Honey, I came up with a new way to kill somebody!

By Avery Aames, guest blogger

Avery is giving away two autographed copies of her first mystery, The Long Quiche Goodbye. Leave a comment (with an e-mail address where we can reach you) to enter the drawing!

Oh, the joy of being a mystery writer. Mystery writers know the world is a dark and scary place. It doesn’t matter if we’re writing cozies, noir, or police procedurals, we believe there are evil people in the world ready to do evil things. “Normal” evil people. Next door neighbors. Favorite teachers. Spouses. Agatha Christie said, “Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend.”

Because I write mysteries and thrillers, I get to figure out how to kill somebody. My husband isn’t very pleased with this aspect of my work. Invariably, right before bed, I’ll say, “Honey, I came up with a new way to kill somebody.” Of course, my husband sits up in bed, props a pair of toothpicks between his eyelids, and bravely tells me to share. He doesn’t really want to know how my warped mind thinks, but he wants to make sure he’s not on my radar.

My latest pre-sleep chat with my husband included a briefing about what Lucy the Poison Lady (a regular speaker at Malice Domestic Conference) shared regarding arsenic poisoning. My husband called me nuts and opened a book, but I could tell he was thinking about the stew and cheese biscuits he’d just eaten and he was wondering if he’d detected the flavor of blackberry wine.

I then proceeded to tell my husband how a person could create the perfect alibi. “I’m not really sure this would work,” I said. “But what if, using instant redial, the killer were to continually call the victim before the victim returned home from work? While the phone was ringing, the killer would race to the house, meet the victim upon his arrival home, kill the victim, answer the phone (thus talking to himself), and then return to the safety of his home. He establishes he was at his own home talking to the victim at the time of death. Voila. (This works best if it’s a neighbor, of course.)”

My husband groaned, set aside the book, switched off the light, and plopped back on his pillow. Inwardly I giggled. I knew he wouldn’t sleep a wink.

Do you ever think up ways to kill someone? A rare poison? An icicle to the heart? The icicle would melt, of course, leaving no evidence. [One of my all-time favorite TV episodes is an Alfred Hitchcock Presents: “Lamb to the Slaughter,” in which a woman uses a frozen leg of lamb to kill her husband. She then cooks the lamb and serves it to the officers who arrive to investigate. Brilliant.] Do you believe you could go through with the deed? Do you know anybody who could? What does it take to commit murder? Anger, desperation, an inciter, in icy heart?

Share your stories, your theories. Leave a comment. If you do, you might be one of two who will receive autographed copies of “The Long Quiche Goodbye.”

Avery Aames writes the Cheese Shop Mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime. The first in the series, The Long Quiche Goodbye, debuted July 6.

For more information, Avery can be found on her website at http://www.averyaames.com, on Facebook, Twitter, and on two blogs: http://www.mysteryloverskitchen.com and http://www.killercharacters.com. She also has a booksellers page where you can purchase her book from any of your favorite bookstores: http://www.averyaames.com/book1_sellers.html