Murder Most Maternal

My Mother Made Me Do It

My mother drove me to murder.

While other children were learning  “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” my mother taught us “Stone Cold Dead in the Market (I killed nobody but my husband).” An oft repeated maxim of hers was “Divorce never, murder maybe.”

Lest you be worried, my father outlived my mother by almost ten years. My parents loved each other but ...  Sometimes I think Dad survived because Mum had a library of murder mysteries to tame her temper when, in his calm way, he drove her to distraction.

That library was one of the ways my mother drove me to murder – writing them of course. I grew up reading Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers and Rex Stout. I learned about some very creative ways to kill a person without unduly messing up the drawing room.

I also learned about messy death from my mother. She was an insurance examiner. Table talk during one of her business dinners would put most people off their roast beef and Yorkshire pud. I lapped it up. My favourite story was about the guy who, while ski-dooing on private property, was beheaded by a wire fence. He was going too fast, in a place he didn’t belong, and ignored the fencing warnings – probably because he had a blood alcohol level in the double digits.

What if someone moved the trail signs? What if his long-suffering wife banked on his habits and arranged his decapitation?

She told us about arson cases and what tells adjustors looks for to determine whether further investigation is necessary. She also told me about the private investigators she hired and how none of them looked like Tom Selleck. So, when I needed a mystery for my detectives, Kate Garrett and Jake Carmedy, I turned to my mother. She had died of cancer a few years before, but she answered anyway.

My father supplied the means. Taking care of him after his stroke, I needed to learn about drug interactions. Fortunately for the story and my peace of mind, I have a friend, Frances, who is an RPN. She let me know that lethal drug interactions weren’t as easy achieve as I thought. No, I probably wouldn’t accidentally kill my Dad. Frances gave me a couple of her old drug bibles so I’d have a starting place and would know how to spell the medication I was looking up online.

My mother supplied the motive – both for the murder and to write it.

Alison Bruce is the author of  a noir-light, near future mystery (Deadly Legacy) and a mystery/historical western romance (Under A Texas Star). As her family will attest, the one place she doesn't frequent is the here and now.

www.alisonbruce.ca
alisonebruce.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/alisonbruce.books
@alisonebruce

Garry Ryan - Conditioned for Mayhem

Mayhem. Now there’s a word loaded with meaning.

It can be lots of fun, even life affirming. You know, laughing in the face of events that threaten your life.

Canadians have an advantage when it comes to mayhem. We know it intimately. Every winter we become reacquainted when a blizzard blows horizontal snow and creates all sorts of chaos. Then there’s that icy winds to suck the life out of you. The next time you find yourself coming inside from one of those storms, look around. People become more animated because the blizzard changes the routine, adds energy and makes us all survivors.

A survivor like Lisbeth Salander. What would Larsson’s book be without the mayhem surrounding Salander? She’s at the eye of the storm that will change the lives of almost every other character in the novel. It’s invigorating for the reader to be a witness to that chaos.

Salander is a survivor just like we are after summer thunder clouds roll in with their violent winds, lightning, bone rattling thunder, hail and falling trees.

Larsson adds killers Martin Vanger and Alexander Zalachenko to increase the intensity of the storm.

We experience those savage storms that interrupt power, make transportation impossible, isolate us for a day or a week and we find ways to survive.

Salander is made more alive by the storm and creates some weather of her own. Who among us wouldn’t like to fight back against the mayhem we encounter by creating some?

This is where our writing comes in. Writers are able to create, shape, describe, witness and survive the storms created by our imaginations and shaped by our realities. When we’re really lucky, we are along for the ride. The story and its characters take over and we are in the eye, watching the mayhem created when the story – like the storm – takes on a life of its own. All we can do is write everything down and enjoy the ride.

Garry Ryan was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, where he lives today. He received a B.Ed. and a Diploma in Educational Psychology from the University of Calgary, and taught English and Creative Writing to junior high and high school students before retiring in 2009.

Garry Ryan’s next novel Blackbirds is due for release in September 2012.

www.garryryan.ca

Follow the Money with Colleen Cross

Your Money or Your Life

Money and Murder seem to go hand-in-hand. When greed is part of the motive, catching the murderer can involve more than just the immediate crime scene. Forensic accountants often play a key role in the effort to trace money, uncover hidden stashes, or even expose a suspect’s money problems.

Insurance fraud often involves murder. Not much has changed since Mary Anne Cotton offed her entire family and a few unfortunate acquaintances in Victorian England. The scheme is always the same: insure a person’s life, kill them and then collect on the policy.

A Little Arsenic for Your Tea?

Mary Anne Cotton managed to poison three husbands, one lover, one friend, her mother and all twelve of her children before the game was up. After she spent the insurance proceeds, she would line up her next victim and take out another policy. Why did it take eighteen deaths before someone connected the dots? We’ll likely never know.

Finally the insurance company questioned the number of deaths from “gastric flu”. That prevented the victim tally from increasing. Cotton hanged before she could line up husband #4.

The Black Widows

More recently, in Los Angeles, two women in their seventies took in homeless men, drugged and then ran over them. The staged hit and runs looked like an accident. The ladies had taken large life insurance policies out on the men. They always waited a few months before claiming the proceeds to avoid suspicion. They were eventually caught, but not before two men lost their lives.

With modern technology, it is much more difficult to get away with murder. But as long as there’s money involved, people still try.

When crime scene evidence doesn’t point directly to the perpetrators, find out where the estate money goes, or who is otherwise enriched. Nine times in ten, following the money leads to the killer. It’s a common theme for forensic accountant and fraud investigator Kat Carter in my book, Exit Strategy. 

Colleen Cross is the author of Exit Strategy, book one in the Katerina Carter suspense series. Game Theory, book two in the series, will be published in late 2012. Colleen is an accountant and lives near Vancouver, B.C. Drop by her website and blog at http://colleencross.com or follow her on Twitter @colleenxcross.

Dave Hugelschaffer on Fire

Knocking ‘em Dead:
Killing your Victim


In the murder mystery business, a lot of bodies are bound to pile up. How the victims are killed is usually an integral part of the plot as the modus operandi will leave behind clues that move forward the investigation. When killing someone it is therefore important to consider how this pivotal event will guide your plotting. I would go so far as to advise one plot the investigation, then choose the cause of death that best fits the plot.

As the author of the Porter Cassel Mystery Series I have an unusual perspective on murder. The series revolves around the investigation of forest fires involving fatalities. What is particularly interesting with a forest fire is that a fatality does not have to be intentional for the determination of murder. If a fire is set intentionally, with no homicidal motivation, and someone is killed as a result of the fire, the arsonist is criminally responsible for the fatality. If the arsonist intended to kill using the fire, he is charged with first degree murder. If he didn’t intend to kill, he is charged with a lower count of murder, or manslaughter. Either way, the arsonist is on the hook, and this has allowed me considerable scope in the development of murder mystery series based on fire investigation.

Another interesting facet of fire investigation is the relationship between arson and other related crimes. Arson is often used as a secondary crime to obliterate evidence of a primary crime, with the obvious motivation to avoid detection and prosecution. For example, a murder may be covered up by setting the crime scene—either a building or a forest—on fire. This is an efficient way to sanitize a crime scene as fire will destroy virtually all fingerprints and most biological evidence. It also complicates a crime scene as the fire will wreak havoc with the surrounding environment, increasing the difficulty of locating the crime scene. Add to this frequent unintentional contamination of the scene by firefighters unaware of the sinister existence of another, more serious crime, and you have a highly complex murder to solve—therefore a complex investigation. Even without murder, wildfire arson is statistically the most difficult crime in the world to solve.

If arson is used as a secondary crime, the author has almost unlimited options in how to bump off the victim. Hang them, shoot them, stab them, poison them. Read them bad poetry until they do themselves in. Once they’re dead, burn the body and surrounding area. In fact, the victim doesn’t need to be killed where the fire is set—they can be killed elsewhere and the body moved. Now you’ve got two geographically separate crime scenes. Writing an effective and satisfying mystery is about making the murder as complicated as possible. Keep in mind, as you’re complicating the killing, that you’ll need to solve the crime, or crimes, in a logical and believable manner. Don’t paint yourself into a corner. Do the research. I love research—in fact, I find it more interesting than writing. Learning new things. Gaining access to places and people you would never have if you weren’t an author. But that’s a subject for another time. For now, rub your hands together with sinister glee, and plan to kill someone.

On paper, of course. Authors are nice people.


Dave Hugelschaffer is the author of the Porter Cassel mystery series, based on forest fire investigation. As a former forest ranger and wild land firefighter, he writes from a position of experience that provides the series with authenticity, and the reader insight into a world rarely explored in mystery fiction.

www.davehugelschaffer.com

Melodie Campbell Takes Aim

I Could Just Shoot Them!

Murder and mystery – as crime writers, we relish these words. And for many of us, firearms are the weapons of choice for finishing off fictional victims. However, I have a beef about how writers sometimes deal with firearms in their novels, to which I say:
I could just shoot them for not doing their homework!

My own research came early. I grew up on the furthest street up the side of a mountain in West Vancouver. We regularly had bears clawing the wooden front door and cougars roaming through our yard. With the forest mere feet away, we did not venture out into the woods without a rifle.

So – from an early age, I was handling firearms, specifically a 22 with sniper sights, a 30-0-6, and a shotgun. Later, I acquired a Marlin takedown carbine, which fit me perfectly. (Carbines are shorter than rifles; takedown carbines can be disassembled to about half their length.) In my thirties, I became proficient and competitive with a competition 22 handgun.

Which brings me to Things that drive me nuts in novels:

1. Magazines do not fall out of revolvers. Revolvers are called that for a reason: they have a rotating cylinder into which you load rounds of ammunition.

2. Revolvers are very nice for accuracy and reliability. “Six sure shots” are what we used to say. However, they need to be cocked. If you don’t cock a 38 or 45 caliber revolver, then your pull action has to be very, very strong – probably stronger than most women are comfortable doing. And that throws off your aim.

Which brings me to:
3. Don’t just have your character pull a gun and shoot. It drives me crazy when people just spray bullets all over the place. The character should aim. He or she should look down the sights of the firearm to line up with a target.

Example from School for Burglars (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, July/August 2007) “She lifted the gun, lined up the sights and fired.”

4. Two-shot Derringers – the kind you can stick in a silk stocking if you are not worried about shooting your toes off – aren’t accurate worth a damn.

5. Your petite protagonist will not pick up a 12 gauge shotgun, put it to her shoulder, and calmly fire. A shotgun will put not-so-petite me on my butt, if I try to shoot it like a rifle. I shoot from the hip. Even then, one might get bruised and knocked back. Better to give her a rifle, or takedown carbine.

6. About hair triggers: I nearly shot off my foot while holding a heavy crossbow with a hair trigger. Those things are dangerous! You don’t have to pull at all - a mere touch will fire them. You can use this to your advantage when writing, but be aware what it means.

Final words: If you are not completely familiar with firearms, why not stick to the tried and true methods of murder: the rope, the candlestick and the lead pipe.

Don't look for bullets in Rowena Through the Wall (No. 2 on Amazon.ca top 100 fantasy-futuristic bestseller list, Aug 2011!). Swords, sorcery and the ballistic stew are the weapons of the day. Rowena Through the Wall is available at Indigo.ca, Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.it, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble.

Melodie Campbell has a Commerce degree from Queen's University, but it didn't take well. She has been a bank manager, marketing director, comedy writer, college instructor and possibly the worst runway model ever. Melodie has over 200 publications including over 30 short stories and 100 humour credits. She has won five awards for fiction.

Gayleen Froese - Hands On

A Feel for the Real Deal

"The first place we're going," Jeff told me, "is the shooting gallery. You will come with me and we will have fun."

My friend Jeff is a man of unshakable beliefs. One of these is that anything he considers fun is fun, for everyone. I was about to argue the point when I remembered two things: 1) Jeff was my guest in Edmonton, which meant going where he wanted to go, and
2) I was writing a novel in which a character had to load and fire a handgun, and I've never done either. An air pistol, sure, but not the real thing. I figured I should give it a go.

I told Jeff I'd be happy to accompany him.

"Excellent," he declared. "I hear they have a great many guns there."

That was a selling point for Jeff, who wanted to shoot something interesting. I merely wanted to shoot something educational.

The gallery did have a great many guns, as it turned out. You could shoot nearly any of them, for a price. You paid for brief access to a gun, ammunition, ear protection, and a gallery where you'd be taken through the basics by a trainer who doubled as a security guard.

"Oh, no," I said, spotting a blindingly shiny gun with an awkward, oversized barrel. "Is that a Desert Eagle?"

"Oh, yes," Jeff said. "Yes it is."

"One of my characters used to carry one," I said. "He thought it was cool. It looks ridiculous."

"It is ridiculous."

"Evidently." I said. "I feel as if I know my character better now. He just, deep down, felt he needed the biggest gun. That's what was wrong with him in a lot of ways."

Jeff wasn't willing to pursue that conversation, so we concentrated on choosing our guns.

I was having a good time, actually, even in the gallery. My gun was easy to hold and shoot, if a pain to load. I enjoyed finding, after a quick lesson from the trainer, that my aim was pretty good.

I'd reloaded once and was about to start shooting again when I realized that I was standing in a room full of strangers, with the exception of Jeff, and that all of them were holding guns.

I'd thought I was used to guns, since they're on TV all the time. I'd played paintball and laser tag. I even knew a few people who carried real guns. Some of my friends did target shooting, and my dad had a rifle. I knew a guy who'd driven for several hours with two bags of loose guns in his trunk, but that's a story for another time.

Anyway, the last thing I'd expected was to feel uncomfortable around guns. It was strange, though. I didn't know these people, for one thing. And they weren't just carrying guns. They were shooting. They weren't shooting each other, of course, but they could have if they'd felt like it. In such a small room, I was pretty sure the trainer/guard wouldn't have been able to pull his own gun until at least one person had been shot. It would have been terrifyingly simple, and quick, and final.

And what about that guard, who carried a gun in case he needed to shoot someone who'd decided to shoot other people? That was a possibility he accepted when he started work each day.

That was when I realized I hadn't come there to learn how to load or fire a gun. I'd thought I had, but those things hadn't been important. I'd come there to learn that a real gun could be scary, no matter how inured to guns a person might believe herself to be. I'd gotten a sense of how my detectives might feel about carrying a gun, and how they might react when a gun was pointed at them. I'd learned there was a surprising weight to even the little one I'd picked up.

I stayed and finished my ammunition, though I didn't really want to. I didn't say anything about what I was thinking to my friend, who'd had a whale of a time and was already planning his next visit.

"We'll come back next time I'm in town," he said. "We can try different guns. You want to shoot the Desert Eagle?"

I said no, thanks.

"You can come back if you want, but I got what I needed in there."

Gayleen Froese is a novelist and musician from western Canada who currently lives in Edmonton’s historic Alberta Avenue district. The 39-year old has worked as a radio writer and talk show host, an advertising creative director, and a communications officer. She was the winner of the second series of BookTelevision’s 3 Day Novel Contest, which aired in late 2009. Her non-fiction and humour writing has appeared in publications including See Magazine, Avenue Magazine, The Rat Creek Press, and The Session. Touch, Gayleen’s first novel, was published by NeWest Press in Edmonton. The sequel, Grayling Cross, was released in Spring 2011.

www.gayleenfroese.com

Juanita Rose Violini Plays Fair

Getting Away with Murder... Or not

Let me get something off my chest right now. It's all about the puzzle for me. I love being tricked and tricking others. If I reach the end of a murder mystery, whether I'm reading it or writing it, and the killer is someone other than the obvious suspect, I'm happy - so long as all the clues are there to follow in the first place.

Fair play mysteries, where the writer gives the reader all the information necessary to solve the crime are fun. And they can partner up with other types of mysteries. Personally, I am not a fan of slasher mysteries, but they can still have a clue-trail. It doesn't matter if the crime takes place leaving body parts graphically strewn across the pages or in a drawing room with a single broken teacup; does the scene contain enough hints for the detective to make his way along an invisible path? Does it end with an AH HA? Is the solution obvious once you know whodunit?

Coming from a background of writing live mystery entertainment for corporate events, I decided early on that the mysteries I write will be both entertaining and solvable. One of my most murderous feelings came when I attended a mystery party produced by a competitor. Diligently I listened to every word the actors spoke and examined every piece of evidence. Confident that I could finger the culprit I turned in my solution sheet. When the MC blithely announced who the killer was, and that there were no real clues, it had to be a lucky guess, I was ready to grab my butter knife and stab it through his oh wait almost forgot that I don't go for the graphically strewn body parts.

Writing customized scripts for each client was a very labourious task. I scoured libraries and second hand stores looking for a book that would tell me a quick and easy way to plant clues in a mystery. Eventually I came to the conclusion that such a clever document does not exist and I must write it. It's still just a draft but it helps me enormously. Here's the outline turned table of contents that I use.

How to Create a Mystery Plot or Party

THE DIRT
You need dirt to dig up a plot.

THE BONES
Motive: Why did it happen?
Method: How did it happen?
Opportunity: When did it happen?

THE MUSCLES
Characters/Suspects: Who did it?
Setting: Where did it happen?

THE HEART
What Actually Happened

THE MIND
What Appeared to Happen

THE SOUL
Twisting & Untwisting
The AH-HA! Clue


The mastermind behind the Masterpiece Mysterys, Juanita has written, produced and directed over 50 corporate Murder Mystery scenarios, performed for groups ranging from 20 to 200 people of all ages and walks of life.
Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible and the Ignored, Juanita's first book, was published by Red Wheel Weiser in October 2009 and includes 365 illustrations by the author. A real-life mystery for each day of the year, on the day it occurred makes this a great compendium of the unsolved and the unexplained.

mysteryfactory.com
www.incrediblealmanac.com
twitter.com/JuanitaViolini
www.facebook.com/pages/Almanac-Of-The-Infamous-The-Incredible-And-The-Ignored/113239236442