B.V. Lawson's Blog, page 251

Festival! Festival!

No, no that one. Mardi Gras has come and gone. But there's still time to hook up with a couple of mystery festivals and conferences this weekend and next. Although the Book 'Em North Carolina Writers Conference in Lumberton, NC, isn't a crime fiction event exclusively, the guests of honor are suspense authors Carla Neggers (Saint's Gate) and Michael Palmer (Oath of Office). This one-day event takes place on February 25th beginning at 9:30, and best of all, it's one of the few conferences that is free and open to the public.

Next week, the popular Sleuthfest opens in Orlando, FL, and runs March 1-4. The guests of honor include Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse novels), Jeffery Deaver (Lincoln Rhyme series) and Chris Grabenstein (John Ceepak books), but many other authors will be on hand for panels and signings. Plus, this year the event features its first-ever dinner mystery theater.

Looking ahead a bit (and far away) to March 10-11, the New Zealand International Arts Festival in Wellington, New Zealand will include Denise Mina (The End of the Wasp Season) and Jo Nesbø (The Snowman, The Leopard) on Saturday. Then on Sunday, Mina will be joined by Ron Rash for one presentation, and a trio of New Zealand's best crime writers, Paul Cleave, Vanda Symon, Paul Thomas will join together for a panel discussion. Fellow crime fiction bloger Craig Sisterson (Crime Watch) will be leading some of those events.

Mystery Melange

The Winter issue of Mystery Scene Magazine includes the cover story by Oline H. Cogdill on Lisa Gardner and her intensive research; Nicola Upson discusses the mysteries of Josephine Tey; Simon Brett offers his take on the modern whodunit; Nate Pedersen has tips on collecting "association copies" and much more.

Can't make it to Mardi Gras this year? Janet Rudolph has posted some Mardi Gras mysteries on her blog. Janet is also the editor of the Mystery Readers Journal and is still looking for articles, reviews and "Author! Author!"essays about mysteries set in France or having a French connection. The deadline for those is March 10th.

The Al Blanchard Award short story contest, part of the Crime Bake mystery conference, is also seeking entries. If you are a New England writer OR have a story set in New England, send it along. Actually, you can send up to two stories, provided they're both under the 5,000-word limit and you make it by the April 30th deadline. The winner receives a $100 cash award, publication in Level Best Books' tenth Crime Fiction anthology and conference admission. All the details are on the conference website.

On Tuesday, April 24th, the Mystery Writers of America will be launching the newest MWA anthology, Vengeance, edited by Lee Child.  The launch party will be held at The Mysterious Bookshop, 58 Warren Street, New York City, beginning at 6 p.m. Many of the contributors are scheduled to appear, and you might even see several of the 2012 Edgar Award nominees there, too.

The MWA is also sponsoring an Edgar Symposium Wednesday, April 25, at The Lighthouse in New York. This will be a one-day event of panels and interviews tied to this year's theme: "We're All In This Together — From Typing to Tweeting, Selling a Book is Everybody's Job." The cost is $90 members, $125 non-members (with a $35 retroactive discount for those who join Mystery Writers of America within 30 days after the Symposium).

Trying to keep track of all the crime fiction award nominations and winners to date? You can check out the Recent Mystery Awards feature of this blog. Although one can argue the value of such awards ad infinitum, I think it's nice to see such a wide diversity of authors and titles that have been honored thus far. Among the nods for Best Novel for the Agathas, Edgars, Barrys, Hammett Prize, Left Coast Crime Awards and LA Times Book Prize, there are 30 different authors and their books included. I think that indicates a tremendous depth in the crime fiction genre these days.

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

Paramount is planning a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion. The original film was based on Francis Iles's 1932 novel Before the Fact, and Veena Sud will adapt the book/film for the new project. The plot centers on a dowdy young heiress who marries a charming scoundrel only to become convinced he's planning to kill her for her money.

Director Michael Mann is in talks to direct The Big Stone Grid, a crime thriller based on a spec script by S. Craig Zahler, to be produced by Moneyball producer Michael De Luca. The project is said to have echoes of Marathon Man and involve two veteran police officers who uncover a vast extortion ring that operates in the catacombs beneath New York City.

Robert Downey, Jr.'s film adaptation of the Perry Mason TV series, based on the books of Erle Stanley Gardner, has signed Marc Guggenheim to pen the script. Guggenheim is an attorney himself, who has worked on such shows as The Practice and Law & Order.

TV

A BBC pilot for Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, based on the novels by the late Douglas Adams, was apparently popular enough that the Beeb is going ahead with a series order. Stephen Mangan will again star the holistic detective who "sets out to prove the fundamental interconnectedness of all things by solving a mysterious murder, assisting a mysterious professor, unraveling a mysterious mystery, and eating a lot of pizza." (Hat tip to Omnimystery.)

CBS has signed Johnny Lee Miller to star in their modern-day version of Sherlock Holmes, titled Elementary. BBC Sherlock producer Sue Vertue said, "Let's hope their pilot script has stayed further away from our Sherlock than their casting choice...We have been in touch with CBS and informed them that we will be looking at their finished pilot very closely for any infringement of our rights."

The cast of the pilot, formerly known as Golden Boy, continues to grow. Ryan Phillippe has already signed on to play Detective Clark, the cop at the center of the story, who rises quickly through the ranks from officer to detective to police commissioner. Chi McBride and Kevin Alejandro are also on board, and The Runaways co-star Stella Maeve was just added.

British novelist Graham Hurley's police duo Detective Inspector Joe Faraday and Detective Paul Winter, are proving popular in their new TV adaptation -- in French. Hurley tried to get British TV interested for years without success, but within two months of the French company contacting Hurley they had signed a contract, found a TV station, chosen actors, appointed a scriptwriter and started filming.

A&E's crime and justice program The First 48: Missing Persons returns with new episodes Thursday, March 15. The first season averaged enough viewers to make it rank in the top five crime and justice programs on cable.

THEATER

The Jungle Theater of Minneapolis is staging Dial M For Murder through March 18. Directed by Bain Boehlke and starring Cheryl Willis and Michael Booth, the play is based on the same plot as the 1954 film version by Alfred Hitchcock.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Special Edition

As I noted in a blog post earlier this month, editor Charles Ardai of Hard Case Crime is publishing a long-lost novel by the late Donald Westlake, titled The Comedy is Finished. Thanks to the efforts of author Max Allan Collins, Westlake's book will finally see the light of day in less than a week. In celebration of the occasion, Patti Abbott designated today's edition of FFB "Donald Westlake Day."

Several Westlake books have already been featured on previous FFB installments (under both Westlake's name and his pen name Richard Stark), so you can search for those on Patti's blog and also check out the other titles folks are reviewing today:

The Juggers, Richard Stark
Lemons Never Lie, Donald Westlake
I Gave at the Office, Donald Westlake
The Handle by Richard Stark
Anarchaos by Curt Clark (a rare pen name)
The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake
Honey Girls, Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake
The Score, Richard Stark 
Ask the Parrot, Richard Stark
Plunder Squad, Richard Stark
The Green Eagle Score, Richard Stark
The Sour Lemon Score, Richard Stark
"Call Me a Cab" Redbook magazine story, June 1979
The Hunter, Richard Stark 
361 by Donald Westlake

Westlake was not only a prolific novelist, he also penned enough stories to fill seven story collections, some 138 stories in all. Many were included in highly-regarded anthologies, others in magazines like Playboy, The New York Times Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and several sadly defunct 'zines. I thought I'd mention two of his collections, A Good Story and Other Stories (1999); and Thieves' Dozen (2004).

A Good Story is a actually a good representative sampling of Westlake's writing, since it covers 40 years of his career. It includes "Once on a Desert Island," about the fantasy life of a lone marooned bookkeeper, a murder and an imaginary lover; "Sinner or Saint," which finds a con man impersonating a minister hustling a wealthy parishioner for her famous heirloom diamond; "Never Shake a Family Tree" about a woman doing a little geneology by placing an ad in the paper who learns how far rotten apples fall from the family tree; and in "Skeeks," a tabloid journalist must solve a murder for his story on the death of a major television star—who happens to be a dog. The New York Times Book Review noted "Trickery reins: the good, the bad and the obnoxious alike are prey as well as predator. A Good Story earns its title with twists worthy of O. Henry."

Thieves' Dozen features stories with Westlake's comedic professional thief, John Dortmunder, actually 11 Dortmunder stories, not 12, a little bit of additional humor on the author's part. Just as A Good Story makes for a general overview of Westlake's writing in general, Thieves' Dozen is a good introduction to Dortmunder and his capers. In "Horse Laugh," Dortmunder and his gang are in New Jersey, stealing a racehorse, only Dortmunder soon finds himself holding on for dear life to the runaway steed while sirens wail around him; "Now What?" finds Dortmunder riding the New York subway with a ham sandwich in a paper bag—only the sandwich happens to have a $300K brooch inside; a crooked artist named Three Finger Gillie wants Dortmunder to steal his own paintings in "Art and Craft"; and in "Too Many Crooks," the gang tunnels into a bank vault only to find it packed with hostages from an armed robbery already in progress.

Westlake says of his popular literary creation in the Preface, "And I guess Dortmunder remains pecularliarly mine, at whatever length. Originally, he was just passing through. He wasn't expected to have legs, and yet here he is, still domitable but bowed, apprentice, it would appear, of both the extended romp and the quick-hit, the perhahps-not-exactly-surgical strike."

Mystery Bestellers for January

Each month, the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association (IMBA) showcases one of its member bookstores, along with its bestseller lists. January's contribution is from Murder on the Beach:

Hardcovers
 
1. Need You Now by James Grippando
2. Down the Darkest Road by Tami Hoag
3. The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
4. Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George
5. Bent Road by Lori Roy
6. The Secret Crown by Chris Kuzneski
7. The Drop by Michael Connelly
8. Dead Last by James Hall
9. Taken by Robert Crais
10. When Elves Attack by Tim Dorsey

Trade / Mass Market

1. Double Booked for Death by Ali Brandon
2. The Sentry by Robert Crais
3. Affairs of Steak by Julie Hyzy
4. Sister by Rosamund Lupton
5. Devil by Ken Bruen
6. Electric Barracuda by Tim Dorsey
7. Potsdam Station by David Downing
8. Afraid of the Dark by James Grippando
9. Secrets to the Grave by Tami Hoag
10.Blinke It Away by Victoria Landis

Mystery Melange, Valentine Edition

Over at Mystery Fanfare, Janet Rudolph has a list of Valentine's Day mysteries you can cozy up with, along with your box of gun-shaped chocolates.

French is the language for lovers, n'est-c pas? Janet also announced that the next issue of Mystery Readers Journal will focus on Mysteries set in France. She's looking for articles, reviews and Author! Author! essays, with a deadline of March 10th. There's more information on the journal's website.

Join Professor Charles Rzepka for a luncheon talk on "Why Read Detective Fiction?" tomorrow at Boston University. Rzepka will explore the reasoning behind the pull to detective fiction, and the differences between reading mystery, crime fiction, and detective works, as he discusses the specific demands detective fiction makes on readers that differ from any other genre. (Check out this post for my look at Rzepka's book.)

The International Mystery Writers' Festival, "Discovering New Mysteries," has been struggling financially the past few years, but the organization announced recently that the festival is returning once again to Owensboro, Kentucky, June 14-17. The festival has hosted several best-selling authors, internationally known actors and successful TV writer/producers including Gene Hackman, Mary Higgins Clark, Josh Hutcherson, Sue Grafton, Anthony E. Zuiker (creator of C.S.I), Rene' Balcer (creator of Law and Order: Criminal Intent), William Link (co-creator of Columbo and Murder She Wrote), and dozens of others who actively participated in workshops, panel discussions, and retrospectives of their work. Other highlights of this event include author signings and premiere productions of contest-winning plays.

Mike Ripley's latest column "Getting Away with Murder" for Shots Ezine starts off with a fond farewell to the late Reginald Hill (he also penned a lovely obit for The Guardian). He also takes a look at an "American rural noir" trend, historical mysteries, news from Scandinavian crime fiction, and more.

Gerard Brennan won Spinetingler's first-ever novella award for his work "The Point." Brennan also has a new title out, Wee Rockets, via relative ebook newcomer Blasted Heath. 

We're getting closer to "March Madness," and Jen Forbus has announced the 2012 Crime Fiction Bracket Tourney on her blog Jen's Book Thoughts. This year's theme is "Heroes and Villains," to pit protagonists versus antagonists. Hop on over to her blog and nominate your favorites, as many as you like, up to March 4th, and then return for voting later.

The Guardian asked several writers to choose their favorite love poems.

Tired of the usual boring heart-shaped cake? Try serving up some bleeding heart cupcakes!

Media Murder for Monday

MOVIES

One of Johnny Depp's upcoming projects is a film based on the West Memphis Three, a trio of teenagers wrongly convicted for the murder of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas in 1993. The film will be based on an untitled memoir from the West Memphis Three's Damien Echols. There are also other films based on the case in the works, including Devil's Knot, from the book of the same name by Mara Leveritt, to be directed by Atom Egoyan. Reece Witherspoon was already on board to star, and this week, British Oscar winning actor Colin Firth joined the cast.

One of the projects Western Edge Productions has in the pipeline is A Visit To America, written by Owen Sheers (Resistance), a film noir about a private detective in 1953 Manhattan who has to follow visiting Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. The studio is eyeing a film franchise about a female detective, a seemingly normal museum worker who becomes involved in deadly international intrigue

Dan Angel (Door to Door) is developing the multimedia YA thriller Dark Eden Patrick Carman into a series of movies with multimedia components. The book contains still images, audio recordings, videos, scans, and text entries and also transmits new episodes sequentially as the story unfolds, via  mobile app.

New Zealand author Paul Cleave's debut novel, The Cleaner, has been optioned for film adaptation by European filmmakers Stone Angels.

TV

The BBC has cast Gillian Anderson (The X-Files) in The Fall as a Metropolitan detective superintendent sent to Belfast to conduct a review of a high profile murder case. The crime drama will follow a police investigation that uncovers the intricate story of lives entangled by a series of murders. (Hat tip to Omnimystery.)

CBS has cast Chi McBride as one of the lead actors in the cop drama pilot, formerly known as Golden Boy, by Greg Berlanti. McBride will play Detective Owen, the new partner of a cop who is rising through the ranks of the police department to eventually becoming commissioner. Deadline announced this week that Ryan Phillippe has just signed to play the lead role.

Elliott Gould and Jon Voight have joined the cast for Showtime's pilot Ray Donovan, about a "fixer" who cleans up messes for an L.A. law firm.

James Purefoy has come onboard the still unnamed crime drama pilot for Fox that stars Kevin Bacon as a retired FBI profiler who finds himself caught up in a serial killer's diabolical scheme. Purefoy will play serial killer Joe Carroll, who uses technology to create a cult of fellow killers.

NCIS reached an important landmark: its 200th episode. Star Michael Weatherly took time to talk about his favorite episodes, guest stars and also hints about upcoming stories.

Having problems keeping track of the pilots for potential Fall 2012 series? The Hollywood Reporter has a handy up-to-date listing for you. There are plenty of crime dramas listed there, with ABC and FOX leading the way in terms of numbers. If you read through the descriptions, you'll see a lot of repetition, however.

PODCASTS/RADIO

NPR's "Morning Edition" spoke with British thriller writer Robert Harris about his new novel, The Fear Index, "the story of a hedge fund, a scientist and his computer run amok."

Authors John Forester, Erin Kelly and Lisa Gardner were guests on Suspense Radio this past week. Coming up on the 25th: Lisa Unger and Blake Crouch. If you can't listen live,  all the shows are archived so you can listen when you can.

THEATER

Although a mystery-themed play per se, the musical February House is receiving its world premiere production at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven before moving into NYC for a spring run at the Public Theater. It's based on the true story of a house that was shared by poet W.H. Auden, novelist Carson McCullers, composer Benjamin Britten and striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee, who is shown writing what would turn out to be the best-selling mystery novel The G-String Murders.

Friday's "Forgotten" Book - Detective Fiction: Crime and Compromise

I was recently in the York Emporium used bookstore in York, PA, and picked up Detective Fiction: Crime and Compromise by Dick Allen and David Chacko from 1974. This anthology was apparently intended for a college class on detective and mystery fiction—or as it states in the Preface, "a form of popualr fiction that is forever concerned with the basic questions of 'right' and 'wrong' in human behavior."

Allen and Chacko included short stories, selected passages from novels, two poems, and a final section of essays by writers in the genre, organized into four sections: Manifestations, The Detective, The Genre Extended and Theories. Each selection is followed by analytical questions, and there also an appendix with topics for writing and research, a bibliography and some suggestions for further reading. Something I also appreciated from the Preface: "The genre as a whole has too long been ignored in the classroom."

The first section is designed to give an overall perspective on some metaphysical questions regarding the genre, and Allen and Chacko chose an unusual opening, Robert Frost's poem "Design," which poses an initial question about the presence of evil and horror in the world. Just to show that the definition of crime fiction can cast a wide net, the section also includes Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Browning and Agatha Christie.

The section on the Detective is a good overall overview of the topic, while The Genre Extended casts the net even wider to demonstrate how the element of "detection" operates in all forms of literature like "The Tree of Knowledge" by Henry James. And, as the editors point out, Ross Macdonald and Dashiell Hammett demonstrate how the gap between pure detection stories and "literary" fiction narrowed. The final section, Theories, begins with Dorothy L. Sayers' examination of the genre's history and winds its way to Fred P. Graham's essay, "A Contemporary History of American Crime." It also includes the Raymond Chandler essay "The Simple Art of Murder."

Although I wasn't able to find much on how well the book was received by student readers, this near 40-year-old book is among the first to give crime fiction the respect it is rightfully due. An interesting side note: one of the editors, Dick Allen, is primarily a poet who became Connecticut State Poet Laureate in 2010, and I find it interesting he chose this topic as one of only a few nonfiction books he has published. But then, the very best crime fiction has poetry at its heart, one reason perhaps that Esquire called George Pelecanos "the poet laureate of D.C. crime."

Dark Delights at Noir Bar Night

Flying in the face of bookstore closings elsewhere and all the gloom-and-doom in the traditional publishing world, One More Page bookstore in Arlington, Virginia, just celebrated its first anniversary. One More Page had a bang-up year, hosting over 70 author signings and talks at the store. They've also sponsored special events like tastings featuring wine and gourmet chocolates, as well as Sisters in Crime meetings and five book discussion clubs including fiction and mystery/suspense.

On Wednesday, February 15, the store will host a Noir Bar Night, with a wine tasting at 6 p.m. followed by a panel discussion at 7 p.m. Author Con Lehane will moderate the panel, which includes several distinguished local noir authors:

Elizabeth Hand, whose new book, Available Dark, has just been named one of the Top 10 Mystery/Thrillers of the season by Publishers Weekly. Other books include Generation Loss and Radiant Days, scheduled for release on April 12;

James Grady, the author of Mad Dogs and Six Days of the Condor, (made into the film Three Days of the Condor starring Robert Redford). James is an American Edgar nominee, Grand Prix Du Roman Noir winner and received the Raymond Chandler award;

Nik Korpon, author of Stay God, Old Ghosts, By the Nails of the Warpriest and Baltimore Stories: Volumes One and Two. He is an editor for Dirty Noir and Rotten Leaves and reviews books for Spinetingler, NoirJournal and The Nervous Breakdown;

Sandra Ruttan, the bestselling author of Harvest of Ruins and Suspicious Circumstances. Sandra is also an editor for Spinetingler Magazine and Snubnose Press.

As a side note, in keeping with the noir theme, On Sat, Feb 11 at 3 p.m. at One More Page, retired DC police detective, David Swinson, discusses his new noir mystery, A Detailed Man. David spent the 1980s as a punk rock music promoter and film producer, booking acts like Social Distortion, John Cale, Chris Isaac and the Red Hot Chili Peppers into clubs. In 1994, Swinson returned to DC and became one of the city's most decorated detectives. In 2000 he was promoted to the Special Investigations Bureau/Major Crimes, where he was often called upon by the FBI, the Secret Service and others for assistance with sensitive cases.

Author R&R with Betty Webb

This week's "Author R&R" (Reference and Research) contribution is from Betty Webb, creator of two award-winning series, the Lena Jones books and the Gunn Zoo series. Her latest book, Desert Wind—just released this week—is the seventh mystery starring Arizona private eye Lena Jones and has already earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

In Desert Wind, P.I. Lena Jones's Pima Indian partner Jimmy Sisiwan is arrested in the remote northern Arizona town of Walapai Flats, and Lena closes the Desert Investigations office to rush to his aid. What she finds is a town up in arms over the new uranium mine located only ten miles from the Grand Canyon, as well as two unsolved murders. During Lena's investigation, she encounters not only a community decimated by unsafe mining practices, but a connection to actor John Wayne and the mysterious deaths that occurred during the 1954 filming of The Conqueror. 

Betty passed along the following about how she found herself researching John Wayne for the book:

"Although I had enjoyed The Searchers and True Grit, I'd never been a true John Wayne fan, thus I started my research for DESERT WIND, my seventh Lena Jones mystery, with something less than joy. Still, there was no way around it, because the books plot revolved around the many real-life deaths surrounding the 1954 filming of The Conqueror, in which a heavily-made-up Wayne acted the part of Genghis Khan. The movie has become notorious as John Wayne's worst film – can you imagine Wayne as a Mongol invader, or Susan Hayward as a Mongol princess? – but in order to get my facts straight, I watched it five times.

All the way through. Taking voluminous notes.

Most people know that Wayne died of cancer, as did Susan Hayward. What they don't know is that almost half of The Conqueror's film crew died of cancer, along with approximately 100 Paiute Indians who had been cast as Mongol warriors. And across the counties surrounding the Snow Canyon, Utah, film set, thousands of men, women, and children began dying of cancer at the same rate as the Hollywood film people. Before long, the American Southwest had become a cancer cluster. Uranium mining, much of it on Indian reservations, might have played a part, but one important source I happened across blamed a different culprit.

Now, I'm a journalist, and most of my readers know that all my Lena Jones mysteries are based on real crimes. Like any experienced reporter, I've not only learned the danger of relying on one source alone, but the necessity of visiting the actual scene of whatever crime I'm covering. So for DESERT WIND, I drove 265 miles north from my home in Scottsdale, Arizona, to Snow Canyon, where I spent several days climbing the multi-colored mesas surrounding The Conqueror's old film set, trudging through drifts of orange-red sand. Besides visiting the local libraries and museums, I also interviewed several people who had lived in the area when the dying began. They shared eyewitness accounts of what had transpired all those years ago and how they felt about it today. Some of their comments were surprising.

The lengthiest part of my research took place at home in front of the TV, where as a Netflix subscriber, I entered a marathon of Wayne movie-watching. This would have been enjoyable had I been a bigger Wayne fan, but since I wasn't, I sulked my way through the first ten or twenty films. But somewhere between McClintock and The Shootist, something startling happened.

I fell in love with John Wayne.

Yes, yes, I know. Wayne was an actor, not a real life cowboy or soldier. But the fact remains that — with the single exception of The Conqueror — he was a smart man who chose his scripts wisely. He was always drawn to scripts where one person made a difference, where bravery and endurance mattered, where standing up for something – an idea, a community, or another human being – was the mark of a true hero. In fact, I discovered that Wayne's films reflected the ideals of my own protagonist, private investigator Lena Jones, who is always rushing to the defense of the defenseless, usually women, children, and the elderly. This is why Publishers Weekly called the Lena books, "mysteries with a social conscience."

Once I realized the commonality between Lena and John Wayne, my feelings about the actor changed, which in turn changed the plot of DESERT WIND. Instead of being a mere first chapter walk-on, Wayne emerged as a central character. The only snag was that the major action in DESERT WIND takes place in present-day Arizona, and Wayne died in 1979. But even that seemingly insurmountable problem was easily remedied when I realized that greatness never really dies. It lives on, sometimes in books, sometimes in films, and maybe – just maybe – sometimes as a walking, talking spirit.

I'm not going to say that DESERT WIND is a ghost story, although in some ways it is. What I will say is that DESERT WIND is a mystery novel about an event that victimized hundreds of thousands.

And one of those victims just might have been John Wayne."


My thanks to Betty for her Author R&R. Betty's books are published by Poisoned Pen Press, and she's also a long-time book reviewer at Mystery Scene Magazine and a member of National Federation of Press Women and Mystery Writers of America. To read an excerpt from Desert Wind, stop by Betty's website.

(Snow Canyon photo above copyright David Lee Pruden.)