Whodunit?

comments, diane mott davidson, writing hints

 

COMMENTS:

 

i sent out a request to some of my readers for information technology (or internet technology) help and received many comments showing i'm not alone in my ignorance!! the responses range from:

'gosh,audrey, i haven't a clue.' c.t. canton; 'sorry, I'm no help.  ElectronIcally challenged' c.h., akron;  and 'Dear Audrey, You have the wrong person to ask about computer stuff.' ejb, cleveland  to 

some export suggestions i can't follow kindly offered by c.a. to another kind  offer to make a mensa request from g.b. to g.r's of cleveland notice that what he got when he hit my suggested button is 'Page not Found We're sorry. The page you've requested no longer exists.'

 

ah, well

 

BOOKS:

 

i've read one and a half cozies since last we met. they are diane mott davidson's crunch time and 121 pages of denise swanson's murder of a creped suzette.

 

crunch time continues the career of colorado caterer goldlie schulz and old friends of the series, which include her husband tom and teen aged son arch, both of whom indulge goldie more than she should be indulged.

 

under the title on the cover are the defining words, 'a novel of suspense.' it's not. this reader was so busy trying to remember who was who in the cast of seemingly thousands that i didn't have time to worry about who done what to whom. anyway, ms. davidson  spends about five pages at the end of the book explaining it all to us. i contend that readers should not need long explanations of the plot. the writer should bring the reader along with her, understanding the plot as it unfolds.

 

to ms. mott's credit, the scene is set in aspen and aspen meadows which i adore, so there is plenty to like in her initial descriptions. she also has a couple of terrific slap-stick situations at the beginning of the book. after that i lost interest though i plowed on through.

 

the novel is published by william morrow. it is 446 pages plus about fifteen pages of recipes.

 

i don't know if murder of a creped suzette e is better by comparison or if indeed it is above the average of denise swanson's scumble river series. but, so far, it is pretty enjoyable, although it has the same plot that others have had i.e. developers want to develop and thereby ruin picturesque scumble river.

 

led by famous country singer and imitation cowboy rex taylor the developers plan to make our heroine skye denison's favorite town into another branson. in the main plot line, suzette neal, front woman for rex wants skye to investigate a cold case, twenty-seven years old. as soon as we meet suzette, we, of course, know that she's will be creped. so the title has told us. so far characters and dialogue are fine. will let you know more about the two murders and the real estate development at next writing.

 

 

 ANNOUNCEMENTS:

 

join us saturday, april 14 for the 2nd annual Ohio Author Book Fair. at hudson public library on library st. in hudson oh.

and for those looking for an impressive poetry reading, sunday 1 april jori graham will be at the cleveland museum of art.

 

WRITING HINTS:

 

 in a recent wall street journal article, ellis avery, novelist, tells writers and would-be writers to give their characters 'wants.' he points out that gatsby wants daisy, but so does her husband tom.  that, he says, is, 'bad for them, good for the story.

 

following this rule, all murder mysteries should be good, right? the detective wants to find the murderer; the murderer wants not to be discovered. also  the murderer killed the victim presumably because she wanted something from him (jewels, a lover, reputation, secret, etc.). in my newest novel, mary beth wants to solve the murder of her good friend austin; she wants to be a good professor and teacher of edgar alan poe; and she want to make a decision between the two attractive men who have been sniffing around lately. let me know how well you think she succeeds.

whodunits by castle, muller, and comments by grumpy audrey

 

HELP WANTED:

if anyone reading this whodunit blog can help me, i sure would appreciate it. the canton rep.com wants to also showcase the blog. it is on two platforms now: typepad and amazon.com . neither i nor the rep can move it to the rep's platform, which is: http://www.cantonrep.com/community/blogs/whodunit

if you can help; that is, if you can move it,  please send a comment or e-mail. your instructions would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

 

BOOKS:

 

the title heat rises is first of all a pun on the lead detective's name, nikki heat. heat does rise, but i'm not sure what else author richard castle is trying to tell us. nikki heat rises to the occasion. she rises in the police hierarchy. and physically she gets knocked down and gets up many times in this police procedural novel. so heat does rise in various ways in the coldest winter n.y. (scene of the story) has had in one hundred years.

 

nikki, to quote the book jacket, is a tough and sexy n.y.p.d. homicide detective. have you ever met a fictive member of the department who isn't tough and sexy? her boyfriend and helper in the crime solving business is  hotshot (aren't they all?) reporter jameson rook.

 

richard castle is a pen name for the writer of this novel. it doesn't make any difference to me who wrote it. my opinion isn't going to change. although the book starts out promisingly enough with a dead priest in the basement of an s/m house ('pleasure bound,' get it?), most of the novel deals with the inner and devious workings of the manhattan police department. members of the hierarchy are out to get nikki ; eventually they do relieve her of her gun and her badge. but nikki has loyal cop-friends, too. if you are looking for intricate power plays in police procedurals, this book is for you.

 

heat rises is the third in the nikki heat series. it is 301 pages, published by hyperion.

 

i'm not any happier about marcia muller's city of whispers.

 

how can i be so nasty on this absolutely magnificent first day of spring?

 

the city is san francisco. it is a city of many stories and sharon mc cone, our girl detective, says 'and so many whispers have haunted me during the long city nights.' honest.

 

she is looking for a drugged and emotionally disturbed brother or half-brother and for the solution to a murder of a lovely heiress  a few years earlier. so far, o.k. but then what difference does it make if her own parentage is known, unknown, and known again. all of the dual family ups and downs that form the background have nothing at all to do with the case and distract from what could be a good murder mystery.

 

muller uses the gimmick of having each chapter headed with the name of the chief protagonist in that chapter. in the chapters headed sharon mc cone and darcy blackhawk, we learn the inner workings of the private eye and her brother, respectively. in the mick savage chapters, we, the readers, learn more of what he does.

 

sorry i can't be more positive. i like girl detectives. and marcia muller was there before peretsky and grafton, so i'd like to be more in her corner than i am.

 

this 262 page novel is published by grand central publishing.

 

& remember, any techie out there, HELP!

cantonrep.com, sir terry prachett, and audrey lavin

COMMENTS:

Now you can read my Whodunit? blog on the usual Typepad platform -- http://bit.ly/OhAudrey    -- or on the new blog page for Stark County bloggers produced by the Canton Repository: http://bit.ly/ytn2yt.

  

here's one for those of you who are interested in reading and writing poetry

Wick Poetry Center Hosts Yusef Komunyakaa

Kent State University’s Wick Poetry Center will host Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa on Thursday, March 29, at 7:30 p.m. in Room 214 of Oscar Ritchie Hall on Kent State University’s campus.

More information is available at www.kent.edu/wick or by calling the Wick Poetry Center at 330-672-2067. 

BOOKS:

this afternoon, i started to write a rather snarky review of sir (appointed knight bachelor in 2009) terry pratchett's snuff. then i read about his life and the way he is dealing with alzheimer's. i know the work has to be separate from the man, but i can't be nasty. he's too good a guy.

yes, though at times he is genuinely funny, to the point of making some of the same jokes that i do, and what would be higher praise? at other times, the humor seems pretty forced to me. my own theory is that humor and fantasy have to be used sparingly to be funny.

pratchett ladles on both pretty heavily. the book is a combination of fantasy and science fiction with satire being the third and most predominate genre. his novels have sold more than seventy-five million world wide, so i must be the only person who would rather read a short story by him than a 398 page (snuff) novel. i think hi short pieces must be super.

in an article published mid-2009, pratchett stated that he wishes to commit 'assisted suicide' (although he dislikes that term) before his disease, early on-set alzheimer's, progresses to a critical point. Because of his condition,  Pratchett currently writes either by dictating to his assistant, Rob Wilkins, or by using speech recognition software.

following are some delightful light touches by pratchett:  vime, our hero, is unhappy in the country,'... at five o'clock in the morning mother nature pressed a button and the world went mad: every blessed bird and animal and, by the sound of it, alligator vied with all the others to make itself heard.'

and another, 'oh yes, he recalled, that was another bloody thing about the country . it (the day)started too damn early.'

vimes speaking of his wife, says, 'she's got me marked down for balls, dances, dinners, and, oh yes, soire'ees,' he finished in the tones of a man genetically programmed to distrust any word with an acute accent in it.'

pratchett can be charmingly funny. his alternate universe can serve to demonstrate some flaws with our own. and i wish him well.

snuff is published by harper collins

 

sandra brown's 'lethal' and another writing hint

 

audreylavin.com http://bit.ly/OhAudrey  

 

COMMENTS:

 

for those of you who are fans of carl hiaasen's peculiar brand of humour, you'll be happy to know that today is his birthday. hiaasen  was born in plantation, florida (1953). he's had a weekly column forThe Miami Herald since 1985 and he's written several murder mysteries set in florida, including chomp and star island.

 

BOOKS:

 

and if you are a fan of sandra brown's novels, you'll be happy to hear me say that her new one, lethal, is a keeper. maybe that's a slight exaggeration. unless you are loaded with shelf space, most mysteries should be passed on to other aficionados, not kept. brown has written sixty novels. lethal is not the best, but it's up there.

 

lethal is not a particularly original story. lee coburn, the man accused by the bad guys of killing seven people in cold blood is really a good guy, is on the run in louisiana, takes (not quite kidnaps) honor gillette and emily, her four-year old daughter, with him, and falls in love with both of them, while numerous police forces are looking for him. but it is fast paced and well written. the police forces range from local authorities to the f.b.i. , from honest detectives to those heavily on the take.

 

the identity of the 'bookkeeper,' the leader of the bad guys, would come as a surprise, except that person is about the only one left standing by the end of the novel, so who else could it be?

 

i lost count of all of the killings and attempted killings by knives, guns and explosions, but most of the victims were bad guys anyway. ms. brown also gives us at least three strong romances: one ends in death; one ends in discovery; and the main one is left hanging, but you and i know that it will all work out well.

 

although the novel is 472 pages, it is a fast read. it was published by grand central publishing. you'll enjoy it.

 

WRITING HINTS:

in my last blog, i talked about taking time to re-read your work. some writers tell me that in the work place, they do not have the luxury of being able to wait until tomorrow to look at a document with fresh eyes. been there; done that. here's the solution, get up and walk around the office. can't do that either? get a cup of coffee. not that either? for pete's sake go to the men's room or women's. those tough bosses must allow for some kind of a break. when you come back re-read your document, if you can, stand up and read it out loud. i guarantee, you'll see it differently.

everybody loves jane--p.d. james, writing hints, and submissions

 

COMMENTS:

 

for those of you who are still trying to find this whodunit blog at the rep.com's community blogger page, dwight kier, on-line news editor, and melissa griffy, also of the rep.com, assure me that the problem will be solved by their tech team (or by my changing to firefox). hold on!

 

BOOKS:

 

it is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone loves jane austen and that the opening line of her pride and prejudice is one of the most quoted literary lines to be found, 'it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.'

 

it is also accepted that those readers who are seriously interested in murder mysteries are fans of p.d. james; that is, baroness james of holland park. that means when we fans see a novel that will combine ideas from those two authors,  there is more than a frisson of excitement.

 

frisson-ing with excitement is how i approached death comes to pemberly. many of you will remember that pemberly is the magnificent estate owned by darcy. he and elizabeth bennett take up residence there after their marriage. the story takes place in 1803, enough time after the marriage to give darcy and elizabeth two boys with another child on the way.

 

p.d. james gives us a good summary of the story of pride and prejudice to start her novel. she tells the story from an even more economy-based point of view than did austen, who was quite aware of social and wealth levels.

 

many of the characters (all of elizabeth's family) and small details (white soup) reappear, chief among them, george wickham, husband of elizabeth's sister lydia. he is no longer in the army, but is still causing trouble. i don't remember mr. bennett being as intelligent as james's version. to balance this, elizabeth is less intelligent. james also recreates much of the feeling of austen's language.

 

the problem is that there is really no crime. we have a death. we have a suspect (wickham, of course). how all of this is connected is a slight mystery, which includes too many pages of explanation at the end of the novel, but if you are expecting this to be a murder mystery, as i did, you will be disappointed. if you are looking for a continuation of darcy and elizabeth's life together, fine.

 

the novel is 291 pages and is published by alfred a. knopf.

 

WRITING HINT:

give yourself time. when you write something (business letter, poem, press release, story), and you think it is finished, put it aside. come back to it later. ideally, you'll wait a day before taking it up again. in the real world of writing in an office or writing for immediate publication, we don't always have that luxury. but you can take a coffee break, come back and pick the document up again. amazing what you will see that you had not seen a few minutes earlier. 

 

CONTESTS, SUBMISSIONS, etc. 

 

ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS

Conference content areas:

• Theoretical and methodological problems of language study, consciousness, thinking
• Modern technologies in education and professional activity
• Intercultural communication and social interaction
• Translation studies
• Language. Culture. Communication
• English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

E-mail: send proposals, papers and registration forms to conference2012.imo@yandex.ru

 this is a call from the university in novocherkaas, russia. papers are to be in english. 

anaphora press, the company that published my newest book eloquent tattoo is now accepting submissions for books (prose and poetry) to be published. submit your manuscripts to 163 lucas road, apt. 1-2, cochran, ga. 31014

audreylavin.com http://bit.ly/OhAudrey  

audrey's comments and the mao case, a quick trip to china

greetings, readers and writers, including those of you who are 'jist thinkin about it'.

 

COMMENTS:

 

thanks to the canton repository for including this whodunit? blog among the many treasures you'll find in the rep.com's community blog page. this means that supposedly you can read the blog at its regular platform on typepad.com (url below) or on the rep.com. a few technical kinks still have to be worked out, but so far it's looking good.

 

some of you might have missed  this comment from li hertzi that appeared after my last blog: Working with Audrey has been great!  Check out the cover I designed for her new book, and, of course, go out and get it, the mystery will surprise you!

 

another comment came in today from c.l. of canton: i suggest reading,   march smithsonian magazine, p. 10, profile by ron rosenbaum 'a wilderness errol.' this is a well written profile of errol morris that should be of particular interest to writers and readers of mysteries as it tells how morris's being a private eye has affected other aspects of his thinking.

 

if you all will remember friday night's rain, you'll understand that march's first friday was not the busiest ever. i womaned a sales table at 2nd april and though i wasn't overwhelmed with sales, i did sell more books than if i had stayed at home, plus, i met some really interesting people. and i and all of us can be grateful that all we had to complain about was a little extra rain, whereas our neighboring states were met with such devastating tornados.

 

BOOKS:

 

i am going to talk about one only book today because reading it has been such an odd experience. i have been reading the mao case by qui xiaolong. i can't find the name of the translator, so it is quite possible that the author wrote the detective novel in english. it also means that i can not blame the translator for my problems with the text.

 

the novel is dedicated to 'the people that suffered under mao,' and is full of anti-mao and red guard sentiments, which today is not a very controversial stand to take. also, political murder mysteries do not comprise a new sub-genre in the mystery category. you will find all of the background easy to understand.

 

i found the constant poetry quotations that were supposed to illuminate the story, got in the way. they are long with different cultural references, different rules of poetics. these might be interesting to puzzle over at some time, but i, for one, like my mysteries to move quickly. life is enough of a puzzlement. 

 

xiaolong compares mao's poetry to that of t.s. eliot in that both men incorporate events and thoughts from their own lives ('physically and metaphysically,' as he says) into their poetry. good idea for a term paper. i should add here that in my newest detective novel eloquent tattoo, i use edgar alan poe's work to illustrate some ideas about detecting. my reasoning is a little simpler.

 

there might be some problems with cultural differences. people always have their faces flushing, 'it's as red as mao's little red book' one character says to another at the end of a chapter. another chapter ends with a character's face being 'as red as a cockscomb.' a third chapter ends with 'her face flushing like a flower.' you'll find more examples. maybe flushing is more significant in china.

 

at 289 pages, i feel the mao case is too long, but cheaper than a trip to china, so you might find it worthwhile, especially if you have enjoyed the rest of xiaolong's inspector chen novels. sceptre is the publisher.

 

audreylavin.com                http://bit.ly/OhAudrey  

more on anne holt's whodunit & welcome to cantonrep.com blog community

 

COMMENTS:

 

greetings to the regular irregulars who read this blog. and greetings to the cantonrep.com newcomers who are interested in reading and writing. and greetings to those of you who are surfing and accidentally came across this whodunit? blog. and finally greetings to those of you who joined us by mistake while you were really trying to get to the how-to groom-your-dog and/or your boyfriend blog.

 

for those of you who are new, i start out with comments (yours, please, and mine), talk about books and writing, and end with news of contests or journals looking for submissions, as long as neither one asks you the contestee or submitter to pay.

 

here's my comment or invitation for today: if anyone out there in the blogosphere will be in downtown canton (why not?) tomorrow, friday, night, please stop by and see me. it's first friday and brennis and todd at second april said i could set up near their court ave. entrance or back door to the 2nd april galerie. i'll be signing copies of just published eloquent tattoo and maybe turning leaves. even if you don't buy a book, i'll be happy to see you, sort of.

 

BOOKS:

 

in my previous blog i talked about and recommended anne holt's 1222.

now that i have finished it, i would like someone else who has finished it to tell me (this is too preposterous to be a spoiler) was that really supposed to be osama bin laden hiding out in the basement of the hotel?

 

i also neglected to mention that in many ways the book is a tribute to agatha christie and her 'and then there were none.' this is not only my interpretation. anne holt, herself, says,  "I thought about agatha christie's and then there were none. I immediately tried to dismiss the thought. and then there were none is a story that doesn't exactly have a happy ending." but it is a locked room murder mystery as is 1222.

 

chapters are titled according to different measurements of the beaufort scale. according to wilkipedia (o.k. for me to use as this is not a true research paper!) 'The Beaufort Scale is an empirical measure that relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or on land. Its full name is the Beaufort Wind Force Scale.' this relates directly to the blizzard that isolates the people taking shelter in a hotel that is marvelously, almost supernaturally, supplied with good, fresh food.

 

marlaine delargy is the translator. scribners is the publisher. and the novel is 313 pages.

 

i'll move to another mystery set in another continent next blog. from norway to china, one reason why mysteries are so much fun.

 

audreylavin.com http://bit.ly/OhAudrey