DAY 4-HOLIDAY BLOG TOUR WITH ALICE DUNCAN

Welcome to the 4^th day of our MYSTERY WE WRITE HOLIDAY BLOG TOUR featuring 15 dynamite mystery writers. If you leave a comment on each of our blogsites, you may win one of the 50 plus books that will be given away either during the tour or immediately following our last post on December 8^th.

Today I’m featuring award-winning author Alice Duncan who lives with a herd of wild dachshunds (enriched from time to time with fosterees from New Mexico Dachshund Rescue) in Roswell, New Mexico. She's not a UFO enthusiast; she's in Roswell because her mother's family settled there fifty years before the aliens crashed. Alice no longer longs to return to California, although she still misses the food, not to mention her children, one of whom is there and the other of whom is in Nevada.

And now Alice is going to tell us why she prefers to live in the past, at least on paper.

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Alice Duncan, award-winning author

Every now and then, when I’m sitting and ruminating about things whilst dachshunds cavort on, around, in front of and behind me (I’m serious about that. It gets downright annoying at times), I wonder why I can’t seem to force myself to write contemporary stories. The conclusion I inevitably come to is that I don’t like life as it is and prefer to make up life the way it probably wasn’t a long time ago. I mean, sure, people make up mysteries and romances about modern-day people, but I’m someone who not only doesn’t follow trends, but actually had to be told what a “Jimmy Choo” was. In other words, I’m hopeless in today’s world and like to get as far away from it as is humanly possible, as often as possible.

Therefore, I write historical novels. For several years I wrote historical romances set in the Old West (or my version of it). I had help in this endeavor from my mother, who grew up in Roswell, New Mexico, in the teens and twenties. Yes, I’m old. But my mother was old when she had me, her mother was old when she had her, and there’s room for at least three more generations in the spaces between my Swiss maternal grandmother and me. I won’t even talk about my paternal great-grandfather, who was a deserter from the Confederate Army. At least, I won’t do it here.

 Anyway, Mom used to tell me stories about growing up in Roswell, and it sounded as though she lived in the wild, wild west. When she was a little girl, ranchers ran cattle down Second Street (the main east-west street in town); she and her three brothers and one sister lived in a three-room house made of adobe brick; her mother (having been widowed two days after my mother was born) earned a living for the entire brood as a seamstress; my uncles occasionally went out on the desert and captured wild burros, which they’d then ride until they got bucked off; there was no electricity in town; and there weren’t even any trees to block the relentless spring winds. Heck, I wrote an entire novel (COOKING UP TROUBLE) about the spring winds here in Roswell (Mom said she’d sometimes arrive at school with her legs having been sanded raw by the blowing dirt, dust and pebbles), and another one (PECOS VALLEY DIAMOND) that began with kids running to stay under the shadows made by clouds so that they could be cooler during the vicious summer heat. Today when the wind blows, which it does constantly during the springtime, the only vicissitude I endure is finding shingles that used to be on my roof in my front yard. And, lucky me, I have air conditioning.

Hmm. The Good Old Days don’t sound like a whole lot of fun, do they? Well, they probably weren’t for the folks who lived in them. However, when it comes to history, a novelist can fudge a bit. In my western historical novels, for instance, I leave out the cholera epidemics, floods (Roswell is in the middle of the desert, the soil is like clay, and it takes a long time for water to soak in. Before a couple of dams were built in the thirties by the CCC, the place flooded once or twice a year), ptomaine poisoning due to lack of refrigeration, lack of antibiotics, etc. Mom told me about tent revivalists who used to visit town and the Chautauqua folks who’d lecture in Roswell, etc. Therefore, I decided to give Annabelle Blue, heroine of PECOS VALLEY DIAMOND (available on Kindle and Smashwords) and PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL (published in January of 2011 and a finalist in the New Mexico Book of the Year Awards), a lot of the stuff my mom used to talk about only without the grime, illness and so forth.

 

·         PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL (featuring Annabelle Blue and set in Roswell, NM, in 1923): http://tinyurl.com/3uafvqg

Oddly enough, once I moved to Roswell, I became nostalgic about Pasadena, California, where I’d lived for most of my life. Mind you, it was the smog, crowds, expense and general chaos of So. CA living that drove me away from it (I recall trying to shop for Christmas dinner after work once, and finding no parking anywhere even close to the market, much less in its parking lot, which was full to bursting. It was quite frustrating), but it used to be a beautiful, serene place where wealthy easterners wintered, and refugees from the motion-picture industry fled to escape their hectic lives. Of course, all those rich folks needed people like me (poor ones, in other words) to do their chores for them, so I decided to give Daisy Gumm Majesty, heroine of my “Spirits” books, a working-class background and a strong work ethic learned from her parents. The fact that she learned quite early in her life that rich folks can be just as gullible as poor ones, and that they sometimes have a good deal more money than sense, only added to the fun with Daisy, who’s a phony spiritualist. The latest Daisy book, GENTEEL SPIRITS, was published in July of this year.

·         GENTEEL SPIRITS (featuring Daisy Gumm Majesty, and set in Pasadena, CA, in 1922): http://tinyurl.com/3ndzcff

I chose to set my historical mysteries in the 1920s, because so very much was going on then. Women, after decades of trying, finally got the vote in 1920 (in Turkey, by the way, women got the vote in 1918. Go figure); the world had lately endured two ghastly crises (the Great War and the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic); radio was being invented and improved upon almost daily; baseball was truly the great American pastime; the sale and consumption of alcohol was outlawed, giving rise to bootlegging and the murdering gangs who fought for control of the illegal stuff; and young people had begun questioning the values of their elders with a vengeance. The last item on that list is probably as old as the human race itself, but in the twenties the rebellion of the “Bright Young Things” seemed to take on an almost hopeless ethos. After years of war, illness and death, lots of young people concluded there wasn’t anything they could do about life, so they might as well party (if you need proof of this, read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books).

Unfortunately for her, Daisy Majesty, my favorite character to date in any of the books I’ve written, and who has appeared in five books to date, suffered through the worst of what life had to offer, too, but she couldn’t waste her life partying because she had a war-injured husband to care for and support. Although I have a lot of fun with the “Spirits” books, Daisy has many burdens to bear.

So now I get to write about both Roswell, NM, and Pasadena, CA (and Los Angeles, CA, in my Mercy Allcutt books), and still pretend that life was better in the Good Old Days. It’s mega-fun!

·         FALLEN ANGELS (featuring Mercedes Louise Allcutt and set in Los Angeles, CA, in 1926): http://tinyurl.com/3wh2a6t

Alice would love to hear from you at alice@aliceduncan.net. And be sure to visit her Web site at http//www@aliceduncan.net

 ·         PECOS VALLEY REVIVAL (featuring Annabelle Blue and set in Roswell, NM, in 1923): http://tinyurl.com/3uafvqg

·         FALLEN ANGELS (featuring Mercedes Louise Allcutt and set in Los Angeles, CA, in 1926): http://tinyurl.com/3wh2a6t

·         GENTEEL SPIRITS (featuring Daisy Gumm Majesty, and set in Pasadena, CA, in 1922): http://tinyurl.com/3ndzcff

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 Thanks for chatting with us today, Alice. You've given us a lot of fascinating information that makes me want to read each of your books.

 Remember Readers; leave a comment on each of our blogs. This group is giving away over 50 books total, either during the tour or immediately afterwards. I’m giving a signed copy of my cozy mystery THE INCONVENIENT CORPSE and a signed copy of THE FOXY HENS AND MURDER MOST FOWL. Names will be drawn by random from those who take time to leave a comment.

Don't forget to click in tomorrow.

Hugs,

Jackie

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