Time Out

by Sheila Connolly

Sharon's post earlier this week put my recent adventures abroad in a new perspective for me.

View from Capitignano in Tuscany

The backstory:  I just returned from a two-week trip to Italy, planned by two of my college classmates and announced at our reunion last June.  Space was limited to forty (no spouses or partners), and since there were more people who wanted to go than spaces, the organizers held a lottery, and I was one of the lucky winners.  I put my name in the day it was originally announced, without even thinking about it.  I'd been to Italy once before, decades ago, and had never planned to go back, but when the gods drop a gift in your lap, you don't quibble about the wrapping paper.

It was fabulous, and I'm sure I'll be telling you more in coming days, but I was struck by how well the trip fulfilled many of Sharon's suggestions.

--we spent ten days without seeing a television set or a newspaper.  I assume someone would have told us if something major had blown up (especially if it interfered with air travel), but otherwise we were cut off from current events.  Ah, peace.

--there was no time to read.  Of course we all brought books (both print and digital), and we had access to plenty more, but somehow reading never fit into the schedule.  We were busy from dawn to after the late dinners, and then we fell into bed and slept. No need to lull ourselves to sleep with words—by ten most nights we had to fight to keep our eyes open.

--no marketing.  Ah, bliss. (Well, I might have to admit that the group I was with was the perfect demographic target for my kind of book, but I didn't run around flogging the books to anyone who would listen.) I had a book published on June 4th, Monument to the Dead, and the extent of my promotion for that was a newsletter to my fewer than 1,000 subscribers.  Period.  No social networks, no guest blogs.  I could get email on my phone, but no way was I going to try to respond to blogs and posts on a two-inch screen.  It was a clean break.

--Exercise.  Sound of hysterical laughter.  In northern Italy, it seems that everything is on a hill.  Uphill.  We walked, and walked, and walked.  Through towns clinging to mountainsides, through fields with Roman ruins, into the center of a mountain of marble in Carrara.  In Florence we saw at least three museums (all in different parts of the city, of course), and then took off on our own to shop or, in my case, to hunt down the perfect gelato.  We did not sit in a café and admire the passing crowd; we were the passing crowd.

--Eating?  Amazing.  And healthy.  Lots of very fresh tomatoes, and olive oil from trees only feet from where we ate.  Incredible seafood, from the sea we could see as we sat at our tables.  Wine from grapes right down the hill. The aforesaid gelato—I tried nine flavors, sometimes two in a day.  But in small, intense portions.

--No planning.  One of the most appealing things about this whole idea was that I didn't have to organize it, past getting myself to Italy on time.  I didn't have to hunt down places to stay, rent a car, make decisions about which museums or towns to see, or where and when to eat.  It was a great relief to let someone else worry about all that stuff.

--One thing Sharon didn't mention:  Talking.  We writers are often solitary

Monterosso in Liguria--the view
from my patio

people, and there are days when my main companions are my cats (yes, I talk to them).  On this trip I was thrown into a group of forty interesting, accomplished women, some of whom I knew to some degree, others I recalled only by name.  Many I hadn't seen for forty years, so there was a lot of catching up to do.  And we did, at meals, in vans as we sped (as much as you can speed on Italian mountain roads with scary hairpin turns) from one incredible site to the next. Smaller subgroups shifted and mingled.  We sang, we toasted our tireless coordinators, both of whom deserve a medal for putting all this together.

--And one more thing:  the views.  We humans seem to define certain views as beautiful, and I'll agree—misty mountains receding into the distance, terra-cotta colored towns scattered in lush greenery, peeks of the sea.  All lovely.  Does it change your perspective to be surrounded by beauty like this? 

Did I write anything?  Nope, nothing beyond a brief email to family.  Did I miss it?  Not really, because it was important to be in the moment. Will I be using the experience in a book?  Of course.

I think it fits Sharon's definition of a break.  Is my brain detoxified?  I think so, if I can get past the jetlag.  What day is this?

In Defense of Amateur Sleuths

B.K. Stevens

It’s easy to make fun of mysteries about amateur sleuths. How likely is it, after all, that someone who isn’t a police officer or a private detective would get caught up in investigating a murder? Wouldn’t any sensible person let the professionals handle all the difficulties, all the possible dangers? True, if the victim or the person falsely accused is a close relative, an amateur might make a few cautious suggestions to the police. Even then, though, an amateur wouldn’t dare do more. If the victim or suspect is a mere friend, no sane amateur would do anything at all. And it’s definitely ridiculous to think an amateur could get involved in a series of investigations. That’s when we get the jokes about Murder, She Wrote and the crime rate in Cabot Cove.

I’ll admit amateur sleuth mysteries can get silly. In one novel I started to read recently, the protagonist reacted with Nancy Drew-like glee when she heard a slight acquaintance had been murdered, rushed to the crime scene, and did foolish things that impeded and infuriated the police. That novel ended up in the Goodwill pile before I finished the second chapter.

I’ll also admit that yes, in some ways, most amateur sleuth stories are fundamentally implausible. Most of us, thankfully, live out our years without being personally touched by murder. And few people ever encounter a murder involving a limited number of suspects, an ingenious method, and a clever killer whose motives can be unraveled only through the penetrating interpretation of clues.

But that’s true of professionals as well as of amateurs. Real-life crimes are seldom as interesting as fictional ones. Usually, either the criminal makes so many stupid mistakes that there’s never more than one suspect, or the crime is so random or so simple that no suspects are ever identified. A husband gets drunk, gets mad, and shoots his wife with a gun registered in his name; a body is found in an alley, riddled with stab wounds but with no evidence pointing to motive or murderer. Lieutenant Columbo wouldn’t really run into all those fiction-worthy murders, any more than Jessica Fletcher would.

Almost any mystery requires a willing suspension of disbelief. So does almost any other kind of fiction. When we read fantasy, we suspend our disbelief about vampires. When we read science fiction, we suspend our disbelief about time travel. When we read literary fiction, we suspend our disbelief about people’s infinite capacity for sitting around and feeling sorry for themselves.

And when we read mysteries, we suspend our disbelief about the likelihood of near-perfect crimes. Historically, mystery readers have been willing to make this suspension, and they make it for Miss Marple just as willingly as they do for Inspector Poirot. With any kind of fiction, I think, we’ll suspend our disbelief about a situation that’s implausible, or at least atypical, as long as the characters behave the way human beings caught in such a situation really would behave. The devious murder method that depends upon split-second timing is fine. The unmotivated confession isn’t.

In one of the series I write for Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, disillusioned academic Leah Abrams keeps stumbling across bodies and solving murders when she takes on assignments as a temporary secretary. In the second and third stories, I had Leah exclaim that she was shocked to run into yet another homicide, had friendly Detective Brock joke about advising the temporary agency to put a warning sticker on her resume. In the fourth story, I stopped apologizing. The editor didn’t seem to mind, readers didn’t seem to mind, so why waste time calling attention to the implausibility of the series’ premise?

More fundamentally, the amateur sleuth epitomizes a principle central to the mystery genre. Mysteries rest on the belief that truth must be uncovered and justice must be done—and that the responsibility for uncovering truth and doing justice doesn’t lie only with professionals.

In real life, yes, most amateurs wouldn’t get involved in a murder investigation. In real life, most amateurs don’t get involved with most emergencies. They witness a car crash or see someone in danger of drowning, they call 911, and they wait on the sidewalk until the professionals arrive, even when victims are screaming for help. Sometimes, though, in real life, amateurs do risk their lives to pull victims from a burning car before the gas tank explodes. Sometimes, they plunge into icy waters to rescue someone going down for the third time. It doesn’t make sense—it isn’t plausible—but they do it anyway. Those are the people we admire, the people who get praised as heroes on the 6:00 news.

Those are the people we celebrate in amateur sleuth mysteries.

B.K. Stevens has published over forty mystery stories, most of them in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and an e-novella, One Shot, published by Untreed Reads. Her website is www.bkstevensmysteries.

Where are the bookstores?

by Sandra Parshall

Answer quickly, without taking time to ponder the variables: Which state do you think has the most bookstores per capita?

No, it’s not New York, and it’s not California. It’s Montana.

Montana comes in first in Publishers Weekly’s survey of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. With a population of 1,005,141 and 64 bookstores, Montana has a per capita ratio of 1 store to 15,705 residents.

Wyoming is second, with 35 stores serving a population of 576,412, and Vermont ranks third with 38 stores for 616,011 residents. The rest of the top 10 in per capita ratings are Alabama, Tennessee, Nebraska, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri.

Dead last is New Jersey, which has 217 stores but a population of 8,864,500, giving it a per capita ratio of 1 to 40,851.

The Publishers Weekly report gives numbers for all states and DC. Every type of bookseller was counted: chains, independents, Christian bookshops, and big-box stores like Costco that have book departments. 

Most states, PW found, have more traditional bookstores than big-box stores and more independents than chains. The top three states in the number of bookstores per capita have few Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million outlets. Vermont has only one chain store, one big-box retailer, and 36 independents. However, six states – Arizona, Maryland, Nevada, North Dakota, Utah, and Wisconsin – have more big-box stores than traditional bookstores.

The largest states in the country are all in the bottom half of bookstores-per- capita rankings:

California has 1,185 stores, more than any other state, but they serve a huge  population of 38,041,430, so its ratio is 1 to 32,102 and it ranks 46th.

Texas, with a population of 26,059,203 and 1,004 booksellers (second highest number in the nation), is 35th in per capita rankings.

New York is 49th, with 19,570,261 residents and 505 bookstores.

Florida, a bit smaller than New York with a population of 19,317,568, has more bookstores – 797 – giving it a ratio of 1 to 24,238. Florida ranks 29th among all states.

Overall, the survey found that the U.S. has 12,703 booksellers and 313,904,193 residents, a national ratio of 1 store per 24,053 people.

An interesting finding is that states with the most Christian booksellers tend to rank higher in the per capita ratings. In many states, the presence of Christian stores is the deciding factor in the per capita rank.

I was a little surprised to discover that my state, Virginia, has 372 bookstores. (Where are they?) With a population of 8,185,866, the state has a per capita ratio of 1 to 22,005 and is 26th on the PW list.

You can see the story and the rankings here. Where does your state stand?

Showing Up is Not Enough

Sharon Wildwind

Writing is great right now. I’m close to finishing the first draft of the next book. I’m in a great critique group. Words and ideas flow freely every morning.

The world being what it is, a time will come when both words and ideas temporarily stop flowing. I’m a great believer in the showing up is half the battle school of thought.  Twenty minutes of seat in the chair, fingers on the keyboard, either write or do nothing frequently kicks loose the word flow.

Sometimes showing up isn’t enough. We stop writing not because we’ve run out of words or ideas, but because we become toxic when we have too many words, ideas, and images. What we need is a proper detoxification. Here are some ways to rest and detoxify the word parts of our brain.

Stop reading. If you can, stop reading everything, except traffic signs, for one week. Julia Cameron recommends this in a couple of her books. I thought she was crazy, until I tried it, and then I realized she was smart.

Not everyone has the luxury of being able to take a complete reading break. If you’re in the position that you must read for work, do the minimum amount you can, and stop reading after you leave work.

Stop marketing. Yes, marketing is a part of life for writers, but not doing it for seven days is not going to bring the world crashing down around your ears. If a seven-day stop is out of your reach, try it for at least three days.

Turn off the television. I used to get very strange looks when I told people I didn’t have a television. The trend seems to be spreading. In the past month, I’ve met three people who also don’t have televisions. All seem to be doing well. Okay, so most of us, me including, are substituting viewing on computer, so let’s make this one a little more general: turn off whatever device you use to get what once was a television fix.

Sleep in an extra hour once a week. The world is organized into 24-hour cycles; our bodies are organized into 25-hour cycles. Eventually the difference builds up and we get cranky. Sleeping in an extra hour once a week appears to do something to close the gap between the cycles.

Do I need to mention start exercising or change your exercise routine, reduce the amount of caffeinated drinks, and drink more water. I thought not. We’ve all got those messages, right?

Here’s another water-related suggestion. Put your body in water more. In every group of writers where I’ve asked the question “What works when you’re having trouble writing?” the answers have always included taking a long bath, taking a shower, and washing dishes.

Play with colors and sounds. If you favor an art or craft, do it—paint a picture, make a quilt, string beads, and on. Do it without following a pattern. Dip your hand into your paint box, fabric scrap bag, or bead bin, pull out a handful of supplies, and start playing.

If you’re craft challenged, a coloring book and crayons or colored pencils works fine. I prefer the ones with geometric patterns rather than definite shapes. The same is true with sounds. Instrumental music works better (for me, and maybe for you) than vocals, unless the singing is in a language that I don’t understand.

Pay attention to dreams, both the sleeping and waking kind. See if you can find any recurring patterns or symbols in your night dreams.

Spend time thinking way back to when your desire to be a writer began. What was your writing dream? I’m going out on a limb here, but I suspect it didn’t including marketing, social media, deadlines, editing, or running the publishing marathon. As the late Waylon Jennings sang, maybe it’s time we got back to the basics of love.

Quote for the week

Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself. You may be surprised at how easily this happens. Your doubts are not as powerful as your desires, unless you make them so. 

~ Marcia Wieder, Founder and CEO of Dream University

Ten Things I Learned At High School Graduation

by Julia Buckley

More than 800 students processed onto the field.

When my son graduated yesterday, he did so with more than 800 classmates.  The event took place in the football stadium, where somewhere close to 1000 chairs had been set up for all those assembled.  The families sat in the bleachers.  Here are some things I learned after this nice (though rather impersonal and humid) event.

1. That hatred of bleachers I had, back when I was eighteen and forced to sit in them for pep rallies?  It's still around.  I think I must have terrible balance, because bleachers always make me feel as though I am about to be catapulted down onto the field, especially when everyone comes running down at the end of an event.

2. The National Anthem is a lovely song, especially when sung with heart by a senior drama major.

3. Even though they make that announcement at the beginning of graduation saying "Please don't yell out when your child's name is called, as it could prevent other parents from hearing their child's name," there are still PLENTY of people who are willing to scream loudly, ruining the moment for the people whose special name (or names) come during their caterwauling.

4. A graduation is an august event, but when the audience is sitting in football bleachers, they'll act like the crowd at a football game.

5. It is actually possible to read the names of 800 plus students in less than an hour.  It took about fifty minutes.

6. Speeches made at graduations (I've been to three this year) no longer celebrate academia. They are all about pop culture. Today one of the valedictorians quoted Albus Dumbledore, another quoted The Simpsons, and a third went with that graduation favorite, Dr. Seuss.  And one of them spent a surprising amount of time talking about cafeteria food.

7. Sometimes teenagers are more mature than are their parents.  I base this on the young people who sat politely through several graduation speeches, while the adults around me groused about the time it was taking.

8. I now know what it would look like if tiny people in a shoe box diorama graduated.  That was about the size of the graduates from our eagle's nest view (see photo above).

9. They might be phasing out the reading of middle names.  I went to graduations for both of my sons, and neither of the name readers included middle names.  It was sort of a disappointment.

My son (left) and a friend celebrate post graduation.  His school did not opt for caps and gowns.
The boys wore black suits with red ties; the girls wore white dresses.  This is school tradition.

10. Ernest Hemingway graduated from this same school in 1917.  He would not have approved of some of the long-winded writing in the administrator's speeches.  :)

Okay--graduations over!!  Now I am bound for my niece's wedding, and so begin the summer events.  Hopefully I'll get to read some good books as I travel hither and yon, and maybe do some good writing, as well.

What are you all up to this summer?

Maggie Sefton's Washington DC

Today Maggie Sefton talks about her hometown as a setting.

Whenever I watch movies that use my hometown, Washington, DC, as part of the setting, I get a kick out of seeing all the “set shots” the moviemakers use.  You know what I mean---a shot of the U.S. Capitol, shot of the Pentagon, shot of the White House, a panoramic view of tourists roaming around the Washington monument, black limos cruising nameless streets, black limos pulling into White House gates, talking heads inside limos, and so on.

For a lot of Americans, those are the only images they have of Washington, DC.  That’s why I always encourage people I meet in other states to visit their Nation’s Capital.  Explore it and enjoy.  The city is literally made to order for tourists.  Most of the important monuments and museums are located around The Mall so it’s easy to get around---and they’re free.  J  There’s even a Metro stop there (Smithsonian) , so people can leave their cars parked in the suburbs at a Metro parking garage and not bother with the awful---and it truly is awful---traffic. 

Like Paris, Washington, DC is a walk-able city.  Not surprising, since the City’s designer was Frenchman and supporter of our Revolution, Pierre L’Enfant.  People can safely wander a few blocks away from The Mall and explore Washington’s many cafes and shops. 

You can tell I’m a big booster of “my town,” and I love showing it off.  Since I grew up in Arlington, Virginia, a stone’s throw across the Potomac River, I have spent a lifetime wandering around Washington’s many streets and avenues, hidden corners and treasures.  Naturally, when I started writing the first in the Molly Malone Suspense trilogy, DEADLY POLITICS, which takes place in Washington, I included several of my favorite locales---picturesque Georgetown streets with their brick-paved sidewalks and Historic Registry homes; the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal and towpath, which mules once trod 300 years ago; cafes along the Potomac and feasts of fresh seafood.  The characters roam all over these areas.

Molly Malone, the heroine-sleuth, has Washington, DC in her blood, having grown up the daughter of a U.S. Senator.  Mid-50s, Molly has seen it all in Washington politics--the cynics, the sincere, and the schemers.  But the brutal murder of her Congressional staffer niece brings Molly up close with Washington’s darker side.  “The beautiful monuments and parks are deceiving.  Washington can be ugly.”

Politics is a blood sport in Washington, DC, and only the strongest survive.  Like the politicians she’s rubbed shoulders with for a lifetime, Molly is smart and tough and savvy enough to stay out of trouble---most of the time.  However, trouble has a way of finding Molly.   You can read more about DEADLY POLITICS and see the great reviews at my website:  www.maggiesefton.com

Maggie Sefton is the author of the New York Times and Barnes & Noble Bestselling Kelly Flynn Knitting Mysteries.  The second in her Washington, DC-based suspense trilogy, POISONED POLITICS, will be out this August 2013.

Maggie Sefton on Dialogue and Character

Please welcome our weekend guest Maggie Sefton!

The 11^th in Maggie Sefton’s New York Times Bestselling Kelly Flynn Mystery series, CLOSE KNIT KILLER, was released  June 4^th.

CHARACTERIZING  WITH DIALOGUE  by  Maggie Sefton

Writing dialogue has always come easily for me.  I think it’s because I talk a lot.  J  Anyone who knows me would probably snicker, then agree.  I do enjoying talking with people.  Hey. . .I’m part Irish, so I come by that Gift of the Gab naturally. Gift or curse, I do enjoy conversation.  However, one of the things fiction writers quickly learn is that conversation is NOT dialogue.  Not in fiction.  Dialogue has to move the story along.

But Dialogue can also be used to help describe a character, so that person comes alive for the reader. Everyone has a way of speaking, a speech pattern of sorts, a rhythm.  Some speak in short staccato sentences.  Even one-word sentences.  Others use longer sentences, clauses, and phrases. . .and on and on.  Once characters  “walk onstage” in my head, then I can picture them.  But I don’t really know them until they open their mouths and start talking. 

After you’ve been with the character for a while, you can hear their voice in your head just like you see them in your mind. And that’s when you can transfer the character’s voice onto the page when you write.  Do they make jokes when they talk with others?  Are they excitable?  Are they bossy? Do they get mad easily?  Are they worriers by nature?  Are they calm and thoughtful?  Or, have a take charge personality?

There are characters with all those traits in my Kelly Flynn Mystery series set in the Rocky Mountains of Northern Colorado and involving the lively regulars at the  trendy knitting shop, Lambspun and other friends.  Last year’s hardcover release,  CAST ON, KILL OFF,  is now out in paperback, and I’ve used all of the above character traits to help the characters come alive for the readers:

“How could she do that so close to the wedding?” Megan shook the bag again, clearly indignant.  “Now she can’t fit into the dress!”  --Kelly’s friend, bride-to-be Megan, talking about her bridesmaid sister who just learned she’s pregnant. 

“Whooooooeeeeee, that sounds pretty bad.”  --Colorado cowgirl Jayleen Swinson, alpaca rancher, young 60, and fifteen years sober.

“Sounds like one bad hombre.” --Curt Stackhouse, silver-haired, barrel-chested Colorado cattle rancher.  (Both are talking about one of the murder suspects).

“Back off, Blondie!”  --Kelly Flynn, in the Sunset Saloon, a cowboy bar, where the groomsmen were partying, upon finding a tipsy girl hitting on her boyfriend Steve

Greg sneered.  “Feisty, huh?  Kelly eats feisty for breakfast.”  He dug out his wallet and dropped money into the hat.  “Twenty on the brunette.”  --Greg Carruthers, one of Kelly’s friends and a groomsman, betting on the action at the bar 

“Darlin’. . .you had me at ‘Back off!’” –Tall Cowboy in the saloon, on one knee, Stetson over his heart, trying to tempt Kelly away from Steve. 

As you can see, my motto with dialogue is “Go with the flow.”  By that, I mean the characters’ flow.  When they’re talking, my job is to write it down and keep MY mouth shut.  I do my best.  And. . .I know no shame.    You can read more about CAST ON, KILL OFF and the new release CLOSE KNIT KILLER at my website  www.maggiesefton.com 

Maggie Sefton is the author of the New York Times and Barnes & Noble Bestselling Kelly Flynn Knitting Mysteries.  The first in her new Washington, DC-based suspense trilogy, DEADLY POLITICS, was released in August 2012.  POISONED POLITICS will be out this August.

Please welcome our guest Edith Maxwell!

In keeping with the theme of this blog, I thought I'd write about my connection to Edgar  Allan Poe. When I mentioned this to Sheila, she said, “You have connections to POE?” Many thanks to her for inviting me over, and hope I don't disappoint!

Well, I'm not related to Poe. I don't own a first-edition of anything. I haven't even visited  his grave.

As a child, like my parents and my two older sisters, I was a voracious reader. We kids pretty much had free range of the extensive bookcases in the house. My mother loved reading mysteries, so after I finished off Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys,among other, I set to work on her Agatha Christies.

In about fourth grade I discovered a couple of other books that drew me in. The Complete Sherlock Holmes. And, you guessed it, a volume of Poe. I don't remember if it was Tales of Mystery and Imagination or some other edition.

I still shiver when I remember how these stories scared me. I was a child with a way-too-vivid imagination. I had nightmares. My mother didn't let me watch Twilight Zone on television. She became furious with a babysitter who let us watch a scary movie one night. But for some reason, she didn't monitor my reading content. Or maybe she was just too busy with my high-energy younger brother and managing a houseful of four children all less than two years apart to pay attention. So I happily read and read and reread these horrific frightening stories, flipping the pages with heart racing.

For years afterward, when I was alone in a quiet room, I could HEAR that heart beating under the floorboards. Even today when I enter an antique basement that includes bricked walls, I wonder if the Count is behind them. And, while I knew the ceiling over my bed was solid and intact during the day, I would lie in bed wide awake in the dark, knowing the speckled band was about to descend through the grate in the corner of the ceiling. I still can't watch horror movies.

But it's that kind of imagination that makes a mystery writer, right? When you see a black shape by the side of the road at dawn or twilight, don't you wonder if it's a body? (Even when you get closer and see that it's really a black trash bag?) When you hear about a poison, you wonder how you can work it into a story. When I'm walking the fields of a farm nearby, I can imagine the murder in the next Local Foods mystery, whether it's mayhem that contrasts with the lush green of a late spring morning, a killing in nature's autumnal senescence, or murder under cover of ice and snow as the fields rest during winter.

Here's a wonderful passage about imagination from “The Raven,” which I found captured on a glass at Kim Grey's gift shop in Baltimore after Malice Domestic last month:

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
`Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
'Tis the wind and nothing more!'

What's your favorite scary story? Did you read Poe and  Holmes as a child? How does your imagination get carried away?

Locavore Edith Maxwell's Local Foods mysteries let her relive her days as an organic farmer in Massachusetts, although murder in the greenhouse is new. A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die releases May 28 from Kensington Publishing. A fourth-generation Californian, she has also published short stories of murderous revenge.

Edith Maxwell's pseudonym Tace Baker authored Speaking of Murder featuring Quaker linguistics professor Lauren Rousseau and campus intrigue after her sexy star student is killed. Edith is a long-time Quaker and holds a long-unused doctorate in linguistics.

Edith lives north of Boston in an antique house with her beau and three cats. She can be found at www.edithmaxwell.com.

The Next Big Thing: 3D Printing

Elizabeth Zelvin

Synchronicity is the phenomenon in which after seeing or hearing about something you’ve never heard of before, you then see and hear about it everywhere. It’s been happening to me with 3D printing—or producing or constructing or “making.”

My husband, who uses high-end copiers in his job, went to an exhibition of the latest 3D technology a couple of weeks ago and spent part of his weekend home alone while I attended Malice Domestic visiting a store in New York where you can actually buy a 3D copier or “replicator”—a term long familiar to Star Trek fans—for the home.

Then yesterday I got an email from an old friend kvelling over the YouTube video of her son introducing the speaker at a design event about “the maker movement.” Practically the first words out of his mouth were: “With simple and affordable 3D design software... access to digital fabrication services, [and] desktop 3D printers, ‘makers’ are turning their home offices into home factories.”

On the face of it, this new technology is a good thing. The speaker my friend’s son introduced was the CEO of TechShop, which bills itself as “America’s first nationwide open access public workshop.” From the website: “TechShop is a playground for creativity. Part fabrication and prototyping studio, part hackerspace and part learning center, TechShop provides access to over $1 million worth of professional equipment and software...at TechShop you can explore the world of making in a collaborative and creative environment.”

Among the applications of 3D technology already in use is the making of relatively inexpensive prototypes of any kind of design. My husband brought home a cute little nut and bolt from the convention center exhibit (as at most conventions nowadays, there weren’t a whole lot of freebies) and a brightly colored expansion bracelet from the 3D store. Printed items listed on the site 3Ders.org include a robot that scoots along power lines checking for damage, individualized shoes in custom sizes, toys, high-performance bike parts, and fashion sunglasses.

Medical applications are also in use. An article on 3Ders.org describes how doctors are creating 3D-printed models of patients’ bone structure and organs to prepare for complex surgery. “Since the model is a facsimile of the patient's actual physiology, surgeons can use it to precisely shape metal inserts that fit along a patient's residual bone.” Even better, the patient spends less time in actual surgery, substantially reducing the risk of things going wrong.

As a mystery writer, the second I heard about 3D technology, I wondered whether—or when—it could be used to print a working gun that could be made at home and would defy metal detectors. Unfortunately, others have already thought of it. A May 5 article on 3Ders.org states:

“Defense Distributed showed off the world's first entirely 3D printed gun last Friday and announced its plan to publish the blueprints for ‘The Liberator’ on its blueprints archive Defcad.org this week.

“U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said this morning at a news conference in his Manhattan office that ‘this gun can fire regular bullets, and can accept silencers and other attachments,’ as he called for legislation to make building a gun using a 3D printer to be illegal.”

Like every innovation in history, this new technology can be used for good or ill, depending on what people choose to make of it both literally and figuratively.

In Praise of Standalones

by Sandra Parshall

Mystery writers hear it all the time: the surest route to success is with a series – characters that readers will grow to love and want to see again and again. Even the majority of thriller writers have taken this course (ex: Lee Child and his Jack Reacher novels).

That leaves readers like me, who love standalone suspense, with little to choose from. Yet a look at bestseller lists should tell us a vast audience for this kind of novel exists. Which author is about to celebrate a solid year in the top ten? Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl, her third standalone. Its success has brought new sales of her first and second books, Sharp Objects and Dark Places. No one, to my knowledge, is clamoring to see 20 more books about any of Flynn’s characters. Instead, we’re dying see what unique creation she comes up with next.

Harlan Coben had a moderately successful series about sports agent Myron Bolitar. Then he wrote a standalone called Tell No One and became a #1 worldwide bestselling author. He’s written a string of standalones, all huge hits with readers. I tried his Bolitar books and couldn’t get interested. I never miss one of his standalones. Laura Lippman also broke out to greater fame when she began writing standalones.

As a reader, I’m not happy when a favorite author goes the other way, turning from single titles to a series, although as a writer I wouldn’t challenge someone else’s decision to take any direction that feels right. I loved the standalones by Nicci French, a pseudonymous husband/wife team, and I was disappointed when they started the Frieda Klein series about a quirky  psychotherapist who works with the police. In the first book, Blue Monday, the insomniac psychotherapist seems a cold and off-putting, not the sort of passionate protagonist I expected from a French novel. In the second, Tuesday’s Gone, Frieda seems warmer and we learn more about her, but the story is less a suspense novel than a police procedural.

Many series, of course, are popular and regularly make bestselling lists. Even those that aren’t bestsellers (such as mine) have their devoted fans who want them to go on forever. However, when a series continues indefinitely – book 15 or 20 or beyond – fans may tire of the characters and the plots may seem increasingly unrealistic. Readers begin to skip books, then stop reading the series altogether. 

Among the authors who have kept their long-running series fresh, Margaret Maron stands out as a shining example. Her characters have grown older, their lives have evolved, and they are never boring. The Buzzard Table, #18 in the Deborah Knott series, is one of the best. Karin Slaughter has held onto most of her fans, myself among them, by making drastic changes in her characters’ lives and merging two series. A few fans may be unhappy, but her sales have never been better. I never miss one of her books and have usually read each one without a week or two of publication. I also read several other series that have held up well.

Standalones, though, have an attraction all their own. The author captures the protagonist at a crisis point, undergoing the most dramatic experience of his or her life. We know the character's life will never be the same after the events of the book.

I've found several new favorite authors of single title suspense in the past couple of years. I was hooked by Still Missing, the first novel by Chevy Stevens, and also loved the second, Never Knowing. Her third, Always Watching, comes out in the U.S. on June 18, and I will grab it as soon as I can. The first standalone by Elizabeth Haynes, Into the Darkest Corner, was unforgettable. Her second, Dark Tide, was radically different and equally absorbing. Her third, Human Remains, will be out in August. S.J. Watson's Before I Go to Sleep is phenomenal (and it's being made into a film starring Nicole Kidman).

These authors produce what I love most: unique stories of psychological suspense. That intimate emotional intensity is nearly impossible to sustain in a long-running series without making the protagonist look like a basket case with the world’s worst luck. In a series, the writer has to move outside the protagonist, building a story out of external elements. A series can be tremendously satisfying for both author and reader, but it’s not the same type of storytelling that’s needed in a standalone.

I intended my first published novel, The Heat of the Moon, to be standalone suspense. It’s intense, personal, and told in first person by Rachel Goddard. To build a series around Rachel, I moved her to a new environment, switched to third person, added the viewpoint of Tom Bridger, a Sheriff’s Department investigator, and began writing murder mysteries with strong suspense/thriller elements.

But I’ve never lost the desire to write what I love most to read: standalone psychological suspense. And one of these days, probably after I finish the Rachel mystery I’m working on now, I will do just that.