R.E. Conary's Blog

Rachel Cord writes Betty Jean & Me: The Package.

by Rachel Cord
Pre-order for 99¢ at Amazon
Publication date: November 15, 2023

I’ve known professional investigator Rachel Cord for nearly 20 years ever since she walked into my office one day and told me a story (see “Rachel & Me” blog 9/24/2017). As she drops in and out of my life at her whim, I’m never surprised—just appreciative—when she shows up or makes contact. She’s never said why she picked me to write her stories, but I’m glad she did, and I’m always hoping she’ll tell me another case or two she and her Confidential Investigations team completed and allow me to write about it.

In the meantime, I work on other projects like the two I’ve done with Iza Moreau in her Elodie Fontaine Mystery series (Billy's Legacy and Stormy Weather) or an upcoming fantasy sequel to my Eyes of Gaal short story.

Then recently, Rachel got in touch saying she’d written a novella based on an incident she’d found in her teen diary she hadn’t looked at in several decades and plans to publish as an ebook in November. “I was inspired by the Elodie mysteries Moreau and you wrote,” she said. “So I dug out my old diary wanting to remember bits of my past and this is what I came up with.”

The Teen and Young Adult mystery novella, Betty Jean & Me: The Package, will be published Nov. 15, and is available now for a special pre-order price of 99¢ at Amazon. It’s a taut mystery filled with juvenile angst and longing.

I wish Rachel well, good luck, and all that stuff with this new endeavor of hers, but I still want another Confidential Investigations tale to tell. Maybe next year.

Stormy Weather

My first YA novel, Stormy Weather, a mystery written in collaboration with author Iza Moreau, is available at Amazon. This is Book 5 in her Elodie Fontaine Mystery series. Elodie is a modern-day Nancy Drew-inspired character, a high school senior, an often reluctant amateur sleuth, and budding lesbian.

Writing a purely young adult novel was challenging. While my Rachel Cord novels have all dealt with teen characters and situations, they were primarily secondary and subplots. The exception being Tessa Ryker who demanded equal time.

Now there’s Elodie Fontaine. Each book in the series can be read as a stand-alone novel with crimes/mysteries to be solved though all are connected chronologically in Elodie’s final semester at Tallahassee High School.

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story is a worthy augment of American History

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story is a well-researched and well-written eye-opener that should be part of any American History curriculum at least from fourth grade on if not earlier.

In her opening preface, Nikole Hannah-Jones writes “I was maybe fifteen or sixteen when I first came across the date 1619” and learned that on August 20, 1619, “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrived in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia and were bought by the English colonists.

Sadly, and somewhat embarrassingly, I didn’t learn that either until the New York Times Magazine first published “The 1619 Project” in 2019. It definitely wasn’t taught during my school years in the 1950s and 60s in Southern California. In fact, Jamestown wasn’t very prominent in my history classes as I recall, nor was black enslavement before the Civil War deeply covered.

Back then, I learned more about how Blacks were treated in American history as a latchkey kid watching TV afternoon movies like “Slave Ship” (1937), “Pinky” (1949), “Home Of The Brave” (1949) and “Edge Of The City” (1957) than I did in school.

Those same afternoon movies also taught me that America wasn’t always great nor did it always live up to its ideals. “Bad Day At Black Rock” (1955) showed me that the families of the two Japanese-American girls I knew from 1st through 8th grades had been interred in American concentration camps simply for their race and denied their rights as citizens. “Northwest Passage” (1940) taught that the British during the French and Indian wars (we were British America then) committed biological warfare by giving Native Americans smallpox infested blankets.

American history is fraught with injustice to minorities or those standing in the way of so-called “American progress”: near genocide of Native Americans; enslavement of Blacks; anti-Mormon violence (Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs: "The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State.”); anti-Irish, anti-Catholic, anti-Chinese, anti-Jew, anti-Mexican, anti-Muslim, anti-labor, anti-anybody but “we red-blooded, right-thinking, god-fearin’, true ’mericans. Yowzah!”

The ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States can never come to full fruition without American History telling the complete story, warts and all. The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story is a good first step.

"Tessa" wins Rainbow Award

Where The Hell Is Tessa Ryker? wins Rainbow Award* for Best Lesbian Mystery/Thriller (2021): https://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwi...

To celebrate, I'm making the ebook edition of Where The Hell Is Tessa Ryker? $0.99 today through Dec. 31st. Available at:
Amazon (all countries/price differs by country): B084F8FFQM
Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/where...
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/wher...
NOOK: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wher...
Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/book/445286310...
Smashwords (all ebook formats): https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...

Also, several of my Rachel Cord ebooks are participating in Smashwords "End of Year Sale" (Dec. 17, 2021-Jan. 1, 2022) at reduced prices: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

*The Rainbow Awards is an annual contest celebrating outstanding work in LGBTA fiction and nonfiction.

Stuck at Home? Read a book or three.

The coronavirus has changed a lot of daily routine and social activity. There's more time to work on projects around the house or in the yard. Or read another book.

With that in mind, all of my stories are on sale at 60% off or free at Smashwords through April 20th (all eReader versions available). This is in conjunction with hundreds of other authors as part of Smashwords "Authors Give Back" sale.

Find my books here: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...

Rachel Cord collections on sale — 99¢

In conjunction with the release of Where The Hell Is Tessa Ryker?, my Rachel Cord collections are on sale now for 99¢ through March 16.

Apple iBook: http://tinyurl.com/wv8zx5x
Barnes&Noble Nook: http://tinyurl.com/ttrk7xe
Kobo: http://tinyurl.com/ulotu4k
All eReaders: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...

Amazon Kindle: http://authl.it/B075CPQVWN

Where The Hell Is Tessa Ryker? giveaway ends

My sincere thanks to everyone who entered my Where The Hell Is Tessa Ryker? giveaway. Congratulations to all the winners. The book will be wide-released March 13th but early release copies are available now at Smashwords in popular ebook formats for Kindle, Nook, iBook, Kobo, Sony and Palm.

SMASHWORDS: https://www.smashwords.com/books/pres...

What do you do when you’re 14 and saw who killed your family? A man you thought was a family friend, a pillar of the community? Who do you tell? Who will believe you?

Excerpt from Where The Hell Is Tessa Ryker?

Gunshots broke Tessa’s reverie. She turned seeking the source of the sound. It seemed close and yet far enough away that it didn’t scare the birds or squirrels in the trees above her. The sound confused her. Where? Muffled somehow. Hunters? Shouldn’t be. Dad didn’t allow hunting on their land. Who would fire a gun here? We don’t own guns.

Another muffled gunshot. Tessa looked up the hill. The sound came from the direction of their house. Why? Who? She raced up the trail from the creek. There shouldn’t be gunshots coming from her home. There shouldn’t!

The white peak of their farmhouse against the cloudless, azure sky came into view across the wide, stubbled field as she neared the edge of the woods. When she saw their covered front porch, she heard one more gunshot coming from the house. Tessa froze in the shadows of the trees. She fell to the ground shaking not sure what frightened her.

Moments later, a man stepped out of the house to the edge of the porch. She was too far away to recognize him but knew it wasn’t her father. He wore tannish pants and a dark brown, long-sleeved shirt. He looked back toward the door then pounded the porch column. He leaned against the column, his face buried against his arm, for nearly a minute. He straightened and scanned the horizon, the sun glinting from mirrored sunglasses and from something shiny on his chest and on his collar. As his head swiveled toward her, Tessa crouched further into the shadows. Who was he? Did he have something to do with the gunshots?

The man stood gazing for several moments and looked back briefly at the front door one last time. He wiped at something on his sleeve and the front of his shirt. He wiped his hand on his trousers. He stepped off the porch putting on a brown Stetson and walked to a white SUV. Now Tessa saw the heavy gun belt he wore, recognized the shiny thing on his chest as a badge and realized . . . Sheriff Donahue?

Enjoy Where The Hell Is Tessa Ryker? now.

Where The Hell Is Tessa Ryker?: Rachel Cord Confidential Investigations #5 is available for immediate purchase exclusively at Smashwords.com (all ebook formats) for the pre-order 99¢ price. Get an early presale copy now and begin reading before the general public release.
SMASHWORDS Link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/pres...

There is still time to enter my Goodreads giveaway to win one of 100 Kindle copies of Where The Hell Is Tessa Ryker?. Giveaway ends March 6th at midnight PST.
GOODREADS GIVEAWAY Link: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/en...

Where The Hell Is Tessa Ryker? — Goodreads Book Giveaway

Be among the first to read Where The Hell Is Tessa Ryker? (Book 5 in the Rachel Cord Confidential Investigations series) by entering this Goodreads Book Giveaway for a chance to win a free Kindle edition (100 copies available).

Tessa Ryker’s running scared, seeking a place to hide, to disappear before her family’s killer discovers she saw him and finds her. Everyone’s after her: the killer, the police and Rachel Cord and her Confidential Investigations team.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Where The Hell Is Tessa Ryker?


by R.E. Conary

Giveaway ends March 06, 2020.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

False Confessions

I recently read "The Rag and Bone Shop" by Robert Cormier and it makes me angry. Angry to the point of hatred. That may seem extreme for a short YA novel, but I hope any adult reader would have a similar reaction. That every YA reader would be totally horrified. When asked about it as he was writing it, Robert Cormier only replied, “Well, it has something to do with intimidation.” Boy! Does it ever!

"The Rag and Bone Shop" is a finely crafted, gripping tale of the abuse of power, chicanery and coercion. The murder of a 7-year-old girl is secondary to the story. Everything revolves around the police department’s ham-handed attempts to interrogate and force a confession from an innocent, young boy. That’s why this story fills me with anger—big time. Because it violates—with intent—every meaning of the Fifth Amendment and a suspect’s rights under Miranda as well as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s rulings under Commonwealth v. Juvenile, 389 Mass.128 (1983) with regard to juvenile suspects.

Robert Cormier got the idea and wrote the story sometime after finishing Frenchtown Summer (published 1999) and before his death in 2000. It takes place in Monument, a fictional Massachusetts’ town. The timeframe isn’t specified, so it must be presumed to be contemporary to when written. As such, the techniques used by the police department to keep a parent away from the interrogation of her 13-year-old son and those used by the lead interrogator to coerce the boy should not satisfy the most basic court scrutiny. Particularly galling is when the interrogator realizes the boy’s innocence he continues to push and pry for a false confession which he finally gets. The only reason this false confession isn’t used in court is because the real killer timely confesses. Yet that false confession ultimately destroys the boy and—though appropriately ruins the interrogator’s reputation—leaves me angry. Angry at a system that allows such abuse to happen.

"The Rag and Bone Shop" is a cautionary tale. Without obviously preaching, Robert Cormier makes every reader aware of how easily confessions can be manipulated and coerced—especially from the young and naive. Makes everyone realize the importance of knowing and fully understanding one’s rights. The police may say that “only guilty people need lawyers” but that isn’t true. False confessions still lead to convictions and imprisonment today. They destroy innocent lives and those that coerced them are rarely held accountable later.

Excerpt from “Interrogation Gone Bad: Juvenile False Confessions in the post-DNA Age”:
“A study of 340 exonerations since 1989 showed that 13% of adults in study falsely confessed but 42% of all juvenile wrongful convictions involved false confessions. The younger the defendant, the greater likelihood there is of a false confession. Gross et al found that of all juvenile wrongful convictions, 69% of the juveniles aged 12-15 falsely confessed compared to 25% of the 20 juveniles aged 16 and 17.” (https://www.nij.gov/topics/courts/ind...)

Excerpt from the Boston Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog:
“In Massachusetts, if the juvenile is under 14 years of age, an interested adult must have been present during the interrogation. If over 14 years of age, the juvenile must have had a meaningful or genuine opportunity to consult with an interested adult. Finally, in all circumstances, there must have been a knowing, intelligent and voluntary waiver of Miranda’s protections.” (https://www.bostoncriminaldefenselawy...)

See also: Commonwealth v. Juvenile, 389 Mass.128 (1983) (http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/389/38...)