M. Ruth Myers's Blog, page 6

A Private Eye Novel to Enjoy This Weekend

Tough Cookie, second book in the Maggie Sullivan mysteries by M. Ruth Myers, is discounted to 99c in the US & UK today through 9/29 in a Kindle Countdown.  It’s garnered more than 400 reviews and a 4.4 star Amazon rating.

The novel finds the tough Depression-era private eye hunting the killer behind a high-stakes swindle that’s made fools of some of Dayton, Ohio’s wealthiest men in 1939. http://smarturl.it/ToughCookie

Filed under: Authors, News Tagged: detective novels, M. Ruth Myers, Maggie Sullivan mysteries, QmBXqR4C3Zv9Rb2kSt8jC9e8QUU, woman private eye novels

BLOG TOUR: MEET MY CHARACTER, MAGGIE SULLIVAN

Max Everhart, author of the fine hard-boiled novel Go Go Gato, tagged me to go next on the “Meet My Character” blog tour. The detective from the three books currently in my series insisted she should answer.

1) What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or a historic person?

The way I see it, M. Ruth Myers is just the gal who takes dictation from me. I’m the private eye. Maggie Sullivan. Here’s my license.*

2) When and where is the story set?

I work in Dayton, Ohio, in the years 1938-1947, depending on which book you hit. In the latest one, Don’t Dare a Dame, it’s fall of 1939. The country’s still struggling to climb its way out of the Depression. On the other side of the world, that lying little paperhanger Hitler has just rolled into Poland.

3) What should we know about him/her?

I’m 25, with an office near some railroad tracks and the Fifth Street produce market. The radiator doesn’t work half the time, but I like the view. I keep a gin bottle in my bottom drawer, and a .38 under my chair. Before I hung out my shingle, I worked as a floorwalker at a downtown department store, then in loss prevention. I’m crazy about hats. I polish my nails. Sometimes I get beaten up, but I give as good as I get.

4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?

In Don’t Dare a Dame, I almost lose my P.I. license. I serve at the pleasure of the chief of police, and someone with clout at City Hall apparently doesn’t like me asking about a man who vanished a quarter century earlier. When I keep digging, whoever that is ups the ante with rough stuff. But I figure the two old maid sisters who hired me deserve somebody in their corner. I don’t like to see people pushed around.

The only thing that messes up my life are the thugs — some with mansions, some behind in their rent at cheap rooming houses — who prey on decent people. Some people have an idea I’m lonely and don’t even know it, or maybe can’t admit it to myself. Who knows?

5) What is the personal goal of the character?

Hey, I’m on my own — no family. Paying the rent and keeping food in my mouth is enough of a goal for me. And solving my cases, of course. Okay, maybe I like to see folks get a fair shake regardless of what’s in their bank account, but if you want to toss around terms like “personal goal”, come back in thirty or forty years.

6) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

Don’t Dare a Dame is already out. You can sample the first chapter at http://www.MRuthMyers.com .

7) When can we expect the book to be published?

How about the next book? Number four will be out in 2015. I have to give my office girl, M. Ruth Myers, credit: She’s loyal, and she works cheap.

Ruth tagged NY Times best-selling thriller writer Diane Capri to follow us on this blog tour. Thanks, Diane!

Ruth and Maggie agree you might enjoy these mystery authors:  I.J. Parker, a Shamus short story winner , writes the extensive Akitada series, whose detective is a government employee in 11th c. Japan.  Libi Astaire writes a delightful and finely plotted series whose sleuth is a leader of Regency London’s Jewish community.  Matthew Storm creates harsh, bleak noir in Broken, the first book of a series with a P.I. whose losing battle with a serial killer left her in a mental hospital.  M. Louisa Locke creates charming cozies in her Victorian San Francisco mysteries, with a young widow who runs a boarding house, but makes ends meet by masquerading as a psychic.  Debbi Mack has a tough lady lawyer – P.I. in her Sam McCrae series set in Maryland.

*Maggie’s license is, as she is, fictional.  It’s based on an actual license from the 1920s furnished by the Dayton Police History Foundation.

Filed under: Authors Tagged: detective novels, M. Ruth Myers, Maggie Sullivan mysteries, private eye novels, QmBXqR4C3Zv9Rb2kSt8jC9e8QUU

Free: Private Eye Short Story Based on Series

From now through Aug. 26 you can get a FREE copy of my brand-new Maggie Sullivan short story, “The Barefoot Stiff” ahead of its official release.  It features characters from my three-novel Maggie Sullivan mystery series.

To get your free copy, click the link below and enter coupon code AM64N when you check out. If your friends visit this blog or my Facebook author page, they can get a free copy too.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/468670

M. Ruth Myers writes the Maggie Sullivan mysteries featuring a woman P.I. in the 1930s/40s.

Filed under: Authors, News Tagged: crime fiction, M. Ruth Myers, Maggie Sullivan mysteries, mystery, QmBXqR4C3Zv9Rb2kSt8jC9e8QUU

A Woman Private Eye and Two Detectives

I was hanging out on a seedy street corner — well, okay, in my easy chair — when I got a chance to follow a woman private eye I’d seen solve other cases as she tackled the one which started it all. That went okay, so I decided to strike up acquaintance with two other female detectives who were hanging around.

Call it summer. Call it brain overload from real world matters. Whatever prompted it, I enjoyed this interlude with three sleuths who aren’t quite as gritty as the ones I usually favor. I hope you will too.

Naughty, titled, and rich, the Honorable Phryne Fisher is a 1920s P.I. created by Australian author Kerry Greenwood. She drives, flys an ‘aeroplane’ and in the course of a book is likely to share her bed with a good-looking man of her choosing — always with tasteful vagueness. In COCAINE BLUES she leaves the London social scene for Melbourne at the behest of a couple who believe their married daughter is being poisoned. It leads her to a trail of murdered girls and a cocaine smuggling enterprise.

Phryne takes getting roughed up with the best of them. A bath drawn by her maid and a few glasses of champagne usually help. In this first book of an extensive series, we see her acquire both maid and career.

R.P. Dahlke’s A DEAD RED CADILLAC is smartly done romantic suspense where the mystery predominates. The crop dusting heroine is interesting, and plotting and pacing are right on target. The author delivers a thoroughly enjoyable story without anything feeling forced. There are five books in the series.

THE GOOD KNIGHT by Sarah Woodbury weaves the politics of 12th century Wales into a plot featuring two sleuths who are part of an ongoing series. Gwen, daughter of the court bard, is employed as a spy/investigator for a prince of the royal family. Gareth is a knight loyal to the same family. The writing is visual and clean. The historical setting delivers great atmosphere without being pedantic.

 

M. Ruth Myers writes the Maggie Sullivan mysteries featuring a woman P.I. in the 1930s/40s.

Filed under: Authors Tagged: detective novels, Kerry Greenwood, M. Ruth Myers, QmBXqR4C3Zv9Rb2kSt8jC9e8QUU, R.P. Dahlke, Sarah Woodbury, woman sleuth

Don’t Dare a Dame a Shamus Award finalist

Don’t Dare a Dame, third book in my series featuring private eye Maggie Sullivan, is a finalist for a 2014 Shamus Award.  Needless to say, I’m thrilled.

In 1982 the Private Eye Writers of America established the awards to recognize excellence in private eye fiction writing.

You can see all finalists and categories here.  My name’s at the very bottom, but that’s okay.

 

M. Ruth Myers writes the Maggie Sullivan mysteries featuring a woman P.I. in the 1930s/40s.

Filed under: Authors, News Tagged: detective novels, M. Ruth Myers, woman private eye novels

Vexing Truths for Writers Relocating an Office

Recently I moved from one house to another. It wasn’t the first time. As I ran the mouse maze of trying to get my office set up so I could return to the business of writing, I was struck by challenges invariably faced by writers who relocate:

The wall with the grounded outlets needed to set up your surge suppressor will not be the one where you want to place your equipment.
The cord on the surge suppressor will be too short to plug in equipment in the new location.
The wall with the grounded outlets also will not be the one where your internet cable connection enters. (If you happen to think spiders are cute, you’ll love the multi-directional tangle of cords which results.)
Any outlet needed for a task lamp, whether on the desk or hanging, will either be inaccessible behind heavy furniture or already in use by other, more important, equipment.
Within 48 hours of getting equipment back up and running, the printer will run out of toner, you’ll discover that model is now dubbed obsolete, and you’ll have to order online — and wait for delivery.

Lucky Dashiell Hammett and Lillian Hellman! They could set up manual typewriters anywhere that struck their fancy, spill all the booze they wanted onto the keys, and keep on writing.

M. Ruth Myers writes the Maggie Sullivan mysteries featuring a woman P.I. in the 1930s/40s.

Filed under: Authors, Random Thoughts Tagged: detective novels, writers, writing tips

A LADY PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR IN NEW ORLEANS

Only a little bit late for Mardi Gras, I’ve discovered a great series with a woman P.I. in New Orleans. After one book, I’m looking forward to further evenings of criminal bliss with her.

Talba Wallis is the creation of Edgar winner Julie Smith. She’s savvy, competent, and comfortable in her own skin. The skin happens to be black. A keen observer of human foibles, she shows a compassion for them which brings to my mind detective heroes of the late Dick Francis.

Talba works for a well-established private eye with a prosperous practice but an aversion to computers. He’s somewhat awed by her, though he doesn’t show it. He suspects she might be as smart as he is, if not more so. He also suspects some of her methods of finding things out might not be quite on the up-and-up. His lawyer daughter is one of Talba’s friends.

In addition to her day job, Talba is an accomplished poet popular at readings throughout the city. Her occasional poems add dimension to the plot without slowing it (unless, perhaps, you prefer non-stop mayhem). They’re nicely accessible even to those who don’t read poetry.

The writing is extremely skillful. Author Smith weaves a tight mystery, keeps it moving, and creates rounded characters. Two other things particularly made me a fan of her work. She paints a vivid picture of a city and culture using minimal strokes. She also avoids the we-do-things-differently-in-the-South-and-we-are-cute mentality which many authors with stories set there tend to lard on.

In addition to the Talba Wallis series, Julie Smith writes three others. One features a female homicide detective, also in New Orleans.

M. Ruth Myers writes the Maggie Sullivan mysteries featuring a woman P.I. in the 1930s/40s.

Filed under: Authors Tagged: M. Ruth Myers, mystery, QmBXqR4C3Zv9Rb2kSt8jC9e8QUU, woman private eye novels, woman private investigator, woman sleuth

Book That Launched Woman Private Eye Series Free this Weekend

NO GAME FOR A DAME, first of the three mysteries currently available in the Maggie Sullivan mystery series is free for Kindle Jan. 25 & 26.  The series by M. Ruth Myers follows a woman P.I. from the late Depression through the end of WWII.

Filed under: Authors, News Tagged: M. Ruth Myers, Maggie Sullivan mysteries, woman P.I., woman private eye novels

Interview with author Matthew Storm

Back in October, I reviewed Broken, the debut novel of author Matthew Storm. It features a compelling, albeit self-destructive, woman private eye named Nevada James. Mr. Storm, who’s publicity shy, agreed to an interview. Here are the results.

GG: Your bio suggests that you didn’t immediately set out to be a writer. Have you always been a  reader?

Since the time I was able to read. I’ve always had my nose in one book or another since elementary school.

GG: What sorts of books do you prefer?

I tend to jump from genre to genre. Lately I’ve been reading histories. 1776 by David McCullough was a recent favorite, as was Rubicon by Tom Holland.

GG: When you initially set out to write a novel, what led you to choose the P.I. genre?

I’ve loved the genre since childhood. I devoured Robert B. Parker as a teenager and would have to acknowledge his influence on my own writing.

GG: How did your protagonist, Nevada James, first come into being?

Nevada showed up on my doorstep in the mid 1990′s. Eventually she insisted I write her book and wouldn’t leave me alone until I did. Now she wants another one.

GG: Many male writers wouldn’t even think of using a female protagonist. What inspired you to go against the grain?

It’s not really about going against the grain. Characters are who they are. When I started Nevada’s book she actually was a man. By the end of the first chapter she wasn’t anymore.

GG: What do you like about P.I. novels? Do you have some favorite authors or series?

Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels for sure. Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder series. It’s about the characters for me.

GG: What do you find the most satisfying about being an author?

When someone tells me they felt a personal connection to the book, whether it’s to the characters or the story. That’s pretty good.

GG: What’s the worst part?

Oddly enough, it may be that I’ve got more stories in my head than I’ll ever live long enough to write down. And more show up all the time. It’s frustrating.

GG: If you could make any two changes to the state of P.I. novels today, what would they be?

I’m not qualified to answer this one!

GG: Will you give us any hints about whether you plan a series with Nevada James or when we might see another book from you?

Nevada’s next book, “Scars,” will be out…whenever I manage to finish it! She has a lot more stories waiting, and one of these days she’ll catch up with the Laughing Man. Or he’ll catch up with her. One or the other.

Filed under: Authors Tagged: M. Ruth Myers, Matthew Storm, woman private eye novels, woman private investigator

Free: Latest in Series with Depression-era Woman P.I.

Today through Sunday, Jan. 3-5, snag a free Kindle copy of DON’T DARE A DAME, third book in the Maggie Sullivan mystery series by M. Ruth Myers.

Hired by two spinsters, the private eye quickly finds herself in a cauldron of crimes from the past, brass knuckles meant to discourage her interest, an ex-con out to settle scores, and a hit man with a protective bent.

Filed under: News Tagged: M. Ruth Myers, Maggie Sullivan mysteries, woman P.I., woman private eye novels