Lois Duncan's Blog: Discussion Group "Lois Duncan Roxx"

OUR DAUGHTER'S MURDER

Many of you have been following my accounts of our family's on-going investigation of the murder of our youngest child, Kaitlyn Arquette, chased down in her car and shot to death at age 18. (The details of the case are in my non-fiction adult book ONE TO THE WOLVES: ON THE TRAIL OF A KILLER, with a foreword by the late Ann Rule.)

Two new events have recently occurred, both of them good.

(1) The Cold Case Investigative Research Institute has launched their own outside investigation.The CCIRI is a collaboration between over 20 colleges and universities across the country with approximately criminology 2000 students and over 600 experts in an assortment of areas including forensic specialists, attorneys, crime scene analysts, specialists in drive-by shootings, etc.

(2) A Face Book friend has created a Web Site for people who want to keep up with the case, ask questions and offer input. That page is athttps://www.facebook.com/pages/One-to.... It would mean the world to our family if you'd visit and "like" that page, and ask your friends to do the same. We need all the help we can get and sometimes red flags will jump out at readers of ONE TO THE WOLVES that we, who have been working on the case so long, have become blind to.

I'm now a "Grand Master"!

Yes, you read that right. My husband and I just returned from New York City where I--and fellow author James Ellroy--were named "Grand Masters" at the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Awards Ceremony. That's a life achievement award and places me in the company of people like Stephen King, R.L. Stine (whom I met for the first time in person), Alfred Hitchcock and Mary Higgins Clark. Is it any wonder I'm excited! https://youtu.be/7G8yZmZkXGw?list=PLi...

WRITTEN IN THE STARS

I don't know how many of you are aware of the new line of "retro YA classics" that is being published by Lizzie Skurnic bks at IG publishing. These are best selling YA bks from the 50s-80s that have long been out of print, & Lizzie is giving them a chance to be reborn so a new generation of young readers can enjoy them.

The first bk she published was my novel, DEBUTANTE HILL (1957). What's really fun about that one is that the photo on the cover of a bunch of teens at a drive-in was taken by my father, & I (at age 16) am in the foreground, wearing a red shirt.

They'll be bringing out several more of my early books, but the one I am most excited about is WRITTEN IN THE STARS, a collection of some of the stories I was writing & selling to magazines when I was in my teens. These have never before been published in book form,& I'd forgotten that most of them existed. Now, when I read them, I can't believe I really wrote them. Once again, my photo is on the cover--this time a picture of me at about 18, with a notebook on my lap, dreaming up the plot for a new story. How old-fashioned I look!

Publication date for WRITTEN IN THE STARS is April 15, but it can be pre-ordered on Amazon.com. I hope you will want to read it and see how my career started. In retrospect, my life as a writer truly was WRITTEN IN THE STARS.

ONE TO THE WOLVES: ON THE TRAIL OF A KILLER

Today my new book, ONE TO THE WOLVES, was published as an e-book by Planet Ann Rule. It's available for download to Kindles, Nooks, and most other e-readers.

This is, perhaps, the most important book I've ever written, as it picks up the true story of the murder of my teenage daughter, Kaitlyn Arquette, at the point where the first book, WHO KILLED MY DAUGHTER?, leaves off. You don't have to read the first book in order to read this one, as each book can stand on its own. I believe that readers will be as horrified as we were to discover how the Great American Justice System really works.

Another unique thing about this book is that the picture of a wolf on the cover was drawn by Kait when she was ten. Apparently she was already having nightmares about the predator who would come for her eight years later. I suspect this is the first time that a murder victim created the cover for a book about her own murder.

THOSE BLASTED CELL PHONES!

Who would have guessed that the invention of cell phones would cause me so many problems when I started updating my old suspense novels to the present day! I never fully realized how many of my plots pivot upon the fact that the characters are cut off from communication with the outside world. In DOWN A DARK HALL, the girls can't contact their parents to report the awful things being done to them, because they're locked in a boarding school with the only phone located in the head mistress's office. In LOCKED IN TIME, Nore can't call Dave to come to her rescue because there is no house phone. In I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, there is no possibility of immediately phoning for medical help after the hit-and-run accident; they have to drive into town and search for a phone booth.

But today, all the characters must have cell phones and, in some cases, lap top computers.

I'm frantically orchestrating situation after situation -- trying not to make them all the same -- in which the phones haven't been charged or (in Nore's case) got runined when Gabe tried to drown her in the river, or, in DOWN A DARK HALL, are out of the area of reception.

In SUMMER OF FEAR, there's an unrelated problem. A key element in that story is that it's impossible for a witch to be photographed. That worked fine in the original version. But, today, every plane passenger must show a photo ID. How does the witch travel? (This is a witch from the Ozarks, who lives like a normal person, not someone from THE WIZARD OF OZ, who would get on her broomstick.

This process is fun. It's like putting together puzzles.

CONTROVERSIAL SUBJECT MATTER

I'm updating my older novels for new paperback editions by Little Brown and currently am working on DON'T LOOK BEHIND YOU, in which my characters watch a re-run of the Disney classic, "Song of the South." (I needed that, because later Brer Rabbit's line, "Don't throw me in the briar patch!" plays an intricate part in the plot.) My editor surprised me by saying, "Maybe you can find another film with a similar scenar? That particular film has become very controversial."

How sad! It's an enchanting movie -- one of the first, I believe, in which photography and animation were combined. I still find myself singing, "There's a Bluebird on My Shoulder." It's based on the beloved Uncle Remus stories. Yes, it was laid in a time of American history in which slavery existed in the deep South, but why should there not be literature -- or movies -- involving that time period? It DID exist, and you can't erase it from history. Does this mean "Gone with the Wind" should be thrown in the dumpster as well?

WHO KILLED MY DAUGHTER? Message board.

Those of you who have read my non-fiction adult book, WHO KILLED MY DAUGHTER?, which I wrote to keep the facts of our daughter's unsolved murder from becoming buried, might be interested in following our family's on-going investigation of Kait's death at http://www.kaitarquette.arquettes.com. Once you've reviewed the information and the crime scene photos, be sure to take a look at the message board. Much of our new information has come from tipsters who post there or from outside crime scene experts reacting to the photographs.

I Know What You Did Last Summer -- book vs. movie

I keep getting e-mail from kids who are doing book reports on I Know What You Did Last Summer and say things like "My favorite part was when Julie was trying to hide in the ice chest and found the heads of her two best friends." That's when I know they didn't read the book at all. That scene took place in the movie, not in my novel.

When a production company options a story, the author loses all control. Hollywood takes over, and the script writer can change "the property" in any way he chooses. I had no idea my book was being turned into a slasher film until I went to the theater, (buying my ticket just like everybody else), and sat down to watch it. The lights dimmed and there was a scenic view of the ocean. How could that be? My story was laid in New Mexico. Then a fisherman with an ice hook appeared on the screen. He wasn't in my book. By now I was starting to think I'd walked into the wrong theater by mistake. But, no -- up came the title -- I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. I was bewildered. Who was that fisherman, and what was he going to do with that ice hook?

Well, I soon found out. He was going to decapitate my characters. Heads flew off, blood spurted, the audience screamed, I SCREAMED -- I was so horrified I couldn't even open my popcorn. The first thing I did when I staggered out of the theater was phone my married daughter, Kerry, and tell her, "Don't let my grandchildren see it!"

So, never, NEVER judge a book by the movie. Usually they have little, if anything, in common.

I've been terribly embarrassed by this movie, despite the fact that it was a box office hit and made my novel a best-seller.

My New Challenge -- Updating Old Books

I'm involved in a new adventure! Here's the background -- Little, Brown, who was the original publisher of most of my YA suspense novels, has been leasing paperback rights to those books to Dell. Those leases get renewed at regular intervals. Little Brown now has started their own line of paperbacks, and want to bring those books out themselves. So, as Dell sells off their back stock, they aren't reprinting them. Little Brown will be bringing them out as paperback trade books, three at a time, until they're all back in print.

Meanwhile, I'm in the process of bringing some of those older books,(some published as long ago as the 60's),into the 21st Century. Nothing drastic -- the stories and characters have held strong over the years and won't be changed in any way -- but the characters in the books will have cell phones, computers, digital cameras, etc. I'm having a lot of fun doing this. One of the first books to be published in this new format will be Don't Look Behind You, due out this coming September.

Out-of-Body Experiences

People who read Stranger with My Face often ask me if I believe in astral projection. I do today, because I have experienced it. Out-of-body experiences are most likely to occur during times of extreme physical or emotional trauma. People who undergo emergency surgery sometimes describe "rising to the ceiling" and looking down with interest as medics work on their bodies. In my own case, the trauma was emotional. In 1989, my youngest daughter, Kaitlyn, 18, was murdered. Overwhelmed by grief, I cried myself to sleep, and shortly before dawn I awoke to the strange sensation of heavy vibrations starting in my feet and moving slowly up through my body to center in my chest. Then I experienced the sensation of being manually lifted, as if I were in a hospital bed with a back that could be raised mechanically.
A moment later, without having moved a muscle, I found myself in an upright position. I looked down at the bed and saw my body lying there. The instant my eyes caught sight of it, I was snapped back into it as if I were attached to it by an overstretched rubber band.
That same thing happened on several occasions. I was never able to induce such events or control where they took me, as my character Lia could in my fictional novel. They happened on their own and have become less frequent with the years. They seldom happen now.
It should be noted that those experiences occurred years after I wrote Stranger with My Face in 1981. They did not inspire the novel. When I wrote it, I thought I was writing fantasy.