MISS DEMEANORS

I was honored to receive an advance copy of Death at Greenway annotated by the author Lori Rader-Day, which I won in a charity auction. I made myself read it slowly, savoring the experience of having the insight of the author as I read her fabulous story about Agatha Christie’s holiday home. Lori generously answered a few of my questions to share with Miss Demeanor’s readers.

Recently I spent twelve days in the hospital. One thing I discovered is that there is actually a limit to the number of Law & Orders you can watch. But, when I turned off the TV, I discovered myself awash in some of the most profound and moving stories I’d ever heard.

Setting can be a character in its own right. It can also be a metaphor. Setting creates a mood, grounds a story in reality, informs the characters, and often determines plot. Think of the wilds of Cornwall in Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, or the bleak, treacherous moors in Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles or the Dustbowl of the 1930s in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. These stories couldn’t have happened anywhere else, and the job of the author is to transport their readers to another time and place.

Who doesn’t need a heartwarming murder mystery with a cast of loveable quirky characters? Richard Osman, who I’m told is a very popular personality in the UK, is the author of last year’s fabulous Edgar-nominated The Thursday Murder Club. Our team of detectives, Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim, live in a fictional retirement village, Coopers Chase, built upon the former grounds of a convent complete with algae-ridden real pond, man-made blue water pond, a cemetery full of mostly nuns and some murder victims, and a flock of llamas. Elizabeth is retired MI-5 and lives with her chess-playing husband who is suffering from dementia. Joyce is a retired nurse and a widow. Ron is a retired labor organizer and widower. Ibrahim is a retired psychotherapist and lifelong bachelor.  As sidekicks are two police officers, Chris and Donna. To Donna’s horror, Chris is dating her mother. And there’s Bogdan, a Polish man, who is kind of scary but adores the club members and will do anything for them on a moment’s notice. The book opens when Ibrahim, who had borrowed Ron’s car for a sojourn into the neighboring village, is mugged by a teenager. Meanwhile a mysterious man who recently moved to […]

In no particular order, here are some of the books I’ve read this past year that allowed me to walk the streets of Edinburgh, wander the fields of Ireland, live in a cabin in Michigan’s Upper Penninsula, and in one in coastal North Carolina, and in one on the Czech-Polish border. Yeah… I spent a lot of time in cabins in the woods.

Dame Agatha died nearly 50 years ago, and her life has been documented in biographies, her works read, re-read and analyzed. This year, though, there are two works of fiction that give another sort of insight into Agatha’s world. What a treat for fans!

O Frabjous Day! That’s what I exclaimed the day I went online again. The logistics of a cross-country relocation and moving into a new apartment meant that I went without Wi-Fi for several days. Quelle horreur! You wouldn’t think I was old enough to remember the days before Wi-Fi was a thing. I missed being able to connect to the world in an instant. Absence Makes the Heart Grow Desperate My days spent without made me realize how reliant, dependent even, I’ve become on the internet. How did I manage growing up in the analog age, a time when I had to look up information in a set of encyclopedias (which still take up an entire shelf in one of my mother’s bookcases) or physically go to the library and use a microfiche machine? I had to *gasp* get up and walk ALL. THE. WAY. over to the TV set to change the channel, of which there were only 4 or 5 (6 or 8 if I stayed up late and adjusted the antenna just right). My address book (printed on paper!) only had one line for a phone number because people only had one line, a landline—and no space […]

I reconsidered titling this blog post, “When Bad Things Happen to Good Writers,” when I heard the conceit and self-indulgence in it. I am celebrating the official publication tomorrow of Tropical Depression, the third mystery in the Sabrina Salter series, and don’t want to sour the joy with even a note of negativity.             I was thrilled when  No Virgin Island and Permanent Sunset, the first two in the series were published after I had tried to have books I had written earlier published. I had and still have no regrets sharing that I got my first publishing contract in the same month I received my Medicare card. I am proud to be a writer of a certain age and will never apologize for trying to share my stories with readers. To me, my reciprocation with readers is the way I thank the thousands of writers who have entertained me since I was a child.             I admit I was surprised when my publisher didn’t want to publish the third installment in the Sabrina Salter series, but I was determined that I would write and publish it anyway. When my efforts and those of my agent were unsuccessful, I continued […]

Diane Kelly and I met online when I was featured on the “Molly on Mysteries” program. We soon realized we shared a common interest – we both write mysteries featuring old things, antiques for me and old houses for Diane.