MAYHEM ON MONDAYS

Here's to a Happy New Year!

I usually don't make New Year's resolutions mainly because I never keep them. However, I'm going to take the plunge this year. I resolve to work harder at writing and playing. How's that!

As I've taken on more tasks in my life, I'll have to be better organized and totally commited to a specific writing time each day. So, if you phone and I don't answer, I may be there but writing. So, please leave a message.

On the playing side, I resolve to never turn down an invitation from friends to socialize, unless it truly can't be helped. Part of the working harder has to be playing harder in order to keep the balance. And who wants a friend who keeps turning down invitations anyway?

So bring on the New Year...my horoscope says it's going to be a really good one. (And the National Post never lies!)

I've also decided on some changes to Mystery Maven Canada. When I started the blog a few years ago, I hoped it would offer information on the ever-changing publishing scene along with news about Canadian mystery authors, to my former customers and to authors alike. And, although there are always changes taking place in publishing, many of the debates are the old ones with very little new (except a ginormous merger or two)to add. Authors are busy being authors. Readers are keeping those authors busy by devouring their books and demanding new ones. I think it's time to revise what's happening on this blogspot.

So, starting in January, I will be posting once a week, on Fridays. It will most likely be me continuing as I've done all this time, or I may post a book review, or it may be a guest blogger. You won't know until you've clicked on the blogsite (okay, you'll know if you check my Facebook page). If you're a Canadian mystery author anywhere in this country and you have an event coming up, I'd be happy to post it on the events section. If you're coming to Ottawa, please let me know.

I hope this new format won't mean that MMC gets forgotten. I also hope it means one fewer thing on that To Do list...for everyone.

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year with lots of mysteries to read!

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase

READ AND BURIED
Berkley Prime Crime, now available
A KILLER READ, also available at your favourite bookstores and online.

MYSTERY REVIEW

A GRAVE WAITING
by Jill Downie
Dundurn Press

Detective Inspector Ed Moretti and Detective Sergeant Liz Falla have returned. This Guernsey Island pair of police officers was first encountered in Jill Downie's Daggers and Men's Smiles last year. And this time around, they're trying to figure out why financial advisor Bernard Masterson, also suspected arms dealer, came to visit the Channel Island, and more importantly, why he was murdered.

His body is found by the cook aboard his palatial yacht, Just Desserts, the morning after he'd given his entire crew the night off. Video footage shows Lady Coralie Fellowes, now a local but once a star of the Folies Bergere as the only visitor to the boat. Even more incriminating is the fact she disposed of a gun into the water beside the dock. When it's revealed her deceased husband had been duped by Masterson, she shoots to the head of the suspect list.

However, Fellowes is not the sole name on that list which includes Masterson's housekeeper, two Germans who are recent additions to the crew, a local doctor, and even a member of Moretti's jazz band. Add to the mix a retired, reclusive spy and some colourful locals, and the detectives have their hands full chasing leads but still coming up empty on why Masterson was there in the first place.

The island of Guensey is the main attraction of this series, so wonderfully depicted as the mystery unfolds. Detective Sergeant Liz Falla also stands out as a very real character, alert and savvy. Moretti's personal life entwines with the plot as we see him in the evenings with his main passion, playing jazz piano, and as his love life gets a new spark with the addition of a mysterious trio on the island.

Jill Downie has written a complex mystery that draws the reader in and, with increasing fervor, to the unearthing of a plot with international intrigue, and the more basic motives of love and revenge.

CRIME ON MY MIND

Getting ready to say goodbye to 2012!

I know, it's not New Year's Eve yet. But we're getting very close so I thought it would be fitting to look back on the year that's been turbulent in the publishing industry, what with more publishers, distributors, and bookstores closing...but has seen many positives on the output side.

Many Canadian mystery authors have had either another books in a series or a first novel published this year! And from all accounts, the sales are going strong. I won't even begin to mention names as I'd surely leave someone out. But you know who you are...and you, as a reader, know if your favourite author has hit the shelves this year.

So, in a world where changes are keeping folks on their toes, there is the stability of good books to read. And guess what, the coming year looks equally promising! I've seen some catalogues, talked to some authors, and I guarantee that readers will be thrilled with the new mystery lists this coming year.

Also a promising note, the fact that Ottawa's Books on Beechwood was sold and saved from the announced closure in 2013. That's fabulous news for readers and writers alike.

Now, your mission, and I hope you'll agree to it, is to get out there and support stores like Books on Beechwood, the independents that are fewer but stronger and determined to stay alive; support the Canadian mystery authors by buying their books and spreading the word to new readers; and, joining in the dialogue at blogsites like this one, at book events such as readings and signings, and by contacting authors to let them know if you think they've done it right.

We're all in this together...so let's look forward to a New Year that's filled with the promise of marvelous mysteries!

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase

READ AND BURIED
Berkley Prime Crime, now available
A KILLER READ, also available at your favourite bookstores and online.

MAYHEM ON MONDAYS

Holiday reading!

Just in case your holiday reading includes this blog, I'd like you to take a couple of minutes to tell us about your favourite Christmas read. It doesn't have to be a mystery but of course, merry murders abound on the bookstore shelves this time of year.

My favourite, and it's one I re-read each year, is The Joyous Season by Patrick Dennis. Do you remember him? He wrote Auntie Mame, one of my all-time favourite romps.

Well we don't have the return of Mame of anything like it, but it is another fun and irreverant story (even though it deals with a family break-up at Christmas)taking place in the 1950's in the oh-so-wealthiness of New York. I guarantee it'll draw a smile from you, perhaps even several chuckles and of course, it's Patrick Dennis so the ending has to be a happy one.

Even though it's been in print for a few decades, it can still be found on-line.

A Joyous Season is my wish to you -- both for a warm and fuzzy reading experience and a happy holiday time of year.

Now, what's your choice?

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase

READ AND BURIED
Berkley Prime Crime, now available
A KILLER READ, also available at your favourite bookstores and online.

CRIME ON MY MIND

I was right!

Forgive me while I gloat. But, I was right in my Monday blog when I said bookstores would survive. How did I know? (a question asked on Facebook) Mostly because I have faith in the power of the book and those who are dedicated to placing them in the hands of readers.

But also, partly because while I was in Victoria, B.C. a couple of weeks ago, I stopped by two large independents in the area to sign books -- Munro's and Bolin's. Both are thriving! They're large, filled with books, and in the case of Bolin's, a wide variety of complimentary items -- and best of all, filled with shoppers. I was told last night that sales figures for the area are among the highest in the country.

What makes it work there? I don't have an answer except, I'm sure it's a combination of those ingredients I mentioned. Along with readers who want traditional books.

The good news closer to home is the last minute reprieve for Books on Beechwood in Ottawa's New Edinburgh community. It was announced this week that someone (some three actually) have purchased the store and it will not be closing, as planned, in January. Yay!!! What great news for the readers and writers in Ottawa.

The next announcement was that After Stonewall, the gay and lesbian bookstore in Ottawa, also scheduled to close, has also been bought and will re-open in the new year with a new vision, which will include an art gallery.

This is a wonderful high to start the holiday season with and it re-inforces my belief that paper books are here to stay! Let's all do what we can to support them and make it a truly wonderful and positive year of the book!

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase

READ AND BURIED
Berkley Prime Crime, now available
A KILLER READ, also available at your favourite bookstores and online.

WICKED WEDNESDAYS

A special thanks to readers!

Writing is a partnership between writer and reader. Each brings their past along for the ride. I had a touching experience this weekend that reminded me once again that good things happen when we pay due respect and attention to each other.

I received an email from a reader who is a lover of mysteries and had been enjoying one of my books until he reached a graphic, heart-wrenching murder scene involving children. At this point he threw the book in the garbage and in the email chastised me for the gratuitous, sensationalist, and largely irrelevant scene.

Writers love to receive emails from readers, and although most of them are laudatory, even the critical ones can be very helpful in honing our craft. When we write, we know what we are intending to say, but it is readers who tell us what we actually said. When I receive a critical email I generally thank the reader for their observation but don’t attempt to explain “but what I really meant was…” Words have to stand on their own, and if a reader misses the author’s intent, it is the author’s fault for not communicating it effectively. This is a difficult and humbling but crucial lesson for authors to learn.

In this case, however, I decided to try to explain. Perhaps it was the image of that particular book in the garbage, perhaps it was the obvious distress of the reader. Perhaps it was the fact that 20 children had just been massacred two days before. Or perhaps it was that the reader’s accusation cut too close to the bone for me as a child psychologist.

So I wrote back about the difficulty I had in writing the scene, which was actually based on true events that had haunted me as a psychologist for years. I wrote about its purpose in explaining my detective’s character and his relationship to another major character and also its connection to the overall theme of PTSD in the book.

This prompted him to write about his own experiences and to examine why he had reacted as he did to the scene. I do think it was the worst possible weekend to read that scene, but that too is context that an author can’t control. After an exchange of emails, he took the book out of the garbage and plans to finish it. I don’t know whether he will enjoy it (if enjoy is the right word for a gritty, gut-wrenching book) but I felt much better. The gap between our perceptions had been bridged, we both understood a little better what we had both brought to that scene and how it influenced its meaning for us.

Writing mysteries has its risks. We write about strong emotions and events – rage, terror, despair, human brutality – which can touch readers in powerful, unexpected ways as they relate it to their own experience. I don’t want to shy away from this, because it is why I write. Not simply to entertain but to share an emotional journey. But it’s humbling to be reminded that once my words are out there, the journey the reader takes with them is his alone.

Most of the time, we never know how our words are taken. For this opportunity, and for his willingness to share, I would like to thank this reader, and all the readers who take the time to write us authors with their thoughts. You are our mirrors, you tell us what we have said, and without you we are just tossing meaningless words into the wind.

Merry Christmas, Happy Whatever, and may the new year bring peace, joy and all good things.

Barbara Fradkin is a child psychologist with a fascination for how we turn bad. In addition to her darkly haunting short stories in the Ladies Killing Circle anthologies, she writes the gritty, Ottawa-based Inspector Green novels which have won back to back Arthur Ellis Awards for Best Novel from Crime Writers of Canada. The eighth in the series, Beautiful Lie the Dead, explores love in all its complications. The ninth, The Whisper of Legends is due in April. And, her Rapid Read from Orca, The Fall Guy, was launched last year.

WICKED WEDNESDAYS

Armchair Traveller

Is there anything more spectacular than the Nahanni River in Canada’s Northwest Territories? A world Heritage site and a National Park Reserve, it has some of the most incredible natural diversity and scenery in the entire world. Miles and miles of wilderness with canyons, whitewater, waterfalls, hot springs, lazy, meandering flat water, and ragged glacial mountains. It is home to caribou, grizzlies, swans, eagles, mountain goats and sheep. Brilliant pink wild flowers cling to its gravel shores, while alpine meadows and jagged spruce forests rise up the slopes around it.

Why am I going on like this? Because this is the setting for my next Inspector Green novel. Yes, that’s Ottawa Police Inspector Michael Green, the inner city boy who loves crumbling asphalt and diesel fumes, and who struggles to learn the suburban “dad” skills of mowing the lawn and firing up the barbeque. Inspector Green is going on the Nahanni.

Only one thing could possibly pry him loose from his safe urban world and send him up into one of the last true wildernesses on earth. One of his children has disappeared. His spirited, independent daughter Hannah has gone on a wilderness canoe trip down the Nahanni with a group of friends, and they have failed to show up at their take-out point.

Canoeing the Nahanni has always been a dream of mine, but with the tight timeline of this book and with this summer (not to mention this year’s budget) already spoken for, I will have to content myself with researching from afar. Luckily I have been on a wilderness rafting trip in the Yukon, a very different river and a raft instead of a canoe, but at least I have scanned the distant slopes in search of mountain sheep and watched a grizzly prowl along the gravel shoreline in search of food. I have seen the wild flowers and heard the rush of river current. Along with my research, those memories will have to do.

Does it work? We'll all find out when the new Inspector Green novel, The Whisper of Legends, is released in April, 2013.

Barbara Fradkin is a child psychologist with a fascination for how we turn bad. In addition to her darkly haunting short stories in the Ladies Killing Circle anthologies, she writes the gritty, Ottawa-based Inspector Green novels which have won back to back Arthur Ellis Awards for Best Novel from Crime Writers of Canada. The eighth in the series, Beautiful Lie the Dead, explores love in all its complications. The ninth, The Whisper of Legends is due in April. And, her Rapid Read from Orca, The Fall Guy, was launched last year.