Posts Categorized: Mysteries

Writing Artie Deemer: Dallas Murphy on “Lover Man,” “Lush Life” and “Don’t Explain”

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Don't Explain by author Dallas Murphy

Artie Deemer is the reluctant sleuth who narrates my three-book series -- Lover Man, Lush Life, Don’t Explain -- published by Brash Books.  He would be happy sitting around his Manhattan apartment listening to jazz and maybe smoking a little pot. He’s able to do so because his dog Jellyroll makes a fortune in dog-food commercials and bad mystery movies featuring “the cutest dog in the world” (nobody cares about the humans).  But when, in Lover Man, his ex-girlfriend, Billie Burke, is found murdered in her bathtub, he gets up, turns off the music, and goes out to track down her killer.  In fact, he becomes obsessed with the search, fully aware of the danger to himself and his... more

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Creating Delilah West: Can’t swim? Dive in Anyway

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Death is Forever by author Maxine O'Callaghan

When I began writing my first novel, I was blissfully ignorant of that sage piece of advice: Write what you know. I wasn't a cop, or a pathologist, or a special agent for the FBI. Besides a stint in the Marine Corp Reserve, I was, first, a secretary, then a stay-at-home housewife and mother who read. A lot. Mostly mysteries and suspense with an emphasis on private eye fiction. So it seemed perfectly natural to me that when one of my first short stories, A Change of Clients, appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine in 1974, it featured a private detective. My only concession to the write-what-you-know maxim was to make my detective a woman, because, well, I was one. It really... more

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How “Blanche On the Lam” Inspired Naomi Hirahara

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Our guest blogger Naomi Hirahara is the award-winning author of the mysteries featuring gardener-sleuth Mas Arai: Summer of the Big Bachi, Gasa-Gasa Girl, Blood Hina, and the Edgar Award-winning Snakeskin Shamisen. Hirahara is the past president of the Southern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Today she talks about how much she loves Barbara Neely's Blanche on the Lam. Before Mma Precious Ramotswe came on the American scene, there was another “traditionally built” sleuth who had been introduced to mystery readers here--Barbara Neely’s Blanche White, an African-American housekeeper in the South who is on the run for writing some bad checks in the first book in the... more

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Female Thriller Authors Bring Girl Power to Crime Fiction

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From gritty detectives to hard-boiled bounty hunters, men might be the face of crime fiction – but any fan of the detective genre knows that women are the heart of it. Female thriller authors have been shaping the mystery genre since it started, breaking ground with bestselling books and beloved heroines. These ladies of crime fiction prove that no bad guy stands a chance when it comes to girl power. Agatha Christie's Groundbreaking Mysteries The biggest, baddest female crime fiction writer of them all, Agatha Christie hasn’t just sold more mysteries than any other author – she’s sold more books than any other author in history. Christie was instrumental during that Golden Age of... more

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My Los Angeles

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Lee Goldberg Author

I grew up near San Francisco, a city with enormous charm and character, a definite center and, thanks to the Bay and the Pacific, obvious borders. San Francisco is a city with such a strong, undeniable personality, that it almost feels like a person to me instead of a place. I assumed, in my inexperience and youth, that all of the great cities of the world would be like that. And I eventually learned that, for the most part, I was right. But not Los Angeles. When I first arrived here in 1980 to go to UCLA, all I saw was endless sprawl, about as colorful and inviting as a parking lot. It was a city seemingly without shape, boundaries or a personality that I could identify. I was lost... more

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How to Write a Murder Mystery

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Lee Goldberg Author

Writing murder mysteries is, by far, the hardest writing I've ever had to do. It’s not enough just to tell a good story, you also have to come up with a challenging puzzle. It's twice as much work for the same money. There is no right way to devise a murder mystery. Every author has his own approach, one that’s every bit as unique as his literary voice. For me, it never starts with the murder. It always begins with the detective, especially if the story I am setting out to tell is part of an ongoing series. The idea for the mystery will arise from the personality of the hero, and what aspects of his character I want to explore, what arena (a place, industry, sport, culture, etc.)... more

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