Maggie Pill Mysteries

   A love interest is always popular in a series, even when the protagonist is over seventy. (I recently read a book where the woman fell in love at ninety-plus!) I'm not big on romance, so the character I invented to become Lorilee's friend is a puzzle. I have more fun with unique characters, like Kevin the Dancer, or irritating ones, like Mitzi Talbot. Lover or otherwise, I try to make characters real and interesting. Aside from the killers, they're not bad people, just unaware of their effect on others. A fun part with Mitzi is the insults Lorilee invents in her head, never spoken, but always there. I can't be the only person who would like to say things that she would never actually say.  This story had me looking up schemes used by con artists, which can be quite clever. As Peg Herring, I recently wrote another book about the con game (It's called FAKE and you can get it HERE ). As with all my books, the information I provide in this book and FAKE is real. ...

Sometimes an event gives me an idea for a book. The hurricane that hit the Tampa area in 2024 got lots of news coverage, and some of it focused on animals affected by the storm, often pets that lost their homes or their owners in the mayhem.  A running plot-line of the Cats & Crime series is that Lorilee can only have 8 cats, so she has to hide any extras that show up, as Esme does, on her doorstep. While cozies aren't particularly instructive for the most part, I have used them to highlight situations, so in this one, we learn about the re-homing efforts after the storm. I have great admiration for those who work to reunite pets with owners or find new homes if that isn't possible. Lorilee's empathy for homeless and damaged pets expands to concern for humans as well. Sometimes people who stay away from society do so because they care too deeply and must limit themselves to what they can handle. Raining Cats and Cats takes place after Hurricane Milton devastated the Ta...

Years ago, my sister wanted me to write a book about a "crazy cat lady" who solves murders. I never got around to it back then, and she's gone now, but I am right now finishing the final book of the five-part series she envisioned. The first book, like the series, is called Cats and Crimes. I began Lorilee's story when she's at a rather isolated point in her life, partly from circumstances, partly by choice. The series arc covers her return to society, at least as much society as Lorilee wants. All the advice we see today for older people includes calls for socialization. You'll be happier with lots of friends, they say. You'll stave off mental decline. You'll suffer fewer "old person" problems. The other side of that is becoming tired of large groups of people. Like Lorilee, I don't want to be part of conversations about how the world is falling apart. (It's always been falling apart. You just weren't paying attention forty year...

Here's where writers set themselves up. I liked the Once Upon a Trailer Park, Twice the Crime This Time , Third... idea in the titles, but that meant that the final book of Trailer Park Tales had to have THREE crimes. Talk about making work for myself! Throughout this series, I tried to showcase "types" of senior citizens (knowing of course that we are all unique and therefore never typical). One of our couples has been married forever, and they love each other dearly. That does not preclude anger at foibles, like leaving one's shoes in the way or spending too much time crafting. Another couple is newly married and still unsure of how to talk to each other. A third couple is dealing with the husband's decline in health, which changes a marriage in ways that can create stress. The fourth couple is adjusting to a new way of life after decades of working a farm, where there was always plenty to do. Secondary characters are the park complainers, those who think they s...

 Writer brains are weird. I had no intention of playing off the title of Book 1, Once Upon a Trailer Park, in the rest of the series, but it seemed inevitable to follow Once with Twice. That meant two crimes, so I came up with a cold case and a current one. Such stories require balance, so I needed lots of help to keep the details straight and both cases moving along. This is where long-time readers are a blessing. Many of them will read a rough (sometimes really rough) draft and make suggestions to help clarify events and pinpoint characters' motivations. It's hard to find readers who do this well. Many read purely for enjoyment, so they don't look for flaws in a story. A writer needs someone who reads with a critical eye--not to nitpick, but to tell her where the story cracks open because something doesn't add up. I read a mystery recently where a nationally known radio host revealed the name of a person she suspected of murder on her show without the slightest bit ...

 We winter in an RV park in Florida, and when residents there found out I was an author, I heard time and time again, "You should write about this place." So I did. An RV park is a strange microcosm of the nation (though our population is mostly from east of the Mississippi) in that people come from many different locales to escape winter weather. We're a mix of Canadian and U.S. We aren't Floridians. Most of us stay 3 to 5 months and then go back home. In the park people meet and mingle daily, but for most of us, that doesn't continue for the rest of the year. That means that you see people every day for say, four months, and then have no contact with them until your return next fall. I tried to recreate that feeling in Trailer Park Tales, my three-book mystery series. The events are seen through the eyes of four couples. That means eight narrators, which is a lot, so I give readers lots of hints as to who's who.  Using multiple narrators was purposeful, sinc...