THE STORY BEHIND THE BOOK

Today we have a guest post by fellow mystery writer Gabrielle Black,

--> author of Treating Murder: Book One of the Veronica Lane, M.D. series.  Gabrielle is a physician.  By an odd coincidence, so is her detective character, Veronica Lane.  Gabrielle follows in a rich tradition of M.D. mystery writers, starting with the most famous, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, inventor of Sherlock Holmes.  And now, to our guest blogger, Dr. Black...........

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Novel writing usually involves writing back stories on characters. You seldom get to see these. There is also usually a back story to how the idea came to be. You seldom get to see these either, but sometimes the 'making of' is almost as cool a the story itself. I realized this recently while watching the making of Star Wars. George Lucas before he was a gazillionaire. So, with that on my mind, I'll share with you: The making of...Treating Murder by Gabrielle Black. 

I THINK THAT I SHALL NEVER SEE, A WEVIEW AS PWETTY AS A TWEE

            I came across a review of “The Surreal Killer” on the book’s Amazon UK site (only £1.93 for the novel).   The reviewer thought the book was “too twee” for them.  I think this is one of those classic cases of Americans and British being separated by a common language.  At least for me it was a new word, which sent me quickly to the nearest dictionary.

            Before I share the definition with you, a word about the novel is in order here, I think.  The storyline is about a serial killer who murders in a particularly brutal fashion with a machete.  The murderer kills ten victims, with two of the killings described in detail in the novel.  Several other killings by others are mentioned in one place or another in the book, and another killing is described as it occurs.  All in all, an impressive body count I thought.

            “Twee” means excessively cute or delicate.  That’s an interesting way to describe multiple murder and dismemberment.  I find it difficult to imagine my hard-boiled mysteries as being delicate.  But that’s the fun of being a reader---in the end the book is whatever you the reader want it to be. 

Tich's New Review of The Matador Murders

"I enjoy reading Mystery novels, I love the excitement and solving problems. The Matador Murders is a pretty fast paced and well written Mystery.  Roger and Suzanne are called Montevideo to help solve a murder. In order to find the killer and free their friend from murder charges they must investigate the members of the two gangs that are at war. Someone is killing for leadership and they must figure out who this is.  Jerold Last did a great job creating The Matador Murders. The characters were fantastic and the storyline was great."


From: 

http://lovesallthingsbooks.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-matador-murders-by-jerold-last.html?zx=de3ef21597754e19, Monday, January 7, 2013

Thank you, Tich.

Pat Canella (The Dockland Murders)

I'd like to introduce you to Alan Place, a Indie science fiction and fantasy writer from Great Britain whose most successful book thus far is a P.I. mystery novel, The Dockland Murders, starring a tough female sleuth, Pat Canella.  Rumor has it that there is interest in this book from a few traditional publishers.

Alan is a presence in the blogosphere and can be found several places, including Facebook:

http://hereiamattheedge.blogspot.co.uk/

http://angiesdiary.com/author/alplace/

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/edit?trk=tab_pro

https://www.facebook.com/awplace

 

The Dockland Murders can be found on Amazon (UK and US) at:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Al-Place/e/B0076M5BNG/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

http://www.amazon.com/Al-Place/e/B0076M5BNG/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

To whet your appetite, a short excerpt from the book follows:

 

I stood there, the gun still warm in my hand, barrel smoking from the gun battle.

“Why did he do that, Sarge?  I tried my best to talk him out of it.”

“Living with the guilt finally got to him, Patti.”

“Couldn’t he have talked it over?”

“No, the only thing worse than being a dirty cop, is being the son of a loose cannon, and none came looser than Bill Chart, Patti.”

I looked around.  There lay the body of Bill's son, my ex-partner, Adrian Chart.

“I had no choice, he pulled first, Sarge," I said through my tears.

“I know, Patti, we all saw it.  Nobody blames you.  It was his way out.”

The last thing I remember was the Sarge saying in a soft tone, "Take a week off Patti, something like this will haunt you. I know. I have been there myself.”  Dazed, I stood there, trying to remember how it had all started . . .

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