My putative pub date.

Note to actual readers: Real blog topics begin right below this bit of BSP. Please read on.OK, for the BSP: Today is my Amazon pub date, a date chosen pretty much at random (Barnes and Noble.com has had my book for at least a week, as have various lovely independent...

Is this kitty a killer?

Look at the book cover to your left. Look at that little black and white face. I ask you, is that the face of a killer?Now, I write murder mysteries, but even for me that question might sound a bit odd.I mean, I’ve always promised my readers that no matter how many...

Doris Lessing

Let us suppose floods wash through our cities, the seas rise . . . but the storyteller will be there, for it is our imaginations which shape us, keep us, create us – for good and for ill. It is our stories that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even...

The Animal Connection

Dateline: Boston, Monday afternoon!Cries and Whiskers makes the New England Cable News Animal Connection, featuring friend and colleague Vicki Constantine Croke. (She’s the author of a wonderful true-life animal adventure, The Lady and the Panda, and several...

The ethics of mysteries…

Hey, if you’re reading this, you probably have heard this basic idea already. Supposedly mystery readers love mysteries because our books impose some kind of order on the universe. Things make sense, clues lead to conclusions, and justice is served. (This is...