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Living Forever With Christopher Farnsworth

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Christopher Farnsworth is best known for his series about Nathaniel Cade, the president’s vampire. The novels in that series include Blood Oath, The President’s Vampire, and Red, White, and Blood. The Cade books were twice finalists for the Goodreads Choice awards, have been translated into nine languages and published in over a dozen countries, and optioned for film and television.

Farnsworth’s latest novel is The Eternal World, which follows a group of 16th-century conquistadors who discover the fountain of youth. The fountain of youth allows these soldiers to live forever, and become ruthless businessmen.

Here's a quick question-and-answer interview we recently had with Farnsworth.

From vampires who work for presidents to conquistadors who live forever, what draws you into these worlds?
It’s like the truth is out there, and just waiting for us to stray off the path so it can have a chance at us.

In The Eternal World, one character says you have to have something to live for. What would you live for?
For most of us, our kids are the only thing that’s going to outlast our expiration date. I’m trying to make sure that whatever they still carry around from me is the best that I have to offer.

Why the fascination with immortality, which seems to be an ongoing theme?
I live in LA, so I already see people who act as if they’ve got an unlimited supply of tomorrows. Maybe it’s just the Botox, but not many of them are smiling.

Your novels also show the downside of immortality.
At first, it seems like immortality would be a never-ending party—that’s certainly how some of my characters treat it. But without those nagging reminders of a finish line off in the distance, I think we'd become less human.

What would you do if you could live forever?
I’d love to believe I would travel from continent to continent, righting wrongs, learning languages, and watching history as an eyewitness. But as much as I want to be Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, I know I could do all that stuff already. Nothing is stopping me. I choose to do other things instead. It’s a matter of priorities. We’ve all got to decide how we’re going to spend our time, and there are no refunds at the end. If I had forever, I don’t know how I’d decide what was most important. I’m bad enough as it is about procrastinating. Without a deadline—literal or otherwise—I might put things off for centuries.

Any movie options for The Eternal World?
The book actually started as an idea for a movie, from the producers Tom Jacobson and Monnie Wills. Now that it’s being published, they’ll be pitching it to studios.

What kind of research did you do into the science that you realistically use in The Eternal World?
I was lucky in that there are already people much smarter than I am who think they are on the verge of a cure for old age, and there are great writers who have made their efforts comprehensible. And I’m also lucky in that my time as a reporter trained me to download a bunch of material fast, and then condense it into a quick summary. I read a lot of technical articles and papers on the Web and did my best to get the core concepts from them. Of course, it helped that if I ran into questions that had no answers, I could just make them up.

You started as a journalist, was being a novelist always part of your plan?
Always. Since I was five years old, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I went into journalism because it seemed like the best way for me to do that and to pay the bills. For a while, I thought reporting would be enough. But inevitably, like an addict, I started writing fiction on the weekends. I sold a script to MGM, and made the leap to screenwriting. I flailed away at that for a few years, and then, when the WGA writers’ strike hit, I took an idea I had for a script and turned into a book. It sold, and I finally got to write novels for a living. In other words, I’ve been very lucky.

Tell us your background.
Here’s the quick bio: I was born and raised in Idaho and attended the College of Idaho, where I majored in literature and history. I was an investigative and business reporter in Idaho, Arizona, and California before selling my first script, The Academy, to MGM. Then I began writing novels with the President’s Vampire series, which was optioned for film and TV and published in a dozen countries. I now live in Los Angeles with my wife and two daughters.

When not writing, what do you do?
Honestly, not very much. I do a lot of dad stuff: take my daughters to school and the Santa Monica Pier, read books to them, and try to be there every night for dinner. Then I sit on the couch and read or watch TV.

I do plan to get a life sometime, honest. It’s on my list.

Tell us something that readers don’t know about you.
I am a great-nephew of Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of television.

Who do you read?
Right now, I’m reading The Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett. I just finished Crooked by Austin Grossman. Also, Tod Goldberg’s Gangsterland, David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years, Lavie Tidhar’s The Violent Century, Neil Gaiman, Lee Child, John Connolly, Charlie Huston, Nick Harkaway, John Burdett, James Rollins, James Ellroy, Richard K. Morgan, Claire North, Ian Tregillis, Charles Stross, Terry Pratchett (really, really going to miss him), Tim Powers.

And comic books. A lot of comics. Favorites right now are Chew by John Layman and Ninjak by Matt Kindt.

If you were not a writer, what occupation would you follow?
I ask myself that question all the time. As soon as I come up with a good answer, I will let you know.

All-Star Detecting With Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

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"The love affair began my rookie year... when I was given a set of [Sherlock] stories for my first road trip. I read them on the bus, and I was hooked."

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s name is synonymous with NBA basketball. He is a true global icon whose style changed the game, and who is famous for his indefensible skyhook and who remains the NBA’s all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points. But the six-time NBA MVP is also an ardent activist for education, a documentarian, and an author. His books include historical works such as On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance and Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement, as well as two autobiographies, and three children's stories. This September, Abdul-Jabbar ventures into genre fiction with the debut of Mycroft Holmes (Titan, 2015), coauthored with scriptwriter and producer Anna Waterhouse. It is the first of an intended series to feature the other Holmes, Sherlock's big brother. Mystery Scene caught up with the NBA legend to discuss his foray into fiction and his lifelong love of all things Sherlock.

Oline Cogdill for Mystery Scene: Everyone knows you from your time on the court with the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers, but not everyone knows that you've also written ten books and several articles and essays over the years...

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Yes, I fell in love with writing—journalism first—as a teenager. I took part in a summer program in Harlem called HARYOU (Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited) where we interviewed locals and wrote up stories for our paper. In college, my major was history, with a minor in English.

MS: You've been a busy author, but until now, no fiction. How did the Mycroft Holmes project come about?

KAJ: I’ve written nonfiction books, essays (for Time magazine), and children’s stories. Fiction is the final frontier... I liked the [Sherlock] movies and TV shows, especially Jeremy Brett as Sherlock. But the love affair really began my rookie year with the Milwaukee Bucks, when I was given a set of stories for my first road trip. I read them on the bus, and I was hooked... I liked how [Sherlock's] mind worked. I liked the fact that nothing he saw, heard or read was wasted.

MS: Unlike so much of Holmesian pastiche, your new book is centered not on Sherlock, but Mycroft, his brother. How did that love for Sherlock bring you to Mycroft, the older, less famous Holmes sibling?

KAJ: The little that is written about Mycroft is so intriguing. Sherlock himself says that Mycroft is smarter than he is; that Mycroft not only works for the British government but is the British government. I also like that he’s so obviously broken. What happened to make him a recluse?

MS: Does the fact that Mycroft works for the government—unlike Sherlock who is free to take any case—make it harder or easier in terms of creating plot and character?

KAJ: I don’t know if it’s harder or easier, but it’s certainly different. [Coauthor Anna Waterhouse and I] were more concerned with big world events rather than solving a single crime. So in that sense, there might be more moving parts. There was certainly a good deal of research.

MS: You include a lot of details about life in the 19th century. The book starts with an 1870 Oxford-Cambridge boat race. How did you research that time and life?

KAJ: Well, that is all research, isn’t it? I’m not sure there’s a trick to it, other than digging in and doing the work. As you learn details, you add them, trying to make them sound like a natural part of the story. Sometimes the details enhance, sometimes they actually change the movement of the story. We tried to keep as closely to the truth as we could. In the Cambridge-Oxford race, for example, it was the first time Cambridge had won in some years. The names of the crew are the real names and positions of the crew.

MS: And some of the action takes place in Trinidad. How did you research that region?

KAJ: As before, it was research and more research. The Harmonious Fists [from Mycroft Holmes] are based on an actual group of Chinese martial artists, and the Merikens (ex-American slaves who fought on the side of the British) are certainly real.

MS: Your character, Cyrus Douglas is from Trinidad, and is a little like Mycroft’s version of Watson. He is also a first—a central black character in the world of Sherlock Holmes. Where did Douglas come from?

KAJ: I knew I wanted a story that was partly set in Trinidad, because I have ties there. I also knew that it, and Jamaica, were busy places of trade. That led to my character Cyrus Douglas and his occupation.

But truthfully, I don’t know [where he came from]. It’s not simply because, as a black man, I relate to and want to create black characters—a black character didn’t necessarily have to fit into the story. But Cyrus Douglas was born fully formed.

My co-writer and I knew who he was from the first. We knew he’d have to be able to keep up with Mycroft, and we knew he would have to be the moral center [of the books]. That had to come from a real, rather than a manufactured, place. Making him black gave him several disadvantages in that era that worked for his overall strength of character in terms of what he’d endured and survived.

...Then [Anna and I] had to figure out how a white man would become ‘best friends’ with a black man in that era, and how his very white fiancée could also have ties to Trinidad.

MS: You and Anna Waterhouse worked together on the documentary film On the Shoulders of Giants (2012, Netflix and Showtime). But a documentary film project is a totally different creature than fiction writing. How did the collaboration work for this novel? I understand Anna does more of the dialogue and you are more about the story?

KAJ: Anna wasn’t acquainted with Mycroft Holmes. She didn’t know much about Trinidad. She does now.

She’s meticulous about research. And yes, she writes dialogue in a way that I can’t, or maybe don’t. But it’s hard to parse it out like, “I do this, she does that.” We discuss ideas. We bat around story concepts. We pass a chapter back and forth several times before we’re ready to go on. But it’s not like we can go back and say, “I put that comma there.” Mostly, it’s a question of trust and taste. I trust her taste, she trusts mine. We found that out on the documentary. We keep going until we both think it’s better than good enough.

MS: Cyrus is as intelligent as Mycroft, but perhaps, as you point out, more ethical. If there is a sequel, will we see more of him?

KAJ: He is part and parcel of Mycroft’s life. The question is, for how long? Because, of course, Mycroft ends up a curmudgeonly recluse.

MS: Speaking of Mycroft's relationships, what aspects of Mycroft and Sherlock do you hope to show in your book?

KAJ: Their rather prickly relationship and why it becomes so. They’re really at cross-purposes, in a sense. If Mycroft does his job well, crime overall decreases. That’s death for Sherlock.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and a constable outside 221B Baker Street in London.

MS: Are you a member of Baker Street Irregulars?

KAJ: No. Or possibly, not yet.

MS: Do you read crime fiction?

KAJ: Walter Mosely is right up there. I have read everything written by Raymond Chandler, and all of the Spencer novels by Robert B. Parker. In my opinion, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett define the genre of modern crime fiction. I think Parker, Walter Mosley, Elmore Leonard, and Martin Cruz Smith have all made admirable contributions and they are some of my favorite reads.

MS: This lifelong love of Sherlock Holmes—has it ever been useful to your lifelong love of basketball?

KAJ: One quick story: During a game, I heard the ball boys gossiping that a rival player and his coach were sneaking smokes during the breaks. So when the game resumed, I just ran that guy all over the court. As I figured, he couldn’t keep up, he didn’t have the wind.

We ended up winning that game.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a Sherlockian with ten books to his name, including children's stories, two autobiographies, and several historical works. Mycroft Holmes, coauthored with Anna Waterhouse, is his first mystery novel. Some also know him as the NBA's all-time leading scorer, and a Basketball Hall of Fame inductee.

C.J. Box’s "Badlands": The Reality of Boomtown

boxcj badlands
The best fiction mirrors reality, showing us who we are as well as intricacies of the areas in which we live.

Mystery fiction does this so well.

How many people really discovered Sweden after Stieg Larsson showed us the dark side of that country, unleashing more international authors to show us their views of their homelands?

A recent story in the New York Times showed this intersection of fact and fiction. The travel story was about how northwest North Dakota has been come a boom area because of the oil-rich fields.

I already knew about this renewed drilling that was causing small towns to explode with new residents.

A scattering of “man camps” meant to house the workers, most of whom are male, because the infrastructure couldn’t keep up with the population.

How the 24-hour rumble of trucks disrupts the two-lane roads. How rents have gone sky high and restaurants and bars are overfilled each day.

I learned all this in C.J. Box’s latest novel Badlands (Minotaur).

The Edgar-winning Box has proven to be an excellent chronicler of life in the west. In Badlands, he takes a break from his best-selling series about Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett to show an area under siege by its own growth.

In Badlands, the area’s history takes a back seat to the progress that threatens a quiet way of life.

And, of course, Badlands is a compelling crime fiction that also shows how crime and violence have a way of quickly seeping in.

Box packs Badlands with myriad details about how this area is adjusting—where, as I said in my review, the prairie now “roared” with trains and tankers. “Millions of barrels of oil bound for every corner of the country.”

But the landscape is only part of Box’s Badlands. His sturdy, well-rounded characters are a major part.

Instead of Joe Pickett, Badlands revolves around Cassandra “Cassie” Dewell, last seen in Box’s terrifying The Highway, who becomes the new chief investigator in the area.

Once again, fact and fiction merge.

"Longmire" Season 4 Now on Netflix

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How many people started to binge-watch the entire fourth season of Longmire when it was released on Sept. 10 on Netflix?

I confess I did, or rather am in the process of going through each episode, relishing the return of Wyoming Sherriff Walt Longmire, so winningly played by Robert Taylor.

The TV series—I think we still call it TV even if it is not on a conventional television network—is based on the novels by Craig Johnson.

If you haven’t binged—what are you waiting for? And if you haven’t discovered this series—what are you waiting for?

Longmire perfectly captures the spirit of the novels’ sense of place and character, a melding of the Old West and the contemporary West.

Longmire is set in Absaroka County, a fictional place in Wyoming, often described by Johnson as “the least-populated county in the least-populated state in America.”

For those who don’t know, Longmire’s move to Netflix is the result of fans making it clear that they loved this series and wanted to spend more time with Walt and friends.

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Longmire became almost an instant hit in 2012 for A&E, becoming its most-watched series, attracting an estimated average of 5.6 million viewers by Season 3.

The cast was letter-perfect with Robert Taylor as Walt Longmire, Katee Sackhoff as Victoria “Vic” Moretti, Lou Diamond Phillips as Henry Standing Bear, and A Martinez as Jacob Nighthorse.

Then the unthinkable happened.

Despite its high ratings, A&E canceled Longmire just after Season 3 ended.

Network executives gave different reasons. One statement stated that the show wasn’t profitable because A&E didn’t own it, Warner Horizon did; another statement was the advertisers wanted to reach younger audiences and “undervalue older-skewing shows,” according to news stories that quoted an unnamed source.

Whatever the reason, fans were not having it and sent emails, letters, and launched online campaigns to rescue Longmire. Three months later, Netflix announced it would be picking up Longmire’s fourth season.

(For more information, be sure to get a copy of the next issue of Mystery Scene, which will have an interview with Craig Johnson, Robert Taylor, and A Martinez.)

And that brings us to this new season of Longmire.

Without giving away any plot points, fans of the series will be more than pleased with this reboot of Longmire.

The stories have a bit more depth now. At A&E, the episodes were limited to 42 minutes—commercials need the room, you know. On Netflix, the episodes are 60 minutes, and that extra time makes all the difference. The writers use these extra minutes wisely, creating an even tighter story.

Season 4 picks up immediately where Season 3 left off. If you haven’t seen Season 3 yet, here is a kind of spoiler: Walt has just found out who is behind the murder of his wife and he wants revenge. Meanwhile, former deputy Branch Connally (Bailey Chase) confronts a suspected killer; then a gun is fired.

And the new season starts off from there.

Netflix should prove a welcoming home for Longmire. A fifth season is required.

Photos: top, Robert Taylor as Walt Longmire; bottom, Taylor with Katee Sackhoff as Victoria “Vic” Moretti. Netflix photos

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Book Fair Honors Members of the SEALs

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By OLINE H. COGDILL

Book fairs are the heart and soul of connecting readers with authors.

These fairs held across the country allow readers to sample a variety of authors and their books at one time.

One of my favorites is the Miami International Book Fair, held each November.

This year, the Tampa Bay Festival has a special event that more book fair organizers may want to consider.

In addition to its array of authors, the Tampa Bay Book Festival also will honor some members of the U.S. military.

The SEAL Legacy Foundation Tampa Bay Book Festival will be November 7, 2015, at the Westin Tampa Harbour Hotel, 725 South Harbour Island Boulevard, Tampa, Florida.

The goal is to raise funds and awareness for the SEAL Legacy Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing support for families of wounded and fallen United States Navy SEALs, educational assistance for SEALs and their families, and other charitable causes benefiting the SEAL community.

This one-day event will feature a solid lineup of mystery, thriller, and suspense novelists, including: Brian Andrews, Kathleen Antrim, Grant Blackwood, Eric Blehm, Ethan Cross, Lorenzo Carcaterra, Kieran Crowley, Simon Gervais, Heather Graham, John Gilstrap (left), Andrew Gross, Anderson Harp, Mark Greaney, Don Mann, Jon Land, Ward Larsen, Chuck Pfarrer, Tom Shea, AJ Tata, Howard Wasdin, Lis Wiehl, Jeffrey Wilson, and Tom Young.

The SEAL Legacy Foundation Tampa Bay Book Festival event includes a multi-author book signing as well as a VIP author reception.

A limited number of tickets for the SEAL Legacy Foundation Tampa Bay Book Festival are available.

Visit https://www.seallegacy.org/events/pages/bookfestival. Tickets are $125 for the author signing and VIP Author Reception or $25 for the author signing only.

Photo: John Gilstrap

Bouchercon Comes to North Carolina

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By OLINE H. COGDILL

This is my annual “why Bouchercon matters” essay.

And since Bouchercon moves to a different locale each year, that gives me a chance to also look at authors from that region.

This year’s Bouchercon is in Raleigh, North Carolina, and it is not too late to sign up for the conference taking place Oct. 8 through Oct. 11.

For the uninitiated, Bouchercon also is called the World Wide Mystery Conference and it brings together hundreds of mystery writers and fans. I think more than 1,300 people have signed up this year for Bouchercon.

Bouchercon celebrates the mystery genre and, in a way, also celebrates those who read mysteries. It gives us a chance to sample new authors and hear favorites as they talk about their books. Panels, interviews, parties, hanging out at the bar—all part of the Bouchercon experience.

It’s a chance to catch up with friends you may only connect with on social media during the rest of the year, and even make some new ones. There have even been a couple of marriages in which the relationship started at a Bouchercon.

Bouchercons can also be messy if the organizing isn’t up to snuff, and some authors will hog their panels. I could tell you a couple of stories...but I won’t.

So let’s celebrate the mystery genre at Bouchercon, and to honor North Carolina, here are some authors from the Tar Heel State:

Margaret Maron, left, is a must-read for North Carolina literature. She is being honored at Bouchercon with the Lifetime Achievement Award.

John Hart has won two Edgar Allan Poe Awards for Best Novel, one in 2008 for Down River, and the second in 2010 for The Last Child. He is the only author in history to win the best novel Edgar Award for consecutive novels.

reichs kathy Kathy Reichs, at right, is a forensics anthropologist who writes the series about Temperance “Tempe” Brennan, who also is a forensic anthropologist. Reichs is one of the guests of honor at Bouchercon.

David Joy debuted this year with the exquisite Where All the Light Tends to Go.

Wiley Cash is a true poet in the mystery genre.

Sarah R. Shaber writes historical mysteries. She is the Local Guest of Honor at Bouchercon.

J.D. Rhoades writes about a bounty hunter in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Eva Gates is the author of the Lighthouse Library Mystery Series about a librarian on an Outer Banks island.

Sandra Balzo writes about a reporter in a North Carolina resort.

Tim Myers (also writes as Elizabeth Bright, Melissa Glazer, Casey Mayes, and Chris Cavender) is best known for his Lighthouse Inn series.

This is a smattering of North Carolina mysteries. You can find a more complete list for all mysteries at Stop, You’re Killing Me, and for lighter mysteries try this cozy list.

And come to Bouchercon.

Raleigh this year.

New Orleans next year.

Wendy Corsi Staub Novel on TV

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The latest original movie from the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel will sound familiar to fans of Wendy Corsi Staub’s novels.

Staub’s novel Hello, It’s Me is the latest mystery novel to be picked up by the Hallmark channel.

Hello, It’s Me follows a young widow who believes she's experiencing a heavenly intervention when she meets a bachelor.

Annie and her children struggle with grief two years after her husband died. Andre was the love of Annie’s life, and the idea of being in love with anyone else is inconceivable to her. Then she meets James, a rich bachelor.

Almost against her will, Annie begins to fall in love with James, but she is afraid. Then she starts to receive messages from Andre encouraging her to follow her heart.

Kellie Martin stars as Annie and Kavan Smith is James.

Hello, It’s Me debuted on September 27 on the Hallmark channel, but is having frequent encores. See the “view all showtimes” tab on the web site.

Staub has written more than 80 novels. But Hello, It’s Me has personal meaning to Staub.

Hello, It’s Me was published a few weeks before her mother died and was the last novel of Staub’s that she read.

Her mother came to Staub’s hometown book signing “and sat in the front row as always, and I knew the moment I spotted her that she didn't have much time left,” said Staub in an email to Mystery Scene.

“The fact that it was that particular book, out of 80, that made it to the screen at last, and that it started shooting on what would have been such a sad milestone day—the 10th anniversary of my mom’s death—has made this whole thing an emotional experience,” Staub added.

Photo: Kellie Martin, Kavan Smith. Courtesy of Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.

James Patterson Receives Honor

Oline H. Cogdill

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In addition to his best-selling novels, James Patterson has become a real advocate for books and literacy.

He’s set aside millions of dollars to be divided among a large number of libraries and independent bookstores.

He also has a couple of programs that promote literacy among children, including a partnership with NBA All-Star Dwayne Wade that emphasizes “the importance of reading for success in life.”

Patterson is also responsible for hundreds of thousands of books that have been donated to children and members of the military. He has also started his own publishing imprint at Little, Brown and Co.

For his concern about literacy, Patterson is receiving an honorary National Book Award.

Patterson has won the Literarian Award for “outstanding service to the American literary community,” the National Book Foundation has announced.

Previous recipients of the Literarian prize include Maya Angelou and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Patterson, 68, will be honored on November 18 at the annual National Book Awards ceremony dinner in Manhattan. The awards are presented by the nonprofit National Book Foundation.

Cooking With Goldy

Oline H. Cogdill

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After 17 novels, Diane Mott Davidson is the author most associated with the culinary mystery.

Yes, there are a slew of other authors who write culinary mysteries (and I list some below). But Davidson re-established the culinary mystery with Catering to Nobody, published in 1990.

Each of Davidson’s novels have included several recipes that Goldy has made during the plot. I have tried several and been pleased with their ease and flavor.

So instead of trying to find that one recipe amid all those novels, Goldy's Kitchen Cookbook chronicles all her recipes.

Part memoir, part writing manual, part cookbook, Goldy's Kitchen Cookbook introduces the recipes with stories about how she came to create them. Davidson also includes anecdotes from her experiences as a writer and home cook, and the time she received a fan letter from Julia Child.

Each of the recipes also tells which novel it came from.

Davidson also shows how she lost 30 pounds and kept it off in Goldy's Kitchen Cookbook.

As for Goldy’s habit of thinking about crimes and their solution while cooking, Davidson said she got that trick from reading Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels. “Spenser loves to cook, and working at the stove allows him time to reflect on the crime. . . I thought, that’s what Goldy needs to do,” Davidson writes.

By the way, I have made Davidson’s Fudgy Souffle (from Killer Pancake) several times. It’s an easy “soufflé” that is made on the stovetop. (It’s on page 268 if you need to look it up quickly.)

Davidson didn’t start the culinary mystery. Most experts suggest that honor goes to the late Virginia Rich, who wrote the Eugenia Potter series. Rich wrote three novels about Eugenia, a chef/rancher, starting with The Cooking School Murders in 1982. Author Nancy Pickard wrote the next three novels about Eugenia, starting in 1993 with The 27-Ingredient Chili Con Carne Murders, which Rich had begun before her death.

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I wonder if we should call 2015 the year of the cookbook, mystery style.

In addition to Goldy's Kitchen Cookbook, The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook: Wickedly Good Meals and Desserts to Die For, edited by Kate White, was published earlier this year by Quirk Books.

Beautifully illustrated, The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook contains more than 100 recipes from authors whose offerings continue the mystery theme with breakfasts, entrees, desserts, and cocktails.

About the same time, The Cozy Cookbook was published by Berkley. The authors featured in The Cozy Cookbook have each somehow written about food and include an excerpt from their novels to introduce a recipe.

Here’s a few more authors of culinary mysteries. I am listing just a sampling of their novels; they have many more. And more are at The Cozy Mystery Blog.

Murder on the Orient Espresso by Sandra Balzo
Fudging the Books by Daryl Wood Gerber
A Dish Best Served Cold by Rosie Genova
Fatal Reservations by Lucy Burdette
Macaroni and Freeze by Christine Wenger
Butter off Dead by Leslie Budewitz
Dead Men Don't Eat Cookies by Virginia Lowell
Death of an English Muffin by Victoria Hamilton
Revenge of the Chili Queens by Kylie Logan
If Onions Could Spring Leeks by Paige Shelton
The Big Chili by Julia Buckley
Trick or Deadly Treat by Livia J. Washburn
All the President’s Menus by Julie Hyzy
Double Fudge Brownie by Joanne Fluke

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My Book: How to Haunt a House

kelner toni Author Toni L.P. Kelner (Leigh Perry is a pseudonym). Photo: Susan Wilson.

I confess that setting a Family Skeleton mystery in a haunted house was an obvious choice. My books feature an ambulatory skeleton named Sid whose favorite holiday is Halloween. Of course, I couldn’t use a real haunted house because Sid doesn’t believe in ghosts. My fictional murder takes place at a haunted house attraction.

Since I worked at a haunt one Halloween and have screamed my way through plenty of others, I thought I already knew how to haunt a house. That was before I found a Reddit discussion for haunted house workers. Oh, my spine and femur! I spent hours reading terrific tales of terrorizing.

Today’s haunted house workers don’t just throw on a monster mask and a black robe to lurk in generic scary houses. Haunts develop themes around vampires, clowns, postapocalyptic landscapes, zombies, aliens, and insane asylums. Characters and costumes have to match the setting and the storylines. Honestly, a haunt is a type of theater, and the workers are known as scare actors.

Those scare actors have a frighteningly tough job with long hours and small paychecks. If they do their job well, they could get punched by people who get angry at being scared. Even worse are the patrons who are aroused by scare scenes and can’t keep their hands to themselves. Then there are customers who refuse to be scared, laughing at your best gags or making comments on how fake the blood looks.

But beware—scare actors know how to get revenge. If you give actors a hard time, they’ll pass the word up the line for the actors in the next scene to give you extra ghoulish attention. If your name is overheard, the scares get a personal touch. If nothing else works, one thing almost always does the job: a chain saw.

pumpkins Just try being calm when a burly stranger in a hockey mask brandishes a chain saw. Tough guys shove their girlfriends out of the way to escape; parents panic and abandon their children; customers lose control of their bladders or bowels. (And some haunts track those incidents for fun.) Most haunts use a real chain saw, too. They just leave off the chain and let the sound do the job.

All of that makes great fodder for a mystery writer: disguises, revenge, violence, and motives galore. Even better—though admittedly creepier—dead bodies have been found in haunted houses. Actual dead bodies, that is, not pretend. Most of the incidents were accidents where props were misused or broken (never put a noose around your neck for a gag, no matter how many times you’ve tested it) and there have been suicides as well. I didn’t have to take it too far to put a murder victim inside my imaginary haunt.

perry skeletonhauntsahouse

I learned a lot more about haunting than I’d expected to, and I’m always happy to make a book more authentic. The thing that scares a mystery writer most is getting the details wrong!

Leigh Perry, The Skeleton Haunts a House, Berkley Prime Crime, $7.99

Girl Waits With Gun

Cheryl Solimini

Don’t mess with the Misses Kopp! Independent and irrepressible, Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp are Jersey girls (circa 1914) who tangle with a local bad boy and more than hold their own. That this crime novel is based on long-forgotten but true events that once attracted national attention makes their story even more tantalizing.

Trouble begins when wealthy factory owner Henry Kaufman crashes his motorcar into the Kopps’ horse carriage as the young countrywomen run errands in the nearby city of Paterson, New Jersey. Bruised but unbowed, Constance is determined that Kaufman will pay the $50 to fix their busted buggy. Instead, he and his thuggish buddies stalk them at their isolated farmhouse and toss bricks, wrapped in menacing messages, through the windows.

Aided by the county sheriff, Constance presses charges against the assailants. But soon, all three Kopps are brandishing revolvers, as Kaufman and company escalate their months-long campaign of intimidation to gunshots in the night, attempted arson, kidnapping threats, and blackmail. Still, he has underestimated them all—especially Constance. The oldest and tallest (at nearly six feet), she takes the biggest risks to protect her family, as well as help one of the factory workers find her mysteriously missing child, while guarding a secret of her own.

Amy Stewart brings her first fiction to full bloom with colorful characters and period background ripped from the headlines (literally—the novel’s title comes from a Philadelphia Sun article on Constance’s meetup with the blackmailer). Through a fictional subplot, Stewart also explores the plight of silk mill laborers, particularly working mothers, during the 1913 Paterson strike, when the walkout of 25,000 workers shut down more than 300 factories. The historical details engage without ever feeling forced, and the hardships faced by three strong-willed, self-sufficient Kopp women are tempered by their good-humored banter. Even better, Constance’s real-life fate, revealed at the very end, brings hope that there will be more adventures to come featuring the courageous Kopps.

A Song of Shadows

Craig Sisterson

The line between life and death is always more of a semi-permeable membrane in John Connolly’s excellent Charlie Parker series, and in the prior installment, the private eye narrowly avoided riding across the Styx.

Haunted by more than his past, Parker cuts a lonely figure shuffling along the beach outside the tiny Maine town of Boreas. Every day he inches further; his recuperation, like the town, moving at a snail’s pace. The detective’s reputation precedes him, and the local sheriff and other townsfolk are cordial but cautious about welcoming such a trouble-magnet into their midst.

When the body of an obsessive Nazi hunter washes ashore and a fearful neighbor strikes trouble, the PI finds himself summoning his many resources to battle modern foes forged by historic evil. It may be 70 years since WWII, but the Holocaust still echoes strongly in this Maine settlement with German and Jewish roots.

Irishman Connolly proves he’s a poet of the genre, delivering page-turning action on a wave of elegant and evocative prose. He creates an intoxicating blend of noir tinged with the paranormal, while asking profound questions of his readers and his characters without ever tripping over a soapbox or losing narrative drive. A Song of Shadows is an outstanding novel from a writer at the top of his very considerable game.

Those We Left Behind

RJ Cresswell

Seven years ago, 12-year-old Ciaran Devine confessed to murdering his foster father, David Rolston. He claimed he did it because David abused his older brother Thomas. The Devine brothers served time for the crime, but now are out and reunited.

The hitch to the Devine brothers moving on with their lives is Daniel Rolston, their foster brother and David’s biological son. Unable to transcend his father’s murder and the allegations of abuse, Daniel is convinced that Ciaran took the fall for Thomas and embarks on a journey of retribution.

Entwined in this triangle of sorrow is Paula Cunningham, Ciaran’s probation officer, and Belfast DCI Serena Flanagan, the detective at the center of Stuart Neville’s new series and the original detective on the tragic Devine-Rolston case.

In many ways, Those We Left Behind is a psychological thriller that explores the relationships forged by those who perpetrate the crime, those complicit in it, those who are the victims, and those involved in the criminal justice system. It is also an examination of how choices in the past can haunt and bind a person until his or her last day. Neville is a skillful writer, and Those We Left Behind is a testament to his ability to craft an unyielding tale that resounds with heartache, compassion, and terror. As the first in a series, readers can look forward to more DCI Flanagan in the future.

In Bitter Chill

Katrina Niidas Holm

On January 20, 1978, Rachel Jones and Sophie Jenkins went missing on their way to school. Several hours later, Rachel was discovered wandering down Bampton Road. Sophie was never seen or heard from again.

Decades later, on the anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance, Yvonne Jenkins is found dead in a hotel room. It is ruled a suicide, but soon after, a teacher from the girls’ old school is murdered not far from where Rachel reappeared. The authorities are now convinced the cases are linked, but how?

While laced with flashbacks, the bulk of Sarah Ward’s In Bitter Chill takes place in the present and centers on three key figures: detective constable Connie Childs, who is young, hungry, and looking to make her mark; detective inspector Francis Sadler, who thinks digging into the past is a waste of time and resources, but can’t quite resist the challenge of solving a case his predecessors could not; and a grown Rachel Jones, who’s torn between burying her history and laying it bare.

Equal parts police procedural and crime drama, In Bitter Chill is a story about secrets, lies, and their consequences. Ward’s prose in this slow burner is moody and atmospheric, and laden with detailed descriptions of the sights, sounds, and smells that characterize the English countryside in winter. The pace is deliberate—at times a bit too much so—but the plot is complex enough to keep even the most seasoned of mystery fans guessing. And Ward nicely illustrates the sense of claustrophobia that comes with spending one’s entire life in a small town.

Ward falls short in giving her main players distinct voices, however, despite splitting her narrative between Rachel, Connie, and Francis. She ultimately fails to convince the reader that any of them—Rachel included—is emotionally invested in the mystery’s outcome. This has the unfortunate effect of sapping the story of vibrancy. The end result is a book that’s intellectually satisfying, but emotionally unfulfilling.

The Lower Quarter

Betty Webb

Among this fall’s exceptional books is Elise Blackwell’s The Lower Quarter, where ghosts of Hurricane Katrina remain with the residents who are attempting to put their shattered lives back together. Usually when Katrina rears her ugly head in a book, the characters involved are hardscrabble folk fighting not only floods, but poverty, too. Not here. This elegant novel traces the lives of several artists and art lovers who are swept up in the search for a stolen Belgian oil painting. Johanna, an art restorer from Eastern Europe, has an emotional tie to the piece. Eli, an ex-convict whose job is tracking down stolen art works, is in love with Johanna, even though he suspects she might have been involved in the theft. Clay, the scion of a Southern aristocratic family, creates illustrated novels and is deep—possibly too deep—into bondage games. Like Eli, Clay is also in love with Johanna, but because of something that happened between them years earlier in Belgium, Johanna is keeping him at a distance. Marion, an artist, tends bar to keep body and soul together, but for extra bucks she participates in Clay’s bondage “scenarios.” The lives of these four characters intersect when an Eastern European man named Ladislav, who also has a connection to the art world, is discovered murdered in a New Orleans hotel. This book won’t be for everyone; if it were a movie, the detailed whipping scenes alone would earn it an R rating. Still, The Lower Quarter is a beautifully written novel about the power of art to both create and destroy. Those readers lucky enough to have ever fallen deeply in love with a painting (for me it was Vermeer’s The Milkmaid) will personally connect with this book, and with the lovely, stricken city still trying to rise above the waves. I certainly did, and found The Lower Quarter to be one of the most moving novels I’ve read in years.

The Stages

Betty Webb

Of all the real-life people to wind up in a mystery novel, Søren Kierkegaard is probably the last you would expect, but in Thom Satterlee’s The Stages, the Danish theologian/philosopher takes center stage, even though he’s been dead for more than a century and a half. That’s because Daniel Peters, the protagonist, has devoted his life to translating Kierkegaard’s mountainous manuscripts into English. Peters, an American living in Copenhagen on a work visa, has Asperger’s syndrome, which helps his detail-oriented work, but at the same time renders him unaware of even the most common human emotions. His entire life is taken up by Kierkegaard, so when Mette, his former girlfriend—also a Kierkegaard scholar—is found dead, instead of grieving for her, he mourns the loss of a missing manuscript. This emotional “deafness” could have made Peters an unsympathetic protagonist, but in author Satterlee’s gifted hands, Peters is endearing. Realizing his emotional shortcomings, the poor man tries desperately to mimic an appropriate reaction to the discovery that Mette was murdered, but fails miserably. When he learns that he is the chief suspect in her murder, he can’t even feel fear—just a vague anxiety that imprisonment will interfere with his translation work. Yet while Peters can’t experience “normal” human emotions, he does harbor a strong loyalty to Mette and her own work with Kierkegaard, so he sets out to track down her killer. Satterlee’s writing gifts are enormous. The author of the highly acclaimed poetry collection Burning Wyclif, he is adept at rendering Kierkegaard’s dense philosophy not only readable, but exquisite. And there’s a lot of Kierkegaard here. While Peters speaks with other suspects, he wonders how Kierkegaard would view them. When walking the streets of Copenhagen in search of clues, he can’t forget he’s walking in Kierkegaard’s footsteps. In the end, Peters’ obsession with the Danish philosopher almost gets him killed, but at the same time, it not only saves his life, it gives him a deeper appreciation for the fragility of that life.

The Bottom

Betty Webb

I’ve been a fan of Howard Owen since his magnificent first novel, Littlejohn, a literary exploration of an illiterate farmer’s life. More literary novels followed, but somewhere along the line, Owen, a newspaperman, shifted his focus to the noirish adventures of Willie Black, a reporter at a dying Richmond, Virginia newspaper. Oregon Hill, the first of these, won the 2012 Hammett Prize, proof that when a literary author jumps ship, he takes his talent with him. Now comes The Bottom, the fourth in the Willie Black series, in which the hard-drinking, three-times-divorced reporter is covering the serial killings of runaway teens. The crimes are gruesome, but thanks to Owen’s considerable gifts, the book isn’t. Black’s life is a mess. His mother is a stoner (the ’70s were good to her), his college-bound but unmarried daughter has been knocked up by an idiot, and his publisher was recently killed in a hilarious-but-sad Segway accident. Added to these woes is a conscienceless real estate developer who is trying to hide the fact that the ground he’s bulldozing for a strip mall is the historical site of old slave graves. Black, of mixed race, is personally furious about it. All these events could have been played for tragedy, but the author has the ability to find dark humor in the most unlikely of places. Not that we don’t find tragedy in The Bottom. Tragedy is manifest in the fates of the four teenage girls sent to early graves by a man known as the Tweety Bird Killer because of the tattoo he left on his first victim. Also somber is Owen’s portrayal of the fates of older reporters. As Black surveys the dwindling newsroom, he realizes that he and his middle-aged coworkers are “too old to be attractive additions to anybody else’s newsroom staff, and too young to die.” Still, he keeps on keeping on, working long, unpaid hours to track down the Tweety Bird killer before another young girl dies. With all Black’s faults—and they are legion—he has never suffered from a lack of compassion. If anything, he cares too much, and that’s why the Willie Black mysteries remain as unputdownable as was Littlejohn, Owen’s first masterpiece.

The Right Wrong Thing

Betty Webb

In Ellen Kirschman’s The Right Wrong Thing, it’s tempting to believe that some people are doomed at birth. This is the case when Randy Spelling, a rookie California police officer, mistakes a cell phone for a gun and shoots Lakeisha Gibbs, a pregnant black teen, to death. The fact that author Kirschman’s fictional shooting mirrors today’s real-life headlines adds immediacy and piquancy to this thoughtful, compassionate novel—but Kirschman adds a twist we seldom read about. The young cop, little more than a child herself, is so overwhelmed by remorse that she insists on speaking with the girl’s grieving mother to tell her how sorry she is. Police department psychologist Dot Meyerhoff intervenes, advising the guilt-ridden cop to stay far, far away from the girl’s entire family. But psychologists’ patients don’t always listen to good advice, and the consequences of Randy’s actions rock her small California town. Besides being an enthralling book, The Right Wrong Thing stands out in its depiction of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which plagues almost all police officers who have felt it necessary, whether mistakenly or not, to take a life. Told from Meyerhoff's point of view, we learn that PTSD, and the perception of danger that leads up to it, isn’t just mental—it’s also biological. For that sad but wise discussion alone, The Right Wrong Thing is well worth reading, but psychologist Meyerhoff isn’t a mere deliverer of facts. She’s a beautifully developed character with problems of her own, including a troublesome boyfriend and a manipulative boss. In a late-in-the-book shocker, Meyerhoff even begins to question her own identity.

The Collector

Betty Webb

In an art-related mystery, we travel to Paris (never a hard thing to do) for Anne-Laure Thiéblemont’s The Collector, where Marion Spicer, who works for an art certification company, discovers that she has inherited a collection of pre-Columbian art worth millions. The only snag in her windfall is that it is missing three pieces, and before she can collect her inheritance, she must find the missing artifacts. As the corpses pile up, Marion’s hunt takes us ito interesting places: the homes of billionaires, persnickety art galleries, and eat-their-own-kind auction houses. But the truly mind-boggling thing about this slender book (211 pages) is in learning that the très cultured Parisian art scene is every bit as down and dirty as an alleyway mugging.

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