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...

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...

 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...

I found a better image online of my imagined version of Albert, a cat shaped like a soccer ball, but I couldn't reach the rights holder to get permission to use it, so here's my second choice. He's based on a combination of cats I've known, some large, some black, and some too lazy to move. Albert is huge. We've all seen a cat like him, one that looks more like a blimp than a pet. Albert's weight makes him lethargic, which creates a loser's circle: too heavy to move around much, the only exercise he enjoys is eating, overeating adds to his weight problem. Lorilee, the protagonist in Cats and Crimes , blames Albert's former owner, who equated food with love. Once any being, cat, dog, or person, gives in to gluttony, it's very hard to change. I guess what I'm saying is that Fat Albert will never be svelte. Once again, here's the link to the book. Pre-order now or buy it on November 15, 2022: https://books2read.com/u/3LVEz7

 Cat lovers hate to admit it, but there are cats who are just plain mean. I submit they have reasons for it, some of which we can figure out, some we can't.  My daughter adopted a cat in Bahrain that was a perfect example of meanness. Like Professor Higgins in Pygmalion, he hated everyone. The reason, she was told, was that he'd been kept in a box for the first few years of his life, and probably mistreated as well.  He was beautiful, much like the cat in the photo above, though he was a gray. My daughter was good to him, and he learned after a few months that he could move around the house (He spent a long time hiding in a closet.) and trust her not to abuse him. This led the cat (Taz, short for Tasmanian Devil) to bond with her AND HER ALONE. The rest of us were fair game. If we walked along the upstairs hallway, he was liable to be lurking, and he'd jump out and slice our ankles bloody. If we came too close, he hissed and growled like a movie monster. And we knew never...

 Cats and Crimes is a labor of love in that the cats in the book are animals I remember from a lifetime of being a cat lover. While I never had a one-eyed cat, I had friends who did, so I shamelessly borrowed him for the book. The protagonist, Lorilee Riley, adopts cats that others won't take, since she doesn't mind adapting to their disabilities. In the story, Mayson is a kitten (his mother is May, get it?) who's deaf and has only one eye. He makes life interesting by making up his own rules, as kittens tend to do. Mayson wants to be outside, but like many youngsters, he doesn't think very far ahead, so if and when he gets his way, he find reality more difficult than expected. Like Tigger in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, he's lovable but sometimes exasperating. In case I haven't mentioned it often enough, here's the link to pre-order Cats and Crimes, which releases in print and e-book Tuesday, November 15, 2022. https://books2read.com/u/3LVEz7