The Mysterious “M” Panel at Malice

by Paula Gail Benson

Last Thursday, thanks to Gloria Alden, those of us who attended this year’s Malice Domestic put together our happy remembrances along with regrets at having too little time to spend together.

One of the great privileges at Malice is to be able to participate on a panel. This year, I was fortunate enough to be assigned as moderator for “Oh, to Be in Britain!” My authors names all had the letter “M” as an initial: Molly MacRae, G. M. Malliet, Leslie Meier, and Melinda Mullet. We figured I got to be moderator since my name had no “M.”

Being a moderator allows you to learn about a wonderful group of writers. I had interviewed G.M. (“Gin”) previously and was familiar with Leslie’s books, but Molly and Melinda were new to me. I began studying to see the similarities that brought us all together.

As I looked through the Malice schedule, I noticed it contained another panel featuring authors who wrote about Great Britain, called “Murder Most English.” Its participants were Stephanie Barron/Francine Mathews, Frances Brody, Susanna Calkins, and Charles Todd (both Charles and Caroline) with Verena Rose as moderator and it would take place the hour before my panel.

My challenge became how to showcase the “M” panel, particularly for those who attended the previous session about British writers. Then, I realized, the writers in the first panel wrote from a historical perspective, while the authors I would moderate featured contemporary settings and characters. In fact, the more I considered it, I concluded that the “M” panel truly represented Agatha Christie’s legacy because they wrote the type of novels that she had written.

G.M. Malliet

Gin writes the St. Just and Max Tudor series. Her St. Just mystery, Death of a Cozy Writer, was selected for a Malice grant, then won the Agatha for best first novel. With Max Tudor, she combined in her protagonist two quintessential British character types: an Anglican priest and former MI5 agent. He lives in the village of Nether Monkslip, which is illustrated in the books and on Gin’s website.

Leslie Meier

I was initially surprised that Leslie had been included in the panel. I was familiar with her Lucy Stone mysteries that involved a mother and small town reporter from Maine and usually took place during holidays or seasons. In her more recent novels, Leslie follows Lucy’s adventures with travel groups in England and France. The two that take place in Great Britain are the English Tea Murder, which features the Grim Reaper in a Mary Poppins’ pose on the cover, and the British Manor Murder, which gathers the suspects in a very traditional setting.

Molly MacRae

Molly MacRae’s Haunted Yarn Shop mysteries take place in Blue Plum, Tennessee. Her Highland Bookshop mysteries follow four American protagonists as they purchase and operate a book store in the small town of Inversgail on the west coast of Scotland. During our panel presentation, she was quizzed by an audience member about the exact location of the store. I think her protagonists have a potential customer or at least a devoted fan. Plaid and Plagiarism is the series debut.

Single Malt Murder, the debut novel in Melinda Mullet’s Whiskey Business mysteries, was inspired after many tours of whiskey facilities Melinda took with her whiskey collecting husband. Her protagonist, an English photographer living in London, inherits a Scottish whiskey distillery. Melinda, a child of British parents, is a lawyer and children’s literacy advocate. At her signing, she treated guests to delicious truffles heavily laced with the beverage.

Melinda Mullet

The “M” panelists were a true delight. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and learning about them, and I highly recommend their books as wonderful reading.

They were encouraging to any in our audience who might be unpublished authors. Gin Malliet mentioned how helpful her association with the online Guppy Chapter of Sisters on Crime had been in teaching her about the writing business. I completely agree with her endorsement.

What modern writers of British mysteries do you enjoy? Any names that begin with “M”?

WRITING THE MYSTERY SHORT STORY: G.M. MALLIET'S ANSWERS TO OUR SURVEY

Photo by Joe Henson

In preparing this series, I solicited answers to ten survey questions from members of the Writers Who Kill blog and authors who are well-known for their wonderful mystery short stories. These authors have been so generous, detailed, and insightful in sharing their views and providing excellent information that I wanted the WWK readers to have the full benefit of their replies.

Today, G. M. Malliet, author of the St. Just and Max Tudor novels, offers her perspective.


G.M. Malliet did post-graduate work at Oxford University after earning a graduate degree from the University of Cambridge, the setting for her earlier series, the St. Just mysteries.


Raised in a military family, she spent her childhood in Alaska, Colorado, New Mexico, and Hawaii and has lived in places ranging from Japan to Europe, but she most enjoyed living in the U.K. She and her husband now live in the Washington, D.C. area, but often visit Europe.

She writes full time every day but Sunday, and is currently writing a screenplay in addition to her mystery novels and short stories. She changes her mind frequently about who would be the best actor to portray St. Just or Max Tudor. Currently, Hugh Grant for Max Tudor is tied with Colin Firth and Rufus Sewell. She feels Jude Law would make a perfect DCI Cotton (Max's crime-solving sidekick).

Gin’s third Max Tudor novel, Pagan Spring, has just been published. She has two short stories that will be published soon. In “Home for the Holidays” (to appear in January’s Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine), a routine break-in is anything but - when it ends in murder. In “Yuletide” (to appear in the holiday issue of the Strand Magazine), a French amateur sleuth vacationing in a small English village realizes death never breaks for the holidays. 

Gin, thank you for being with us and taking the time to answer the survey questions.

How has being part of a short story writing community influenced your writing?

My first published fiction credit was for a short story I submitted to the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime, a professional association for mystery writers, male and female. Acceptance into the anthology was just the sort of reinforcement I needed at the time, to keep me going.

What is your thought process when you submit or select stores for a themed anthology?

I try to avoid the obvious. For a holiday mystery anthology for example, you have to figure nearly everyone is going to write a Christmas or Hanukkah story.

When do you know an idea is suited for a short story instead of a longer work?

When the ending is a "gimmick," a sort of one-off solution that couldn't be sustained by a longer narrative arc.

Have you written flash fiction? What do you think of flash fiction as a literary form?

I really can't write flash. I can barely write short.

How many characters can be in a short story?

One to five or six. And two of those should be a couple or a team of some sort, to help the reader keep everyone sorted.

How long have you been writing short stories?

All my life, beginning age five or six. I was inspired by my best friend, a little girl with literary aspirations. We wrote and "published" illustrated children's stories. Our parents were our only audience as I recall. Some things never change.

What is good/bad about the current short story market?

Not enough print magazines.

Should an unpublished author self-publish short stories?

Never say never, but it's risky. A lot of what gets published online gets stolen from online and you need a team of lawyers on call to track down the pirates.

The reason I write short stories is:

To cleanse the palate after a long slog of writing a novel. I just handed in the fourth Max Tudor book and all the while I was writing it new ideas, unsuitable for the series, kept popping into my head. You have to channel the extraneous stuff somewhere. The short story is ideal for that.

The most important aspect of writing a mystery short story is:

Entertaining and surprising the reader.

Again, thanks for joining us and providing us with such terrific insight, Gin. Best wishes for your continuing success.