How Can I Kill Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

by Edith Maxwell

Thank you so much, Annette, for having me over to Writers Who Kill. I will happily send a signed copy of Charity’s Burden, my newest historical Quaker Midwife Mystery, to one commenter here today. 

Writers who kill – hmm, so true. Charity’s Burden is my seventeenth published novel (in five series) but to date I have completed twenty-one mysteries plus a novella. How many ways have I killed people on the page? Note that some books have more than one victim.

·         Gun – 3

·         Some form of poison – 7

·         Knife or very sharp object – 7

·         Garrote – 2

·         Strangle – 2

·         Pitchfork – 1

·         Push resulting in fatal injury – 3

And those don’t even include the murder methods in my more than a dozen published short stories.

I guess it’s a tie between sharp objects and poisons! The killer uses a sharp object in Charity’s Burden, but we don’t discover the truth until the end of the book, so I’m not telling here, either.

I do love exploring poisons. I have three great reference books on my shelf, and also take careful notes every time Luci Zahray – otherwise known as The Poison Lady – speaks at a conference.

Luci "The Poison Lady" Zahay

Liquid nicotine, rosary peas, Tylenol and alcohol? I’ve used them all. Luci’s specialty is talking about commonly available toxins.

 

Rosary Peas

Notice that I don’t resort to firearms very often, and all three of those were in the first or second book in a series. It seems too easy, I suppose.

I hope you enjoy the latest adventures of Rose Carroll, midwife. Here’s the blurb:

The winter of 1889 is harsh in Amesbury, Massachusetts, but it doesn’t stop Quaker midwife Rose Carroll from making her rounds of her pregnant and postpartum mothers. But when Charity Skells dies from an apparent early miscarriage, Rose wonders about the copious amount of blood. She learns that Charity’s husband appears to be up to no good with a young woman. The woman’s mother, who goes by the mysterious name of Madame Restante, appears to offer illegal abortions and herbal birth control. A disgraced physician in town does the same. Charity’s cousin mistakenly thinks he will take control of his father’s estate, part of which was to go to Charity. Rose, who suspects Charity’s death was from an abortion either incompetently or maliciously performed, once again works with police detective Kevin Donovan to solve the case before another life is taken.

I’m excited Quaker Midwife Mystery #4 is out, and I am happy to announce the series is moving over to Beyond the Page Publishing with book five. Look for Judge Thee Not to release this fall! There will be at least two more in the series after that. My next Country Store mystery, Strangled Eggs and Ham (written as Maddie Day) comes out June 25.

Readers: What’s your favorite murder weapon – used in a novel, I mean! Writers, yours? I’m happy to answer questions, too, and I’ll give away a signed copy of Charity’s Burden to one lucky reader. (Leave a comment to enter!)

Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries, the Local Foods Mysteries, and award-winning short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she writes the Country Store Mysteries and the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. Maxwell, with seventeen novels in print and four more completed, has been nominated for an Agatha Award six times. She lives north of Boston with her beau and two elderly cats, and gardens and cooks when she isn’t killing people on the page or wasting time on Facebook. Please find her at edithmaxwell.com, on Instagram, and at the Wicked Authors blog.