Maggie Pill Mysteries

I started my career believing I'd never write more than three books in a series, but I soon found out that publishers and fans always want more than that. When I began writing the Sleuth Sisters, the demand for "the next one" was great, and the ideas kept coming, so I did seven books. When I finally ended the series, a reader I know personally said, "Good. I was getting tired of that series." (Huh. Did anyone twist your arm to make you read them?) Anyway, my original point was that I believe a series has an arc. If a writer sees it as going on and on, great, but for me, it's pretty short: Introduce the main character(s), see them grow through their adventures, toss in some secondary characters who are fun, and solve a new crime in each book. While readers look forward to the next adventure, for me a series begins to feel repetitive at some point. How many times can the irritating character be irritating in new ways? How many daring rescues must the main char...

  Book #4 of the Cats & Crime series is satisfying in that we get to know Lorilee's second ward, Wendy (once known as Birdy) better and find out more about her past. One of the joys of writing a series is finding characters that stand up and holler, "More about me, please!"  In the Sleuth Sisters series, a guy who was supposed to be only a goon sent to harass Barb and Faye became an ongoing character. With guidance from the sisters, his behavior improved immensely, and he became both helpful and likable. In this series, Greg, the neighbors' kid, is a brat, but he too changes as he matures. I don't know about other writers, but these are seldom planned events for me. I invent characters as needed for one story, but some of them seem to want to stick around for later episodes. Sometimes readers comment that they like this one or that one, which leads me to include them in later books.  Most, maybe all, of my characters begin as a hazy version of someone I've...

   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. ...

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...

Once the Sleuth Sisters series ended, I thought about what I'd like to write next. I came up with a precocious child (actually two of them) and a private detective who isn't quite sure what to do with them. This one took a lot more research than I expected, which is my own fault. I wanted the kids to have grown up in South America, which I knew nothing about. My interest stemmed from meeting a well-known archaeologist, Napoleon Chagnon, who hailed from my hometown. My daughter was thrilled when her class at Columbia was assigned to read his book, since she'd simply known him as her friend's "Uncle Nap" at their family reunions.   From there I went off on a tangent, with Lucy the child of a couple who'd lived among the tribal people of the Amazon jungle but died, leaving her and her brother stuck with an evil guardian. I toyed with making it a series, but while the reviews were good, there weren't many. It isn't worth a year of my life to write a se...

As you might have noticed, I don't post much when I have nothing to report. Just my philosophy, but I see no point in writing about nothing. 

  The third Cats & Crimes book is all GO on my end.  I've uploaded final e-book and print files. (Two separate entities, each with its own challenges.)  Checked the cover.  Edited the blurb on Amazon and Draft2Digital. Sent for postcards to mail to over 200 libraries within the next week.  It all happens October 1st. If you haven't ordered one yet, you can do so HERE The wildest thing is that Book #4 formed in my head as I was doing all this. It's a logical extension of the first three books, which I think readers will love, and I see one more book after that to complete the series. (I'm not a fan of writing a series after four or five books, though I will confess there are authors I love who keep it going and do a great job.) Anyway, I'll start work on that in a few weeks, when the promo for HAVE CATS - WILL CRIME-SOLVE is well under way.

 If you're a newsletter subscriber, you already know that Once Upon a Trailer Park is the giveaway on Bookfunnel right now, but only until August 11. If you're not on my newsletter list, you can still get your free e-copy HERE It's Book #1 of the Trailer Park Tales series, followed by Twice the Crime This Time and Third Crime's the Charm. If you've ever lived in any type of closed community, you'll enjoy the characters who show up in these books. I'm at work on Book #3 of the Cats & Crimes series, Have Cats - Will Crime-Solve. Lorilee and Jess have new adventures when a stranger moves into the neighborhood with the help and interference of Ditzy Mitzi and her son Nasty Greg.   The book goes on sale October 1, 2024, and you can pre-order it HERE .

BEFORE I FORGET YET AGAIN: Now is your best chance to find my entire ebook collection for a promotional price at @Smashwords as part of their Annual Summer/Winter Sale! Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/shelves/promos/ all month! #SWSale2024 #Smashwords.  I tell myself I'll be better about blogging, but...I probably won't. I do try to keep readers up-to-date on where the next book is in the pipeline, so here it is. Have Cats - Will Crime-Solve, Book #3 of the Cats & Crimes series starring Lorilee Riley, is with the content editor (That's the person I pay to make me frustrated). Content editors tell authors what needs to be changed in a book. People often ask, "Do you have to do what she says?" No, I don't, but when an objective, well-read editor says, "Look at this again," a writer should do that. Editors point out where we repeat ourselves, where we don't explain enough, where the plot gets hinky, and where charac...

  First, here are the answers to the quiz in my May newsletter. A.         26 Letters of the Alphabet B.          7 Wonders of the Ancient World C.          1001 Arabian Nights D.         12 Signs of the Zodiac E.          54 Cards in a deck (with the Jokers) F.          8 Planets in the Solar System G.         88 Piano Keys H.         13 Stripes on the American Flag I.          32 Degrees at which Water Freezes J.           18 Holes on a Golf Course K.         90 Degrees in a Right Angle L.          200 Dollars for Passing ...

  Raining Cats and Cats , the second book of the Cats & Crimes series, released on June 19th. I wrote about it everywhere I could think of...except here. Not sure how I could forget my oldest networking tool, but I did. So just in case you missed it in all the other places, here's the way to get your copy, no matter which distributor you order from: https://books2read.com/u/mK7JAV The e-book and print version haven't yet linked on Amazon. I'm working on that...sigh...

 I try to blog monthly, and the "experts" advise blogging weekly. Yeah, right. No way is my life that exciting or my advice that critical to world peace. I will say that CATS AND CRIMES is doing well. I've had compliments on the cover and the characters, particularly the cats. If you're getting desperate for Christmas gifts and you have a mystery/cat lover on your list, buy it HERE . On the philosophical side, I've been considering why cozies are so popular. I think there are several reasons: they're funny, they're not scary, and, possibly most important, the bad person gets punished in the end. We live in a world where the guilty get away with far too much. (No, I don't believe it's worse now than it was before. We just get it shoved in our faces all day, every day.) The guilty have often escaped punishment with their money, their fame, lies and deceit, and, for whatever reason, the inaction of the rest of us.  But in a cozy, some amateur with not...

 Let's start with the question, and you can think about it while you read about the next Maggie Pill book. Which commercial makes you shout at your TV (or at least want to)? As to books, Cats and Crimes is with the content editor. I'm working with a new one, and she likes sending a few chapters at a time, so I correct my work in spurts, looking at her suggestions, taking notes, and changing the text. We're up to Chapter Eighteen (of 33). When that's done, it goes to the copy editor for more changes. When I've made them, it will be time to fit the MS into all the little boxes publishing requires. Amazon wants some things, like a "live" table of contents. Draft2Digital doesn't need that because they make one for me. Print books differ just enough between the two to make life miserable for a few days. My husband knows to tread quietly when I'm trying to make the covers fit into the different programs. I'm planning to have it up for pre-order by m...

Here are the answers to the newsletter quiz. If you don't get my newsletter, sign up for it! The NEWS in the newsletter is that THIRD CRIME'S THE CHARM releases on April 4th. HERE is the link to it on all major book-sellers' sites.