This week for Sneak Peek Sunday I have posted ten sentences from a work in progress tentatively titled LAGNIAPPE NIGHTS. It's a mystery novel, but lighter than my Crescent City Mystery Series. It is still in its infancy, mostly because of time issues, but I do have the whole thing outlined. Like Gumbo Justice and Jambalaya Justice, it features a female prosecutor, but Josephine Badon is more of a misfit than my other protagonist. At least when the book begins.
It all started with a black leather thong. Not mine, and not even a fresh one, if you want to know the God’s honest truth. So not only was my husband cheating on me, he was cheating on me with a skank.
It came to light Tuesday afternoon, while I was at my desk reading through a homicide file. It wasn't a particularly interesting homicide, but even the boring murders demanded attention.
In its favor, the case was pretty standard in the way of New Orleans murders. Wanna-Be-Drug- Dealer-A shoots Wanna-Be-Drug-Dealer-B sixteen times. A low level rock head on Dealer B's team by the name of Tyrone “Skinny Man” Smith, who made Biggie Smalls and 50 Cent look like altar boys and was unfortunate enough to be the only witness to the shooting, had changed his story every time I spoke to him.
That was part of the reason I didn’t bother to read the police reports until right before trial. One fact you can bank on is that police reports rarely help the prosecution in murder cases.
For more snippets from other authors, please go to http://sneakpeeksunday.blogspot.com/
and click on the links.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Sneak Peek Sunday- Chocolate City Justice
As part of Sneek Peak Sunday, I have posted the first ten sentences from Chocolate City Justice, the third in the Crescent City Mystery Series scheduled for release by Oak Tree Press this summer. The mystery series revolves around a female prosecutor in New Orleans, Ryan Murphy. The first two novels, Gumbo Justice and Jambalaya Justice occur pre-Katrina, while Chocolate City Justice takes place during the hurricane, as Ryan gets trapped in the city when she misses the window to evacuate.
The boom-boom of the bass from the tricked-out orange Hummer creeping through the New Orleans Ninth Ward should have served as a warning. The Hummer was jacked up from the tires, with spinning rims and a gold chain vanity frame around the license plate that said just as much about its owner as the music selection did. If a song whose only lyrics repeated kill the po-po two hundred times could be considered music.
An abandoned lot on the corner was set up with a portable turkey deep fryer, a boiling pot of crawfish on a hot plate, and a fold-out card table displaying a hat-box size pink and white birthday cake with a black Disney princess figure on top.
The children jumping in the purple castle-shaped spacewalk in the lot continued to laugh and scream, oblivious, but the adults should have noticed and been on alert as the boom-boom grew louder, the Hummer pausing at the intersection before making the corner. The forty somewhat people hanging out, peeling crawfish, and drinking liquor out of green bottles and silver cans must have thought they were safe during the day.
Gang members were like vampires–even the Ninth Ward Warriors couldn’t kill in the daylight.
A black woman who could have been anywhere from 20 to 40 called, “Come see here, Tanisha, and show your teeths before we do your cake.”
A girl of six with a head full of braids was instantly at the woman’s side, smiling wide, exposing four missing front teeth. A split second later, a smaller version of Tanisha edged her way next to the woman and tugged on her arm with an even bigger smile than her sister’s.
The orange Hummer stopped.
For more previews by other authors, visit http://www.sneakpeeksunday.blogspot.com/ and click on the links.
The boom-boom of the bass from the tricked-out orange Hummer creeping through the New Orleans Ninth Ward should have served as a warning. The Hummer was jacked up from the tires, with spinning rims and a gold chain vanity frame around the license plate that said just as much about its owner as the music selection did. If a song whose only lyrics repeated kill the po-po two hundred times could be considered music.
An abandoned lot on the corner was set up with a portable turkey deep fryer, a boiling pot of crawfish on a hot plate, and a fold-out card table displaying a hat-box size pink and white birthday cake with a black Disney princess figure on top.
The children jumping in the purple castle-shaped spacewalk in the lot continued to laugh and scream, oblivious, but the adults should have noticed and been on alert as the boom-boom grew louder, the Hummer pausing at the intersection before making the corner. The forty somewhat people hanging out, peeling crawfish, and drinking liquor out of green bottles and silver cans must have thought they were safe during the day.
Gang members were like vampires–even the Ninth Ward Warriors couldn’t kill in the daylight.
A black woman who could have been anywhere from 20 to 40 called, “Come see here, Tanisha, and show your teeths before we do your cake.”
A girl of six with a head full of braids was instantly at the woman’s side, smiling wide, exposing four missing front teeth. A split second later, a smaller version of Tanisha edged her way next to the woman and tugged on her arm with an even bigger smile than her sister’s.
The orange Hummer stopped.
For more previews by other authors, visit http://www.sneakpeeksunday.blogspot.com/ and click on the links.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Jambalaya Justice Excerpt for Sneak Peak Sunday
Below is an excerpt from Jambalaya Justice, the second in the Crescent City Mystery Series, for Sneak Peak Sunday:
Assistant district attorney Ryan Murphy let the jumbled thoughts brew in her mind like the coffee and chicory that once percolated in the battered silver pot on the dead woman’s stove.
She fought the urge to close Cherry’s eyes. Regardless of whether the cause was biological or chemical, the woman couldn’t see anything now. She was smiling, though, or so it seemed, dying the way she lived, with a gold-capped grin spread across her ebony face.
Ryan remembered that smile and the way Cherry called everyone baby. She also remembered Cherry’s help, which had saved Ryan’s ass on more than one occasion.
And now Cherry was dead, her pit-stained tank pushed up to reveal a bloody, makeshift tattoo.
If anything would salve Ryan’s conscience, it was that crude smiley face, cut just above Cherry’s right breast. The bodies of two other prostitutes had recently been found bearing the same mark, making Cherry’s lifestyle the more likely reason for her untimely death than Ryan’s tenuous connection to her.
Either way, Ryan doubted she would get much sleep tonight.
For more excerpts from other writers on Sneak Peak Sunday, please visit http://www.sneakpeeksunday.blogspot.com/
Assistant district attorney Ryan Murphy let the jumbled thoughts brew in her mind like the coffee and chicory that once percolated in the battered silver pot on the dead woman’s stove.
She fought the urge to close Cherry’s eyes. Regardless of whether the cause was biological or chemical, the woman couldn’t see anything now. She was smiling, though, or so it seemed, dying the way she lived, with a gold-capped grin spread across her ebony face.
Ryan remembered that smile and the way Cherry called everyone baby. She also remembered Cherry’s help, which had saved Ryan’s ass on more than one occasion.
And now Cherry was dead, her pit-stained tank pushed up to reveal a bloody, makeshift tattoo.
If anything would salve Ryan’s conscience, it was that crude smiley face, cut just above Cherry’s right breast. The bodies of two other prostitutes had recently been found bearing the same mark, making Cherry’s lifestyle the more likely reason for her untimely death than Ryan’s tenuous connection to her.
Either way, Ryan doubted she would get much sleep tonight.
For more excerpts from other writers on Sneak Peak Sunday, please visit http://www.sneakpeeksunday.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Prioritizing
My friend and fellow writer Marilyn Meredith recently did a post on her blog about prioritizing. This is something I find myself doing constantly, but not always doing successfully. (Definitely not as successfully as Marilyn, anyway.)
I lead what I consider a boring, somewhat mundane life. There are days when I don’t have to leave the house. That doesn’t mean I don’t always have STUFF to do.
I work from home, which I know puts me in a category of lucky. My job also involves writing, which puts me in the double lucky category. Although my job involves brief writing for criminal appellants and not fiction writing, it also involves story-telling, deciding the best way to present the facts to the appellate court to get the best results. Rote recitation of facts the way they occurred is generally how my clients got convicted in the first place. I have to look for the injustice in the conviction, those things that went wrong, and make those my facts when I tell my story. It is definitely an exercise in creativity.
In addition to my day job, I also have a family, pets, carpool duty, house cleaning, laundry, PTO, book writing, and occasionally I squeeze in time to read. My kids are already smarter than me, and helping them with homework and projects is time-consuming. Sometimes I feel like I need a math tutor myself just to help my kids with middle school math.
I also am physically handicapped from a head-on collision with a drunk driver in 2008. I am full of titanium and still missing pieces of bones. Some days this means almost nothing, and other than sore knees and a stiff ankle, I’m like everyone else. Other days I can barely walk around my house. Every day is kind of a crapshoot.
Regardless, there are things that need to get done. My usual process is doing what absolutely needs to get done, such as things on a deadline, and then squeezing in whatever else I can. Which brings me to today, where I am working on something due at the end of the month. It’s a spec script for a contest, which if I am one of the winners I could get a one year paid gig as an intern at a production company in Los Angeles.
Some people might think it would be crazy to uproot my family and relocate from New Orleans to L.A. for a one year position, but I would. Of course it’s easy to say that when it’s so unlikely that I’ll be one of the winners. I haven’t written that many scripts, and I’ve never written a t.v. comedy spec script, which is what they require. But I figure even if I don’t win, I’ll at least have a spec script in my repertoire which I can always use to pitch in the future.
If it wasn’t for needing the script at the end of February for this contest, I probably would never have gotten around to writing it. I would have thought I was too busy doing the daily things that need to get done and it would have been on the back burner like so many other things I never get around to doing. It would have been easy to ignore the contest announcement, but that is part of my prioritization process, finding things with deadlines that force me to step outside of my comfort zone and write more. It’s kind of like tricking myself into writing, but it’s a system that works for me so far.
So I am spending this week writing a spec script, knowing I don’t have much time left if I want to enter my very best into the contest.
Now if I could only get to the laundry and dishes...
I lead what I consider a boring, somewhat mundane life. There are days when I don’t have to leave the house. That doesn’t mean I don’t always have STUFF to do.
I work from home, which I know puts me in a category of lucky. My job also involves writing, which puts me in the double lucky category. Although my job involves brief writing for criminal appellants and not fiction writing, it also involves story-telling, deciding the best way to present the facts to the appellate court to get the best results. Rote recitation of facts the way they occurred is generally how my clients got convicted in the first place. I have to look for the injustice in the conviction, those things that went wrong, and make those my facts when I tell my story. It is definitely an exercise in creativity.
In addition to my day job, I also have a family, pets, carpool duty, house cleaning, laundry, PTO, book writing, and occasionally I squeeze in time to read. My kids are already smarter than me, and helping them with homework and projects is time-consuming. Sometimes I feel like I need a math tutor myself just to help my kids with middle school math.
I also am physically handicapped from a head-on collision with a drunk driver in 2008. I am full of titanium and still missing pieces of bones. Some days this means almost nothing, and other than sore knees and a stiff ankle, I’m like everyone else. Other days I can barely walk around my house. Every day is kind of a crapshoot.
Regardless, there are things that need to get done. My usual process is doing what absolutely needs to get done, such as things on a deadline, and then squeezing in whatever else I can. Which brings me to today, where I am working on something due at the end of the month. It’s a spec script for a contest, which if I am one of the winners I could get a one year paid gig as an intern at a production company in Los Angeles.
Some people might think it would be crazy to uproot my family and relocate from New Orleans to L.A. for a one year position, but I would. Of course it’s easy to say that when it’s so unlikely that I’ll be one of the winners. I haven’t written that many scripts, and I’ve never written a t.v. comedy spec script, which is what they require. But I figure even if I don’t win, I’ll at least have a spec script in my repertoire which I can always use to pitch in the future.
If it wasn’t for needing the script at the end of February for this contest, I probably would never have gotten around to writing it. I would have thought I was too busy doing the daily things that need to get done and it would have been on the back burner like so many other things I never get around to doing. It would have been easy to ignore the contest announcement, but that is part of my prioritization process, finding things with deadlines that force me to step outside of my comfort zone and write more. It’s kind of like tricking myself into writing, but it’s a system that works for me so far.
So I am spending this week writing a spec script, knowing I don’t have much time left if I want to enter my very best into the contest.
Now if I could only get to the laundry and dishes...
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
GUEST BLOGGER J.L. GREGER
Today, I am excited to feature guest blogger J. L. Greger, who tells us how she came to write COMING FLU, an extraordinary medical thriller recently published by Oak Tree Press.
TURNING SCIENCE INTO COMING FLU
By Guest Blogger J. L. Greger
Several readers have asked how I turned what they considered dry scientific facts into a fast paced novel. After thanking them for the compliments, I tried to answer their specific questions, which are summarized below.
Isn’t rationing of medications a little extreme? Preparation of effective flu vaccines is tedious and expensive. Often vaccine manufacturers cannot keep up with the mutations in viruses. That’s what occurs in Coming Flu and rationing is necessary. Although scientists have developed antivirals for treatment of HIV and herpes infections, they have not tested antivirals successfully with flu patients, as tried in Coming Flu. Again these drugs are in limited supply.
Quarantine is no big deal. Is it? I think most Americans don’t understand how quarantine (the enforcement of the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act and associated legislation) could affect their lives. At least not in personal terms – like standing in line for food, not being able to go to work or to shop, and being afraid to come in contact with anyone lest they have the flu.
One of my friends Judy Leavitt wrote the biography of Mary Mallon, better know as Typhoid Mary (Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public’s Health). Mary Mallon was a cook, who harbored the bacteria that caused typhoid fever in her gall bladder without getting sick herself. She refused to stop working as a cook because she knew no other trade. Accordingly, the New York City Health Department quarantined her on an island in New York harbor from 1915-1938. This is, of course, the extreme case, but quarantines can be nasty.
So that’s how science became Coming Flu.
Find out more about J.L. Greger and her work at http://www.jlgreger.com
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Guest Blogger Marilyn Meredith
The reason I chose this topic is because I met Holli at a Public Safety Writers Association Conference. I truly value Holli’s friendship and I would have never met her any other way. I love hearing about her and her family. Her life is quite different from mine, and partially because she’s young and still doing all the things that come with raising your children.
Holli lives in New Orleans. I live clear across the country in a foothill community of the Southern Sierra in California. We might have come across one another online because we are on some of the same lists, but there’s nothing like meeting someone in person. I admire Holli, her expertise and intelligence—and her sparkling personality.
Over the years I’ve attended lots of mystery conventions: Bouchercons and Left Coast Crimes. I’ve made many friends at both. There are other smaller cons I’ve gone to, Malice Domestic, Killer Nashville, Love is Murder and Mayhem in the Midlands which is no longer in existence.
Though through the years I’ve attended and presented at many writers conferences, but my favorite of all is PSWA. The majority of attendees are people who are or were in various types of public safety fields like FBI, Police, FBI, Military Law Enforcement, CSI, Scientific Fields, Fire who are interested in writing, and mystery writers who are interested in what the experts are willing to share. It’s a smaller conference and there is opportunity to network and find out answers to questions right while you’re there.
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| Spouse's Panel at previous Mayhem in the Midlands |
What about selling books at a convention or conference? Unless you are a well-known author, you probably won’t sell many books at a convention. This is where you meet people who read books and visiting with them. Of course you’ll meet other authors too.
Your chances of selling your book at a conference really depends upon what you are doing at the conference. If you are a speaker or on a panel you may intrigue some attendees enough that they’ll buy your book.
The best part of either one is the joy of meeting like-minded people—those who love to read.
If you are one of those who love to read, I hope you’ll try the latest book in my Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, Raging Water.
Raging Water Blurb: Deputy Tempe Crabtree’s investigation of the murder of two close friends is complicated when relentless rain turns Bear Creek into a raging river. Homes are inundated and a mud slide blocks the only road out of Bear Creek stranding many—including the murderer.
Contest: The person who leaves comments on the most blogs will have his/her name used for a character in my next book—can choose if you want it in a Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery or a Rocky Bluff P.D. crime novel.
Bio: Marilyn Meredith is the author of over thirty published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, the latest Raging Water from Mundania Press. Writing as F. M. Meredith, her latest Rocky Bluff P.D. crime novel us No Bells, the fourth from Oak Tree Press. Marilyn is a member of EPIC, three chapters of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America. Visit her at http://fictionforyou.com and follow her blog at http://marilymeredith.blogspot.com/
Marilyn borrows a lot from where she lives in the Southern Sierra for the town of Bear Creek and the surrounding area.
I know there are some people who like to read a series in order, but let me reassure you that every book is complete. Though the characters grow through each book, the crime is always solved. Here is the order of the books for anyone who wants to know: Deadly Trail, Deadly Omen, Unequally Yoked, Intervention, Wing Beat, Calling the Dead, Judgment Fire, Kindred Spirits, Dispel the Mist, Invisible Path, Bears With Us, Raging Water.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Murder Close to Home
My husband's friend was murdered during Hurricane Isaac.
Noah worked and lived at a funeral home. He was a personable guy, interesting, and an unlikely compadre for my husband. Julio is a big guy, brutish looking. Six foot, 300 lbs, bald, with a goatee, he is a somewhat striking Spanish macho man.
Noah was among a group of locals who frequented a nearby bar and took to our bar as soon as it opened. Julio became friends with many of the new customers, but Noah was one of a few who he spoke to outside of the bar as well.
Noah was gay, but a blender. He fit in with the crowd, easily forgettable until you actually spoke to him. Noah was also depressed a lot, although I don't know the reason why. I guess working and living at a funeral home does not inspire one to be giddily happy, but I think he may have had other issues. I know he had no significant other, but he did occasionally bring men home with him, which ultimately be his downfall.
When our bar closed, Noah was even more down. He missed having a place to hang out that felt like home, although he did hang out at other bars. Julio would occasionally meet Noah at the bar after it closed to hang out, because he was worried about his friend.
Right before Isaac, Noah left one of his regular bars with a man he had just met. Sometime that night, the stranger tied Noah to the bed, stabbed him to death, stole his cell phone, and took off in his car.
We had evacuated for the hurricane and Julio called Noah several times to see how he was making out. He received no answer.
About a week later, Noah's body was discovered. The killer had driven Noah's car to Algiers, on the Westbank of New Orleans and near the funeral home, and set it on fire. He was still using Noah's cell phone, texting people back, acting like he was Noah. The police were able to find his location, in an attic in a nearby neighborhood, by tracking the cell phone.
The guy confessed. He will be charged with 2nd degree murder, an automatic life sentence in Louisiana.
Noah was buried this past Monday. It is so odd, because I wasn't really close with him, but had met him and liked him well enough. He was a good guy. He had bought several copies of my books and had me sign them, one set for his sister. He was at my book launch party, and spoke at length with my sister, who had gone to funeral school before deciding to become a teacher.
Noah didn't have much family. He was 51 years old, his parents were dead, and he had only a sister and a brother. But the chapel was packed, with friends, people who worked at other funeral homes around town, and people whom he had helped through their own personal tragedies as an employee of Schoen's Funeral Home.
I have known death. All of my grandparents and my father have died in my life time. As many homicide cases as I have handled as a prosecutor and then as an appellate public defender, some of them horrific and violent, I have only known one other person who was brutally murdered, and that was a girl who was a senior in high school when I was a freshman, and she was murdered by some kind of serial killer in another state years after we graduated. I was barely on a saying hi to her basis because she was so much ahead of me in school, although I had greatly admired her back then.
When someone dies, I always think about how they now know what lies beyond this earth, and if there is nothing, they are just gone, and nowhere. So while I can't help but think of how much Noah suffered, and what must have been going through his mind when this animal decided to take his life, I also wonder about where he is now, and that he knows what happens when we leave this world.
I often take from real life when I'm writing. True crime especially makes for a good story. This one, though, I think I'm going to leave right where it is, in my mind.
Noah worked and lived at a funeral home. He was a personable guy, interesting, and an unlikely compadre for my husband. Julio is a big guy, brutish looking. Six foot, 300 lbs, bald, with a goatee, he is a somewhat striking Spanish macho man.
Noah was among a group of locals who frequented a nearby bar and took to our bar as soon as it opened. Julio became friends with many of the new customers, but Noah was one of a few who he spoke to outside of the bar as well.
Noah was gay, but a blender. He fit in with the crowd, easily forgettable until you actually spoke to him. Noah was also depressed a lot, although I don't know the reason why. I guess working and living at a funeral home does not inspire one to be giddily happy, but I think he may have had other issues. I know he had no significant other, but he did occasionally bring men home with him, which ultimately be his downfall.
When our bar closed, Noah was even more down. He missed having a place to hang out that felt like home, although he did hang out at other bars. Julio would occasionally meet Noah at the bar after it closed to hang out, because he was worried about his friend.
Right before Isaac, Noah left one of his regular bars with a man he had just met. Sometime that night, the stranger tied Noah to the bed, stabbed him to death, stole his cell phone, and took off in his car.
We had evacuated for the hurricane and Julio called Noah several times to see how he was making out. He received no answer.
About a week later, Noah's body was discovered. The killer had driven Noah's car to Algiers, on the Westbank of New Orleans and near the funeral home, and set it on fire. He was still using Noah's cell phone, texting people back, acting like he was Noah. The police were able to find his location, in an attic in a nearby neighborhood, by tracking the cell phone.
The guy confessed. He will be charged with 2nd degree murder, an automatic life sentence in Louisiana.
Noah was buried this past Monday. It is so odd, because I wasn't really close with him, but had met him and liked him well enough. He was a good guy. He had bought several copies of my books and had me sign them, one set for his sister. He was at my book launch party, and spoke at length with my sister, who had gone to funeral school before deciding to become a teacher.
Noah didn't have much family. He was 51 years old, his parents were dead, and he had only a sister and a brother. But the chapel was packed, with friends, people who worked at other funeral homes around town, and people whom he had helped through their own personal tragedies as an employee of Schoen's Funeral Home.
I have known death. All of my grandparents and my father have died in my life time. As many homicide cases as I have handled as a prosecutor and then as an appellate public defender, some of them horrific and violent, I have only known one other person who was brutally murdered, and that was a girl who was a senior in high school when I was a freshman, and she was murdered by some kind of serial killer in another state years after we graduated. I was barely on a saying hi to her basis because she was so much ahead of me in school, although I had greatly admired her back then.
When someone dies, I always think about how they now know what lies beyond this earth, and if there is nothing, they are just gone, and nowhere. So while I can't help but think of how much Noah suffered, and what must have been going through his mind when this animal decided to take his life, I also wonder about where he is now, and that he knows what happens when we leave this world.
I often take from real life when I'm writing. True crime especially makes for a good story. This one, though, I think I'm going to leave right where it is, in my mind.
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