Jennifer Thomson's Blog, page 8

How kill your neighbour - My WIP

She thought she'd something in her eye.
Yes, that title got your attention, but I'm not really advocating killing your neighbour although I am currently writing a crime novel with the working title How to kill your neighbour.

For one thing, it's hard to get away with it because you will be considered a prime suspect due to your proximity to the victim. And that goes double if you've had a yell off with them in front of your other neighbours.
For another, to kill some neighbours would take a stake through the heart or a silver bullet. 

You know the kind of neighbour I mean? The kind that would rather launch a foul-mouthed tirade at you for some imagined slight rather than a 'Good morning.'

Again, I'm only kidding about killing your neighbour. Honest. Where would it get you? Prison for life. 

One person who did get away with killing their neighbour - at least in a short story I read - did it in the most novel of ways. 

The method used was contaminating the solution their contact lenses were in so their eyes started to sting and smart as they drove to work and guess what, they crashed their car and died in the wreck.

I haven't decided how my killer will murder their neighbour but I'll keep you updated on how I'm getting on with Killing my Neighbour.

Why my latest killer force-feeds their victims in Cannibal City (the follow up to Vile City)

In Cannibal City the killer's victims are force-fed in a similar way
Suffragettes were before they're killed
Years ago I lived on an island. Not one of those remote Islands but one of the most accessible ones you are likely to get. One day I was walking past a local restaurant and I was shocked to see something on the menu that's so cruel the production of it is banned in my country but not the sale. 


You can read about what happened next on my companion blog for my book Living Cruelty Free: Live a more Compassionate Life here 

That product was Foie gras which is made by ramming a metal or plastic pipe down a duck or goose's throat so their livers swell abnormally to around ten times their normal size. 

Foie gras is French and translates as fatty liver.​ 

There's never been an appetite for reversing the ban on producing it in the UK where I live because even farmers who could make money out of producing this vile 'foodstuff' find the cruelty involved too much. 


In Cannibal City, DI Waddell investigates a sinister killer who's killing
people and removing their livers
When I was writing book 2 in the Detective in a Coma series (the follow up to Vile City) I wanted to do something a bit different. Come up with a different method of murder whilst also letting people who don't know into the sick little secret of how cruel a 'food' Foie gras is. 

In Cannibal City, my killer craves Foie gras but is so sickened by how it's obtained he decides that he'll make a human version instead. Pretty gross but as well as coming up with a more novel way to kill people, it also gives folk an insight into one of the cruellest things humans eat. 

A food so cruel that when Scottish tennis star Andy Murray discovered what it was he banned it from being served in the hotel he owns. 

If you want to see how it's used in Cannibal City you can check out the book now.




A killer is stalking his victims on Glasgow's streets.
Men are being abducted, kept tied up for weeks and force-fed, then strangled and their livers are being removed.
~Coming April 16th from Jennifer Lee Thomson @jenthom72 and Caffeine Nights~ Pre-order #CannibalCity, the follow up to VILE CITYnow-AmazonUKAmazon.COM 
#Kindle #paperback

Why my latest killer force-feeds their victims in Cannibal City

In Cannibal City the killer's victims are force-fed in a similar way
Suffragettes were before they're killed
Years ago I lived on an island. Not one of those remote Islands but one of the most accessible ones you are likely to get. One day I was walking past a local restaurant and I was shocked to see something on the menu that's so cruel the production of it is banned in my country but not the sale. 


You can read about what happened next on my companion blog for my book Living Cruelty Free: Live a more Compassionate Life here 

That product was Foie gras which is made by ramming a metal or plastic pipe down a duck or goose's throat so their livers swell abnormally to around ten times their normal size. 

Foie gras is French and translates as fatty liver.​ 

There's never been an appetite for reversing the ban on producing it in the UK where I live because even farmers who could make money out of producing this vile 'foodstuff' find the cruelty involved too much. 


In Cannibal City ,DI Waddell investigates a sinister killer who's killing
people and removing their livers
When I was writing book 2 in the Detective in a Coma series I wanted to do something a bit different. Come up with a different method of murder whilst also letting people who don't know into the sick little secret of how cruel a 'food' Foie gras is. 

In Cannibal City, my killer craves Foie gras but is so sickened by how it's obtained he decides that he'll make a human version instead. Pretty gross but as well as coming up with a more novel way to kill people, it also gives folk an insight into one of the cruellest things humans eat. 

A food so cruel that when Scottish tennis star Andy Murray discovered what it was he banned it from being served in the hotel he owns. 

If you want to see how it's used in Cannibal City you can check out the book now.




A killer is stalking his victims on Glasgow's streets.
Men are being abducted, kept tied up for weeks and force-fed, then strangled and their livers are being removed.
~Coming April 16th from Jennifer Lee Thomson @jenthom72 and Caffeine Nights~ Pre-order #CannibalCity the follow up to VILE CITYnow-AmazonUKAmazon.COM 
#Kindle #paperback

Cannibal City (Detective in a Coma Book 2) - the follow up to Vile City - is available on pre-order

Pre-order Detective In a Coma book 2 now"A tough case and your partner is sleeping on the job."
A killer is stalking his victims on Glasgow's streets.
Men are being abducted, kept tied up for weeks and force-fed, then strangled and their livers are being removed.

"Sometimes the monsters are real."
~Coming April 16th from Jennifer Lee Thomson @jenthom72 and Caffeine Nights~ 
Pre-order #CannibalCity the follow up to VILE CITY
now-
AmazonUK
Amazon.COM 

#Kindle #paperback

Cannibal City (Detective in a Coma Book 2) is available on pre-order

Pre-order Detective In a Coma book 2 now"A tough case and your partner is sleeping on the job."
A killer is stalking his victims on Glasgow's streets.
Men are being abducted, kept tied up for weeks and force-fed, then strangled and their livers are being removed.

"Sometimes the monsters are real."
~Coming April 16th from Jennifer Lee Thomson @jenthom72 and Caffeine Nights~ 
Pre-order #CannibalCity the follow up to VILE CITY
now-
AmazonUK
Amazon.COM 

#Kindle #paperback

Yes, there really are ghost brides

In this week's version of who knew? are ghost brides.

So, what exactly is a ghost bride as featured in the Netflix tv show?

It sounds like brides who've died before they've made it to the altar or just after, who are left to wander around for eternity in their wedding dresses.

The truth, my friends is far stranger.

Ghost brides are a real thing and the ghost part doesn't usually refer to the brides. No, it usually refers to their husbands.

It's a Chinese tradition, but a similar thing happens in other countries such as France and even Sudan. Its a marriage in which one or both of the people involved are deceased.

Apparently in China it's usually set up by the family of the deceased for certain reasons. The main one is to marry an engaged couple usually after the prospective groom has passed on so that the unmarried daughter can join the family and keep its lineage going. This would tend to happen if the deceased groom-to-be was the eldest son.

If a "bride" agreed to be a ghost bride she would go to live with her "husband's" family, have to participate in mourning rituals and take a vow of celibacy.

Note - The Ghost Bride Netflix show is based on the novel The Ghost Bride written by Malaysian writer Yangsze Choo.

The Boy in the box mystery - buried without a name

Few unsolved cases can be as sad, as tragic as the case of the boy in the box.

The little boy was discovered completely unclothed in a box in Pennsylvania in the USA on February 25, 1957. Judging from his injuries, the poor little mite had been battered to death.

Despite numerous police appeals, nobody came forward to identify him never mind claim the child.

His murder was a double tragedy. Buried without even a name, somewhere someone should have been mourning the little boy who was just 4 or 5-years-old.

How the little boy mighy have looked
So, who was the Boy in the Box, also known as America's Unknown Child?

Why did nobody claim him as their own?

The police inquiries focused on why his hair had been cut so severely short very closely to his scalp, probably shortly before his death. They believe it was cut to hide the lush big curls he would have had in life so identification would be easier.

Someone must have cared about him. He'd been wrapped in a blanket, but there were signs he'd been starved.

The police printed thousands of leaflets with a photograph of the little boy who'd been posed to look as closely as he would to in life. They hoped someone would recognise him.

Their hopes were dashed.

There were plenty of theories, but none that could be proven -

He was the child of an unwed mother who's father ran a nearby foster home and he wanted rid of the child.

He was a child who'd been raised as a girl and that was the reason his hair had been hacked off.

Whoever the child was, he was never identified and was finally laid to rest for a second time (after he was moved from a potter's field). His funeral was attended by members of the public and paid for by the son of the man who'd first buried the unknown child. The headstone bearing the words 'America's Unknown Child.'

~~~Updates~~~
In 2016, a forensic facial reconstruction was done of his face and he was entered in the the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children database.

In 2018, a top genetic genealogist who helped identify the Golden State killer, said she was trying to use a new DNA profiling to finally give a name to the little boy in the box for the first time.

Why the Vile City title isn't a slur on Glasgow

Since Vile City was published I've had a few people tell me that they love Glasgow and thought the title was having a go at the fair city. What's more the thought of someone picking a fight with Glasgow had
Nothing could be further from the truth.

I lived in the city for well over a decade and came to think of it as home. The people are the friendliest in Scotland and if the Scottish parliament had been located in the best place it would be Glasgow not Edinburgh.

Vile City, a former winner of the Scottish Association of Writers Pitlochry Quaich for a crime novel is so named for one reason and it's nothing to do with the city its based in.

The crimes described in the book namely the abduction of women, are truly vile.

The City in the title is important too as the next 3 books in the series which will be out soon -

Cannibal City - A killer is stalking Glasgow men, killing them and eating their livers.

Vigilante City -
When Douglas John MacDonald stands trial for the rape and murder of schoolgirl Kylie Donovan, everybody expects him to be convicted.
When he walks free there's a public outcry, but not everybody is content to just get angry.
When MacDonald is later found murdered with his pinkie removed just like his 15-year-old victim, the police think it's an isolated incident, but more murders follow and they begin to realise they're on the trail of a vigilante killer.

Romeo City - Dating is quite literally murder.
When Dennis McCombe is found with his throat slit from ear to ear in a bath in an empty house with the words Where's my beloved? written on the bath, the police realise this is no ordinary murder.
A serial killer is on the loose and she’s targeting the desperately dateless in Glasgow on blind dates - and she's just only got started. How else is she going to find her beloved?

Stay tuned and ask yourself - Is Inspector Duncan Waddell going crazy or us his best friend and colleague Stevie who's in a coma, really talking to him?

The Demoralised writer - Sometimes being a writer is like a punch in the face

Sometimes being a writer is like a punch in the face
You've done everything right. You've read the publisher's guidelines in so much depth you can recite them in your sleep. 

You've jumped through the hoops they've put in front of you - they want the first three chapters or first 10,000 words or first 3,000, they want a synopsis of 500/1000 words, they want ideas for the next two books in the series, they want a map of your DNA...You get the idea.

And you do all that. You tailor your manuscript submission to them. Your pitch letter. 

You might even have a personal connection to the publisher and you mention that in your pitch letter.

Now that you have a submission tailored to the publisher you send it off. You cross your fingers and toes and sit back and wait.

Book submissions are like obstacle courses
You expect a bit of a wait. Publishers are busy people. They get a lot of submissions. 

You know from reading their blogs and tweets that a lot of the submissions they get are unsuitable for very obvious reasons -
They don't follow their guidelines.
They're not the types or genres of books they publish.
They're rude, extolling the virtues of the author and saying how lucky the publisher would be to publish their work. 
They're riddled with errors, spelling mistakes.

But your submission should be okay because you've followed their guidelines to a tee. 

You've sent them the kind of book they do publish. 

You've been polite.

But then you get the dreaded email - Thanks for sending your submission in but it's not quite right for us.

No reason is given. You get the distinct feeling that they didn't even read it. 

You get the same generic response as a totally unprepared author, who sent them a submission written on the back of a cigarette packet. 

You know they're busy, but even a quick "we've published too many similar books like this" or "your writing needs some work" would be polite, at least acknowledging the work you've put into your book proposal.

Instead you're left demoralized wondering why did you bother? 

Why did you spend so much time tailoring your proposal, editing that book, doing everything (at least) as far as you know right just to get that dreaded standard letter?

Did they even read it? 

At times like this you have to remember -

*It's not personal. The person who responded is probably busy or overworked or going on holiday and clearing their desk. 

*They might just not be taking on any other books right now although they could just say that.

And here's the nuclear option- 
*Maybe your book isn't good enough. Get another opinion, a professional opinion if you can. A good option if you're well off and can afford it because its expensive. 

If like me you're not and you can't try a peer to peer critique forum where fellow authors read your work. Be warned it can be difficult to find a good one. 

If you think your work is good and publishable now ask yourself this -
Is it really such a bad thing you got a rejection? 

If they pay so little attention to your hard work, how much detail would they pay to editing, marketing and promotion if they had said they'd publish your book? 
Sometimes no publisher is better than a bad one. 

Tell me your stories 
I'd love to hear your stories of how you cope when you get that dreaded standard email. How do you pick yourself up again and does chocolate or wine work?

Why I watch #truecrime

I don't watch #truecrime out of some macabre fascination. To hear gruseome details of how people were hurt.

No, I watch because whilst I do the people who were murdered who never got justice are alive and its like they're telling me "I matter, don't let people forget me."

I hope someone is watching who can get them justice so they can rest in peace.