Author Topic: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself  (Read 95281 times)

Becke Davis

  • Global Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 798
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #90 on: December 06, 2019, 01:08:40 am »
I'm doing this backwards - I jumped in with a reply before introducing myself. I've been a bookaholic ever since I learned to read, and a mystery devotee since I discovered Nancy Drew at age 8 or so. I didn't discover Agatha Christie until about age 15, but in the interim I fell in love with mystery short stories - especially those with twist endings, a la Alfred Hitchcock collected short stories.

I have a habit of jumping into a series willy-nilly and going back and forth until I've read them all. Currently, I'm following series by Louise Penny, Alan Bradley, Zoe Sharp, Susan Elia MacNeal, Carola Dunn and more. I'm belatedly getting into Ruth Ware's books, I've been rediscovering Simon Brett's Mrs. Pargeter books, and I'm always on the look-out for new books by Hank Phillippi Ryan, G.M. Malliet, Betty Hechtman, Lee Child, Linwood Barclay, Jeff Abbott, Duffy Brown and Molly Macrae.

In high school I discovered Mary Stewart and Evelyn Anthony, but the world-changer was when I read FUNERALS ARE FATAL by Agatha Christie. A regular babysitting client found me reading an Agatha Christie when she arrived home one night, and she dug out a box of dogeared Agatha Christie paperbacks from the 1940s and 1950s, which formed the basis of my collection. I've tried to collect both English and American versions, but I only have a few hardcovers and one or two first editions.

I have written for the landscape trade for 30 years or so, and I've written several gardening books. In the 1990s Barnes & Noble hired me to teach an online gardening course, write a garden blog and moderate a gardening forum. When the forums expanded, I was hired to moderate their Mystery Forum. I was thrilled to do that until the forums were disbanded in about 2013. A group of loyal forum members created a "B&N Mystery Forum Refugees" group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/637616112974114/.

I love to discover new authors and classic authors I have missed. Books are my favorite subject - my grandchildren come next!

https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/what-would-agatha-say/

https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/did-agatha-christie-have-formula-for/

JRob

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 500
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #91 on: December 06, 2019, 06:09:59 pm »
Becke,

Welcome on board here! Nice to see some new action here on the boards that's for sure.

I'm a big fan of Hank Phillippi Ryan's books and I've been lucky enough to meet her a few times at signings so I've gotten all of my copies signed by her. And she's actually introduced me to other authors when she's done interviews wit them.

Becke Davis

  • Global Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 798
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #92 on: December 06, 2019, 11:29:53 pm »
Hank Phillippi Ryan is awesome! I have all her books - I haven't asked her to autograph them, but I stick Christmas cards from her between the pages. She was one of the first people I met when I attended Bouchercon. I've only been there one time - it's was awesome and intimidating at the same time. I'm not a shy sort of person, but when I found myself in an elevator with Lee Child, my hands got all clammy and I was tongue-tied. A lot of people there looked familiar but I couldn't definitely place them. I would have liked them to wear full-size sandwich boards with their name and back cover jacket photos on their backs so I could identify my favorite authors without staring at them.

Becke Davis

  • Global Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 798
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #93 on: December 07, 2019, 01:21:46 am »
I was supposed to introduce myself, wasn't it?  I'm Jim Huang.  I've been reading mysteries since middle school, but really fell in love with the genre when a high school English teacher suggested that I read GAUDY NIGHT, the book that really demonstrated for me to power of the genre.  Besides reading, I've edited a book review newsletter devoted to mysteries, owned a bookshop devoted to the genre, helped organize conferences (including the 2009 Bouchercon in Indianapolis), and served on the national board of Sisters in Crime.  These days, I continue to run a small press that publishes books for mystery lovers, while my day job is running the bookshop at Bryn Mawr College.

Jim - I'm in awe. The 2009 Bouchercon in Indianapolis is the first and only one I ever attended. I was living in Cincinnati at the time so there wasn't a lot of travel involved. All my life I'd heard about my dad's friend Tony DelVecchio who reviewed mysteries for himself and his friends. Tony had attended almost every Bouchercon so he showed me the ropes.

I believe you attended Magna Cum Murder in Muncie the year I attended it with Duffy Brown. I was jinxed - I was fine when we set out from Cincinnati but had a raging fever by the time we arrived. Not much fun for Duffy. The flu bug, or whatever it was, didn't last long and I was able to see the Poison Lady's presentation and hang out with a couple of authors like Molly McRae. I think you were in a discussion group with Parnell Hall, if I remember correctly. (If I'm remembering incorrectly, I blame the flu!)

Becke Davis

  • Global Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 798
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #94 on: December 10, 2019, 11:33:46 pm »
Hi
I am Verna Suit and I construct the crossword puzzle found on the back page of Mystery Scene.

I began with Nancy Drew of course. In my 20s I started reading all of Agatha Christie that I could find, then moved on to PD James then John LeCarre. The world opened up once I discovered the contemporary mystery scene. Sue Grafton became my gold standard (RIP Sue), followed by Robert Crais, Elmore Leonard, Lee Child, Laura Lippman, Margaret Maron, CJ Box, Louise Penny, James Lee Burke, etc.

I enjoy thrillers, PI books, good stories, international settings, new-to-me authors, an occasional cozy, historicals no earlier than 1895. I belong to Sherlockian and Nero Wolfe societies.

When rejects of my own mystery novel equaled my age, I took that as a sign and moved on to reviewing. I also ran the Sisters in Crime clipping service for 12 years. But these days, making mystery-themed crosswords is my main contribution to the mystery community. I hope some of you will give solving them a try.

I am so impressed with your crossword-making skills! I'm not a very skilled crossword solver - the USA Today puzzles are about my speed.

I love your name, too. It sounds like you just walked out of a mystery novel, maybe a British-style cozy!

Denise

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 34
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #95 on: December 12, 2019, 05:32:50 pm »
Hi! I'm Denise, an online friend of Becke's. I was an active participant on many of the Barnes & Noble discussion boards, where I met Becke, who was moderating the Mystery forum. When they shut the discussion boards down, I created the B&N Mystery Forum Refugees group on Facebook, so the gang would have a place to go; made Becke co-admin, and mostly handed it over to her, to continue what she'd been doing so well. Now she's a moderator here, too, so here I am!

I've loved mysteries since grade school. I was given a book of mystery stories for Christmas one year, and then started reading the Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins books. I love cozies, of the house party and country village type. My favorites are Grandes Dames Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh. Newer(ish) series I love include Martha Grimes' Richard Jury, Carolyn Hart's Death on Demand, and Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody. I also love mysteries that feature real-life authors as fictional sleuths. I have series featuring Jane Austen, the Brontes, Louisa May Alcott, Beatrix Potter, and Josephine Tey.

Nice to meet you!
"Poirot," I said. "I have been thinking."  "An admirable exercise, my friend. Continue it." - Agatha Christie, Peril at End House

Becke Davis

  • Global Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 798
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #96 on: December 12, 2019, 05:47:17 pm »
Hi! I'm Denise, an online friend of Becke's. I was an active participant on many of the Barnes & Noble discussion boards, where I met Becke, who was moderating the Mystery forum. When they shut the discussion boards down, I created the B&N Mystery Forum Refugees group on Facebook, so the gang would have a place to go; made Becke co-admin, and mostly handed it over to her, to continue what she'd been doing so well. Now she's a moderator here, too, so here I am!

I've loved mysteries since grade school. I was given a book of mystery stories for Christmas one year, and then started reading the Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins books. I love cozies, of the house party and country village type. My favorites are Grandes Dames Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh. Newer(ish) series I love include Martha Grimes' Richard Jury, Carolyn Hart's Death on Demand, and Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody. I also love mysteries that feature real-life authors as fictional sleuths. I have series featuring Jane Austen, the Brontes, Louisa May Alcott, Beatrix Potter, and Josephine Tey.

Nice to meet you!

Denise - I noticed a new Richard Jury book on display at Barnes & Noble, and when I Googled it, I realized I've missed a couple of newish Martha Grimes books. I know I have VERTIGO 42 around here someplace. (Books I've read are in a semi-organized system of shelving, but it's another story with books I haven't read yet.) I've read all the Richard Jury books up to THE OLD WINE SHADES (with one possible exception - THE WINDS OF CHANGE doesn't sound familiar. I might have read THE BLACK CAT, but I'm not sure about that one, either. I definitely haven't read THE KNOWLEDGE and THE OLD SUCCESS. I'll have to double-up on my reading over the holidays. (The grandkids will be out of town for a week, so I should make some progress.)

JRob

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 500
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #97 on: December 12, 2019, 06:40:04 pm »
Hi! I'm Denise, an online friend of Becke's. I was an active participant on many of the Barnes & Noble discussion boards, where I met Becke, who was moderating the Mystery forum. When they shut the discussion boards down, I created the B&N Mystery Forum Refugees group on Facebook, so the gang would have a place to go; made Becke co-admin, and mostly handed it over to her, to continue what she'd been doing so well. Now she's a moderator here, too, so here I am!

I've loved mysteries since grade school. I was given a book of mystery stories for Christmas one year, and then started reading the Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins books. I love cozies, of the house party and country village type. My favorites are Grandes Dames Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh. Newer(ish) series I love include Martha Grimes' Richard Jury, Carolyn Hart's Death on Demand, and Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody. I also love mysteries that feature real-life authors as fictional sleuths. I have series featuring Jane Austen, the Brontes, Louisa May Alcott, Beatrix Potter, and Josephine Tey.

Nice to meet you!

Welcome to the Forums Denise!

Kate Stine, Editor

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 92
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #98 on: December 13, 2019, 10:07:09 am »
Hi Denise,
Nice to see you at the MS Forum! I like your favorites list -- particularly the Elizabeth Peter's Amelia Peabody books. I also loved all the standalones she did of independent young women, often on a trip abroad. I used to dream of being just like them when I was a teenager. One of my favorite memories is telling Barbara Mertz (Elizabeth Peters) that over martinis at a Malice Domestic convention.

Becke Davis

  • Global Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 798
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #99 on: December 13, 2019, 10:40:19 am »
Good afternoon, all, and thank you, Kate and Brian, for setting up this forum! I'm Joe Goodrich, a mystery writer and a proud contributor to Mystery Scene. (I'm also a playwright.) Levinson and Link---the Columbo series, the short-lived Ellery Queen series with Jim Hutton, etc---along with S. Holmes and A. Hitchcock got to me early, and I've been a devoted fan of the genre for over four decades now. My tastes are fairly catholic, ranging from mean streets to English country house. I'll leave it at that for the moment. Congrats again to Kate and Brian!
Hi Joe, glad to see you here!

Everybody, what Joe didn't say is that he is an Edgar-award-winning playwright.

If anyone wants to hear Joe reading a terrific story he wrote for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, you can listen here:

https://player.fm/series/ellery-queens-mystery-magazines-fiction-podcast-182925/episode-85-the-ten-cent-murder-by-joseph-goodrich-Sntri1qvuhhRmLhU

Congratulations on the Edgar, Joe! I grew up on EQMM, AHMM  which led to a lifelong fondness for mystery short stories.

Denise

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 34
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #100 on: December 13, 2019, 01:00:17 pm »

Denise - I noticed a new Richard Jury book on display at Barnes & Noble, and when I Googled it, I realized I've missed a couple of newish Martha Grimes books. I know I have VERTIGO 42 around here someplace. (Books I've read are in a semi-organized system of shelving, but it's another story with books I haven't read yet.) I've read all the Richard Jury books up to THE OLD WINE SHADES (with one possible exception - THE WINDS OF CHANGE doesn't sound familiar. I might have read THE BLACK CAT, but I'm not sure about that one, either. I definitely haven't read THE KNOWLEDGE and THE OLD SUCCESS. I'll have to double-up on my reading over the holidays. (The grandkids will be out of town for a week, so I should make some progress.)

I had to go check, and I have them up through Vertigo 42. I had been getting all of her books from The Mystery Guild, but I guess they've stopped offering them. I've been looking for the new one, but it hasn't shown up there yet, and apparently I missed out on The Knowledge, too. I hate when they do that! The only one they didn't seem to offer before was The Five Bells and Bladebone (1987), for some reason, so I ended up having to buy it in paperback. They did the same thing with the Death on Demand series, and I don't have the final two books. I was relying on them for keeping track and seeing when there were new books in my favorite series and getting them from there, but something changed at some point, apparently. Other series I've been able to get from start to finish, though. Oh, well. I'll probably have to fill in on the missing ones with paperbacks. Strange that they dropped the Death on Demand series so close to the end, but are still offering Carolyn Hart's Ghost series as they come out.

As we've discussed elsewhere, I don't like that Harry guy that Jury meets in the wine bar, and kind of groan when I have to read those scenes. I like his dog, though! I did like The Black Cat; it was a bit different, because we sometimes got to see things through the viewpoint of several of the animals in the story, including Harry's dog (if I remember rightly). As I've also mentioned before, I am madly in love with Melrose Plant, and so my favorite in the series is The Lamorna Wink, which mostly follows Melrose, with not as much Jury (although I also like Jury a lot!).
"Poirot," I said. "I have been thinking."  "An admirable exercise, my friend. Continue it." - Agatha Christie, Peril at End House

Becke Davis

  • Global Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 798
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #101 on: December 13, 2019, 02:13:46 pm »
Hi Denise,
Nice to see you at the MS Forum! I like your favorites list -- particularly the Elizabeth Peter's Amelia Peabody books. I also loved all the standalones she did of independent young women, often on a trip abroad. I used to dream of being just like them when I was a teenager. One of my favorite memories is telling Barbara Mertz (Elizabeth Peters) that over martinis at a Malice Domestic convention.

That must have been the one and only Malice Domestic I attended. She did a presentation on the Amelia Peabody books. At that point, I had read all her Barbara Michaels books but none of Amelia's. I've rectified that since then - I have all the Amelia Peabody books and I've read about half of them. I used to live near the Oriental Institute in Chicago, and I thought of her whenever I visited the museum.

Becke Davis

  • Global Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 798
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #102 on: January 04, 2020, 12:28:09 am »
Howdy Mystery Lovers!!

I am a life long reader and my favorite books are mysteries and crime novels.  I started early, gobbling up Agatha Christie, The Hardy Boys, and the Three Investigators. I moved on to many others: Stuart Kaminsky, Earl Emerson, Jan Burke, PJ Tracy, Carol J Perry ( I can't recall them all!) I currently love reading Irish and Scottish Noir, with a current obsession for Stuart MacBride.

I tend to like police procedurals, & P.I.s, with a gritty,dark edge.  8) :D

Looking forward to communicating with other fans and authors.

I just noticed you have P.J. Tracy on your list. Count me in as a fan of theirs! I first came across MONKEEWRENCH by accident, the year it was published. The title intrigued me, so I bought it. The books are dark and sometimes gruesome, but I think I've read them all except the Christmas story on Kindle. I used to have a Nook, but I managed to fry it. I stick to paperbacks and the occasional hardcover now.

Molly MacRae

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 2
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #103 on: February 02, 2020, 09:26:20 am »
Hello! Thank you, Becke, for sharing the information about this forum with me, and thanks, Mystery Scene, for creating it! I write two series - the Highland Bookshop Mysteries and the Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries.

The bookshop mysteries are about four women, three Americans and a Scot, who reinvent their lives by buying a bookshop in a tourist town on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands. It's a bookshop! It's Scotland! What could possibly go wrong with a plan like that?

The yarn shop mysteries are about a textile preservation specialist (into things she can see, touch, and analyze) who inherits her grandmother's fiber and fabric shop in tiny Blue Plum, Tennessee, and ends up with a depressed ghost on her hands. 

I lived in Scotland in the mid-70s and in a town like Blue Plum in the 80s and 90s. Writing these books is my way of returning to places I love (and killing off a few people, too).  :)

JRob

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 500
    • View Profile
Re: Say Hi and Introduce Yourself
« Reply #104 on: February 02, 2020, 11:02:25 am »
Hi Molly!

Welcome to the forums. I am sorry to say that I haven't read your work before but I'm definitely going to add the Highland Bookshop Mysteries books to the list of series I need to check out. I love series set in Ireland and Scotland and when they are set in and around a bookstore or library, so much the better!