Mysterious Inspirations

This issue, several authors share some thoughts on their new mysteries and what inspired them.

Californian Gayle Carline is a horsewoman who gives weekly riding lessons, writes a weekly humor column for her local newspaper, and is author of the just-released mystery, FREEZER BURN (Echelon Press, Aug.'09).

FREEZER BURN, a cozy mystery, features a housecleaner-turned-sleuth, who, while cleaning a friend's freezer, finds more than freezer burn, and instead finds a severed hand.

Carline admits that her inspiration comes from not-so-typical places.

“The inspiration came in two segments,” she says. “ First came the joke my girlfriend and I shared one day about Peri Menopause, Private Eye, who solves every case by crying, eating chocolate, and slapping everyone until someone confesses. Second, came a piece of flash fiction about a lost ice cube tray I wrote for the Southern California Writer's Conference topic contest (and won). I put the two together and thought, what else could be in that freezer?”

Favorite Graph:

Her favorite line is the start: “Such exquisite hands. What a pity to waste them.” – From FREEZER BURN.

* See more info at: http://www.gaylecarline.com/freezerburn.html .

 

Pennsylvania Author Joseph R.G. DeMarco didn't stray far from his Catholic roots, instead finding inspiration in the past when he wrote his first mystery, MURDER ON CAMAC. (Lethe Press, Aug. ‘09)

In MURDER ON CAMAC, Marco Fontana, gay PI and owner of a troupe of male strippers, finds that author Helmut Brandt not only made enemies in the Catholic Church for his research into the death of Pope John Paul the First, but had rivals in his work and personal life---and both might've had motives to kill. When he himself is attacked, Fontana looks for answers must find answers before someone is killed, including him.

“Having been raised a Catholic, I've always been fascinated with church history and politics,” says DeMarco. “I'm also quite interested in what happens at papal conclaves. The idea that Pope John Paul the First was murdered after only 33 days in office was too tempting to pass up as the basis for a story. So I asked myself the question: what would happen if a writer announced that he was writing a book that would expose the killers of the Pope? And what if that writer turned up murdered after that announcement?”

First Graph:

“Kenny Rippa was a liar. I can spot a liar ninety percent of the time. The other ten percent I'm usually suspicious and always right to be. Being Italian gives you a proclivity to being distrustful, that's how I was raised. Being skeptical comes in handy for a P.I. - From MURDER ON CAMAC.

* Read more at http://www.murderoncamac.com .

 

Mary Welk, author of THE RUNE STONE MURDERS (Echelon Press, Feb. '09), the latest in her Caroline Rhodes series, says she had an idea for a book. The problem? Fitting in her characters.

“I had an idea for a perfect heist story, one where the bad guys got away with their crime for decades,” she shares in her blog, Cicero's Children “I only had to figure out how my series characters, Caroline Rhodes and Professor Carl Atwater, would root out the criminals and reveal their perfidy.”

She found the answer during a visit to the Renaissance Fair. She had her setting. She then found the perfect heist after watching a special about explorer Leif Ericson

In THE RUNE STONE MURDERS, the discovery of a Viking rune stone on the campus of Bruck University leads to murder during the school's annual Renaissance Fair. ER nurse Caroline Rhodes teams up with history professor Carl Atwater to track a killer without a conscience in little Rhineburg , Illinois .

Favorite Graph:

For a switch, consider my favorite graph, Welk's colorful descriptions of one of the characters in her book:

"Mrs. Bertha Meyer, the baker's wife, resembled one of the sugary delicacies displayed in her husband's shop. A diminutive woman in height, she was amply proportioned in every other way, with a face as round and plump as a Bismarck , punctuated by twin dots of licorice for eyes. Her head was capped by a crown of short fluffy hair the color of vanilla butter-cream frosting. Below a set of double chins, her figure rolled downward in ever broadening stages, her imposing bosom topping a torso aptly described as butterball in shape. All this magnificence was firmly encased in a starched white apron peppered with splotches of strawberry jam beneath a fine dusting of powdered sugar.” – From THE RUNE STONE MURDERS

* Read more about the characters and story at Welk's blog: http://www.marywelk.com/2009/07/part-four-creating-rune-stone-murders.html .

* Visit Welk's website, http://www.marywelk.com .