MWW Day 11 - Jean Henry Mead's Dana Logan & Sarah Cafferty

Welcome to Day 11 in the Murder We Write Blog Tour. Don’t forget to leave a comment to be entered to win a copy of one of my adventures to be drawn at the end of the tour. Who am I you ask? I’m Mitch Malone, crime beat reporter extraordinaire for the Grand River Journal. My interview today is a pair. Meet Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty. Normally I would insert some kind of snide comment about the pair being widows in Jean Henry Mead’s Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense series but a little old lady called Elsie Dobson has cured me of that behavior. The pair being interviewed today travel in a motorhome finding murder around every turn. Let’s start with the basics. How did you two hook up?

Dana: We met in a San Joaquin Valley retirement village where our Sew and So club members were dying alphabetically. A dog trainer had just been elected sheriff and he was bungling the investigation so badly in A VILLAGE SHATERED that we decided to discover the killer’s identity ourselves—before our own names came up on his list. All the dead bodies made us decide to sell our homes and buy an RV to travel, but we stumble over bodies, no matter where we go.

I like my Jeep but you take your transportation a bit more seriously. You have a motorhome named Matilda? How did that happen and who is it named after?

Sarah: Dana hates the name but I christened the RV for my Aunt Matilda. She was one determined lady who bullied her way around, no matter who stood in her way. Kinda like the motorhome does on the highway. She wasn’t a bully, mind you, but people took off like scalded cats whenever she lit into them.

You two have matched wits with terrorists in MURDER ON THE INTERSTATE to killers in DIARY OF MURDER and many others. What was the scariest situation you faced?

Dana: For me it was crashing the motorhome when the killer sneaked onboard and pushed a gun into my throat while I was driving. I knew he was going to kill me so I drove into a ditch along the highway while he was standing behind me. That experience was closely followed on the fright scale by the blizzard I had to drive the RV through in Colorado in DIARY OF MURDER after my sister died in her mansion in Wyoming. Her husband claimed it was suicide but we proved him wrong.

Sarah: Don’t forget the flash flood that nearly drowned us while chased by a serial killer in MURDER ON THE INTERSTATE. And I was kidnapped by a drug gang in the Laramie Mountains in DIARY OF MURDER. They tied me to a chair and left me there to freeze to death after they slapped me around. They even left the door open so bears and wolves could come into the cabin. I guess they didn’t kill me themselves because I reminded one of gang members of his grandmother.

Dana, you have a daughter, Kerrie, who is a journalist. Do you think she would want a date with a hot crime beat reporter with a few awards under his belt? I’m quite the catch.

Sarah: (muttering to herself) You’re gonna catch pneumonia if you don’t button up your shirt, Don Juan.

Dana: Kerrie might have dated you in DIARY OF MURDER or A VILLAGE SHATERED. But she fell in love with an FBI agent in MURDER ON THE INTERSTATE, although he used her as a decoy for the homegrown terrorists he was investigating in Denver, which almost got her killed. Kerrie always seems to fall in love with lawmen, although she was engaged to a fellow journalist in A VILLAGE. He betrayed her so she hasn’t really trusted men since.

Kerrie is involved in several of these dangerous situations. Do you go in and rescue her or does she rescue you?

In A VILLAGE, Kerrie is lured into an old house by the killer and I have to rescue her with the sheriff’s riot gun. And in MURDER ON THE INTERSTATE, Sarah and I rescue Kerrie from the hospital when terrorists are blowing it up after she’s been injured in a limo accident.

But her investigative skills have helped us solve a number of murders.

What’s up next for you old ladies, err, crime fighting sleuths?

Sarah: Old ladies are we? We’re only sixty and that’s the new forty, in case you didn’t know. We can do anything younger sleuths can do, with the possible exception of scaling tall buildings.

Dana: Sarah’s right. We’re out to prove that women our ages are still desirable—

Sarah: There’s a San Joaquin Valley sheriff still chasing after Dana.

Dana: —and that women of a certain age don’t have to confine themselves to rocking chairs and bridge games. Some of us are jumping out of airplanes, climbing mountains, downhill skiing, driving RVs, and marrying younger men . . . whatever we want to do. Sixty is a great time to be alive.

As for our next caper, Kerrie’s publisher is murdered and she’s accused of the crime. I think we’ll call this one MAGNETS FOR MURDER.

Okay, okay, I get it. Thank you, you young chicks, Dana and Sarah. To find out more about Jean Henry Mead’s books check out her website at http://www.jeanhenrymead.com. Also, make sure you leave a comment. Jean Henry’s giving away one of her mystery ebooks at the end of each of her 14 blog appearances as well as three print novels at the conclusion of the tour. Be sure to leave a comment and email address to be eligible for the drawings. Her blog tour schedule is listed at: http://jeansblogtour.blogspot.com/

Jean Henry Mead has published 15 books, half of them mystery/suspense and historical novels. She also writes the Hamilton Kids’ mysteries and is an award-winning photojournalist. Jean's latest Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense novel, Murder on the Interstate, is available at:Amazon.com: http://tinyurl.com/6znjvsa Barnes and Noble: http://tinyurl.com/3vxzppy