Blog | Maggie King | Mystery Author

In Memory of My Favorite Mystery Authors. And Maybe Yours.

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During these last days of 2015 I’m taking a moment to remember some mystery authors I have loved and lost. This is an all-year tribute and not limited to 2015. In addition to well-known authors I hope to introduce readers to perhaps “new” talent who also gifted us with a treasure of reading enjoyment.

Carolyn Coker Her five novels feature the beautiful Andrea Perkins, who travels worldwide to restore works of art. The stories take place in Italy, England, and at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. As Allison Cole, Carolyn Coker wrote the standalone Back Toward Lisbon. She was a television actress and administrator. My research indicates that this author passed away in 2011. See her bibliography here.

Philip R. Craig This prolific writer penned the Martha’s Vineyard Mysteries with Jefferson “J. W.” Jackson, an ex-Boston cop, as his detective. The last three books in the series were published after the author’s death in 2007. Visit Philip R. Craig’s web site here.

P.D. James Many of this British crime novelist’s works, featuring Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh and private detective Cordelia Gray, were filmed and televised. See a complete description of her life and career on Wikipedia. P.D. James died in 2014.

Elmore Leonard This novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter died in 2013. His classic advice to writers: “When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.” “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” Find more of Elmore Leonard’s quotes here and his official website here.

Henning Mankell Before his death in 2015, he gave us Kurt Wallander, a Swedish police inspector who solves grisly murders while he battles personal demons. Rolf Lassgård and Krister Henriksson played the brooding Wallander in the televised adaptations in Swedish while Kenneth Branagh starred in the English language version. For more about Henning Mankell, visit his site here.

Barbara Mertz Ms. Mertz was a Egyptlogist who wrote non-fiction under her own name. As Elizabeth Peters she wrote three mystery series and she penned gothic and supernatural thrillers as Barbara Michaels. How could anyone write that many books? We lost Ms Mertz/Peters/Michaels in 2013. Her website is here.

Ruth Rendell This prolific English author of thrillers and psychological murder mysteries proved one thing over and over—she was scary! If you haven’t read The Bridesmaid, get a copy and I’m sure you’ll agree. She also wrote under the name Barbara Vine. Many of her works have been adapted for film and television. This legendary writer passed away in 2015. Read more about Ruth Rendell on Wikipedia.

Rebecca Rothenberg The author of the Claire Sharples Botanical Mystery series, set in the San Joaquin Valley of California, was also a musician, epidemiologist, amateur botanist, and president of the San Gabriel chapter of the California Native Plants Society. Taffy Cannon completed The Tumbleweed Murders after Ms. Rothenberg died in 1998 at the age of 50. For more on Rebecca Rothenberg, visit her website here.

Jeff Sherratt He chose a 1970s Downey, California setting for his Jimmy O’Brien series, reminiscent of Raymond Chandler but with a lighter touch. His wife Judy finished Cyanide Perfume after his death in 2012. In one Jimmy O’Brien story the author refers to a couple of Downey apartment buildings purchased by the music duo The Carpenters. Karen and Richard Carpenter named the buildings after two of their hit songs, “Close To You” and “Only Just Begun.” The song titles remain on the sides of the buildings. Jeff Sherratt’s site is being maintained here.

Only Just Begun Bldg

Edward Wright This journalist-turned-novelist set his series in post-World War II Los Angeles. It stars John Ray Horn, a former B-movie cowboy reduced to debt collecting after a stint in prison. Mr. Wright died in 2015. See his site here (I love the vintage photo of Los Angeles on his home page).

Readers, do yourself a favor and find books by these authors in your favorite brick-and-mortar store, online retailer, or local library. You won’t regret it. They’ve left us quite a legacy.

Do you have a favorite author who has passed on? Please let me know in the comments section.

Have you ever enjoyed a mystery series only to have the author “disappear?” On December 16 I posted about missing authors. In most cases they’re doing well, and often still writing. See my post here.

Happy New Year

Whatever Happened to (Name an Author)?

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Have you ever enjoyed a mystery series only to have the author seemingly vanish? It’s happened to me many times.

Sometimes I discover the reason: he or she moves on to other projects or, sadly, moves on to the great beyond; work or family responsibilities take priority and mandate a hiatus from writing; publisher “issues” are all too common—I could write countless blog posts on publisher issues; some authors start a new series under a different name.

Recently I contacted a number of these missing authors and here are some of their responses:

Patricia Smiley wrote a very entertaining series featuring Tucker Sinclair, a business consultant and amateur sleuth. Ms. Smiley has this update:

I took a long hiatus from writing to take care of my mother. I recently finished a new book–not a Tucker Sinclair–a police procedural based on my 15 year stint as a volunteer for the LAPD. Midnight Ink just bought the manuscript with the tentative plan of publishing it next fall.

Joan Smith is a feminist, human rights activist, and author of five Loretta Lawson novels. Loretta is also a feminist, writer, and professor living in London. Ms. Smith told me “I have written another Loretta novel but it hasn’t been published.” Possibly she’s referring to Bombshell and I found an excerpt on her website. Read it here.

Judith Van Gieson, author of the Claire Reynier and Neil Hamel series set in New Mexico, writes:

It has been some time since I had a book published. I got a new editor at Signet who didn’t like mysteries and wanted me to write a thriller. I tried but I am not a thriller writer and that was the end of the Claire Reynier series. All thirteen of my books have recently become available as ebooks and audio books. My Neil Hamel mystery Hotshots has been optioned by a First Nation filmmaker and former hotshot firefighter. Now all he needs to do is raise the money to produce it.

For several years I have been helping authors self publish their books through ABQ Press.

I do hope to get back to writing before too long. We’ll see.

These authors offered online explanations for slipping below the radar:

Dorothy Simpson: Until the year 2000 Ms. Simpson penned a series of British police procedurals. On her website she explains why she stopped.

Janet L. Smith: In “The Mystery Of The Missing Mystery Writer” she tells Jim Thomsen why she decided three books were enough.

I emailed Susan Kandel, author of the Cece Caruso series. Cece loves vintage clothing and writes biographies of dead mystery authors. I tweeted Paula L. Woods, author of the Charlotte Justice series. So far I haven’t heard back from either of them. Before Ms. Woods took down her website she posted photos of her Los Angeles settings (in a pre-Pinterest world).

I have no way of contacting Jill Churchill or Karen Kijewski and there’s scant information for them online beyond their back lists.

Grave Endings See my previous posts about Gabrielle Kraft, Rochelle Krich, and John J. Lamb. I still have no news of these wonderful authors.

I’m delighted to have updates for five authors and would love to learn of more. Of course they are entitled to their privacy and I don’t mean to pry. But I am curious and, being a mystery writer, I have a bit of the detective in me! Regardless of their current situations or whereabouts, each of these authors has left an impressive body of work.

For bibliographies of the authors mentioned in this post—plus many more—visit the Stop, You’re Killing Me! website. SYKM is my go to site for any information on mysteries and their authors.

This 2006 post, “The Case of the Missing Writers” is similar to this one but it’s about different writers.

On December 30 I’ll post an “In Memory Of” tribute to the authors who have left us.

Happy Holidays! Be merry, be safe, and enjoy the season.

British or American TV: Who Does It Better?

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A while back I posed the question “Who Writes Better: The British or the Americans?” and concluded that I sat on the fence about the matter. Really, there are talented writers on both sides of the pond—worldwide for that matter.

But ask me if who has the best TV shows and I don’t hesitate with my answer: the British. No question about it.

Over the past ten years, I’ve viewed countless British shows. Here are just a few:

Blue Murder

Foley’s War

George Gently

Inspector Alleyn

Last Detective

Murder in Suburbia

New Tricks

Rebus

Waking the Dead

Wycliffe

Much as I love the crime genre, I also enjoy shows that don’t feature dead bodies. The British have gifted us with several:

As Time Goes By

At Home with the Braithwaites

Doc Martin

Doctor Finlay

Downton Abbey

He Knew He was Right

Kavanagh QC

Monarch of the Glen

The Way We Live Now

For an interesting blog post on the who-does-TV-better question, click here. Be sure to read the comments section.

For my post “Who Writes Better: The British or the Americans?” click here.

Readers, do you prefer American or British TV? Please explain your answer.

Do you have favorite shows to share? Like many, I’m always on the lookout for something new.

Cheryl Crane: Mystery Writer Flying Under the Radar

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Mention Cheryl Crane’s name, especially to those of a “certain age,” and you get the usual responses: “Oh yes, Lana Turner’s daughter,” or “Oh yes, the one who killed her mother’s gangster lover, Johnny Stompanato.”

But ask them about Cheryl Crane as a mystery writer and the responses are less predictable. They run the gamut from “She’s a really good writer” to “Huh?”

Cheryl Crane is indeed a good writer. To date, she’s penned three cozy mysteries, the titles puns on her mother’s movie titles: The Bad Always Die Twice, Imitation of Death, and The Dead and the Beautiful. The stories feature Nikki Harper, realtor to the stars and sometimes amateur sleuth. Nikki uses the connections of her legendary movie star mother, Victoria Bordeaux, to help her solve mysteries.

I’ve read the first two titles and thoroughly recommend them. They are not only well-crafted but they satisfy my fondness for Hollywood stories. So far I haven’t even come close to guessing the endings.

I’ve seen no indication that Cheryl Crane engages in social media or even has a website (although I have found online interviews). But this woman has been in the spotlight her entire life and certainly has name recognition. She likely doesn’t need or want to spend time roaming the wilds of social media, hawking her books. And so she gets to devote her time to the craft of writing … and fly under the radar.

Click here for an interview with Cheryl Crane after the release of The Bad Always Die Twice.

Want to Start a Theme Book Group? Here’s How

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There are thousands of book clubs in the United States alone and the majority read the same title each month and gather to discuss it. But there is another option: the theme group. In such a group, the members pick a theme, read a book of their choice based on the theme, and meet to talk about what they read. This format allows more flexibility of choice and all but eliminates the “I Hated That Book” syndrome that plagues many groups. See my recent post on this subject here.

If your group favors in-depth book discussions, the theme approach may not be for you. However, you may consider trying it on occasion, like during the holiday season or the summer. Sometimes the theme itself will kick off a spirited dialog. Whatever you decide, the main objective is to read and share your love of books.

In the Murder on Tour group featured in Murder at the Book Group, the members read mysteries set in geographical locations. In the opening chapter, the group talks about the books they read with Florida settings. Titles include The Paperboy by Pete Dexter, Key Largo by Raymond Chandler, and The Deep Blue Good-By by John MacDonald. In the second Hazel Rose mystery (as yet untitled) the group travels back in time to the ancient world via Silver Pigs by Lindsay Davis and Germanicus Mosaic by Rosemary Rowe. Martin Lorin’s Genesis One: Abel is Missing sparks an animated back and forth on the age-old question: why did Cain kill Abel?

Why did I choose a theme group for Murder at the Book Group? In 1993 I went to my first mystery book group in Santa Clarita, California. My instructions were to read a mystery set in New York City and I chose one from Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series. That first night launched my love of mysteries and eventually lead me to writing my own. Themes included main characters with professions in journalism, business, law enforcement, and academia. We chose stories set in specific regions, small towns, large cities, you name it. The members not only discussed the books they’d read for that month, but they recommended others as well. I left each meeting with a lengthy TBR list. I attended that group for three years until I relocated to Virginia. While I modeled the Murder on Tour group after the Santa Clarita one, it bears no resemblance—the members of the original group were much more pleasant than the ones in my fictional one and, most important, no one was murdered!

Lelia Taylor, blogger at Buried Under Books: Tales of a Former Indie Bookseller and former owner of Creatures ‘n Crooks Books & Sundries has this to say about the evolution of her theme group:

This book club has been together for about fifteen years and we still have most of the original members. We’ve never read just one pre-selected book but, in the past, we tried picking an author for each month and then we all read whatever we wanted by that author. Eventually we decided to just discuss any mysteries we had read in the previous month (we had to learn to discuss each one briefly but enough to whet each other’s appetites). Both systems worked but were not quite right for us.

In 2008 we came up with the idea of themes and we’re still doing that today. We have a list of about seventy five themes and we have no trouble satisfying the reading tastes of all members, from super cozy to seriously grim. As an example, a recent theme was “Books to Movies and Movies to Books” which also included TV or any other kind of screen treatment. As you can imagine, that encompassed countless possibilities from Agatha Christie to Henning Mankell to Ann Rule.

Lelia’s suggestions for themes

Fictional Characters: Mr. and Mrs. Darcy series by Carrie Bebris: Sherlock Holmes in the Irene Adler series by Carole Nelson Douglas; the Nursery Crimes series by Jasper Fforde

Golden Age: Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Dorothy L. Sayers, Rex Stout, Josephine Tey, etc.

Scientific Occupations: Alan Bradley (aspiring chemist Flavia de Luce); Randy Wayne White (marine biologist Doc Ford); Sarah Andrews (forensic geologist Em Hansen); and Mary Anna Evans (archaeologist Faye Longchamp)

GLBT: Ellen Hart (restaurateur Jane Lawless); Val McDermid (journalist / socialist Lindsay Gordon); and Josh Lanyon (mystery writer / bookseller Adrien English)

Selected resources for finding themes

Stop, You’re Killing Me! this online database includes indexes for locations, jobs, diversity, and historical periods

Goodreads the social media cataloging site for readers has its own theme group

Cozy Mysteries by Theme you’re sure to find something here that will interest your group

By a Woman’s Hand: A Guide to Mystery Fiction by Women by Jean Swanson and Dean James): this is a favorite resource of mine. It hasn’t been updated since its publication in 1996 but many of the authors listed are still writing.

Or go the traditional route: ask your local librarian!

Ready to try a theme group? Let me know what you think of the format. Happy reading!