A Poisoned Pen Press Celebration

As I headed to The Poisoned Pen on February 24, I was wondering how well my new toy would work. I've been having trouble with my right hand and wrist, and now that writing has become problematic, I bought a (very) small recorder, hoping that (1) I could actually enjoy myself more at events because I wouldn't be scribbling notes madly, and (2) I'd be able to sit at my computer listening to the event and typing it all up for you. We'll see how it goes!

As usual, I arrived in plenty of time to get my favorite seat. I did get a bit of reading done, but I also chatted a lot with other fans who arrived early. What made me smile was that author Priscilla Royal came in early and joined our discussion. We had such a great conversation, and the Priscilla Royal fan who was chatting with us didn't realize for a long time that she was talking with the woman whose books she loves!

Time flies when you're having fun, and it wasn't long until Barbara Peters arrived with the other two Poisoned Pen Press authors who have new books out, Donis Casey and Dennis Palumbo. This was not only a launch party for the three authors, it was a celebration of Frederick Ramsay, another talented Poisoned Pen Press author who died late last year. I enjoyed his books, and I loved his sense of humor.  Barbara told us that she and Dana Stabenow had just finished Ramsay's last book, Countdown. A few words were spoken by Ramsay's widow as well. A toast to Fred was drunk by us all, and then it was time to talk new books.

L to R: Dennis Palumbo, Priscilla Royal & Donis Casey toasting the memory of Frederick Ramsay.

Dennis Palumbo flew in from Los Angeles, and while Priscilla took the train from the north Bay Area of San Francisco. The trains often take her (and leave her) in interesting places, but she told us that she'd managed to leave Flagstaff before the big snowstorm hit. Donis is a local author and didn't have much of a commute.

Available Now!

Head Wounds is the fifth Daniel Rinaldi mystery. The series is set in Pittsburgh where Dennis was born and raised, although he and his wife have now lived in Los Angeles for the past forty years. Rinaldi is a psychologist and also a trauma expert-- dating back to the time he and his wife were mugged coming out of a restaurant. His wife was killed, he was injured and found himself having to deal with his survivor guilt. This began his mission to help the victims of violent crime. He is a consultant to the Pittsburgh police. In Head Wounds, Rinaldi discovers that his wife's death was not an accident.

"I've been getting some good press about Head Wounds," Palumbo said, "but I'm just now starting to get emails from my readers in Pittsburgh. No one ever comments about the characters or the plots, they just say things like 'You can't make a left on South Street at five o'clock!' I get so many complaints that now I have to call my friends in Pittsburgh and ask things like, 'Is Heinz Chapel still there?'

Dennis Palumbo

"My favorite anecdote is the email I received from a city planner in Pittsburgh who'd read the first three books in the series. I was working on the fourth at the time. In her email she said, 'I'm a city planner; I like your books. But listen... the route that you have Daniel Rinaldi take from his office in Oakmont to his house in Mt. Washington is ridiculous. No one would ever do this, particularly in rush hour!' She drew me a diagram of how Daniel should go home. So starting in Phantom Limb, that's how Rinaldi gets home, and I gave her an acknowledgement on the acknowledgements page in the book!"

"That's really hilarious, Dennis," Barbara said. "I've only been to Pittsburgh once or twice. You may think that editors are supposed to fix absolutely everything, but the truth of it is if you don't know it, you trust your author-- 'specially if he's from Pittsburgh-- to get it right. I'm really glad that you get all this unsolicited additional editing."

"Oh, I get all sorts of help all the time!" Dennis replied.

"It's been a little while since you've published a book. You've had a little sabbatical there," Barbara commented. "I hope you're not going to have another sabbatical...."

"No, but one thing that you have to keep in mind is that I'm a full-time therapist, and I see forty patients a week. I don't have the time to write. I always want each book to be different, so I have to think about them a lot. I don't like thinking; I like writing. Actually, in my life thinking has always got me in trouble. But in this case, I always have to find something that matters to me.

"I do hope you get a chance to read my books, and just so you know, when I sign books, I always put one of my business cards inside so you know how to get in touch with me so you can tell me what I got wrong about Pittsburgh."

Available Now!

After the laughter died down, Barbara looked at the next author and said, "Priscilla, you don't obviously have this problem. No one is writing to you from the Priory to tell you that, in the fourteenth century, the fish pond was in the southwest corner!"

"Well... actually there's a story about that," Priscilla replied. "I do get letters now and then from readers who say 'I'm not sure about this' or 'I'm not sure about that' and sometimes they're right. I appreciate their writing to me.

"I'm not an historian by profession, this is a passionate avocation, so even though I care about my details, I do make mistakes.

"Since I don't fly, I've learned to love flying over the territory in my books with Google Earth. In the setting for Wild Justice, I wanted to have a stream flowing through the property. An important plot point hinged on that stream, but looking at Google Earth, something bothered me, so I wrote for information.

"I was directed to a man in the Visitors Centre there in Somerset who led me to several online maps of the area. What I thought was a stream was something that was built in the nineteenth century. A stream wasn't there in the thirteenth century. I could've made a big mistake, and boy, did I have to change things around!"

Priscilla Royal

Priscilla then told us a tiny bit of the fascinating history of the Knights Hospitaller, a religious military order that was founded at Jerusalem in the eleventh century. Yes, they were a military order, but their hospitals were remarkable, and they cared for all, be they Christian, Muslim, or Jew. They also had maternity wards that provided wet nurses and cradles in addition to medical care. Most of the money the order raised went to their hospitals, not the military-- and the transportation of that money has something to do with the plot of Wild Justice.

"Prioress Eleanor lives and works in Norfolk, and one of the dilemmas Priscilla faces is to avoid Cabot Cove Syndrome-- which means everyone who lives and visits there dies-- so Eleanor gets to visit her family or do other things in other locations from time to time," Barbara explains.

"Prioress Eleanor receives a letter from her brother who is soon leaving to fight in Wales, asking her to take his gift of rents money to Mynchen Buckland Priory in Somerset," Priscilla said. "Eleanor is to give the money to Prioress Amicia only, but when she arrives, she finds Amicia locked in a cell and accused of murder-- something she has never denied doing. But when Amicia reads the letter, she breaks into tears and asks Eleanor to find the guilty person for she is innocent. So Eleanor sets out with her co-sleuth Brother Thomas and her medical person, Sister Anne to solve the crime."

"Some have called Priscilla's books the best medieval mystery series going and a worthy successor to Brother Cadfael," her editor, Barbara Peters said. "Which book is this? The... twelfth?"

"The fourteenth," Royal replied.

"Oops!" Barbara said. "Although this is good news for those of you who haven't read the series-- you can binge! We've also done something different with Wild Justice. We feel that some of our authors have readers who would prefer having the books published as paperbacks with French flaps and other good things, and Priscilla decided that that's what she wanted done for this latest book. You'll see Dennis's book and Donis's book as both hardcover and paperback, and I just wanted you to know that we didn't forget Priscilla-- this was intentional and so far has been hugely successful. The first print run sold out in a flash, so it's something we may be doing more of in the future.

"Donis, you've also been getting lots of good press for your latest book."

Donis Casey

"This has been rather amazing, the reviews I've gotten for this particular book. I'm always very happy, but then I get really really anxious wondering how I can live up to this in my next book," Donis replied.

"There's so much that's relevant to today in your book," Barbara said.

"Yes. Usually when I do research for my books, I do a lot of reading in old newspapers, but with Forty Dead Men I found myself reading the diaries of men who had fought in World War I, men who had returned home. 

"There's really a lot more information available about the Brits because-- of course-- they were there a lot longer, and they had a lot more to deal with than we did."

"There's also a wonderful series written by Charles Todd about Inspector Ian Rutledge who returned to England when the war was over," Barbara said.

"Well, I didn't want to admit that I had read several Charles Todds," Donis laughed. "Anyway, Alafair's oldest son, Gee Dub (short for George Washington) comes home from the war, and while everyone else thinks he's the same as he's always been, Alafair knows that he's different. He likes to go off by himself, and one day he sees a woman walking down the road in the rain. She's scared of him, so Gee Dub goes to get Alafair. Alafair gets in the buggy and brings her home. The young woman-- Holly-- has traveled all the way from Maine to find out what's happened to her husband. The two got married, he went off to war, and that's the last she knows. Alafair takes Holly into town to see the sheriff, and when Holly tells the sheriff her husband's name, the sheriff informs her that they found the body of a soldier who'd died from the flu by the side of the road a couple of months previously-- and his papers had the same name as Holly's husband."

Available Now!

"And we'll stop there!" Barbara said. (That woman certainly knows how to cut a story short in order to tease us!)

"I'm afraid to say anything else about the story because there are a lot of twisty things in it," Donis admitted.

"That's why we're stopping," Barbara said. "This story doesn't go anywhere near where you expect it to go.... Donis has talked with us in each book about one of the children. Sooner or later you're going to run out of children."

"I'd like to talk with you about that because Alafair's children are grown, and I think a couple of them are going to have very interesting lives that I'd like to pursue," Donis said.

"Of course," Barbara replied, "but we're not going to have an editorial discussion here."

Then Dennis had a question for Donis about PTSD which led to us learning that he'd been a screenwriter for several years before becoming a psychologist, and that one of Priscilla's mysteries deals with PTSD as well. Dennis also thought that Prioress Eleanor's co-sleuth, Brother Thomas, is the Archie Goodwin of the series.

"I knew that I had to have a man and a woman as sleuths in my books because there are some things men can do in that time period that women can't and vice versa. Eleanor is a highly intelligent, well-educated woman who wouldn't put up with a stupid man for long, but I also didn't want any hanky panky going on in the monastic hayloft," Royal said. "I needed a different angle, and finally Brother Thomas told me, 'I'm gay.' This means that I get to explore the true nature of love in the relationship between the two characters."

"By the time you've written your third, fourth or fifth book, you're basically taking dictation from your characters," Dennis told us during a short discussion about developing characters over a series of books.

Hanging on the authors' words.

"I usually end these things with what the authors are doing next," Barbara said, drawing the event to a close. "We already know that Donis and I are going to confer. Priscilla has already sent me one hundred pages of book number fifteen. What's it called, Priscilla?"

"The Hanged Man," she replied, "and it's based on a true story of a man who was hanged and lived."

"Dennis, you're still searching for an idea for your next book?" Barbara asked.

"I do know that I want it to be a situation where Rinaldi is working strictly as a consultant and there's no personal element," Palumbo replied. "I don't think I could survive another book like Head Wounds! Or maybe something in a hospital... holding an entire hospital hostage."

And on that note, the afternoon concluded. When I got home, I clicked my little recorder back on and was amazed with the wonderful sound quality. It took me a few years, but I finally came up with a way that allows me to (1) have every spoken word at my disposal and (2) enjoy myself even more at the actual event. Who says you can't teach dogs of a certain age new tricks?

Predators by Frederick Ramsay

First Line: The lion blinked and shifted its weight to one side, hoping the dull pain that deprived him of sleep would abate. It didn't.

The U.S. State Department has asked Leo Painter, CEO of a large mining, energy, and real estate business, to travel to Botswana. Both Leo and his country would love to access Botswana's resources, but the CEO also has another dream: building a resort and casino on Botswana's Chobe River. It remains to be seen if Painter's business partners will allow him to do so.

This standalone by Frederick Ramsey shows the ruthlessness of the business and animal worlds with two storylines. One is of Sekoa, an old, ill lion who's been supplanted as the alpha male of his pride by a younger, stronger male. As Sekoa fights for survival, he's shadowed by a pack of hyenas that is waiting for him to make one mistake. The second storyline involves Leo (the Lion?) Painter, an old Chicago businessman with a weak heart, who has his own pack of human hyenas: his stepson, his stepson's wife, and various business associates. Ramsay shows that one world is every bit as deadly as the other just as he also shows us that Sekoa and Leo aren't as bad as we'd originally thought.

Botswana comes out as the real winner in Predators. It's portrayed as one of the least corrupt countries in the world, and rightfully proud of that fact. It's a jewel of great price and great natural wealth being circled by packs of hyenas (with names like Russia and America) just waiting to strike. I loved the setting and the wildlife depicted in this book. The people of Botswana are shown putting up with the idiocy of tourists because at this point in time tourism is the major source of their livelihood. But once these people are "off the clock," they have their own lives and their own customs.

For me, the best characters in the book were Sekoa the lion and Sanderson the game ranger. I was hoping for a different outcome for that noble old lion even though I knew it wasn't realistic. Sanderson has difficulties in her own life. Her son is dying of AIDs, just like her beloved husband did. She fears for her daughter, eyeing any young man her daughter favors with great suspicion. But what can she do, other than to slip condoms in her daughter's purse and to try not to nag? Sanderson is level-headed and thinks well on her feet, which is good because she is working a man's job and has to outmaneuver the dated way of thinking of her male counterparts on an almost hourly basis. In my opinion, Sanderson is worthy of her own series.

But of all the things I enjoyed about this book, it's Leo Painter and his crew that ultimately knocked the scales out of balance. Between acolytes and family, it was a surfeit of dishonesty, double-dealing, greed, stupidity, and bimbosity. I had to fight the urge to skip the sections dealing with Painter and Crew so that I could focus on Sekoa and Sanderson instead. Ramsay added occasional flashes of humor in Leo's sections that fell flat for me. Perhaps if I hadn't been so disgusted by these Chicago invaders, I would have appreciated the humor more. There's a lot to like about Predators. I just wish I'd been tough enough to deal with the human hyenas.
  

Predators by Frederick Ramsay

eISBN: 9781615951666

Poisoned Pen Press © 2009

eBook, 250 pages

Standalone

Rating: C+

Source: Purchased from Amazon 

Secrets by Frederick Ramsay

First Line: The church huddled in a small grove of pine and oak set back from the road at the town's northern edge.

Stonewall Jackson Memorial Church in Picketsville, Virginia, seems to be getting more than its usual share of attention. The church has been given a new vicar, the Reverend Blake Fisher, a man once meant for much higher things who's now been exiled in disgrace. It's been the scene of the murder of its organist, Waldo Templeton, and its secretary, Millicent Bass, is the fount of all vicious gossip within the city limits. Will Sheriff Ike Schwartz be able to sift through all the rumors to find a killer?

It was simple serendipity that led me to read books in two different series which used the exact same devise: letting a different character be the narrator instead of the main character of the series. In one case, it was very successfully done. In the case of Secrets, the results are less favorable.

Sheriff Ike Schwartz is the heart and soul of this series, and I fell in love with him when I read the very first book, Artscape. I wanted more Ike when I picked up Secrets, and I have to admit that I spent most of the book looking forward to the few times he appeared. It's not that Blake Fisher is a weak character; he most definitely is not, and seeing things through his eyes as he becomes immersed in a murder investigation is interesting. It's also fascinating to see how he reacts to his banishment, and how his attitudes towards the church, the church hierarchy, the parishioners, and his own desires gradually begin to change. His metamorphosis is well and thoughtfully done.

The mystery is also a strong one that took me a while to piece together, but I was never able to overcome the paucity of scenes in which Ike Schwartz appeared. As I turned the last page, I was left with the thought that shaking up the point of view was a good idea that should've been done a book or two further along in the series. Never fear though-- I'll be heading back for another visit with Ike. He's too good to ignore!

Secrets by Frederick Ramsay

ISBN: 9781615951673

Poisoned Pen Press © 2012

eBook, 290 pages

Police Procedural, #2 Sheriff Ike Schwartz mystery

Rating: B

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

Artscape by Frederick Ramsay

First Line: The sun, still low in the east, heated the morning air and sent it shimmering off the asphalt.

When his wife of one month was killed in a misguided CIA operation, Ike Schwartz came home to Picketsville, Virginia, and became its sheriff. Picketsville's only claim to fame is Callend College, a private women's school which houses one half of the billion dollar Dillon art collection. Although Dr. Ruth Harris, newly hired president of the college, fights passionately against it, the collection is scheduled to be moved from its secure underground bunker at Callend to its new home in New York.

This is bad news for the college, and bad news for the New Jihad, which plans to steal the collection and hold it for a huge ransom. The men the New Jihad has hired to steal the collection have to move up their time table. When things begin to go wrong, law enforcement waves Ike Schwartz off as just another hayseed sheriff who couldn't pour water out of a boot with the directions written on the heel. Boy, do they have some surprises in store for them! Schwartz is a man with a tough hide and an unusual skill set.

After reading the synopses to Frederick Ramsay's books, I downloaded two titles to my Kindle because they certainly sounded like the sort of books I enjoy reading. Unfortunately both titles languished there until I happened to attend an author event for his latest book featuring Ike Schwartz (Drowning Barbie). After being completely charmed by his knowledge and wit, I came home and dialed up Artscape.

The mystery is a good one, and I relished the details of how the group of thieves planned to circumvent all the college security measures and steal the collection. Ramsay's writing style made for vivid mental visuals as the chapters flew by. More importantly, the characters-- in particular Sheriff Ike Schwartz, college president Dr. Ruth Harris, and a young female college student-- came to life. Plenty of sparks fly in the early scenes between Schwartz and Harris, and I liked how Schwartz dealt with Harris' razor-sharp tongue and preconceptions. Both characters are complex, and I am really looking forward to future meetings between the two.

This is one series that I really want to follow, and I would recommend that you do, too, if you like well-written, fast-paced mysteries with excellent characterization.

Artscape by Frederick Ramsay

ISBN:  9781615951611

Poisoned Pen Press © 2014 

eBook, 252 pages

Police Procedural, #1 Sheriff Ike Schwartz mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased as an eBook through Amazon.

@ The Poisoned Pen with Charlotte Hinger and Frederick Ramsay!

As I drove to my favorite bookstore (The Poisoned Pen) that Saturday afternoon, there was brilliant sunshine, not a cloud in the deep blue sky, and balmy breezes-- just the type of weather tens of thousands of people flock here to experience each winter. A lot of the people traveling the same streets as I had been to the Parada del Sol, but I had different fish to fry. I had set out to see two Poisoned Pen Press authors: Charlotte Hinger and Frederick Ramsay.

Charlotte writes the Lottie Albright series set in western Kansas, and the latest book, Hidden Heritage, was named one of the Best Mysteries of 2013 by Kirkus Reviews. It's one of my favorite series, and I was looking forward to seeing her.

Frederick Ramsay writes three series (and standalone novels, too), and he was here to sign his latest Ike Schwartz mystery, Drowning Barbie. I've seen him several times attending signings for other authors although this would be the first time I'd attended when the spotlight would be on him. I have yet to read one of his books, but I have two of them on my Kindle because-- after watching him interact with others-- I have the distinct impression that I'm really going to like his writing. Have you ever had that feeling?

I browsed the shelves, made my purchase, and sat down to read. All during this time, another customer in the store had kept catching my eye, and I didn't know why. He even told one of the employees his name, but it didn't mean a thing to me. I gave him the once-over at least three times, and I still didn't know why a very faint little bell kept jangling in the back of my mind. The man took a seat across from me. When he replied to a comment someone else made, I almost got whiplash. At the very same moment, he looked over at me and said, "Are you Glenore's daughter?" That's when I recognized him-- he worked with my mother twenty years ago, and I'd seen him whenever I went into the library to pick Mom up after work. We had a nice catch-up chat while we waited for the event to begin.

Just goes to show... I may not recognize a face, names may not stick in my brain for very long either-- but I remember voices!

"You've got me till spring!"

L to R: Charlotte Hinger, Barbara Peters, Frederick Ramsay

Charlotte Hinger arrived early, and from the coat draped over her arm, her sweaters, long wool skirt and tall boots, she looked like she wasn't from these parts. Sure enough, she told us that when she left Kansas, it was 7° below zero, and once she'd been filled in on the sort of weather we've been having, Charlotte exclaimed, "You've got me till spring!"

More and more people began to arrive, including Donis Casey, author of the excellent Alafair Tucker mysteries, and we learned that Donis and Charlotte had been roomies at Malice Domestic.

Bookstore owner, Poisoned Pen Press editor, and host Barbara Peters sat down between her two authors and asked them to introduce their characters to us. Charlotte told us that her series is set in western Kansas and features Lottie Albright, an historian and law enforcement officer who married into a devout Catholic family. Her husband is much older than she, and the oldest of the four children from his first marriage is older than Lottie. Family dynamics often play important roles in the books.

Retired Episcopal priest Frederick Ramsay told us that his main character, Ike Schwartz, is a Jewish sheriff in a Baptist town who finds every chance he can to question political correctness. Barbara Peters said, "Ike's also been involved in a long-term relationship that I doubted was ever going to end well." Ramsay smiled and said that one of the subplots in Drowning Barbie concerned how Ike was going to break the news of what happened on a trip to Las Vegas when he got back to Picketsville.

"Looks like they're trying to..."

Frederick Ramsay

Barbara then said, "Drowning Barbie is an unusual title. How on earth did you come up with it?"

Ramsay laughed. "Last January my grandchildren were playing with their Barbie dolls in our pool. When I asked my son-in-law what they were doing, he took a look and said, 'Looks like they're trying to drown Barbie.'"

Further fuel for his book came from a writers conference that he attended. "It was one of those days when I could have sworn I was wearing my collar," he said. A woman approached him and sat down to talk. "I'm crazy," she told Ramsay. It took Ramsay a minute to realize that the woman was serious. She went on to tell him that she was a meth baby who'd been pimped out by her mother.

Another piece of the manuscript that became Drowning Barbie involved a mobster who attempted to take control of a crime family. He was killed in New York, and although his body wasn't found, his killers-- who were responsible for many other deaths-- were sent to Sing Sing on the evidence the police did manage to gather. Later on, the mobster's body was dug up elsewhere, and the evidence obtained from the body did not match the trial facts. Should these killers get a new trial? As you can see, ideas for crime novels can come from anywhere!

Available Now!

Ramsay went on to mention that when he'd started writing about Ike, they were roughly the same age. Now Ike is 30-40 years younger than his creator. Ramsay has no idea what guys in that age bracket are up to now, so he writes Ike "as an old-fashioned kinda guy."

Barbara then brought up the fact that Frederick Ramsay has written two books-- The Eighth Veil and Holy Smoke-- from the viewpoint of the New Testament as history. "These books are really interesting... and they may no longer be just a trilogy," she said, smiling at Ramsay. Ramsay enjoys telling the gospel through the eyes of people who had no investment in the events unfolding around them. They don't care what's happening, so he's able to put an entirely different spin on these mysteries. "Most people don't know the region's history, or if they do, it's through the cloaks of religion and Cecil B. DeMille," he said.

"It can be hard to explain the old morality."

L to R: Charlotte Hinger, Barbara Peters

The conversation switched back to Charlotte as Barbara reminded us that Hidden Heritage had been named one of the ten Best Mysteries of 2013 by Kirkus Reviews.

Since Hinger's series deals so much with history (her main character is an historian), she often finds herself trying to explain the morality of previous generations, "...the concept of shame, of having to get married, of what it meant to file bankruptcy, of being forced to go to the Poor Farm." These are concepts that Charlotte herself understands very well because two generations of her family span three centuries. "My father was born in the nineteenth century, I was born in the twentieth, and now I'm living in the twenty-first and watching my six grandchildren grow up."

In Hinger's books, oftentimes it's an old crime that causes a new murder, and she's done the same work that Lottie does in the books. "I've talked to so many people. I know of several couples who, back in the day, got married and didn't have sex for six months so they could prove to everyone that there hadn't been any hanky panky going on before the wedding.

"I've found out that when people are in their fifties, they don't want to talk to historians. By the time these people are in their 80s and 90s, they want people to know all sorts of things before they die!"

Available Now!

Proving that life often imitates art, Hinger had to change one of the family names in Hidden Heritage because the exact same thing happened in real life as in Charlotte's plot. She definitely didn't want to open herself to a lawsuit!

"Barbara tries to keep my historical tidbits subdued so the book still qualifies as a crime novel," Charlotte told us with a smile.

Questions, Answers & Editors

A fan mentioned music, and Charlotte loved the fact that she'd noticed. "Music is important in the books because it's important to me," she said.

Donis Casey brought up the curandera in Hidden Heritage. "Yes," Hinger said. "Half of the medicine we have today can be found on the Plains, and there was always someone who knew how to use it." [A curandera is a healer who uses folk remedies.]

Another person mentioned writing groups, which don't work for Hinger. "Having people critique your work can be tricky," she said. "I trust Barbara Peters and I praise her abilities to everyone." Hinger shared some writing advice she was given and that she follows: "Don't trust anyone. Not enemies. Not friends. Don't change a thing unless the change resonates within you."

When asked if he had any advice to give us, Frederick Ramsay said, "Never teach middle school if you're my age." A student told him, "My great-great-grandfather fought in World War II." Ramsay thought a few seconds and could see that the math was right. He then told the boy, "My great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War."  Ramsay laughed. "I think that boy still hasn't gotten his mind around that!" (And I sat there thinking that my grandfather fought in World War II and my great-great-great-grandfather died in the Civil War!)

Right now, Charlotte Hinger is hard at work on a book about nineteenth-century African Americans and their impact on the settlement of the West, which makes her editor a bit nervous. "I can't help but be reminded of John Dunning," Barbara Peters said. "He spent so much time writing The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, which turned into a sort of black hole. He emerged with a brain tumor and was unable to continue his brilliant Bookman series."

Charlotte divulged the fact that she's torn between two titles for her next Lottie Albright novel: Fractured Families or Ominous Origins. Most folks seemed to prefer the former, while I preferred the latter. Wouldn't you know it?

When Barbara couldn't see something across the room, she apologized. "I've just finished editing seven books for our fall list, and I'm practically blind!" Referring back to what Charlotte had said about her earlier, Peters said, "I think one of my strengths as an editor is the fact that I have absolutely no desire to write a book." At this point Donis Casey-- another of the authors Peters edits-- jumped in quickly to add, "Barbara doesn't try to write your book for you."

The rest of the very enjoyable event concluded with questions and prizes. Frederick Ramsay had brought his own questions, although he did notice from a comment made that "Donis, you're on page 102 of Drowning Barbie." He also let us know that he does "backwards research," writing the story first and then going back to do the research.

Charlotte Hinger has a color-coded system for her rough drafts. "The first draft is on pink paper: it's pink with promise. The second draft is on yellow paper because the light is beginning to shine through." 

Ramsay had a deputy badge to give away. Due to a little snafu with the numbers, the man whose voice I recognized traded his number with Donis Casey. Which number was called? The number he'd just given to Donis!

What a fun afternoon! Glorious weather, a wonderful bookstore, two fascinating authors, and a group of crime fiction lovers. You can't get much better than that! (And... remember what I said earlier about not having read any of Frederick Ramsay's books? I've just begun to read Artscape, the first Ike Schwartz mystery!)