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Showing posts with the label murder

It's Getting Close!

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  You might think "Christmas!" when you read that headline, but for me it's the release of SISTER SAINT, SISTER SINNER on December 15th. The launch of a new book is both exciting and nerve-wracking. I dread some mistake that I and the many editors and beta readers missed. I drive myself crazy trying to come up with exactly the right categories and keywords to make Amazon and all the other search engines offer up my book when people go looking for something new to read. I'm excited to see what readers think. I'm afraid of what readers might think. It's complicated. "So what is this book?" you might ask (Oh, please ask.) It's not a mystery per se , though it has a murder that eventually is solved. It's more a family drama that spills onto the larger, national scene. But it's not one of those "Aren't these women sweet?" books. These women take matters into their own hands. For better or for worse, they're proactive. And if

New Life for a Book

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One of the things authors need to recognize is that books don't just take off and become bestsellers. Some lie around for months, even years, waiting to be noticed. We're encouraged not to neglect our backlists, but it's difficult when there's something "NEW! NEW! NEW!" to talk about. That's been the case with the Loser series, which ended a couple of years ago. Killing Silence is one of my favorites among my books. I love the protagonist, Loser, who is homeless and damaged but not down and out. The idea that homeless people are counted out of society, ignored by most and assumed to be incapable of paying attention, makes her a perfect sleuth. The publisher of this series has decided to make Killing Silence free on Kindle for May 29-31. I'm really excited about this, since I think freebies are a great way to introduce a book to new readers. If you've already read the book, you can help by passing the news on to your Kindle-reading friends

Why Did the Amateur Sleuth Cross the Road?

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Unless an author writes only police procedurals and P.I. novels, the question of why the protagonist gets involved in the mystery is present. I've never in my life wanted to investigate a murder, and I'm guessing most readers would say the same. We trust the police to do an adequate job, and while we might grumble that they didn't turn every stone in a specific case, we seldom jump in to help. If you're going to write a mystery with an amateur sleuth, he or she has to have a reason to get involved that departs from what is good behavior and good sense in real life. Loser wants to help the father of a little girl who reminds her of her daughter. Caroline is suspected of killing her former best friend. Many authors choose to have their protag or someone close to him as the suspect . This is certainly a driving force, as long as the rules of logic are applied. If you're accused of murder, are the people involved in the case likely to sit down

Disposable Bad Guys

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There's been a discussion on one of my chat groups concerning the casual killing of "bad guys" in movies and books. There are two schools of thought. First, it's escapist fiction, so it's supposed to by over-the-top. I enjoy the characters in NCIS-LA, but in almost every episode there is a scene where they blow away everyone who might be a bad guy.    No one ever investigates afterward. Nobody gets put on administrative leave until it's determined the shooting was "righteous."    No foreign government demands the U.S. answer for agents who shot up a whole neighborhood. If they even make a peep, someone, usually Henrietta, "handles" it. The question of whether all those deaths were warranted is ignored.   The assumption is the good guys are the good guys, so they get to kill bad guys. Period. The opposing arguments hold that indiscriminate killing sends the wrong message, in fact, a whole bunch of wrong messages.    Shoot first

Taking Criticism

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E-book available on Amazon. Print soon Writers have to learn to accept criticism. It starts with your editor, who takes out some of your favorite passages because they don't advance the plot. "But it's a commentary on society!" you whine. "You're not a philosopher. You're a mystery writer," is the reply. Then you get the beta reader who wants the story to end differently. "Why didn't she hook up with the sheriff?" "I preferred to suggest that she might and let the reader imagine it. I didn't want to start another whole thread in the last few pages." (Pouty face) "I think you should say it." Later come the readers, who go on Amazon and say things like, "The author speaks of a 'dollar' but there were no dollars in Tudor England." Actually, the word was slang for a coin called a crown in the 1500s. But don't let my months of research top your assumption you know what you're talkin

30 Days of Christmas Day 7: Let's Surprise an Author!

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Guess how this author picks winners for giveaways and such! These days as many of my friends are authors as are not. I thought for the Dec. 1st post I'd tell you about someone else's books for a change. These people have no idea what I'm doing, so I'm hoping it's a nice surprise for the next few Tuesdays for them and possibly some new reading for those who read this blog. Today's "honoree" is Janet, who has a book releasing today. She has two series published under pen names, and both are worthy of a read if you like cozy mysteries and haven't yet tried them. The PTA Murders series is published under the name Laura Alden and features Beth Kennedy, recently divorced with two kids. When she gets drafted into more involvement in the local PTA, things start happening, and Beth is reluctantly drawn into sleuthing. The five-book series is notable to me because the humor is genuine, not derived from exaggerated characters who do unbelievable thing

FREE E-book!

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THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY is free for Kindle right now: August 1st through the 4th. http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Detective-Agency-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B010MF5J9E/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= This is a re-release, so you might have read it, but if you haven't yet met Seamus, Dead Detective, and if you have a sense of humor about the Afterlife, you might enjoy this series (follow-ups are Dead for the Money and Dead for the Show . I'm working on Dead to Get Ready--and Go.) One reviewer made me giggle when she said though SHE liked the book, she wouldn't want her children to read it and conclude that this is the way heaven actually is. Really? Can you say FICTION? I had fun with what we're taught about the Afterlife as I wrote this mystery, which another reviewer says is "Sam Spade meets Quantam Leap." Not sure about that, since there isn't much sci-fi stuff here, but I think you'll enjoy the book, which won Best Mystery of

New Dead Detective Mystery

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DEAD FOR THE SHOW is scheduled for release today. It's ready on Kindle for sure. (If you don't have a Kindle, there's an app you can download to get your other e-readers to read Kindle books. I know nothing about this, being a Kindle owner, but I'm told it's great.) The book is also available in paperback from Ingram, which means you can order it at a bookstore and they'll have it in a day or two. I don't see the print version on Amazon yet, but it's in the works. There's no way to predict how long it takes after we approve the proof copies. So what is this one about? DEAD FOR THE SHOW is Book #3 of the Dead Detective Mysteries, featuring Seamus, a throwback to the '50s who operates pretty well in 2015. In this one he's investigating the death of a the woman who refuses to believe she's dead. She was a member of a a theater group in Toronto, and Seamus ends up trying to protect her sister so she doesn't end up dead as well. T

Freebie Day 1: April 11, 2015

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The Dead Detective Agency Want 2 free copies of this book? Respond here or on Peg’s News on Facebook to be entered in the daily drawing. Book #1 of the Dead Detective series Setting: Grand Rapids, MI Tori can hardly believe it when she wakes up dead. The Afterlife is nice, but she really wants to know why someone would murder the secretary at an investments firm. The solution to her problem? Get a dead detective and launch an investigation. NOTE: This is one of the two that will be re-released this summer with a different cover. Same book, new edition, so watch the titles.

I Really Mean It This Time: Dead Detective #3

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Taking the bull by the horns is dangerous, but I had to. The third of the Dead Detective series languished at my publishers for over a year. It had been edited, but that was as far as it got: no cover, no release date. So I asked for the rights back. Luckily they were great about it, and now the book can move on with a cover from Phillips Covers and formatting from Greenerside Digital. I took a guess at a release date and made it April 20. I'm guessing the e-book will come earlier than that, since that's a simpler process. The print copies might come later, since there's the whole "mail-me-a-copy-of-what-it's-going-to-look-like" thing. If there's something wrong, that would delay the release. Anyway, it's up for pre-order on Kindle right now, and I'll be sure to let everyone know when everything is in place. Here's the teaser: Dead Detective Seamus Hanrahan is bored on the ship that takes the dead from one phase to the next. It's

I Am Not Just Sitting on My Hands

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Sunday Update: The promo is finished. 80,000+ people downloaded the book, and there was a big jump in sales for the audio book as well. Friday Update: Down to #3 in Free Books on Amazon but #1 for Women Sleuths. I'll take it! Thursday Update: THE SLEUTH SISTERS is now #1 in Amazon's Cozy Mystery List. Imagine me dancing around the kitchen! Wednesday Update: THE SLEUTH SISTERS is currently #1 on Amazon's list of FREE books. The FREE days last until Saturday, so if you haven't downloaded it yet, now's your chance. Most people know by now that Maggie Pill is also me. She writes cozy sleuth mysteries, and her first, THE SLEUTH SISTERS, will be FREE for Kindle from Tuesday, November 25 to Saturday, November 29, 2014. Here are a few tidbits:         Set in northern Lower Michigan         Concerns sisters who start a detective agency for widely different reasons         Deals with sisterly issues in a funny way         Involves some tromping around in the U.P.

Body Parts & Five Mystery Suggestions

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The quiz, "Body Parts" is at the bottom of the page. You might have to scroll. With the new blog, which combines two older ones, we're expanding the Five Mystery E-books/week a little. These are books someone on my team read and enjoyed. No helping out friends in the publishing business. Just honest appraisal of our favorite sub-genres, from moderately cozy to moderately hard-boiled. South of Hell   by P.J. Parrish (part of the Louis Kincaid series)    Parrish is actually sisters. They began their Louis Kincaid series in Florida, but Louis spends a lot of time in    Michigan lately. Hell, Michigan, in this entry. Another Man’s Moccasins by Craig Johnson (part of the Walt Longmire series)    If you've seen Longmire on TV, great, but you need to read Johnson's prose to fall under the spell of this       series. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie King (part of the Sherlock Holmes & Mary series)    The first of the series, in which M