Maggie Pill Mysteries

  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...

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...