What’s in a name?

“How do you come up with the names?” That’s what my wonderful mother-in-law Sophie always wants to know. “Dulcie and Pru, and now Care? Tara? Where do they come from?” “I’m not sure,” I’ve told her. And she shakes...

Writing without a net

Mystery authors tend to break down into two camps: plotters and “pantsers,” i.e., those who write by the seat of their pants. I tend to be a pantser. I start with an idea, a scenario, or a basic problem, and write from there, letting the story unfold as I...

Book extract: Cross My Path

Care’s reputation as a private investigator is growing and clients are beating a path to her door. An elderly woman seeks Care’s help in finding out what happened to her brother. Blackie senses he’s met this woman before, sometime before he became a cat. But who is...

World Book Day

It’s World Book Day! That one kind of snuck up on me, but around here every day is book day. In the course of our Sunday stroll yesterday, Jon and I ended up at Harvard Book Store, where Jon picked up “Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical is...