Maggie Pill Mysteries

Readers, the new book is on its way to Editor #1, and I still don't have a title. I'm interested in hearing your ideas for a book about     An elderly woman    lives in Florida    has 8 cats   finds a dead body in her side yard   can't stop herself from trying to find the killer. I found this great picture, so what might this book be called? My working title is Lorilee's Furry Gang of Eight but that's kind of long and not very satisfying. I tried a title generator and got 2 other possibilities: Murder with Cats and Cats & Crime.   Meh.

  The third Trailer Park Tale, THIRD CRIME'S THE CHARM, has taken its first baby step.  This time the folks at Beautiful Bird RV Park have to deal with (you guessed it) three crimes, the most serious one the disappearance of the local detective they've come to know a little. People don't just come to the park and vanish, but that's what Detective O'Connor apparently did. Of course the intrepid couples who solved the other crimes can't ignore this one, and as they investigate, they find two other suspicious situations. Once I have a manuscript sorta-kinda ready for someone else to read, I send it to what I think of as my First Editor. She's an intelligent reader who knows me well, and she reads through the (slightly rough) story to give me ideas about how things are going thus far. I respond to whatever comments she has, and I find that by the time she's had the book for a few weeks, I've got a few ideas of my own. (Nothing improves a writers view of ...

Peril, Plots, and Puppies, the 6th Sleuth Sisters Mystery, is currently in production as an audio book at Cerny American in Chicago. It's always interesting to be part of the process, and though I'm far away, I have some responsibilities. Of course I can choose the people who read my books. Since I've been happy with all the earlier audiobooks, I'm happy to stick with the Cernys. I did learn that the actress who reads Faye is no longer available, so I had to okay a new narrator for that segment. Her audition was good, and I think the books will continue to move well from pages to audio files. I also try to give the narrators a list of words that Michiganders know well but others might not, place names like Mackinac, items common here but not in Chicago like pasties, and in the case of this book, German dog commands. Now I know they can look that up, but why should they have to when I have a friend who taught German for decades? She kindly provided me with phonetics...

Book #1 I looked up the word benchmark but I didn't learn much. It's a combination of bench + mark, and it represents a new standard. (So what's the bench got to do with it?  Do we sit down and rest when we reach a point where we've done something really cool? I don't intend to. Who wants to rest when you're on a roll?) Wherever the word came from, I'm approaching a benchmark with The Sleuth Sisters, the first book in the series. Sometime in the next week it will hit 1500 in audio book sales. For a book I wrote under a pseudonym, published myself, and promoted haphazardly at best, that's amazing. The production company people are pretty happy, too, since I did a 50-50 share of the profits with them rather than pay upfront. With a second, third, and soon a fourth installment in the series, we've got a small but reassuring stream of money coming in. In e-book, print, and audio sales, I'm earning more on the Sleuth Sisters than any of my ot...

   I've finally started writing the fourth Sleuth Sisters (Remember, there's another author in my head who has obligations too). Though a title isn't required for the writing part, my mind is toying with the possibilities. A lot of cozy titles are plays on words and that's okay, but I don't like them to be too cutesy. Since this mystery has to do with water rights, I'm wondering if A Long, Tall Drink of Murder is a good title. Be warned: tomorrow I might have a whole different idea, and to be honest, titles with "dog" or "cat" in the title sell extremely well. Maybe I should get Styx or Buddy or Barb's stray cat into the title, because of course they'll all have a role. Opinions?