GUEST POST BY SUSAN BOLES

ABOUT THE BOOK

Lily Gayle and the gang set out to find a killer after local baker Luxen Natolovich is found dead hours before the grand opening weekend at the new Bed and Breakfast in town, Midnight Dragonfly. As Lily Gayle deciphers the clues around Luxen’s death she uncovers a conspiracy of lies and half truths that could very well be tied to a refugee camp in Mississippi during World War II. The deeper Lily Gayle digs, the deeper the conspiracy runs, and the closer she comes to being the killer’s next victim.

GUEST POST BY SUSAN BOLES

Hi! I'm very excited to be here at A Blue Million Books today to talk about Cherry Cake and a Cadaver. It's the second book in the Lily Gayle Lambert Mystery series. I really love writing these books, and I hope everyone enjoys reading them. The cast of characters have already become a second family to me. Creating lives and backgrounds for Lily Gayle, Dixe, Miss Edna and Ben, along with the introduction of a new character, Harley Ann, has really kept the old brain cells turning to make them as intersting to you as they are to me. And my mama asked me if Miss Edna is based on her! I told her that is not the case, but I think she's secretly disappointed that she's not in the book.

This time around, Lily Gayle persuades her best friend, Dixie, to accompany her on a pre-opening night peeking-through-the-windows expedition to the Midnight Dragonfly Inn. It's in the former Mitchell Manor which became vacant after the Mitchell's went a little crazy in the first book in the series.  As they ooh and aah over the renovations they can see, they work their way around the house from window to window. At the back, they find the door ajar, a cherry cake on the kitchen counter, and feet clad in a pair of leather loafers protuding from behind the kitchen island. A sight definitely not on the 'must see' list.

Lily Gayle gets the bit between her teeth and sets off to find the killer. After all, she did a bang up job solving the wolf man murder, right? From beauty shop gossip to old newspapers, she on the trail of clues. The discovery of more than one buried secret and the disappearance of another local resident are a recipe that's sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats to the surprising end.

With many thanks,
Susan Boles

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Susan calls McNairy County, Tennessee her home ground even though she has moved away. It was here, at Bethel Springs Junior High School that she began her writing career with two friends. They formed their own little writers group that was so secret they were the only ones who knew it existed. She still has some of the stories they wrote carefully preserved in a loose leaf binder and tucked away for safety.

She has worked in retail management, briefly for the Census Bureau, and for many years in the investment/insurance industry in the regulatory compliance arena. All of which are left brain activities. So she exercises her right brain activity with reading and writing . . . just to keep both sides even.

Reading has been a passion since she was very young. As a toddler, her mother read to her from her ‘baby books,’ and her Mother tells a story about her holding one of them upside down and ‘reading’ by repeating the story verbatim from memory.

Death of a Wolfman is the first in the Lily Gayle Lambert mystery series. Her previously published romantic suspense novel, Fated Love, is a contemporary paranormal romantic suspense (with a twist of paranormal) set in Memphis, Tennessee. Her first novel, Kate’s Pride, is a historical women’s fiction set in West Tennessee in the aftermath of the Civil War. The novel is loosely based on her own great grandmother and published under the pen name Renee Russell.

Life got in the way of writing for many years, but now she’s come back to her early love.

Connect with Susan:

Website   |  Blog  |   Facebook  |   Twitter  |   LinkedIn   |   Goodreads 

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CHARACTER INTERVIEW WITH CYNTHIA KUHN'S LILA MACLEAN

ABOUT THE BOOK 


When Professor Lila Maclean is sent to interview celebrated author and notorious cad Damon Von Tussel, he disappears before her very eyes. The English department is thrown into chaos by the news, as Damon is supposed to headline Stonedale University’s upcoming Arts Week.

The chancellor makes it clear that he expects Lila to locate the writer and set events back on track immediately. But someone appears to have a different plan: strange warnings are received, valuable items go missing, and a series of dangerous incidents threaten the lives of Stonedale’s guests. After her beloved mother, who happens to be Damon’s ex, rushes onto campus and into harm’s way, Lila has even more reason to bring the culprit to light before anything—or anyone—else vanishes.

WHO IS LILA MACLEAN
?

Lila Maclean is a new assistant professor of English (and sometimes amateur sleuth) at Stonedale University in Colorado.

INTERVIEW WITH LILA MACLEAN

Lila, what impression do you make on people when they first meet you?
People seem to think that I’m a pushover.
How about after they've known you for a while? Eventually, they realize that’s definitely not the case. 



Did you have a hard time convincing your author to write any particular scenes for you?
Yes, the one where I win the lottery and then spend a whole chapter trying to figure out how much money to give to everyone I love. (She wouldn’t write it.)

What do you like to do when you are not being actively read somewhere?
My schedule revolves around teaching—so I’m probably preparing for class, grading, or attending meetings. But if I had a day off, I might drive up and explore the Rocky Mountains. Haven’t had much of a chance to do that yet.

If you could rewrite anything in your book, what would it be?
All the places where I blurted something out that would have better been left unsaid. It keeps getting me into trouble!

Tell the truth. What do you think of your fellow characters?
They’re all interesting and mysterious in their own ways.
 
If you had a free day with no responsibilities and your only mission was to enjoy yourself, what would you do?
Sit on the porch with a new book and a cool drink.

What's the worst thing that's happened in your life?
My father left before I was born—don’t even know who he is. I’ve learned how to live without a father, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about him. 



Tell us about your best friend.
My best friend is my cousin Calista. We grew up together. She’s sweet, honest, and quirky—and she writes amazing poetry. She’s also looking out for me here at Stonedale, and I’m lucky to have someone like her in my corner.

If your story were a movie, who would play you?
Maybe someone who is a cross between Sandra Bullock and Lizzy Caplan.

Will you encourage your author to write a sequel?
Yes. I’d love to know what happens next!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cynthia Kuhn writes the Lila Maclean academic mystery series. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Literary Mama, Copper Nickel, Prick of the Spindle, Mama PhD and other publications. She teaches English at Metropolitan State University of Denver and serves as president of Sisters in Crime-Colorado.

Connect with Cynthia:
Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |   Goodreads

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FEATURED AUTHOR: BETHANY BLAKE

ABOUT THE BOOK

Somebody killed arrogant dog trainer Steve Beamus at bucolic Winding Hill farm. And pet sitter Daphne Templeton's sister is the prime suspect. What can Daphne do but team up with a wise basset hound and an exuberant one-eared Chihuahua to clear her sister's name - before handsome, enigmatic Detective Jonathan Black sends Piper to jail?

INTERVIEW WITH BETHANY BLAKE

Bethany, what do you think is more important – characters or plot?
I think characters are more important than plot. I’ve read all of the Martha Grimes mysteries featuring Richard Jury and Melrose Plant, and I honestly couldn’t tell you any of the plots – although I enjoyed them at the time. But what really draws me to the books are the interactions between Jury, Plant, Vivian Rivington, and the rest of the recurring cast. The same is true for Joanne Fluke’s Hannah Swensen mysteries and dozens of other series. Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t read an author who skimped on plot. But I have to pick character over plot.

Do you have any secret talents?
I am a great parallel parker. My driver’s ed teacher, Mr. Czap, taught me a “formula” that I’ve used for nearly forty years. If you need to park an SUV in a tight spot in Manhattan when traffic is crazy, call me!

What is the worst job you’ve ever had?
I was a pre-teen tax collector. Seriously. My mom was the elected tax collector in my hometown, and every summer she would recruit me to help alphabetize, collate, and mail the bills. It was a huge job, because nothing was computerized. Then, when people started paying, I would sit at a desk like a junior account and accept their checks, then diligently stamp and initial the receipts. If the day ended a penny off, that meant spending the evening combing through receipts to find the mistake. The job taught me to pay attention to detail. I also gained great respect for my mom. She didn’t want to do the job, either, but she had to help support our family.

What scares you the most?
Turbulence. I love to travel, but I have the worst luck with flights. Once, I was on this incredibly bumpy flight from Chicago to Philadelphia, and most of us were pretty scared. Then the captain abruptly announced, “Prepare for landing.” It seemed early to me – and apparently I wasn’t alone. A woman a few rows ahead of me shrieked, “It’s an hour early! We’re crashing!” Everyone freaked out – until this calm man asked, “Lady. Did you remember to change your watch to Eastern standard time?” Rather embarrassing for those of who were screaming.

What do you like to do when there’s nothing to do?
I daydream. It’s like a hobby for me. I tell my kids that I’m never bored. If I’m stuck waiting at, say, a doctor’s office, I’ll go into a world I’ve created – maybe Sylvan Creek, from the Lucky Paws books. Then I’ll start imagining a scene with Daphne and her handsome nemesis, Detective Jonathan Black, or her best friend, quirky Moxie Bloom. I guess I’m basically writing without paper.

What would you name your autobiography?
Are You SURE That Was Today? Because I’m always asking people that question. Although my New Year’s resolution was to log everything in my Google calendar, so I’m getting a little better.

Do you give your characters any of your bad traits?
Daphne is disorganized, just like me. She never remembers to put gas in her old VW, and the calendar that floats around her van is from five years ago. She also has trouble saying “no,” when it comes to taking in strays. 

What is the most daring thing you've done?
I traveled around India with no plan, relying largely on people I barely knew to take me places and put me up. I slept in a Red Cross shelter, an abandoned hospital filled with feral dogs, and this one place... I’m still not sure what it was. The bathroom consisted of a pipe sticking out of a wall, dripping onto a cement floor. My adventures overseas are echoed in my character, Daphne. She’s always hinting at things that went awry during her world travels.

What is your most embarrassing moment?
I used to produce a cable TV show for a state senator in Pennsylvania. One day, we were shooting footage along a stream, and I tripped and face-planted into about six inches of mud. I was covered, face to toes. It happened in front of the crew, the senator, and some dignitary who was leading our tour. I remember that my coat had cute corduroy cuffs, and one of my first thoughts was, “Well, the mud’s never coming out of THAT fabric!” The worst part: I couldn’t change until the day was over. I had to tour a mushroom farm with dried mud in my hair.

Sounds like a scene for a book! Where is your favorite library, and what do you love about it?
It’s in my hometown of Montoursville, Pennsylvania. It was one of the first places I was allowed to go alone, on my bike. I would ride there at least once a week in the summer. I remember when I graduated from the picture book room to the wire spinning rack that held paperbacks like The Red Pony. I can still smell the musty, sweet odor of the old books and even more ancient building.


What is the wallpaper on your computer’s desktop?
The first picture of my dog, Daisy, aka “Big Pup.” It was posted on a rescue site, and she’s looking so mournfully and hopefully into the camera that she stole my heart. My kids will jokingly complain that they never make the cut, on my desktop. But they can’t deny that Daisy is pretty adorable.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bethany Blake lives in a small, quaint town in Pennsylvania with her husband and three daughters. When she's not writing or riding horses, she's wrangling a menagerie of furry family members that includes a nervous pit bull, a fearsome feline, and a hermit crab named Shelldon P. Crabbington. Like Daphne Templeton, the heroine of her Lucky Paws Mysteries, Bethany holds a Ph.D. and operates a pet sitting business called Barkley’s Premium Pet Care.


Connect with Bethany:
Website  |  
 Blog  |   
Facebook  |  Twitter  |   
Goodreads

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GUEST POST BY LAURA CHILDS

ABOUT THE BOOK

In the latest Tea Shop Mystery from New York Times bestselling author Laura Childs, Theodosia Browning attends a “Rat Tea,” where the mice will play . . . at murder. When Indigo Tea Shop owner Theodosia Browning is invited by Doreen Briggs, one of Charleston’s most prominent hostesses, to a “Rat Tea,” she is understandably intrigued. As servers dressed in rodent costumes and wearing white gloves offer elegant finger sandwiches and fine teas, Theo learns these parties date back to early twentieth-century Charleston, where the cream of society would sponsor so-called rat teas to promote city rodent control and better public health. But this party goes from odd to chaotic when a fire starts at one of the tables and Doreen’s entrepreneur husband suddenly goes into convulsions and drops dead. Has his favorite orange pekoe tea been poisoned? Theo smells a rat. The distraught Doreen soon engages Theo to pursue a discreet inquiry into who might have murdered her husband. As Theo and her tea sommelier review the guest list for suspects, they soon find themselves drawn into a dangerous game of cat and mouse . . . INCLUDES RECIPES AND TEA TIME TIPS.

GUEST POST BY LAURA CHILDS

Hi, it is wonderful to be here at A Blue Million Books today to talk about Pekoe Most Poison, the eighteenth book in the Tea Shop Mystery series. It is always great fun for me (and I hope for you) to visit the Indigo Tea Shop and see what’s going on in the lives of Theodosia, Drayton, Haley, their friends and, perhaps, some not so friendly folks.

On a gorgeous Charleston day, Theodosia and Drayton are invited to a social event billed as a “rat tea” a throwback to the days when society matrons held elaborate teas to heighten the awareness of the overwhelming need to read the city of pesky vermin. Still, Theodosia is more than a little startled when she and Drayton arrive at the home of socially prominent Doreen “Dolly” Briggs and the door is opened by someone dressed quite formally in blue velvet waistcoat and shiny black boots and wearing a white velvet rat head. It takes a moment or so to get used to the fact that all the servers are wearing rat heads above their fancy dress outfits.

Still the company is grand and the conversation flows merrily until Dolly’s husband, Beau, collapses to the floor and, after a bit of lurching and gulping, dies right before everyone’s eyes.

Theodosia has developed quite a reputation as an amateur sleuth and Drayton is more than Theodosia’s sommelier. They are close and true friends of long standing, so when Dolly Briggs wants Theodosia to investigate Beau’s murder, she knows just how to make that happen. Dolly offers a generous donation to Drayton’s beloved Heritage Society with the proviso that he coax Theodosia into trying to solve Beau’s murder.

Reluctantly, Theodosia agrees but no one is sure how the new detective on the case, Pete Riley, a handsome man with remarkable blue eyes, is going to react to Theodosia’s snooping.
I’m happy to say that the plot moves at a thriller pace making Pekoe Most Poison a suspenseful guilty pleasure.

Much love,
Laura Childs

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laura Childs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Tea Shop Mysteries, Scrapbook Mysteries, and Cackleberry Club Mysteries. In her previous life she was CEO/Creative Director of her own marketing firm and authored several screenplays. She is married to a professor of Chinese art history, loves to travel, rides horses, enjoys fund raising for various non-profits, and has two Chinese Shar-Pei dogs.

Laura specializes in cozy mysteries that have the pace of a thriller (a thrillzy!) Her three series are:

The Tea Shop Mysteries - set in the historic district of Charleston and featuring Theodosia Browning, owner of the Indigo Tea Shop. Theodosia is a savvy entrepreneur, and pet mom to service dog Earl Grey. She’s also an intelligent, focused amateur sleuth who doesn’t rely on coincidences or inept police work to solve crimes. This charming series is highly atmospheric and rife with the history and mystery that is Charleston.

The Scrapbooking Mysteries – a slightly edgier series that take place in New Orleans. The main character, Carmela, owns Memory Mine scrapbooking shop in the French Quarter and is forever getting into trouble with her friend, Ava, who owns the Juju Voodoo shop. New Orleans’ spooky above-ground cemeteries, jazz clubs, bayous, and Mardi Gras madness make their presence known here!

The Cackleberry Club Mysteries - set in Kindred, a fictional town in the Midwest. In a rehabbed Spur station, Suzanne, Toni, and Petra, three semi-desperate, forty-plus women have launched the Cackleberry Club. Eggs are the morning specialty here and this cozy cafe even offers a book nook and yarn shop. Business is good but murder could lead to the cafe’s undoing! This series offers recipes, knitting, cake decorating, and a dash of spirituality.

Connect with Laura:
Website  | Facebook 

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GUEST POST BY ANNETTE DASHOFY

ABOUT THE BOOK

A relaxing trail ride turns tragic when Paramedic and Deputy Coroner Zoe Chambers discovers the body of a popular county commissioner in her Pennsylvania woods. Inconsistencies surround the horrible accident, but before she can investigate further, she’s pried away by a plea for help from her best friend whose son has been deemed a person of interest in a homicide over a thousand miles away. When he vanishes without a trace, his mother begs Zoe to help clear him and bring him safely home. The task takes Zoe out of her comfort zone in a frantic trip to the desolate canyons and bluffs of New Mexico where she joins forces with the missing boy’s sister and a mysterious young Navajo.

Back at home, Vance Township’s Chief of Police Pete Adams must deal not only with the commissioner’s homicide, but with an influx of meth and a subsequent rash of drug overdoses in his rural community. Bodies keep turning up while suspects keep disappearing. However little else matters when he learns that half a continent away, a brutal killer has Zoe in his sights.

GUEST POST BY ANNETTE DASHOFY

Welcome to Book Five

As I was preparing to start this blog tour, I reached out to my readers on Facebook and asked them what topics they would like me to write about. A great many of the responses contained questions about the problems of being five books into a series.

There are definitely pros and cons about writing the fifth (actually sixth now) book as opposed to writing the first. Or writing standalones. When I was on books two and three (Lost Legacy and Bridges Burned), I was focused on the pros. I already had a base cast of characters and a setting. I didn’t have to work out their backgrounds or create a new world in which they would live. This gave me a huge jump start. Plus I like Zoe and Pete, Sylvia, Wayne, Nate, Earl, and all the rest of the regulars. I enjoy spending time in their heads.

However, there are definitely a few problems that no one tells you about in the writing workshops and how-to books, most of which focus on getting that FIRST book published.

For starters: reintroducing these characters. Over and over again. I know them. My regular readers know them. But there are those readers who pick up the third or fourth or fifth book first. They don’t know the characters or the setting. How do I introduce Zoe and Pete and the gang to the newbies without boring those who are already familiar with them?

My method has been to keep it simple. Start the action early and let the new readers meet everyone on the fly. I’ll drop a mention of their occupations at the first opportunity, but then allow the new reader to learn by tagging along. A bit of back story here. A memory of something that happened a few months ago there.

I should mention, I have a fabulous editorial team who help me immensely with this. They point out when I haven’t properly introduced a recurring secondary character. Usually I could swear I have, but when I go back and reread my manuscript . . . oops.

The trickiest part is with characters who had been suspects in previous books. If you see “Joe” running the local diner in book four and then go back and see him as a prime suspect in book two, the red herring factor is ruined. Other than having a lot of transients in town, showing up, being suspects, and then moving on, I don’t know of a good answer. I do send a lot of earlier suspects away, never to be heard from again. But some of them come back. I guess I hope other readers are as forgetful as I am and don’t realize they’ve seen that guy before. Plus I try to have a number of other red herring characters who don’t show up again. It’s definitely tricky.

My editors help here too. Early on I had a character just vanish without explanation. I received a note on my manuscript: “What happened to Rose?”

That question actually triggered this fifth book, No Way Home. Rose, Zoe’s best friend, had vanished by the time the second book came out. I knew she’d taken her kids out west to recover, but wasn’t going to mention it. However, since my editor asked, I added a line about the trip out west in Lost Legacy. And again in Bridges Burned. All the while, I was hatching a plan to follow up on that throw-away explanation.

It helps that I love the west. It also helps that my best friend lives in New Mexico and opens her home to me whenever I can get out there for a visit.

I mean “research trip.”

The result? In No Way Home, Rose begs Zoe to fly to New Mexico with her to find out what has happened to Rose’s missing son and his girlfriend. Reluctantly, Zoe travels over a thousand from her comfort zone (and from her budding romance with Pete) to be plunged into a foreign world of canyons, bluffs, and one mysterious—and potentially deadly—Navajo.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Annette Dashofy is the USA Today best-selling author of the Zoe Chambers mystery series about a paramedic and deputy coroner in rural Pennsylvania’s tight-knit Vance Township. Circle of Influence, published by Henery Press, was a finalist for the Agatha Award for Best First Novel and for the David Award for Best Mystery of 2014. Lost Legacy, was released in September 2014 followed in April 2015 by Bridges Burned, which has been nominated for the Agatha for Best Contemporary Novel. With a Vengeance, the fourth in the series, was released May 3, 2016.




Connect with Annette:

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BOOK BLAST: PISTOLS AND PETTICOATS

ABOUT THE BOOK

A lively exploration of the struggles faced by women in law enforcement and mystery fiction for the past 175 years

In 1910, Alice Wells took the oath to join the all-male Los Angeles Police Department. She wore no uniform, carried no weapon, and kept her badge stuffed in her pocketbook. She wasn’t the first or only policewoman, but she became the movement’s most visible voice.

Police work from its very beginning was considered a male domain, far too dangerous and rough for a respectable woman to even contemplate doing, much less take on as a profession. A policewoman worked outside the home, walking dangerous city streets late at night to confront burglars, drunks, scam artists, and prostitutes. To solve crimes, she observed, collected evidence, and used reason and logic—traits typically associated with men. And most controversially of all, she had a purpose separate from her husband, children, and home. Women who donned the badge faced harassment and discrimination. It would take more than seventy years for women to enter the force as full-fledged officers.

Yet within the covers of popular fiction, women not only wrote mysteries but also created female characters that handily solved crimes. Smart, independent, and courageous, these nineteenth- and early twentieth-century female sleuths (including a healthy number created by male writers) set the stage for Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, Sara Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski, Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta, and Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, as well as TV detectives such as Prime Suspect’s Jane Tennison and Law and Order’s Olivia Benson. The authors were not amateurs dabbling in detection but professional writers who helped define the genre and competed with men, often to greater success.

Pistols and Petticoats tells the story of women’s very early place in crime fiction and their public crusade to transform policing. Whether real or fictional, investigating women were nearly always at odds with society. Most women refused to let that stop them, paving the way to a modern professional life for women on the force and in popular culture.

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery, NonFiction, History
Published by: Beacon Press
Publication Date: February 28th 2017 (1st Published April 26th 2016)
Number of Pages: 248
ISBN: 0807039381 (ISBN13: 9780807039380)

EXCERPT FROM PISTOLS AND PETTICOATS

With high heels clicking across the hardwood floors, the diminutive woman from Chicago strode into the headquarters of the New York City police. It was 1922. Few respectable women would enter such a place alone, let alone one wearing a fashionable Paris gown, a feathered hat atop her brown bob, glistening pearls, and lace stockings.
But Alice Clement was no ordinary woman.
Unaware of—or simply not caring about—the commotion her presence caused, Clement walked straight into the office of Commissioner Carleton Simon and announced, “I’ve come to take Stella Myers back to Chicago.”
The commissioner gasped, “She’s desperate!”
Stella Myers was no ordinary crook. The dark-haired thief had outwitted policemen and eluded capture in several states.
Unfazed by Simon’s shocked expression, the well-dressed woman withdrew a set of handcuffs, ankle bracelets, and a “wicked looking gun” from her handbag.
“I’ve come prepared.”
Holding up her handcuffs, Clement stated calmly, “These go on her and we don’t sleep until I’ve locked her up in Chicago.” True to her word, Clement delivered Myers to her Chicago cell.
Alice Clement was hailed as Chicago’s “female Sherlock Holmes,” known for her skills in detection as well as for clearing the city of fortune-tellers, capturing shoplifters, foiling pickpockets, and rescuing girls from the clutches of prostitution. Her uncanny ability to remember faces and her flair for masquerade—“a different disguise every day”—allowed her to rack up one thousand arrests in a single year. She was bold and sassy, unafraid to take on any masher, con artist, or scalawag from the city’s underworld.
Her headline-grabbing arrests and head-turning wardrobe made Clement seem like a character straight from Central Casting. But Alice Clement was not only real; she was also a detective sergeant first grade of the Chicago Police Department.
Clement entered the police force in 1913, riding the wave of media sensation that greeted the hiring of ten policewomen in Chicago. Born in Milwaukee to German immigrant parents in 1878, Clement was unafraid to stand up for herself. She advocated for women’s rights and the repeal of Prohibition. She sued her first husband, Leonard Clement, for divorce on the grounds of desertion and intemperance at a time when women rarely initiated—or won—such dissolutions. Four years later, she married barber Albert L. Faubel in a secret ceremony performed by a female pastor.
It’s not clear why the then thirty-five-year-old, five-foot-three Clement decided to join the force, but she relished the job. She made dramatic arrests—made all the more so by her flamboyant dress— and became the darling of reporters seeking sensational tales of corruption and vice for the morning papers. Dark-haired and attractive, Clement seemed to confound reporters, who couldn’t believe she was old enough to have a daughter much less, a few years later, a granddaughter. “Grandmother Good Detective” read one headline.
She burnished her reputation in a high-profile crusade to root out fortune-tellers preying on the naive. Donning a different disguise every day, Clement had her fortune told more than five hundred times as she gathered evidence to shut down the trade. “Hats are the most important,” she explained, describing her method. “Large and small, light and dark and of vivid hue, floppy brimmed and tailored, there is nothing that alters a woman’s appearance more than a change in headgear.”
Clement also had no truck with flirts. When a man attempted to seduce her at a movie theater, she threatened to arrest him. He thought she was joking and continued his flirtations, but hers was no idle threat. Clement pulled out her blackjack and clubbed him over the head before yanking him out of the theater and dragging him down the street to the station house. When he appeared in court a few days later, the man confessed that he had been cured of flirting. Not every case went Clement’s way, though. The jury acquitted the man, winning the applause of the judge who was no great fan of Clement or her theatrics.
One person who did manage to outwit Clement was her own daughter, Ruth. Preventing hasty marriages fell under Clement’s duties, and she tracked down lovelorn young couples before they could reach the minister. The Chicago Daily Tribune called her the “Nemesis of elopers” for her success and familiarity with everyone involved in the business of matrimony in Chicago. None of this deterred twenty-year-old Ruth Clement, however, who hoped to marry Navy man Charles C. Marrow, even though her mother insisted they couldn’t be married until Marrow finished his time in service in Florida. Ruth did not want to wait, and when Marrow came to visit, the two tied the knot at a minister’s home without telling Clement. When Clement discovered a Mr. and Mrs. Charles C. Marrow registered at the Chicago hotel supposedly housing Marrow alone, she was furious and threatened to arrest her new son-in-law for flouting her wishes. Her anger cooled, however, and Clement soon welcomed the newlyweds into her home.
Between arrests and undercover operations, Clement wrote, produced, and starred in a movie called Dregs of the City, in 1920. She hoped her movie would “deliver a moral message to the world” and “warn young girls of the pitfalls of a great city.” In the film, Clement portrayed herself as a master detective charged with finding a young rural girl who, at the urging of a Chicago huckster, had fled the farm for the city lights and gotten lost in “one of the more unhallowed of the south side cabarets.” The girl’s father came to Clement anegged her to rescue his innocent daughter from the “dregs” of the film’s title. Clement wasn’t the only officer-turned-actor in the film. Chicago police chiefs James L. Mooney and John J. Garrity also had starring roles. Together, the threesome battered “down doors with axes and interrupt[ed] the cogitations of countless devotees of hashish, bhang and opium.” The Chicago Daily Tribune praised Garrity’s acting and his onscreen uniform for its “faultless cut.”
The film created a sensation, particularly after Chicago’s movie censor board, which fell under the oversight of the police department, condemned the movie as immoral. “The picture shall never be shown in Chicago. It’s not even interesting,” read the ruling. “Many of the actors are hams and it doesn’t get anywhere.” Despite several appeals, Clement was unable to convince the censors to allow Dregs of the City to be shown within city limits. She remained undeterred by the decision. “They think they’ve given me a black eye, but they haven’t. I’ll show it anyway,” she declared as she left the hearing, tossing the bouquet of roses she’d been given against the window.
When the cruise ship Eastland rolled over in the Chicago River on July 24, 1915, Clement splashed into the water to assist in the rescue of the pleasure boaters, presumably, given her record, wearing heels and a designer gown. More than eight hundred people would die that day, the greatest maritime disaster in Great Lakes history. For her services in the Eastland disaster, Clement received a gold “coroner’s star” from the Cook County coroner in a quiet ceremony in January of 1916.
Clement’s exploits and personality certainly drew attention, but any woman would: a female crime fighter made for good copy and eye-catching photos. Unaccustomed to seeing women wielding any kind of authority, the public found female officers an entertaining—and sometimes ridiculous—curiosity.
Excerpt from Pistols and Petticoats: 175 Years of Lady Detectives in Fact and Fiction by Erika Janik. Copyright © 2016 & 2017 by Beacon Press. Reproduced with permission from Beacon Press. All rights reserved.

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“Erika Janik does a fine job tracing the history of women in police work while at the same time describing the role of females in crime fiction. The outcome, with a memorable gallery of characters, is a rich look at the ways in which fact and fiction overlap, reflecting the society surrounding them. A treat for fans of the mystery—and who isn’t?” ~ Katherine Hall Page, Agatha Award–winning author of The Body in the Belfry and The Body in the Snowdrift

“A fascinating mix of the history of early policewomen and their role in crime fiction—positions that were then, and, to some extent even now, in conflict with societal expectations.” ~ Library Journal

“An entertaining history of women’s daring, defiant life choices.” ~ Kirkus Reviews

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Erika Janik is an award-winning writer, historian, and the executive producer of Wisconsin Life on Wisconsin Public Radio. She’s the author of five previous books, including Marketplace of the Marvelous: The Strange Origins of Modern Medicine. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.



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A CHAT WITH LYNN CAHOON'S CAT LATIMER

ABOUT THE BOOK

Cat Latimer’s Colorado bed-and-breakfast plays host to writers from all over. But murder is distinctly unwelcome . . .

To kick off a winter writing retreat, Cat and her handyman boyfriend, Seth, escort the aspiring authors to a nearby ski resort, hoping some fresh cold air will wake up their creative muses. But instead of hitting the slopes, they hit the bar—and before long, a tipsy romance novelist named Christina is keeping herself warm with a local ski bum who might have neglected to tell her about his upcoming wedding.

Next thing Cat knows, her uncle, the town sheriff, informs her that the young man’s been found dead in a hot tub—and Christina shows up crying and covered in blood. Now, between a murder mystery, the theft of a rare Hemingway edition, and the arrival of a black-clad stranger in snowy Aspen Hills, Cat’s afraid everything’s going downhill . . .

ABOUT CAT LATIMER

Cat Latimer grew up in Aspen Hills, Colorado. When she went off to Covington College, she wanted to write the next Buffy the Vampire series. Since the English Department didn’t offer a popular fiction course, she decided to get her master’s degree and teach one instead. After moving to sunny California for personal reasons, Cat returned to open the Warm Springs Writing Retreat in the historical Victorian she owned with her now deceased husband. Cat also pens a popular young adult paranormal series.

INTERVIEW WITH CAT LATIMER

Cat, how did you first meet your writer, Lynn Cahoon?
Lynn created me on a long drive to Idaho during the summer of 2014. She’d had a lot of success with The Tourist Trap series and Jill Gardner, so she wanted to pitch a series set in a different area, with different problems. I believe I win in the setting department. Aspen Hills is big enough to have everything I need, yet small enough I don’t get lost in the city.  And you can’t beat the year-round outdoor activities. 

Anyway, I’m getting off track. She pulled together my life and backstory, and the first book where I appear, A Story to Kill, was born September 2016. It takes a long time to bring a book to life.

Want to dish about Lynn?
Lynn’s cool. She’s fun when we can get her away from the writing. I worry about her sometimes because it seems like she’s always working. But as I’ve told many of my retreat guests, every writer’s process is different. I’d love to have her come visit me and Shauna during one of our retreats.

Why do you think that your life has ended up being in a book?
Seriously, I blame my ex-husband. If he hadn’t become my ex, there would have been no need to open Warm Spring’s Writers Retreat. I wonder sometimes if my life would have changed at all if he hadn’t taken on that second job that made the dominos fall. Would I still be teaching? Would I be an author? Or would it have been too hard of a road to walk with a full-time job?

I could do without the murders that seem to happen around me though.

Tell us about your favorite scene in the book.
Well, there’s this part with martial arts, kidnapping, and a stone gnome or two. I think that scene was really funny. At least at the end.

If you could rewrite anything in your book, what would it be?
I’d love to move Mrs. Rice from the house next door. She’s such a busy body. Everyone knew that Seth had kissed me for the first time since we were teenagers the day after because she was watching us from her living room window.  And she has a gossip phone tree. Don’t people have anything better to do with their free time? What about watching NCIS? Why can’t I have a nice neighbor?

Do have any secret aspirations that your author doesn’t know about?
Absolutely not. I’m very happy with my life. I have my books which seems to be doing well in sales. Of course, you never really know what’s going to happen tomorrow.  That’s one of the reasons I talked Shauna into opening Warm Springs Writers Retreat with me. Financial cushion. I have the house of my dreams, again. And a pretty cute boyfriend who seems to enjoy spending time with me.

If you had a free day with no responsibilities and your only mission was to enjoy yourself, what would you do?
What’s the weather like outside?  I love to snow ski. And water ski. And hike. And Seth just bought a cool side-by-side which is like a mini jeep. We have fun trail riding. Or just get lost in a book

Tell us about your best friend.
Shauna is my best friend. I met her in California and it was good to have a girlfriend you could talk to about anything. She’s been in some sticky relationships so she helped me through the dark times. And she’s fun. Now that she’s part of the retreat, I feel blessed that she’s such a great cook. The cookies, muffins, and more she makes for our guests are so much better than store bought. The girl could open a restaurant, but she assures me she likes running the hospitality side of our monthly retreat.  



What are you most afraid of?
Depending on someone and having them betray you.  I guess I’m really not over the way my marriage ended. Moving to sunny California gave me lots of time to walk and think. I’m not sure I could trust someone so completely again.



What’s your author’s worst habit?
Taking on more than she can get done. The girl’s always got a bright and shiny floating around her head, waiting to be written. I keep telling her, it’s all about me. Well, me and that California chick, Jill.

Describe the town where you live.
Like I said, Aspen Hills is amazing. I grew up here. We walked in the woods as kids, partied there as teenagers, and when I went away to college, I went to Covington. Which I could walk to from my house. The Colorado lifestyle is easy going and active. I love introducing my retreat guests to my little bit of heaven here, nestled against the mountains and filled with forested areas. And if you need big city for anything, Denver is just a couple of hours north.

Describe an average day in your life.
When the retreat is in session, I have no average day. Whatever the guests need or want is my priority.

The other three weeks, if I’m writing, I hole up in my office and write until Shauna makes me come down for meals. And if it seems right, Seth and I might go for a walk to grab an ice cream or play a few rounds of pool down at Bernie’s.  If I’m not writing, I do everything else that I ignored while I was writing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lynn Cahoon is the author of the New York Times and USA Today best-selling Tourist Trap cozy mystery series. Guidebook to Murder, book 1 of the series won the Reader's Crown for Mystery Fiction in 2015. She also pens the recently released, Cat Latimer series. A Story to Kill, book 1, came out in mass market paperback September 2016.

She lives in a small town like the ones she loves to write about with her husband and two fur babies. Sign up for her newsletter at www.lynncahoon.com



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