Malice Domestic Most Geographical
This month my story, “The End of the World,” will be in a new anthology titled Malice Domestic Most Geographiical (published by Wildside Press.) I am delighted to be included with so many authors I respect, among them G. M. Malliet, Edith Maxwell, Alan Orloff, Keenan Powell, Triss Stein, Leslie Wheeler, and many more. Even more meaningful to me is that I now truly feel like a member of the cozy mystery writing community. One of the things I like about writing for anthologies is that they prompt you to write about things you might not otherwise have considered. In this case, as you might guess, the prompt was to set a mystery anywhere in the world. Setting had to play a part in the story. I spent months debating where the mystery should take place. I had recently been on a trip to London and it seemed to me that a tour offered up certain murderous possibilities. But then I happened to be watching an episode of Island Hunters and a couple went on a honeymoon to an overwater bungalow hotel in Tahiti. This is a string of little thatched rooms that are lined up, one after the other, over a bay, connected by only a narrow boardwalk. The minute I saw it I knew that’s where my murder could take place. It was beautiful, it was isolated, and it seemed to me that if the wind blew in the wrong direction, it might be possible to overheard a conversation that might have dangerous repercussions. I can honestly say that I never would have written about Tahiti without this prompt, but I’m so glad I did! Now I would like to stay there.
Read more