K.B. Pellegrino's Blog, page 27

Market Street Bookstore-Mashpee Commons – Cape Cod

It was a rainy day yesterday on Cape Cod. Our friends and we determined to enjoy the day by pulling ourselves away from our covered decks studying the sea. We set off for Mashpee Commons and were thoroughly entranced at the constant traffic into what I think is an iconic bookstore, The Market Street Bookstore at 31 Market Street. The proprietor greeted each customer with the friendliest interest in their needs. She knew every book requested. If it was not in stock, she guaranteed the day of d...

Settings for mystery novels

What settings do you think are best suited for a murder mystery? Your first reaction is probably based on the visuals from movies and television: parking garages, dark nights on city streets, hospitals, high rise office buildings, lonely country roads, etc. Settings are important because they present the backdrop of a particular murder. A damaged and distressed family life, most notable homes where drug or alcohol is abused, often is the backdrop for murder. We see those people and their home...

Sunnyside Road (Paradise Dissembling)

It’s Tuesday and my book Sunnyside Road (Paradise Dissembling) is now available at Liferichpublishing.com, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, iBook. Soft and hardcovers now available. Ebook available shortly. Read about the horrors happening on Sunnyside Road, an American lifestyle street typicallyseen in communities like yours. What happens when life doesn’t meet the expectations of the residents? How do they feel? What do they think about? Are the police ever going to identify and arrest the s...

Mid-Summer Sunday

Moderate weather at 81 degrees, today on a mid-summer day, leaves us conspiculously lazing around water: ocean, lake, river, stream, swimming pool, artificial waterfall, etc. It does not matter what or where or why or how you are in this spot. Water and lazy observations of water soothe the overwrought mind. Business problems trickle down the highway to nowhere. There is always tomorrow. Domestic duties somehow do not appear important today of at least not for another hour. If you are in a sh...

Ready for Creatively Writing!

How much does weather have to do with our actions, murder, lying, cheating, stealing, and the opposites of kindness, love, and giving. I love to blame the weather. I always feel that mystery stories set in cold, or raining, or blistering hot temperatures set the scene. Today, a Tuesday, I felt slightly discombobulated as Mary Poppins might say. First warm and humid from the rain last evening and then the clouds opened up. Now it feels more stable. I was ready, I thought to tie the weather int...

Choosing conscience over no conscience. Perhaps there’s no choice!

In my mind and in many minds, having a conscience, despite its inherent constraints on our wants and desires is preferable to having no conscience. But do we get to choose whether to have a conscience? Some think that we may make choices about everything in life. However, there is growing evidence that being without a conscience may not be a matter of choice; that some are born without a conscience, often called sociopaths. Think about the concept of never being aware of anything but your own...

How important is the corpse in detective fiction?

I just read a quote from mystery writer Ross MacDonald who said, “The detective isn’t your main character, and neither is your villain. The main character is the corpse. The detective’s job is to seek justice for the corpse. It’s the corpse’s story, first and foremost.”

Makes you think, this quote. But and I say but, the corpse is certainly the source of the drive to find justice for an injustice. After all killing anyone is the greatest evil we envision, but if left to the corpse, nothing wo...

Mystery of Writing Murder Mysteries

Hi All,

Is there a mystery to writing a murder mystery? After all there are only so many elements to think about in the genre; right? There must be a setting. There must be a plot. There must be a murder. There must be a murderer, killer, or someone held accountable. There must be clues for the reader that are recognizable by a careful reader. There must be a protagonist who is normally the investigator or detective who follows a process to reach a conclusion on ‘who dunnit’. And most importa...