Mystery We Write Blog Tour presents Marilyn Meredith

             I'm honored to host Marilyn Meredith, also known as F.M. Meredity,  on the Mystery We Write Blog Tour for this week. Marilyn first interviews her character Detective Mulligan, and then she allows me to throw some questions at him. 

           Come join us as we sit on the patio with tall glasses of iced tea in front of us. Help yourself. The glasses, ice, and pitcher of tea sit on the table by the sliding doors.

          First, let me introduce F. M. Meredith and Detective Doug Milligan of the Rocky Bluff Police Department. Take it away, Merilyn.

F.M. Meredith: What’s going on in your police department these days?

Detective Milligan: As you know, we’re a small department in a beach community located between Ventura and Santa Barbara. We don’t have a lot of major crimes and as yet, haven’t been invaded by gangs. Our biggest case at the moment is a flasher who is accosting women jogging on the beach.

F.M. Meredith: So what’s the plan to catch this pervert?

Detective Milligan: I might as well tell you since our Public Service Officer is going to put a warning out to women to not jog on the beach by themselves and I think that might make our suspect disappear for awhile. The plan is to send our only female officer, Stacey Wilbur, out jogging as a decoy.

F.M. Meredith: You don’t sound too happy about that.

Detective Milligan: No, I’m not. Stacey and are getting married this Saturday and her mind is filled with wedding plans. I don’t think her mind is focused on what she’s supposed to be doing and I’m afraid she’ll get hurt.

F.M. Meredith: Surely she won’t be sent out alone.

Detective Milligan: We have a new hire who comes to us from L.A.P.D. whose going to be her back-up. I’m just not sure about this fellow and how good he’s going to be. One of the other officers has voiced some doubts about this guy. And another problem is the weather. Fog is always an issue on the coast and of course the worst is in the early hours. I’m not sure he’ll even be able to see Stacey while she’s jogging.

F.M Meredith.: That’s definitely a worry. Would you mind telling me a bit about your relationship with Stacey Wilbur and how that came about?

Detective Milligan: In her capacity as an officer, she helped me on several cases. First I was impressed with her intelligence and her ability to notice and figure out clues. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I thought she was pretty cute too. She is a single mom. I asked her out several times and we included her little boy often. It wasn’t long before I loved them both.

F. M. Meredith: Are you looking forward to the wedding?

Detective Milligan: I’m looking forward to having Stacey be my wife, not so sure about all the folderol that Stacey’s planned though she’s assured me it’s going to be a simple wedding.

F.M. Meredith: Where are you two planning to live?

Detective Milligan: I own a small, old Victorian that I fixed up. Lately, I’ve been renting a room to a friend, Officer Gordon Butler. Hopefully, he’ll be all moved out before it’s time for Stacey and her son to move in.

F. M. Meredith: I hope everything goes off as planned. Congratulations.

          And the hostess of this blog had a few more questions for you, too.

Vivian: What do you consider your greatest weakness? Your greatest strength?

Detective Milligan: Wow, that’s a biggie. To be perfectly honest, my greatest weakness may be loving Stacey too much and fearing for her. As for my greatest strength, I’m a good detective. In our department we don’t have a lot of the fancy equipment the big city detectives have at their disposal, so we use a lot of old fashioned policing skills. I’m darn good at figuring out people and know when they’re lying or keeping something back. I’ll dig until I find out what I need to know.

Vivian: Where, in the book, do you face your greatest challenge? How well do you do?

Detective Milligan: My biggest challenge comes on the day of my wedding. I have a difficult time with what happens. You’ll have to read the book to find out what that is.

Vivian:  Makes sense. I'm curious enough now to want to read it. Why should readers like you or dislike you?

Detective Milligan: I sure hope readers like me, I’ve been a major character in almost all of the Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series.

Vivian: What do you add to the book?

Detective Milligan: I think I add a lot, after all I’m one of only two detectives in the Rocky Bluff P.D. and I’m Stacey Wilbur’s love interest—that should count for a lot.

   

          Thank you, Detective Milligan. Now let's learn a little more about your author.

          Author Bio: F.M. Meredith, also known as Marilyn Meredith, is the author of nearly thirty published novels. Her latest in the Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series, from Oak Tree Press, is Angel Lost. Marilyn is a member of EPIC, Four chapters of Sisters in Crime, including the Internet chapter, Mystery Writers of America, and on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America. Visit her at http://fictionforyou.com and her blog at http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com

Angel Lost Blurb:

           As plans for her perfect wedding fill her mind, Officer Stacey Wilbur is sent out to trap a flasher, the new hire realizes Rocky Bluff P.D. is not the answer to his problems, Abel Navarro’s can’t concentrate on the job because of worry about his mother, Officer Gordon Butler has his usual upsets, the sudden appearance of an angel in the window of a furniture store captures everyone’s imagination and causes problems for RBPD, and then the worst possible happens—will Stacey and Doug’s wedding take place?

          Angel Lost is available as a trade paperback from Amazon.com, or if you’d like an autographed copy, order from the author’s website http://fictionforyou.com

 Sharon Ervin hosts me this week of the tour. Please stop by and say hello.

Mystery We Write Blog Tour presents Pat Browning

 

            I’ve had the pleasure of “knowing” my guest for this Mystery We Write Blog Tour stop, Pat Browning, for several years. However, we finally met face to face last month at the OWFI Writing Conference, May 6-7.

            Pat, thanks for the hugs. 

Meet Pat Browning

            She was born and raised in Oklahoma. A longtime resident of California's San Joaquin Valley before moving back to Oklahoma in 2005, Pat’s professional writing credits go back to the 1960s, when she was a stringer for The Fresno Bee while working full time in a Hanford law office.

            She is a veteran traveler. Her globetrotting in the 1970s led her into the travel business, first as a travel agent, then as a correspondent for TravelAge West, a trade journal published in San Francisco. In the 1990s, she signed on fulltime as a newspaper reporter and columnist, first at The Selma Enterprise and then at The Hanford Sentinel.

            Her first mystery, FULL CIRCLE, was  revised and reissued as ABSINTHE OF MALICE by Krill Press in 2008. An extensive excerpt can be read at Google Books: http://tinyurl.com/23pojdm.

Basic information:

ABSINTHE OF MALICE, Krill Press 2008

ISBN-10: 0982144318, ISBN-13: 978-982144312

Logline: It’s just another Labor Day weekend in a small California town until discovery of a skeleton in a cotton field leads to murder—and romance.

Vivian: Authors are often asked when they started writing or what triggered their interest in writing. I like to know that, also, but I would especially like to know what keeps you writing.

Pat: I’ve been writing something ever since I was old enough to hold a pencil. I dashed off one-page haunted house stories and passed them around my fifth grade classroom (self-publishing in its basic form). When I was 12 I sent a short-short story to the Kansas City Star. It was some nonsense about fairies in a hollow tree and the Star sent me fifty cents. I was mortified when I saw the thing in print.

            My first real published work was non-fiction—articles and columns I wrote while working for small newspapers in California. Readers really responded to columns I wrote about my family and my life growing up in Oklahoma. I still write about such things, mostly in my blogs. I keep writing to remember—who I am, where I’ve been, what I’ve done.

Vivian: What is your most recent book, and what inspired you to write it?

Pat: You force me to reveal the true depth of my shallowness. I’ve written the sum total of one novel and I honestly don’t remember why. I do remember when. I was taking a cigarette break at work when thoughts of writing a murder mystery drifted by. I began haunting the library and bookstore, bringing home mysteries by the armload.

            The only author’s name I knew was Mary Higgins Clark, so I paged through other books for a quick take on dialogue, setting, etc. and picked books that looked interesting. In the first batch were THE BOOKMAN’S WAKE by John Dunning, LYING IN WAIT by J.A. Jance and THE DANDELION MURDERS by Rebecca Rothenberg. They are still favorites. Rothenberg’s book is extra special because the setting was a few miles from where I lived for so many years.

            About the same time, I got a computer, discovered the Internet and surfed into Walter Sorrells’s Website, The Mystery Zone. A link led to Al Alexander’s Crime Scene page. Al seemed discouraged and about ready to fold his tent but had a couple of books in soft cover left to sell. I bought HOW TO CRAFT MURDER MYSTERY & SUSPENSE NOVELS THAT SELL and his novel THE LAST BLUE KISS. Al gave me some good advice, and said that I picked a good time to jump in because the market was open for female protagonists and female writers. So I was off to a flying start.

            It's just as well that I didn't know how long, crooked and uphill the road to a finished novel would be. I thought writing was writing. Ha! Double Ha! It was, and still is, a learning experience, but that's what life is about. I'm glad I took it on.

            The problem was that I was going at it backwards, piling up pages of characters in search of a plot. It took me several years to get that first mystery in shape. It has been published twice, once as FULL CIRCLE in 2001, and again as ABSINTHE OF MALICE in 2008. So far, that’s my only book. I’m working hard to finish the second one.

Vivian: How did you manage to come up with the idea for your novel?

Pat: It was just there. I didn’t realize it at the time but that novel is a fictional version of my life and times, the places I worked, the people I knew. The newsroom is an almost identical recreation of a newsroom where I worked. I made up the characters but they are probably composites of people I have known. I made up the history of the town where the story is set, but there’s a ring of truth even there.

Vivian: What are your writing achievements and goals?

Pat: My goal? To write the Great American Novel. My achievements? Feedback from readers. Awards are nothing. Readers matter. I loved the comment from a reader that she burned the peas while trying to finish the last chapter of my book. But the strangest experience involved my research and a longtime friend.

            I gave one of my characters a hereditary blood disease called porphyria. It popped up one day when I was researching liquor, and it fit, so I used it. After my friend read the book, she wrote me a note saying that her father died of porphyria in 1950.

            She said that her father's death was helped along by local doctors who couldn't diagnose him. By the time a hospital lab in San Francisco identified his porphyria, it was too late to do him any good. Even so, the local doctors told the family very little about the disease. When she read my book, my friend was aghast and agog.

            I met her for coffee, and gave her my research file to read. A month later we met again for coffee, and she showed me a card she carried in her wallet. Dated 1960, it said that her blood tested positive for porphyria "cyclical, acute and familial," and that she should avoid "barbitals and sulphonals."

            She had been showing that card to doctors for years and none of them paid much attention. None of them ever told her to avoid alcohol. She always wondered, she said, why drinking made her sick. Her late husband called alcohol's effects her "crazies."

            It shook us both to think that my stumbling across porphyria during research brought this real mystery in her own life "full circle." Of course, I don't believe in accidents, and her comment was, "God works in mysterious ways!" She photocopied my printouts and sent them to her two daughters, suggesting that they and their children be tested for porphyria.

            I have lived a long time on the satisfaction that gave me.

Vivian: Do you have a particular writing process or technique that you use; if so, what?

Pat: I'm an obsessive note-jotter. I have notebooks and pens in every room in the house. However, I don't sit down and write pages or chapters every day or every week. I plan to start doing that—next week. Seriously.

            I am not disciplined. When not writing starts to drive me crazy, I shove everything else aside and start writing. I don’t recommend this so-called technique. It takes me too long to write a book, and I’m so easily distracted. Oh, look – my Oriental lilies are about to bloom!

Vivian: Would you please give a brief excerpt from your book and/or a review about it?

Pat: Here’s a recent review by J.M. Orenduff who writes the brilliant “Pot Thief” mysteries. He posted it to Amazon.com.

             “There is a very simple explanation of why ABSINTHE OF MALICE is on so many ‘top lists’ on Amazon. It's a great Book. Penny Mackenzie is a believable multi-dimensional character capable of a range of emotions. She is funny with a down home outlook on life, but she can also be reflective, angry, indignant.

            “And when she and a co-worker find some bones in a field outside of town, Penny shows another side of her personality - persistence. Not only is the knee bone connected to the thigh bone as the old song says; it is also connected to almost everyone in town in one way or another. Pearl California may be a small town, but it has big secrets dating all the way back to its founding, and the author brings them out in a way that keeps you guessing but never confused. Then she wraps everything up in a most satisfying conclusion.

            “In some ways, ABSINTHE OF MALICE is a cozy, a crime in a cute setting solved by a reluctant civilian facing a number of personal challenges—back living with her mother, an old flame showing up, etc. But while the book is a quick and fun read, it is also a serious piece of work, exploring moral issues with great sensitivity and insight. ABSINTHE OF MALICE is a great title. The book is even better.”

              Special note: The second book in the series, METAPHOR FOR MURDER, is a work in progress. ABSINTHE takes place on a Labor Day weekend. METAPHOR picks up the story the week before Christmas. Logline: Small town reporter Penny Mackenzie tracks an offbeat Christmas story and finds herself in the middle of a murder and the mysterious desecration of an old Chinese cemetery.

            Vivian, thanks for letting me ramble on. It’s a pleasure to be your guest blogger today.

            You are most welcome, Pat. I enjoyed the visit. Now, where and how to find more about Pat: her web site under construction; her page at Author's Den; and her blog Morning's at Noon.

Vivian Zabel  

Carol Shenold will be hosting me this week.  

Mystery We Write Blog Tour presents Beth Anderson

 

          Beth Anderson is my second Mystery We Write Blog Tour guest. She, as a noted Chicago area crime writer, has authored several books.

          I'm delighted to have interviewed her.

Vivian: Tell us something about your educational background that has made you a better, or more caring, writer.

Beth: I graduated Cum Laude from Benedictine Business Management College. I had to do a lot of writing for the business courses I took, and the grammar had to be perfect. Initially I had to be very caring with my writing because I wanted straight A’s just for my own satisfaction. After that, I found it impossible to do less than my very best with my novels because I want it known that my name is on that book and I care very much about how the book reads. I want all my readers to finish any of my books knowing they’ve just read a great book. Think about it. You might make money, you might not. Personal ego is good up to a point but is probably the most unimportant thing.

            Your readers are everything.  Without them, you’re just a lone voice in a very large world full of voices. It’s in your best interest to care about everything that goes into your book, including the best formatting and the very best editing you can get for it.

Vivian: What keeps you writing?

Beth: Well, it’s sure not the money, is it? I think what has kept me writing, except for a couple of times when I had to cope with some overwhelming personal problems and could not write anything, is that I just want to give my readers the feeling, when they’re done with the book, that this is a book that deserves a great review, and I hope they will review it.  Some do, some don’t, but I always try my best to give them an exciting, fun read.

Vivian: True, we don’t keep writing for the money, rather we don’t quit because of the lack of money. Nope, that’s certainly not the answer.

            What is your most recent book, and what inspired you to write it?

Beth: My most recent book is Raven Talks Back, due out in May 2011 at Amazon and B&N. I think the town of Valdez, Alaska, where the book is mainly set, was my original inspiration, because to me it’s a very beautiful, haunting place, especially in the early morning fog.

Vivian: I believe I shared with you that I’m going to Alaska in September 2012 as a speaker for the Alaska Writers Conference. I can hardly wait.

            How did you manage to come up with the idea for your novel?

Beth: The ending came to me in a dream one night years ago. I knew someday I’d put it into a book because it was so vivid and frightening and I had no idea why I’d dreamed it, other than it belonged in a story that would come to that point.  That scene is almost at the end, where Raven suddenly knows for sure who it is that she’s been seeing in the visions she first started having when the first murder occurred.

Vivian: Are you a member of a writing group? If so, how do any writing groups benefit you and your writing?

Beth: I have a crit group of four excellent authors.  My criteria when I started it was that anyone who wanted to join had to have done the work to get through an entire book on their own no matter what shape it was in, because we could always whip it into shape, but the desire and determination to have written an entire book is something you can’t give to anyone.  I also wanted to keep it very small so we’d have enough time at our meetings to really do some heavy duty critiquing when we had to. And we’ve had to, plenty of times.

Some who wanted in the group were very put out by that criteria, but we’ve stuck to it and now three of us are multi-published and the fourth member most certainly will be.

Vivian: What advice would you have for a new author?

Beth: Make. Sure. Your. Grammar. Is. Top. Notch.  If it’s your first book, forget your ego and have it looked at by someone who knows what they’re doing, because first-timers seldom really know what they’re doing, and their competition is every other author in the world who DOES know what they’re doing.

Vivian: Would you please give a brief excerpt from your book?

Beth: How about my bio and my Raven Talks Back book blurb?

            Beth Anderson is a multi-published, award winning author in several genres including romance and mainstream crime fiction. A full time author, she lives in a Chicago, Illinois suburb. She has appeared on Chicago's WGN Morning Show, The ABC Evening News, as well as numerous other radio and cable television shows. She has guest lectured at Purdue University and many libraries and writers' conferences. She loves music, particularly jazz. Her website and blog are at http://www.bethanderson-hotclue.com .

            Coming: May 2011 from Krill Publishing: Raven Talks Back, book #1 in the Raven Morressey series.

            Raven Morressey is living the good life. Nice home, husband, three healthy children, and it's finally summertime, when life is again lovely in Valdez, Alaska. All this explodes one morning when builders, digging up her back yard, uncover a recently murdered headless, handless female body covered with scarification—hundreds of colored designs cut into the skin to resemble tattoos. As if this isn’t enough, where the corpse’s head should have been is a large rock with a face painted on that resembles an Alaska Native mask.

            Raven's eight year old son, Timmy, is the first one to see the body and is suddenly unable to walk or respond in any way. On that same day, Raven hears the voice of her long dead Athabascan father coming from Timmy, who is unaware of the ancient hunting chants he sings in his sleep and the words he suddenly speaks in Raven’s native tongue—a language he does not know.

            Jack O’Banion, Valdez’s Chief of Police for the past few years, faced with his first murder case in Valdez, begins his official investigation. Everywhere he goes he finds nothing but deception. The town seems to have closed into itself and nobody will tell him anything that might help him solve this case. Then one murder quickly morphs into two, then three, and the Alaska State Troopers are hot on his back to find the killer now.

            Between Raven’s voices and the visions she develops, and Jack, whose career as well as his contented life in Valdez are on the line, they both feel they have to find the killer and restore some sanity to the town—not to mention their own lives, which are quickly unraveling out of control.

            To find Raven Talks Back go to Barnes& Noble Nook  and Amazon. The ISBN for her eBook is 978-09821443-9-8.

            Thank you, Beth. I hope more people discover your books.

Vivian Zabel 

Regan Taylor hosts me this week.

Next week Pat Browning will be my guest.

All other blogs participating in the Mystery We Write Blog Tour:

 Jean Henry Mead's blog   

 Jennifer DiCamillo's blog   

 Regan Taylor's blog 

 Marilyn Meredith's blog  

 Carol Shenold's blog  

 Anne K. Albert's blog  

 Beth Anderson's blog  

 Pat Browning's blog  

 Sharon Ervin's blog     

 Jackie King's blog  

 Mary Martinez' blog   

 Marja McGraw's blog 

Mystery We Write presents Anne K. Albert

 

        Anne K. Albert initiated this blog tour idea for writers of mysteries, and I'm delighted she's my first guest. Her eBook Frank, Incense, and Muriel is our focus this week, along with her, the author, of course.

        First a brief bio for Anne: she has taught high school art, sold display advertising for a small town weekly newspaper, and worked for a national brand water company, but now writes full time.

         A member of the Romance Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and married to her high school sweetheart for more than a quarter of a century, it's a given she'd write mystery and romantic suspense.

          When not in her home office, she enjoys traveling, visiting friends and family, knitting, crocheting, and of course, reading.

Vivian - What can readers expect when they read your books?

Anne - My stories chill the spine, warm the heart and soothe the soul – all with a delightful touch of humor.

Vivian - When did the dream of writing books take root in your heart?

Anne: I’m one of those late bloomers people always talk about. It never occurred to me that “real” people could be writers until I was of a “certain” age. :)

Vivian - Did you choose the mystery genre or did it choose you?

Anne – Both! As a child, I read Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and Trixie Belden. In my teens, I discovered Agatha Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner and so many other mystery writers. I can’t resist a whodunit.

Vivian – Tell us about FRANK, INCENSE AND MURIEL.

Anne – This mystery takes place the week before Christmas when the stress of the holiday season is enough to frazzle anyone's nerves. To find a missing woman, Frank and Muriel must deal with an embezzler, femme fatale, kidnapper, and of course, Muriel's eccentric, (but loveable) family. Their desire to win the coveted D-DAY (Death Defying Act of the Year) Award, however, might just tip them all over the edge.

It received a 5-star review and Reviewer Top Pick from Night Owl Reviews.

Vivian – Would you share an excerpt with us?

Anne – I’d be delighted to!

Beginning excerpt from FRANK, INCENSE AND MURIEL:

          Imagine my surprise when Frankie Salerno showed up at my front door one cold, December, Monday morning. Displaying a set of dimples that could make a grown woman cry, he gave me a quick once over and let out a long, slow, wolf whistle. “You’re looking good, Brian. Real good.”

          Being ogled at is one thing. Being called that ridiculous nickname after a fifteen-year hiatus another. I felt a knot form in the pit of my stomach as my thoughts traveled back to Ms. Traynor’s ninth English class when Frankie wrote me a note. I have no idea of its contents. Nor do I care. All I know is the teacher intercepted it. She read it, raised an eyebrow, and zeroed in on me.

          “I believe Frankie had you in mind when he wrote this,” she said.

          To my horror, she began to read the note aloud. She got as far as the salutation he’d printed on the outside of the folded sheet of three-ring notepaper.

          “To the Brian.”

          The class erupted into fits of laughter and Ms. Traynor, satisfied we’d suffered enough humiliation for one day, returned the note to Frankie and resumed her lesson. From that day forward, I was the girl named Brian, and Frankie became my sworn enemy.

          From where I stood a decade and a half later, not much had changed except that I’d grudgingly accepted my fate. Having a few more brain cells than feminine curves had advantages. If Frankie thought otherwise, so be it. He was entitled to his opinion. But really, who needed it? Or him?

          “I’d like to say it’s great to see you again,” I said, “but we both know I’d be lying. Let’s end this before it gets messy, shall we?”

          “Aw, come on.” He pressed his large, square hand on the screen door. “Do you have any idea how many Reeves are in the phonebook? It took me more than an hour to find you. I had to check the listings in Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Lackawanna–”

          I held up my hand to silence him. I’d lived in western New York state all of my life and did not need a geography lesson. What I needed was to get on with my life. Without him. Still, I could not resist getting in the last word.

          “It would’ve been quicker if you’d looked under ‘M’ instead of ‘B’,” I said.

          “I was kidding about the Brian part.”

          “Then why’d you say it?”

          “I dunno. I was a jerk back in high school and some things never change. Besides, it says a lot more about me than it ever did about you. I’m the one who couldn’t spell brain.”

****

Vivian – Where can readers get a copy of your book?

Anne: At Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, or from my publisher, Vanilla Heart Publishing. 

          Thank you, Vivian! It was such fun to visit you on my first stop of the Murder We Write Blog Tour. I’d like to invite readers to visit mywebsite  or my main blog.

          If they drop by my Muriel Reeves Mysteries blog  and leave a comment mentioning this interview, I’ll enter their name in a draw to win a pdf copy of FRANK, INCENSE AND MURIEL. I’ll announce the winner at the conclusion of the tour, sometime during the week of August 22, 2011. 

          You're most welcomed. I enjoyed your visit.

I  will be the guest on Carys Weldon's blog this week. Please stop by.

Join me again next week when my guest will be Beth Anderson.  

Please visit this week, different hosts post on different days starting today:

Marilyn Meredith on Jean Henry Mead's blog   

I'm suppose to appear on Jennifer DiCamillo's blog   

Carys Weldon (aka Jennifer DiCamillo) on Regan Taylor's blog 

Carol Shenold on Marilyn Meredith's blog  

Regan Taylor on Carol Shenold's blog  

Beth Anderson on Anne K. Albert's blog  

Pat Browning on Beth Anderson's blog  

Sharon Ervin on Pat Browning's blog  

Jackie King on Sharon Ervin's blog     

Mary Martinez on Jackie King's blog  

Marja McGraw on Mary Martinez' blog   

Jean Henry Mead on Marja McGraw's blog   
  

Beware, Midnight is back in town

Midnight Hours introduced Midnight, the Internet predator who targeted disabled men. She promised them love but gave them a grave. She's back just in time to provide a great Christmas present for those who enjoy reading mystery/suspense. The book can be found through most bookstores, online book stores, and 4RV Publishing's Novels page.

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Jean Henry Mead's character Kerrie

Jean will give away signed copies of her book to three (3) lucky people who leave comments on blogs in this blog tour. But, unless you leave a comment or comments, you won’t have a change to be one of the three.


Jean Henry Mead writes the Logan and Cafferty senior sleuth mystery series as well as historical fiction. A Village Shattered is her eleventh book and third novel. A former award-winning photojournalist, magazine and newspaper reporter/editor, her articles have been published domestically as well as abroad.

A Village Shattered is the first in the series and features two widows living in a retirement village where their friends and club members are murdered alphabetically. Dana Logan, a mystery novel buff, and her friend, Sarah Cafferty, a private investigator's widow, decide to solve the murders when they learn their own names are on the list. An inexperienced sheriff botches the investigation, and Dana's beautiful daughter Kerrie arrives to complicate the plot.

I decided to interview Kerrie for this stop on Jean's virtual book tour. Thank you for agreeing to be here, Kerrie. Let me get my list of questions. Ahh, here they are.

VZ: Why do you think Jean brought you into this novel, A Village Shattered?

Kerrie: Jean is a seat-of-the-pants writer who rarely knows what’s she’s going to write when she sits down at the computer every morning. Characters just seem to pop into her head whenever the plot needs them. She didn’t even know who I was when I rang the doorbell and my mom said, “Kerrie, what are you doing here?” I guess she thought I might liven up the plot, or complicate it. And she was right. Jean didn’t realize I was a news reporter, like she was in real life, until the big fire happened at the retirement village. It was logical—to me anyway-- that was the only way I could find out who was responsible for setting the blaze. Even then, the fire chief didn’t want to talk to me.

VZ: How do you think your relationship with your mother, Dana Logan, adds to the tension in Shattered?

Kerrie: I had a chip on my shoulder when I arrived because I had just broken up with my fiancé, and Mom and I had never been close, so I didn’t take her warnings seriously about the serial killer. I just wanted to have some fun and get involved in another relationship. I was pretty self centered, I’m afraid, and it nearly cost me my life.

VZ: What lessons do you think your mother learns during the course of the book?

Kerrie: Mom felt guilty that she didn’t manage to spend more time with me while I was growing up. Not her fault, really, because she had to work two jobs to support us after my father died. But there was this wall between us because I was so independent and rebellious as a teen. Mom shed a lot of tears over me. I think she realized that she should have made more of an effort to sit and listen to my problems while I was growing up, and try to nurture a closer relationship. That didn’t happen until we tried to solve the murders together and were involved in some awfully scary situations, like stealing a patrol car and getting lost in the fog.

VZ: What lessons did you learn?

Kerrie: I learned that I shouldn’t use people. I lost the man I loved because I used him to get myself out of trouble when I stayed out past the sheriff’s curfew. It hurt him badly and he never got over it. I also learned how important family relationships are as well as how much my journalism career meant to me.

VZ: How did your relationship with your mother change during the course of the novel, or did it?

Kerrie: It changed considerably. We were strangers when I arrived on her doorstep, unaware of the murders and danger in the village. Over the course of the story, we became very close because we faced danger together and were nearly killed ourselves. I’ll never forget the night I talked Mom and Sarah into going with me to a male stripper club. Mom had too much to drink and Sarah tried to stuff a dollar bill into one of the dancer’s G-strings. It was hilarious. Of course, I didn’t know the killer had followed us there.

VZ: What one or two failings or short-comings on your part do you believe created more problems for others?

Kerrie: My immaturity and self centeredness caused plenty of problems, and it certainly worried Mom and Sarah. I should have realized how much they would worry about me when I suddenly took off. A stupid thing to do.

VZ: Do you see yourself included in future Logan and Cafferty mysteries?

Kerrie: Yes, I’m in the next novel, Diary of Murder, which will be out next spring. Mom, Sarah and I are the Three Musketeers, you know. They’re quite capable of solving crimes without me, but having me along provides some interesting plot complications that wouldn’t happen otherwise. I may even crop up in the third book, Died Laughing. You just never know what kinds of problems the author is going to drop us into. I read the first chapter of the third book in the series and know that mom may become a grandmother. I wish Jean would let me know for sure so I can shop for baby clothes.

VZ: What future do you see for your mother and the sheriff, or for you and Jim Dalton?

Kerrie: Mom’s a very attractive woman for someone her age, and I’m not convinced that she’s in love with Sheriff Grayson. We’ll have to wait and see. As far as my love interest, Jim Dalton, is concerned, I’m still hoping we can patch things up. But that deputy, Nancy Murray, is trying her best to get her claws into him, so there may be in a cat fight before the book is over.

VZ: What would you like to add, let readers know about you, the novel, your mother?

Kerrie: Hmmm, probably that Mom and Sarah won’t be able to stop stumbling over bodies in the rest of the series. Jean put them in a motor home in the middle of a Rocky Mountain blizzard in the next novel, and they wind up in Wyoming investigating the death of my aunt Georgi. Her husband says it was suicide. Don’t believe it!


Thank you for joining us, Kerrie. Tell Jean I enjoyed her book very much.

Jean Henry Mead’s blog
Order A Village Shattered.


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Mystery fan deluxe

I love mysteries, and I have since I discovered Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and the Bobbsey Twins many, many eons ago.

Yes, even then I had enough brain cells to know what fiction was, but that didn't matter. Imagination still took me with the young sleuths, as they called themselves, to solve mysteries and to have adventure.

Tony Hillerman was one of my favorite mystery authors when I became an adult, and his leaving us saddened me. I'm just glad I was able to meet him in person. My farewell to Tony Hillerman is posted on Vivian's Mysteries.

Among my favorite living authors is William Bernhardt, whom I've met several times. He allowed me to interview him last year, and I updated the interview and posted it on Vivian's Mysteries.

Bill is from Oklahoma, as are several good writers. Carolyn Hart is one author I enjoy reading. So is Marcia Preston. Hmmm ... I need to make a list of the mystery writers from Oklahoma. That would make a great post for my mystery blog.


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Please check Vivian's Mysteries for mystery information about books, authors, and writing tips and Vivian's Site for other information.


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