of course and other Maine goodies. You may enter no more than three photographs, each one entered separately. They must be of Maine places and you must identify the place in your submission. Photos must be the submitter’s original work. Deadline Sept. 30, 2019

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora