Sophie's Question for Vicki Delany

How have reader expectations of a police procedural series changed in
the last decade? What elements are most prized now, especially for
someone considering launching a new series?

It’s difficult to speak generally about what readers are looking for, but for me, speaking as a reader as well as a writer, I am looking for a police procedural series that is as much about the lives of the characters as it is about their jobs. I want the police to be complex characters with normal human flaws and normal human relationships that take up a lot of their time and energy. I want the character to move through time as the series progresses while his or her children grow, their parents die, they get married or divorced (sometimes both) and experience all that human stuff we all go through.

As a reader I want the bad guys to also be multifaceted people with motivations for being ‘bad’. I look for a book that needs character and background to explain why the crime has happened and why this person has decided that the answer to his problems is killing someone. A villain who is just ‘bad’ or just in it for the money or just because, doesn’t make for a very appealing story.

I love the sort of police procedurals that are coming out of Britain. Susan Hill is probably my favourite writing today, also Stuart Pawson, Aline Templeton and many, many others. Interestingly, some of the best (in my opinion) North American writers such as Peter Robinson, Deborah Crombie, Elizabeth George have created British police characters. I wonder why that is? Perhaps because American cop novels are (sometimes) more about firepower than about psychology.

I suspect that the remarkable, sudden success of Louise Penny shows that this is the sort of police novel mystery readers are hungry for.

I think readers in general, and mystery readers in particular, are very fussy about accuracy and believability. In movies and on TV the plots can get absolutely ridiculous, but not in books. People want to believe that what they are reading, even though it is fiction, is plausible. Most police procedural writers go to great length to ensure that their policing details are as accurate as they can make it. I’ve had to fudge a couple of things for the sake of the story, but I try as hard as I can to make it accurate.

I have no law enforcement experience whatsoever, but I’ve found that police in general are more than happy to help you out and answer questions. I’ve been on foot patrol in Nelson and on ride-alongs in Ontario.

My advice to anyone contemplating writing a police series – if you don’t know, ask the police department closest to you (or where your book is set) how they do things. You can’t make this stuff up out of nothing.

Vicki Delany’s newest novel, Winter of Secrets, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which said, “she uses…artistry as sturdy and restrained as a Shaker chair.” Vicki writes everything from standalone novels of suspense (Burden of Memory) to the Constable Molly Smith series, a traditional village/police procedural series set in the B.C. Interior (In the Shadow of the Glacier, Winter of Secrets), to a light-hearted historical series (Gold Digger) set in the raucous heyday of the Klondike Gold Rush. Vicki lives in rural Prince Edward County, Ontario, where she rarely wears a watch. Visit Vicki at www.vickidelany.com. She blogs with five other mystery writers at http://typem4murder.blogspot.com and about the writing life, as she lives it, at http://klondikeandtrafalgar.blogspot.com

Rebecca's Question for Vicki Delany

I've always been curious about the Mounties. All my experience comes from Dudley Do-Right, so it might be skewed. What is the jurisdiction of the Mounties? What exactly do they do? Do they really wear those cool red uniforms all the time? Are there any mystery novels with Mountie protagonists? They're cooler than the mounted policemen in New York City!

Indeed, Rebecca they are pretty cool, although Dudley Do-Right is no longer with us, and the only riding they do these days is part of the Musical Ride or on the logo on their patrol cars. You’d be more likely to see a cop on horseback in downtown Toronto than galloping across the open plains, I’m afraid.

The red jacket and riding boots you are thinking of is their dress uniform; the regular uniform is blue with a yellow stripe running down the pant leg. In the picture I have posted above of the visit of President Obama to Ottawa you see the Mounties in their red dress uniform. {The woman with him is Michaelle Jean, the Governor General)

The RCMP (nickname the Mounties, less flattering nickname The Yellow Stripes) are the National Police Force, but in a way that is very different than the FBI. They do regular community policing in areas that do not have their own police force, as well as act in areas of federal interest such as organized crime, terrorism, money-laundering, cross-jurisdiction and border issues like human smuggling and trafficking, and business crime on the international level.

In Canada, major cities have their own police forces but most towns and rural areas do not. In Ontario the Ontario Provincial Police (O.P.P.) provide service to those areas, in Quebec (as all Louise Penny readers know) it is the Sureté Du Quebec, but all other provinces and territories use the RCMP. In British Columbia, I believe the City of Nelson (pop 9,000) is the only city in the Interior to have its own police force, and thus my fictional Trafalgar does as well.

The Nelson police rely on the RCMP for additional officers they might need in cases of emergency and routine policing that requires extra forces, as well as most forensics.

In the first Molly Smith book, In the Shadow of the Glacier, the RCMP arrive to help the city police quell a riot in town. Incidentally, it is at that incident where Molly meets a handsome young Mountie who we will be seeing a lot more of as the books progress. The RCMP also work with local police forces in combined policing for major crimes such as murder with the Integrated Homicide Investigative Unit (IHIT). In the first three Molly Smith books I am juggling eggs to keep IHIT out of the investigation because I want my characters to be doing all the work. In the fourth book (Negative Image, November, 2010) IHIT is finally called in.

A Mountie can do jobs as different as breaking up a bar fight on a Friday night in small town B.C. or Nunavut, guarding the Prime Minister, being part of the Governor General’s honour guard, going undercover into a suspected terrorist training camp, or investigating mob money-laundering.

In real life, these days the reputation of the Mounties amongst the Canadian populace is pretty low. There have been some major incidents in which the RCMP hasn’t acted very well. Example, the Robert Dziekanski case in which a Polish Immigrant, lost and confused at Vancouver airport, was tasered five times by an officer and then four of them jumped on him and he died. This was all captured on video and became a national scandal. Dziekanski was armed with a stapler, that he wasn’t even trying to attack anyone with, and it became a joke that the RCMP needs to be issued with staple-proof vests. It is now the subject, in true Canadian fashion, of a major inquiry that is still ongoing. The affair has reached the top ranks of the RCMP as it would appear they attempted a cover-up, not realizing the video would soon be released to the media. The RCMP has been strongly criticized for knowingly providing false information to the Americans in the Mahar Arar affair in which Arar, a Canadian citizen, was arrested at a U.S. airport and flown to Syria where he spent a year in jail, tortured and made to confess to terrorist activities which had absolutely no basis in reality. Arar was eventually freed, returned to Canada and given $10 million in compensation.

But Canadians are still rather fond of our Mounties, and a lot of that derives from the early days of the NWMP when they imposed “peace, order and good government” on the wild west.

You ask about novels where a Mountie is the protagonist. I had to do some thinking about that, because there aren’t many. Lou Allin has started a new series, the first book of which is titled And On the Surface Die (Rendezvous Crime), Don Easton (Angel in the Full Moon, Dundurn) writes about an undercover Mountie in Vancouver, and the late, much-missed, L.R. Wright had a Mountie series. Rick’s Mofina’s Six Seconds has a Mountie character.

In both of my series the romantic interest is a Mountie: I wonder if that says something about me!



Vicki Delany’s newest novel, Winter of Secrets, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which said, “she uses…artistry as sturdy and restrained as a Shaker chair.” Vicki writes everything from standalone novels of suspense (Burden of Memory) to the Constable Molly Smith series, a traditional village/police procedural series set in the B.C. Interior (In the Shadow of the Glacier, Winter of Secrets), to a light-hearted historical series (Gold Digger) set in the raucous heyday of the Klondike Gold Rush. Vicki lives in rural Prince Edward County, Ontario, where she rarely wears a watch. Visit Vicki at www.vickidelany.com. She blogs with five other mystery writers at http://typem4murder.blogspot.com and about the writing life, as she lives it, at http://klondikeandtrafalgar.blogspot.com

C.J.'s Question for Vicki Delany

Parts of Canada are relatively remote (i.e. the Northern Territories) from advanced laboratory/forensic facilities as well as large, well-equipped police forces. How have you made use of this paradox of wide-open spaces/claustrophobic small towns in your novels?

C.J. You’re right to note that none of my books take place in cities or suburbs. I have more of a fascination with the dynamics of small towns and rural or wilderness areas. The real-life inspiration for the town of Trafalgar, British Columbia in the Constable Molly Smith books (Winter of Secrets, Nov. 2009 from Poisoned Pen Press) is Nelson, B.C. Nelson (and thus Trafalgar) is eight hours drive east of Vancouver and eight hours west of Calgary. The nearest city is actually Spokane, Washington. You need a passport to go to the mall.

There are, in fact, no wide-open spaces as the town is completely hemmed in by mountains, but it is in the middle of the wilderness. This physical isolation from the rest of the country, and the crowded or claustrophobic feeling some people get surrounded by mountains, is part of the reason I decided to set my series in Nelson, uh, Trafalgar.

People know each other, sometimes too well; there isn’t a lot of outlet for frustrations or high-spirits; everyone knows who are the police and where they go for lunch. There is an interesting mix of neo-hippies and the comfortably retired all fleeing the big city rat race but with different values and different approaches to living in a small town in the middle of nowhere. It’s generally a safe town and the police have a more relaxed attitude towards policing than they might do in the cities. Most of the officers live in town, and again, it’s a pretty small place.

In the second book in the series, Valley of the Lost, Sergeant Winters, who has recently transferred to Trafalgar from Vancouver, is in the supermarket with his wife when, “Winters spotted a man he’d arrested for masturbating in an alley behind Front Street in the middle of the afternoon heading towards them. Winters edged away from Eliza and prepared for a confrontation. Instead the man greeted him heartily, and even introduced his own wife, a tall buxom redhead who laughed like a horse. With a cheery ‘see you next month’ – presumably in court – the man continued on his way, pushing a cart piled high with meat and frozen foods.” I got the idea for thisscene from one of the officers in Nelson who told me that things like that do happen to them.

Makes it pretty hard to go undercover, as you can probably imagine.

The Molly Smith series is essentially about people and relationships and circumstances that can go wrong and lead to bad things happening. The police solve crimes by observing people, rather than by forensic investigation, so it doesn’t interfere with the story that they don’t have all the resources big city police might have, although they are connected by computer to the major policing databases.

I also write the Klondike Gold Rush series, set in 1898 in the Yukon, and they certainly didn’t have access to any forensics, via computer or otherwise. They were totally on their own, and didn’t even have a railroad or a telegraph. Nothing moved faster than a person could travel on foot or by boat. The NWMP (precursors to the RCMP) pretty much made the laws up as they went along. Which makes that series a lot of fun to write.

Vicki Delany’s newest novel, Winter of Secrets, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which said, “she uses…artistry as sturdy and restrained as a Shaker chair.” Vicki writes everything from standalone novels of suspense (Burden of Memory) to the Constable Molly Smith series, a traditional village/police procedural series set in the B.C. Interior (In the Shadow of the Glacier, Winter of Secrets), to a light-hearted historical series (Gold Digger) set in the raucous heyday of the Klondike Gold Rush. Vicki lives in rural Prince Edward County, Ontario, where she rarely wears a watch. Visit Vicki at www.vickidelany.com. She blogs with five other mystery writers at http://typem4murder.blogspot.com and about the writing life, as she lives it, at http://klondikeandtrafalgar.blogspot.com

Will Work for Acquittal

Gabriella Herkert

Catnapped and Doggone

Which fictional lawyer would I hire if I was accused of committing a crime? First, notice that I used the word “accused.” Anyone can make an accusation so it might be possible that I get accused. Caught is different. I shall not be caught. Ever. Just so you know. But if, through some tremendous abuse of prosecutorial discretion, I am forced to protest my innocence, let’s start by saying I won’t be representing myself. I went to law school. I passed the bar. I’ve been practicing for two decades (and would appreciate if you don’t the math to calculate my age). But that old adage, the lawyer who represents herself has a fool for a client is one of the world’s biggest understatements. It’s not just that anyone contemplating hard time in the big house is likely to take it personally. It’s not even that asking yourself questions while in the witness box makes you look like an insanity plea would be a slam dunk and by then it’s way too late. No. The reason I’ll be hiring a professional is ineffective assistance of counsel. Basically, if am convicted, I know who to blame and it still won’t be me.

As a professional, I will naturally conduct extensive interviews of candidates. Check them out for everything from temperament to win-loss record to slickness of attire. Some famous non-starters include Perry Mason, Michael Kuzak and Oliver Babish.

Perry was good. Too good, maybe. His winning percentage is 99.631%. He lost exactly one case in 271 episodes. Even then, it was only because the client withheld evidence. Not Perry’s fault. Which would make many people hire him on the spot. With that batting average, though, I think poor Perry might be due for a disaster verdict. In fact, his record is better than Bernie Madoff’s record for positive returns on investment and we all know what happened to him. He’s doing a hundred and fifty years.

Michael Kuzak of L.A. Law is too pretty and he got pushed out of his law firm by Douglas Brackman, for Pete’s sake. To say nothing of the fact that he might want to stay on the prosecutor’s good side or face sleeping on the couch. Talk about your conflicts of interest. Nope, too much baggage to go with L.A. Law.

I’d love to hire the West Wing’s former White House Counsel Oliver Babish. His defense of the President during that MS non-disclosure hubbub resulted in nothing more than a bad, bad President statement read out loud in Congress and who listens to them? Then again, this is a guy willing to yell at the cardiovascular surgeon/First Lady for pretending she was too stupid to understand a simple medical form. I’m afraid our control issues might be incompatible. Sorry, Oliver, you’re not making the second round of interviews.

They aren’t on my current list of candidates but if either Jack McCoy or Michael Cutter of Law and Order decide they want to jump to the defense side of the aisle in a really good cause, I’ll take a meeting. By that same token, if Clarence Darrow goes from fact to fiction, I hope he gives me a call. He was so good in that Scopes Monkey trial that his chief rival not only gave up, he died five days later. Now that’s a result.

I’ve narrowed my choices. I’ve signed the engagement letter. I shall be represented by none other than Atticus Finch. He doesn’t have Perry Mason’s amazing track record. He doesn’t dress as well as Michael Kuzak. His soft-spoken manner would seem to wilt in the presence of the forceful Oliver Babish and the truth is, he lost his last big case. None of that matters. He’s my guy. He doesn’t let his personal feelings interfere with doing the best possible job he can, even if the cause is lost, because his cause never is. Atticus’ cause is the client. Always. He’s doesn’t practice law to have a career. He doesn’t work to pad his stats and he couldn’t care less if his picture is captioned as mouthpiece to the stars. He’s a lawyer’s lawyer. And he’s hired. Which doesn’t mean I’m not hoping Henry Fonda is one of my Twelve Angry Men.

Gabi

WHAT SAY YOU, PEOPLE OF THE JURY?

By Shane Gericke

I'm doing book edits this week, so I'll keep this brief. (Note: cool courtroom reference.) The only lawyer that can defend me for my crimes is:



That's right. Mr. Perry Mason. The suavest, coolest, lawyer a courtroom has ever seen.

Perry was a god when I was growing up. Was it the catchy theme song? Raymond Burr's iron hair and silky eloquence? His hot assistant Della Street? Was it because he could get anyone to confess in open court at any time? All of the above?



Truth be told, it probably was the theme song.

But it just worked for me.

GRIPPING COURTROOM DRAMA

Ain't no such thing, despite the sunny promises of John Grisham. Court is BORING. It moves at a snail's pace, and is made slower yet by objections, sidebars, conferences, judge's rulings, and the sheer, sheer tedium of testimony.

Nonetheless, I attended court Tuesday, to see the likes of serial killer Brian Dugan, who murdered two girls and a woman. One of them was Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville, ten years old, whom he kidnapped, raped and murdered. (He confessed, so yes, he's guilty.) The jury trial is to decide whether he gets the death penalty.

I sat with Jeanine's parents, Tom and PatNicarico. How they are able to stomach the nauseaous gasbagging of this killer, I have no idea. But they do. It's what you do for family.

Alas, I'll have to give you my full report next week, as I must get back to edits. (For the uninitiated, that means I'm rewriting the book to match my editor's suggestions. It's a lot of work, and it takes a lot of time.) The good news is we have a title. It's TORN APART, and it's my editor's idea. I like it a lot. TORN APART launches in July 2010, and I'd be pleased if you'd buy a copy. Like I tell my mom, you don't have to like it, you just have to buy it.

Be well, and thanks for reading.

Legally Noir

By Kelli

It was a frame. Clean-built, splinter free, squared off corners. Solid oak. No way to talk around it, no one to talk through. Just me, and two-bits to call the first shyster I picked out of the lineup.

The skinny cop in the corner smirked and kept working at the toothpick in his mouth. I opened the directory he shrugged toward me, wondering if the same bums would be hustling the ambulances ten years later.

Skinny heard the intake of breath when I turned toward the attorney section, and found that the last poor sucker brought in for "questioning" had ripped out all the pages. On my own. No money, no friends, no tricky Dick lawman on my side of the interrogation room. Just enough for a phone call ... if I could just remember who the hell to call ...

My legal case will undoubtedly be film noir, so we need a legal eagle who is used to working in black and white, and since Perry Mason will be busy defending Rebecca (who is about as innocent as I am), who's left?

There's Paul Diegler (Jimmy Stewart) from Anatomy of a Murder. Good guy, persistent, convincing, has that everyday-guy thing down pat. Problem is, if there's a good-looking blonde on the other side of the courtroom, he might get distracted. Dames are a weakness ... along with a touch of vertigo.

The Paradine Case's Anthony Keene (Gregory Peck) is no better in the broad department. Heard his whole life crumbled around some Italian dish who played him like Pagliacci. Not so keen on Keene.

There's a guy named Atticus Finch who is like a legal Superman, bucks the system, fights for justice ... but he does his work in straight drama, not genre frame-ups. Likewise Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy),
probably the greatest lawyer of them all. Based on Clarence Darrow, he argues for the separation of Church and State and the emancipation of science in Inherit the Wind. But my case won't get Henry publicity and won't earn satisfaction for Atticus, so nix on those two.

That does it. I think if I'm gonna stand a chance, we'll have to switch genres. I've got it! The one person who could beat the best lawyer in the world (and District Attorney) Adam Bonner (Spencer Tracy, natch) ... Amanda Bonner!! As played by Katherine Hepburn, she champions Judy Holiday in Adam's Rib, and other than falling sucker for David Wayne's ridiculous flirtations, she's got it covered. Nobody--and that means nobody--argues with Hepburn and wins ... unless she wants them to.

And just to make sure of it, let's bring on her assistant, Elle Woods ... who doesn't work in black and white, but can serve as a good distraction for the prosecution. All right, I feel much more optimistic.

Amanda strode into the dimly lit office, lit a cigarette, and flashed a million dollar smile. The Irish cop with the wrinkled, battered face dropped his cigar and blanched. "Darling," she said. "All I'm trying to say is that there's lots of things that a man can do and in society's eyes it's all hunky-dory. A woman does the same thing - the same thing, mind you - and she's an outcast." The cop growled. "Stop quoting from that movie, Amanda. You got any thing else?"

She whistled ... and the office door opened and suddenly we weren't in Kansas anymore. A colorfully-dressed young woman posed with her hand on her hip, and proceeded to cite the case of Hitchcock vs. Preminger with Kanin presiding.

On the way out of the jailhouse, Elle linked arms with Amanda and I ... and we all headed for the nearest spa.

***

I'm celebrating the fact that CITY OF DRAGONS is now on the Macmillan site! Which means I'm in the same author directory as Thomas Hardy and William Shatner! :)

My Dad Can Kick Your Dad's...um, Case

by Sophie Littlefield

What fictional lawyer would you hire to defend you if you ever get caught?

I'd call my dad.



My dad is a law professor, or more grandly a legal scholar, a guy who thinks about issues of right and wrong for a living. He writes about the law, teaches it, and gives speeches about it; I guess you could say he's got a lock on the contemplation of justice.

Whenever I had an ethical quandary when I was growing up, my dad would not only explain current legal thinking on the subject but also provide historical context. My questions were about things like reporting waitressing tips (no one else did), or paying for things you accidentally smuggle out of stores in the bottom of the cart - nothing earth-shattering, and mostly it was just entertaining to hear how Dad would frame the question, because it was always different from the response you'd get from anyone else.



Bottom line, though, I was confident that Dad always acted within his own moral bandwidth. How many people can you say that about? Not many. I actually consider myself fairly ethically pure, but I fall off my own wagon just about every day.

At times, I've felt that dad is actually ethical to a fault. This might be what prompted my lifelong fascination with vigilantism. I am a firm believer in codes (personal more than societal) but I think that without the freedom to contradict ourselves we lose an important tool in our right-wrong arsenal. The slings and arrows of effective personal justice, in other words, must share the quiver with the occasional act of passion or vengeance or defiance.



But back to the subject - if I'm ever caught (and I must say that I find the question of what I have done in this fictional scenario to be more interesting than the nature of my defense) I'll call my dad. As an academic, he hasn't practiced law in nearly fifty years, which makes him, in my view, a "fictional" lawyer - but I'm confident he'd hold the court in thrall with his analysis of the case. Besides, I've never seen anyone win an argument against him.

(But I've beaten him at Scrabble. Just sayin'.)

Perry or Paul?

What fictional attorney would you hire to represent you if you ever get caught?

by Rebecca Cantrell




Unlike CJ, I’d go straight for Perry Mason. He’s never lost a case, and I like that track record. He’s definitely gotten defendants out of tighter pinches than the one I’d be in.


It’ll be stressful as I sit in jail waiting. My nerves will be shot when the trial has its share of missteps as Perry tries and fails to break the wrong witnesses. But when Paul strides in and whispers in Perry’s ear, I’ll know he’s found that bit of evidence that exonerates me. And I know he worked hard to do it too, bless his heart.

The witness on the stand will crack like dry spaghetti. That self righteous smirk will peel off Hamilton Burger’s face. In your face, I’ll say once the gavel comes down to acquit me. Sure, it’ll be spiteful, but after what he put me through, can you blame me?

And then I can spend a little quality time with Paul Drake. There was something intriguing about that big blond guy. He was a thorough investigator, looked sharp in a suit, but could beat up the meanest thugs. Unlike Perry, Paul knew the score. Plus he liked chocolate ice cream, and pretty much ate anything you put in front of him, a trait that I appreciate more now that I have a picky eater in the house.

What did Della see in Perry anyway? Paul was cuter, taller, and a lot more fun. Although both clearly had massive commitment issues, Paul did eventually get married and have little Paul Jr. at some point. Perry just got portly.

So, if I were to get caught, I’d want Perry on my side. But I won’t need him, because I’ll never get caught. Because I’m innocent. Innocent. Innocent.

I didn’t get to answer last week’s question about ways to dispatch murder victims, but my good friend, and fellow mystery writer, Hal Glatzer sent me a link to a video on just this topic.

You have the right to an attorney....

From CJ

What fictional lawyer would you hire to defend you if you ever get caught?

When I was young I enjoyed the Perry Mason novels, but honestly I don't think I'd want him to defend me. He's never lost a case…yet.  Which makes me worried that he's too comfortable.  If I'm ever in trouble, I want a lawyer who's hungry, who has as much to loose as I do.

Someone who will go the extra mile.

Forget about Matlock or any of the guys from LA Law or Boston Legal.

If I'm ever in trouble and need a lawyer, I want Paul Levine's Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord on my side.

First, Solomon is passionate about his cases.  He doesn't care what he looks like or if he's sanctioned or threatened with jail, as long as he gets his client off.  And Victoria Lord applies her sharp legal mind to their cases—both to keep the client out of jail as well as Solomon.

Second, they seem like fun people to hang out with—and if I'm in trouble, I'm going to need all the cheering up I can get.

Third, Paul Levine is a Penn State alum and Nittany Lion fan!  Who could ask for more in their "Dream Team"???

Now, here's the real question….what kind of crime would a little ole pediatrician from Pennsylvania like me be charged with?

Thanks for reading!

CJ

About CJ:
As a pediatric ER doctor, CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge suspense novels. Her debut, LIFELINES (Berkley, March 2008), became a National Bestseller and Publishers Weekly proclaimed it a "breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller."

The second in the series, WARNING SIGNS, was released January, 2009 and the third, URGENT CARE, is due out October, 2009. Contact her at http://www.cjlyons.net

An Agrarian Offing

Gabriella Herkert
Catnapped and Doggone

What is the most exotic way I’ve ever killed off a character? I’ll admit, shamefacedly, that I’ve never served a victim with fava beans and a nice Chianti. Maybe it’s pedestrian, but most of my dearly departed leave the world in the usual weapon of opportunity way. But I’m growing as a writer and a murderer so I see great creativity in my upcoming victims. I can draw from my own experiences, too. I’m from farm country. Yes, I am sorry to report a terrible farm accident befalls my first victim in my upcoming book, Horsewhipped. I can’t tell you the exact manner of death but I can tell you if I had to list my top three thousand ways to die, going this way still wouldn’t make the list.

So while I’ve thus far tread a known path as to manner of death, body disposal has presented far more opportunities to depart the departed in intriguing ways. I put a body behind a wall. It forced me to deal with odor and decomposition and I’ll admit to being a little less than physically well when my outside expert explained that I would have to add maggots and mold to my corpse to fit the time and temperature parameters. He was right, scientifically, but I would have appreciated getting the details without the side of chips I was munching at the time.

In Doggone, my dead guy’s cause of death never gets a chance to go exotic. Every time he tries to kick off, somebody just steps up to take his place. No death means no autopsy means no quirky murder method. Of course, that left me explaining the Groundhog’s Day dead guy echo which was by no means commonplace. Capgras Syndrome. It may not be an exotic manner of death but as a manner of life, you get to call this one your own. It may even explain how Freddie Krueger and Michael Myers keep coming back. And back. And back. To kill again. Mainstreaming these guys could save the lives of countless pretty teenage girls who split up to search the basement even after the creepy music starts.

For the record, in my own writing the wireless keyboard victim lived. As anyone who’s ever had a technical problem with his computer and been put on hold with their IT representative can tell you, that’s the one that could, should, and will end up in murder someday. With my technical issues, think sooner rather than later. Exotic? Maybe not. Justifiable homicide? You tell me.

Gabi

And the blade clacked the vertebra...

Serial killer victim Jeanine Nicarico. Scroll to second item for her story.

By Shane Gericke

First, everyone, sorry I haven't been online this week. I'm still struggling to recover from the vapors--what the docs now call viral bronchitis--so I've been napping more than working. Had to miss y'all at Bouchercon, too. Major bummer.

So, the answer to the question, What's the most exotic way you've killed a character? Allow me to quote from my current book, CUT TO THE BONE:

The barber bent close, touched steel to flesh. Several dozen strokes later, he wiped the Executioner clean with a hot towel from the baseboard steamer.

"Terrific job, Frank," the Executioner enthused, watching the white fog billow into the shivery air. "Best shave I've had since ... well, ever."

"Thanks. I pride myself on them," Frank said. "The straight razor helps."

The Executioner reached to the shelf to examine one. He stopped midair.

"Oops, sorry," he apologized. "All right if I take a look?"

"Oh, sure, be my guest," the barber said.

The Executioner raised the straight razor to the light, turned it this way and that. No tool marks. No burrs. Just a gleam and perfect mating of ironwood handle to hollow-ground carbon steel blade. "This is a work of art," he said, deeply impressed. "And you're an artist."


"Thanks," Frank Mahoney Jr. said, young chest puffing under his white smock. "That's genuine Solingen steel, all the way from Germany. Grandpa Frank got them off the Internet. They're expensive, but they keep a nice sharp edge, which you need to clip those annoying loose ends."

"Funny you should mention that," the Executioner said, reaching toward the shelf.

"Mention what?" Frank said, bending to the towel steamer for the final hot one.

The Executioner reversed his movement, sliced the boy ear to ear, Solingen steel sinking so deep the edge clacked off the cervical vertebra.

"Awk ... wha ..." Frank gurgled as his eyes went full-moon.

"You're a loose end," the serial killer said, backpedaling to avoid the blood shot. "And I just clipped you. Funny, huh?"

Frank collapsed like a brain-shot calf.

"Or not," the Executioner said ...


SPEAKING OF SERIAL KILLERS ...

Serial killer Brian Dugan.

Today, I'm going to visit a real one. His name is Brian Dugan. He kidnapped, beat, sodomized, strangled and murdered a woman and two children back in the 1980s. One of the kids was 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico from Naperville, IL, where I live. Dugan confessed to the first two, drew life in prison. He recently confessed to Jeanine's, and hopes to avoid lethal injection because he confessed--an act of contrition, he says, that makes him a good guy worth saving. The prospect he might be saved does not make me happy. Dugan tried and failed to rape and kill a half-dozen other girls. He is unrepentant. He is evil.

I want to see what pure evil looks like, up close. So, I'll attend his sentencing hearing at the DuPage County Courthouse. The prosecutor is arguing for death. Dugan's lawyers argue against. The jury must decide.

I don't believe in the death penalty. It's America at its revenge-besotted worst, with laws and rules written by the melon-brained politicians who gave us the war in Iraq, torture of prisoners, and bank "reform." In other words, it's rotten.

Nonetheless, I'm pulling for the prosecution. Hypocritical, you say?

Guilty. Though with an asterisk.

* I'd really like Dugan to escape the needle and get life with no parole in a maximum security prison, with assignment to general population,instead of the protective custody he's enjoyed for the twenty years this case has dragged through the court system. Let him experience the humiliating and terrifying rape he gave all his victims. Let him feel his anus rip as the shaft ...

Well. You know.

When his attackers are sated, find more. There's lots of horny cons in the max. For a "short-eyes"--prison jargon for "child molester"--the other cons and the guards will look the other way. Sorry to sound so bloodthirsty about this, but the thought of Dugan makes my skin crawl and my jaw start flapping. The family is warm and loving, and I am proud to raise money for their dead daughter. I'll be prouder yet when Brian Dugan receives his justice.

Preferably, bent over a laundry basket, howling at the unfairness of it all.

I look forward to giving you my report next week.

Shane Gericke despises serial killers, but writes about them anyway because they fascinate him so much. His next crime novel appears in July, 2010.

Antibiotic Wishes and Codeine Dreams ...

By Kelli

What's the most exotic way I've ever killed off a character?

Well, possibly a combination of yew berry poisoning and stabbing ... or maybe aconite (Deadly Nightshade) poisoning combined with drowning. The combo methods are generally a result of the imprecise nature of poisons in the Roman world--both of those methods of disposal are found in NOX DORMIENDA and CURSED (formerly known as MALEDICTUS), respectively.

Poison in the Roman world was a very common tool, especially among imperial women, if the historians are to be believed. And since any Roman historian needs to be taken with a proverbial grain or even ceramic dish of salt, the link between women of any class and poison is probably more of a cultural paranoia than an actual historical fact--that old saw about poison being the women's weapon runs back at least a couple of thousand years.

I personally think it says more about Roman historians and the dominant culture than it does about women or their weapons of choice, but still ... the idea of the foxglove leaves "accidentally" introduced into the salad by the person nominally in charge of the culinary domain is intriguing, no?

You might even say the Romans had poison on the brain. In Pliny, for example, you'll find reference to poisoned honey ... something I might use in the Arcturus Series, if it proves successful enough to continue. But me, well, when I kill a character it needs to work within the milieu and be absolutely consistent with characterization. No fancy-schmancy poisoned peacock's tongue when a simple bit of poisoned eye cream is far more logical on both counts.

Actually, as a writer (and I know this is going to ruin our reps, guys, so forgive me), I don't spend a lot of time dreaming up ways of killing off people. We like to give the impression that we do--makes us seem a lot more interesting, and makes people inclined to be nice to us--but I think most of us create a situation and characters and let things unfold from there.

In CITY OF DRAGONS, people die from gunshot wounds, one person is intentionally run down and run over by a car, and someone else is strangled. Each death matters; each victim matters. No matter what the agent is, no matter how it happens, loss is loss and it's the most Godawful thing about life, period.

With respects to Dylan Thomas, I do not go gently into that good night.

And that respect for life and death is why, I think, we as authors take a grim satisfaction in punishing the people who prey on others ...

Now, as to my blog post title? Well, I'm writing this while taking codeine cough syrup for a bad bout of something that has me out for the count for the week. And I'm on super-antibiotics, too. So right now, I'm wondering about the toxicity of drugs I'm taking ... ah, the writer's life for me! :)

Take care, everybody--and stay healthy!!

Littlefield: Unrepentant Killing Machine

by Sophie

What's the most exotic way you've ever killed off a character?

Hah, funny you should ask that!

When I wrote A BAD DAY FOR SORRY, I had a grand time killing off domestic abusers. My character, Stella Hardesty, had a no-exceptions policy - a guy got one warning and if he offended again, he was done. Over and out. Dead.

I was creative with my methods, too. I had Stella beating, electrocuting, stomping, whipping, slicing - everything I could think of to render a live jerk a dead one.

Then I had a little talk with my editor. Her message, in brief, was ix-nay on the arnage-cay. Stella could not, she said, go around killing all those folks. Self defense was one thing, once in a very great while, and only when her own life is in peril. But apparently her personal moral code was not quite finely developed enough: she would be more compelling and even, dare my editor say it, sympathetic if she gave the rest of the bad guys a second chance. And a third. Whatever was necessary for them to emerge chastened but alive.



This got me to grumbling for a while, until I realized that my editor was, ahem, right. Not only would my audience prefer a less bloodthirsty heroine but, as it turned out, I did too. On the day I wrote Stella's impassioned speech where she explains to her sidekick why she stops short of killing, I found that Stella's beliefs echoed my own - that, in brief, asskicking's well in the realm of us mortals but ultimate justice remains the domain of the Big Guy.

Still, I was kind of sorry to see all my creative mayhem curtailed. Could I, I asked in an email to my editor, still get creative when it came to, uh, rehabilitation? Was there a limit on the devices and methods Stella could use? Was I to be relegated, for instance, to a simple rubber-hose beating when there's an entire universe of instruments of pain out there?

Happily, she and I came to an accommodation and I went merrily back to revisions, humming a cheerful tune. Stella still gets to bring a world of hurt - it's just a world with limits. Limits which, happily, I have learned to work within.

Here's a little taste of what Stella gets up to in A BAD DAY FOR SORRY:

“Well, a couple years ago, a man – a preacher, if you can believe it – came back for my returning customer special. He was smart enough not to bother his ex-wife, she and I made sure of that. But get this, he wasn’t smart enough to stay away from the lady who played the organ at the noon service. Moved her right in with him and everything. Now I’m not saying she was any kind of smart to hook up with him, but still, stupid ain’t a crime...That preacher’s in about six pieces buried under that tire pile.”

There was a fair amount of truth to the story – all of it, in fact, right up to the tire pile.

Stella didn’t kill the man, though. Her killing days were done. Killing Ollie had cost her plenty, but she was still pretty sure that when Judgement Day arrived and she was called for her audience with the Big Guy, He would understand.
Stella had only one death on her hands, and she meant to keep it that way.

Still, there were other ways to skin even the most stubborn tomcat. When the preacher took up his old ways on a new lady, Stella merely switched tactics.



Whenever a garden-variety restraint-and-reckoning first visit didn’t do the trick, Stella got creative. In this case, the preacher’s hypocrisy reminded her of a story she read in English Class at Prosper High School, and she slowly and carefully burned a scarlet ‘A’ on his chest with her electric prod.

If she remembered her High School English properly, poor Hester Prynne lettered in Adultery. The preacher, Stella figured, earned his for Assholeism. But at least now he was a retired Asshole. Taking his shirt off was probably all a lady needed to see before she took off running.

No piranhas required

By Jeremy Duns, guesting for Rebecca Cantrell


I'm at Bouchercon this week, so I asked fellow historical spy writer Jeremy Duns to step in. I knew that someone writing spy thrillers set during the Cold War, starting with the critically well-received FREE AGENT, would know all sorts of devious ways to kill characters. My advice: don’t stand next to him in the rain.


So, Jeremy, what’s the most unusual way that you have ever killed a character?

I write spy thrillers set during the Cold War, and as a result there’s a certain expectation that they will feature exotic deaths. I think this is partly due to the James Bond films, in which characters are fed to piranhas, burned alive or sucked out of airplanes, and partly to some of the real methods of assassination developed by intelligence agencies during that era. Last year, I wrote an article for The London Times listing my top 10 real-life spy gadgets (http://bit.ly/vmIzU), and included a CIA dart gun and the exploding briefcase developed by British boffins during World War Two. But none of these appear in my novels.

It’s hard to write an exotic death once the KGB has assassinated someone with a ricin-tipped umbrella. Many spy novelist have tried, of course, but the danger is that you come across as a spoof. Plus, the Bond films have used up most of the good methods. So instead I tend to kill characters off fairly conventionally, but try to make things more interesting through setting. So my first novel, Free Agent, culminates with an assassination in a Red Cross clinic during the Biafran War. My second, Free Country, which will be published next year, features deaths in London’s Smithfield meat market (following a fight with some electric saws, of course), in an installation in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome and even one on top of St Peter’s basilica.

In fact, the latter is probably the most exotic way I’ve killed a character: my protagonist, British agent Paul Dark, is chased down the dome by several villains, and ends up killing one of them. I suppose I won’t surprise anyone who knows thriller-writers that we can be a sick bunch: I had a great time planning the scene on a research trip to Rome. While all the other tourists were photographing the views of the Eternal City and the statues of the Apostles, I was clicking away to get the angles of some railings and grinning at the fact that they looked perfect for what I had in mind. No piranhas or lasers, sorry, but this is as exotic as I get:

‘He stood to his full length and his mouth formed a grim smile: he thought he had me. He was grasping something in his hand, and it glittered momentarily in the sun. It had a long, thin blade: a stiletto knife?… He saw his chance and leapt forward, pushing me further down the roof and towards the line of railings that enclosed the flight of stairs. As he jerked the knife down, I threw my arms up and grabbed hold of his wrist, managing to stop the blade a few inches from my neck. He grunted, his mouth clamped shut and a hissing noise emanating from his nostrils, and the blade moved closer. I pushed back against him with every sinew and fibre, but I knew that I could only hold out for another second or two at the most…

There was a blur of movement and his free hand came round in a tight fist, aiming low, and I recognized the old commando move and made to counter it with my forearm. I caught it just in time, but in the meantime the blade continued its descent. I pushed back again. Beads of sweat dripped into my eyes, stinging them, and I tried to blink them away, to no avail. He grunted again, and as the blade dropped another fraction of an inch I prepared myself for it to pierce into me.

But then I realized with a flash of intuition what I had to do, and I abruptly relaxed my grip and jerked my head away sharply at the same moment, and the surprise and momentum were too much for him to correct and as his arm came down he lost his balance and the whole upper half of his body tipped over with it, and then I was looking down at the cluster of railing spikes emerging through the top of his head, the tips covered in some dark slimy mixture I didn’t want to think about. He moaned one last moan, and then his limbs went into a final spasm and he was still…’

And here’s a photo of the railings in question. I’m sure you’ll agree that they simply had to be featured.

Jeremy Duns is the author of the Paul Dark trilogy. Free Agent was published by Viking in June 2009; Free Country and Free World will be out in 2010 and 2011. Please see http://www.jeremyduns.com/ for more information.