Lea Wait's Blog, page 304

I ought to ….

Lea Wait, here. It’s October. I know, because I can see orange leaves on trees outside my study window. I’d really love to go for a long walk and breathe in the crisp air before the temperatures drop below freezing.

But I ought to start finding and sorting through the Christmas gifts I buy all year ’round, start wrapping, make lists, and see if I need anything else for my children or their children. I should go through the stack of cartons I always save in case I need to ship something, and pick out those I’ll be using for Christmas The others can go in the barn.

I ought to take a pile of summer clothes to the cleaner’s, and take my winter slacks and jackets out of the closet they’re stashed in. Before the temperatures drop I really need to sew on all the buttons that fell off my flannel shirts last winter. I’m pretty sure I saved them all in a corner of my jewelry box. Which reminds me, I need to clean my jewelry, especially the silver pieces. Tarnish is damaging.

I should call the propane company to make sure our generator is set for winter. And order some kiln-dried wood and biobricks for the wood stove in my husband’s studio. But before that I need to clean out the barn, so there’s space for the wood and the bricks. That means taking old magazines, newspapers and cardboard to the recycling center. And all those bottles in the barn … they need to go to the redemption center. Every five cents helps. Plus, we need space for the bottles we’ll empty during the winter. I should check to see when I’ll be near New Hampshire in the near future, where liquor and wine are less expensive then in Maine. If I make a list of all the libations we’ll need for the holidays, I can get them in the house, and save a few dollars.

I should start bringing the porch furniture into the barn. And cover the porch cushions and put them away, too. I’d better not forget to turn off the outside water before that pipe freezes and breaks. And when I do that, I should drain the garden hose and hang it in the barn, ready for next year. Our mosquito magnet is still out, and the mosquitos are finally gone.  The mosquito magnet should be cleaned and put away for the winter. Which reminds me. The mosquitos and black flies may be gone .. but it’s about time for the mice to arrive. I don’t mind sharing our cellar or barn with them during the winter, but there are electric wires on the second floor of the ell and in the attic. Traps or poison. Must get some.

I should run a few errands. I have a pile of books to donate to the library. The lamp next to my husband’s bed really should be repaired. And I’ve been meaning to stop at the jewelry store to see if any of my watches can be repaired, or whether I’ll have to continue carrying a travel alarm clock around in my pocketbook.

I should really clean the bird feeders before it gets too cold. And put away the bird bath. Oh, and I should really get some of those stakes with reflectors on them to put at the end of the driveway so people – especially people plowing our driveway – don’t plow our lawn instead. Which reminds me. I’d better call the guy who plowed our driveway last year to make sure we’re on his list for this year. I should put down all the storm windows, and put balsam-filled “snakes” on all the window sills and where the top and bottom windows meet. (I should probably look up to see what that place is called, while I’m at it.) I should close off the rooms we don’t use (and therefore don’t heat) in the winter, and block their doorways with blankets or more snakes. I need to replace the screen doors with storm doors and put some blankets between the outside and inside doors. I’d better check the outside lights, while I’m at it. Replacing bulbs in ice and snow isn’t fun.

Oh, and I need to do some writing, too. Get a good start on the three books I have deadlines for in 2015. But before that, I should order postcards and bookmarks for TWISTED THREADS, which will be out in January. (That means getting a lot of labels and stamps, too. I should put them on my list. And stamps for the Christmas cards I should be looking for this time of year.)

And I need to sort through my clothes so I’ll have something to wear (I should have gone on a diet, but it’s a little late for that) to my high school reunion this coming weekend, and to my nephew’s wedding in Phoenix in November, and to the children’s book festival and signings and library talks I agreed to do back in July, when November and December seemed a long time away, and promoting a Christmas mystery (SHADOWS ON A MAINE CHRISTMAS) and a book for children (UNCERTAIN GLORY) at the end of the year made sense. (Did I really schedule three events in two states within a day and a half? Do they need posters or an author bio or bookmarks to promote the events? Have I confirmed all the details? I need to check those things.)

I really should read the new books just published by my fellow Maine Crime Writers. I’ve read one or two, but this fall everyone has at least one book out, and I want to read them all. I’ve had my flu shot, but I should take the cat to the vet for a checkup. Maybe she needs one. I’ve never had a cat before, so I don’t want to make a mistake with her.

First, though, I think I’ll write all these things down. If they’re on a list, I won’t forget them. And it will be fun to cross them out. That list is a good idea.

I think I’ll start it right after I take that walk …

Where Do We Get Our Ideas? We Look Around and There They Are . . .

We crime writers are often asked where we get our ideas. Do we conjure them up like magicians? Keep inspirational dream journals? Scribble down snippets of snatched conversations?

Sometimes, it seems, we merely have to live in the right little town.

Vicki Doudera here, and as you know from many of my past posts, I live year-round in Camden, a town in the midcoast known as “the jewel of the Maine Coast..” If you haven’t yet visited this particularly pretty piece of the Pine Tree State, you owe it to yourself to come. We’ve got gorgeous harbors, Camden Hills State Park with 30 miles of trails, lovely Lake Megunticook, fabulous restaurants such as 40 Paper, a restored Opera House, and much more.

Unfortunately — we’ve also got crime.

You may remember my blog about the woman whose husband pushed her off the top of Mount Megunticook, hoping to kill her so he could pocket her recently inherited millions. A jury found him guilty in July, and Charles Black – now my friend Lisa’s ex-husband – was sentenced to 30 years in prison only two weeks ago.

On the heels of that, there was a stand-off at our downtown pharmacy, a sad situation that resulted in a pharmacist being held hostage while an obviously very troubled man demanded drugs and then took his own life.

And now… ? Two high-profile cases involving the theft of millions of dollars. Neither has yet to go to trial, but, in at least one case, the defendant has admitted his guilt.

The first involves a couple, Jason and Mary Throne, who moved to Maine from Colorado, where Jason worked as a patent attorney for window treatment company Hunter Douglas. The lawsuit claims that beginning in 1999, the Thrones created a company that billed Hunter Douglas for patent search services that were never performed. Allegedly they purchased trophy homes in Rockport (the town next to Camden) and Steamboat Springs, Colorado, as well as automobiles and a boat. The story first broke in Colorado, back in June, then quickly traveled East.

Hunter Douglas’ lawsuit alleges that the Throne’s actions amount to racketeering, the crime of obtaining or extorting money illegally, or carrying on illegal business activities. Jason Throne is still in town, attending high school soccer games while the wheels of justice slowly turn.

And now we have another white collar crime in our little town: embezzlement.

This latest scandal broke last week, and it’s a big one for Camden. It involves a former “Townsperson of the Year,” Russell “Rusty” Brace, who is accused by United Mid-Coast Charities (the organization he headed for seventeen years) of embezzling 3.8 million dollars of charitable donations over a period of a dozen years. Apparently he has admitted to the charges.

I don’t think I’ve ever had the occasion to look up the word embezzlement. It is “the act of dishonestly withholding assets for the purpose of conversion (theft) of such assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted, to be held and/or used for other purposes.”

The big word in this definition is “entrusted.” Unlike the racketeering scheme supposedly run by the Thrones, this crime (if it is proven to have taken place) involved breaking the trust not only of the organization’s officers, staff, and donors, but of all the charitable organizations to whom the money was supposed to flow,of all the people in our area who supported all the fundraising events. The details are still emerging, but if true, this embezzlement represents a huge breach of trust.

Which is why so many of us here in Camden feel very betrayed. And that, when it comes right down to it, may end up to be the biggest crime of all.

All of this comes at a time when I am finishing up the third edition of my book Moving to Maine, a guide for people relocating here, or merely thinking about it. I talk in the book about how safe Maine is, how people rarely lock their doors, how random violence is seldom an issue.

All that is still true, even with Camden’s rash of crimes. Our state is still much safer than most of the country. But even a jewel has its dark side, and beautiful Camden has never been immune to greed, or whatever it is that makes someone want to push his wife off a cliff, demand drugs at gunpoint, or steal millions of dollars from an employer.

 

Where do crime writers get their ideas? Sometimes, sad to say, we are living right in the midst of them.

THE SADDEST MONTH OF MY YEAR

The Valley (The church is on the Canadian side)

VAUGHN HARDACKER here. October is a month that is usually associated with many wonderful things. Of late we here in far northern Maine have had a marvelous Indian Summer with temps in the 80s. During the past two weeks, I have been working for a PAC distributing information about the forthcoming election. I have literally walked from Allagash to Fort Kent and the warm weather, coupled with the foliage being at peak, made me breathlessly aware of how beautiful nature can be when she puts on her fall finery before settling down for a long winter’s nap. The views of The saint John Valley (in Maine we not only have Aroostook–affectionately called THE COUNTY, but we also have THE VALLEY) almost made me forget why I was walking six hours a day.

However, October is also my saddest month. October 16th will mark the eighth anniversary of the passing of Connie, my wife of thirty-six years. If there is such a thing as a soul-mate, Connie and I were souls-mates and remembering her death, at the too-young age of fifty-five, still drives daggers into my heart. She was my inspiration (my novel THE FISHERMAN, slated for release in spring 2015, was her idea), she was my first reader, and, most importantly, she was (and still is) my best friend. When everything and everyone seemed to be working against me, I always knew that Connie was beside me, supporting me and giving me the confidence to go on. She was truly the glue that held our family together. Connie was weak in many ways and oh so strong in others (I am still astonished how this woman, who was terrified by the smallest bird, kept her sense of humor throughout her final battle against cancer and faced death with a strength that I can only hope to have myself). She always had the ability to keep me balanced and was the one constant bond that kept our family together on those times when my insanity threatened to tear it apart. Since her passing our family has become scattered and disjointed–something that I know she is not pleased with as she watches over us. Throughout her six month battle against an aggressive form of cancer, she did her crying in private and hid her fear from her family, sparing us as much anguish as possible.

Connie and I in 1970

Connie’s passing rocked me like nothing else ever has and has made me come to grips with one fact about myself…I don’t appreciate anything until I lose it. I was once told by a therapist that I walk around with a hole in my chest that I believe only a woman can fill. Well, I now walk around with a canyon in my chest that will never be filled until she and I are reunited again.

Connie and I in 1999

Darling Connie, I love you, I miss you and I’m being good so I can join you in the afterlife…

 

It’s Not Your Grandmother’s Library Anymore

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, with a little story to tell you. Part of my regular morning reading is the online Franklin County newspaper, the Daily Bulldog. Imagine me sitting in my chair, curled up with my iPad, and clicking on the newspaper icon to find that the day’s lead story is about a coffee bar opening up IN A LIBRARY!!!

After I wiped the coffee off the gorilla glass, I read the article, my eyes getting bigger and bigger all the while. You can read it for yourself at http://www.dailybulldog.com/db/features/umf-president-kicks-off-mantor-library-transformation-with-ribbon-cutting/ but the gist of it is that Mantor Library at the University of Maine at Farmington has been making some changes. Boy have they ever!

In the mid-1980s, I worked at Mantor Library as a Library Assistant at Circulation. Part of my job was to confiscate food and drink brought into the library by students. That was a big no-no—almost a crime—because spilled coffee and food equals ruined books. You’d think, with the coming of computers, where expensive electronics can be damaged by spilled coffee, that this rule would be even more stringently enforced. Instead . . . coffee bars.

I should have seen it coming. After all, another part of my job was to type the information on card catalog cards into this gigantic computer that fed the information into the system that eventually became URSUS, an online card catalog serving all the University of Maine campuses.

In the 1980s, as you entered the library, circulation was on the left and on the right was a glassed-in area that was first a reading room and later a computer center—back when taking a class in computer programming and learning FORTRAN was considered necessary to use such newfangled contraptions. The next remodeling moved the computers to their own building, circulation to the right of the entrance, and put a reading room to the left. Now that reading room, and the area where my desk used to be, is—you guessed it!—the coffee bar. That’s not the only change. The reference room, where I spent many many hours when I was not working, is now the Student Learning Common, offering clinics, tutoring, workshops, and computers as well as a place to study.

Agnes Mantor, librarian after whom Mantor Library was named

I am assured that there are still three floors of books.

volunteering at Treat Library, Livermore Falls, in 2012

Truth be told, it turns out that I’m more of a dinosaur than I realized. According to Vaughan Gagne, manager of administrative services, Mantor Library is coming late to the practice of putting coffee bars (which also sell bagels, muffins, juices, yogurt, and fruit) in academic libraries. Who knew? She also tells me that the ban on food and drink in the library was lifted a long time ago. These days, I use Mantor Library for research, especially when I need an inter-library loan, but I guess I haven’t been paying much attention when I sail in, check out a book or two, chat with the good folks at the front desk, and zip back to my semi-illegally parked car.

Another newspaper report, this one in the Lewiston Sun Journal, talked about the reasons for the changes—“to keep students actively using the library.” Changes already put in place have apparently doubled traffic at Mantor over the last year. I know that’s good. Library positions tend to be among the first to go when budgets are cut, but there’s still a part of me that longs for the good old days when the emphasis was on physical books. I miss the old-fashioned card catalogs. I also miss the silence. You see, children, once upon a time, back when food and drink were also against the rules, the shushing librarian wasn’t just a cartoon stereotype.

Weekend Update: October 4-5

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kaitlyn Dunnett (Monday), Vaughn Hardacker (Tuesday), Vicki Doudera (Wednesday), Lea Wait (Thursday), and Barbara Ross (Friday).

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

Lea Wait: Happy to hear that large print rights have been sold for Twisted Threads, the first in my Mainely Needlepoint series, which will debut in January. And I’ll be making two appearances this coming week:  Tuesday, October 7, I’ll be joining about twenty other authors at an Author’s Fair at the Fogg Library in Eliot, Maine, from 5 until 7 p.m. And on Saturday, October 11, at 1:30 I’ll be speaking at the Glen Ridge Public Library (the corner of Bloomfield and Ridgewood Avenues) in Glen Ridge, New Jersey — the library where I worked after school and weekends when I was in high school. I’m thrilled to have been invited back to the place where I first started analyzing books and discovered The Writer magazine. That weekend I’m also looking forward to visiting with some old friends, as my high school class celebrates its (really? already?) 50th reunion.

Barb Ross: Speaking of large print, my large print cover is now available. What do you think? The book comes out in January from Maine’s own Kennebec Large Print, an imprint of Thorndike Press.

In other news, I just got word Musseled Out, the next Maine Clambake Mystery will be produced for audiobook by Audible.

Kaitlyn Dunnett: For anyone who has not read my Liss MacCrimmon Scottish-American Heritage series or missed the first couple of books, both book one, Kilt Dead, and book two, Scone Cold Dead, are available right now in the Kindle editions at a special low price of $1.99 each. This is a limited time offer. I don’t know how limited (I’m only the author) but if you’re interested, you can find them here:

http://www.amazon.com/Kilt-Dead-Liss-MacCrimmon-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00EFANRM4/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0DNRCXCQ440QSWPGSNKY

http://www.amazon.com/Scone-Cold-Dead-MacCrimmon-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00DY8B2NE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1412424641&sr=1-1&keywords=Scone+Cold+Dead

In Kilt Dead, Liss returns to her hometown, Moosetookalook, Maine, after a career ending injury to work in her aunt’s store, Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium. After a long day working a booth at the local Scottish festival, she comes back to the shop to discover a body and the investigating officers thinks she’s the most likely suspect. In Scone Cold Dead, Liss’s former dance troupe (think Riverdance, only Scottish), is performing in Maine when someone decides this is a good time to kill off their unpopular business manager. Suddenly Liss’s oldest and dearest friends are all under suspicion.

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. Don’t forget that comments are entered for a chance to win our wonderful basket of books and the very special moose and lobster cookie cutters.

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: mailto: kateflora@gmail.com

It’s Different When the “Story” is Real

Kate Flora here, just back from a quick drive up to Miramichi, New Brunswick, to deliver copies of

Mt. Katahdin from Route 95

Death Dealer to the investigators who are the real life characters in the book. Death Dealer, in case I’ve failed to describe it fully before, is the story of a murder in the small Canadian city of Miramichi, and like Finding Amy, involves a hidden body that is ultimately found in a search organized by the Maine Warden Service.

The drive up to Miramichi is gorgeous and the leaves were magnificent, but it is a long ways away. My eyes are still burning from what is about 18 hours on the road in three days. That drive was interrupted by a book talk at the Newport Cultural Center, where along with the library patrons, I got to visit briefly with two of the wardens, Lt. Pat Dorian, and Lt. Kevin

With Lt. Pat Dorian

Adam, who organized the search for the missing victim. I reminded Pat Dorian that the five year odyssey the book represents is all his fault, since he put me on to the story in the first place.

Burning eyes or not, my heart is full from the welcome I got from my friends up there, and from relief

At the Newport Cultural Center with Lt. Kevin Adam

 

 

that after five long years, I was finally able to reward their faith in me, and their willingness to trust me with their stories, and give them their book.

It has been a lot of years since Finding Amy was published. I’d forgotten how amazing it is when I can actually deliver copies of a newly published book to all the people who helped me learn the story and shape it into a book. A work of fiction takes me from nine months to a year to finish. Nonfiction takes far longer, especially in case like this where there were multiple appeals and two full first degree murder trials. I have hours of recorded interviews, many of them transcribed. I have files full of research, news paper articles, maps, and photographs. I have letters and notes and a huge, fat notebook. Altogether, it fills a small filing cabinet. And unlike with fiction, this story is real–real people’s pain, real people’s fear, real people’s determination to get justice.

What isn’t on paper or in that filing cabinet is the slow building of trust through interviews or the feeling

At the Portage Restaurant with Chief Paul Fiander, Deputy Chief Brian Cummings, and Detective Dewey Gillespie

in the room as some of the most intense moments of the investigation are described or the raw emotion I hear when I’m listening to the actual recording of the dramatic traffic stop where the bad guy is found hidden in a car trunk with a sawed off rifle and an abduction kit, less than half a mile from where one of the detective’s family lived. I can only hope that the words I’ve put on paper capture the intensity of an icy nighttime stakeout in subzero weather, hoping the killer will lead them to his victim, or the hope, endurance, and exhaustion of an all night interview where they hope the killer will tell them the location of Maria Tanasichuk’s body.

At home, sitting at my desk, when I’m working on a true story I am trying to transcribe all that has been shared with me. I’m trying to bring to the page what I’ve seen while I’m observing Maine Search and Rescue Dogs (MESARD) or warden search and rescue dog training. What the bond between handlers and their dogs is like and how they communicate, how they truly are a team. I sit with the detectives in a restaurant near where Maria’s body was found, handing out copies of the book, and I worry that reading the book will take them back to a painful time, despite their ultimate success in putting a probably serial killer away for life.

I deliver a book to the victim’s sister, and give her a hug, and again praise her courage, and that of

Sharon Carroll’s art work featuring her sister Maria.

Maria’s friends, in testifying against a man who scares them, and who they are certain has killed her. She shows me a picture she has made, in an art class, using a photo of herself, Maria, and their sister Betty. It is the only picture of the three of them together.

Here’s how the book begins, and this is REAL:

Sudden light from outside, triggered by motion sensors, stabbed through the blinds and roused the detective from fitful sleep. In an instant, he is fully awake and on his feet, sweeping up his gun from the head of the bed. Keeping a loaded gun by the bed is against all police training, as is keeping a loaded gun anywhere in a house with small children. But when a vicious killer may be stalking your family, all the rules change.

If you’re curious, here are some reviews of Death Dealer:

http://lisahaseltonsreviewsandinterviews.blogspot.com/2014/08/review-of-true-crime-story-death-dealer.html

http://thecrimewarp.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/death-dealer-by-kate-clark-flora.html

A Brief Intermission

Hello from Sarah Graves, writing to you again from Eastport, Maine, where I have just returned from a short trip to the outside world. It only took a few days but I feel I got a pretty good dose of what it’s like in a couple of places out there beyond Moose Island, to wit:

We drove with Evelyn the golden retriever to Afton, Virgina, where the southern end of Skyline Drive meets the northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Near here we visited Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello.

You’ve probably seen pictures of the place, but I’m here to say they don’t do it justice. Outside, acres of tended grounds show how the inhabitants of a huge household could derive a lot of their sustenance from their land if they used every bit of it carefully and well. The gardens have been recreated with the kinds of plants he would have had, and the very extensive cellars show how everything was preserved and stored. Really the place was more like a small village than a house, and the underground sections hive-like in their separate areas for all kinds of domestic industry.

Inside, the downstairs rooms are lovely but unsurprising, with a tiny family sitting room and larger, more formal chambers for dining and entertaining. It’s the upstairs, showing what private life was like here, that got my imagination going. Tiny, sharply- curving stairways lead up and up to narrow halls and small rooms with alcove beds that must have felt smothering in the summer heat. Only on the third floor does the place seem to open up, especially in the dome room, all windows and light.

One third floor room especially caught my eye; called the “cuddy,” it was never meant to be a room at all. Instead it was leftover space after the dome room was built, an unfinished hideaway that was found and furnished by Jefferson’s granddaughters. They managed to get a “sopha” and desk put into it, and used it as their private reading and writing chamber. I want one just like it for myself, and if you do much reading or writing I’ll bet you’d like one, too. Isn’t it perfect? You got down into it by using a pile of boxes for steps, and once the door closed no one would ever know you were there.

This part of Virginia is full of acres and acres of rolling hills, newly mown hayfields, miles of board fences, and old rock walls, plus grand old mansions barely visible behind groves of trees. Of course I imagine dastardly deeds being perpetrated in the mansions and the results of those deeds being buried at midnight on the grounds, preferably by lantern-light. Or the houses might hide operatives guarding spies whose covers have been blown, the dwellings themselves owned by agencies so secret, they don’t have names. But you know, that’s just me.

Winding along the ridgetop of the Shenandoahs, Skyline Drive was built during the Depression by members of the Citizens Conservation Corps, out-of-work men who earned their keep plus money to send home to their families. Well, actually they didn’t build the road itself; that was done by engineers. But they landscaped both sides of it, constructed the rock walls that keep people from flying off into the astonishing views, and put all the land around it back into its natural state. The CCC is a story in itself and one I intend to learn more about; for now I just imagine all of them starting out sad, discouraged and beaten down, but then getting fit and strong, having good work to do, and managing to support the home folks, too, with this excellent project.

After we visited Monticello and the Shenandoahs we went on to Gettysburg, which was a complete revelation to me. I knew vaguely about it, and about Mainer Joshua Chamberlain, the Bowdoin academic who was given a sabbatical to learn some more languages (he already knew nine) so that he would quit talking up the war on campus, but the minute he got the chance he enlisted in the Union Army instead, and ended up pretty much saving everybody’s bacon. But that’s for another time; right now I’ll just say that standing on the very same boulder that somebody once scrambled up onto with a rifle in his hand and a knife clenched between his teeth was an interesting experience.

An Autumn Walk Through Great YA Fiction

What a tangled web we weave

Reading descriptions of new books is extremely dangerous, at least for me. I find myself reading well into the morning hours a couple times each week and the siren call of a partially read book when I should be finishing a backyard project is incredibly powerful. After all, sitting in September sunshine, engrossed in another world beats the tar off raking up rotten apples or sifting dirt. This time around, I’ll share reviews of some books recently enjoyed. While not all are mysteries, each one is worth exploring should the description catch your fantasy. All are available on interlibrary loan through MaineCat.

Undone by Brooke Taylor, Walker & Company, 2008. ISBN: 9780802720757. When you’re fifteen and feeling lost, what do you do? In Serena’s case, she holds on to her friendship with Kori, who did a complete 180 degree change two years ago. She went from being a blonde cheerleader type to what other kids call a ‘dark angel.’ Despite their friendship, Kori won’t tell Serena what happened to flip the switch, but then Serena has some secrets and unanswered questions of her own. Why does she look like Kori? Who is her father? What’s the deal with her mother avoiding meaningful conversations, but leaving post-it notes that say ‘let’s talk’ every time Serena does something that rocks the boat.

When one of their teachers gives them an assignment that asks them to think about ways they might change in the next six months and to list five things they could do that might tempt fate. Kori’s always pushing Serena to stop being so timid and as they create their lists, the secrets begin to mount. Who is the guy that’s instant messaging Serena, but thinks she’s Kori? What do some of the veiled references Kori makes mean? Suddenly it’s too late for Serena to get direct answers from her best friend. Kori dies in a horrific car crash in front of the high school just as Serena and Anthony, her new maybe boyfriend, arrive for class.

Serena is completely devastated, pushing her other friends away and trying to hide under the covers. Her mind can’t accept that Kori is really dead. When she does finally let reality back into her life, she decides she must complete Kori’s list of five, not only to honor her, but to get some answers that she desperately needs if she’ll ever have any hope of moving on.

How she completes them and what she discovers along the way pulled me in so much that the world around me seemed to fade and I was inside the story. That’s high praise for a first book. This one is gritty, sad and at times painful to read, but teens, particularly those who have experienced loss of a friend or who love an intricate plot with interesting characters will eat this book up in one sitting.

The Infinite Sea: The Second Book of the Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey. Putnam, 2014. ISBN: 9780399162428. Warning: Do not even try reading this book unless you read the first one because you’ll be hopelessly lost. In fact many readers may want to reread The Fifth Wave in order to jump right into this one. Second books of a trilogy are particularly tricky. The author needs to build a bridge without giving too much away or making things drag. Well there’s no drag here, just plenty of violence, evil aliens and action. After all, space invaders who have pretty much wiped out 7 billion humans aren’t going to play nice no matter what. I understand the numerous complaints about the book not focusing as much on Cassie and Evan. There’s too much going on that WILL grab the reader for this to bother most who do get into the book. By the end, you’re likely to feel a bit like a wrung out sponge and have plenty of questions you’re dying to have answered in the final installment and that, after all, is what a good middle book should do for readers.

There’s lots of violence in this that might turn off some YA readers, but it’s completely appropriate given the plot. It’s a great addition to both school and public libraries. If you haven’t laid your hands on the first book, do so and give yourself a double-decker dystopian treat. (Rumor has it that the first book is going to be made into a movie).

For those who like their fiction in audio format, here’s one I got a chance to enjoy as a School Library Journal reviewer. It’s also available in print. Pattou, Edith, Ghosting, 1 MP3 CD. 4:25 hrs. Brilliance Audio. 2014. $9.99. ISBN 9781491529638. Maxie has returned to the midwestern town she grew up in after a failed family move to Colorado. School begins on Monday and she’s nervous about how she’ll fit in after everything changing. When Emma, her former best friend, reluctantly invites her to a party, it sets in motion an evening full of self-discovery and mistakes in judgment that set them on a collision course with tragedy. Told in alternating voices and viewpoints by the girls, along with their other old friend, Felix, Chloe, Brendan, Emma’s very angry and impulsive boyfriend, and Anil, a quiet, but very smart son of two physicians, the teens pull listeners into what could have been an uneventful last night before school starts. Instead, the tension ramps steadily upward and expands to include a sad and possibly mentally ill boy living with his grandmother as well as the sheriff and Emma’s younger sister, Faith.

This is a terrific audio book, one that teens will relate to because many of them will have had nights that could have gone this wrong. The cast is excellent as is the pacing. A great choice for both school and public libraries.

Fiendish by Brenna Yovanoff, Razorbill, 2014. ISBN: 9781595146380. Want creepy? Want Southern Gothic with a paranormal twist? Read this book and get both. Clementine has been hidden away in the cellar under what remains of her house. She’s held by willow roots and floats in a dream state, aware of subtle sounds and movement around her. She’s been there for years, ever since someone took her there during what was called The Reckoning, a time when townspeople went crazy and torched homes of those they thought were involved in the Craft. When a strange boy named Fisher frees her, she discovers it’s been years since that insane night. Her home is destroyed, her mother dead and her favorite aunt wanders about in a haze, unable or unwilling to recognize her.

Clementine struggles to adjust with the help of her cousin Shiny who also possesses the power townspeople refer to as the Craft. Shiny tries to warn her off Fisher, but the attraction between the two is too powerful. They, along with Rae, a black girl who wasn’t targeted during the Reckoning, Fisher and Davenport, the sad daughter of a really crazy and dangerous man, make up a group Fisher’s grandmother says matches a surreal star painting that hangs in town. When they all become aware of their connection, the Craft in a scary area known as the Hollow, starts coming to life again and the teens must find a way to get things back to normal (or as normal as things can get when you live in a really creepy and unstable place).

How they survive makes for a really gripping read. There’s violence and creepiness aplenty, so I wouldn’t suggest this for younger teens. YA readers who like industrial strength strange with some very interesting characters will really like this book.

Love, Inc. by Yvonne Collins and Sandy Rideout. Hyperion, 2011. ISBN: 9781423131151. Zahra’s stuck between splitting parents. That’s bad enough, but her Pakistani grandparents have arrived for an extended stay and are driving her crazy as they turn her mom into some sort of squishy religious stranger. To add insult to injury, she’s been sentenced to group therapy because her estranged parents can’t communicate with her and think that therapy will fix, by proxy, the mess they created and can’t deal with.

The group is a mix of boys and girls, all of whom have unstable and/or divorcing parents.

There’s cynicism aplenty and at first, very little mutual support. When Zahra, Kali and Syd all realize they’ve been dating the same guy, they suddenly have a target to focus all their anger and frustration. Eric, aka Rico, aka Rick loves his fancy rebuilt car, so the girls hatch a plot to trash and befoul Miss Daisy as he calls his ride. Their scheme is not only well done, but the description as they complete it is funny as heck.

Word gets around and it isn’t long before the three girls realize there’s plenty of money to be made exacting revenge for other kids, but why stop there. It doesn’t take long for them to start taking on spying assignments for other teens who suspect their significant other is cheating on them. It’s just a skip and a hop from this to facilitating breakups and finding the perfect match for teens floundering in the dating pool.

Too bad Zahra can’t find her own hottie, even though a perfect match is right under her nose. Toss in more and more stress from her grandparents, worry over what’s happening to her younger sister, some jobs that go too well and a few that go bad, plus a dog in desperate need of a pacemaker and you have one great read. Teens who like a smart, sassy and funny romance will eat this book up in a couple sessions. It’s definitely one to add to any library that likes to provide teens with good reading material.

A Little Something Different by Sandy Hall, Swoon Reads, 2014. ISBN: 9781250061454. Do we realize how many people watch us? Lea and Gabe are two shy, awkward and undeniably likable college students. When they find themselves in the same creative writing class, it’s clear to Inga, the instructor that they are the ‘couple’ for that semester. She’s picked two students every term that she’s convinced are made for each other and has often tailored the assignments to help them find each other.

Inga’s not the only one who realizes that Lea and Gabe are meant for each other. The barristas at the local Starbucks get it, Maxine, the older and slightly cynical but still romantic waitress at a nearby restaurant sees their unconscious attraction, Gabes’ older brother Sam in in, as is Lea’s roommate Maribel. Heck even the friendly campus squirrel and a bench that thinks Gabe’s butt is the best one that ever sat on it gets their unconscious mutual attraction. In fact Lea and Gabe are possibly the least aware of how made for each other they are…At least when they’re near each other.

Told from fourteen different viewpoints, this is a maddeningly delightful love story. At times you want to scream something like “Can you two get a clue, for heaven’s sake?”, but as their history is revealed, particularly the tragic events that affected Gabe during what should have been his sophomore year, you can’t help but become sympathetic and start rooting for them to get that bag of clues that’s dancing in front of them.

This is a risky book. Keeping this many viewpoints clean and interesting is no mean feat, but the author pulls it off quite nicely. Teens and many adults who remember how awkward the dating scene was when they were younger will like this book a lot. It’s certainly a good addition for both school and public libraries.

A Hitch at the Fairmont by Jim Averbeck, illustrated by Nick Bertozzi, Athenum, 2014. ISBN: 9781442494473. Jack’s quite an artist for his age. He can draw almost anything, even places and people he’s seen very briefly. All he has to do is close his eyes and grip a pencil and something magic happens. Sadly, the only exception to this is his late father who was killed in World war II. No matter how hard Jack tries, he comes up blank. Before she vanished by driving a car into the ocean in an apparent suicide, his mom, a small time actress, told him that he looked just like his father.

The story opens in 1956 with Jack being hauled off from Los Angeles to San Francisco by his aunt Edith who not only is cruel and cold, but didn’t give him time to pack his own belongings. Instead, she packed two crates, one with some of his stuff, the other with stuff his mother left behind.

When they arrive in San Francisco, Jack discovers that his aunt is a permanent resident on an upper floor in the Fairmont Hotel and doesn’t trust anyone. She’s addicted to fancy chocolates which he has to get from a shop on the hotel’s main floor whenever she’s out. When he goes to get on the elevator for a late evening chocolate run, he’s greeted by a large man whose voice is eerily familiar. Jack recognizes one of his favorite TV personalities, Alfred Hitchcock and notices that he enters the room next to Aunt Edith’s.

When he returns with the chocolates, Jack discovers that his aunt has been kidnapped and a ransom note has been spelled out on her bed in chocolates she’d discarded because of their flavor. At first, he’s frozen and ready to panic. What can a ten year old boy who has recently been orphaned do? When he remembers who is in the next room, he begins to take control of things. It is a challenge to convince Mr. Hitchcock to help him, especially since he has a fear of policemen, but despite a comedy of errors when they try to report Aunt Edith’s abduction, Jack manages to get Alfred to help figure out what really happened to his aunt, why one of the supposed ransom notes may not have come from whoever grabbed her and what the real significance of the seven characters on the silver coffin-shaped charm allegedly left by his deceased father is. Before the crime is solved, Jack and his hero have disrupted the funeral of a perfect stranger by singing bawdy lyrics, dressed in drag, outwitted some really evil people and discovered an amazing secret about Jack’s late father. This is a fun read for tweens who like mysteries and books with plenty of action. If they know anything about the history of early television, that will make this even more fun to read. It’s a book worthy of a juvenile Edgar nomination as well as being in pretty much every public and school library.

In Too Deep by Coert Voorhees, Disney Hyperion, 2013. ISBN: 9781423140351 . Annie Fleet doesn’t fit in as well as she’d like at the exclusive private school she attends. She’s on scholarship because her dad teaches there. He gave her his love of history and of lost treasure ships, but lost his own enthusiasm along the way. Her mom runs a barely breaking-even dive shop. Scuba diving is Annie’s other passion. Most of the teens attending the school have rich and famous parents like Josh, the son of a famous movie star that she’s crushing on. There’s no way on earth, she’ll ever get even a glance from him, or is there?

When Josh wants to get certified so he can dive on a trip his mother is planning, he uses Annie’s mom’s shop, but Mom thinks Annie’s better qualified to teach him. Josh, however, blows off the manual and what Annie is trying to teach him. The result is his nearly drowning in the practice pool and Annie has to perform rescue breathing. It’s not the way she’s imagined their mouths meeting, but it starts a slightly different connection between them, one that will drive her nuts as the story progresses.

Annie, Josh and siblings Kate and Nate are the only ones in her history class willing to sign on for a humanitarian trip with their teacher. Annie desperately wants to take her diving gear along, but Mom and Dad nix that. However, when the teens reach their destination, it’s soon clear that something else is going on. When their teacher convinces them that he may know the location of a clue to the Golden Jaguar, a huge gold statue supposedly left behind by Cortez, Annie’s all over diving for it, even if it means doing so at night and in unfamiliar waters. She’s nearly killed in the process, but finds something that just might lead to the mythical statue.

Unsure who to trust, she decides to keep her find a secret until she can figure out what to do. This is where things speed up and get really interesting. Between her roller-coaster relationship with Josh, made even more up and down because she’s pretty clueless about guy stuff, and the way she and Josh have to try and stay one step ahead of the bad guys, the story grabs you and doesn’t let go until the last page. There’s a great mix of action, mystery and romance here, creating a book that teens will really like.

Life Between Worlds

Dorothy Cannell, freshly out of writer’s jail, has this to report:

This past month has been another of those times when I exist in a fuzzy state of being on reaching the end of a book, this one Death in Dovecote Hatch, which follows Murder at Mullings published last year by Severn House. This new series featuring Florence Norris, housekeeper at Mullings, and George Bird, owner of the local pub is set during the early nineteen thirties in England, a world for me as a writer with appealing differences from today. One of these is that car and cell phones did not exist, avoiding the question: Why on earth does the nincompoop sleuth not summon help on instant dial when he, or she, stranded in a stalled vehicle on a lonely country lane, beholds the armed villain emerging through the dusk? Another appealing difference is the speech patterns and mannerisms of the period, the readier acceptance of class distinctions to be scrutinized.

What interests me, particularly so with women, is the desire of some amongst the ‘lower orders of society’ to improve the lot accorded them by the supposed importance of knowing one’s place in life. And yet, again as a writer, there is nostalgia for the vanishing world of the gentry and nobility with their ancestral homes and vast estates. Much of what occurs in Death in Dovecote Hatch revolves around the village of that name with its postman and his wife amongst the central characters. For the past couple of weeks I have been back at Mullings, the great house of district occupied for hundreds of years by the titled Stodmarsh family; though not of course by the same members of it, the human age span however generous to some being woefully short.

This is the world that has absorbed me in my basement hideaway to the point where reality has become decidedly fuzzy when taking a break to unwind my fingers.

Yesterday (or could have been the one before) I summoned my husband Julian into the drawing room. He did not knock before entering but I refrained from criticizing because he would have pointed out that there is no door between the kitchen where he’d been standing and where I was seated on the sofa – it is all one room. Also butlers are hard to find these days.

“Ah, there you are Cannell! Took your time getting here!”

“I beg your pardon, Madam,” he inclined his head. “I was in pursuit of the washing up.”

“Was it running away?”

“Oh, no, Madam, ‘pursuit’ was the wrong word; I should have said ‘engaged’.”

“To what? The crockery or the cutlery? This modern thinking is deplorable! Pray do not tell me they are likely to have knife fights over you, or I will have the vapours!” His hearing is not what it should be.”

He cupped an ear. Some member of the lower crust is invariably cupping an ear in Death in Dovecote Hatch. “Did you say, Madam, that it’d get in the papers?”

“No, I did not!” I’d forgotten what topic we’d been on. With all I have to do each day languishing on my sofa this is more than understandable. “And here I was, Cannell, about to compliment you, despite your occasionally over familiarity, for stepping up to the plate recently.”

“A pleasure, Madam. Not to boast, I wonder if you happened to observe that I actually stepped on one this morning – you having placed placed it on the floor after partaking of the breakfast I’d brought in for you. And very sensible if I may presume to say so, objects not getting knocked off floors.”

“Thank you, Cannell.” I graced him with a patrician smile. “When speaking of your stepping up to the plate I meant in regard to Master Simeon.”

“Ah, yes! The Siamese kitten.”

“If you must refer to him in that dismissive, one might say, derogative way, yes.”

“I beg your pardon, Madam. As you instructed I have been teaching him to drive.”

“Not in the Bentley, I trust.”

“Most assuredly not. One of those small, circular, robotic vacuum gadgets. Master Simeon having finished his Russian lesson, he is presently practicing the violin, endeavoring to master Three Blind Mice.”

That is pleasing to hear, although I had hoped he would have moved on to Bach. “What is that you’re holding, Cannell?”

[image error]“The grocery list you wrote out for me, Madam. All items are clearly written, but I am somewhat perplexed by the one for small, flat frozen people. I had thought you leaning towards vegetarianism this week.”

“So I am, Cannell. How tiresome of you this is! You must know I wanted the cheese only kind.”

“Ah, pizzas!”

“As I undoubtedly wrote!”

“I’m afraid not, Madam!” He had the impertinence to tap the paper. “I must say this comes as a vast relief. I was picturing myself going up and down the frozen aisle, stopping other shoppers asking if they knew where the small, flat, frozen people would be.”

I waved a dismissive hand and he retreated outdoors where undoubtedly in another era he would have jammed a cigarette in his mouth and smoked his head off. This reminded me that during the period of which I am writing smoking was encouraged, thus providing for some physical action during passages of dialogue or reflection. I was happy in my retreat to Dovecote Hatch, where Inspector LeCrane, elegant and aristocratic, has a slim silver cigarette case, and even that worthiest of men, George Bird, smokes the occasional pipe.

 

 

IS THE GOVERNMENT WATCHING ME?

Susan Vaughan here.

Recent revelations of government mass collection of emails and other spying have prompted me to consider how my research for books might trigger FBI or NSA attention. When I began writing romantic suspense, researching meant walking into a library building and sitting down with large tomes or calling on experts in person or on the phone. Sometimes fascinating but tedious and slow. For my first published book, I telephoned the Drug Enforcement Agency in Boston with a list of questions. The Public Information Officer required that I send in personal information including my Social Security number. I also had to ask my employer to send her a letter verifying my identity and upstanding character. A month later—yes, a month—I  was able to ask my questions—make of pistols, make of vehicles, etc. Basic stuff. That still didn’t mean the PIO would answer. She did share the weaponry but wouldn’t reveal what vehicles they drove. Now the information I wanted can be found on the Internet.

DEA SUV

The standard issue pistol is a Glock 19, and the vehicles vary depending on the case, some labeled DEA, some anonymous, like this one. But hmm, does my search engine then alert NSA?

For another book, I wanted to know if it might be legal to carry a pistol on an airliner. And if so, what were the procedures and requirements. Easy research. I popped over to the Transportation Security Administration website and found my answer.

The above were confiscated at an airport security check. “Oh, officer, I forgot I had my gun in my carryon/handbag/camera case.”

Except for certain trained law enforcement personnel and air marshals, the answer is no weapons in carryon luggage. Weapons in checked baggage must follow certain regulations and inspection. But does the TSA know I visited their site to look for that?

I had a story idea involving a person who supposedly died in a disaster—earthquake, hurricane, terror attack—but who took the opportunity to disappear because of, take your pick: abusive husband, mob hit contracted, had committed a crime. So I wondered how disappearing could be accomplished in this age of electronic everything and security check. Staying anonymous is easier for illegal immigrants who’ve never had legal status than it is for citizens.

You need money, credible identification, transportation, and probably a fake birth certificate and a fake Social Security number. I learned on many websites that today it’s very difficult, but possible. Not that I’m thinking of disappearing, of course. Are you listening, FBI?

For my current project, a mystery not a romantic suspense, I need to know how to hack into a cell phone or a person’s cell phone records. Does the hacker need physical access to the phone? Or is the phone number enough?

I haven’t looked this up yet, but if anyone’s paying attention, I want it known that even if I learn the answers to my questions, I haven’t the technical expertise to carry off hacking of any kind.

*** My newest release is one of 10 in KILLER ROMANCES, a boxed set by 10 romantic suspense authors, only 99 cents for a limited time. My contribution is PRIMAL OBSESSION. You can find more information and buy links at www.susanvaughan.com.