Mystery, Mind Games, and Murder

Imagine, if you will, that you have one week left to live. You’re innocent, but the jury found you guilty anyway. No one believes you. Your last appeal has failed. To top it all off, the person who killed your spouse is still out there, and soon they’ll have gotten away with two murders. You have one last interview, one last chance to tell the truth and hope that someone, anyone, believes you. And someone does. But you might just wish he didn’t.

Such was the scenario that ran through my head and eventually gave life to Maurice Oyler and Matthew Devlin in Three O’Clock Execution.

When I first heard the Insecure Writer’s Group (IWSG) was holding their annual anthology contest, I was excited. But then I realized the topic was crime. Eish. I’m a fantasy writer, through and through. What do I know about crime? Sure, I love reading it, but writing it is a whole different beast.

However, I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge (even when I really, really should), so I sat down and considered something I think about from time to time: what if you’re put to death for a crime you didn’t commit? The thought is terrifying. So, in other words, perfect for a crime anthology.

I’ve always been a big fan of psychological thrillers, so I wanted to approach crime more from a psychological perspective; not while the murder is being committed, but the mind games that follow. And Mr. Devlin sure is good at mind games.

I'd like to introduce you to the characters, just briefly, with an excerpt from the beginning of Three O'Clock Execution.

The clock outside chimed three times as Mr. Devlin clicked the recorder on and took his seat at the metal table.

“Today is the eighth of April, at three o’clock.” His words were crisp and biting, as chilly and sterile as the visiting room. “Will you state your name for the record, please?”

“Maurice Oyler.” The chains clinked against the table as he wrung his hands.

“Do I have your permission to record this?”

“Yes.”

“Then, let’s begin, shall we? As you know, I’m Matthew Devlin. I’m conducting some research on death row inmates. Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

“Well, you were very persistent.” It wasn’t a compliment. In fact, Mr. Devlin had become downright insufferable, and if Mo had to die, which the state was determined to make happen, he wanted to at least be allowed to do so in peace.

“I think you’ll find, Mr. Oyler, that I take my work very seriously.”

“I’m afraid I won’t be of much use to you, then. You see, I’m innocent.”

“With all due respect, every sane person says that on their way out.” Mr. Devlin paused to rearrange some folders in front of him. “Some of the less-than-sane ones, too.”

“Right.” Mo licked his lips and leaned forward, making sure their eyes met. “But I’m telling the truth. I didn’t kill my wife.”

So, what would you do if you were convicted of a crime you didn’t commit?

To find out what Maurice Oyler did, you can preorder Tick Tock: A Stitch in Crime at the following retailers (release date is May 1):

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Want to join the community of people talking about Tick Tock: A Stitch in Crime? Add the book on Goodreads or like our Facebook page. 

---

 S. R. Betler: Writer. Reviewer. Failed ninja. Collector of stray people and animals. Torturer of characters. Creator of worlds, people, and sometimes bad ideas.

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Until Release

by Jemi Fraser

Back in September, I posted this on Facebook...

3500 words
7 different pov characters
1st attempt at a short
Genre I don't normally write
What could possibly go wrong...?
#amwriting

The Theme for the newest IWSG anthology had intrigued me.

Theme: Tick Tock. The story revolves around a clock, is time sensitive, or has something about a specific time. 

The prompt for the contest had my brain ticking (pun intended!). I saw a clock counting down, but counting down to what?

The first character to pop into my head was a grieving mother. Then the man who caused the grieving.

This man was being released early from prison, for good behaviour.

Other characters popped in until I ended up with 8 points of view in the story. I'm used to juggling 2 points of view and am comfortable with both male and female viewpoints. But 8? Yeah, I thought I was nuts, too. And, yes, another character clamoured to be added after my FB post above.

Added to the mess, none of the characters came with names, but they did come with evil intentions.

I had so much fun writing the first draft! And the fun increased with each revision round.

First up in the story is Ashley...

It proved impossible to paint nail polish neatly while imagining her fingers wrapped around that throat.  Squeezing until the pulse ceased to beat and the life was gone.

Like her Matt’s life.

Gone.

Four years, three months, and thirteen days gone. Less than five years to pay for the death of her son. Snuffed out at nineteen. Run down like he meant nothing.

It wasn’t enough.

Walker had to pay like her Matt had paid.

Ashley took a deep breath followed by three more. Then picked up the polish with a steady hand.

I hope you'll be picking up a copy of Tick Tock: A Stitch in Crime when it's released! And don't forget to add us to your list on Goodreads! Join us on Facebook too!

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Just Jemi

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#IWSG: Count Your Blessings and A Stitch in Crime

It's the first Wednesday of the month, and time for an Insecure Writer's Support Group post. Thanks to Alex Cavanaugh and all the co-hosts this month:  Mary Aalgaard, Bish Denham, Jennifer Hawes, Diane Burton, and Gwen Gardner (Me!). 

This month's optional question is: How do you celebrate when you achieve a writing goal/finish a story?

I put the first draft of the cozy mystery I'd been working on aside to write a short story sequel to offer free in order to generate interest--before the novel comes out.  It was complete at about 12K words when the Insecure Writer's Support Group short story anthology announced they were accepting submissions in the mystery genre! 

Perfect! I really only write cozy mysteries. And the timing of the announcement was fortuitous because I'd just finished my short story. The only problem was the length: 6000 words too many. I wondered if I'd be able to cut that many words--it was half my story! But I did it and submitted my story. Goal accomplished!

I knew that making it into the anthology was a long shot. There are so many talented writers out there and I know I'm not the best. Plus, my stories are lighthearted and sweet in a world that thrives on adrenaline and angst.  

No one was more blown away than me when I learned that my lighthearted paranormal cozy mystery won the feature spot!

Here's where my insecurity comes in. I've just completed reading all the stories in the anthology. And they are GOOD! Better than mine. I have to wonder if someone made a mistake. 

HOWEVER, I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. I'm thrilled, grateful and so honored! I'm celebrating by counting my blessings which I hope to never take for granted. My story touched a chord with enough of the judges to be selected. So maybe it's not always the best that wins, but the one that touches the strongest chord at the time.

How do you celebrate when

you achieve a writing goal?
****

Even cozy characters have their problems. Here's a look into Indigo Eady's life: 

EXCERPT from A Stitch in Crime:

 

“Bagels, croissants, snickerdoodles, macaroons…” I looked up and met Badger’s eyes. “Okay, spill the coffee beans. This is serious indeed.” I twisted the bag top into a tight taper and pushed it away, then sat back and crossed my arms. “You’re not here on a Friday night for my titillating company.”

“You wound me.” He splayed his hand over his heart as if I’d punctured it with an arrow.

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, you brought all my favorite junk foods, so out with it.”

He sighed. “You’re right. This isn’t exactly a social call.”

He didn’t meet my eyes or answer right away. Instead he crossed to the cupboard and pulled out a plate, then made a big production of untwisting and smoothing out the mangled bag. Pastries were arranged to their best advantage. “As it happens, I have a friend in need.”

“Uh-huh.” I snatched a macaroon and bit it in half. The sweet and chewy coconut seduced my taste buds. I shoved the rest in my mouth and continued. “Let me guess. This friend of yours has a mischievous ghost who’s creating havoc and making life miserable.”

“In a word, yes.”

I sighed. “I’m not a ghostbuster. I need a real job.” I’d applied for numerous positions with no response. I dreamed of eating real food instead of ramen noodles every night.

“I know.” He plucked a blueberry scone from the pile and broke it in half. “But it’s a paying gig, and let’s face it: you need money.”

Someone had a big mouth. Probably me. “How much?” I may not like dealing with spirits, but I could be bought for the right price. Like a steak-and-potato dinner, perhaps with a nice bottle of Cabernet thrown in.

“The going rate,” Badger said. He shoved half the scone in his mouth and chewed while I waited. “A thousand pounds.”

The macaroon lodged in my throat, trapping coconut-coffee juice at the back of my nasal passages. I managed to swallow the lump before anything shot from my nose, but a coughing fit ensued. Once that subsided, I wiped my watery eyes on the back on my hand. “When do I start?” I choked out.

“Don’t you want to know what it is first?”

“I’d exorcise the devil himself for a thousand pounds,” I said, then hesitated. “It’s not the devil himself…is it?”

*****

On Pre-sale Now!

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Detective Cypress

Hello, everyone. Yolanda Renée here to discuss my contribution to the new IWSG Anthology Tick Tock: A Stitch In Crime.

I'm a mystery writer with several published novels, a blogger - Defending the Pen, and a flash fiction writer - WEP. I write in many genres. In fact my science fiction story, Ever-Ton placed in the first IWSG Anthology, Parallels: Flex Was Here.

Cypress, Like The Tree, is a murder mystery with several interesting suspects. Does a wife kill her abusive husband? Have the neighbors who've witnessed the abuse turned vigilante? Or has a philanderer just pissed off the wrong person?

Today you'll meet Detective Cypress, the man in charge of solving this crime, but first:

Excerpt:

A detective entered the room. I knew he was a detective before he even opened his mouth because his superior than thou aura wafted off him like cheap aftershave. Tall, thin, and rumpled, he reminded me of an anorexic Clark Kent. Was this Superman in disguise?

“Mrs. Allan,” he offered his hand. “I’m Detective Cypress, like the tree.”]

***

Detective Cypress likes comparing himself to the tree. He thinks it gives suspects and strangers a sense of comfort, strength, and fear.

He sees himself as the guardian of justice, and the seeker of truth, comparing that to the fact that the Cypress Tree has long been an emblem of immortality, strength, and guardianship.

Maybe equating the fact that from ancient times the cypress tree has been planted by graves and in cemeteries, representing, in the upward pointing of every shoot and leaf, and the fragrant, enduring wood, a knowledge of immortal life with God in heaven. Hence the guardian of the dead, and for the detective his responsibilities to the murdered.

Detective Cypress is a young detective still learning the ropes, and he has a long way to go when it comes to getting confessions and outwitting the most crafty of killers.

Will Detective Cypress solve the murder that took place on Red Clay Road?

Find out in

Cypress, Like The Tree

in

Tick Tock: A Stitch In Crime

Pre-order Now!

Copies will be available May 1^st, but review copies are available NOW!

Add it to your TBR list on Goodreads!

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Thank you for stopping in. Just curious, of all the fictional detectives out there - which one is your favorite?

Kill Some Time in the Center Lane

Hello Readers!

What if a prison inmate felt wrongly accused? When his patience has tanked and he's out of options, what length would he go to make things right?

And he only has 48 minutes.

From those questions Hammond Stone was born, and drove my idea for Center Lane, one of the eleven stories in the Tick Tock, A Stitch in Crime anthology.

Many times, this is how my stories emerge. Questions become like threads. If a question lingers long enough, I feel the need to unravel it, knowing a plot or character is knitted in there somewhere. I find that ideas come from all around us. Sometimes, it's listening to the news and asking the what if questions. Or imagining different scenarios. Recently, it was a conversation in a dream. A woman whispered to another person that she had run away from something horrible. I didn't remember the details, but I did remember the pure desperation in her voice. And that thread sparked the latest novel I'm working on.

In Hammond Stone's case, the moment he told me he felt trapped and needed to right the wrong that was done to him, I was in his corner and wanted to tell his story.

Here's the opening to Center Lane:

Hammond Stone swiped his forearm across the grimy mirror. He dabbed his index finger to the tip of his tongue and smoothed back a sprig of loose hair. Clutching the sink edge with both hands, he hung his head. 

Focus.

8:02 am. 

      Carla would just be getting into her Mercedes. He straightened his shoulders and patted the ID number embroidered on his left breast pocket. Today he was finally going to a better hell. Whether she knew it or not, Carla was going to help him get there.

* * *

Thank you for stopping by! Ready for more? Please check out Tick Tock, A Stich in Crime now available for Pre-order and releasing May 1. We look forward to seeing you on our Tick Tock's Facebook Page -- jump in and say hi! 

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Christine Clemetson

 

Meet the Bartender

Hi! Rebecca M. Douglass here, author of “The Tide Waits” in the Tick Tock anthology, here to  share a bit about how and why I wrote my story.

In some ways, the answer is easy: I write cozy mysteries, among other things, so the IWSG anthology this year was a natural fit. I was sure I could do something good with the mystery prompt. Then I saw the part about the theme being clocks or time, and I wasn’t so sure. After all, clocks in murder mysteries were done to death so long ago they never even appear anymore, right? (I’d say from the stories in the anthology that there were still plenty of interesting mysteries to write about time!).

Rebecca M. Douglass

So the theme worried me a bit, and I knew I wanted to take a little different approach—to the mystery
or to the clock, or (as it turned out), to both. Since my PTA murder mysteries are set on Pismawallops Island, a pile of glacial leavings in the middle of Puget Sound, and because I grew up on a similar pile, my first thoughts ran to ferries and ferry schedules. That just wouldn’t gel in my mind, until I thought of the tides—the most important time-keeper for sea folk. That was when I remembered Lira.

Lira made her first appearance in a bit of flash fiction several years ago, tending bar in a village in an unspecified but not modern time and place. I liked that she is a woman in an unconventional job, and that she's competent and in control. I knew from that first story that Lira is the go-to problem solver for her village, making it natural that an old fisherman would turn to her when he finds a dead man.

Lira’s story was fun to write, as well as exasperating. The tide, which I have always taken for granted and would have said I understood well, proved more complex than expected, not to mention unwilling to cooperate with my narrative needs. It took a lot of edits to get it right (I hope), and many thanks to Jemima Pett, who helped me find the errors.

Take a quick look at Lira in action:

“Shut it, you sotted fool!”

“It’s th’ lord’s truth.” 

The thump of a blow cut off the too-loud declaration, and Lira looked up from the glass she had just filled. In the back corner of the bar, two shepherds lambasted one another drunkenly. Sighing, she handed the glass across to the blacksmith, and picked up the stout club she kept to maintain the peace. Crossing the room in three strides, Lira grabbed the loudmouth by the collar, and barred the second man from further attack with her weapon.

Lira dragged the dazed shepherd to the door, pushed him out into the night, and turned to confront his drinking buddy and sparring partner. “You, too. Out.”

The second shepherd cast a forlorn look at the table where half a glass of ale still stood. “Aw, I was just—” He took another look at the bartender’s face, shut up, and went out into the night.

You’ll have to get your copy of Tick Tock, A Stitch In Crime to find out how Lira handles her other job! You can pre-order and copies will be available May 1. Add it to your TBR list on Goodreads! Join us on Facebook. 

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The First Wednesday's Here!

Thanks Alex J. Cavanaugh

Optional Question: What do you love about the genre you in most often?

The awesome co-hosts for the February 7 posting of the IWSG are Stephen Tremp, Pat Garcia,Angela Wooldridge, Victoria Marie Lees, and Madeline Mora-Summonte!

Please stop by and say to them.

And come by TickTock's Facebook Page. We'd love to see you there.

http://cleemckenziebooks.com

The question today is perfect for this post on the new Tick Tock blog. I usually write contemporary/realistic fiction or when I'm writing for younger readers, I love fantasy/adventure. I'm comfortable in each of those categories. 

Writing about modern day youth--their problems, their triumphs--takes me both backward and forward in time. What I've discovered is that a lot has changed in the teen world since I dwelled there, but the underlying universal issues are the same: Love. Loss. Insecurity (this seems to lurk everywhere). One mistake after another. Emotional highs and lows at every turn. Buckets of angst. And sometimes death before a teen is prepared to cope with it. There are no end of themes, so I love writing these stories, and I aim them at the young adult/crossover level, so a lot of my readers said goodbye to their teens a while ago.

When I need a break from reality, I love to write for middle grade readers who want to jump into fantasy and adventure. It's fun for me to imagine impossible events that a twelve-year-old might be a part of: time travel, ghostly encounters, or a journey though the backside of a computer game. 

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Well, now that I've told you about my usual writing, let me introduce you to my short story in Tick Tock, A Stitch in Crime. It's called Heartless, and it's obviously not either a young adult or a middle grade piece of fiction. I found that I enjoyed creating a story with detectives, crimes, and murders for a bit. 

I set Heartless in Chicago in 1871 because that's when The Great Fire destroyed 300 lives,18,000 buildings and left 100,000 residents homeless. I also wanted to explore the Victorian period with its strict social codes. I loved how macabre it was to have someone murdering young girls in a time when an unmarried couple couldn’t travel in a closed carriage together and the word “leg” was not permissible in polite conversation--"limb" seems to have passed the moral litmus test though. 

The challenge I had in writing Heartless, was keeping the tone of the period without making it too stiff for a modern reader. Remember, I'm deep into the teen and middle years language. I had none of that to rely on. I guess reviewers will tell me if I succeeded. 

Here's how Heartless begins:  

October 6,1871 

Journal Entry

A swath of pale pink paint across her cheekbones and her face glowed with vitality. Her eyes glistened in the light of my workroom. Even now, as I write this, I roll my head to ease the strain across my shoulders. Months of intense labor and still the final touches remain undone.

I can’t believe I began a new project tonight as well. I didn’t plan to, but I couldn’t resist. She was unexpectedly accessible and a perfect match for my needs. So, in spite of being exhausted, I had to clean the knife before returning it to the tool chest, then wash every surface until all of the dark fluids drained into the hole at the center of the sloped floor. I hadn’t needed the metal pot tonight, so at least I didn’t have that to manage. 

My last chore was to check the ice storage to be sure all was in order there. I’m smiling just recalling that moment.

Tonight, I spent hours longer than I planned, and I’d have been late to the dinner if I hadn’t pulled myself away immediately. So very hard to do. When I’m not quite finished, I hate to leave.

With great reluctance, I drew a soft blanket around her shoulders. Before dousing the light and pulling the door behind me, I glanced back. I’m eager to dress her in the gown, and I must restore her hair straight away. It looks so alluring curled around the nape of her neck. 

I’ve named her Alexandra.

***

The End...No, just kidding. I hope you'll get your copy of Tick Tock, A Stitch In Crime. You can pre-order and copies will be available May 1. Add it to your TBR list on Goodreads! Join us on Facebook. 

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