Day 1--HOLIDAY BLOG TOUR WITH TIMOTHY HALLINAN

Hi Readers, are you in a mood to travel? Vicariously, of course and via our Cyber-Bus which is loaded with 15 outstanding mystery writers including me.

This is the 1^st day of our Holiday Mystery Tour, and readers, do I have a treat for you!

Timothy Hallinan, an Edgar and Maccavity nominated author tells us how his latest Junior Bender novel LITTLE ELVISES was conceived and birthed. And what a story his article 'Picture Perfect' tells! Keep reading, because now I'm letting Timothy drive:

Picture Perfect
By Timothy Hallinan

 The most frequent question at bookstore events is, “Where do your ideas come from?”

Well, most of the time, they appear out of thin air.  But once in a great while something from what I try to think of as “real life” prompts a story development.  Here's an example.

Some time ago, my wife and I had the good fortune to make friends with someone whom I'm not going to name, but she had been famous for several decades due to a series of very funny books she'd written for a large audience of women who, like her, hated to cook and do housework.

We had mutual friends, but we met her face-to-face for the first time in Hawaii, when I was on my way to Asia to write and my wife was accompanying me as far as Bali.  What we had feared would be a slightly awkward lunch turned into a prolonged, delightful, and highly lubricated lunner, comprising lunch, dinner, and many, many drinks in between. 

 We were in love with her when we left, and remained so for years and years.

 She was in her early seventies when we met, and more vigorous than either my wife or I, who were in our late forties.  Ten years later, we got a note from her saying she was going to marry.  (Her first husband died before we met her.)  Enclosed were three pictures of her and her husband-to-be.

They scared me silly.

She (let's call her Margaret) was sitting on quite a bit of money; she'd sold a very large number of books.  And she was now in her eighties.  The pictures she'd sent us were Polaroids, and she looked ecstatically happy in all three of them.  I couldn't tell you how happy her fiance looked, because we couldn't see his face.

In any of the pictures.

In the first, he had his head down, and his features were obscured by the bill of his cap.  In the second, he'd turned his head as the shutter snapped, and he was a blur.  In the third, he was kissing Margaret on the cheek and her profile obscured most of his.

I immediately called to congratulate her and to grill her diplomatically about him.  She'd known him forever, she said; he'd been a friend of her husband's and was, in her words, richer than God.  I relaxed and offered an unnecessary blessing, and the two of them lived happily until Margaret passed away.

 But in the nasty, nefarious part of me that makes bad things happen to good (if imaginary) people, those photographs had taken root.  I thought about them almost every time I wrote a book, but the opportunity to use them never came up until my new ebook, LITTLE ELVISES.

LITTLE ELVISES

The hero of LITTLE ELVISES is a Los Angeles burglar named Junior Bender, who moonlights as a private eye—for crooks.  That's a good way to make dangerous enemies, so Junior lives in a succession of dreadful motels in an area—the San Fernando Valley—that's especially rich in dreadful motels.

His first day on his new case has been a bad one; he's just been shot at.  Already unhappy at this turn of events, he becomes even more unhappy when he sees there's a light on in the room adjoining his, which gives him pause, because he's rented it, too.  (An adjoining room can be used as an escape route.) 

But the room's occupant turns out to be Marge, the surviving owner of Marge 'n Ed's North Pole, the motel of the week, and Marge has a problem: her daughter has disappeared after running off with a man of whom Marge instinctively disapproves because he wears a pinkie ring.  Junior tries to fob her off with assurances until:

“Look at these.”  Marge dug into a purse the size of a saddlebag and came out with two color snapshots.  She dealt them at me, giving each of them an expert, Vegas-worthy flick that carried them from one bed to another.  I picked them up and found myself looking at two shots of the same couple.

The female was clearly the issue of Marge's loins, if the pronounced nasal apparatus and the long upper lip were any indication, but the man was a complete mystery.  In one shot, he was shading his eyes from the sun, and he'd tilted his hand down until nothing showed but his mouth, and in the other, he'd turned his head away at the last moment, creating an interesting modern abstract where his face should have been. 

Not good.

Marge said, “Tell me about that.”

“Okay,” I said.  “I'll think about it.”

And he does.

So it took 30 years, but I finally got to use Margaret's Polaroids.  And they lead Junior toward a monster who preys on the lonely and the unhappy.  And, at the end, a big surprise. 

Okay Guys, I'm back in the driver's seat again. I know you're dying to learn more about Timothy, so here's the scoop on him:

Timothy Hallinan is the Edgar- and Macavity-nominated author of the traditionally-published Poke Rafferty Bangkok thrillers (most recently THE QUEEN OF PATPONG), and the Junior Bender mysteries, which are ebook originals.  The newest Junior book is LITTLE ELVISES.  Earlier this year, Hallinan conceived and edited a volume of original short stories by twenty first-rate mystery writers, SHAKEN: STORIES FOR JAPAN, which is available for the Kindle at $3.99, with every penny of the price going to the 2011 Japan Relief Fund.  (Please buy it.)  He lives in Santa Monica and Southeast Asia, and he is lucky enough to be married to Munyin Choy.  His website is www.timothyhallinan.com.

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Thanks a million Timothy for this fascinating story. Of course we're all dying to know who 'Margaret' was, but then again we all love solving mysteries.

Timothy will give away a set of his Poke Rafferty Bankgkok thrillers at the end of our Holiday Tour. To get your name in the hat for the drawing, make a comment on each of the 15 participating blogsites. Our group is giving away more than 50 books during the 2-week period.

Thanks to everyone for stopping by, and please leave a comment. You'll be glad, because, besides the other author's books, you'll be in a pool to win a copy of THE INCONVENIENT CORPSE or STATEHOOD HENS AND MURDER MOST FOWL.

See you tomorrow!

Hugs,

Jackie