DAY 11-MYSTERY WE WRITE HOLIDAY BLOG TOUR WITH JINX SCHWARTZ

Welcome to the 11^th day of our MURDER WE WRITE HOLIDAY BLOG TOUR. Remember everyone; our 15-member tour group is giving away over 50 FREE BOOKS during our tour. For a chance to win one (or more) of these mysteries, visit each blog and leave a comment.

Today's author was born and raised to be an adventuress. Jinx Schwartz is a different kind of writer, and I'm delighted to have her visiting today. Author of JUST DESERTS,  4th in her award-winning mystery series featuring Hetta Coffey, Jinx has lived a life that sounds as if it comes straight from a novel.

The Facts and Nothing but the Facts:

Jinx Schwartz was raised in the jungles of Haiti and Thailand, with returns to Texas in-between. Jinx followed her father's steel-toed footsteps into the Construction and Engineering industry in hopes of building dams. Finding all the good rivers taken, she traveled the world defacing other landscapes with mega-projects in Alaska, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and Mexico.

Jinx Schwartz

Jinx and her husband, Mad Dog Schwartz, opted over twenty years ago to become cash-poor cruisers rather than continue chasing the rat. They sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, turned left, and headed for Mexico. Meaning to stay three months, they, much like the crew of the S.S. Minnow, never returned. They now divide their time between Arizona and Mexico's Sea of Cortez.

STOLEN FROM THE HEADLINES: JUST DESERTS is BOOK 4 of the Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (.99 on Kindle and Smashwords) www.jinxschwartz.com

Just Deserts

Jinx speaks:

First off, let us get this "deserts" thing clear. When one gets one's just deserts, it is not spelled desserts, but it is pronounced desserts. There are many such words misused everyday in news, books and just about every other written source, and I could blog about it for-ever, but not today; today's subject is about blatantly stealing book material from the news.

Hetta Coffey's a woman with a yacht, and she is not afraid to use it. The series has garnered an EPPIE Award (Just Add Water, Book 1), and a finalist place for an EPPIE (Just Add Trouble, Book 3.)  The judges must have been on vacation for Just Add Salt, Book 2) :-)

Hetta mainly plies Mexican waters these days, not looking for, but finding anyway, a sea of trouble. However, in Just Deserts, Hetta is forced to take on a job to pay for major boat repairs, and ends up on the tumultuous Arizona/Mexico border. With her penchant for trouble, how can she NOT get into deep doo-doo?

I didn't have to look far when researching possible scenarios in Southern Arizona and Northern Mexico, but I dug deeper than the everyday evening news blurbs of cartels offing each other, drug smuggling, and the like. What I unearthed is a strong anti-Gringo (that would be Hetta) movement in Mexico with roots leading straight to al-Qaeda! Scary, but true. Leave it to Hetta to get into it with them, and a batch of human smugglers, leading to a showdown on the border.

My point is, when lifting a subject from the news, I always dig deeper. That deeper digging sometimes has me tunneling to China and way off track of where I thought I was going, but research is always rewarding. As a reader, as well as a writer, I appreciate a book that leads me into an area I didn't know about, even if it does sometimes make me lose a little sleep.

That said, it is also obvious when a writer does not do their homework. I write about what I know, but when I don't know the subject well, I am an obsessive researcher. Amazing, isn't it, what we learn?

I will gift a Kindle version of Just Deserts to whoever makes the best comment (in MY not-so-humble opinion) to this blog.

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Thanks Jinx, for stopping by. I’m sure each reader will want to comment on your comment today.

Readers, our 15-member tour group is giving away over 50 FREE BOOKS during our tour. For a chance to win one (or more) of these mysteries, visit each blog and leave a comment.

I’ll be giving away a signed copy of THE INCONVENIENT CORPSE and another of FOXY STATEHOOD HENS AND MURDER MOST FOWL, a collection of 3 novellas. My story, “The Spinster, the Pig, and the Orphan,” is a Historical Mystery set in 1889 Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory. To get your name in the hat for my free books, leave a comment below.

For those who want to download or order a copy of JUST DESERTS for yourself, here’s the link:

http://amzn.to/pYo4tT

Thanks for stopping by,

Jackie