Auntiemwrites Crime-Mystery Author M K Graff

Please welcome guest Laura Gail Black, to talk about her debut release, For Whom the Book Tolls:

How to get away with murder
Laura Gail Black

It’s the quandary which every mystery writer must face: how to plot a believable murder the killer would feel was air-tight and the sleuth can figure out without author interference.

Thanks to police procedural TV shows such as CSI or NCIS and their spinoffs, as well as their softer counterparts such as Elementary, or Death in Paradise, today’s reader has a deeper understanding of how police policies and procedures work with regard to scene processing, victim and suspect rights, and how the legal system works. Gone are the days when a writer can simply make it up and assume the typical reader won’t know the difference.

Today’s mystery author often has books about causes of death, body trauma, poisons, weapons, crime scene investigation, deadly drug interactions, and forensics. In addition, we often have internet search histories which may have us on FBI watch lists for our research into poisons, bomb making, bank robbing, how long a body takes to decompose in varying settings, and which countries have no extradition treaties with the U.S.

Some of us also have stories of the raised eyebrows at our doctors’ offices when we take an opportunity during a routine exam to strike up a conversation on how rapidly a certain body trauma would cause unconsciousness or death. On top of these subjects, we must learn how to hide a body, dispose of weapons, and ensure we don’t leave physical evidence behind—fingerprints, hair, and fibers.

The next difficulty comes when we need our sleuth to figure it all out, putting aside our own knowledge of the crime and looking at it from a not-in-the-know point of view. We can’t cheat and conveniently have everything drop in our sleuth’s lap. He or she needs to work for it, finding tidbits of information through conversations, searching, and snooping. They must stumble across all information and come to the solution without our help.

Police or attorney best-friends or significant others are allowable if not overused, but the sleuth can only learn a few tiny tidbits from these sources. Often this significant other or friend is used as a sounding board for ideas and theories, although they cannot, must not, be the ones to come up with the solution. Our sleuths have to push through the process, sometimes moving into danger to prove their theories and suss out a killer.

Authors walk a tightrope of ensuring we dole out just enough information without giving away too much. We don’t want the reader to figure things out too quickly. However, a reader should be able to look back and see the clues and what they meant after the fact.

We are taught, as authors, to write what we know. Yet I feel confident in stating most, if not all, mystery authors have never once committed murder. Instead we have researched, imagined, daydreamed, and queried our local police officers, fire fighters, and coroners and have taught ourselves, in essence, how to get away with—and solve—murder.

Laura Gail Black writes cozy mysteries on the beautiful shores of Lake Marion in South Carolina, where she lives with her husband and four rescue dogs. She began collecting antique books when she worked in a used and antique bookstore in college. Today, Laura’s bookshelves contain many antique books, some of which are close to two hundred years old. When not writing or playing with her dogs, Laura creates her own jewelry, crochets, cross-stitches, spends time on the water with her husband, and enjoys all things tea.

Leave a Response »

Please welcome author Tina Debellegarde, with an unusual twist on the first in her Batavia-on-Hudson series, Winter Witness:

Why I Killed My Husband

Winter Witness is the first in my Batavia-on-Hudson Mystery Series.

In many ways this book is autobiographical: it tells the story of a woman making her way in her new home in a Catskill Mountain village and trying to fit in. A former teacher and historian, she moves to the quiet Hudson Valley community with her husband so she can finally write her first novel.

They create a hobby farm and make a quiet cozy life for themselves. She has a close relationship with her only son who lives in Japan (the future setting for Book 3 of the series.)

This is where the similarities end. Among other things, my life does not include meddling in the local sheriff’s homicides. But the most significant divergence from my life is that I chose to kill off my wonderful husband for the sake of the story. (This couldn’t be what they mean when they say kill off your darlings, could it?)

When I conjured this lovely scenario to set up Bianca St. Denis as my amateur sleuth, I realized that the tension would be ramped up, and she would be a much more interesting character if Bianca needed to manage farm life on her own in this new town.

A small farm, even a hobby farm, is hard work for two, and even harder alone. Bianca, as a young widow, has to look outward to her new community for help and companionship. She needs to find a niche for herself.

Being recently widowed makes her more vulnerable in countless ways and gives her much more room for growth and change across the length of what I envision as a long series.

It also frees her up for possible love interests, and who doesn’t like a few love interests in their reading?

Look for Winter Witness coming September 29, 2020.

Tina deBellegarde lives in Catskill, New York with her husband Denis and their cat Shelby. Winter Witness is the first book in the Batavia-on-Hudson Mystery Series. Tina also writes short stories and flash fiction. When she isn’t writing, she is helping Denis tend their beehives, harvest shiitake mushrooms, and cultivate their vegetable garden. She travels to Japan regularly to visit her son Alessandro. Tina did her graduate studies in history. She is a former exporter, paralegal, teacher, and library clerk.

Visit her website at http://www.tinadebellegarde.com

Leave a Response »