The joy of research

I love doing online research for my Birder Murder mysteries because I find some of the weirdest stuff. Some of it is so bizarre, I can hardly believe it’s real, so I imagine a lot of my readers think I make it all up, but I don’t. Here’s an article I found about bird smuggling when I was working on “Falcon Finale” – can you believe this guy smuggled hummingbirds in his briefs?  I also read about miniature monkeys under caps on airplanes and gyrfalcons in suitcases.

But my new favorite find is a website that deals with conspiracies, even though I’m not a conspiracy nut.  I especially like the article and video about the poison shellfish dart. I found the site when I was researching ways to poison someone for my newest Birder Murder. It figures the CIA would be all over this area of expertise, right? Secret poisons, disguised dart guns, melting ice weapons that leave no evidence. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use it in my book because I couldn’t figure out how a Minnesotan would get hold of shellfish poison, not to mention the cobra venom that is also used in the dart. (We don’t have a lot of cobras snaking around up here in our backyards, readily available for poison formulas. At least, not that I’ve noticed.) The good news is that now I know where to go when I want to lose myself in conspiracy theory and paranoia.

Speaking of which, I sure hope I’m not being tracked through my computer. I mean, I was researching ways to kill someone and not leave a trace – does that raise red flags somewhere? Maybe deep under CIA headquarters? If I die of a heart attack, please have the medical examiner test for shellfish toxin. The truth is out there…I think…..somewhere….