by
Paula Gail Benson
Yesterday,
in my post for The
Stiletto Gang, I encouraged readers and writers to attend the fourth annual
Mystery in the Midlands, jointly sponsored by the Palmetto Chapter of Sisters
in Crime and the Southeast Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Today, I’ll
provide more information about our keynote speaker and panelists. The event
will be held virtually on Saturday, June 26, 2021, from 10:00 am to 2:45 pm ET,
and we very much hope for a great attendance.
Our
guest of honor is Dr. Kathy Reichs, who will be interviewed by Debra Goldstein.
Reichs wrote the Temperance Brennan series, upon which the television show
Bones is based. Dr. Reichs has used her
experience teaching FBI agents and working in a Montreal lab to bring her
forensic thrillers to life. She is one of only 100 forensic anthropologists to
ever be certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology.
The
short story panel will feature Frankie Y. Bailey, Michael Bracken, and Barb
Goffman. A PhD and tenured full professor, Frankie teaches “crime” at the
University at Albany (SUNY) as well as writing nonfiction and fiction (two
series, one with crime historian Lizzie Stuart and the other with police
detective Hannah McCabe). Michael has written over 1,300 short stories, edited
nine crime fiction anthologies, and won multiple awards for copywriting, two
Derringer Awards for short fiction, and the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden
Derringer Award for lifetime achievement in short mystery fiction. Barb’s short
stories have been finalists for national crime-writing awards thirty-two times
and she has won the Agatha, Macavity, and the Silver Falchion. Her
“Dear Emily Etiquette” has been nominated as Best Short Story for an Agatha and an Anthony and won the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Award.
Our
panel to discuss how American authors write British historical mysteries will
be
Laurie R. King, Lori Rader-Day,
and Caroline Todd. Laurie has written extensively, both fiction
and nonfiction, including the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series, the
historical Stuyvesant
and Grey series, and police procedurals featuring San Francisco homicide
detective Kate Martinelli. Lori, winner
of the Anthony and Mary Higgins Clark awards, is well-known for her contemporary
suspense novels and looking forward to the release of Death at Greenway, a historical novel based at Agatha Christie’s
home. Caroline, with her son Charles, write the Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford
mysteries. Their over thirty novels have received the Mary Higgins Clark,
Agatha, and Barry awards.
The final panel, on writing great suspense,
will feature Yasmin Angoe, Robert Dugoni, and Alex Segura. Last year. Yasmin
received Sisters in Crime’s Eleanor Taylor Bland Award, and this November, her
debut novel,
Her Name is Knight, will
be published. Robert, critically acclaimed by the New York Times, Wall Street
Journal and Washington Post, and #1 Amazon bestselling author of the Tracy
Crosswhite series, has sold more than 6 million books worldwide, including his
Charles Jenkins espionage novels and David Sloane legal thrillers. Alex, the
award-winning author of novels, comic books, short stories, and podcasts, has
two pending Anthony nominations, one for
Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall (Best
Juvenile/Young Adult Novel) and another for “90 Miles” (Best Short Story).
You
can register to attend or listen to the recordings from Mystery in the Midlands
by clicking the following link:
https://www.crowdcast.io/e/mystery-in-the-midlands-2
The
cost is $5 (to help defray our costs). Isn’t that a bargain for this stellar
line-up?
I
asked these authors some questions and they were kind to share their intriguing
answers.
What place would you love to
write about that you haven’t already written about?
Yasmin Angoe:
I would love to write about
Italy and Greece. There are many places because I’ve only written about a few
so far.
Frankie Y. Bailey:
Paris and Ireland. In the seventh book
in my Lizzie Stuart series (currently being reissued), I want to send Lizzie
and Quinn to Paris on their honeymoon and then on to Ireland (home of Quinn’s
ancestors on his father’s side). I’m working on the sixth book now. I’ve been
to Paris a couple of times, but never to Ireland. Of course, writing a book set
in Tuscany would also be lovely. But Quinn promised to take Lizzie to Paris on
their honeymoon and Ireland is an unexpected detour.
Laurie R. King:
Istanbul. I SO
want to set a Russell & Holmes story in 1925 Istanbul, if ever I get the
chance to travel (Research: it’s work, not pleasure!) Gorgeous
architecture, political complexity, a melting pot of cultures. And hey, I even
have a Turkish publisher!
Alex Segura:
I’d love to write
a world-spanning spy novel.
 |
| Caroline Todd and a bi-plane |
Caroline Todd:
What place would you love to write about that you
haven’t already written about? Africa! There
are so many stories to tell there. But there are already too many great authors
who beat us to it.
Have you ever used a real or
wished-for pet as a character?
Yasmin Angoe:
Nope, but that’s an idea!
Frankie Y. Bailey:
Yes.
I have a Maine Coon in The Red Queen Dies. He has a walk-on scene
when the detectives visit the mansion where he lives. But he is crucial to the
plot. I did some research on Maine Coons, and I was so fascinated by the size
and personality of the cats that I later adopted Harry, a rescue, who was a
terrific cat. We had six wonderful years together. After he died, I received a
notification about Penelope, a Maine Coon female. I drove to Danbury, CT
to bring her home. We are getting to know each other, but she is a long, lean
girl and very sweet.
In that same
book, my Albany police detective protagonist, Hannah McCabe, brings home a
Great Dane/Labrador/who knows? puppy. The (real) University at Albany mascot is
a Great Dane, and since McCabe is a UAlbany alum, I thought it would be fun to
have her adopt a puppy—who finally gets a name at the end of the second
book, What the Fly Saw.
In
my Lizzie Stuart series, her romantic partner, former homicide detective John
Quinn, has a dog named George, a Labrador mix that he found on the highway and
didn’t intend to keep. I love Labs. My family had one when I was a teenager.
But I have a seven-month-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who is better suited
to my small house. Fergus is still puppy crazy, but he is—as multiple
strangers have told him as he dragged me over to greet them—“adorable”. He and
Penelope are getting along well.
 |
| Michael Bracken |
Michael Bracken:
I have often used my
pets as inspiration for animals in my stories, though more often in stories
written in genres other than crime fiction.
Robert Dugoni:
I put my animals in my
novels all the time, especially if they have passed on. It’s a way for me to
keep them alive in my heart.
Barb Goffman:
In my story “Alex’s
Choice,” the dog, Maxwell, was named after author Ellery Adams’s childhood dog,
but he was modeled in part after my dog Scout. I wrote the story a month after
Scout died, and doing so really helped with my grief. For anyone who would like
to read it, the story appears in the time-travel/mystery anthology Crime
Travel.
Laurie R. King:
There’s
a dog in one of the Kate Martinelli stories that I adopted from a friend. Or
rather, there’s a real fictional dog, that one of the characters in the
Martinelli story adopted from my friend Val McDermid’s character, when she—the
character—had to move back to England from San Francisco.
Neither Val nor I wanted the poor (fictional) dog to face the
lengthy British quarantine, so the dog stepped from Val’s Booked for Murder to
my Night Work. Which all goes to answer the question, When is a dog an
Easter egg?
 |
| Lori Rader-Day and Clementine |
Lori Rader-Day:
No, because if
you put animals into stories, terrible things often befall them. I couldn’t
write a book where I was protecting the dog the entire time.
Alex Segura:
I haven’t—though I did kill my PI, Pete
Fernandez’s cat, Costello (named after Elvis Costello) in the second novel in
the series, Down the Darkest Street.
He was a version of my own, now gone, cat David Byrne. I’ve never gotten
angrier fan mail!
Caroline Todd:
After a fan
won a pet’s name to be in a Rutledge book, we had to find a story where an
adorable dog called Muffin could fit in with murder. Took two books to do that,
but when we did, it worked a treat!
We do hope
that you’ll be able to join us on Saturday, June 26, from 10:00 am to 2:45 pm
ET. Again, here’s the link to register:
https://www.crowdcast.io/e/mystery-in-the-midlands-2
Won't you consider putting this event on your schedule?
