Where do memories go when we, to quote Hamlet, “shuffle off this mortal coil”? I’ve been fascinated by this question for as long as I can remember. One way to preserve the past is to write a memoir while you’re still alive, but most of us lack the time or inclination to do so. Coming from a family of storytellers, my ancestral recollections have been passed down verbally from one generation to the next. Expanding on that tradition, I thought it would be fun to honor some of my stories by incorporating them into a mystery novel.
 
A Dark September Night is the first book in a new series set for release on August 12, 2025. It features Emmaline McCoy, named after my great-grandmother. Emma is the marketing director for a cruise company based in Los Angeles. I also worked for a major cruise company in the past. The story begins when a hit-and-run driver kills Emma’s beloved aunt Lydie, who is named after my grandmother Lydia. Emma travels to Justice Bay, a remote coastal town in Northern California, to settle her aunt’s estate. Don’t look for Justice Bay on a map; you won’t find it. The essence of the town is rooted in my memories of one of my favorite places—Camden, Maine.
 
In preparation for putting her aunt’s house on the market, Emma opens a pop-up store in town to sell the curios, antiques, and souvenirs her aunt collected during her travels around the world. She names the shop after Lydie’s Siberian Forest cat, who bears an uncanny resemblance to my cats, Princess Scootie and Riley. The cat’s official name is Cassandra, but everyone calls her Boo because she’s mysterious, some say scary.
 
As part of Cassandra’s Collectibles’ marketing strategy, Emma writes story cards that explain how and where each item was acquired. She has heard many of these tales from her aunt, but if not, she invents them. One example is the backstory of a weathered wooden decoy she found in her aunt’s house:
 
A merchant found the duck battered and bruised in the Marrakesh souk beside a pile of Berber carpets. There were rumors, but no one could confirm how he got from a Minnesota slough to a vendor’s stall in a Moroccan back alley. If you look deep into his glassy yellow eyes, perhaps he’ll reveal his secrets. But proceed with caution. Outside the well-lit tourist areas of this medieval red city where spies and wanderers dwell, they only whisper his name—Decoy.
 
All items for sale in Cassandra’s Collectibles are located in my home in Los Angeles. Most were either part of my “inheritance” or collected during my travels around the world, including the brown gourd mate cup with the metal straw from a trip to Argentina and the yellow and orange Tahitian pareo I wore to dance the Tamouré on the French Polynesian island of Moorea. The decoy has been passed down through my husband’s family in Minnesota for at least three generations.
 
As I mentioned earlier, while all the items for sale in Emma’s shop exist, not all the stories on her cards are true. I’ll let the reader decide which ones are accurate and which are figments of my imagination. After all, what’s the fun in revealing everything?

Patricia Smiley is the author of eight mystery novels. Her short fiction appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Two of the Deadliest, an anthology edited by Elizabeth George. Patty taught writing at various writers’ conferences in the U.S. and Canada. She is the former vice president of the Southern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America and served as president of Sisters in Crime Los Angeles. 
Smiley earned a BA from the University of Washington in Seattle and an MBA from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. She lives in Los Angeles with her two loyal and opinionated Siberian Forest cats, and a backyard after-hours feeding station for possums, raccoons, marauding felines, and other critters in search of a snack and a cool sip of water. Despite the distractions, work continues on her next Justice Bay novel.

There are books that stay with you long after you read them. Books that immerse the reader directly into the plot, allowing them to experience the emotions of the main character as they navigate their way through the fictional world created by the author.
Is it the characters, setting, plot, or something more elusive that makes certain books so memorable?

Take one of my favorite classics, Wuthering Heights. Why is it so unforgettable decades after I read it? Wuthering Heights brings to mind the moors, the manor, unrequited love, tragedy, and revenge. But more than that, there is an eerie feel to it that leaves me haunted. It’s the haunting that stays with me. What specifically caused that response?
Perhaps the atmosphere?

How does an author achieve a particular ambiance? For me as both a reader and writer, the setting and the natural environment, along with the main character’s response to it, is integral to the atmosphere of a novel. Deliberate description of the setting, imagery connecting it to the theme of the novel, and the character’s inner thoughts as their surroundings impact them, along with dialogue, creates that atmosphere.

The interaction between characters and the time and space they inhabit brings the setting to life, as though it were a character in its own right. In Wuthering Heights, the desolate moors reflect Heathcliff’s gloomy disposition, and the societal expectations of the times result in a tragic outcome. The moors and this historical slice of society form a character as much as do Cathy and Heathcliff. Without this character we call ‘setting’, the book simply wouldn’t be as remarkable. Emily Bronte was very familiar with both the moors and Victorian society. It was her life. An author’s, and subsequently, the character’s immersion in a particular time and place elevates the plot off the page and into the life of the reader.

Like Emily Bronte, I set my characters into a location I know. Somewhere I’ve lived, a place I’ve visited and loved, a spot similar to one I know, a locale I have researched. The characters themselves are true to the setting, a blend of people I have known, met, or know of. And then there’s the fictionalization of it all where my writer’s imagination takes over from the reality.

In my latest mystery novel, Cold Query, the setting evokes an atmosphere of serenity. Port Ripley is a safe community—a small town set on the shores of Blue Water Lake with beautiful sunsets over the water. The residents are friendly, nodding and waving to passersby. People generally know each other. It’s so different from the bustling cities that are situated more than an hour away. Even the busy summer season attracts families looking for a peaceful day at the beach or unique shops in the downtown core. It’s a place I know well, inspired by a real lakeside town.

But that cozy feeling is threatened when a series of unexplained deaths occur, one on the heels of the other. A sense of unease builds into fear as police caution residents to be wary. When it becomes evident that there’s a serial killer in town, no one wants to believe it could be one of the locals. Because things like this simply don’t happen in the charming town of Port Ripley.

Ivy Rose, who moved to Port Ripley eleven years ago, lives an idyllic life, having escaped a traumatic past that still haunts her. As a respected highschool teacher and emergent writer, she is well-known in the community. The dangers that once pursued her are a distant memory replaced by pleasant thoughts of times spent on the beach, splashing in the water with her kids and soaking up the sun. Walks on the boardwalk and views of the gorgeous sunsets define her life. Calm, peaceful, like the lapping waves of Blue Water Lake. Familiar, safe, like the neighbors and townspeople she encounters on a regular basis.

Explicit description of a setting is crucial to a novel, and yet shouldn’t bog down the plot. And so, the reader sees the lake and town through the eyes of the characters. Their surroundings come to life through their inner thoughts, dialogue with other characters, and the effect of their surroundings on their lives set the scene in the reader’s mind. Ivy’s daily walks on the boardwalk, her weekly book club meetings, her school community, and the writing community in Blue Water Lake form the setting. So does her former friend, Detective Scott Evan’s view of the town and lake as he gets to know the business area, the lakeside, and the townspeople.

Character and setting become intertwined as Ivy’s safe haven transitions to a threatening environment where a murderer may be just down the street. Her past mixes with the present as Ivy realizes that no matter where she lives, danger follows. No matter how beautiful the setting, in Ivy’s world, it takes on a menacing stance. Unlike Wuthering Heights, there is no gothic-like mansion or eerie wind on the moors to define the atmosphere. Cold Query creates a feeling of fear by placing an unexpected danger—a serial killer—in the most beautiful and welcoming of backdrops. And as the threats escalate, the once calm and caressing waves become deep and dangerous undertows. Imagery plays a crucial role in the setting. As with the natural environment, the nature of people can be two-sided. A darkness lies beneath the surface.

Setting greatly impacts the story, leaving behind an aura long after the book is closed. The paradisiacal setting of Cold Query forms a contrast to the community’s terror with a serial killer at large. A fuzzy warm feeling mixes with the revelation that appearances can be deceiving, creating an atmosphere which may leave the reader wondering whether any place or any one can be a safe haven. Welcome to Blue Water. Take the plunge. And immerse yourself in the small-town atmosphere with the autumn chill of the lake that will seep into your bones and stay there.

Ivanka Fear is a Slovenian-born Canadian author. She lives in Ontario with her family and feline companions. Ivanka earned her B.A. and B.Ed. in English and French at Western University. After retiring from teaching, she wrote poetry and short stories for various literary journals. Ivanka is the author of the Blue Water Mystery series and the Jake and Mallory Thriller series. She is a member of International Thriller Writers, Sisters in Crime, Crime Writers of Canada, and Vocamus Writers Community. When not reading and writing, Ivanka enjoys watching mystery series and romance movies, gardening, going for walks, and watching the waves roll in at the lake.

I find the trappings of the Golden Age of crime fiction irresistible: a gifted amateur sleuth, the closed circle of suspects, the isolated country house, the 1930s setting. There is something about those books by Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Anthony Berkley, and their contemporaries that resonates with me. It is all to do with the puzzle element, I suppose, the game between reader and author to solve the case before the solution is given, but I think it also has something to do with the restoration of order. The Golden Age (and those modern practitioners of it) was careful to make sure that the guilty were punished and the innocent saved, and after the upheaval and chaos of murder, the world was put back to normal. There was – and is – something very comforting about that.

But is it all a little too cosy?

Several years ago, after decades of having short stories published and radio plays performed, I decided it was time that I wrote a novel and, not surprisingly, my mind drifted towards an homage to the Golden Age detective novel. I didn’t want to write a pastiche nor did I want to send up the genre.  That is too easy to do.  But nor did I want it to be a cosy novel. Don’t get me wrong: I have no issue with cosy mysteries. They are very popular and they have a wide audience. But I didn’t want to write a novel where the crime centred around a dog, a cat, or a canary; nor did I want to write a murder mystery that was just as concerned with baking, painting, or pottery making as it was about violent death.

Instead, I wanted to write a serious novel set within the confines of a detective story.  P.D. James had done it so well – her novels were, in effect, Golden Age stories, but they were populated by believable people, whose lives were affected by the murder concerned.  I became fascinated with the idea of writing a traditional whodunit with realistic undercurrents, where the suspects would be relatable people, with feelings and emotions a reader could recognize.  Their motives and secrets, uncovered during the investigation, would be serious human conundrums and problems, not simply the embezzlement of church funds.  They would touch the darker recesses of the human soul.

All this pondering resulted in the first book in my Everett Carr mystery series, A Talent for Murder. That first novel was typically Golden Age: a closed community of characters, isolated in an English country mansion, and a locked room mystery to boot. A locked room mystery is an artificial construct, but it must make sense in its own terms. A criticism of John Dickson Carr, the doyen of that particular type of detective story, is that his solutions are sometimes so contrived and unwieldy that they can be unsatisfactory.  I wanted my locked room to be believable despite its artificiality.  By blending this fictional construct with the realism of believable characters and motives, I hope that the Everett Carr mysteries give a contemporary twist on traditional Golden Age tropes.
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It seemed appropriate to honour Dickson Carr, so I named my amateur sleuth after him.  Everett Carr is a former High Court judge, who retires when his wife is murdered in a failed assassination attempt on Carr himself.  A stray bullet is lodged in his knee, leaving him lame and serving as a physical reminder that his wife died in his place.  Carr’s pain is both physical and mental. But a character cannot remain stagnant – they must progress and develop. Each book, I hope, tells something new about Carr and his world, not least in his psychological trauma. Although his physical wound remains constant, the books show Carr’s mental trauma over the death of his wife begins to deepen, as he comes to realise that he is manifesting the symptoms of what would later become known as Survivor’s Guilt. How he manages with this consequence of his personal tragedy is a developing and progressing subplot to the novels – which I hope is another way of elevating the Carr mysteries from simple whodunit puzzles to novels of some character depth.   

Since the publication of A Talent for Murder, Carr has investigated several Golden Age whodunits. He has braved The Dangers of this Night, the second in the series and he has tackled A Killing Amongst the Dead, which is the third. This year, in the latest mystery, he comes face to face with The Serpent’s Fang, due for release in March. This latest case involves the murder of a faded actress and Carr’s attempts to save a woman from the gallows.

Everett Carr is my homage to sleuths such as Hercule Poirot, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Gervase Fen. He is also my attempt to make such a character psychologically interesting to a modern audience. 

I hope he and I have done the Golden Age proud.

The Everett Carr Mysteries are published by Level Best Books and are available in paperback and e-book formats.

As a lifelong aficionado and expert on Sherlock Holmes, Matthew Booth is the author of several books and short stories about the famous detective. He wrote a number of scripts for a Holmes radio series produced by Jim French Productions in Seattle, as well as creating his own series about a disgraced former barrister investigating crimes for the same production company.  

He is the creator of Everett Carr, an amateur sleuth in the traditional mould, who appears in his debut investigation in the book, A Talent for Murder, a traditional whodunit, which offers a contemporary twist on the format.  

An expert in crime and supernatural fiction, Matthew has provided a number of academic talks on such subjects as Sherlock Holmes, the works of Agatha Christie, crime fiction, Count Dracula, and the facts and theories concerning the crimes of Jack the Ripper.  

He is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association and is the editor of its monthly magazine, Red Herrings. He lives with his wife in Manchester, England.

Erica Miner and Lori Robbins took a similar path, from the stage to the page, when they drew upon their real-life experiences as inspiration for their books. Erica’s Julia Kogan Opera Mystery series and Lori’s On Pointe Mysteries take readers on a backstage tour that’s equal parts glamour and intrigue, even before the first murder victim takes a literal swan dive. The two authors interviewed each other to explore the connection between fact and fiction for them and their amateur sleuths.
 
Lori’s Questions for Erica:

• Are there any elements of your life as a performer you don’t address in your writing?

 
Many. I focus on the most dramatic elements possible, since that is what makes opera such a compelling subject for murder mysteries. Opera stories are among the bloodiest, most violent ever written. That’s why composers often choose novels, and the plays of Shakespeare, as the basis for their operas. It’s all about great stories, made even greater by setting them to music. The parts I leave out tend to be the more mundane aspects of my performing life, although I do touch upon those to make my protagonist, Julia, as believable as possible. She does have to deal with the daily routines of being a performing musician, but I think readers are more interested in the conflicts, the jealousies, rivalries and backstabbing that occur behind-the-scenes. A big part of Julia’s arc is to morph from starry-eyed neophyte to savvy survivalist. It’s the intensity of the operatic drama that gets her there.

• Other than the murders, how much is fiction and how much is true to life?

 
I like to say only the author knows for sure! But I also admit that my fictional portrayals, of the characters who work at the opera and of the atmospheres of the opera houses, are extremely authentic. In my first Opera Mystery, Aria for Murder, which takes place at the Met Opera where I was a violinist for 21 years, I drew upon my experiences about what goes on backstage there and my knowledge of the dark corners and hidden stairways in that huge opera house to create authenticity and an environment fraught with danger. It’s a very mysterious place; so mysterious that creating motivation for murder seemed natural to me. When it came to the opera houses in the sequels, Santa Fe and San Francisco Opera (Prelude to Murder and the next sequel, Overture to Murder), I had to do a great deal more research to build a realistic world of mystery. I was fortunate in that I had connections with people who worked in those places and gave me on-site tours from top to bottom, which I used to fabricate stories that are very true to life. (Just FYI, San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House, built in 1932, is the creepiest place ever.) But since I never performed in those opera theatres, I used my wicked imagination to create stories that would be believable.

• Did you base any of your characters on real people?

In Aria for Murder, most of the characters are based on a combination of traits of different people I worked with at the Met. Sometimes I would give certain attributes to certain characters but create them as different genders than they actually were. The exception was one key character who is entirely based on a real person. One of my colleagues who read the book immediately recognized this person who, sadly, is no longer with us. The protagonist throughout the series, Julia, is much like me when I first started out at the Met: naïve, unaware of the political machinations that go on behind the scenes. She becomes smarter fast, and I give her great courage and fortitude. That’s the beauty of fiction: you can give a character similar to yourself qualities you only wish you had. In Prelude to Murder, I also based characters on people I met in various departments throughout the opera house, but I extrapolated certain nationalities and traits of people who worked at the Met to create new and compelling characters who figured importantly in the Santa Fe plot.

• Is there any parallel between performing and writing?

For me, yes, when I’m writing about performing and performers. I’m constantly thinking of recreating my own feelings and remembrances of my performing life as I move these characters around in their performing world. I also am visualizing a performing milieu and feeling the deep emotions of performers as I write. The two elements are inextricably linked for me.

• Are there any elements of life as a performer that books and movies consistently get wrong?

I’m not going there!

• What surprises readers about the worlds you describe?

Most readers don’t have any idea what goes on behind the scenes at an opera house. They tell me they’re constantly amazed at the intensity of relationships between the multifaceted groups of people who work there. I try to make the descriptions of those conflicts, as well as of the many different locations within in the theatre, as vivid as possible. Many of those who have read Aria for Murder tell me the story and its descriptions of the Met brought them back to the times they’ve been to performances there. Others who have read Prelude to Murder have told me the descriptions are so intriguing they feel like getting on the next plane to Santa Fe!

• You use quotations to open each chapter of your books. What was the inspiration behind that decision?

 
I honestly can’t remember what it was initially, but I think it seemed the natural thing to do in order to further open up the world of opera to my readers. In these Opera Mysteries, the worlds of musical drama and real-time murder collide. The opera quotes that head the chapters give a hint or taste of what’s to come in the context of those bloody opera stories I mentioned above. Having the quotes first in the original language gives a flavor of the opera from which they come, and adding the English translation clues the reader in as to the subtleties of meaning. My readers tell me they love this feature of my books.
 

 
Short bio:
Award-winning Seattle-based author, lecturer and arts journalist Erica Miner believes opera theatres are perfect places for creating fictional mischief! Drawing on her 21 years as a violinist at the famed Metropolitan Opera, Erica’s fanciful plot fabrications reveal the dark side of the fascinating world of opera in her Julia Kogan Opera Mystery series (Level Best Books): Aria for Murder (2022), finalist in the 2023 CIBA and Eric Hoffer Book Awards; Prelude to Murder (2023) (‘A skillfully written whodunit of operatic proportions’--Kirkus Reviews); and Book 3, Overture to Murder, just released last month. Erica’s debut novel, Travels with My Lovers, won the Fiction Prize in the Direct from the Author Book Awards. She is an active member of the Puget Sound chapter of Sisters in Crime and the Northwest chapter of Mystery Writers of America.  
Buy links, Overture to Murder:
 
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Third Place Books

 
Erica’s questions for Lori:

• Was ballet your first love? When did you decide to start studying?

 
I saw a production of Swan Lake when I was sixteen and fell in love with ballet. The next day, I signed up for my first lesson. Most girls my age were getting ready to audition for professional companies, and I knew my dream of one day joining that elite group was unlikely to come true. But, like my protagonist, dance was the only thing that mattered. Three years after I walked into the studio for the first time I signed a contract with a modern dance company in Miami. Ballet remained my first love, and I went on to dance in a number of regional companies, as well as with Ballet Hispanico. I still take lessons several times a week, and ballet remains an important part of my life.

• How did you determine you wanted to base your murder mysteries on ballet?

 
The dance world is filled with inherent drama, which makes it the perfect vehicle for a murder mystery. The competition is fierce, the careers are short, and the pressure is intense. Ballet offered a range of vivid possibilities for characters, as well as for plot and setting. Leah Siderova, the protagonist for the On Pointe mysteries, defies expectations, both fictional and factual. Yes, she’s embroiled in a murder mystery, but she’s also a ballerina on the wrong side of thirty and the stakes are higher for her than they would be for someone facing a less uncertain future.  Those challenges make her observant, wary, and more than a little cynical. In other words, the perfect amateur sleuth.

In my Master Class series, the protagonist is an English teacher who on the surface is very different from Leah. But she too is facing an uncertain future. There’s something deeply satisfying about writing, and reading, about amateur sleuths, no matter what world they inhabit. They show ordinary people, who, when challenged, find the strength and courage to do extraordinary things.

• Are there any elements of life as a performer that books and movies consistently get wrong?  

It’s rare for a movie or book to capture how intense and exhausting life as a performer can be. Many fictionalized portraits depict dancers indulging in nonstop sex, drugs, and barhopping. In real life, they rarely have the time, money, or energy that would enable that kind of lifestyle.

• Other than the murders, how much is fiction and how much is true to life?

The descriptions of a dancer’s life are all grounded in reality, but the stories and characters blend fact and fiction. The murders are works of my imagination, as are the characters, although both are inspired by real-life events. Murder in Third Position, for example, was inspired by problems the Metropolitan Opera had with the mechanical parts of an elaborate set that caused several minor injuries. In my book, the set design kills someone.

• Did you base any of your characters on real people?

Most are composite characters. Some, like my protagonist’s mother, are pure works of fiction, but I feel I know them! Barbara, in particular, is so vivid and commanding a figure, I think I’m going to have to give her her own book. Or at least, a short story.
It’s not only the characters individually but their relationships with each other that interest me. Professional dancers remain students for as long as they’re dancing. They take class every day, and their interactions with teachers and choreographers are a rich source of real-life and fictional tension. The dynamic between a grown daughter and her mother also offers continuing opportunities for both drama and growth. But not too much growth, or the exchanges between Leah and Barbara wouldn’t be nearly as funny.

• You also use quotations to open each chapter of your books. What was the inspiration behind that decision?

 
Dancers talk with their bodies. We don’t often get to hear their words, although many are remarkably eloquent speakers and writers. I added the quotations to give them a voice. In my Master Class mystery series, however, the quotations serve a different purpose, as they provide clues to solving the murder. Not all clues, however, are created equal. Some are genuine leads and others are designed to deceive. I love puzzles, and those quotations reflect that.
 
 
Short bio:
Lori Robbins writes the On Pointe and Master Class mystery series and is a contributor to The Secret Ingredient: A Mystery Writers Cookbook. She won the Indie Award for Best Mystery and two Silver Falchions. Short stories include “Leading Ladies” which received Honorable Mention in the 2022 Best American Mystery and Suspense anthology. A former dancer, Lori performed with a number of modern dance and classical ballet companies, including Ballet Hispanico and the St. Louis Ballet. Her commercial work, for Pavlova Perfume and Macy’s, paid the bills. After ten very lean years onstage she became an English teacher and now writes full time.
Lori is a co-president of the New York/ Tristate Sisters in Crime and an active member of Mystery Writers of America.


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The mystery genre has gone through various metamorphoses from the traditional “who done it,” to far-out fantasy. The rise in travel and increasing globalization has led to an even greater expansion of the genre, which now includes the popular International Mysteries.  These are stories from far-off places that allow you to sightsee while you solve a murder.  Like the travels of Gulliver in the past, these stories allow you to learn about new cultures and to develop a greater love for humanity.

It’s the genre I got into, the one I most enjoy.

So, where did I develop this attraction for these types of mysteries you might ask?  It was a combination of travel and falling in love with International Mysteries in their original language on MHZ, a local Washington DC television Network, especially Andrea Camilleri’s "Montalbano," Donna Leon’s, "Inspector Brunetti," and Georges Simenon’s, "Magret." There are also those dark Swedish Mysteries like Martin Beck and Wallander.  (I urge you to read the books and find the shows on www. MHZ.com online). These wonderful mysteries intrigued me.

I also traveled, quite by accident the first time, to Southern Spain.  The problem is that, as soon as the plane landed in sunny Malaga airport, I knew that was where I belonged.  There began a lifetime love affair.

I don’t believe in Karma or that kind of thing, but if I did, I’m certain I had an ancient relative, perhaps from that time when the Moors ruled Spain before the La Reconquista. The romantic era of the final conquest of Grenada (home of the Al Alhambra, which you definitely need to see), by Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand in 1492 the same year Christopher Columbus opened America to the Europeans.

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This attraction drew me back several times a year for a while, to the point that my friend Lourdes’s then husband said I was 45% American and 65% Spanish. I haven’t been to my other home in a while, though I intend to return. In the meantime, I invite you to travel with me across the Mediterranean, to look over at the Rock of Gibraltar into the continent of Africa.  I invite you to immerse yourself in colorful Flamenco, share tapas, stop for a churro in rich deep dark chocolate, and finish the night with a fine glass of Cava or Rijoa. While we’re there, we’ll find out who done it.

I recently read that the Japanese term Honkaku- which means orthodox, refers to the old-fashioned detective stories. The entertainment from them derives from the logical reasoning of solving the crime, like everyone’s favorite, Agatha Christie novels. A Brief Introduction to Honkaku Detective Fiction - killerthrillers.net
Now, we’ve entered what the Japanese call, Shin Honkaku- the New Orthodox. These started with Island mysteries in the 1980’s. 4 Different Styles of Mystery Novels from Around the World (bookriot.com).   The new orthodox involves solving a mystery on an island, something like the popular television show, Death in Paradise, if you’ve seen it (also love those British mysteries on Britbox).  Today, we don’t stop just at the islands. We can go anywhere from Spain to Italy to France to Sweden, to Greece, to Morocco, or to Istanbul. This new orthodoxy expands our imaginations even further than Gulliver traveled.

I invite you to join me and fall in love with a land not your own. You may want to see a part of the world you never knew existed; you may want to write your own mystery. Whatever you decide, you can’t go wrong with a good trip and a good murder to solve.

Paula B. Mays is a Native of Washington, D.C. She is the Current President of Sisters in Crime (SINC) Chesapeake Chapter, a Trademark attorney, a former USPTO (US Patent and Trademark Office) attorney, and has a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from George Washington University. MURDER IN LA PLAZA DE TOROS is the first in a new series of mysteries set in a fictional town in Southern Spain. Paula has also published articles in the Huffington Post and has written other trademark-related articles. She lives in Arlington, Virginia.

​I pride myself in developing the settings in my books as if they were secondary characters. Often, they are. The good guys and the bad guys sweat when the sun’s blazing with heat, whether they’re in the barren landscape of west Texas or the smothering humidity of North Carolina. The quietness of a mountain snow can be deafening. The smell of freshly cut hay is starkly different than the smells lingering near the dumpster behind a restaurant in Newark, New Jersey.
 
Like many authors, I too, get sidetracked when researching a setting I’m not familiar with. Our dear friend Google makes it way too easy to fall down that rabbit hole we call research. When I was writing Wink of an Eye (Minotaur, 2014), I spent way too many hours researching Wink, Texas. Yes—there really is a small town in west Texas named Wink. The Roy Orbison Museum is located right there on Main Street. It’s by appointment only, though.
 
I was on a mission to learn everything I could about Wink, Texas. We all know how Texans like to spend their Friday nights under the lights watching their high school football games and Wink is no different. It’s home of the Wildcats. The population of Wink holds steady at about a thousand except when the oil’s hitting then it explodes to sometimes three thousand. I learned this from the mayor’s wife. We became friends on Facebook when I joined the Wink, Texas Facebook group. Rather than googling everything and relying on Wikipedia, I used a more reliable source—the actual residents.
 
With one scene, I wanted the common name for a specific cactus. I sent my friend the mayor’s wife a few photos I’d found and asked her. I said I wanted to know the slang name, the name she’d use if she saw it on the side of the road. I anxiously waited for a really cool name like Flowering Betty, or Lady Redbud. I was a little disappointed when she came back and said, “we call it a cactus.”
 
I’ve never been to Wink, Texas. Although I have been invited to dinner at the mayor’s house. But I did enough research, even longtime residents were impressed. I was told by more than one that I had “nailed it.”
 
While I’ve never been to Wink, I have been to the mountains of Appalachia. I’ve stood in a coal camp in the Coal Miner’s Museum in West Virginia. I’ve stopped in Goober Peas store in Meat Camp, North Carolina. I’ve taken so many day trips to Boone, I no longer use GPS. I’ve hiked the Linville Falls trails several times. I’ve been to the top of Grandfather Mountain and caught snowflakes on my tongue then drove down to the parking lot where we’d stop, get out of the car, and take off out coats because it was sixty degrees at the foot of the mighty mountain. I’ve been deep into the hollers bordering North Carolina and Tennessee. I was even invited to a snake-handling church but it didn’t work out. Yes, those churches do exist but they’re so well hidden, sometimes in plain sight, their very existence is hush-hush.
 
My other books, The Ava Logan series, and What the Monkey Saw are set in the North Carolina mountains. Two different series, two different protagonists, two different career paths joined by a common thread. The people of Appalachia.
 
I’m not really sure why I’m so drawn to that region, but I am. I was born and raised, and still live in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, but man, those mountains speak to me.
 
Watching the devastation going on in Western North Carolina right now thanks to a hurricane of all things, is like taking a punch straight to the gut. Honestly, I’m too stunned to cry. I stare at the images of homes reduced to scattered, splintered wood. Roads I’ve traveled that are no longer there. Entire towns that are no longer there. And I wish it was a nightmare we would wake up from and everything would be back like it was. From now on the survivors will think of time as before “the storm” or after the storm. There’ll be no in between. No other way to reference time.  
 
And somewhere in the far corners of my mind, I’m thinking about these two series I have with more books to come. How do I write them now? Do I include the day the rain came and the rivers and creeks rose and the mud rolled and raged like flowing lava and the very land my mountain people stood upon washed out from under them? Do I dare write about such a catastrophic event?
 
The terrorist attack on 911 forced the entertainment industry to rethink using images of the twin towers. Those towers that used to be there, but now they’re not.
 
Can I act like nothing’s happened at all and continue writing the two different series set as they were? Or do I, too, write before and after?

Lynn Chandler Willis is a best-selling, multi-award-winning author who has worked in the corporate world, the television news industry, and had a thirteen-year run as the owner and publisher of a small-town newspaper. She lives in the heart of North Carolina on a mini-farm surrounded by chickens, turkeys, ducks, nine grandkids, a sassy little calico named Jingles, and Finn, a brown border collie known to be the best dog in the world. Seriously.