Today I am hosting my friend Marilyn Meredith. She is sharing news of her new book, A Cold Death. Be sure to read to the end of this post to enter Marilyn’s contest.
When you’ve written as many books as I have, I’m always looking for a new and unusual way for my villain to murder the victim.
Over the years I’ve used many conventional and not so conventional means.
When I was planning A Cold Death I knew who the murder victim was, and thought I knew who the killer was—but as I wrote that changed, a couple of times.
To find out what to use as a murder weapon I went on Facebook and asked for help like this:
“What would be a good way for an older person to kill another older person, something that would be on hand during the winter time?”
The comments flooded in—nearly 200 over them—lots of great idea.
I’d already used several of the suggestions. Others wouldn’t be readily available in the situation of the story. There were several that would have worked, but one was perfect. It was something I had heard about. If you want to know what it was you’ll have to read A Cold Death.
One funny comment that came while the ideas were pouring in on Facebook was: “How’s your husband, Marilyn?” Fortunately, he’s fine.
Marilyn
Blurb for A Cold Death:
Deputy Tempe Crabtree and her husband answer the call for help with unruly guests visiting a closed summer camp during a huge snow storm and are trapped there along with the others. One is a murderer.
Anyone who orders any of my books from the publisher‘s website: https://mundania.com can get 10% off by entering MP20 coupon code in the shopping cart. This is good all the time for all my books, E-books and print books.
On Kindle:
Marilyn Meredith’s published book count is nearing 40. She is one of the founding members of the San Joaquin chapter of Sister in Crime. She taught writing for Writers Digest Schools for 10 years, and was an instructor at the prestigious Maui Writers Retreat, and has taught at many writers’ conferences. Marilyn is a member of three chapters of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and serves on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America. She lives in the foothills of the Sierra, a place with many similarities to Tempe Crabtree’s patrol area. Webpage: http://fictionforyou.com Blog: http://marilymeredith.blogspot.com/ and you can follow her on Facebook.
Contest: Once again I’m going to use the name of the person who comments on the most blogs on my tour for the next Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery—which may be the last in the series.
Tomorrow I’ll be here: https://thoniehevron.wordpress.com/
Multi-tasking in Writing and in Life
Thank you, Mar, for hosting me. I’ll be promoting this today and tomorrow since something happened to today’s post.
It is a pleasure for me. You are a mentor of mine whether you know it or not.
Love this subject! In one of my mysteries, I reached page 100 and told a friend that I hadn’t killed anyone yet. She replied, “Oh no, you have to kill someone in the first chapter.” Now, that’s not really true but I did go back and created two new characters and one killed the other. The killer became one of my favorite characters in the book but eventually I killed him also. When I told a friend this little tale, he exclaimed, “So how did he kill the guy in Chapter One?” I didn’t tell him. He had to read the book.
So where is the book available, pat? Looks intriguing.
Hey, Pat, isn’t it fun to think up new ways to kill off a character?
For such nice, sweet ladies, you two certainly have a lot of knowledge about how to create murder and mayhem. I hope you never get mad at me.
It’s so much easier when this whole murder and mayhem business, as you put it, Mike, is all imaginary.
Nice, sweet ladies. I first read that “nice, sweet old ladies” and thought about killing you off.
I love it when the villain changes in the middle of my book! I think I know who did it, and then realize that character doesn’t work.
Happens to me a lot, Lorna. Good thing I’m a pantser and not a plotter.
Glad I’m not alone in my approach to fictional murder and mayhem. Fun!
Madeline, I wonder if we have something out of whack since we have so much fun planning our fictional murders–tee hee!
Reading it now and still trying to guess who the killer is and why. Good one Marilyn!
I had a hard time deciding who the killer should be.