Killer Questions - Murder Weapons or Methods We Won't Use

Killer Questions – Murder Weapons or Methods We Won’t Use

Let’s face it, we write mysteries in which people die. To keep readers happy, we try to vary the weapons and methods we use, but even for us, there are limits.

Paula G. Benson - A razor blade box cutter. The instrument creeps me out. Besides being dangerous, it would be so messy if the cut was not precise. In the alternative, I think it would be horrible to be buried alive. I remember being anxious for a victim in a Mary Higgins Clark novel where that occurred. 

Teresa Inge - I use anything available in the room where the victim is confronted by the killer. I’ve used a wine bottle, makeup jar, fabric bolt, ball point pen, bottled water, gun, and more. 

Korina Moss - I won’t use any kind of torturous or drawn-out method or any kind of mass shooting. 

E.B. Davis - I don’t write thrillers because often the protagonists are psychotic sickos. I don’t write about mentally deranged killers—much too close to reality—real scary.

K.M. Rockwood - Torture. I like my victims to go as painlessly as possible.

Debra H. Goldstein – I’m an equal opportunity killer of characters, but I avoid mass murder shootings and anything that results in the death of a child or animal.

Shari Randall - I hesitate to use guns. I finally did in my last book because I began to think that I was being unrealistic. 

Nancy Eady - I don't think I could handle describing or researching a murder weapon or method that is equivalent to torture.  Just the thought gives me the heebie-jeebies.   Not to mention the nightmares it would spawn. 

Kait Carson - Torture. No, way. Nor would I kill a child or pet.

Lisa Malice - I’m not fond of violence, so my murders are off-the-page, leaving me open to using any type of weapon or method to kill in my stories.

Martha Reed - I hate torture porn. Using it seems fashionable, but to me it seems like a cheat. I hate how it desensitizes people to the very real pain in violence. 

Mary Dutta - I won't stage something to look like a suicide.

Marilyn Levinson - Machete and garrote. Neither belong in a cozy mystery.

Margaret S. Hamilton - I have a horror of fire and venomous snakes. I will never use either one as a method of murder.

Heather Weidner - I don’t write any scenes that involve torture. I write cozy mysteries, so the murder has already happened by the time the amateur sleuth stumbles upon it. (My go-to methods are stabbing, choking, shooting, and poisoning.)

Annette Dashofy - I’m not a fan of physical torture. 

Grace Topping - Hanging, especially as a form of suicide. 

Sarah Burr - I don’t think I’ll ever have a victim who is killed by a gun. I dislike guns, so I don’t like involving them too much in my mysteries.

Molly MacRae - I can think of quite a few that are so horrible I don’t even want to mention them. It would be like calling the devil’s name.

Lori Roberts Herbst - Hmm...not that I can think of, though torture is not something I could stomach writing. Also, I would be hard pressed to injure or kill a child or a pet in my writing. Guess that's why I'm drawn to penning cozies.

Connie Berry - Not so far, but I would never kill a child and I would never write about torture.

James M. Jackson - Nope -- I am an equal opportunity Writer Who Kills.

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.