Killing in Tandem

Today on Salad Bowl Saturdays we have a two for one sale brought to you by the writing team of Bette and JJ Lamb. They not only write together they live together. Join us today to see how that works.

~ Jim

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Two heads are better than one, even if one is a goat’s head, says an old proverb.

But first, a warning: collaborating and cohabitating is not the easiest way to write a crime novel.

Ideally, you need two people with close to the same level of writing experience, similar approaches to telling a story, and the temperaments to spend long periods in the same room exchanging ideas … without killing each other.

We had none of that going in … except for the no mayhem part. In addition, our temperaments are worlds apart. It was a matter of meshing a career writer – journalism, short stories, and PI series – with an artist-RN.

The collaboration started after the RN/artist/sculptor kept bugging the writer to write a novel based on her “great idea.” After months of I-don’t-want-to responses, the writer brought the artist a ream of paper and a portable typewriter and said, “If the idea’s so great, you write it.”

The feisty ex-Bronxite said, “Okay, I will.” And she did. (Ah, but she found the portable “too slow,” and electric “too noisy,” and then experience with the small amount of memory in a Selectric quickly turned us into a two-computer family.)

The actual collaboration started with short stories, and soon moved on to novels.

First bump: the collaboration thing was a new experience for the writer, who’d always flown solo for both fiction and non-fiction. And there were discouraging warnings from others that trying to write and sleep together could destroy any marital relationship.

We tried a number of approaches – writing alternate chapters, adopting certain characters, specializing in certain types of situations, and various combinations of these. What works best? One of us writes a first draft, with continuous input on plot development and characterizations from the other. Then we swap places for the second draft … and so it goes.

For the final version, we sit down side by side at the keyboard and go through the entire manuscript, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. And, yes, it does get very noisy at times.

The amazing thing, at least to us, is that the final draft takes on a third voice that combines (we hope) the best of each of us. That best also takes in the fact that the nurse/artist/sculptor has, from the beginning, been the most imaginative killer of the two through four medical thrillers and a suspense-adventure tale.

When we finished the first book, Bone Dry, we agreed, and were adamant, that we had no interest creating a series. So the next two books, Heir Today … and Sisters in Silence, were standalones.

But we missed Gina Mazzio, our nurse hero from that the first book … and so did our readers.

Never say never.

Gina’s nemeses in Bone Dry was a despicable couple who were stealing treated autologous bone marrow of near-death cancer patients and holding it for ransom.

In Sin & Bones, Gina became curious about nurses disappearing from her hospital without a word, or any other clue. Before you could push a call button, she was caught up in the deadly dangerous illicit trade in human body parts.

In the most recent book, Bone Pit, Gina takes a much-needed break from hospital nursing and goes off on a travel nurse assignment with fiancé Harry, also an RN.

Instead of an anticipated semi-vacation in the wilds of northern Nevada’s gold country, they discover their employer is deep into a murderous scheme to manipulate clinical test results for an experimental drug scheduled for FDA approval as a cure for Alzheimer’s.

The book is a tumultuous ride through medicine, mines, madness, and murder.

The fourth book in the Gina Mazzio RN medical thriller series that we were never, ever going to write, no matter what, is tentatively entitled, Bone Deep.

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Bette Golden Lamb, a feisty ex-Bronxite, writes crime novels and plays with clay. Her sculptures and other artistic creations appear in exhibitions, galleries, and stores. She also hangs out with her 50+ rose bushes, or sneaks out to movies when she should be writing. Being an RN is a huge clue as to why she writes medical thrillers. www.Amazon.com/Bette-Golden-Lamb/e/B001K8D3NW

J. J. Lamb intended to become an aeronautical engineer/pilot, but was seduced by journalism. An AP career was interrupted by the Army, which gave him a Top Secret clearance; a locked room with table, chair, and typewriter; and the time to write short stories. A paperback PI series followed, then collaboration with Bette. www.Amazon.com/J.-J.-Lamb/e/B001K8G5ZU

The Lambs, who live in Northern California, have co-authored four medical thrillers - Bone Dry, Sisters in Silence, Sin & Bone, and Bone Pit - and a suspense-adventure-romance novel, Heir Today. They are members of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers.

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