Blogging on Unforgettable Characters

Kathleen Kaska graciously asked me to post on whether characters or plot make a good book. Of course I weighed in on characters carrying the plot and without them is there a plot? Let me know what you think.
http://kathleenkaskawrites.blogspot.com/2012/05/unforgettable-characters.html
 Birds and Books Blog

Mitch Malone Mondays: J. H. Bográn's Robert Prescott

Mitch Malone here and it is time for another grilling of a "willing subject." Well this one may not be willing but let’s say I know a few of his secrets and he doesn't have a choice. This interview should get me my Pulitzer Prize for journalism. How many people can interview a hit man? Robert Prescott, you are the featured character in José Bográn's short story, THE ASSASSIN'S MISTRESS. From what my sources say, this is one fine story. Let's get right to the dirt. Can you tell us how you got involved in your profession?

RP: I acquired a set of skills in the SAS. After I left the military, I used those skills to procure a better income. It wasn’t hard, actually.

Now I hear there is a beautiful blond at the heart of this story? Women always get us men in trouble. Mine is with an ebony-haired vixen but I don't want to talk about her. Tell me about your femme fatale?

RP: Chantal is different from every other women I’ve met. She also happens to be married. In my line of work, I could “eliminate” that inconvenience rather easily.  Now the question is if I should.

So there is quite the beautiful babe in your life. She quite literally fell into your lap after you rescued her. Does that happen often in your line of work?

RP: Quite the opposite, in fact. I’m in the business of making sure targets fall all the way – to the bottom of a ravine if possible.

I thought killers preferred not to have long-term entanglements. Is that true?

RP: Very much so. I wasn’t looking for love, just a temporary companion. A one-night-stand as you Americans like to say. But, alas, Chantal caught me with my guard down.

How do you get your jobs? Have an ad in help wanted?

RP:  I have my contacts. I developed working relationships with important people. The kind of people you go to when you have a problem. 

I understand you are a scotch drinker. I'm a beer man myself. Do you need a drink before or after you do a job?

Always until after the job is done. Now, I’m tempted to have a drink depending on your next question.

Thanks for stopping by. I promise your secret is safe with me, but I'm not sure about my readers. They will want more information. To help feed their curiosity, Robert's story is available for a mere 99 cents on Amazon at this link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007BOC0OW or to find out more about the author, check out his website at: www.jhbogran.net

Author Bio: J. H. Bográn, born and raised in Honduras, is the son of a journalist. He ironically prefers to write fiction rather than fact. José's genre of choice is thrillers, but he likes to throw in a twist of romance into the mix. His works include novels in both English and Spanish, short stories, contributor to The Big Thrill magazine, screenwriter for Honduras domestic television and movie reviewer for La Prensa. He's a member of the International Thriller Writers and of writer's online community Backspace.

Special Mitch Malone Edition - F.M. Meredith's Gordon Butler

Welcome to a special edition of Mitch Malone Mondays, by yours truly, Mitch Malone. Today is special because one of my favorite authors is here and while a reporter can never have favorites or be bias, I do have a fond spot for Marilyn and was happy to do her a favor. I want to make it clear that my interview for today, Gordon Butler, will not get any special treatment. He will be subjected to the same hardboiled questions as any of my other interviews so let’s gets started. Gordon, thanks for joining me today. You are an officer with the Rocky Bluff Police Department. Tell me how long and how that came to be.

Gordon: I wanted to be a policeman since I was a little kid. I believe in doing everything by the book and I probably know the laws better than anyone in the department—something that the other guys make fun of at times. When I graduated from the L.A. Police Academy, Rocky Bluff P.D. had an opening, and I’ve been with them ever since. I had a horrible training officer, so bad that he actually stole my wife away from me, among other things. But that’s a whole other story.

You’ve had your share of problems over the last few years.  Might I say you tend to put your all into your job. Can you tell me about a couple of the funny incidents now you look back on them.

Gordon: I can assure you they didn’t seem funny at the time. I’ve wrecked a couple of new police cars, not my fault, of course, chased a suspect through poison oak and had a horrible reaction, another time I leapt over a wall when going after a suspect and fell and broke my leg. But the worst happened to me recently. My fellow cops thought it hilarious—me, not so much.

Marilyn Meredith, W.S. Gager and Madeline Gornell at last years Public Safety Writers Conference.

In my next book, I’m dating a woman who isn’t all she appears to be especially when she turns up dead when we are supposed to be on a date. You have fallen for an interesting woman. What is she like?

Gordon: Benay Weiss is a gorgeous redhead. I met her when I pulled her over for a traffic violation. I’d never seen anyone with such beautiful green eyes. Mesmerized me—though I still gave her a ticket.  When her best friend is found murdered, Benay is the prime suspect. No way would she have killed anyone, much less someone she cared about. I’m going to find out the truth and make sure everyone knows Benay is innocent.

She still wanted to date after the ticket? Did you take care of it later? Better not go in that direction judging by the look in your eyes. To change the subject, you have some interesting coworkers at Rocky Bluff Police Department and a little fraternization on the job between Officer Stacey Wilbur and Detective Doug Milligan. Can you give me the dirt on these two?

Gordon: You’re a bit behind times, Officer Stacey Wilbur is now Stacey Milligan. You can read all about the wedding that almost didn’t happen in Angel Lost. Now we have two Milligans on the Rocky Bluff P.D. which is a bit confusing at times. Because I was renting a room in Doug’s house before the wedding and couldn’t find another place to stay, Stacey’s parents offered me her old room at their house. It’s working out okay, but now that I’m seeing Benay, I’m going to be looking for my own place.

Okay, I didn’t mean to make you pull your gun. Can you put that away. Just was looking for some inside information. I am a reporter after all and haven’t had a good scoop in a while. Tell me about your latest case will you.

Gordon: (laughing) Very funny. Once I’ve proved Benay innocent I’ll let you know who is the guilty party. I don’t want to brag, but this latest book about the Rocky Bluff P.D. is really my book. Oh sure, you can read about some of the other folks on the department and what’s going on with their families, but I’m the true star in this one.

Thanks, Gordon, for stopping by today. To find out more about No Bells, check out Marilyn’s website at http://fictionforyou.com. More about No Bells: Officer Gordon Butler has finally found the love he’s been seeking for a long time, but there’s one big problem, she’s the major suspect in a murder case.

F.M. Meredith, also known as Marilyn Meredith, is the author of over thirty published novels—and a few that will never see print. Her latest in the Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series, from Oak Tree Press, is No Bells. Rocky Bluff P.D. is a fictional beach community between Ventura and Santa Barbara and F. M. once lived in a similar beach area. F. M. (Marilyn) is a member of EPIC, Four chapters of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and serves as the program chair for the Public Safety Writers of America’s writing conference. She’s been an instructor at many writing conferences.

Blog: http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/

Marilyn's Contest: The person who comments on the most blogs on my tour will win three books in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series: No Sanctuary, An Axe to Grind, and Angel Lost. Be sure and leave your email too, so I can contact you.

Libraries are so cool!

This Saturday, I will be volunteering at my local libraries as part of the Sisters in Crime’s “Booksellers and Librarians Solve Mysteries Every Day.” I am so excited to help librarians. They are some of my favorite people. By volunteering, I can give back to a place that has given so much for me.

With the help of librarians, I've been to exotic places, solved murders and read about true love all within the covers of books. Books were my salvation in my teen years and feed something in me when young problems seem so hard and insurmountable.

The event, produced by Sisters in Crime, is designed to thank librarians and booksellers for 25 years of support of the mystery genre. Sisters in Crime was established with an organizational meeting held in New York City in the spring of 1987. Sisters in Crime is an international organization founded to support the professional development of women writing crime fiction.

I will work as a volunteer staffer at Jackson Carnegie and Meijer Library branches in Jackson on Saturday, April 21, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. as part of a “Booksellers and Librarians Solve Mysteries Every Day” celebration.

I will be joining a select group of Sisters in Crime member authors from Livermore Falls, Maine, to Honolulu, Hawaii, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., local time. In addition, SinC’s more than 3,000 members worldwide are gearing up to go into libraries and bookstores on that day to personally thank the booksellers and librarians they find working behind the counters and in the stacks.

While at Carnegie branch on Michigan Avenue from 10 a.m. to noon, on April 21, Gager will be working in the mystery section. At the Meijer library from 1 to 3 p.m. on Airport Road doing a variety of tasks. Stop by and say hello or better yet, say thank you to a librarian.

Sisters in Crime is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary year. The organization is made up of more than 3,000 members and 48 chapters worldwide—authors, readers, publishers, agents, booksellers, librarians and others who love mysteries. Sisters in Crime is online at www.sistersincrime.org.

Review: Tess Grant's TRAJECTORIES

Tess Grant has shot a silver bullet to success with TRAJECTORIES, the first in the Kitty Irish Trilogy. This young adult werewolf mystery will appeal to older readers much like Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Series crossed the ages however the werewolves don’t sparkle but smell and prey on individuals enjoying the national forest.

Kitty Irish’s last summer of high school isn’t the deal of her dreams. Her dad’s deployed overseas, her mom’s working full time and then some and she is in charge of her baby brother’s care. Add to that an up-and-down relationship with her best friend. When the town drunk befriends her over a bloody animal kill in the woods near her home, her life drops deeper into the “this sucks summer.”

The debut novel grabs you with the heroine’s angst about life and then the real world she gets dropped into when too many “closed-casket deaths” plague Oakmont, Michigan. Grant is a master at cliffhangers that turned a spring break read to savor into an all-night read. I can’t wait for the second in the series, “GATHERING SPEED.”

Buy this book: http://www.amazon.com/Trajectories-Kitty-Irish-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B007O48PWK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1333378833&sr=1-1

Mitch Malone Mondays: Jean Henry Mead

Today I'm pleased to host Jean Henry Mead, the editor of The Mystery Writers book, which features 60 authors telling secrets of writing several subgenres of mystery. I believe W. S. Gager submitted something as well but I don't want to dwell on her submissions. There are others who have a lot more to say so let’s get right to the dirt. Jean, how did you get the idea to do such a book?

I’ve been conducting interviews for many years as a news reporter, freelance photojournalist and a blogger. The interviews originated on my blog site, Mysterious Writers and my first book of mystery writer interviews was published by Poisoned Pen Press in 2010. I’ve accumulated quite a few  since then and didn’t want them to evaporate into Cyberspace.

Sometimes my sources don't want to give up the dirt. Did you have any problems getting those big names like Sue Grafton, Hank Phillipi Ryan, Lawrence Block and those other best-selling writers to give you their expertise?

I was very lucky to interview Elmore Leonard some thirty years ago, just as he was becoming famous and we both belonged to the same writer’s group. So my interview with him opened doors that were previously locked. Whenever I asked bestselling writers for an interview, I mentioned my previous one with “Dutch” Leonard. I guess they thought if he allowed me to interview him, I must be okay.

Even though W.S. Gager is in the book, please give an honest answer. This book has sixty authors. What is the most unique idea and who submitted it?

You want to get me in trouble, don’t you, Mitch? Each author is unique in his or her own way. I was shocked by my interview with Roger Smith, a former South African filmmaker and screenwriter who now writes noir novels from his native Africa. The brutality he writes about, the corruption and abuse of women and children shock readers and cause them to appreciate their lives in the U.S. There are quite a few other writers who live and write from foreign countries (in the book), including Thailand, Brazil, England, Canada and Africa as well as interesting writers here in the U.S.— like W. S. Gager.

 How did you ever manager to pull this together and give it some order?

It wasn’t easy. I happened across the writers originally on the Internet and they were all receptive to interviews. I’m glad they were because each one has a different perspective on the craft of writing, marketing and characterization. I thoroughly enjoyed our interview, as I have with writers in this country.

It took several months to get in touch with each writer and have them update their interviews. I then asked them to write an article for the book and placed each writer in an appropriate chapter representing their particular subgenre. I’ve never worked so hard on a book as this one, which is my 17^th, but it was well worth the effort. I’m very proud of the book, although I’m just the gatherer and editor.

 

Thanks, Jean, for joining me today. This is one book that every mystery writer should have on their reference shelf. To get your copy go here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Mystery-Writers-Interviews-Advice/dp/1931415358/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332511257&sr=1-2

Jean Henry Mead has published 16 books, half of them mystery/suspense and historical novels. She also writes the Hamilton Kids’ mysteries and is an award-winning photojournalist.

Review: Little Elvises by Timothy Hallinan

This review will be a bit odder than others in that when I read this book, I rooted for Louie the Lost. That’s because Louie was interviewed by my character, Mitch Malone as part of the Mystery We Write blog tour in November and December. (Read it here: http://wsgager.blogspot.com/2011/12/mww-day-13-tim-halinans-louie-lost.html)

I knew I liked Tim’s humor and Louie, so I purchased LITTLE ELVISES. I wasn’t sorry. I read it while I was laid up from shoulder surgery and needed something to keep my attention but was easy reading. It fit the bill exactly except when I laughed out loud. That was painful but cathartic. It didn’t take me long to finish, and then I wanted more.

In LITTLE ELVISES, Louie is an information broker who helps the main sleuth Junior Bender. Junior is a guy you can’t help rooting for. A guy with questionable morals as a thief but who you want in your corner when the chips are down. Junior lives in hotel rooms moving frequently when shady characters want a word and more from him. In LITTLE ELVISES some of the funniest scenes were in Marge ‘n Ed’s North Pole Hotel in Hollywood and it wasn’t even Christmas.

Here’s the first line: From behind his little pile of crumpled Tootsie Roll wrappers, DiGaudio said, “We can make you for the Hammer job.”

That is the only piece I’m going to give you because from that line, Hallinan draws you in and never lets you go except for fits of laughter. Louie has some masterful lines and Junior is a fully rounded character you can’t help liking even if he is stealing the crown jewels.

And, as a special bonus, and to see if you like Tim’s wicked wit, THE BONE POLISHER is FREE on Amazon for another 24 hours. This is from the Simon Grist series of books. Here is the book blurb: 2011 Edgar and Macavity nominee Timothy Hallinan's sixth and final novel featuring erudite Los Angeles private eye Simeon Grist takes place in the West Hollywood of 1995, where the community is shaken but the brutal killing of an older man who was widely loved for his generosity and kindness. In a time when the police were largely indifferent to crimes against gay people, Simeon is hired to catch the murderer—and finds himself up against the most dangerous adversary of his career, a man who kills his victims one once, but twice: once physically and once in spirit. The story's climax takes place at a memorable Halloween-themed wake, but there's a big plot twist yet to come.

Get it for free here: http://www.amazon.com/Polisher-Simeon-Grist-Mystery-ebook/dp/B007D857PK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331507938&sr=1-1Get it for free here: http://www.amazon.com/Polisher-Simeon-Grist-Mystery-ebook/dp/B007D857PK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331507938&sr=1-1

Bone Polisher at Amazon