Writing takes a Back Seat to Family

My blog has been erratic this month. For that, I am truly sorry. Please hang in there. My life should get back to better order soon. This month was, is, and is going to continue to be crazy. Sarah and I have been busy touring memory care facilities because her mother has reached the point where home care isn't enough.

What she wants is to stay in her home. That is simply no longer possible. She often doesn't recognize it as her home, and sometimes forgets she is in Florida. I frequently have to tell her that I can't take her home because she is home, that she no longer lives in Kentucky, and that Sarah and I do not live in Kentucky anymore. 

Then there are the expenses. The amount of home care she needs, and the costs of maintaining a house that is over 100 years old, is more than she can afford. The care alone is more than ten thousand a month. Sarah's brother arrives next week and together we will make the choice that we think is best for Sarah's mom. We will wade through the paperwork and get her the best possible place we can find.

In times like these, writing takes a back seat to family. Sarah and I are going to be stretched pretty thin until we find a place that can provide her mom the care she needs, get the work done to move her in, and make sure she settles into her new home. It is not going to be easy. She will hate giving up her home, probably hate us for forcing the issue, and hate any memory care home we choose. 

Dementia has taken away our other options. Nothing about caring for a loved one with dementia is easy. I am sure any caregiver will confirm that. For us, the hardest part is reversing the mother-child relationship. We must do what is best for her no matter how much she resists.

Becoming a Micro-Publisher

Tomorrow, Sarah and I are going to be talking to the Derby Rotten Scoundrels Chapter of Sisters in Crime about our publishing journey. Preparing for this talk has made me do a lot of thinking about our micro-press and all the work that has gone into learning to create books. It required learning about formatting, new software, what fonts worked well together, what kind of covers were needed, how to get covers, and what budget they needed. Timetables had to be set up for what needed to be done to take a book from manuscript to published. We had to learn about everything from hypertext and metadata to ISBNs and Library of Congress numbers. 

The strangest part of this journey is that neither of us started out with a plan to go into publishing. Frankly, we were and are still writers first, which is why the press will never grow beyond being a micro-press. It is not possible to write and publish a large number of books at the same time. Each is a full-time job. Now that I have retired there is more time I can devote to other projects, but not that much more. I didn't gain those eight to ten hours a day that used to be taken up with my job. Instead, there were new responsibilities that ended up on my plate. 

Publishing is challenging. There are so many other books on the market that it is very difficult to get one book to stand out from the pack. The pack for us isn't the big publishers. It is the other small independent presses and the self-published authors that we vie for shelf space with. Standing out is about finding the right keywords on Amazon, the right blurb for the back cover, the right places to get reviews, and the right price points to get sales. It is all still a work in progress. 

I am grateful for the people who have helped us along the way and awed that I have reached a point where others consult me with their questions. It is quite a journey from writer to publisher, one that I could not have made without Sarah and her editing skills. 

Thinking Inside the Box

 

I was listening to a well-respected mystery writer talking about how writers needed to think outside the box. The term makes me cringe. The first time I heard it was in the 80s. Businesses were making a huge effort to convince all of us that we need to think outside the box when most of them hadn't bothered finding out what was in the box, to begin with. 

While it started with businesses trying to approach problems in new and creative ways. Now it has been applied to every aspect of our lives. Even elementary school children are being badgered to think outside the box before they have even learned what the box holds.

I don't object to the idea of brainstorming ways to solve a problem. I find objectionable the colossal waste of time this practice is when we haven't exhausted the possibilities inside the box. Doctors refer to this as looking for zebras. They teach medical students to look for the obvious first. Once you have ruled out all the common ailments, then start looking for the more unusual ones.

You might wonder why I'm talking about inside-the-box thinking for writers. After all, we are supposed to be creative. Our plots take all kinds of twists and turns. This is why readers pick up our books. 

But here's the thing, the story needs to make sense. The writing doesn't need funky punctuation, new and different spellings of names, experimental structure. Tell the story. Tell it well. Take your readers into your world with the words you use. The journey can be as wild and imaginative as you wish, filled with layers of secrets and deception. Keep your readers guessing until the very end. 

We have an incredible toolbox of language, grammar, style, structure, and plot. There is no good reason to throw away what is in our toolbox and go looking for a new tool when most of us are still learning to write with the tools we have. 

History of Flogging in Tampa

Flogging holds a prominent place in Tampa history; in fact, from the turn of the 20th century into the 1930s, "professional flogger" was an acceptable, if not entirely respectable occupation. If you didn't like someone and didn't want to get your own hands dirty, you could hire a flogger to deliver a public whipping. There are reported cases of men, women, and children who died from injuries received in a flogging. It is a sad fact that flogging in Tampa and Hillsborough County was widespread and accepted deep into the 20th century. 

As with most other punishments, flogging took the worst toll on people of color. Instead of the leather strap, a whip or chain might be used. Other targets of the lash were Jews, Catholics, women of ill repute, and criminals. Prisoners were systematically abused. The use of the lash in law enforcement was a daily practice. It continued for decades and no prisoner was immune to the threat of flogging on the whim of city and county officials. Judges even beat children in the courtrooms of the city. 

Judge Whitaker of the Tampa municipal court is said to have set the legal precedent, "by personally applying the lash to two boy offenders convicted in his court." The judge believed a good whipping would be better for their character than jail time. Perhaps he was right, but by the time of Ybor City Blues, Hillsboro County had instituted a policy of flogging four prisoners a day even if there had been no infractions of the rules. 

Hillsborough County Chain Gang 1925

Imagine for a moment what it would be like to serve time in the county jail. First of all, jail usually meant the county work camp. Prisoners worked twelve-hour days building roads, cleaning ditches, and cutting brush using hand tools. They were shackled together to form a "chain gang." Then, every afternoon a flogger would walk down the row and pick out four random men to flog. If you were disliked, unlucky, or a shade or two darker than the next man in line, you could end up with daily floggings through your entire sentence.

The Magic Kingdom of Henry Plant

This past weekend, Sarah and I were in Tampa for the Florida Gulf Coast Chapter of Sisters in Crime meeting, which was held in the media room of the Oxford Exchange. This was the first time since the pandemic began that we have been able to meet in person. As the members are spread out along the West Coast of Florida, we appreciate having the option of doing an in-person meeting while others join us via Zoom. 

Since we were right across the street from the University of Tampa, we took advantage of our location to take a little trip into Tampa's first Magic Kingdom, the Kingdom of Henry Plant. Plant's Kingdom was made up of railroads, steamships, lavish resorts, and tropical islands. It even had its own flag.

Plant Flag

There is no place the flag more proudly waved than over his castle, AKA The Tampa Hotel. As you can see from the picture below, the hotel was as close to a castle as Plant could make it. It was built at the center of a lavishly landscaped 100-acre park. It had an 18-hole golf course, its own stables for horseback riding, tennis courts, croquet and badminton courts, horseshoes, fishing, boating on Tampa Bay, and even hunting was available. There were shows and concerts by some of the world's best performers, a rail station, and a casino with a floor that opened to the swimming pool. 

He spared no expense on constructing and furnishing the castle. Moorish spires rose above the roofline, each adorned with a crescent moon. 

One wing of the Tampa Bay Hotel

Lobby

There were life-sized statues decorating the lobby, art, and furnishings imported from Europe and the Orient. Phone service was available in every guest room (which was unheard of at the time). Every guest had access to a bath with hot and cold running water.

Typical Hotel Bathroom

The hotel was finished in February of 1891, at a cost of over three million dollars. When the Spanish-American War loomed on the horizon, Plant lobbied hard to make Tampa the main port of embarkation of the troops. His prized hotel was filled with officers, plus Clara Barton and her Red Cross nurses as they waited for orders to leave for Cuba. Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders camped on the banks of the river and held drills on Plant's carefully landscaped lawns. 

After his death in 1899, the family lost interest in the hotel, which was sold to the city of Tampa in 1905 for 125 thousand dollars. It closed in 1932, and in 1933 part of the building reopened as a museum; the rest is used as offices for the University of Tampa.

Review: Catriona McPherson's Scot on the Rocks

Catriona McPherson’s latest Last Ditch mystery is hard to put down. If you haven't read one of her books about a Scottish ex-pat, Lexy Campbell, trying to make a go of life in California, this one is a great place to start. The prose sparkle and her humor shines through on every page. Don't let the laughter lull you into thinking this is a fluff read. There is depth to the quirky characters at the Last Ditch Motel and enough twists and turns in the plot to please the most avid mystery fan. 

In Scot on the Rocks, one of Cuento's beloved statues, Mama Cuento is stolen. All that's left is a bronze toe and a sinister note.  Lexy and her crew decide to "help" the police find the missing statue. They are pulled into finding Bran, Lexy's ex-husband's missing wife, Brandee. When Bran shows Lexy and crew a similar kidnapping note he received with an acrylic nail enclosed, it’s anybody’s guess as to what is going on, what’s connected, and what’s not. 

This is the third book of the series. Lexy is a relationship counselor in Cuento, California. Todd, the anesthetist who lives at the motel with his pediatrician husband Roger, and germophobic Kathi, who is married to the motel’s live-in manager Noleen, have inserted themselves into Lexy’s counseling business, creating Trinity Services. 

In fact, her pals have inserted themselves into any business that comes Lexy’s way. Her friends have twin passions, finding Lexy the perfect man, and solving mysteries. She wishes they would give up on the perfect manhunt, but that is another story. 

The Last Ditch Motel is a large diverse family. It doesn't take long for the entire family to get involved in this wild and wooly chase for answers, although the standing members of Trinity Services, Lexy and Todd and Kathi take the most dangerous risks and find themselves on a road trip to Patriarchyville. There are lots of surprises in this tale of who or what went where and why. 

Catriona McPherson knows how to tell a great story, and in this series, readers also can depend on McPherson to make them laugh. She is also a master of creating a magnificent cast of characters. Readers will be entertained and surprised at every turn of the road.

Mary Roberts Rinehart America's Queen of Mystery

Mary Roberts Rinehart (August 12, 1876 – September 22, 1958) was an American writer best known for her mysteries. She published her first mystery novel, The Circular Staircase, in 1908, which introduced the "had I but known" narrative style. Rinehart is also considered the source of "the butler did it" plot device in her novel The Door (1930), although the exact phrase does not appear in her work. 

Her books were wildly popular.  All through the 1920s, Mary Roberts Rinehart's books made the bestseller list. The prolific writer is often compared to Agatha Christie in terms of her career. While it is true that both women wrote books, short stories, an autobiography, essays, and long-running plays (Agatha Christie's The Mouse Trap and Mary Roberts Rinehart's The Bat), I don't really like to do that sort of comparison between writers who were so very different in their approach to the art of storytelling. 

Before going further with this post, I must make the following confession: I am not an unbiased judge of why Christie's books have remained in print and Mary Roberts Rinehart's have not. I am a huge Agatha Christie fangirl. I was once barred from an Agatha Christie trivia contest because I had answered too many of the questions. 

I first discovered Rinehart's books when I ran across The Circular Staircase in an old house I was helping my brother demolish. The book was a bit musty, but you take your books where you can find them in a town with no bookstores or libraries. I took it home and read it that night. I enjoyed the story, but didn't run across another of her books for many years. One book does not a fandom make. I passed the book on to a fellow bookworm in town and didn't think about it again until years later, I discovered another among a stack of other Rinehart first editions. 

It was then that I began to read her work and learn more about this remarkable woman. Rinehart knew what it was like to grow up poor. She worked hard to put herself through nursing school. During WWI, she was a war correspondent for the Saturday Evening Post. She and her husband lost everything in the stock market crash, but her writing success enabled them to recover and prosper. 

Hardship was not entirely behind her, though. In 1946 she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which led to a radical mastectomy. She eventually went public with her story, at a time when such matters were not openly discussed. The interview "I Had Cancer" was published in a 1947 issue of the Ladies' Home Journal; in it, Rinehart encouraged women to have breast examinations. 

Her work reflects a life lived to the fullest. I can understand why the "had I but known" style of writing fell out of fashion, but much of Christie's work is also stilted. If there is a real comparison to be made as to why Agatha Christie still remains popular and Rinehart is less so, it is the detectives they wrote, or rather in Rinehart's case, the lack of a recurring detective in her books. Neither of her recurring characters Hilda Adams or Tish Carberry appear often enough in her books to be considered series characters. 

Time Away from the Everyday

I am sorry that I didn't post this earlier in the week. I have been selfish with my time and traveling to a few historic Florida towns. That is, historic by American standards; we are still a young country. 

There are few things more rejuvenating than taking a little time to relax and spend time with people I love. This week, Sarah and I took a trip into Florida's past with my sister and her friend Tom. Some of the places we went may become settings for short stories or new books. This week, they were a break from the everyday. 

Our first stop was Winter Park, a beautiful town set on the shores of five small, spring-fed lakes. The town dates back to the 1840s when white Americans chased the Seminoles off their native lands and formed the state of Florida. Most of the tribe was relocated to Oklahoma. Those they couldn't catch fled to the Everglades, where they still live. Meanwhile, Winter Park became a winter home for wealthy industrialists of the nineteenth century. 

There is an advantage to having lots of money when building a town. The good citizens of Winter Park had canals dug to connect the lakes and built spacious mansions along the shores. They spared no expense in creating their winter playground. Some of the houses still remain, but many have been torn down by today's wealthy residents who built even bigger homes. The four of us took a tour of the lakes on one of the five custom-built pontoon boats that cruise the canals hourly. The tour is considered one of the most scenic in Florida. There are cypress trees and live oaks growing along the canals that were here when Seminoles walked the lake shores. Today, beautifully landscaped lawns slope down to the water's edge and the campus of Rollins College occupies seventy acres of lakefront property. 

Our next stop was Daytona Beach, the location of one of the oldest automobile races in the world, the Daytona 500. In the 1920s, the race was on the beach. There is still a section of the beach that cars are allowed to drive, but for the safety of the beachgoers the city no longer allows cars to race the length of the shore. The race has been moved to Daytona Speedway, but it is still one of the premier auto races in the county. 

Sarah and I are planning to set one of the Three Snowbird books in Daytona, maybe centered on another popular sport there: speedboat racing. I understand Daytona is one of the more challenging places to race, boats often having "washing machine surf" that they have to just plow through and waves that are five or six feet high. The Professor would love the excitement, but poor Cornelia might have heart failure if he goes out on one of those racing boats.

Our last stop on the trip was Silver Springs and a glass-bottomed boat tour that dates back to the 1800s. Silver Springs is now a state park, and the grounds are beautiful. The shopping pavilion was closed for renovations, much to my sister's disappointment. The tour was wonderful. The deepest of the underwater springs is 85 feet, but the water is so clear that it doesn't appear to be more than a few feet deep. Alligators lounge on the shore of a small island where birds nest. They settle on the ground under the nest and wait, hoping that one of the fledglings will fall and provide them with an afternoon snack. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sarah Glenn (@sarahelleniglenn)

Many movies have been filmed at Silver Springs and some of the props still remain, including a boat that was intentionally sunk for the film Don't Give Up the Ship, and three seven-foot-tall statues of Greek gods that were props for an I Spy episode. There is also a dug-out canoe made of Florida cypress that is older than the United States. A sample of the wood was sent to the University of Florida to try to determine just how long the canoe has been resting at the bottom of the spring.

Now that we are back from the trip, I hope to be back on schedule with the blog next week. In the meantime. I hope you enjoyed hearing about my little adventure into Florida's past.

Signs of the Time

The Gandy Bridge

One of the most difficult problems I struggle with when writing historical mysteries is how to accurately portray the times without having our troubled history take over the story. This week the Three Snowbirds had to cross the Gandy Bridge to question a suspect in St. Petersburg. To understand how a simple drive across a bridge can be a problem, you have to be aware of an ugly historic fact. When the Gandy Bridge was completed in 1924, a car crossing toward St. Petersburg side would see a sign that read “No Jews Wanted Here.” Pow! History just delivered a punch to the gut. 

Okay, history, what do you have to say for yourself?

As it turns out, the anti-Semitic history of St. Petersburg is well documented. Signs at resorts and restaurants that read “Restricted Clientele” or “Gentiles Only” reflected the exclusionary policies of many local institutions. Throughout much of the early and mid-century, the city was considered one of the most anti-Semitic in all of the United States. 

When Sarah and I approached writing Murder at the Million Dollar Pier, we had to take that part of the history of the city into account. The difference in this particular sign is the all-encompassing nature of where it was posted. This was not an individual business or a single institution. The city of St. Petersburg rolled out an unwelcome mat in big black letters. 

Despite the bigotry, the Jewish citizens of St. Petersburg didn't leave or start forming Jews only groups. It wasn't easy. Keeping their Jewish identity in the Sunshine City required a strong will and dogged determination. As a result, the Jewish community in St. Petersburg is still thriving, and the unwelcome sign has rotted away.

Elizabeth MacKintosh, aka Mystery Writer Josephine Tey, aka Playwright Gordon Daviot

Elizabeth MacKintosh, pen name Josephine Tey, was born on July 25, 1896, in Inverness, capital of the Scottish Highlands. Her father was recorded on the birth certificate as a fruiterer. “Strange as it may seem, few of us had ever known the real person,” recalled Mairi MacDonald, a contemporary at Inverness Royal Academy. “We had rubbed shoulders with her in our busy streets; admired her pretty home and picturesque garden—and some had even shared schooldays with her—yet no one enjoyed her companionship, for Gordon Daviot was and wished to be what she herself termed herself, ‘a lone wolf,’ discouraging any attempts at fraternization.” 

In school, she was a reluctant pupil, she preferred playing tic-tac-toe with a neighbor in class, or drawing mustaches and spectacles on portraits of the Kings of Scotland, or scampering off to a cloakroom “where, upon an old set of parallel bars—housed there for no apparent reason—she delighted herself and others by turning somersaults.”

Her first career as a physical training instructor was in her opinion the happiest time of her life. This admission is a rare insight into very private life. She never married, and rarely spoke about herself or her life. According to most sources, including an obituary in the London Times, her teaching career was curtailed by family obligations. After teaching physical training at schools in England and Scotland, she returned to Inverness to care for her invalid father. It was there that she began her career as a writer. She never returned to teaching but her experiences there provided the backdrop for Miss Pym Disposes, set at a physical-training college in the English Midlands. 

She did more than create pen names for herself. Writing life was as compartmentalized and well developed as any of her characters. Elizabeth MacKintosh, Gordon Daviot, and Josephine Tey were distinct personae. Even her correspondence has that chameleon quality: a letter from “Gordon” is quite different in tone from a “Mac” letter or a “Tey” letter. Perhaps her reluctance to meet people stemmed from a need to keep all three of her identities in their individual compartments, a task much easier on paper than in person.

It is no wonder Josephine Tey never belonged to the Detection Club. The social nature of the group would have been difficult for her. She also had no desire to pledge herself to the constraints of the oath they swore. Unlike Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Tey ignored golden-age British crime fiction rules. The results were brilliant.  During her career as a crime novelist, from The Man in the Queue (1929) to The Singing Sands (published posthumously in 1952), she broke almost all the commandments. 

Her disdain for formulaic fiction is confirmed in the opening chapter of The Daughter of Time (1951). Detective Inspector Alan Grant despairs the books on his bedside table while in the hospital recuperating from a broken leg, among them a writing-by-numbers mystery called "The Case of the Missing Tin-Opener." “Did no one, any more, no one in all this wide world, change their record now and then?” he wonders despairingly.

Her work may have fallen out of favor during the Golden Age of detective fiction, but it stands the test of time. With strong, well-developed characters, and nimble, witty prose, it is well worth revisiting her work.

Tampa Bay Travel in the 1920s

I spend a lot of time doing historical research for my novels. Sometimes the research includes visiting a location or finding an old photograph. At other times the details of a particular day are important. For instance, the current chapter of my WIP is a trip from Tampa to St. Petersburg. Florida was a little different in the 1920s than it is in the 2020s. The Gandy Bridge was new and charged a quarter to each car that crossed the bay. At that time the six-mile-long Gandy was the longest bridge in the world. To put it simply, travel across Tampa Bay was much more time-consuming than it is today. The new bridge cut the driving time between the two cities in half and added an amazing view of Tampa Bay.

The Gandy Bridge was the first, but the Davis Causeway (now the Cortney Campbell Causeway) was in the planning stages.  Davis Construction Company, wouldn't start construction until 1927. David (DP) Davis, was behind the project. His current building efforts included dredging the bay to turn two small islands into three, which could support a planned community complete with golf courses, hotels, apartments, a business district, and private houses. Environmental impact wasn't a consideration during the Florida Land Boom. Builders at the time only worried about how much money they could make.

The Howard Frankland Bridge was a dream that many thought could not be built.  It would be several decades before technological improvements in construction equipment allowed the dream to become reality. Perhaps they should have kept dreaming a while longer.  The bridge opened in 1960 and was soon nicknamed the "Howard Frankenstein Bridge" by the locals because of the many accidents that backed up traffic for hours. 

Who's up for some Sour Orange Pie?

Sour Orange Pie 

The link above is to an article on Sour Orange Pie in Atlas Obscura that my spouse sent me this week. I am sharing it in this blog because it is a treat that was popular in the 1920s. I am sure our characters would have run across this regional dish on their Florida adventures. Like other cold desserts from the era, Cornelia and company would be eager to taste this one. This means that I am on the hunt for some sour oranges and will be making this soon.

I have always enjoyed having historic recipes and trying them out in my kitchen. I may get the chance to try it elsewhere first since the article mentions a festival for sour oranges. I have to admit, I'm a little worried about the other name for this fruit "bitter orange" which doesn't sound tasty at all. I'm hoping it is more tart than bitter, but either way, I'm looking forward to trying this one. I have never had a slice of sour orange pie. In fact, the only time I've seen a sour orange recipe is for a dessert that was served at Martha Washington's table. 

Mount Vernon Dessert

Perhaps when Cornelia retires at the end of book four in the Three Snowbirds Series there will be more recipes showing up in the series. She will have a real kitchen and time to cook for the first time since she left home. 

In the books, we always do a cocktail recipe that Teddy has discovered in her travels, but Cornelia isn't much of a drinker. She does enjoy a good slab of pie, not to mention other foods. Cold desserts were all the rage in the 1920s so we can expect to see more of them. Who knows what other foods she will discover in her travels?

Helen Reilly aka Abby Kieran

Helen Reilly was born in New York City in 1891. Her father was John Michael Kieran, the president of Hunter College, and her brother, John Kieran, produced the famous Information Please series, a radio program that showcased his encyclopedic learning. Helen married Paul Reilly, an artist and cartoonist, in 1914 before she completed her degree from Hunter. They were an unusual couple for the time, Helen was the main breadwinner for the family. The couple had four daughters, two of whom, Ursula Curtiss and Mary McMullen, followed in their mother’s footsteps as mystery writers. When Helen was asked about the effect of her success on her husband she replied, "I make the living, but he makes living worthwhile."

At the urging of her lifelong friend, William McFee, an eminent author, Reilly began writing detective stories. Almost all of her stories are police procedurals that feature Inspector Christopher McKee and follow the formula of a detailed presentation of a homicide investigation, told from the point of view of the police. It is easy to understand Reilly’s reason for writing this way—her stories were major successes. She wrote thirty-three mysteries in her thirty-year career, as well as three others under the pen name Kieran Abbey. The leading magazines of the time that published popular fiction, such as The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s, often featured her work. She served as president of the Mystery Writers of America in 1953.

She lived in Connecticut for a number of years; this state is the setting of Certain Sleep (1961). After her husband died in 1944, she returned to New York. Although she eventually moved from New York City to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to live with her daughter Ursula Curtiss and Ursula’s family, she always considered herself a native New Yorker. She died on January 11, 1962, continuing to write almost to the end of her life.

A Truly Awful Way to Die

Most of us have heard the story of how Socrates chose death by hemlock after being convicted of corrupting the youth of Athens and impiety to the Gods of the City. Okay, what he really said when he was asked to name his own punishment was that he deserved a wage paid by the government and free dinners for the rest of his life, to finance the time he spent as Athens' benefactor. The hemlock beverage was the choice of the court. I can't help thinking he might have been more resistant to the hemlock if he been offered the native North American water hemlock. 

The plants are from the same family and look somewhat alike, but the New World plant has no helpful numbing effect; it is a truly awful way to die. The spotted water hemlock, pictured in full bloom above, was well known to Native Americans. Diluted amounts of the plant were used to treat bruising and reduce swelling. It was used internally for suicide rituals. Wow! Who wakes up and decides they want to commit suicide by enduring two hours of agony?

Its toxin, called cicutoxin, can cause delirium, nausea, convulsions, abdominal pain, seizures, and vomiting within 60 minutes of ingestion and, within two hours, a final convulsion ending in death. All parts of water hemlock are toxic, but the poison is especially virulent from the roots. The lower stem and upper roots of Cicuta contain numerous internal partitions or air spaces that can be revealed if sliced lengthwise. Would-be natural food gourmets are well-advised to avoid parsley-like plants with this combination of leaflet and root characteristics.

True to its common name, water hemlock occurs primarily on wet soils associated with ditches, stream banks, pond margins, and marshes. It can be found in every part of North America except the island of Newfoundland. There is a secondary concern because birds are seemingly immune to the toxin. Waterbirds often eat the corky, rounded fruits of water hemlock without ill effect, though anecdotal reports suggest that humans who eat these birds can be sickened by the toxins in their flesh.  That sounds like an excellent reason to avoid waterfowl during the fruiting season. 

So why am I discussing spotted water hemlock...? Well, I spend a lot of time thinking up ways to kill people. This seems like an evil way to commit murder.  There is no minimum dose for this poison. It is deadly to all mammals. Ingesting a walnut-sized amount of spotted water hemlock, also known as cowbane, can kill a 1200 pound bull. While even tiny amounts of spotted water hemlock can be deadly, consumption does not always result in death. Nobody knows why, but sometimes people survive with immediate dosing of various barbiturates and benzodiazepines. However, it is unlikely that anyone would have barbiturates or benzodiazepines on hand. If they did, there is still no guarantee that they would work.

Cornelia grew up on a farm. She would be familiar with cowbane, and probably had to make sure the livestock was not accidentally poisoned by the plant. A single plant mowed into a bale of hay would be deadly. Fortunately, we mystery writers kill people, not animals. I have my poison. I've picked out the setting. Now all I need is a victim who richly deserves a horrid death. Do you know anyone wicked enough to deserve two hours of agony followed by death? They opened a lovely spa here in Safety Harbor in 1925.

Remembering Sue Grafton

Sue Grafton was born on April 24, 1940, in Louisville, Kentucky. Grafton followed her father's advice and moved west to write for Hollywood, and had some success, but the publication of her first Kinsey Millhone novel, A is for Alibi, made her a best-selling author. Her alphabet series is loved by millions, translated into 26 languages, and earned her numerous accolades.

She often claimed that Kinsey was a younger, skinnier version of herself. I've always thought she was more of a younger sister than a true reflection of the author. Kinsey lacked Sue's Kentucky roots, that Southern iron benevolence softened by the lilt of an accent that is pure Kentucky. She has always been very generous in being honest in her advice to writers. I feel very fortunate to have been one of the writers she cautioned to slow down and spend time and attention on learning to write.

One of my most treasured possessions is the three-page letter I received from Sue Grafton after she read the first fifty pages of my manuscript for Circle of Dishonor. It was not entirely flattering. It wasn't intended to be. Grafton took writing seriously and had generously offered to read and critique my work. She returned those fifty pages with editorial marks and comments. Her letter was one Kentucky mystery writer giving advice to another. I took the advice seriously. She showed me how to critically read my own manuscript. I made a number of changes to those fifty pages and used her examples to improve the rest of my book. I am indebted to her for making my work better.

In 2017 the headline read: "Famed  writer Sue Grafton loses battle against cancer."  I cried. I am sure a lot of other readers and writers cried. She was 77 years old and little sister Kinsey was one letter short of a complete alphabet. Her last case, Z is for Zero, will never be finished.

The Great Paradox of Herbert Hoover

 

This is Herbert Hoover, in full Herbert Clark Hoover, (born August 10, 1874, West Branch, Iowa, U.S and died October 20, 1964, New York, New York), 31st president of the United States (1929–33). Most Americans think of President Herbert Hoover in relation to the Great Depression. His administration failed in its attempts to alleviate widespread joblessness, homelessness, and hunger in America during the early years of the Great Depression. Which is sad, because Hoover’s rise to the presidency was a direct result of his humanitarian work during and after World War I as he rescued millions of Europeans from starvation. 

I was thinking about this paradox in relation to our Three Snowbirds series. In France, the ladies would have seen firsthand and also had great pride in the incredible effort ordinary Americans put into alleviating hunger in occupied Belgium and France. Herbert Hoover created the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) to help the victims of famine. At the time of the CRB's foundation, the United States had not yet entered the war, and Hoover was viewed as a neutral negotiator. As a result, he was personally able to deal with the English, French, and German governments, so that the CRB could bring aid to the famished citizens.

Food relief was essential, because 10 million Belgians and French were dependent on it during the four years of German occupation. The first ship to deliver goods to the Belgians carried 1,018 tons of wheat, rice, beans, and peas. Close to 2,500 other ships took 5 million tons of food to the innocent civilians. By working together, Hoover and prominent Belgian officials ensured that the acquired food was given directly to the citizens of the starving areas.

Even after the United States entered the war in 1917, Hoover still helped combat hunger. As the appointed head of the United States Food Administration (USFA), he encouraged Americans to conserve food. Through these efforts, there would be enough to send to Europeans in need. Once the war ended, he continued to help arrange relief as head of the American Relief Administration for all of the European countries, as well as defeated Germany and the other Central Powers. In this capacity, Hoover enabled 6 million tons of food to be sent to just about every European country.

Herbert Hoover is credited with saving close to 10 million lives in this region —about 2 million in northern France, and approximately 7 million Belgians. Belgians continue to honor him. On December 4, 1922, Belgian Senator Lejeune presented a statue of Isis, the Egyptian goddess of Life, to Hoover at the Stanford Art Gallery. In 1939, it was relocated to his hometown of West Branch, Iowa. Today, a Belgian museum is hosting an exhibit called “Remembering Herbert Hoover," portraying him as the "Great Humanitarian" and showing how he and the CRB helped them at such a critical time.

The Great Depression hasn't hit our Snowbirds yet. To Cornelia and Teddy, Hoover is one of America's greatest humanitarians. This is the reputation that led to his election as America's 31st president. Unfortunately, he was sworn in just a few short months before the bottom fell out of the New York Stock Exchange, plunging us into economic crisis. The organizational and logistical skills that made him a hero to millions failed to help him at home. He was strongly opposed to government "handouts" and called on business people to keep Americans employed, and he asked the American people to tighten their belts and make do in the spirit of “rugged individualism.” While Hoover’s philosophy and his appeal to the country were very much in keeping with his character, it was not enough to keep the economy from plummeting further into economic chaos. As Congress and the people urged him to do more he responded that “The spread of government destroys initiative and thus destroys character.”

Hoover's political career was wrecked by the Depression and his inability to realize that, in times of crisis, the need for direct government action is essential. The organized effort that fed millions in Europe was not applied to feeding millions at home. Even though he personally took no salary as President and donated thousands to charity relief efforts every year, he was unable or unwilling to do what had to be done to bring America out of the Depression. 

I can't help wondering how this will impact our books. Do you think Cornelia will continue to believe in Hoover the humanitarian, or will she turn on him as so many others did?

Review: A Divided Loyalty by Charles Todd

Inspector Ian Rutledge is on the case again, though not the case he wanted. Rutledge is off to a difficult start. Scheduled to give evidence in another case, he is unable to go to the village of Avebury, where the body of a young woman has been found in the center of a stone circle. A reluctant Inspector Leslie is sent in his place.

When another victim is found stabbed to death and thrown into an open grave in the Shopshire village of Tern Bridge, Rutledge is sent to investigate her murder.  The victim is eventually identified as Bath schoolmistress Serena Palmer.  When a witness’s sharp eye and detailed memory put Rutledge on a trail that leads to Serena Palmer’s killer, he is quickly able to solve the murder.

Meanwhile, Inspector Brian Leslie's inquiries have not identified the killer in the Avebury case. Even the name of the victim eludes Leslie and, much to his chagrin, Rutledge. In Avebury, Rutledge finds himself bogged down in the case, needled by the ghost of Corporal Hamish McLeod, and threatened by his nemesis, Chief Superintendent Markham. Rutledge fears that he may not be able to solve the case or even add any new information to Leslie's report. It seems that every clue he discovers leads to more sadness heaped on his shoulders.

Sharp readers may guess what's coming in the final twist, but if you love history Todd doesn't disappoint.

Like many of the Inspector Rutledge books, this one delves into the shadows of the trenches. Todd's grasp of the grief that followed World War I and the devastating loss of a generation of young men across Europe makes it well worth the read. 

A New Look for the First Three Snowbirds Mystery

Thanks to Patty Henderson, the designer of our covers for Murder at the Million Dollar Pier and Ybor City Blues, we have a new look for the oldest of the Three Snowbirds Mysteries. It is great to have a look and logo for all the books in the series. 

 

Review: Drawn and Order by Cheryl Hollon

This is the second book in the Paint 'n Shine series. I have to confess that I have not read book one, but am a huge fan of Webb's Glass Shop series.

I like Marinda Trent, the main character. She reminds me of many of the strong women I grew up with in Kentucky. I also liked her description of the gorge and the rock climbing group. Marinda's rock climbing adventure is cut short by the discovery of human bones near the trailhead. Those bones turn out to be the remains of her cousin. The sheriff sees a rock climbing accident but Marinda and her family aren't buying that explanation. Marinda promises to find the truth and discovers the rock climbers are hiding a lot of secrets.

The only reason I give this one four stars instead of five is that I found the length of time it took for doing Google searches unbelievable. This pulled me out of an otherwise excellent story. I think the great characters and strong knowledge of the Red River Gorge area more than makes up for the Google thread. I look forward to reading more of the series and will definitely go read the first book.

The Queens of Crime

Golden Age of Detective fiction produced a group of female mystery writers that dominated the industry. For the most part, their careers began in the interval between World Wars One and Two and continued the rest of their lives. I am simply listing them here for your consideration. I will do a more detailed piece on each of them in the future. 

 

Agatha Christie (1890–1976)

Elizabeth Marsh (1895–1982)

Margery Allingham (1904–1966)

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957)

Gladys Mitchell (1901–1983) 

Elizabeth Mackintosh (Josephine Tey) (1896–1952)

Technically, only the first four are dubbed "The Queens of Crime" but while Mitchell and Tey fell out of favor for some decades before being rediscovered by mystery readers, their work warrants their inclusion in the group. The body of work these women left behind captures my awe, particularly when I consider that neither the computer nor word processer was available to them. 

Augusta Groner (1850-1929)

 

Augusta Groner (1850-1929), was a detective's writer who sometimes appeared under the more masculine pseudonym of August or Auguste Groner. She also published under the pseudonyms Olaf Björnson, A. of the Paura, Renorga, and Metis. 

We don't know a lot about her early life. She was the daughter of an accountant. She was born in Vienna on April 16, 1850, and was first published in 1869.  One of her brothers was the painter Franz Kopallik, and another was the theologian Josef Kopallik. She worked as a school teacher until she married journalist, Joseph Groner in 1879. Around 1890, she turned to crime fiction, creating the first serial police detective in German crime literature, Joseph Müller, who appears for the first time in the novella The Case of the Pocket Diary Found in the Snow, which was published in 1890. Her first novel, The Case of the Lamp that Went Out, was published in 1899.

Outside of Austria, she is most known for her crime stories. Although, she wrote several juvenile stories and historicals. Groner's work is often overlooked in the lists of women pioneers of detective fiction. I am sure that part of the reason she remains unknown to many American readers is that her stories were written in German. Fortunately for us, Groner's work has been translated and adapted by Grace Isabel Colbron (1869-1948). 

Review: Three Treats too Many by Debra H. Goldstein

 

Three Treats Too Many is the third book in the Sarah Blair mystery series. In this installment, Sarah has partnered with her sister Emily and Emily's significant other Marcus to open a new restaurant in Wheaton, Alabama. Things don't get off to a good start when the final inspection delays her opening. Then her husband-stealing nemesis, Jane, opens a competing restaurant across the street. While they struggle with red tape in completing inspections, Jane and her new chef, Riley, are earning rave reviews for Riley's vegan offerings. 

When Riley turns up dead on the night of an event at Jane's Place, the police are convinced that Sarah and Emily's friend, Jacob, killed her in a fit of jealousy. Pulled into investigating by Jacob's sister, a local politico, Sarah enlists the help of her lawyer boss and friend, Harlan, as well as others in her circle to find out the truth. Jacob's troubles only deepen when the building inspector and fellow biker dies doing a motorcycle stunt and Jacob is suspected of tampering with his bike.

This well-written and entertaining mystery features a great cast of characters, which includes Sarah's cat RahRah and new puppy Fluffy. Being an animal lover, I adore that Sarah's devotion to her pets is a theme that is woven throughout the book, and actually plays a part, indirectly, in the mystery.

Wheaton is one of those charming, fictitious towns that you wish were real (murder notwithstanding!) because of how well the author has conceived of and describes the location and the residents. The mystery is well-plotted. I had not started to suspect who the killer might be until I was nearly at the end of the book. The motive for Riley's murder turned out to be a big surprise. I look forward to reading about the further adventures of Sarah, RahRah, and the rest of the gang!

Family Game Night in the 1920s

A deck of cards, a checkerboard, or a chess set seemed a little hum-drum for my intrepid Three Snowbirds. I couldn't picture the ladies playing the Cootie Game they had been in France and seen first hand the infestations the troops suffered. This just wouldn't be Cornelia's idea of a fun evening with the family gathered around a board depicting a WWI battlefield where players moved little red cooties across the board to the "cootie trap." 

This led me to look into what sorts of games a family might gather around the dining table to play. The first one that caught my attention was Snakes and Ladders. Yes, the same board game I played with my daughter in the late 1970s was around in the 1920s. The board has hardly changed. 

I discovered a game called Hokum, which was one of the most popular of the decade. Since the game was unfamiliar to me I wanted to know how it was played. It turns out that Hokum is the forerunner of Bingo and the rules are very similar. 

In 1921 a new sensation hit the market, a board game based on The Wizard of Oz series. This was more than a decade before Judy Garland was carried off to Oz through the magic of Hollywood. The board game doesn't just take us on a tour of Munchkin Land, but all the magical lands in the kingdom of Oz. 

While we're talking of magic, let's not overlook the fascination with all things magical and mystical among us, Parker Brothers introduced a game called the Venician Fortuneteller. It never became as popular as the Mystifying Oracle Ouija or the Ouija Board as it is known today. I don't know about Cornelia, but I'm sure Teddy tried her hand at speaking to the spirit world. Her natural curiosity wouldn't let her miss out on Ouija.

Waif Wander: Mary Fortune (1833-19??)

Mary Fortune is a true woman of mystery. Her series of more than five hundred short detective stories was published in the Australian Journal and spanned more than forty years. At the time hers was the longest-running series in crime fiction. She also pioneered the case book form of writing detective stories, which was later used by Conan Doyle in his Sherlock Holmes stories. Seven of her stories were reprinted as THE DETECTIVE’S ALBUM: TALES OF THE AUSTRALIAN POLICE (1871), which was the first book of detective fiction published in Australia.

Mary also wrote poetry, serialized novels, worked as a journalist, and wrote an unreliable memoir. The latter contributed to the mystery surrounding her life. Nobody really knew who she was. Much of her work was published under the pseudonyms “Waif Wander” or just ‘W.W.” with her real name, identity, and, as W.W., even her gender hidden. In her autobiographical writing, there are a few clues to her life, but both she and the Australian Journal guarded her privacy.

Sadly, her desire for privacy was so pervasive that her death passed without any public attention. The exact date of her death remains a mystery. What little we know about her comes from a book collector, J.K. Moir, who began searching for ‘Waif Wander’ in the 1950s. Through his queries to people who might have known her, he located some manuscript poems and a letter signed "M. H. Fortune." It took another generation and the microfilming and indexing of documents from colonial Australia before more information about ‘Waif Wander’ was discovered.

Among the fragmentary information revealed in her autobiographical writing was the mention that she and her little son, George, immigrated to Australia from Canada in 1855. There was no mention of a husband. However, the clue of her immigration led to the discovery of an 1858 'Goldfields marriage' (a public marriage with no minister) of Mary Helena Fortune, nee Wilson to a mounted policeman named Percy Rollo Brett. His occupation also explained her knowledge of police procedures.

The marriage did not last, and in 1866 Brett married a second time without divorcing her. It seems, though, that Mary was the first person in the couple to commit bigamy. Her first husband, Joseph Fortune, died in Canada in 1861, six years after she and her son moved to Australia. There is no evidence that Joseph ever came to Australia, but in 1856 Mary named him the father of her second son, Eastbourne Vawdey Fortune.

The only surviving physical description of Fortune was part of a police inquiry: “40 years of age, tall, pale complexion, thin build; wore dark jacket and skirt, black hat, and old elastic - side boots. Is much given to drink and has been locked up several times for drunkenness. Is a literary subscriber to several of the Melbourne newspapers.”

What we know of her later life is from the 1909 letter J.K. Moir discovered. She was impoverished and nearly blind. Her magazine contributions stopped altogether in 1913. The Australian Journal granted her an annuity and continued reprinting her Detective Album series through 1919. After that, they hired other writers for the popular series which continued until 1933. She created the police procedural and developed the casebook style while Arthur Conan Doyle, who became famous for it, was still in the nursery.

Perhaps this final note on her death is the saddest commentary on her life. The impoverished author’s funeral was paid for by the Australian Journal and she was buried in someone else’s grave. Her final resting place remains unknown, as does whose name is on the gravestone.

A Fresh Start

 I haven't been blogging for quite some time. There are so many writers' blogs out there that we don't need another voice telling readers about their writing journey or doing a "how to ..." blog. The simple truth is that I don't like talking about myself and don't have the kind of ego that leads me to want to be the expert of the day. 

So, what do I do with my writing blog?

After much thought about whether or not to remove the blog or use it, I have decided to talk about other writers, their journies, their struggles, and their work. I am going to focus mainly on women mystery writers because my favorite writers are all women and many of them don't get the attention they deserve. This is not to say that men will never appear on my blog. There are a few that I enjoy reading and will be happy to comment about their work. 

Oh, one more thing, expect history. I am a history junkie. In 2020 I did a presentation on women mystery writers who pioneered the genre. Many of them deserve more than a passing mention. I am going to profile some of them in my blog this year. 

If you stop by, you might discover a woman of mystery you didn't know before.