Kathy Lynn Emerson's Blog, page 66

Prequel to Shadows on a Morning in Maine

Lea Wait, here. About two years ago I started writing a short prequel to each of my books.  (You can find links to them on http://www.leawait.com ) My prequels might take place years before my book starts … or moments. For my next book, Shadows on a Morning in Maine (which will be released September 9, and which you can pre-order in paperback or e-book at Amazon) I got a little carried away and wrote three different prequels. There’s a link to one on my website.

But here’s another, a little darker,  just for readers of this blog.

Prequel to Lea Wait’s SHADOWS ON A MORNING IN MAINE

“It was one of those nights. One of those calls that made me go home and hug my daughter and wonder whether being a Maine State Trooper was worth it.” Nick Strait shook his head, remembering. “Homicide is a hard enough detail. But a homicide you might have prevented …”

“Prevented? But how?” Owen Trask held up his hand to the bar tender and indicated that both their glasses should be filled. He was a local cop. He didn’t work homicides. “You said it was all over when you got there.”

“True enough. But it wasn’t the first time I’d been to that house. Domestic violence is the worst. Neighbors call 911 because they hear screams. Relatives report a cousin has been showing up with black eyes and bruises. An emergency room doctor says a broken arm couldn’t be the result of a fall. You’ll see. You’re new on the force. You get to the house, and the woman says nothing’s wrong. Maybe her husband had a little too much to drink. Maybe she did. Maybe it was her fault. After all, she burned dinner.”

“That’s what happened in this case?”

Nick nodded. “Once this woman even called 911 herself. But by the time police got there she said she’d been mistaken; she and her husband had only argued. She didn’t need any help. If she’d only reported him then, maybe she’d be alive today.”

“And there’s nothing we can do when a woman doesn’t report abuse?”

“Not when she swears nothing happened. That her injuries were accidental. That she and her husband love each other; maybe he gets a little rough sometimes, but he’s a good father. You can’t arrest someone when the victim denies there’s problem. Not unless you catch him in the act.”

“So – what happened that night?”

“It was the wife’s mother who called it in. She’d been talking to her daughter on the phone and heard her son-in-law come into the house and yell something about his truck. She heard screams, from the daughter and from the kids. Then the line went dead. ”

“How long did it take to get there?”

Nick shook his head and chugged his beer. “Maybe eight minutes. Happened I was in the area. But it was all over by then.”

“The guy was still there?”

“He was getting in his truck. He’d had a few that night, it was clear. He was still holding the knife he’d used. Didn’t even resist arrest.”

“And the wife?”

“Dead. He’d hit an artery. Blood all over the kitchen. But that wasn’t the worst. That wasn’t what gives me nightmares.”

“What does?”

“The look on her kid’s face. She was little – maybe four or five. Pale, stringy brown hair, hiding in a closet, fists clenched. No tears. Standing in front of her brother. To protect him, you know. She’d seen it all.” Nick took another gulp. “You know what she said? First thing?”

Owen shook his head.

“‘I was bad. I left my toys in the driveway. Daddy hurt Mommy because I messed up.’”

They were both silent. “What happened to those kids?”

Nick shrugged. “Their grandmother took them. But she was pretty sick – in a wheelchair. Who knows how those kids are now? Or where. But I’d guess they have nightmares, too.”

 

Longing for More Time- And a Giveaway!

Jessie: In book jail on the coast of Maine.

I am pressing up hard against the deadline for Book 2 in my new Change of Fortune Mysteries series. The first book in the series, Whispers Beyond the Veil launches on September 6. I have one child to get off to a first year at college on Friday and another who starts high school the following Wednesday.

What this means is that the dishes are piling, the laundry is heaping and dinners are all about scrounging. It also means I am wishing I could time travel and get some things accomplished months ago. Since that isn’t possible, but I like the time travel notion, I thought I’d interview the protagonist of my soon to be released book, as well as my work-in-progress, Ruby Proulx, about herself and life in Old Orchard in 1898. Here goes:

Jessica: I understand you are a newcomer to Old Orchard. What is your impression of the town?

Ruby: I have only just arrived but I am completely smitten. The town pulses with enthusiasm for the new pleasure pier that is almost complete. Everywhere you look there are grand hotels, confectioners, photography studios and ballrooms. The trains and trolleys run constantly and there is never any shortage of amenities and amusements. On top of everything else there is the constant, awe-inspiring majesty of the ocean.

Jessica: Rumor has it that you are living and working at your aunt’s hotel. Care to put in a plug for the Hotel Belden?

Ruby: The Belden may not be the largest hotel on the beach but it is the most unique. My Aunt Honoria had the insprired idea to add a faculty of metaphysical practitioners to the hotel staff and to offer readings and lessons to our guests. Where else can you hold a seance, learn to dowse or have your natal chart cast all within a pebble’s toss of the sea? If you want to visit you should telegraph or write immediately. We are already booked for most of the season.

Jessica: I’ve heard that there is a pickpocketing problem in Old Orchard. Should potential visitiors be concerned for the security of their valuables?

Ruby: While sneak theives have been as enthusiastic about a seaside visit as anyone else, we are fortunate to have a dedicated and  skilled police force in town. Well, perhaps it would be more correct to say we are lucky to have Officer Warren Yancey looking to our best interests. He doesn’t let personal gain influence his service to the community no matter how much easier it would be for him to turn a blind eye to corruption and murder.

Jessica:Murder! Care to elaborate?

Ruby: If you want to know more about that sort of thing I suggest you read Whispers Beyond the Veil.

Readers, where would you go if you could time travel? Leave a comment and you’ll be entered to win one of two advanced reading copies of Whispers Beyond the Veil.

Oh, The Sacrifices We Make for Art!

Working hard or hardly working?

Hi. Barb here.

Lately I have been thinking about…oysters.

That is to say, I have been acutely aware that when I turn in the sixth Maine Clambake Mystery, Stowed Away, on March 1, it will be time to write a proposal for the next three books in the series.

But it will be winter. And I will be in Key West. Which means I need to do any on-the-ground research for the proposal (and really, if the proposal is accepted, for the first book in the series) now. This summer.

So my mind has been ranging over what topics and murders and mysteries I could cook up to show off my part of Maine.

I knew, of course, that there were several oyster farms on the Damariscotta River and I’d gotten intrigued by aquaculture, just generally, but also via a series of short films done by the Island Institute. Many of Maine’s fisheries are gone and the main one that’s left, lobstering, is imperiled as the water in the Gulf of Maine gets warmer and more acidic and the lobsters move north. Smart communities continue to adapt to changing circumstances.

The Damariscotta River

I started looking into how to learn more about oyster farms. I always thought once I had a few books published, it would get easier to approach people to interview them for my books, but it hasn’t. It’s the dumbest thing. I learned long ago when I documented corporate procedures for a living that people love to talk about their jobs, in detail. Let’s face it, most people don’t have anyone in their lives who’s terribly interested in what they do day in and day out. But for some reason asking people I don’t know about this stuff fills me with anxiety. Not the interviewing part, the asking. So I looked for alternatives.

And I discovered the Damariscotta River Cruises. They take you on an afternoon cruise to look at oyster farms and watch the farmers at work. Fantastic.

But before I even booked tickets I had an e-mail from fellow Maine Crime Writer Lea Wait who lives just up the road. She and her husband Bob had their eye on a Damariscotta River Cruise, too, but they were interested in the evening trip, a wine and oyster tasting. Were we interested in going along? Were we!

The evening we went (tasting tours are Wednesday and Saturday evenings during the summer) was, like so many days this summer, absolutely gorgeous. The river boat was truly cool, comfortable, covered. It even had a head.

The RiverTripper

The owners were incredibly knowledgeable about oysters and they’d brought along a wine expert and an expert on hard cider.

An oyster farm

We got to taste oysters from five different Damariscotta region farms, with generous wine pairings. With every round there was a description of the oysters. How oysters taste and feel depends very much on the variations of how they are grown. It takes at least two years to grow an oyster to a size for eating and those young ones will be smaller and lighter. Some oysters are grown entirely in the river, where the warmer water makes them grow faster. Others are grown in the river and then “finished” for three months in the cold ocean, which gives them a brinier, heartier taste. What you prefer is entirely a matter of personal taste. The wine pairings, most from France, were also really delicious and interesting.

I learned a ton, including some really good reasons people might kill one another over oysters. Lea got some leads for stories, too, on the wine side of things–I’ll say no more.

Farm equipment

For those who don’t like oysters, there were wonderful cheeses and crackers on board. For those who don’t drink wine or cider, there was a full bar including non-alcoholic drinks. In addition to the oyster farms, we saw seals and eagles and, of course, the beautiful river itself.

A lonely seal

And, of course, a beautiful summer evening spent eating and drinking great wines and talking with interesting, companionable friends. I cannot recommend this trip enough.

Damariscotta River Cruises–

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Want proof a community cares about a library? Take a trip to Augusta, Maine

We’ve written often in this space about libraries and how much we appreciate them — as writers they hold a special place for us.

Recently, I was reminded just how much libraries are part of a community as a whole when I joined hundreds of others on a rainy Saturday morning to check out the renovation of Augusta’s Lithgow Public Library.

Downtown Augusta as seen from the Memorial Bridge (2010).

First, a little bit about Augusta, the city I grew up in. Like most cities in Maine, it’s had its ups and downs and is challenged the way small cities in Maine tend to be — the industries that bolstered the state’s economy for a century or more have faltered over the past several decades. The state, never wealthy, has a small population, many in far-flung remote areas who struggle to make a living. Cities like Augusta — cash-strapped and with challenges of their own — also welcome those who can’t find social and mental and physical health services in their small rural towns, adding to the strain.

Augusta may be the state capital, but with just under 19,000 residents, it’s the third smallest population-wise in the country after Montpelier, Vermont, (about 7,500 residents) and Pierre, South Dakota (about 13,000). Its aging housing stock includes a lot of beautiful, historic homes, but also a lot that are ramshackle, vacant — or should be. Its downtown, three or four blocks of ornate Victorian buildings on the bank of the Kennebec River, is beautiful but underused as complexes of big box stores at each end of the city and right off Interstate 95 draw shoppers who have no reason to navigate the city’s narrow roads and nutty rotaries to check it out.

Yet, somehow, the city keeps plugging away.

I have a lot of affection for Augusta. As a child, the State House was my playground, and on hot summer days I’d find a cool corner in it’s polished halls to read a book, or hang out on the balcony that looks across the river at the former Augusta Mental Health Institute (the state mental hospital). Legend has it, that porch was deliberately intended to have that view, so legislators would remember, as they sat out there and smoked their cigars (or these days, check their email on their phones) that even the most challenged of the state’s residents are their responsibility. Today, as then, I’m sure more people find delight in the humor they can get out of the view than some insight from its poignancy. But I digress.

The balcony at Augusta’s State House looks across the river to the grounds of the former Augusta Mental Health Institute — the state hospital.

I learned to drive in the massive State House parking lot and zipping around the crash-inspiring traffic rotaries and sat behind a cash register in Mr. Paperback at Shaw’s Plaza on summer Sunday afternoons looking out a barren city as everyone escaped to the lakes or the coast. I walked — almost daily, this was the 1970s and kids were still allowed, or rather expected, to walk — the mile from my Green Street home to Cony High School, crossing the Memorial Bridge (sans anti-suicide fencing) over my favorite river in the world. The view of the State House from the bridge, the downtown with the granite bulwark of the old post office, the green (or gold, or orange, or bare) hills beyond always thrilled me.

I delivered papers on two different routes from age 13 to 15,for  the Kennebec Journal, where my dad was managing editor, and where I now work as city editor of its sister publication, the Morning Sentinel in Waterville. I can still feel the grit sandy streets below my sneakers (or boots), smell the early morning paper-mill tang,and  taste the chocolate chip cookies and orange soda I’d buy at the bakery at the south end of Water Street when I was done. Governor Jim Longley used to jog (alone) and I’d often see him crossing the Memorial traffic circle, where he’d give me a friendly wave and hello. I’d watch the early Greyhound bus go by with “New York” on its destination sign and dream of growing up and living somewhere else.

Me, my dad and my brother Jimmy show our paper-folding techniques in a Kennebec Journal promotion in October 1975. Dad was managing editor and I was on my second paper route at the company I know work for.

And I loved Lithgow Library. My mom started taking my siblings and me to libraries before we could walk, talk or read. Everywhere we lived, libraries were always an unquestioned part of our routine. I loved having a library card, and loved the excitement of browsing through the shelves, finding new books to read. Taking them home and deciding which one to read first. Back then, Lithgow had mysteries in their own section. After I finished all Dorothy L. Sayers’ books and was told there were no more, I started at the top left corner of the shelf, which was against the left wall when you first walked into the stacks room, and went across, reading every single mystery novel the library had during my teen years.

Augusta’s Lithgow Public Library, pre-renovation.

Last summer, I was thrilled to donate a copy of my first mystery novel, Cold Hard News, to the library that was the foundation of my mystery writing career.

So it was with a lot of excitement on  Saturday, August 13, when I visited the library to check out its renovation. It’d been housed in temporary quarters across the river in the Ballard Center (the former Augusta General Hospital, another place I had spend some time in my youth), for more than a year, but now was back home.

The renovation had cost $11.5 million and taken years to get underway, with some setbacks. I couldn’t wait to see what they had done to my old friend.

But man, I was stunned at what I found.

This was no ordinary renovation. The 1896 building was restored — lovingly. The new section is a beautiful, living work of art that triples the library in size. From the restored original section, to the new stacks, immense children’s area, teen center, use of old features (including stained glass windows found packed away in the attic), it goes beyond renovation.

Equally impressive were the swarms of people who visited that morning. I got there at 11:30, long after the 10 a.m. ceremony, but there were dozens, more than dozens, wandering the new library. Local folks, tourists. Lots of families, carrying kids or leading them by the hand. Older folks sinking into the comfortable chairs, leafing through books, admiring the restored fireplaces and expansive new areas. In the two hours it was open that morning, library officials estimated more than 300 people stopped by the check it out.

There is a lot of grousing these days about taxes, money, government. There seems to be little support for the arts or the other necessities that make our communities glow and thrive, but are considered expendable or unimportant.

It took my breath away that my tough little hometown could get behind such a glorious project. And that hundreds would come to see it. All for a library.

I’ll let the pictures tell the story, but you should really go see it yourself. (To read more about it and see some photos that are much better than mine, check out the Kennebec Journal’s coverage of the opening by Jessica Lowell, with some beautiful photos by Joe Phelan, by clicking this link.)

 

The “new” Lithgow Public Library.

The new entrance.

The ornate reading room is preserved and spruced up. Beautiful.

The old stacks area — where I used to spend hours among the narrow shelves — is now an open media and reading room, with the fireplace that was once hidden by shelves, now a centerpiece.

Closeup of the restored fireplace in the former stacks.

The stacks in the addition.

These stained glass windows were found packed away in an attack. Now they’re back in use.

My friend Cara Courchesne and her daughter Elena, already an avid reader, check out the new front desk area. Elena gave the renovation two tiny thumbs up.

Part of the new children’s area. That’s a project room for kids in the background.

The front desk area in the old section is now a comfortable reading nook. The one thing that hasn’t changed is old Mr. Lithgow keeping an eye on things from above.

 

Maureen Milliken is the author of the Bernie O’Dea mystery series. The second in the series No News is Bad News came out this summer. Ask your librarian for it! Follow her on Twitter @mmilliken47, on Facebook at Maureen Milliken mysteries, and get updates and more information at maureenmilliken.com.

EVENT ALERT: Maureen will join fellow Maine Crime Writers Lea Wait and Jen Blood Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Designing Women Craft Show and Authors, Longfellow’s Nursery, 81 Puddledock Road, Manchester, Maine. It’s a one-day event that raises money for the area Sexual Assault and Crisis Center.

Weekend Update: August 20-21, 2016

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Maureen Milliken (Monday), Barb Ross (Tuesday), Jessie Crockett (Wednesday), Dick Cass (Thursday), and Lea Wait (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

Today, Saturday August 20, Lea Wait will be signing at the Arts and Yachts festival at Hodgdon Yachts Services, 100 Ebencook Road in Southport, Maine, from 10am until 6 p.m. She will also be there tomorrow, Sunday, from 3 until 4 p.m.

Saturday, August 27, Lea Wait, Maureen Milliken and Jen Blood will be signing at the Designing Women Art and Crafts Show at Longfellows Greenhouse, Puddledock Road in Manchester, Maine, from 9:30 until 4 p.m. (This event is a benefit for the Sexual Assault Crisis and Support Center in Winthrop, Maine.)

Bruce Robert Coffin will be appearing on two different morning radio shows, discussing his debut novel, Among the Shadows. On Wednesday August 24th, from about 9 to 10, he’ll be in studio on News Talk 1270 WTSN, Dover, New Hampshire with Mike Violette. Thursday morning, around 8:40, he’ll be chatting with Ken and Matt on Newsradio WGAN, AM 560 or FM 105.5. Tune in and listen!

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora

Of Cats, Hats, and Headshots

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today writing about publicity photos. Like actors, writers pretty much have to have them. If you’re a big, bestselling author, your publisher will send a professional photographer to your house for a photo shoot. The rest of us are left to provide our own headshots.

The idea to blog on this subject came from a discussion on a Facebook group I belong to called “People Who Come From Liberty, New York.” Fifty or more years ago, the stores in downtown Liberty, a small town in the Sullivan County Catskills (aka “The Borscht Belt”) had other businesses above them. Someone posted a photo showing the word “Tailor” in an upper window, and that reminded me of a long ago trip with my mother to buy a hat from a milliner in a similar upstairs business. I posted a comment, asking if anyone remembered where that shop was and got an immediate answer. Turns out it belonged to the mother and aunt of a classmate of mine. Small world, right.

Where, you’re asking, is this digression going? It’s going to one of the first photos of me ever to appear on a book jacket. When the first book featuring my sixteenth-century detective, Susanna Appleton, was about to come out from St. Martin’s Press, I paid a visit to our local Glamour Shots. For those unfamiliar with this chain, which sadly no longer has any branches in Maine, they provide everything—costumes, hair styling, and makeup as well as portraits in color or black and white. At the time, author photos in color were still a rarity on book jackets. Anyway, among the items in the extensive wardrobe was a hat. I’ve always loved hats. I wish they’d come back into fashion. And the clincher was that, at that time, activities at Malice Domestic featured a hat contest at the closing tea. What better way, I thought, to present myself as an author of traditional mysteries than to have my picture taken in the kind of hat one might wear to tea? So—me in hat.

You may notice that I am totally unrecognizable in the hat and without my glasses. That, too can be a plus. I’m not always sure I want to be recognized. To tell you the truth, I don’t particularly like having my picture on my book jackets. When I started looking for them, I realized that there were only four times that I actually had to put my face out there along with my prose. The first was on a YA biography of nineteenth-century reporter, Nellie Bly, Making Headlines (1989). That’s the one at the top of this post. The second was the hat picture, for Face Down in the Marrow-Bone Pie and Face Down Upon an Herbal. For #3-7 in the series, I substituted a photo from a second trip to Glamour Shots, one without a hat. At that time, I was also writing category romance for Bantam’s Loveswept line and they wanted my photo in the books. The first one below went with my contemporary romance novels. The second was the new one for my historical mysteries.

The fourth and, as of this writing, last time a publisher included my picture with the text was when I wrote three more Face Down books for Perseverance Press, and then my nonfiction How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries. For the novels, they used what came to be known as the “nun in the woods” shot and for the how-to, we went with another Glamour Shots photo taken at the same time as the last one.

Since then, no one has insisted on a photo for a book jacket, but I’ve still had to come up with pictures of myself to use to publicize library appearances and the like and—one of the highlights of my writing career—to advertise the fact that I was Guest of Honor at Malice Domestic. That was when I had the photo I currently use taken. By that point, I no longer wanted glamour, or to be hard to recognize. I wanted to look like myself, slightly crooked teeth, double chins, glasses and all, so it was my husband who took pictures. Lots of pictures. We ended up with several good ones. I currently use two of them for publicity.

Remember the title of this blog? Lots of authors have their pictures taken with their cats. I’d love to do that. As a goal, it was right up there with a photo in a hat. Unfortunately, there’s a problem—our cats are more photogenic than I am. They come out looking great. I look like something that, well, the cat dragged in!

So, what do you like to see as readers? Do you care what writers look like? Do you expect headshots on book jackets? Does seeing a photo of the writer have any effect, positive or negative, on your enjoyment of the book? Inquiring minds want to know.

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett is the author of over fifty books written under several names. She won the Agatha Award for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category for “The Blessing Witch.” Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries (Kilt at the Highland Games) as Kaitlyn and the historical Mistress Jaffrey Mysteries (Murder in a Cornish Alehouse ~ UK in December 2016; US in April 2017) as Kathy. The latter series is a spin-off from her earlier “Face Down” series and is set in Elizabethan England. Her websites are www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com

 

In Your Opinion . . .

Kate Flora here, filling in for Dorothy Cannell. For those of you who are regulars, you know that this blog is an eclectic mix of writing, author news, exploring our various parts of Maine, food, fun, and whatever else we encounter while we’re at our desks and when we’re allowed to leave them.

Something you must know, if you follow is, is that we’re very interested in you–our readers–and the conversations you start, the comments you make, the questions you ask, and the stories you add to our own.

So today, on behalf of all the writers who blog here, I’m asking the curious question: What do you like to see on this blog? Are we creating the right mix? Are there things about writing or the writer’s life that you wonder about? Are there topics you think we’re neglecting?

If you were the blog runner for a day, what subjects would you throw out to the group to see how everyone would answer?

If you were our guest blogger, what would you like to write about? Did you know that we love guests on our blog? We like to introduce readers to new writers, new books by favorite writers, and to all things “Maine” that we discover along the way, and we would like to share yours.

Do you have a favorite restaurant? A favorite Maine place that you are willing to share?

It is fascinating, for many of us, to hear the questions you ask when we’re doing a book talk. What do you wonder about as you’re reading a mystery? Are there questions about the process you’d like to ask but haven’t? Do you wonder about how we handle series characters and have opinions about those characters yourself?

Did you know that we sometimes give away bags of books and Maine goodies? We’re doing that during the month of August, and you can’t be one of our lucky winners unless you leave a comment. This is your chance. So share your opinions.

And if you happen to be near Carmel tonight, come to the Golden Harvest Grange at 6, going me and Lea Wait, and Dorothy Cannel, and answer these questions in person. It’s going to be an evening of Death and Desserts, so most likely there will also be chocolate.

The Busy Season

Ah, summer in Maine. That magical time of year when the turnpike’s clogged from Friday to Sunday, your favorite haunts are choked with tourists, and your friends who live in warmer climes suddenly realize how much they miss you.

I’m not complaining. The weather’s (mostly) been lovely, and (as my last post indicates) I’m more than happy to play tour guide from time to time. But thanks to my publishing schedule, this summer has been doubly busy for me.

THE KILLING KIND came out in paperback on August 2nd. It’s got a snazzy new cover, chock full of lovely blurbs. NPR called it “Relentless and breathtaking.” The New York Times insisted “Read it. Or else.” And my mom said “I liked your old series better.” (There’s a chance that last one didn’t make the cover.) Anyway, if you’ve been waiting to pick up a copy,  now’s the time. Hit up your local bookseller or order via the links on this page.

On August 9th, Mulholland Books released an e-only prequel to THE KILLING KIND, “The Approach.” It’s lean, funny, and thrilling, and—at the rock bottom price of $0.99 for any e-format—it makes for a great introduction to the Michael Hendricks series. And as an added bonus, it also includes a sneak peek at my second Michael Hendricks novel, RED RIGHT HAND! Click here to learn more or for links to buy.

RED RIGHT HAND doesn’t come out until September 13th, but reviews are already coming in. Booklist said it “brims with nice turns on genre conventions.” Kirkus declared it “Fast-moving… entertaining… A good choice for thriller fans.” And, in a starred review, Publishers Weekly called RED RIGHT HAND “Explosive and timely,” going on to say “Holm expertly balances weighty issues of national security with more intimate personal losses, and makes it clear that the best stories happen in the gray area between good and evil.” (No word on what my mom thinks yet.) If you’re interested in learning more about RED RIGHT HAND (or, you know, preordering it) you can do so here.

As busy as this summer’s been, an impending book release means autumn isn’t looking any quieter. I’ve got loads of events coming up, in Maine and elsewhere. If you want to get a book signed or simply say hello, here’s where you’ll find me:

09/15/16 to 09/18/16

Bouchercon

New Orleans, Louisiana

09/28/16

Raymond Village Library

Raymond, Maine

09/30/16 to 10/1/16

Murder by the Book

Jesup Library

Bar Harbor, Maine

10/13/16

Vose Library

Union, Maine

10/18/16

Curtis Memorial Library

Brunswick, Maine

11/05/16

Murder and Mayhem in Milwaukee

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Keep an eye on my website for details (times, panel information, etc.) and additional appearances; I’m adding new ones all the time. (If you’re a bookseller or librarian and you’d like to schedule an event with me, feel free to drop me a line via the email address in my sidebar.)

Whew! Just typing all that tired me out. Or maybe the heat’s to blame (I’m writing this on Sunday, and it’s pretty sultry in Portland). I wonder when I’m gonna find time to write the next book. I guess that’s what the winter months are for.

***

Chris Holm is the author of the Collector trilogy, which blends crime and fantasy, and the Michael Hendricks thrillers. His first Hendricks novel, THE KILLING KIND, was nominated for an Anthony, a Barry, a Lefty, and a Macavity Award and named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a Boston Globe Best Book of 2015, and Strand Magazine’s #1 Book of 2015. Hendricks returns September 13th in RED RIGHT HAND. Chris lives in Portland, Maine.

How to Raise the Perfect Child, Or At Least Lie About It: Preparing for Parenthood

Brendan Rielly: As we prepare to deliver our two oldest back to college and as our youngest enters her junior year in high school, I think often about how Erica and I prepared to become parents in the first place.  This post is taken from a tongue-in-cheek guide to parenting I’ve written called How to Raise the Perfect Child, Or At Least Lie About It.

To prepare yourself for parenthood, you should seek out other parents who have young children. And criticize them. Whatever you do, don’t ask for advice. Criticize them. What do you mean you’re not playing Bach for your baby? I can’t believe your baby food’s not organic. You just have to be firm at bed time, that’s all. Breast-fed children are smarter, but if you don’t want to, I guess that’s your choice. Disposable diapers…don’t you care about the environment?

Have a ball! It’s the last time you’ll have all the answers. Or, you could spend the next nine months whacking yourself on the forehead with a hammer, yelling: “Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!” Soon, your head will go numb, you’ll forget everything you ever knew, and you’ll spend your days walking around in a daze. Boom. Parenthood.

Next, you’ll want to give someone a key to your house and pay them to sneak into your bedroom every two hours and scream in your face. This is important. Points are awarded for how far you jump out of bed and whether you land on your feet, or your face. Points are deducted if you punch the screamer in the face. Parents get arrested for that sort of thing.

After the long jump, you cannot go back to bed. Instead you must take turns heating bottles of milk and squirting them onto each other’s arm. Whoever scalds the other first, loses.

Next, you must carry a bag of compost around for an hour, singing the same song. No variations are permitted. Then, you can go back to bed. Ten minutes later, the screamer will return.

You’re not ready yet. You’re probably two of those people that enjoy stimulating conversations and romantic dinners by candlelight. In other words, you’re not yet parents.

To prepare for parenthood, from now on, every conversation must revolve solely around your child. If it doesn’t, walk away. You must work the word “poo” into every conversation at least once. Never look at the person with whom you’re speaking. Jerk your head around spasmodically like a turkey the day before Thanksgiving. Mutter to yourself frequently.

Encourage half of your coworkers to crawl between your legs whenever you speak to them. When you ask them to stop, have them drop to the floor, kick their feet and scream “No!” Encourage the other half to ignore everything you say until you repeat yourself at least three times, then they are permitted only to respond: “Why?”

Throw away your books, newspapers, magazines and movies. Replace them with books that you rub, scratch, yank, or sniff, and with movies about talking animals that LOVE you and have discovered forty-three verses to Row, Row, Row Your Boat that you never knew existed. Begin every sentence with “You know, this morning on Sesame Street….” Hum the theme song to Barney at work. Loudly.

Having rendered yourself unfit for human conversation, you must now train for the stuff-your-face sprint. Time yourselves while eating. First one done wins. Choking costs points. You’re ready when you can inhale any meal in three minutes or less. You will use the remaining time to take turns spitting baby food in each other’s faces. Points are awarded for adhesion, accuracy, and complementary colors.

Don’t quit now. There is more to learn, little cricket. Spill milk on your suits and let them sit in the sun for a week before wearing. Pour milk on your couch and place it next to your suits. The remotes belong in the oven and your watch goes in the toilet. Install new latches so you can’t open the fridge, oven, or any cabinets and put plastic covers on all doorknobs. You’ll eventually end up locked in the bathroom, furiously spinning the cover around and around. Enjoy it. This is a good time to practice muttering to yourself.

When you do get the bathroom door open, invite all your neighbors to join you. Never go to the bathroom alone. From now on, this is performance art.

Pack every suitcase you own and carry them with you wherever you go while also holding an alley cat hopped up on amphetamines. Purchase all the graham crackers in your store, pour milk on them, and spread the goop across all surfaces in your minivan. It will form a protective barrier between your vehicle and its inhabitants. Generations from now, archaeologists will be able to tell how old your van is by the number of layers. By the way, if you are still driving anything sporty—and by sporty, I mean non-minivanish—drive immediately down to the nearest minivan dealer and sign over all your salary for the next few years. You must have the latest minivan with multiple climate controls and more monitors than NASA, or you will be bad parents.

Some final, but essential, points. Call random doctors at three in the morning and complain that your child looks funny. When they hang up, call back. Tell them she smells funny too. Anytime that you are in a large group, announce that you have to go peepee and run from the room holding yourself. Sniff random people’s bottoms and announce “We have a winner!”

So, as you lay on the bathroom floor exhausted, trapped, famished, ripe, with a constant throbbing in your forehead, know this: you have fooled yourself into thinking you’re ready for parenthood.

Vanity Plates, Cheesy Women in a Des Moines Elevator and Other Tales From the Road

John Clark sharing our recent foray into the heartland of America. What seemed simple a month before turned into quite a frazzling experience when Beth and I sat down to plan our trip last month. The centerpiece was our nephew’s wedding in Des Moines where he’s a professor of philosophy. Mary, his wife to be is a Harvard Law school graduate, who grew up in Wisconsin.

Meet Mary Triik

The original plan was to drive to Des Moines via Canada and then spend a few days exploring South Dakota, returning via the Peace Garden on the North Dakota/Winnipeg border. However, the more we looked at available time (we had another reception here in Maine and Beth was going to take care of Piper the following week while her day care was closed), the more apparent it was that this wasn’t going to work. Plan B was to spend a couple days exploring Nebraska, but that quickly fizzled for much the same reason. I was beginning to feel frustrated and considered saying, “The hell with it. Lets go to the wedding and then come straight home.” Good thing we came up with Plan C because it was a winner.

Lucky shot of Beth through the waterfall at the botanical garden.

Going to Des Moines, we stopped in Kingston, Ontario and did the Haunted Walk (http://hauntedwalk.com/kingston-tours/). Shelby, the young woman who was our guide did a great job. We didn’t see any ghosts, but learned that one nearby park may have as many as 10,000 skeletons buried under it and at one point, we were standing on top of an old jail yard where those executed had been buried. Not all the bodies were recovered.. The next day, we were amazed to see wind turbines dotting corn fields for nearly 40 miles along the shore of Lake Ontario. We also passed several big solar farms. Western Quebec and eastern Ontario were scarily dry, so dry that we could see wetlands that were down to caked mud and trees that were clearly dying. We also visited the arboretum in Guelph which had a lot of wildflowers geared to attract butterflies. There was also a big bird feeder that had both a male and female cardinal enjoying the seeds. (https://www.uoguelph.ca/arboretum/)

Shelby was our very entertaining and eloquent guide for the walk in Kingston.

That night we stayed in Monroe, Mi. where we walked on a nature trail and saw 5 snowy egrets and more cardinals. Then it was a long drive through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and into Iowa where we hit four downpours so fierce we slowed to a crawl. We were more than happy to get to our hotel where we met up with Beth’s brothers and their wives for dinner.

Iowa takes vanity plates seriously. They have their own eye-grabbing color.

My friend Mike, who was a librarian in Iowa for many years suggested we might enjoy the botanical garden (http://www.dmbotanicalgarden.com/) and the nearby arboretum (http://iowaarboretum.org/) He was right about both. The botanical garden has a rainforest-like domed area with everything from cacti to papaya and banana trees. There’s a separate room where local gardeners have assembled fabulous plants, intermixed with furniture, glass and miniature terrariums. We even saw herbs growing from a pillow stuffed with loam. It was a riot of colors, topped only by the spectacular water lilies in a Japanese water garden. The Arboretum was also a great place, with several species of trees we’d never seen before. Ever hear of a Kentucky Coffee tree?

Pillow planter at the botanical garden.

The wedding was a small one and the reception was held at a rural park with a pig roast as the central theme. Everyone, save the pig, had a great time. When we got back to the hotel, we got on with another couple and two very happy young women. The other couple asked about the ribbons the ladies were wearing and we all were informed they were from the Fuzzy Udder Creamery in Whitefield, Maine (http://www.fuzzyudder.com/) and had just taken third place in a national cheese competition. Small world, we thought.

All aboard the Tooterville Trolley.

Plan C went into effect the next morning as we headed northeast through Wisconsin, passing the giant air show in Oshkosh (500,000 spectators) on our way to the upper peninsula in Michigan. It’s an area that looks a lot like our part of Maine, but gets between 200-300 inches of snow annually. People are very friendly and we chatted with a couple who own a small produce business in central Michigan while riding the Toonerville Trolley (http://trainandboattours.com/) a 5 mile narrow gauge train running through bogs and woods to a river where passengers board a boat that takes them to Tahquamenon Falls , the second largest waterfall in terms of volume east of the Rocky Mountains. We saw three bears, six eagles, nine sandhill cranes, two merlins, four deer and more hawks, turkey vultures and ducks than we could count.

We made two more stops of note on our return trip. The first was at the Soo Locks in Sault St. Marie (http://www.saultstemarie.com/attractions/soo-locks/) We lucked out, arriving just as large ore carriers were going through in different directions. These two locks handle 7,000 vessels annually, some as long as 1000 feet and pump up to 22 million gallons of water in or out to move each vessel. It’s a very impressive operation and there’s a visitor center as well as a shipwreck museum on the grounds.

Imagine riding herd on 7,000 of these each year.

Our last stop was a two night excursion in Algonquin Provincial Park (https://www.ontarioparks.com/park/algonquin) a wilderness area almost 3,000 square miles in size. There are plenty of lakes, streams and wetlands, not to mention dozens of hiking trails, camping areas and exhibits. We hiked two trails and walked a third that was a series of exhibits, many preserved or restored, that depicted the evolution and history of logging in the park. It’s the best one I’ve ever seen and we learned a lot as well as getting plenty of pictures.

This was one serious stairway. Luckily, we walked DOWN.

We left the park at 6:30 the next morning, passing through Ottawa and Montreal, arriving back in Hartland before sunset. It was a terrific Plan C.