Malice Domestic - Where Everybody Knows Your Name by Teresa Inge

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending Malice Domestic, an annual convention that celebrates traditional mysteries, with a focus on Agatha Christie-style storytelling. Since its inception in 1989, this event has brought fans and authors together for a fun and friendly experience. Currently held each April in Bethesda, Maryland, it offers a mix of author panels, book signings, and engaging mystery-themed activities.

My own journey with Malice began twenty years ago, accompanied by my husband, daughter, and mother. Although I was initially nervous—surrounded by so many accomplished writers and knowing no one—I was warmly welcomed by Malice volunteers, members of Sisters in Crime (SinC) an organization dedicated to supporting female crime writers, as well as other authors and fans. I then realized I had found a place where I truly belonged which reminded me of the Cheers show theme song. Fast forward to last month, and Malice Domestic still exudes the same heartwarming “family reunion” vibe, complete with cheerful hugs, laughter, and enthusiasm shared with old friends and new ones. Over the years, this convention has had a profound impact on my writing career. It has helped me forge connections with fellow writers, build lasting friendships, discover publishing opportunities, and hone my writing craft. Now, I take pride in welcoming newcomers, just as I was embraced all those years ago.This year's highlights included Malice Go Round Speed Dating, New Authors Breakfast, an annual lunch with the Short Mystery Fiction Society, a SinC, Guppies gathering featuring an "Agatha signature cocktail" and appetizers, a captivating Sherlock Holmes play, the Agatha Awards banquet, an after-party, and panels like "Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys" and "Living in a Modern World: Women Take the Lead." There were fabulous interviews with the guest of honor Marcia Talley, lifetime achievement honoree Donna Andrews, and toastmaster Gigi Pandian as well as a book room overflowing with literary treasures, rounded out an unforgettable experience. 

Talking About Novels In My Novels by Marilyn Levinson

I enjoy having my characters discuss books in many of my novels. It must be the old teacher in me rearing its head. I was a high school Spanish teacher in another life, and what I loved most was conducting literary discussions in Spanish with my more advanced students about whatever novel or
stories they were reading. I’ve also led many book club discussions and enjoy raising provocative questions regarding the book we've all read to see how the members react.

The first time I did this was in my second published book, a YA called A Place To Start. My protagonist's English teacher leads a class discussion of "Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut." Then he and a girl he doesn't like are forced to work together on a report of Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery." What fun it was to write their reactions to this very powerful story that first appeared in The New Yorker.

Gabbie Meyerson, the sleuth in my mystery, Giving Up the Ghost, has taken over an English teacher's classes midyear in the sleepy village of Chrissom Harbor on Long Island. Her students are reading The Great Gatsby, which takes place on Long Island. Though she hasn't taught in many years, Gabbie is determined to make reading this book an adventure for her students. After they read a scene about one of Jay Gatsby's famous parties, she has them compare it to parties in the Hamptons they've read about. 

Through questions and prodding, she helps them to understand the various characters in the novel, and to see how their interactions bring about tragedy, that Gatsby's death is a result of cause and effect. Now motivated, the students are eager to do their written assignments. As for Daisy, one student wonders if Jay Gatsby really loved her, or if she was an illusion he created based on her beauty and wealth.

Book discussions play an important role in Murder a la Christie and Murder the Tey Way, the two books in my Golden Age of Mystery Book Club mysteries. This series is my tribute to authors of the Golden Age of Mystery, which took place roughly between the two World Wars. Book clubs exist for the purpose of group discussions--about the book and whatever topics the book inspires. In Murder a la Christie, Professor Lexie Driscoll is conducting the book club's first meeting in her friend's elegant mansion. She gives the group a brief bio of Agatha Christie and has begun talking about Dame Agatha's The Mysterious Affair at Styles when another friend becomes ill and dies. A heart attack is the general consensus, though Lexie suspects poison.

Lexie continues to investigate and to lead discussions of Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None, The A.B.C Murders, and A Murder Is Announced. As more club members are murdered, parallels are drawn between them and the murders in Christie's novels. At the end of Murder a la Christie,  Lexie gathers the members in a circle a la Christie and exposes the murderer just as Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot might do.

In Murder the Tey Way, murders and mysteries abound as Lexie and her book club analyze some of Josephine Tey's novels: The Daughter of Time, Brat Farrar, Miss Pym Disposes and To Love and Be Wise. At one point, Lexie tries to determine someone's guilt by employing Tey's fondness for the psychology of facial expressions that was popular in her day. The subject of gender bending arises in To Love And Be Wise, bringing about an interesting exchange among the club members. The subject leads Lexie and her friend to speculate about male-female roles, which may have relevance to the murders they are investigating.

Note: Both Murder a la Christie and Murder the Tey Way have been republished this year by Rowan Prose Publishing. Giving Up the Ghost will be republished by them in 2025.

Pick Your Poison by Teresa Inge

While participating on the Agatha Christie panel at the Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem event this year, we discussed Christie’s fascination with using poisons to kill many of her characters. Thanks to her work as a nurse and a pharmacy dispenser during World War I, her knowledge of poisons was extensive.

In her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, strychnine is featured, and it is described as an ideal poison for a writer due to its rapid onset and dramatic effects. But the poison she used most frequently is Cyanide, appearing in And Then There Were None and The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side. In other books, victims die from arsenic, digitalis, and morphine.

However, Christie was not the first writer to introduce poison in a mystery novel. She just used them with such incredible detail, that a reader could learn about a new poison and its effects instantly. This method made her novels quite sophisticated to readers during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction in the 1920s and 1930s, which is often referred to as the Golden Age of Poisons, largely due to Christie and her contemporaries who used toxins to dispatch characters in their novels.

The panel discussion continued with the methods of murder that mystery writers use today to bring about a character’s demise. These include stabbings, shootings, blunt objects, fire, drowning, and strangulation.

However, the use of poison still continues in culinary mysteries and other genres. Writers use plant poisons such as hemlock, lily of the valley, poisoned mushroom, Nicotine, and Oleander. Drugs and medicine include insulin, sedatives, Tylenol, and Fentanyl. All of which are fascinating to today’s mystery readers.

Since Agatha Christie was a "pick your poison" writer and most likely had fun with it, in many ways, poison became a personality in her stories which is almost a cliché today. But her novels live on due to her well-crafted plots, interesting characters, and realistic descriptions of the toxin's symptoms, which is why she is crowned "The Queen of Crime."

How do I kill Thee? Let me count the ways by Teresa Inge

While participating on the Women Solving Crimes panel at Malice Domestic this year, the moderator asked us about the different weapons we use to kill people in our novels and short stories.

Fortunately for me, the panel had received the questions in advance, which gave me time to review all the homicides I’d written and determine my methods of murder. With sixteen books, I was beginning to lose track of how I kill people!

I began my murderous review with Mutt Mysteries, a four-book series with dogwalker, Catt Ramsey, who solves crime and murder with her dogs, Cagney and Lacey. I had multiple victims and killings in these books. The weapons include a cutting board, knife, gun, pruning shears, and a dog trimmer. All of which fit right into each killer’s homicidal hands.

In Virginia is for Mysteries, a three-book series, I was on a killing spree with boards! I gave one victim a blow to the head with yet another cutting board, then used three wooden boards in various stories to kill people, smashed a killer in the face with a chalkboard, and used a glass vase to kill another.

In other books, I used different methods and weapons. These include strangulation with a lanyard lassoed around a victim’s neck, a chest stabbing with a road sign, a stab in the neck with a pink beach charm, and three shootings in three stories. I then pushed a killer over a riverboat’s balcony and shot him for good measure before lodging a corkscrew in a victim’s neck…twice. I finished the review with blunt objects to kill two victims, and a fatal allergy reaction to another.

After the review, I realized that I had never poisoned anyone. What would Agatha Christie think? That’s when I began tracking my methods of murder and vowed to use poison in my next story. Check out the attached graph to see the weapon that I used the most.