Maggie Pill Mysteries

I'm in Blue (r); Sis in Rose When we were little, Mom used to dress us up (often in mom-made dresses that were alike but different colors) and have us sing in church. The best family story concerning that is when I, at perhaps four years of age, realized partway through our song that I had an issue. Our church had a curved altar rail with a padded arc below it for kneeling during communion. Halfway through our number, I leaned over the railing and told my poor, cringing mother in a stage whisper, "I have to go to the bathroom!" When she nodded to indicate she'd received the message (along with everyone else in church) I climbed over the rail, bounced off the knee-pad, and headed at a run up the aisle to the ladies room. My poor sister was left to finish the song on her own, though I doubt anyone heard it for the laughter.

Writers often gripe about people asking where we get our ideas from. That's because we often can't articulate how a story goes from a germ to a book. Sometimes an idea shows up almost full-blown. Other times it has to be teased along. Sometimes it changes over time. For example, the plot for the last book, Captured, Escape, Repeat , came from a discussion I had with my sister, who lived for a long time in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. There she read about a piece shown at a local maritime museum that turned out to have been taken illegally from Lake Michigan. "Maybe one of the sisters could recognize a stolen object and get into trouble," she suggested. How did that change? Why? I can't tell you, but the item that was stolen is in an antique shop, not a museum, and the setting isn't Manitowoc but Green Bay. The person who recognizes the contraband is Lars, not one of the sisters. The result is still trouble, so that's all good for a mystery. Buy now My nex...

Buy now I recall reading a book a long time ago (It might have been The Accidental Tourist), where a man whose wife has left him starts doing his laundry in the shower, kicking the clothes around while he washes himself. Having known several people who've been alone too long, the scene struck me as completely realistic. When no one is there to see, lots of things don't matter nearly as much as they once did. You eat cereal for supper. You stay in your pj's all day. You designate "no tooth-brushing" or "all TV game show" days. The Sleuth Sisters have different life scenarios. Retta had a husband she loved very much, and she was forced into single living by his death. Barb chose to be single and is therefore the most idiosyncratic of the three. Faye has Dale and always has had. After decades together, they form a cohesive unit and respond to each other's personalities almost without effort. How do their lifestyles affect the stories? Well, Barb...

Buy now One of my earliest memories of farm life is my mother washing out milkers with the hose, her back bent, her brow knitted as she focused on the task. People who knew her as the kind-but-strict schoolteacher or the music-loving choir director might have been surprised to see how hard she worked at home, but that was life on the farm in the '50s. It was a family farm, which meant my father stayed on the land his parents owned, becoming a partner by sharing the work with his father. My grandmother was the gardener, growing vegetables to can, and the raiser of chickens for eggs and meat as well. We kids were often given tasks like gathering eggs, picking potato bugs, and pulling weeds to make Grandma's work easier. Though raised as a "city girl," Mom could drive a tractor or kill a chicken for Sunday dinner, thought she later confessed to me that when she had to chop the head off one of the flock, she couldn't make herself eat the meat. Mom, Grandma...

Book Two Animals play a big role in the Sleuth Sisters Mysteries, starting in Book 2. I didn't get how much pets and livestock affected me until I started writing this series. In my life I only spent one span of time without a pet, and that was my freshman year of college, when I lived in a dormitory. Other than that I had chickens, cows, horses, pigs, geese, dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, and a few temporary "pets" like an baby raccoon or a fawn whose mother was killed by violators. Like Faye in the Sleuth Sisters books, my younger sister was a horse nut. We started with ponies in the '60s and graduated to horses. Dad wintered a few cart horses that worked on Mackinac Island in the summers, and we learned to ride on their wide backs. We also learned about their tough mouths and distinct personalities. Eventually my sister was allowed to keep one for her own. Soon that horse was going to shows all over northern Michigan, and she often won top prizes despite some j...

There was some concern after PERIL, PLOTS, and PUPPIES came out that the Sleuth Sisters series was finished, and to be honest, I wasn't sure myself. I've said many times that I don't want to write the next book just because. I need a story that I want to tell, because it's very hard work to write a book (at least one people will want to read). Sister anecdotes can go on forever, of course. There's always fodder for more humor in the way we interact with each other. Cute animal items are also easy to come up with. The fact that the real-life Styx almost broke my leg last week while trying to tell me he was glad to see me demonstrates that. Setting can become a problem in a series; call it the Cabot Cove Syndrome. How many murders can a small town expect? I felt that if there was a Book 7, it should take place somewhere else. Series writers will admit that after a few books it's also difficult to get all the secondary characters in if the characters remain ...

Judy Blue, who reads Retta I received the files for PERIL, PLOTS, and PUPPIES from Audible on Friday. Since I had an event on Saturday, I couldn't start listening until Sunday morning. I plan to do about 2 hours/day until it's done, so I'm currently on Chapter 30. I thought I'd tell you how it goes. Once a book is released in e-book and/or print, the author or publisher can contract for audio. Generally you can pay up front or share revenue, and costs for narrators run a large gamut. You submit the book for auditions and choose from those you receive. You make an offer, and if you're lucky, the narrator accepts. The studio in Chicago that does the Sleuth Sisters books hires three actors to read the three parts: Barb, Faye, and Retta. They've been the same for the first five books, but on this one they replaced Faye. I listened to the audition and agreed they'd found a good voice for her. Once that was done they went ahead and read, each woman readin...