I’ve always been interested in the public’s fascination with unsolved mysteries. In how people become invested in events that happened decades or even thousands of years before they were born. I’m curious about why some mysteries endure while others simply fade away in the sands of time.

Cable television and streaming services like YouTube have fueled our appetite for the truth - or at least some version of it. They’ve sparked our interest in events we may not have known occurred until we saw a clip about it.

There seems to be a niche for everyone. Did aliens build the pyramids of Egypt? Did they later crash in Roswell in the 1940s? Is Bigfoot real? Did Amelia Earhart survive? What happened to Atlantis? How did the Roman Empire fall?

The Kennedy Assassination certainly qualifies as such a mystery. Its lasting appeal is easy to understand. The Kennedy Era was Camelot. JFK was America’s King Arthur. He was the dashing young president with the fashionable first lady and their two adorable young children. He was the first president of the television age and he used that medium to maximum effect. He used it to further his ambitious political agenda.

In the sixty years following his death, generations of researchers and conspiracy theorists have plumbed the depths of that which took place in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Books, documentaries, articles and movies have examined every aspect of President Kennedy’s murder. Did Oswald act alone? Was it a conspiracy? How many shots were fired in Dealey Plaza? Was there an official cover-up? There’s even a recent documentary that said the assassination was a hoax concocted by the president to run off with a mistress. I’m still shaking my head over that one.

I’ve always considered myself a skeptic when it comes to conspiracy theories. I was a government employee for twenty-five years. I know the myth of the hyper-efficient government is more worthy of ancient Greece than modern day. If a government agency had played a role in the assassination, it would have required hundreds of people to maintain their silence for the rest of their lives. It simply isn’t a feasible hypothesis.

But even a skeptic like me must admit that the facts as reported to us simply don’t add up. Even a cursory review of the evidence reveals inconsistencies and oversights in the official findings of The Warren Commission. Important questions went unanswered. Relationships with individuals close to Oswald were glossed over. Evidence and conflicting testimony were simply ignored.

Incongruities are fertile ground for thriller writers like me. They lead to intrigue and conspiracy. Suspense lives in the gray areas of such events. That’s what compelled me to write about it. To relate facts I had uncovered in my own way that would appeal to readers.
Writing about an important historical event can be daunting. The challenge of the Kennedy story is that everyone knows how it ends. Somebody planned to shoot the president and succeeded. The end. What more can be said?

But knowing the destination doesn’t make the journey any less interesting. My research led me down several paths I did not expect to find. I discovered events and relationships that proved to me that we didn’t know the whole story. It is there where my idea was born.
My ‘Dallas ’63’ trilogy doesn’t pretend to be a true crime work. The first book in the series – THE TWILIGHT TOWN - is a hardboiled novel that depicts fictional and historical figures in a factual context. It’s about Dallas in the early 1960s, a place where the criminal underworld mingled with the public overworld. Where corruption was almost respectable and part of the Dallas way at that time.

The book begins in early 1963 where Dallas PD Detective Dan Wilson is secretly working with the FBI to investigate corruption in his own department. When an informant – Lee Oswald – tells Wilson about Jack Ruby’s upcoming arms shipment, Wilson asks his ex-partner, J.D. Tippit to help him track where the weapons are going and why.

Over the course of the next several months, Wilson and Tippit find themselves being gradually pulled deeper into a conspiracy that will change the course of a nation forever.
My goal with this trilogy isn’t meant to inform or entertain, but to hopefully do both. My research has taken me on a wonderful and unexpected journey that I hope the reader will enjoy.

Terrence McCauley is an award-winning, bestselling author of thrillers, crime fiction and westerns. A resident of Dutchess County, NY, he is currently working on his next novel. Please visit his website at www.terrencemccauley.com

By Andrea J. Johnson

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” or as one would write in steno, SKWRA*EUPBLG. What’s steno you ask? My novel’s main character, Victoria Justice, would say it’s the curious little language that has almost gotten her killed and earned her a front row seat to her town’s most heinous crimes. In actuality, steno—also known as shorthand stenography—is an abbreviated symbolic writing method done on a stenotype, which is a machine that increases the speed and brevity of writing compared to a standard computer keyboard. Thus, the goal of a person who uses stenography is to write as fast as someone can speak. But for me, steno is the inspiration for Poetic Justice, the first book in the Victoria Justice Mysteries, which launches its second and third installments in Spring 2025 and Spring 2026, respectively.

The character of Victoria Justice has lived in my brain since 2006—although back then I didn’t know what to do with her. She was inspired by the call for “original action stars” to compete in the reality TV series Who Wants to Be a Superhero? presented by Stan Lee. The premise of the show was for contestants to create characters who could become comic book heroes. In my mind, what better hero could there be than a court stenographer who seeks to undo bad verdicts through vigilante justice? But at that time, I hadn’t discovered my literary passion, so I couldn’t take advantage of the epiphany.

Cut to almost two decades later. By then, I’d left my full-time job as a courtroom stenographer to pursue writing and had started the search for a new novel idea. Luckily, I found my old notes on Victoria, tweaked her persona to read as more human than hero, and matched her up with highly fictionalized snippets of real-life court cases. And, voila, the Victoria Justice Mysteries were born.

Now, if you’re wondering about the tone of these books, they are a cross between traditional cozies and light legal thrillers (think Murder, She Wrote meets The Pelican Brief). Victoria Justice, is the story’s moral compass, so I devised a name that would leave no doubt about her ethics. She will always do what is right, and she will always prevail against evil. Sure, the moniker is a little on the nose as are most of the names in the series. However, I think that’s the best way to help readers quickly acclimate to the setting and identify the conflict. Of course, there’s also some backstory to the name. In the sixth chapter of Book 1, Victoria reveals that she’s adopted and that her birth mother was a teen hooked on drugs. Doctors had expected her to die from a neonatal opioid addiction, but she survived and her adopted mother named her Victoria in honor of her victory over death.

Even though the books are fictional, just about everything I experienced as a court stenographer has been crammed into this series—from brawls in the courtroom to missing evidence to bomb threats to gun-toting attorneys. And yet, the thing that’s had the most influence on Victoria’s characterization is the outward perception of the profession by those unfamiliar with what stenographers do. She’s often ridiculed for being the one person in the courtroom whose job it is to be seen, not heard. People ignore her, call her an overpaid notetaker, and assume she’s not very smart. I played into that a bit with the physicality as well by making her short and meek, but inside she has the ferocity of a panther and tons of snark. And while the thrust of the series is about solving murders, an equally large portion of it is about Victoria finding her voice and learning to stand up for herself. In a way, she becomes the town’s last bastion for morality by using the profession’s tenants of accuracy, honesty, and neutrality in the face of the law to claim her space in the world. She also finds love while maintaining her independence, which I think is a valuable lesson for young people today.

But because I’ve used several personal experiences to craft these books, all of my friends assume that Victoria Justice is my alter ego. After all, she’s a Black female like me, and I spent nearly ten years as a shorthand stenographer. However, that’s really where the similarities end between me and Victoria. If anything, we are polar opposites. Victoria loves her job and, despite the early childhood hardships of adoption and bullying, she is optimistic about working in the court system since that’s all she wants out of life. I, however, wasn’t a cheerful or disciplined court reporter because I knew my destiny lied elsewhere. I am much happier as a writer, but I love that the time I spent in the steno world has been memorialized in this series. Other than that, any crossover audiences think they see between Victoria and me is merely coincidental.

***
 
Andrea J. Johnson is a speaker, editor, book coach, and author of the Victoria Justice Mysteries. She also teaches creative writing at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and her craft essays have appeared in several publications such as CrimeReads, Mystery Scene, and The Romance Writers Report. In addition, she has contributed commentary on popular fiction, films, and television as a freelancer writer for the entertainment websites Popsugar and The List. More notably, she’s authored a series of nonfiction books that include How to Craft a Killer Cozy Mystery, Mastering the Art of Suspense, and How to Craft Killer Dialogue. She has also given writing seminars on these topics through the Mystery Writers of America, Malice Domestic, Sisters in Crime, the International Thriller Writers Association, Women’s Fiction Association, and the Surrey International Writers’ Conference (Canada). When Andrea isn’t writing, teaching, or coaching, she loves dissecting reality television. Join her for those online conversations by visiting ajthenovelist.com or following her on Twitter (X), Pinterest, BlueSky, and Instagram @ajthenovelist.
 

Being an author is no longer about simply writing a book. That is the job of the writer. But an author has at least six different hats that they must wear. I have been publishing three books a year for the last five years and have been wearing all six of these hats throughout the course of a normal day. On six different books.
 
The first step in the evolution of a book is coming up with an idea. Inspiration for my books have come in a variety of methods. Many of my ideas for books have come from the daily news. Current affairs and my love of Robin Hood are the combination of ideas that have spawned my release this month of The Not So Merry Adventures of Max Creed, in which a modern-day Robin Hood and his not so merry band fight for justice for those wronged by the ultra-wealthy. But I have also gotten ideas from college professors (I am Cuba), in a bar (Mainely Power), and because of proximity to my daughter (Velma Gone Awry).
 
The second step in the evolution of a book is research. One of my early books saw me scrounging around in the tombs of the Bowdoin College archives (At Every Hazard). Hands on research is the most fun, though, and following the revolutionary war trail of Fidel Castro across Cuba and digging into the history of New Orleans (Love in a Time of Hate) ranks up there as two of the best. For my Brooklyn 8 Ballo series, I have taken to reading the 1923 and 1924 Brooklyn Eagle online at a site called Newspapers.com. The articles can be dry, but the social commentary and advertisements are fantastic.
 
The third step in the evolution of a book, writing, is the meat of the meal. As writers, we often get asked, what is the secret? No secret, folks. Sit down and write. It is like anything else, the more you write, the better you get. I don’t like to take breaks, so I write seven days a week, probably 350 days a year. I’ve found that if I were to take a weekend off, or even a day, or heaven forbid, longer, that I lose my rhythm. The way it works for me is that I write in the morning and spend the rest of the day planning what I will write the next day. No magic bean here. Sit your ass down and work at the craft and hopefully you gather up enough beans to grind up and make a cup of coffee the next day and do it all over again.
 
The fourth step in the evolution of a book is editing. My books have been known to go through nine edits. The first three edits are me getting the manuscript ready for the housecleaner, a.k.a., my paid for editor. He has worked with me on sixteen of my books and we have developed a wonderful rapport. He does three more edits. The first is my favorite, the developmental or global edits. Here, he makes suggestions on how to build scenes, characters, as well as cut and delete other pieces. I usually read these suggestions while going through the three stages of anger, denial, and acceptance. First, I curse him, second, I move to less rage and more that he is just plain wrong this time, and finally acceptance and make the change. My wife, who can find fault with me where nobody else can, then does a spit shine edit before sending it off to the publisher for two more edits.
 
The fifth step in the evolution of a book is marketing. This is when the author does the work once held by the publisher. No more. Which is fine by me, as I enjoy this business aspect of the career of being an author. My marketing involves two distinctive branches, the first being reaching out to reviewers, podcasters, bloggers, and other media avenues to promote my work. With each book, I tend to send out over a hundred queries for review. Over time, I have established about fifteen regulars and am always looking to grow that number. The second branch of my marketing involves reaching out to venues for onsite promotion. These involve libraries, bookstores, rotary clubs, retirement communities, book clubs, and pretty much anybody who will have me. I strive to query 200 of these such venues for each book.
 
The sixth and final step in the evolution of a book is promoting. These involve blogs and podcasts that have been set up in the marketing phase but are more focused on live venues. Last year, I did fifty-one book engagements. The bulk of these (thirty-seven), were COST TALKS at libraries where I talked about my books and writing to an audience. I love this, especially when there is an interactive and lively crowd of patrons.  Even if the turnout is low, I still believe this is beneficial to the process, as the library has spent a month promoting me and my books. Bookstore signings and talks at other organizations can be an equal amount of fun and help expand the base of my readership.
 
Those are the six different hats I wear every day for the evolution of a book, or books. I write first thing in the morning every morning. Without writing, none of the rest matters. Ideas are always floating around. Just this morning I saw a post about the Lumbee Indians who disrupted and dispersed a Klan rally in North Carolina in 1958. Boom. Idea. The day’s research usually holds a combination of a book not yet started, a book being written, and a book being edited. Marketing involves reaching out to the old faithful reviewers, podcasters, venue contacts, and whatnot, but also the grind of countless cold query letters looking for new blood.
 
I do love the final step of promotion. This is where I get to talk to an interviewer, fellow panelists, or an audience of interested readers. If you are interested in an interview, want me to come speak, or have more specific questions concerning the six hats worn by an author during the evolution of a book, please contact me at [email protected].
 
Matt Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym, before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014 he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries.
 
Cost has published six books in the Mainely Mystery series, starting with Mainely Power. He has also published five books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, starting with Wolfe Trap. And finally, there are two books in the Brooklyn 8 Ballo series, starting with Velma Gone Awry. For historical novels, Cost has published At Every Hazard and its sequel, Love in a Time of Hate, as well as I am Cuba. The Not So Merry Adventures of Max Creed is his 17th published book.