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...

   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...

  The final book of the Sleuth Sisters series didn't start out to be final, though I was aware that I was tiring of the adventures of Barb, Faye, and Retta. The appeal of a series is that readers eagerly await the next book, and I still have bookstore owners tell me that readers ask when there will be another one. The downside for a writer is that series have the tendency to become formulaic. Everyone knows the characters. We know the basic setting. All that's required is to invent a murder and solve it in the next installment. That can come to a point where it's no longer fun, and that's where I was.  What clinched the end of the series for me was that one of my sisters died. It seems wrong now to write happy tales of the sisters sniping at each other. I chose to move on, though I did finish this one, #7. I moved the setting to Green Bay, Wisconsin, which was fun. I let Retta's undisciplined dog Styx be part of the rescue. And I tied up the loose ends as best I cou...

  Any series that includes dogs is likely to touch on puppy mills at some point. It's a hard topic to deal with in a cozy mystery, because it's such a horrible, sad subject, but the reality is that people need to recognize that such places exist and that they play on animal lovers' naive beliefs. As I write books that include pets, I find myself visiting humane societies all over my area. The people who work there are amazing, from the volunteers who play with the kittens to the managers who puzzle out how they're going to afford to feed the animals in a given month. After seeing the bare bones operation at some places, I joined my local humane society and support their work by getting the word out when I can.    One of the hardest times a local humane society faces is when a site is discovered where animals are abused, such as a puppy mill. They have to rescue and care for animals that are often in bad shape. They have to find homes for them (once the court says the ow...

  One of the great things about cozy mysteries is their humor, and I had fun with this one because I grew up with chickens and can attest to humorous moments with these critters. They're fluttery and feathery, and they have minds of their own. On the serious side in this story is the criteria for judging an elderly person's competence. We have all heard of cases where a family member pushes to get control of grandma's estate for their own benefit, but the question must be asked: How crazy is crazy? When does a person's right to independence become dangerous to their health and even the health of others? A word about the covers for the Sleuth Sisters series. I absolutely fell into a pot of gold when I went online and hired a young woman from Singapore to do covers for me. She was fast, she was creative, and she listened to what I wanted. She drafted a theme for the books, the fence with three rails, each with an object that represented a sister. First she used shoes, the...

The second book in the Sleuth Sisters series delves deeper into the characters of Barb, Faye, and Retta. It seemed likely to me that Retta would have a dog. She lives in the country, she's alone, and she just seemed like a "dog person." Faye is the type who is compelled to help anyone in need, so when she finds a dog hurt on the road, she naturally takes it in. So we have 3 sleuths and 2 dogs. All I had to do was write in a murder for them to solve. The fun part of writing this series is the response from readers, who want to tell me which sister they are. "I'm Barb," someone will say. "I'm always correcting people." Or, "I'm Retta. I'm the baby, and I always get my way." People often ask who I am, but that's complicated. Characters in a story become who we writers need them to be, so while one might figure an ex-English teacher would write herself as Barb, correcting grammatical errors on public signs in secret, I agree, ...

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