Two victims. Two detectives. One body. That’s the basic premise of the book, and I’ll be walking on very thin ice to tell you more. The story is so tightly constructed that nearly everything in it connects to a clue, and once you figure out the plot twist, you’ll never be able to forget …
Contemporary cozy author Rachael Rawlings recently asked me to contribute to a profile post, along with several other women writers. The theme was starting a fiction career after age forty. I shared with her my own career change and in particular, the woman who made me consider it possible: New Zealand’s Queen of Crime, Ngaio …
Ask and you shall receive. I’ve heard cat lovers speak of “Cat Central,” a mystical agency that assigns cats to their destined homes, often by opaque or circuitous chains of cause and effect. Sometimes I think there’s a version of this for books and authors, bringing a certain volume into your hands at just the …
Review: Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d by Alan Bradley Read More »
Honestly, I tried. November – February is its own liturgical season at my house: the Unending Feast of St. Cadbury. We roll straight from Thanksgiving to a birthday, Christmas, two more birthdays, Valentine’s Day and yet another birthday. It’s a lot of parties, a lot of travel, a lot of cleanup, and a lot of chocolate. …
Growing up in my house was a constant refrain of “Tomayto, Tomahto.” Dad liked red wine and oysters. Mom was a teetotaler and hated any seafood but canned tuna (which hardly counts, face it.) My brother built model airplanes and read the entire Dune series (all two dozen). I made up interpretive dances to the …
Cozy. Edgy. True-Crime. Procedurals. Hard-boiled. The mystery genre keeps changing and diversifying over time, but what is it about Golden Age stories that brings true fans back, over and over? To start with, they’re just fun. Waltzing with Lord Peter in a claret-colored frock (“Chateau Margaux 1893 or thereabouts”); narrowly escaping Murder by Horse, …