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This is Mystery Ahead, the
newsletter for readers and writers. Together, we find out what makes for a compelling mystery.
Remember to share! Friends love mysteries, too. #booknews
In KING PESO, Detective Emilia Cruz is faced with the murder of three law enforcement officials. She worked with them all. Next, her partner's wife is killed in a home
invasion. Was he the real target? Is Emilia the next?
In PACIFIC REAPER, partner Silvio is still grappling with the loss of his wife. For those who relish the tension between Emilia and her partner, I can only say, "Fasten your seat belts."
From the back cover of PACIFIC REAPER:
Imagine if you were the first and only female police detective in Acapulco, investigating crime in a city both deadly and breathtaking. Mexican drug cartels battle for control and politicians are
bought with blood money.
A gang war is terrorizing Acapulco.
Murder victims are sacrificed to Santa Muerte, Mexico’s forbidden saint of death.
Will you investigate? Or be
cursed?
Detective Emilia Cruz confronts her worst fears in PACIFIC REAPER, the 5th book in the sensational police procedural series set in today’s Acapulco. Emilia and her partner Franco Silvio respond to murder in the remote Coyuca Lagoon reserve and find an elaborate altar to Santa Muerte next to the body of a known gang member. Even hardened cops are frightened by the bloody scene’s warning
to the enemies of Santa Muerte.
Rivals retaliate by hanging a murder victim on a billboard. Gang warfare erupts like wildfire, burning a line across Acapulco bay.
Focusing on the Santa Muerte angle, Emilia’s investigation is soon a maze of unholy clues. At the same time, everyone close to her
has a brush with death. Bad luck? Or is the Skeleton Saint’s curse coming true?
Undercover as a Santa Muerte worshipper, Emilia’s life will be stripped of everything she holds dear.
Her family.
Her lover.
Her job.
Herself. #protips As a mystery author, it’s easy to get absorbed in plot twists and seedy locations and forget things like character development. But when the main character is a strong female protagonist, as in all my books, “She” has to be compelling enough in her own right to hold the reader’s attention. Here are 3 ways to do that:
1.
Visualize Make sure the reader can fix an image of Her in their mind without the tired old device of the woman looking in a mirror and thinking about her appearance. BET ME by Jennifer Crusie offers a good example of a clever way to make the reader “see” through the eyes of the soon-to-be love interest. Min’s hair is pulled into an unflattering bun and her severe suit makes her look like
a prison warden. When she evolves with a new hairstyle the guy is reminded of an angel. Prison warden to angel in 200 pages. Nice.
2. Problem slinger Her problems are an
integral part of the plot. Not only should a problem be solved but the character’s traits should shine through as She deals with frustration, exasperation, fear, disappointment. Is She determined, defeated, persistent, paranoid? Janet Evanovich does this well with the Stephanie Plum character. The device is especially effective when She is paired with a non-problemsolver. Enter Lula.
3. Choose poorly If She is going to do something foolish or daring or simply make a mistake, the reader has to believe in the reason why She is doing it. Or else She will lose credibility and so will the author. Years ago I discovered the Beverly
Gray mystery series by Clair Blank. Written in the 1930’s, Beverly was always walking into the lion’s den to save a friend or get a news story. At times campy, the pre-WWII books always convinced us of Beverly’s motives and let them reinforce Beverly’s personality.
#friends This month, British author M.A. Comley is here to talk about her multiple mystery series. Her latest
book IN PLAIN SIGHT, 3rd in the DI Hero Nelson series, came out last week and quickly shot to the top of Amazon’s Hot New Releases chart!
Carmen Amato: You are the master of the short swift mystery novel built mostly around a single plot thread, a format that has really resonated with readers. Tell us how you came to embrace this style and if you have a writing role model. M.A. Comley: Hi Carmen, thank you for inviting me to take part in
this Q&A with you. To be honest, I’m not one of those writers who try to fill their novels with worthless words just to achieve an 80K word count. My first two books were 88.000 and 80.000 respectfully but then I cut it down to writing 60.000 only because I had very impatient fans who wanted to see more and more books from me. My role model has to be James Patterson. The only difference between us is the fact that I write my own books. Ha ha.
CA: You write multiple series and maintain a fast publishing pace. Tell us about the different series and how you keep each fresh and unique. MAC: I used to just write and publish the Justice series as
the main character Lorne seemed to be the only character shouting, urging me on in my head. Then I started writing the DI Hero Nelson series, he’s the only male character I write.
All of a sudden, all these other characters started screaming at me, demanding to be heard. Therefore, I went on
to write a Private Investigator series, the Intention series. Finally, I began writing another police procedural series, the DI Sally Parker thriller. I intend to alternate the series over the coming years.
Recently, I have co-authored two other series with Tara Lyons and Linda S Prather,
although they were fun projects to write, I think I’ll be concentrating more on writing my own books going forward as I’m a bit of a control freak at heart. As for keeping the characters fresh and unique, they tend to do that themselves to be honest during the writing process, I suppose I’m lucky in that respect.
CA: Who is your target reader? What other authors do they read who are similar to you? MAC: My target readers are anyone who appreciates a fast-paced thriller, sometimes they can be a little gory, but then you only have to look at a news bulletin every night to see that unfortunately, we live in a violent society, it would be totally
unrealistic not to include at least some violence in my novels. Again, I have to mention James Patterson, Karen Rose, Lee Child, Karin Slaughter, Tess Gerritsen.
There’s more! Read the entire interview on carmenamato.net.
About M.A. Comley: I’m a hybrid author with a two-book deal with Bloodhound Books. I started self-publishing the Justice series in 2010 and now have over thirty full
length novels and several novellas and short stories to my name. I intend to write and publish four more books in 2017, beginning with COLD CASE due out May 1st. Visit M. A. Comley's website and find her books on Amazon. #reviews This month’s book goes behind the scenes and packs quite a punch. THE PIGEON TUNNEL by John le Carré is a collection of autobiographical stories that reveal the iconic espionage thriller author to be a complex man as full of restless twists as his novels. His true name
is David Cornwell, a fact everyone but I knew, and he really did work for British Intelligence (MI5 and MI6) for nearly a dozen years.
The stories in THE PIGEON TUNNEL are neither chronological nor do they form a single narrative. They are knit together by the impact of Cornwell’s family dramas, his quests to find literary inspiration in the world’s hot spots, and his
richly layered prose.
The emotional heft and twists-within-twists of his books have roots in the Cornwell family. His father Ronnie was an abusive con man who ran through money like water and enjoyed prison on multiple continents. He often popped up to partake of Cornwell’s monetary success, insinuating himself with publishers and moviemakers and hawking dubious schemes.
Cornwell repeatedly bailed him out in response to pleas that went through the son “like slow knives.”
As a youth, Cornwell was dispatched to collect Ronnie’s race winnings or money owed by other punters. One mission took 16-year-old David from his British boarding school to Paris to knock on the door of the Panamanian ambassador to France. After a surreal evening, the
ambassador says not only is his debt to Ronnie bogus (something to do with selling repackaged whiskey in Panama) but Ronnie owes him money and would young David please pay up. Years later, while researching THE TAILOR OF PANAMA, Cornwell finds out the so-called ambassador was a con man in his own right and never a member of France’s Foreign Service.
Cornwell’s mother abandoned Ronnie and their two sons when Cornwell was five and his older brother was seven. Cornwell tracked her down when he was 21, to find she’d remarried and her new family was blissfully ignorant of her past. His imagined account of her last few days as Mrs. Ronnie Cornwell is dispassionate yet telling. They stayed in touch and he still has the suitcase she used when she
ran away.
Thus the theme of THE PIGEON TUNNEL is revealed. Tension. The freedom we crave to make our own choices versus the constraints of breeding/clan/geography/education/expectations. The tension that comes with manipulation by those with roughshod agendas and the throb that comes with being the manipulator. Readers will recognize this as the essential theme of every
le Carré novel.
THE PIGEON TUNNEL is the backstory to those novels. For 50 years, Cornwell has explored conflict zones and written about their inhabitants. Rwanda, Congo, Cambodia, Vietnam, Palestine. Mobster’s lairs in Moscow and the former Soviet republics as power
vacuums are filled. Central American jungles and border crossings where authority is a sketchy notion.
Many times the book zeros in on a specific moment or interaction that later informs a character. One riveting story is his interview of a German terrorist held in an Israeli jail as he researched THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL. The female warden speaks to both Cornwell and prisoner in English. Cornwell and the prisoner speak in German. When the prisoner is taken out of the room, Cornwell realizes he has continued speaking German to the warden. She won’t address the prisoner in German because of her experiences in the Dachau concentration camp.
Most of Cornwell’s intel career happened in Germany and Austria in the 1950’s. That was the epicenter of the Cold War spy game, captured so well in his early writing career. THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD was his first big financial and literary success and he refers to it more than any other novel. It became a movie starring Richard Burton, for which Cornwell was
screenwriter and Burton’s babysitter during the fraught filming in Dublin.
I hoped for insights into the George Smiley novels and movies (A MURDER OF QUALITY, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, SMILEY’S PEOPLE, etc.) In addition to a few Alex Guinness memories, I got my wish with
Cornwell’s assessment of the handling of the Kim Philby affair. Cornwell knew many of the players and has an insider’s view to offer, including his conversations with the best friend that Philby betrayed.
Although the memoir is peppered with intelligence career anecdotes, Cornwell never mentions who was the inspiration for Karla, George Smiley’s Russian spy
nemesis, or if Cornwell ever exchanged cigarette lighters with him. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read SMILEY’S PEOPLE.
Now. As soon as you finish reading this.
I closed THE PIGEON TUNNEL wanting more. More behind-the-scenes confessions. More striking prose from this master of evocative description. But Cornwell knows when and how to end a tale and leaves us with an anecdote loaded with both humor and irony.
Oh, and the title? No spoilers here but it speaks to the tension with
which Cornwell still lives and writes.
Highly recommended.
The Pigeon Tunnel cover series, courtesy Curtis Brown literary agency I’m often asked how many Detective Emilia Cruz books do I plan to write? Last August, on NPR’s Alt.Latino show, I said maybe a dozen but with Donna Leon up to 23 Guido Brunetti mysteries to show the way, there is no need to stop at 12!
Emilia Cruz #6 is entitled 43 MISSING but I’m hunting for a title to #7 which deals with the Russian mob in Acapulco. BULLETS AND BORSCHT? MOSCOW BEACH? Suggestions welcome!
That's all for this edition of Mystery Ahead!
Until
next time, keep reading and keep exploring the mystery ahead :)
All the best, Carmen
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