Writing Mysteries:Round-Robin Storytelling

In 1995, crime writers Edna Buchanan, Vicki Hendricks, Elmore Leonard, Paul Levine, and Les Standiford and eight of their writing colleagues penned the round-robin mystery novel Naked Came the Manatee. Conceives as a parody of the thriller genre and a response to an earlier multi-author novel titled Naked Came the Stranger (which has 24 writers!), Manatee originally appeared as 13 installments published in Tropic Magazine (a Sunday supplement to the Miami Herald).

The plot centers on three ficti...