I sometimes fall into the trap of thinking of children's murder mysteries as stepping stones—books that get young readers interested in the genre before they graduate to the "real" mysteries as adults. The Big Bad Wolf Murder reminded me how unfair that way of thinking is. This is simply a well-crafted mystery, regardless of the… Continue reading The Big Bad Wolf Murder
I finished reediting Goodnight Irene. It has been a fascinating process. Aside from sentence structure and formatting, there were two main areas I marked for improvement. The first was strengthening the clues. I mentioned in an earlier post that the clues in GI were timid. This has been rectified -- particularly the basis for the… Continue reading One down
I've put the writing of my book on hold. And that's okay. I published two books in a one-year span--It's About Impossible Crime and The Architecture of Murder. (Some might argue this is cheating because it's basically nine short stories, I would argue that both collections are the longest books I've published.) I don't have… Continue reading No Writing to Report
The Sapphire Veil is the working title. You need a working title to give a project some permanence in your mind. Without giving any hints or spoilers, I can tell you it’s about a young, strapping lad who falls for the wrong kind of dame. Which femme fatale conventions I adhere to—and which I subvert—are… Continue reading Book 8 will be a novel
Douglas Ashe's The Longstreet Legacy is delightful for several ancillary reasons. But let’s get the main things out of the way first. Abigail Longstreet is the youngest granddaughter of an old, blind recluse named Ella Maybelle Longstreet. Ella has been behaving strangely these past few months—firing all her staff, leaving raw meat in the fridge,… Continue reading The Longstreet Legacy (aka A Shroud for Grandmama)
James Scott Byrnside 