BRITISH CRIME TV SHOWS

 

                                                         by Margaret S. Hamilton

 

 

It’s February, Cincinnati has ten inches of snow and below zero temperatures, so it’s time to catch up on British Crime TV shows. Here’s a list of what we’ve been watching before the Olympics:

 

Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials (Netflix), starring Helena Bonham Carter and Martin Freeman. A new remake of the 1929 murder mystery set at a country house. I’m looking forward to comparing the remake to Christie’s original story. Bonham Carter as Bundle’s mother and Freeman as Superintendent Battle deliver memorable performances.

 

The Game (Britbox), starring Robson Green and Jason Watkins. Retired detective Huw is convinced his new neighbor is the serial killer he failed to capture during his law enforcement career. A cat-and-mouse game ensues with the deliciously creepy Robson Green. Some violence.

 

Shetland, season 10 (Britbox), starring Ashley Jensen and Alison O’Donnell. The setting in Shetland always steals the show, accompanied by a present-day murder with roots in the past death of two island boys. Ruth and Tosh identify and arrest the culprit. First rate plot and secondary characters.

 

The Night Manager, season two (Prime), starring Hugh Laurie, Tom Hiddleston, and Olivia Colman. Season One was based on Le Carre’s 1993 espionage novel about an undercover operation to bring down an international arms dealer. Season Two is set primarily in Colombia, ten years later. As soon as Hugh Laurie appears, it becomes a psychological thriller. British intelligence and arms dealing shape the plot. Laurie delivers another outstanding performance as Richard Roper, a powerful and flawed villain.

 

Bookish (PBS), starring Mark Gatiss. Set in post-war 1946 London, antiquarian bookseller Gabriel Book “assists” the police with their investigations. Book is a charming eccentric amateur sleuth.

 

Readers and writers, what crime shows have you enjoyed on TV?

 

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Head-Hopping

by Lois Winston

 

This blog is not meant to be controversial. It’s more about my confusion and trying to understand why a style of writing is verboten in one genre but seems perfectly acceptable in others. Let me explain.

 

I began my writing journey thirty-one years ago in the romance genre. The mantra that was beat into us newbies in countless workshops and conferences was that head-hopping is a sign of lazy writing, a no-no that leads to swift rejections. You absolutely MUST stay in one character’s point of view for an entire scene and preferably an entire chapter. If you needed to give another character’s point of view to the events, do so in a new scene or a new chapter. You also needed to keep to a very limited number of POVs – the hero, the heroine, and maybe the antagonist for romantic suspense.

There was one author exempted from the head-hopping rule because she “did it so well.” Or so we were constantly told. We were also told no one else should ever attempt to head-hop. As you can imagine, I was thoroughly confused. I bought one of this author’s books to try to understand what it was she did that no other romance author was allowed to do.

 

Confusion clouded my brain early into the book. Was I reading the thoughts of the hero? The heroine? Both at the same time? I reread the paragraph several time. I flipped back a page and reread. I read beyond the paragraph in question.

 

If I couldn’t figure out who was thinking what, how was this the one author entitled to head-hop? And why was it considered successful? I continued reading to the end of the book, hoping for better insight and understanding. I found none. I felt like the equivalent of the little boy who blurted out that the emperor was butt-naked, but I kept those thoughts to myself. After all, I was a rank amateur. Who was I to question a rule presumably set in stone?

 

As I continued to learn and hone my skills, transitioning from wannabe to published author, I adopted the philosophy that any given scene should be in the point of view of the character with the most to lose at that moment. Doing so raised the stakes and built tension.

 

Still, the warning about head-hopping had become so ingrained in me that I began seeing it in many other books. I found it prevalent, not only in rereading classic literature but in every literary novel and many non-romance novels I’ve read since. 

 

For instance, I’m currently reading a book that landed on multiple Best Books of 2025 lists. (I’ll refrain from mentioning the title.) Many chapters include two, three, or more POVs, often without transitioning with a scene break.

 

And then there’s the insertion of omniscient POV where a disembodied narrator adds his two cents. This also occurred in the above-mentioned book with an unnamed narrator periodically inserting himself into the narrative. There are times when this anonymous POV tells the reader the thoughts of two characters at the same time in the same sentence. To me, that’s both author intrusion and lazy writing, but this book is not an anomaly. I’ve seen it in other contemporary literary novels. Why is this archaic style of writing perfectly acceptable in literary fiction but not in genre fiction?

 

Nowadays, I find the head-hopping more annoying than confusing. I understand whose thoughts I’m reading most of the time. What’s annoying is that head-hopping still stands out like a blinking stop sign due to the indoctrination I received all those years ago. It pulls me from the scene, and when a reader is pulled from a scene – for any reason – it’s never a good thing.

In my own writing, I no longer worry about head-hopping. Since transitioning to writing cozy mysteries years ago, I now write exclusively in first person. Head-hopping is a non-issue because I’m always in my sleuth’s head. I just wish my brain didn’t zero in on head-hopping every time I come across it in a book I’m reading for pleasure. It’s funny how certain lessons, even when filled with misinformation, continue to flit around like gnats in our brain.

Meanwhile, yesterday marked the release of Embroidered Lies and Alibis, Book 15 in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series. As in many of the books in the series, the plot was inspired by current events. And although so much of our current events are wrapped around politics these days, I can assure you there’s absolutely nothing political about the plot of Embroidered Lies and Alibis. There’s also no head-hopping.

 

Post your thoughts on head-hopping for a chance to win a promo code for a free audiobook download of any of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries.

 

Embroidered Lies and Alibis

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 15

 

A Stitch in Time Could Save a Life…

 

When Anastasia’s mother Flora is offered a free spa vacation from Jeremy Dugan, a man connected to her distant past, Anastasia and husband Zack suspect ulterior motives. After all, too-good-to-be-true often spells trouble. Their suspicions are confirmed when the FBI swoops in to apprehend Dugan. However, Dugan isn’t who he claimed to be, and his arrest raises more questions than answers.

 

The Feds link Dugan to a string of cons targeting elderly single women across the country, but his seemingly airtight alibi leaves investigators stumped. Then, shortly after his release on bail, he’s kidnapped. A certain segment of New Jersey’s population is known for delivering deadly messages, and the FBI believes Dugan received one of them.

 

Meanwhile, bodies begin showing up in the newly created public garden across the street from Anastasia and Zack’s home. With two baffling crimes, no clear suspects, scant evidence, and every possible motive unraveling, both the FBI and local law enforcement are once again picking Anastasia’s brain. This time, though, her involvement is far from reluctant. Will she stitch together enough clues before she or someone she loves becomes the killer’s next victim?

 

Craft project included.

 

Buy Links

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~*~

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com. Sign up for her newsletter to receive an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery.

How Realistic Do Our Details Need to Be? by KM Rockwood

Speculative fiction thrives on wonder, yet even the most fantastical tales need a foundation of recognizable reality.

I love writing Christmas stories centered on the elves who keep Santa’s Village running. Readers will gladly accept flying reindeer, time‑bending sleighs, or a bustling community of elves at the North Pole—but only if the world surrounding those marvels behaves in ways they intuitively understand. Realism becomes the anchor that makes the extraordinary feel believable rather than arbitrary.

That tension becomes even more important when magical or mythical characters step into our contemporary world. I’ve just finished a novella that leans into this blend of whimsy and realism.

The spark for this story came from a news report about children poisoned by lead tainted cinnamon in applesauce. I began to wonder: what if some of that contaminated cinnamon found its way into the warehouses at the North Pole, and the danger was discovered just as the Christmas cookie baking season began? With no time to wait for a replacement shipment, Gunnar—the elf responsible for sourcing ingredients—realizes he must travel to retrieve safe cinnamon himself.

The story evolved itself into a “novella in short stories,” each section reflecting a leg of Gunnar’s journey. That structure raised an important question: how realistic should his travel arrangements be?

Gunnar must reach Baltimore, home to a major spice importer. (I’m always hesitant to name specific companies, even when they’re well known. Maybe especially when they are well known.) The northernmost rail station in North America is in Moosonee, where the delightfully named Polar Bear Express begins its 186 mile trip to Cochrane. From there, Gunnar would need to take a bus to Toronto, then continue by bus or train to New York, and finally on to Baltimore.

Once in Baltimore, he must reach Tradepoint at Sparrows Point, where enormous container ships unload their cargo into sprawling warehouses. To keep the story grounded, I decided that my fictional elf’s journey should follow real transportation options as closely as possible.

That choice immediately introduced complications. Gunnar arrives in Cochrane in the evening, but the next bus to Toronto doesn’t leave until morning. Crossing the border on the Toronto to New York leg brings him face to face with customs officials—and in today’s world of fraught border crossings, an elf without a passport is bound to have difficulties. And once he reaches Baltimore, he must rely on city buses. The 163 line does go to Tradepoint, but it doesn’t come anywhere near the main bus depot. In this case, I allowed myself a small liberty and rerouted it, trusting that readers familiar with Baltimore’s transit system will accept the adjustment as reasonable artistic license.

Since it’s a Christmas story, it has a predictable

happy-ever-after ending. Gunnar gets the cinnamon back to the North Pole and the cookies are baked in a timely manner.

I aimed at a blend of enough realism to make the journey feel authentic, and enough flexibility to let the magic breathe. I just hope readers will see it that way.

How much do you depend upon realistic details in your stories?

To swear or not to swear, that is the question

By Shari Randall

 

Long story short, the other night I tuned into an episode of The Rockford Files titled  “White on White and Nearly Perfect.” It starred James Garner as Jim Rockford, a handsome and charming PI who works out of a trailer, with guest star Tom Selleck, who plays Lance White, an even more handsome and charming PI. Lance is so handsome and charming that no one can resist him - except for Rockford, of course. 

 

One thing that struck me, aside from the fact that Tom Selleck really was very handsome and that the clothes people wore in the '70s were distractingly awful, was the lack of swearing. Throughout heated arguments, vigorous beatings, and tackling lowlife criminals, nobody swore.

 

This struck me because the night before I had watched the highly acclaimed Leonardo DiCaprio film, One Battle After Another. I should’ve counted the number of times the F word was used, but I think it would’ve been over 100 and that was just in the first 15 minutes.

 

I even noticed the F word popping up several times in Louise Penny’s latest, The Black Wolf. 

 

I’m sure the fact that The Rockford Files was filmed in the ‘70s accounts for the lack of swearing. There were FCC rules, community standards, and advertisers to appease, I’m sure.

 

I was around in the 1970s. I don’t remember much swearing, and I went to a public high school. There were certain words that were not nice to use, according to the aforementioned community standards. Remember standards?

 

Frankly, swearing doesn’t shock me that much anymore. It’s so pervasive I think we’re all numbed to it. That means that a well-timed expletive from someone who doesn’t normally swear can drive home a point with delicious force. It’s the constant drip of the F word that’s annoying. A friend who is a kindergarten teacher told me she knew it was time to retire when a five-year-old called her a m*#%&$r.

 

Yes, the F bomb is a very versatile word. It can be used as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, you name it, but for me hearing it everywhere is tiresome. I know that language evolves and standards change, but I think people have just become lazy.

 

One show I’ve enjoyed lately is Slow Horses. Yes, there is plenty of swearing, but there are also some truly entertaining insults from the main character, Jackson Lamb. At one point, he refers to useless character as a “refrigerator magnet.” Ouch. 

 

As a writer, I strive for realism, especially in dialogue. But because I write on the cozier end of the spectrum, I have to have very good reasons for using a word that many readers might not appreciate. I’ve gotten around that by writing “Character X swears.” But I’m keeping “refrigerator magnet” in my word hoard for when I want a put down that will really sting. 

 

Writers, how do you handle characters in the heat of a moment that calls for spicier language?

Shari Randall is the author of the Agatha Award-winning Lobster Shack Mystery series, and, as Meri Allen, writes the Ice Cream Shop mystery series.

 

 

BIG CHANGES COMING TO THE BOOKS YOU BUY

by Korina Moss

The way some of us read books will be different in the coming year. Two days ago, I read an article in The New York Times about the demise of the mass market paperback. Mass market paperbacks are the smaller paperbacks that sell between $7.99 and $9.99. If you’re a cozy mystery or romance reader, you’re especially familiar with these. But now, publishers have decided to do away with mass market paperbacks, and bookstores will no longer carry them. Anything that would’ve been sold as mass market will soon be in trade paperback size, which will cost between $15.99 and $21.99, which means you’ll have to increase your book budget.

Mass markets of my Cheese Shop Mystery 
(and trade paperback of the Spanish translation of 
Cheddar Off Dead)

Almost all cozy mysteries, like my Cheese Shop Mystery series, are published in mass market, because our books are almost always part of a series and our readers are loyal. Like readers of romance novels, our readers are known to devour several books a month (sometimes more), and the mass market price point allows for it. Along with cozy mysteries and romance, other genres, like thrillers, mysteries, and science fiction, will also feel the effects of doing away with the smaller, less expensive printed copy in favor of trade paperback.

There are several reasons for this decision, one being the introduction of the e-book. According to the NY Times article, “… In the United States, about 103 million mass markets were sold in 2006, the year before the Kindle was introduced. Last year, readers bought fewer than 18 million of them.” Although “physical books still account for about 75 percent of book sales,” mass market paperbacks took a hit. Over the past decade, 10,000 fewer mass market books were published. 

My 5th book, Fondue or Die, on the shelf at
Barnes & Noble with the other mass market cozy mysteries

As a writer and reader of cozy mysteries, this makes me wonder how they will fare. If it’s true, as The NY Times states, that “It wasn’t publishers leading away from mass markets. It was readers,” then it’s up to us. Will cozy mystery readers shell out an extra $6 or more for the pricier trade paperback cozy mystery? Will they accept the new format and higher prices and continue to purchase as many of their beloved books? Or will the cozy mystery genre ultimately pay the price?

If you’d like to read the full New York Times article, click here: So Long to Cheap Books You Could Fit in Your Pocket. 

Readers: How will this affect your book buying? 

KORINA MOSS is the author of the Cheese Shop Mystery series, which includes the winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel, as well as two novels short-listed for Best Contemporary Novel. Listed as one of USA Today’s “Best Cozy Mystery Series,” her books have also been featured in PARADE Magazine, Woman’s World, and Writer’s Digest. Korina is also a freelance developmental editor specializing in cozy mysteries. To learn more or subscribe to her free monthly newsletter, visit her website korinamossauthor.com.

Korina is also a freelance developmental editor specializing in cozy and traditional mysteries. Using her experience writing her award-winning series for a Big 5 publisher, she has the inside track on what editors, agents, and readers are looking for in a cozy mystery.  Whether you're a new writer hoping to be traditionally or independently published, or you're an established writer wanting some guidance with a manuscript, she can help you strengthen your book. You can find more information on her website and contact her at korinamossauthor@gmail.com

File Under Short Stories by Mary Dutta

Last weekend I took a trip to the local zoo, but not to visit the animals. I went to take advantage of one of my county’s periodic paper-shredding events.

After snaking around the parking lot in a long line, I handed over multiple years’ worth of tax returns, financial statements, and other documents containing personal information. The mobile shredders did their thing, and I drove home lighter both in paper and in mind.

I feel confident that in today’s world of paperless statements, online bill paying, and account histories available with a single click of a mouse, the odds of my accumulating more such paper clutter are very slim. Digital clutter, though, is another story.

I have many files from my short story writing. Many, many files.

There are published stories in multiple versions, including numerous drafts and the final form I submitted for possible publication. Then there’s the revision incorporating the editor’s feedback that became the published version. Sometimes there’s yet another copy with identifying data redacted for contest submissions.

Of course, I also have completed stories that have not (yet) been published. Some are things I haven’t sent out for consideration. Others are stories that were rejected from one publication and that I plan to resubmit elsewhere. In those cases, there might be the original iteration of the story and then a version that I think is improved, or that I have tweaked to fit a different anthology call.

There are plenty of unfinished works as well. Stories that started strong but then don’t quite work. Things I realized I wouldn’t finish to meet a deadline and left incomplete. Some files consist of only a single sentence, a story idea that may one day come to fruition. Others contain notes for works that are a little further along in their development.

It used to be that my personal computer storage was limited to what a hard drive, floppy disc, CD, or flash drive could hold. But with cloud storage that capacity is now virtually unlimited. That may mean I don’t make it back to the zoo any time soon, but then I’ll probably be too busy writing to go.

 What files have you held onto, and are you planning to let them go? 

How Lori Lost Her Groove, by Lori Roberts Herbst

…And will she ever get it back? More to the point, does she want to?

I confess…

I have made only sporadic progress on the book I started writing in the summer of 2024. It’s titled LARCENY IN THE LIGHTHOUSE and is intended to be the first in a new cozy series called The Seahorse Bay Mysteries. I’m 62k words into book one, with only about another 18k to go. The plot excites me, the pacing is solid, the characters are entertaining, and the premise seems to work. I even have a really cute cover for the book.

Why, then, do I continue to go weeks and weeks without adding a word?

A little backstory:

My writing career began in 2020 when I started the Callie Cassidy Mystery series. I published the first book in January 2021 and subsequently wrote and published five additional books, the most recent one in April 2024. That’s six books in just over three years, for those of you keeping count. Not a bad pace. I attended a few conferences, won a few awards, garnered some decent sales and reviews. All in all, a heady pursuit.

Then the hubby retired. We moved from Texas to Colorado Springs, into a 55+ community filled with so many nice people and a plethora of fun activities. All my grandkids are local, as, obviously, are my daughters and their husbands. There’s so much to do, so much to see, so many people to enjoy. Writing began to seem like an after-thought instead of a passion. With three-quarters of the draft complete, I just can’t seem to accelerate to the finish line.

I’ve also been negligent on all things regarding marketing. I stopped tending to my social media. I do little in the way of advertising. And in-person events? I wasn’t good at those when I was all in, much less these days.

As I was discussing my lagging sales and non-existent writing schedule with my brother-in-law, a retired tax accountant, he said this: 

“Do you know what we call that kind of career in tax circles? A hobby.”

I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection since that statement. What is it I actually want? I’ve considered giving up writing, and when I think about that, a tightness grows in my gut. Being an author has provided me with pleasure, confidence, friends, psychological healing—so many good things have come from writing. 

And I feel in my heart I shouldn’t…can’t…quit.

So, here’s my plan: devote a few hours MOST days to finishing this book. Rebuild the writing habit. Commit to this for six months and see how I feel at the end of that time. Maybe it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing pursuit. Maybe the line between career and hobby is nebulous, and I can find a way to straddle it.

It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s what I have right now. My path toward getting my groove back. 

Thanks for attending my personal therapy session. I would love to hear your experiences, thoughts, and advice.

The Callie Cassidy Mystery series is available on Amazon Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and paperback.

***
Lori Roberts Herbst writes the Callie Cassidy Mysteries, a cozy mystery series set in Rock Creek Village, Colorado, and the soon-to-be-released Seahorse Bay Mysteries, set in a Texas cruise port town. To find out more and to sign up for her newsletter, go to www.lorirobertsherbst.com

Getting Out of Your Safe Space by Susan Van Kirk

 

While I am told AI will do all our thinking for us down the road, I still pin my hopes on articles I’ve read that explain how to age better and keep your brain working by changing strategies. For example, try doing normal activities with your non-dominant hand. Brush your teeth with your left hand if you’re right-handed. Or mix up your exercise routine because your body gets used to the same old thing and gets lazy. Over my writing years, I’ve taken that advice to challenge my brain in the mysteries I write.

My first Endurance mystery, Three May Keep a Secret, was pretty straight-forward. I chose third- person narrative and a linear plot to write my first book. When the publisher told me it would be two years before book two came out, I decided to try a little exercise in change. I researched novellas, writing an 82-page one about my detective, TJ Sweeney, called The Locket: From the Casebook of TJ Sweeney. Less a cozy than a police procedural, it pushed a different part of my brain. The plot was linear, but I couldn’t use subplots or have the luxury of 300 pages to develop my characters. I had to learn how to self-publish, and it was a big challenge.

When book two, Marry in Haste, came along, I kept the third-person narrative but added a double plot. My town of Endurance in the early 2000s versus Endurance in the 1800s were the settings. Creating a whole history for the setting’s house and a map of the earlier town, I also had to figure out how to do this double plot so it fit together. That was an exercise in sheets of paper combining plots all over the floor of my house. It worked, but it also really pushed my brain.

Eventually, I got an agent who talked me into writing a trilogy, the Art Center mysteries, which had to be plotted before I even started writing. One plot was hard enough, but three? Not only did this little exercise keep me up at night, it also had a huge change to first-person narrative. I discovered I really liked to write in first-person. I also learned a lot more about character arcs and series arcs. My Endurance mysteries, so far, have simply been one book after another with character arcs, so this second series was a whole new world.

Now, I’ve embarked on a new change in my writing. Back in 2010, I wrote a memoir about my teaching life called The Education of a Teacher (Including Dirty Books and Pointed Looks.) It was creative nonfiction, and I’d never authored a book before. That was sixteen years ago. I published it with a vanity press. It did exceptionally well, selling a few thousand copies. Then, I had the rights reverted a couple of years ago and let the book go out of print.

My new project is to revise this memoir adding a new introduction and a new cover. It’s been fun for my formatter because we haven’t had a deadline and have worked at our own speed. I anticipate it will be out in March or April. My sixteen years of practice have made me a better writer these days. I’m also doing investigative work on my own. This book has fifteen stories from my teaching life, and while some  are hard to believe, I assure you they really happened. The only fiction in “creative nonfiction” are the conversations I had to recreate. Most chapters are centered around a specific student over the thirty-five years I taught in high school. I’m planning a postscript at the end of most chapters to reveal where these former students are now and what happened to them after they left high school. This week, I did a zoom call with a former student who is now working as an engineer at Nvidia. What an amazing story he had to tell!

So, stay tuned. We’ll see if I can pull this one off. I’m having such fun finding these “kids” I knew when they were 16-18 years old. In several cases, I’d never guess the paths their lives have taken. It’s a whole new brain challenge, and I’m up for it.

 

Have you ever moved out of your safe space to try something totally different? Was it a success?

Catching Up with V. M. Burns By E. B. Davis

  

Nana Jo has volunteered her lawyer granddaughter, Jenna, to teach estate planning to retirees—with Sam providing her bookshop as the venue. But during the seminar, entitled Getting Your Ducks in Order, it quickly becomes clear someone’s up to Fowl Play. When elderly Alva Tarkington, accompanied by her niece, sits down for a consultation, Sam realizes the woman’s frequent blinking is actually Morse Code—S.O.S. The sisters get her alone, and Alva tells them she believes her life is in danger and must change her will . . .

 

Unfortunately, Alva is found dead the next day—seemingly from natural causes. But Nana Jo and the sisters suspect otherwise. In between penning her latest historical mystery, set in 1939 as England declares war on Germany and Lady Elizabeth Marsh pursues stolen paintings and a traitor, Sam teams up with the senior sleuths of Shady Acres to search for motives—beginning with Alva’s family. They soon learn not everyone is who they say they are, and someone is more than qualified to teach a class on cold-blooded murder . . .

Amazon.com

 

Does main character Sam Washington solve mysteries in her fiction that apply to her current case? Or does she work out the mystery and put the solution into her fiction? I think only V. M. Burns, the author of Murder from A to Z knows the answer to that question. This novel is the eleventh in the Mystery Bookshop mystery series, and was released on January 27^th. It’s definitely a fun read!

 

Please welcome Valerie to WWK.                                                               E. B. Davis

   

Where is Sam’s and Jenna’s mother? Grace Robertson, Sam and Jenna’s mother, has been in Australia with her husband, Harold. After wildfires devastated the koala population, Grace and Harold moved to Australia to assist with koala rescues.

 

Sam says that Nana Jo volun-told her to host Jenna’s “Getting Your Ducks in a Row” course in her bookshop. Does Nana Jo have other tasks she volun-tells Jenna and Sam for? Nana Jo has volunteered her granddaughters for various tasks. Sam and Jenna are adults, and could decline, but they love and respect their grandmother. So, while they may not have initially wanted to do whatever tasks she has for them, they are willing to do it out of love. Fortunately, Nana Jo loves her granddaughters and never volunteers them for anything they would hate. 

 

Jenna seems to be having a hard time with empty-nest syndrome. Did the twins live at home during their college years? The twins, Christopher and Zaq did not live at home during their college years, but they were close, and she saw them much more frequently. Now that they’ve graduated, they have moved further away and visits aren’t nearly as frequent.

 

Do the “A” and “Z” in your title referring to the victim and her twin sister, Alva and Zelda? Yes. That’s where I got the idea for the title.

 

Does Sam identify with Lady Elizabeth? There are a number of similarities between Samantha and Lady Elizabeth. Neither woman had children of their own. Both are intelligent and strong. Both are excellent leaders. And both are great at solving mysteries. 

 

What was the Night of Broken Glass? The Night of Broken Glass or Kristallnacht, occurred on November 9-10, 1938 in Germany and Austria. Jewish business, homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked and destroyed. The attacks were retaliation for the assassination of a German diplomat by a 17-year-old Polish Jew who was living in Paris. Over 7,000 Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed. The episode is referred to as the “Night of Broken Glass” because of shards of broken glass that littered the streets.     

 

What is a Fifth Columnist? Fifth Columnist are people who sympathize with a country’s enemy and work from within to sabotage and undermine a nation. This was a large fear during WWII. In England, there were many people with ties or connections to Germany and other Axis nations. After Pearl Harbor, fear that Japanese Americans would provide critical information to Japan resulted in the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.

 

Was Paul Klee real?  Paul Klee was a German artist born in 1879 in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland. Klee was a modernist and was known for his use of color. Hitler objected to modern art. Klee and other modern artists’ works were labeled by the Nazis as “degenerate” and were banned (and in some cases destroyed) in 1937.  

 

The Marsh family sponsored three Jewish children, who now live with them, from the Kindertransport. Was this common? The Kindertransport or Children’s Transport, was an organized effort to rescue children, primarily Jewish children, from Nazi occupied areas between 1938-1939. More than 10,000 children were taken to the United Kingdom. Belgium, France, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands also took children, but the vast majority of children went to the U.K. The Marsh family are wealthy aristocrats who live in the country. They had the space, the staff, and the resources to care for the children.

 

Although only one young woman, Isabella, seems to mourn Alva’s death, she also has more than one reason to have murdered Alva. Why would Sam offer her a place to stay? Sam was touched by Isabella’s grief. She seemed to be the only person genuinely mourning Alva. Yet Isabella is also the person who is being taunted and harassed. Alva trusted Isabella and despite the circumstances, Sam was willing to trust her, too.

 

After Sam and Nana Jo interest the police in Alva’s death, the police find that arsenic killed her. From her research, Sam suspects the wallpaper in Alva’s bedroom was Scheele’s Green, a historic wallpaper, which was made with arsenic. Is this true? How did they find out about the arsenic and its poisonous effects? Sadly, this is true. Scheele’s Green was popular in the 18^th and early 19^th century. The vibrant color was made with an arsenic-based pigment. In the 19^th century, arsenic (in small doses) wasn’t considered lethal and was used in food, medicine, face powder, paints, and wallpaper. The vibrant colored wallpaper was often used in nurseries. High mortality rates in nurseries were troubling to 19^th century scientists. They believed flaking pieces of the wallpaper may have been consumed by small children. Fireplaces may have also combined with the arsenic to create a toxic gas. Hard to believe that the people knew that the wallpaper contained arsenic and did nothing?  Coca Cola used to contain cocaine.

If Nana Jo is a grizzly, and Jenna is a lioness, what animal is Sam? Sam is more of a golden retriever. She is friendly, good natured, and fun-loving. She is intelligent, calm, a quick learner, and she gets along with just about everyone. She isn’t known for aggression, but will do what she has to in order to protect those she loves.

 

Was Isabella’s necklace an Egyptian artifact that was given to her illegally? Isabella’s necklace was an Egyptian artifact. It was more than likely given to her illegally, although there is a slim possibility that it wasn’t. Years ago, archeologists often removed artifacts from dig sites. The practice was made illegal in Egypt in 1983.

 

Is there still missing art from WWII? YES. There is still a great deal of art that has been missing since WWII. Some art was stolen from museums, churches, and institutions. Other art and valuable objects were stolen from private collections and homes.

 

Who or what is John Wick? LOL – John Wick is the title character in an action/thriller. Wick is a former hitman who comes out of retirement to get revenge against the underworld thugs who kill his dog. Keanu Reeves plays the main character.

 

Did Winston Churchill really say, “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”? (Loc 2932) Winston Churchill is attributed with making a similar quote, although it is believed that the word “appeaser” was added in the 1950s. On January 20, 1940, Winston Churchill gave a speech that was broadcast over the BBC. The New York Times reprinted the speech the next day. Referring to nations that remained neutral during the war, Churchill said, “Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.” There was also a metaphor about a storm, which was confusing and eliminated in future publications of Churchill quotes.

 

Sam gets flashes of insight, and then loses the connection before making a realization. Why the lost connection? Too much information? Samantha and I share a lot of character traits. Sadly, one of them is getting a flash of insight, an idea, or a thought. But, within moments, it’s gone. Generally, if I stop trying to grab hold of the idea, it comes back.

 

Was the 2010 case of Cornelius Gurlitt real? Yes. Cornelius Gurlitt was the son of Hildebrand Gurlitt, an art dealer for the Third Reich. Art that wasn’t stolen was bought at ridiculously low prices from Jews. Cornelius Gurlitt was a recluse living in Munich, who was found to have had over 1,300 pieces of looted art in his Munich apartment that he inherited from his father, Hildebrand.  

 

Sam works on a notepad, do you? Sometimes. Most of the time, I write on my laptop. However, when I am away from home, I find that I’m more productive writing in a notebook.

 

What’s next for Sam, Jenna, Nana Jo and the rest of Nana Jo’s friends at the Shady Acres Retirement Village? Sam and Frank are finally going to tie the knot in the 12^th installment of the series. The working title is, A Prologue to Murder.

 

 

The 2026 Library Reading Challenge

By James M. Jackson

Given everything going on in the country, I decided I needed to shake up my reading routine. The director of my northern library, the Crystal Falls District Community Library, is a whirlwind of a leader. As the treasurer of the library’s nonprofit “Friends” group, I get to work with Evelyn Gathu on a variety of projects. At our last Friends’ board meeting of 2025, she came in and handed each of us a “Library Challenge” calendar for 2026.

Surrounding the calendar are forty-seven different categories of books. The idea is to read a book in each category. If a book satisfies multiple categories, you pick just one. Given one category is “A Trilogy,” I’ll need to read forty-nine books to complete the challenge. I normally read eighty to a hundred books a year, so my challenge isn’t the number of books, but what kind of books.

Orange highlights the ones I read in January

Some categories will be no problem (A mystery or thriller, A book written by a female author, a book published this year), but when it came to categories such as “A Graphic Novel,” I was clueless. Never read one. Wasn’t much of a comic book reader as a kid. I turned to ChatGPT for help.

I gave ChatGPT a list of all the books I had rated five-stars in the last ten years, some general genre preferences (no to horror and romance), and asked it to give me its top ten suggestions and tell me why I might like the book. One of its suggestions was Maus: a survivor’s tale – My Father Bleeds History, written by Art Spiegelman. The book details Art’s conversations with his father, a holocaust survivor. After finishing it, I went on to read Spiegelman’s second Maus volume -And Here My Troubles Began, which fulfilled my requirement to “Read a book you can finish fairly quickly.”

As noted above, I don’t like horror. When I asked ChatGPT for suggestions about “A book that scares you,” I told it to find nonfiction books it thought might scare me. It found highly rated books about the dangers of microplastics, running out of potable water, superbugs, etc. That was a depressing chat. I chose How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt.

Another challenging category was “A book you were supposed to read in school.” Problem is, I read all the books I was assigned in school—the actual books, not the Cliffs Notes. So I challenged ChatGPT to look at this from a different perspective. I gave it my years of schooling and asked for twenty-five books it would have been important for me to read during those years. Of the twenty-five, I had read twenty-two. One of the remaining three was Melville’s Moby Dick, which I knew I did not want to read. The other two I had never heard of. I asked about those and chose Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Included by Time in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005, it certainly fits the kind of book I should have read.

I could go on about how I’ve made choices, but I’ll close with one more example. I needed to find “A book written by an author with your initials.” ChatGPT found just the author for me. He wrote the kind of books I enjoy and even had some set near where I live: James M. Jackson. Nice to know ChatGPT could find me! I told it that was me and please find someone else. Crickets. The best that it and two other large language model AIs could do was suggest JMJ Williamson. Good enough. He has the same initials as me; nothing in the rules said he couldn’t have more. I purchased his Collision.

Have you ever participated in any “Reader Challenges?” I welcome your thoughts on my choices (see below for the complete list of categories and my current selections) and look forward to the discussion in the comments.

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What follows is the complete list of categories. I have included books I have already chosen. Those chosen with AI assistance are marked with a #. Those I read in January are noted with an *.

# A banned book: The Things They Carried — Tim O’Brien

* A book a friend recommended: Horse - Geraldine Brooks (Recommended by one of my Readers Group newsletter subscribers)

* A book about a TV show: In Such Good Company - Carol Burnett (A book of my mother’s I had not read)

A book at the bottom of your to read list: Land of Mountains – Jinx Schwartz (oldest book on my Kindle I haven’t read)

A book based entirely on its cover

A book based on a true story

A book by a female author

A book by an author that you love

A book by an author you've never read before

* A book from your childhood: The Little Engine That Could – Watty Piper

* A book more than 100 years old: Through the Shadows – Rev. I. C. Knowlton (1885, a book owned by my great-great aunt, who was a Universalist.)

A book of short stories: With Our Bellies Full and the Fire Dying – Debra Goldstein

A book published this year

A book set during Christmas

A book set in a different country: The Bone People - Keri Hulme (from my TBR pile)

# A book set in high school: One of Us Is Lying — Karen M. McManus

# A book set in the future: The City & The City — China Miéville

A book that became a movie: Hidden Figures – Margot Lee Shetterly (from my TBR pile)

A book that might make you cry

# * A book that scares you: How Democracies Die - Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt

# A book that takes place in your hometown: Seven Million - Gary Craig (Rochester, NY)

A book that was translated from a different language

A book with a love triangle

# * A book with a number in the title: Thirteen - Steve Cavanagh

# * A book with a one-word title: Ishmael - Daniel Quinn

# * A book with Antonyms in the title: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet – Jamie Ford

# A book with bad reviews: The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain

A book with magic

A book with more than 500 pages

# A book with nonhuman characters: Children of Time — Adrian Tchaikovsky

# A book written by an author with your initials: Collision - JMJ Williamson

A book written by someone under 30

# * A book you can finish fairly quick: Maus: a survivor's tale. And here My Troubles Began - Art Spiegelman.

A book you never got to finish: Everyday Enlightenment - Dan Millman

A book you own but have never read: (so very many to choose from!)

# A book you were supposed to read in school but didn't: Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

A book your mom or dad loves: (Maybe a Nero Wolfe that my father loved)

# A classic romance: The Princess Bride - William Goldman

A funny book

# * A graphic novel: Maus: a survivor's tale. My father bleeds history - Art Spiegelman

* A memoir: A Reporter's Life - Walter Cronkite (in my TBR pile)

A mystery or thriller

* A nonfiction book: The Boston Way - Mark Kurlansky (found at the library while picking up another book)

# * A play: Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

# A Pulitzer-prize-winning book: The Sympathizer - Viet Thanh Nguyen

# A trilogy: The Three-Body Problem/The Dark Forest/Death's End - Liu Cixin (assuming I enjoy the first book)

An author's first book

* * *

James M. Jackson writes justice-driven thrillers with brains and bite, including the Niki Undercover Thriller series and the Seamus McCree series. To learn more information about Jim and his books, check out his website, https://jamesmjackson.com. You can sign up for his newsletter (and get to read Low Tide at Tybee, a novella featuring Seamus, his darts-throwing mother, and six-year-old granddaughter, Megan).