On January 14th, LBB released my sixth novel, a domestic thriller titled Deadly When Disturbed by D.M. Barr, which is a modern take on Single White Female. In the Spring, they will release my eleventh book overall, the first of my multi-volume nonfiction series called Vacations Can Be Murder: A True Crime Lover’s Travel Guide to New England, which I wrote under my actual name, Dawn M. Barclay. (The Mid-Atlantic volume, featuring NY, NJ, and PA, comes out in September.) Since you are Level Best fans, invested enough to read our blog, I thought it might be fun to give you a bit of backstory and insight into these books, the inside scoop, as it were.

Deadly When Disturbed

I got the idea for the book, and specifically for the character Merry from the dissolution of a long-term friendship that went sour in 2016, just around the time my first book came out. A former actor, this person loved being the center of attention, but that’s where the similarity ends. She was not a tacky dresser, nor did she have any criminal or murderous tendencies. This was definitely a case of applying “What if...?”

I softened the Merry character by giving her a pet cause, fundraising to release captive dolphins back into the wild. A while back, I saw a documentary about a dolphin kept in a pool at a hotel for the amusement of its patrons. The creature was all alone in the water, with no stimulation, and only one plastic toy to play with. It broke my heart then, as it does every time I remember that poor, lonely mammal. I saw similarities between the dolphin and Merry’s back story, so it seemed like a good fit.

The shards of glass on the cover have a special meaning, because not only do they reflect two different people who resemble each other, but the book is also about the false faces we show both to others and to ourselves. (I can hear the lyrics to Billy Joel’s The Stranger playing in my head right now.). The shards are also meaningful because the book is about people who wreck homes, but also homes that wreck people (Dara’s architect husband’s hands were sliced to pieces by an imploding glass door at a job site.)

The novel’s autism theme came from my research for another book I wrote called Traveling Different: Vacation Strategies for Parents of the Anxious, the Inflexible, and the Neurodiverse (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). Having personal experience with individuals with autism, I had actually suggested the idea of ‘Birthday Parties for All’ to a local ARC chapter, but it never went anywhere. As I often do in my books, I take a legitimate, if unproven, business idea and fictionalize it. The wonderful thing about fiction is, all businesses can work if that’s my aim.

Deadly When Disturbed is the third of my novels to involve Rock Canyon Realty. (I’m a Realtor who works in Rockland County, NY.) The first, Expired Listings, involves a serial murderer who was killing off all the unethical real estate agents in town (meaning all of them) and no one cared. (The locals considered it a public service; the other agents saw it as less competition). What can I say, I love satire. In truth, 99% of agents are honest, hardworking people; it’s the 1% that end up in my books. The second, The Queen of Second Chances, features the stepdaughter of the local queen of mobile home sales, who reluctantly helps “Queen Bea” break into the elder market by infiltrating a senior center as a recreational aide. (I’d say this was purely satire but someone I work with—who I didn’t know at the time I drafted the book—specializes in selling mobile homes and volunteers for Meals on Wheels. He loved QOSC, by the way, and bought a second copy to send to his mom.)

But, despite the generally satiric nature of those previous books, the idea of Dara Banks using Ruben Bockelman’s kidney dialysis against him to secure a listing in Deadly When Disturbed was based on real life. I had a friend at my first real estate agency who confided she had breast cancer, then swore me to secrecy. She was sure that if other agents found out, she would lose potential listings, much as Ruben did. Sadly, that agent is gone now but we kept her secret secure at the time and her business never faltered because of her ailment.
 
Vacations Can Be Murder: A True Crime Lover’s Travel Guide

There’s not as much backstory with this one. I conceived of the idea in September of 2022 during the Bouchercon convention in Minneapolis. (Bouchercon is the world mystery conference; it’s named after mystery writer, reviewer, and editor, Anthony Boucher.)  One of the pre-conference activities was a true crime tour of Minneapolis and St. Paul and since I’d never taken a tour like that before, I signed up. Not only was it fascinating, but it also got me wondering if anyone had ever published a reference guide listing all the true crime tours around the world.

The idea of my book took off from there, because not only did such a book not exist, but there was also considerably more to include than just those tours. My Vacations Can Be Murder guides  detail the summaries of major crimes; a listing of where to read more; hotels and restaurants that were formerly jails, or courthouses, or are reportedly haunted; true crime and ghost tours’ museums and other crime and justice-related attractions; the local prisons, where the bodies are buried; and itineraries to see all the true crime sites, including the street names where the actual crimes took place.

There will likely be ten volumes, though that could grow. For example, my second book was supposed to cover six states—NY, NJ, PA, DE, MD, and DC—but because the first three had so much crime (especially New York!), I had to move DE, MD, and DC to a “Capital Regions” edition that will also include VA and WVA. So, I think it’s conceivable that Florida and Texas might end up with their own volumes, but I won’t know until I get there.
 
If you have questions about the thriller or the true crime series, or would like me to speak to your book club, please don’t hesitate to contact me at [email protected]. You can follow me at www.dmbarr.com and www.vacationscanbemurder.com, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky at authordmbarr. Happy reading!

Dawn Barclay/D.M. Barr is an award-winning author who writes psychological, domestic, and romantic suspense. Her published books include Expired Listings, Murder Worth the Weight, Saving Grace: A Psychological Thriller, The Queen of Second Chances, and Simple Tryst of Fate. Dawn recently finished her second stint co-editing a Sisters in Crime NY/Tri-state chapter anthology, New York State of Crime, which includes her third published short story, Orchestral Removals in the Dark. In December 2025, Down & Out Books will publish Better Off Dead, Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Elton John and Bernie Taupin, which she conceived and edited solo. A member of ITW and SinC-New England, she has served as president of Hudson Valley Scribes, vice president of Sisters in Crime-NY, and the newsletter author/board member of the NY chapter of Mystery Writers of America. 

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“When you die, I believe, God isn’t going to ask you what you published.  God’s going to ask you what you wrote.” (McNally, T.M. “Big Dogs and Little Dogs,” in Martone, Michael, and Susan Neville. 2006. Rules of thumb: 73 authors reveal their fiction writing fixations. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books).

There’s a certain wisdom to that remark, but, with all due respect to McNally and to God, the Almighty isn’t in my target demographic.  God, perhaps, will read my unpublished manuscripts, but the ladies in the Hungry Readers Book Club won’t read my books unless they’re published.

Now that The Other has been released, I find myself pondering two questions that readers often ask me.

Where do your story ideas come from?

Every book starts from an idea. Where do these story ideas come from? In the case of The Other, I found the story idea when I went down a rabbit hole. I trust you know what I mean. You start out searching for a certain bit of information. You have the best of intentions, but something grabs your attention, and you’re pulled just a little bit off course. Then there’s another grabber, and another, and before you know it, you’ve lost sight of your original question and instead you’ve spent the day reading about Camp Wille und Macht. At least, that’s what I did.

Camp Wille und Macht was the first Nazi youth camp in America, established in the summer of 1934 on the banks of  the Delaware-Raritan Canal. It only stayed open for a few weeks, but it became the prototype for camps in New York and New Jersey, as well as other sites scattered across the country.

I don’t write nonfiction. But I believe that fiction can reveal emotional truths in a way that a strictly factual account cannot. I set out to write a fictional account of a Nazi youth camp, on a fictional canal in a fictional New Jersey. And like most writers of fiction, I started with a simple What if?

What if the lock tender on the canal was Jewish? What would his  life be like if one hundred teenagers dressed in brown shirts erected tents in a field that abutted his home? What if those brown shirts spent their days marching along the towpath?
And then I asked myself, What if those brown shirts returned today? What would you do to protect your family if the Nazis came to town?

When does the book become real to you?

When I first get the idea for a book, the story exists in my head, only. I’ll carry that imaginary world around in my head for months, perhaps years. There are milestones along the way. A finished manuscript. A book contract. Final edits. A book cover. Advanced Reader Copies. The book release.

Then something remarkable happens. After the book is published, a stranger reads the book. Maybe you. And the story that was stuck in my head, gets stuck in your head too. That’s when the book becomes real to me. When the story that was stuck in my head, through the magic of reading, gets stuck in your head too.

The Other is a story of faith lost and faith found. Although the story is fictional, the problem of hate is all too real. And it is not ancient history.

If you read The Other, if the story gets stuck in your head, perhaps you’ll spare a moment to reach out and let me know. That’s the reality that makes a writer start thinking about the next great story.

Jeff Markowitz is the author of six mysteries, including the award-winning dark comedy, Death and White Diamonds. Jeff spent more than forty years creating community-based programs and services in New Jersey for children and adults with autism, including twenty-five years as President and Executive Director of the Life Skills Resource Center, before retiring in 2018 to devote more time to writing. In October 2021, a puzzle hunt based on Jeff’s novella, Motive for Murder raised more than $1 million for at-risk children in NYC. Jeff is a past President of the New York Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. He lives in Monmouth Junction NJ with his wife Carol and two cats, Vergil and Aeneas. 


 

I am a cozy mystery writer who decided one day to write what I call a historical cozy.  I enjoy reading historical fiction, but I would never consider myself a historian. But I loved the idea of using a historical event as the setting for a cozy mystery. That’s when Dot Morgan became my latest heroine. I placed her in the early sixties and gave her the not-so- glamorous job of secretary. This occupation was a splendid vehicle to put her in various work settings, but always in her small town in Texas. It also meant Dot would keep losing her job. To date, she’s lost three jobs, yet amazingly keeps getting hired.
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In the second book in my Swinging Sixties Series, If I Had a Hammer, I placed Dot and her cousin Ellie on the grassy knoll on November 22, 1963. Think about the writing hurdles here. Everyone knows this scene because they have seen it or read about it countless times, both in fiction and nonfiction. The assassination of John F. Kennedy is an event that some generations use as a “Where were you?” moment. Readers know the history of this day, so the thought of getting it wrong is not something I wanted to do.

The writing challenge was intimidating since my cozy characters pretty well plotted their lives around bake sales and beauty shop gossip. A presidential assassination brought a very non-cozy element into my story. I took a cue from historical writers and immersed myself in research. I studied black-and-white photos of the people who stood along the parade route on November 22 and then wrote my two characters in the middle of them. They were elbow to elbow with people in headscarves and boxy black glasses.  As the motorcade approached, I focused on my two young women.

What would they be thinking before the assassination?

They would look at Jackie Kennedy. My mother was obsessed with all things Jackie. She bought clothes in Jackie style and even mimicked her hairstyles. Yes, these characters would look at the first lady’s outfit and feel the way I remember my mother feeling. They would have great respect for a woman they had never met. They would refer to the president and his wife as Jackie and John, as if they knew them personally.

When the shooting started in my story, I zeroed in on Dot who was winding the wheel of an Instamatic camera. My reason for doing this, instead of her witnessing the entire horrific scene as her cousin did, was to keep Dot’s viewpoint at a safe, cozy distance. Ellie, the cousin, sees the whole thing and goes through PTSD after this scene. Dot, who I’ll need to solve a murder in her small town, remains a bit more removed. She never looks up, but only through the eyehole of the lens, and then to the wheel on the back of the camera to forward the film roll.

Cozy mysteries are about a sense of safety in the middle of a murder investigation. Miss Marple was rarely in danger, and if she were, she carried knitting needles. In writing a cozy historical mystery, I put my characters in a little more danger than Agatha Christie did, but they are still cozy with their three-network television, wind-up watches, and Instamatic cameras. I typically borrow more from Mayberry than the realities of that Dallas parade route in 1963.

After this book, I put Dot to work in a radio station in Listen, Do You Want to Hear a Secret? and in 2025 she’s working in a funeral home in the upcoming release, I Can’t Get No Satisfaction. It was the only job she could get because people kept dying in her other jobs.

Dot Morgan tackles the sexism and racism of the sixties, along with overcoming her own stereotype of being a young, attractive, blond secretary (she must be simple-minded because she’s blond). I love including the history of this period because it gives my cozy mystery another layer of story. But don’t worry, even historical cozies will have plenty of bake sales and beauty parlor gossip.
 
 
Teresa Trent writes the Swinging Sixties Cozy Mystery Series as well as several other cozy mystery series from her home in Houston Texas. She is also the voice of Books to the Ceiling, a podcast that features narrated excerpts from new mysteries coming onto the market.  You can find her online at teresatrent.com and teresatrent.blog.

I got hooked on reading mysteries early. My dad was a sea captain on a cargo ship and his ports of call were along the eastern seaboard of the United States. I’d give him a list of books I wanted, and he’d scour the bookstores for me. He’d come home with Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, and Hardy Boys books. The characters were kids a little older than me, and the mystery was something that had to do with family or friends.
 
Soon enough, I moved on to Agatha Christie, followed by Carolyn Hart and Sue Grafton. Those were books that made me stop and say, “I want to do this one day”.
 
Why did I read mysteries so much?
 
There was a puzzle to be solved. Often, there was a murder. And figuring out who did it kept me turning the pages. I loved, absolutely loved, figuring out who did it. But more than that, I needed to know why.
 
The main characters were always someone who tried to do their best and come up with answers. They weren’t always police officers, sometimes they were just regular people. Women were smart, resourceful, and courageous. They solved crimes differently than men did. And they didn’t wait around to be rescued by some guy. They did it themselves.
 
The mysteries I read took me to different places around the world, far from my small village along St. Mary’s Bay. The details provided by the authors painted the settings well.

Mysteries provided me with an escape, one page at a time. Justice was served. The bad guy/girl got caught and sent away. 
 
In my first book for Level Best Books, Death at the Scottish Broch, I’ve worked to include the pieces of mysteries that I’ve enjoyed as a reader.
 
My main character, Dr. Mia Reid, is an archaeologist. She’s smart and resourceful. And not afraid to stand up for herself, her students, or for Ethan, the victim in this book. Ethan isn’t only Mia’s colleague; he’s a good friend. And his death rocks Mia to her core.

Mia digs deep to learn who killed Ethan and why they did. She also defends him against charges of artifact smuggling. She’s determined to clear his name and solve his murder.

The supporting cast of characters helps the story unfold. Mia can lean on them for feedback and a different perspective. They include locals from the Isle of Skye; the students working with Mia on the dig; Mia’s Gran back in Lakeview City; and Mia’s former lover, Luke Forbes, who’s now working for Interpol. Each of them contributes to the narrative in their own way.
 
The location for Death at the Scottish Broch is the Isle of Skye, in Scotland. It’s a magical place. Brooding mountains, green valleys, waterfalls, lochs, and the people. And it’s a little remote. You take a ferry or cross a bridge to get there. The area where I’ve set the dig is rugged, windy, and isolated. A perfect setting for a mystery.
 
 
So, yes. Mysteries matter. They can entertain, educate, and provide the reader with an escape from everyday life.  
 
If my books provide a reader with a few hours of entertainment and escape from the real world, I’m happy.
 
Thanks for reading!
 

Rose Kerr writes mysteries featuring strong, smart, women protagonists who must draw on their wits and resourcefulness to solve the crime.

Rose was born in a small community in Nova Scotia and has traveled across Canada.

Her working career included employment in figure skating, non-profit organizations, and in distance education.

More recently, Rose and her husband have moved to Southern Ontario. When she isn’t writing, Rose and her husband enjoy exploring the new region.