Creative Alchemy

Introduction

Author A.D. (Antony) Davies is clearly a man who likes to explore characters and their motivation. He had three different types of mystery novels available and we talk about them all today: A police procedural series with a female serial killer profiler as the main character; a wealthy private investigator; and a stand-alone mystery involving a cult in Nevada and a cop with a deep faith.

You can find out more about A.D. and his books at ADDAvies.com.

He’s also on Twitter.

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on iTunes. And listen on Stitcher.

You can also watch the interview on YouTube, if you prefer.

Transcript of Interview with A.D. Davies

Alexandra: Hi, mystery readers. I’m Alexandra Amor, this is It’s A Mystery podcast and I’m here today with A.D. Davies. Hi, Antony.

Antony: Hello.

Alexandra: How are you?

Antony: I’m good, thank you.

Alexandra: On a Sunday afternoon in…I forget where you live.

Antony: Staffordshire in the United Kingdom.

Alexandra: Staffordshire. Yeah, I knew the U.K. I chad West Yorkshire in my head but that’s where you were raised.

Antony: That’s right. Yeah. That’s where I’m from originally and it seems to be where I’ve put a few of my books.

Alexandra: All right. Well, I have a ton of questions because you’ve got three different series, sort of, that I want to ask you about. So let me introduce you to our listeners.

A.D. Davies grew up in Leeds, West Yorkshire. In high school his ambition was to be a writer of horror novels although in adult life he became an avid fan of crime fiction. After a long stint in an unsatisfying job, and we’ve all had those, he attended the University of Leeds where he attained a degree in creative writing. Shortly after graduation he moved to the midlands to marry the love of his life. A.D. Davies is well-traveled, his favorite destinations being New Zealand and Vietnam which have influenced his writing immensely.

For now, however, globetrotting is taking a back seat to raising his two children and writing. Although he hopes one day to combine all three.

Let’s start maybe talking about this stand-alone mystery novel and then maybe we can talk about the two series that you have.

Antony: Yeah, sure. Sure.

Alexandra: “Rite to Justice” is set in Hope, Nevada which is interesting.

Antony: Yeah.

Alexandra: We have a Hope here in B.C., as well, actually.

Antony: Right. Right.

Alexandra: And this is a police officer who’s a…And there’s been a death in a cult. So tell me about that.

Antony: Well, that is based in the fictional place of Hope, Nevada. So it won’t appear on any maps.

Alexandra: Okay.

Antony: I set it near Reno just because I like the idea of Reno and my friends were there and I’ve got lots of pictures and so I kind of felt like I knew the place. It was my first novel that I published. It was under a different title originally. But it didn’t do very well so I withdrew it from sale and rewrote it after I’d got a bit more experience.

Introduction

Jane Thornley is a colourful author – quite literally. She’s a knitter, art-to-wear designer, world traveler and the author of the Crime by Design mystery series. You’ll see the passion she has for the visual arts below if you have a look at her book covers. They are some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, which is one reason I wanted to talk to Jane.

Based in Halifax, Canada, Jane and her husband are able to indulge their love of travel and history, and Jane incorporates much of what she sees and learns in her Phoebe McCabe mystery novels. One of my favorite things about hosting this podcast is that I learn something from each guest. This interview is no exception; Jane helped me understand a bit of the importance in the history of the fabric arts.

You can find Jane on her website JaneThornley.com.

And on Facebook. And Twitter.

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on iTunes. And listen on Stitcher.

You can also watch the interview on YouTube, if you prefer. (If you do, you’ll see an example of Jane’s AMAZING knitting.)

Transcription of Interview with Jane Thornley

Alexandra: Hello, Mystery Readers. I’m Alexandra Amor and this is It’s a Mystery Podcast. I’m here today with Jane Thornley. Hi, Jane.

Jane: Hi, and hi, Mystery Readers everywhere.

Alexandra: That’s right. You’re in Halifax. I’m in Vancouver. I feel like we’re kind of waving across the country at one another.

Jane: We’re bookends.

Alexandra: We’re bookends, exactly. Let me introduce our listeners to you. Once upon a time, Jane Thornley explored many roles, librarian, teacher, designer, school administrator, software consultant, but writer has always been her default self. She began writing stories in elementary school and completed four novels before graduating public education. I’ll have to ask you about that. But that was just a warm-up. She loves to play her life out in color, adventure, travel, and creativity. Born in Nova Scotia, Canada, she continues as an art-to-wear knitwear designer, an impassioned traveler, while weaving her stories against a colorful international backdrop so vibrant, readers constantly remark on it in her reviews. That’s such a nice thing to have that kind of positive feedback from our readers, isn’t it?

Jane: It really is and it also lets you know what the elements are that they particularly find intriguing or fascinating.

Alexandra: Exactly, yes. I was saying before we got on the call, I love your colorful background there and you mentioned that it’s all your knitting.

Jane: It is. I have knit since I was about 23. This is a Koi pond by the way. You can see the fish. I have art-to-wear knitters club where we really go outside the box and knit of the grid. This is an example of an upcoming design.

Alexandra: Just beautiful.

Jane: I literally have fiber hanging everywhere in my house, fiber and books and technology.

Alexandra: Your three favorite things.

Jane: And travel. Those are my three favorite things.

Alexandra: Great.

Introduction

My guest today is a woman who wears many hats; mother, journalist, freelance writer, and, of course, crime fiction author. C.A. (Christina) Larmer currently has two mystery series on the go: The Ghostwriter series featuring journalist and amateur detective Roxy Parker, and the Agatha Christie Book Club series, which is loosely based on her own experience with book clubs.

Christina shares the true story of her adventures in a cave of cannibal skulls (I’m not kidding) as well as some deeper insights into Roxy’s character that a fan of the books pointed out.

You can find Christina on her website. As well as Facebook and Twitter.

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on iTunes. And listen on Stitcher.

You can also watch the interview on YouTube by clicking here.

Transcription of Interview with Christina Larmer

Alexandra: Hi, everyone. I’m Alexandra Amor, and this is It’s A Mystery podcast, and I’m here today with Christine Larmer. Hi, Christina.

Christina: Hello, how are you?

Alexandra: I’m well, how are you?

Christina: Very good thank you.

Alexandra: Sorry, I said Christine instead of Christina.

Christina: That’s okay, no problem.

Alexandra: I’ll give everybody a bit of an introduction to you as we begin. CA Larmer, otherwise known as Christina, is the author of nine books including six in the popular “Ghostwriter Mystery” series. A second crime series called the “Agatha Christie Book Club,” and a nonfiction book about Papua, New Guinea where she was born and bred. Papua, New Guinea is also the setting for her standalone novel and “Island Lost”. Christina spent three years living in New York and Los Angeles and now lives in Australia with her musician husband and two sons. She’s also a journalist, editor, and guest blogger with The Huffington Post.

It’s so great to have you here today, Christina. I’m so happy to have you so let’s begin. We were talking just before we started about this fabulous blog post you’ve got about a cave of skulls on Papua, New Guinea.

Talk about your origins as a mystery writer and about that great little story.

Christina: I was born and bred in Papua, New Guinea, in the capital of Papua, New Guinea called Mosi, which is sort of a city, a ramshackle city, but every holiday or once a year, we’d head off to this really remote island. It’s just beautiful and exquisite and the crystal clear waters that sort of thing. The island has an amazing history. It’s got a history of cannibalism and tribes, which all Papua, New Guinea does.

There is this wonderful cave in the middle of this island, and you have to trek to it. From a young age, my family would lead me to this cave and we always knew that in the cave sat a whole bunch of skulls. And they were believed to be the skulls of the deceased cannibals, the people. But they were the esteemed members of the tribe. Their body would literally be buried in the sand under the beach, the bodies, in a very strange ritual.

Introduction

Nancy Jill Thames is a gardener, a traveler, a lover of beauty and an author, not necessarily in that order. Today on It’s a Mystery Podcast we talk about the inspiration she finds for her series of cozy mystery novels in her travels, as well as what motivates her feisty amateur sleuth, Jillian Bradley.

As with so many of my guests, Nancy Jill has the first book in her series available for free. You can find Murder in Half Moon Bay at Amazon and the other online retailers and give it a try at no risk. If you like it, there are nine others available in the series.

You can find Nancy Jill at NancyJillThames.com.

She is also on Facebook, and Twitter.

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on iTunes. And listen on Stitcher.

You can also watch the interview on YouTube.

Transcript of Interview with Nancy Jill Thames

Alexandra: Hi, everyone. I’m Alexandra Amor, and I’m here today with Nancy Jill Thames. Hi, Nancy Jill.

Nancy Jill: Hi, Alexandra.

Alexandra: How are you?

Nancy Jill: Doing awesome.

Alexandra: Good, good. I’m very happy to have you here to talk about your cozy mysteries. So let me give everyone a little bit of an introduction before we start. Nancy Jill Thames writes the Jillian Bradley mystery series, beginning with “Murder in Half Moon Bay” featuring a feisty garden columnist and her clue-sniffing Yorkie, and has been listed in the Amazon Author Watch Best Seller List.

When Nancy isn’t plotting Jillian’s next perilous adventure, she travels between Texas, California, and Georgia, finding new ways to spoil her grandchildren, playing classical favorites on her baby grand, or having afternoon tea with friends. So let’s start with the afternoon tea theme actually because that’s something that runs through many of your books.

Start by telling us a bit about Jillian, your main character. And I noticed in one of your reviews, this cracked me up. One of your fans said, “Finally! A mystery with a Yorkie in it.” The world has been waiting.

Nancy Jill: Well, I suppose so. Well, Jillian Bradley is, of course, my persona, a person that I am. I love beauty more than anything else. And it seems I love beauty in my home, in art, in the way I present food, books I read, my gardens, everything I do. Entertaining. I love pretty things. I have a teacup collection with 44 different teacups, and I use them.

Alexandra: Oh, wow.

Nancy Jill: I love beauty, and I love sharing that beauty with my readers.

Jillian is a feisty garden columnist simply because, at the time I wrote that book, gardening was my passion. I had 44 different varieties of roses and standards that we planted and had a lot of fun doing that. So at the time, that’s what I did. The dog happened to be a Maltese at that time, but the Maltese weighed 14 pounds and was a little bit too large to carry around in a tote. So I did a little bit of recalculation and used a Yorkie instead. But I imbued all of the things that we did with our Maltese into the Yorkie for all the actions.

Introduction

Character development is probably my favorite things about stories. Any kind of story; books, films and TV shows. Today my guest, author Malcolm Richards, seems to share this obsession with character. His psychological mystery series features an amateur sleuth whose own journey is as central to the story as the mystery she is solving.

The author of four novels, with another just about to be released, Malcolm Richards has an interesting past career as a pirate. (I’m just kidding about the pirate part. He’s from Penzance though, so we have to make that joke.)

Introduction

Author Gwen Mayo is a history buff. She writes mystery novels set in the late 19th century with a strong female heroine, like I do, which is one reason I wanted to talk to her.

Gwen’s passion for history comes through in this wide-ranging interview where we talk about everyting from the political atmosphere in Kentucky after the American Civil War, to a madam who was the model for the character Belle Watling in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind.

You can find Gwen and her books via her website at GwenMayo.com

She’s also on Twitter.

And Facebook.

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on iTunes. And listen on Stitcher.

You can also click here to watch the interview on YouTube.

Transcript of Interview with Gwen Mayo

Alexandra: Hi everyone, I’m Alexandra Amor and this is It’s a Mystery podcast. I’m here today with Gwen Mayo. Hi, Gwen.

Gwen: Hi.

Alexandra: How are you doing today?

Gwen: Doing great.

Alexandra: Is it warm there in Florida?

Sarah: No.

Gwen: Not for Florida.

Alexandra: No? I heard a voice in the background.

Gwen: Yes. I’m afraid Sarah can’t but help join me.

Alexandra: That’s great. I have some relatives who winter in Florida and they’re on the panhandle. They’ve had a lot of rain they said this year.

Gwen: It’s been fairly wet but the temperatures are…usually the 50s and 60s about now so it’s not as warm as they would like it to be. Usually, they’re wanting 70s and 80s here.

Alexandra: That’s right. Exactly. Yup, that’s what my Canadian relatives are looking for. So, just for everyone’s benefit, I’m going to tell them a little bit about you.

Gwen Mayo loves reading and writing mystery fiction. She currently lives and writes in Safety Harbor, Florida, but is forever a Kentucky Wildcat. Her stories have appeared in anthologies at online short fiction sites and in micro fiction collections. She currently has two novels in the Nessa Donnelly series, and is working on one fiction, and one nonfiction book set in Florida.

So it was the Nessa Donnelly mysteries that I really wanted to talk to you Gwen. Before we got on the call, I mentioned that I’m writing mystery novels in sort of the same period, late 19th century.

Let’s start with Nessa. So she was a Pinkerton agent, so tell us a bit about her and that job.

Gwen: The Pinkertons were basically putting people into places where they can pick up information. In Nessa’s case, they had her working as a nurse in one of the army hospitals, and so as she was writing letters from the troops, she would copy any important information, and send it off to Pinkerton. Pinkertons are kind of their own secret society at the time. They were wearing the little pinky ring to identify each other, which is where they got picked up that pinky ring on the finger from.

Introduction

There’s no doubt that Janel Gradowski loves to cook. Her blog is filled with recipes and cookbook reviews. So it’s no surprise that her cozy mystery series is based around culinary mysteries.

Today I talk to Janel about the inspiration for her books, her interest in flash fiction, and the intrigue and politics involved in the fictional culinary competitions that are catalysts for the murders in her mysteries. The first book in the series is Pies and Peril.

You can find Janel at JanelGradowski.com. As well as on Twitter and Facebook.

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on iTunes. And listen on Stitcher.

You can also click here to watch the episode on YouTube.

Transcript of interview with Janel Gradowski

Alexandra: Hi, everyone. This is Alexandra Amor with It’s a Mystery Podcast and I’m here today with Janel Gradowski. Hi, Janel.

Janel: Hello.

Alexandra: Nice to see you. Thanks for being here.

Janel: Thank you for having me.

Alexandra: You’re welcome. So just for anyone that doesn’t know, I am going to give our listeners a bit of an introduction. Janel Gradowski is the author of the bestselling Culinary Competition Mysteries series. She also writes several short fiction series. Her work has appeared in many magazines, anthologies and online journals. She is a wife and mother who lives in the mitten-shaped state of Michigan. I’ve never heard Michigan described that way before and I love it.

Janel: Yes. We always have our map with us when we point to where we live, so it’s great.

Alexandra: It must be easy to teach kids in school then.

Janel: Yes, and actually the Upper Peninsula, you go sideways, so that’s a great way to do both sides of the state.

Alexandra: Yeah. Oh, fantastic. My parents live in Southern Ontario.

Janel: Not far away.

Alexandra: Not far away. Exactly. So the thing that intrigued me about your books is that you call them Culinary Competition Mysteries, which I thought was really interesting. So they’re not just culinary mysteries; there’s competitions involved.

Tell us a little bit about the books, their background and about Amy Ridley, your heroine.

Janel: Amy loves to compete in culinary competitions, any kind of contest from recipe contests to live cooking shows. It happened in a few of them. So that’s where it came from that I loved watching those kinds of shows on TV, and it goes into my series.

Alexandra: Well done. Okay. And so you obviously like to cook too.

I had a look at your blog and you do recipe book reviews occasionally.

Janel: Yes, I do. I have a huge collection of cookbooks and thank goodness for e-books or they’d be overflowing in my house.

Alexandra: Right. And so tell us about Amy. She’s married. Is she married right at the beginning of the series?

Janel: She is married and I’ve gotten quite a few readers who were surprised by that. It’s not really common it seems in cozy mysteries but, yeah, she is married. Her best friend gets married part-way through the series, and now has had a baby in the latest books, so she is dealing with that.

Alexandra: Yes, yeah.

Introduction

Today I talk to my first guest from Down Under, Robin Storey. Robin lives in the Sunshine Coast region of Queensland, Australia. We talk about the influence of other Australian crime writers, her natural pull toward writing comedic mystery novels and the importance of feedback from trusted sources when one is writing a book.

You can find Robin at Storey-Lines.com, where the novel we discuss in this episode, How Not to Commit Murder is available for free. Robin is also on Twitter. And Facebook.

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below. Remember you can also subscribe to the show on iTunes. And listen on Stitcher.

You can also click here to watch the episode on YouTube.

Transcript of Interview with Robin Storey

Alexandra: Hi everyone, I’m Alexandra Amor, and I’m here today with Robin Storey. Hi, Robin.

Robin: Hi, Alexandra.

Alexandra: Nice to see you.

Robin: Thanks for inviting me.

Alexandra: You’re so welcome. I’m going to give everyone a little bit of background information about you. Robin Storey is an indie author of three books: “How Not to Commit Murder,” “Perfect Sex,” and an anthology of short stories called “Comedy Shorts.” She will publish her fourth book, romantic-suspense novella, “An Affair with Danger”, in early 2016, which is a departure from her usual style, as her first three books are comedies. She lives on the beautiful Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, where sitting on the beach and watching the waves roll in gives her inspiration for her stories and is the perfect way to procrastinate. And did you know that we have a Sunshine Coast here in British Columbia too?

Robin: I do, I do. Yes.

Alexandra: Yeah, I’ve been to that one. I haven’t been to yours, though.

Robin: Sometimes I’ve been Googling things for Sunshine Coast for here, and I end up with Sunshine Coast over there.

Alexandra: The same thing has happened to me. That’s so funny. I’d love to come to your Sunshine Coast.

Robin: Yeah, our Sunshine Coast is beautiful.

Alexandra: One day. So tell us a little bit about “How Not to Commit Murder.”

I was intrigued, because when I was doing a little bit of background on the book and the character, it made me think of Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr series, where the main character is a criminal, and the book is a bit comedic. So tell us about “How Not to Commit Murder”.

Robin: I’ll tell you the story first. Basically, it’s about a career conman called Reuben Littlejohn, who gets out of jail, on parole, and he decides he’s going to go straight this time. But he runs into one of his old colleagues and is blackmailed into becoming an accomplice in a plot to kill his parole officer, Lucy, with whom he happens to be madly in lust. So his dilemma is that he has to pretend to be a part of this plot to kill her, at the same time trying to save her life, trying to prevent himself from being killed or going back to jail, and all of this without his wife finding out.

Alexandra: And he’s married as well as all this.

Robin: Yes.

Alexandra: Oh goodness!

Introduction

On this episode of It’s A Mystery Podcast, I talk to best-selling author Jen ‘Yes, that’s my real last name’ Blood about her serialize mystery series, featuring journalist Erin Solomon.

I have been quite excited to talk to Jen because the premise of this mystery series involves a cult. I was involved in a cult for ten years in the 1990s, so I wanted to know more from Jen about how she came up with the premise. And also how she did such an amazing job capturing the twisted and dangerous motives and personal interaction in a cult.

We talk about this and much more during the interview.

Jen’s five book series is unique because the plot arcs through all five books. By the end of book 1 (All the Blue-Eyed Angels) many questions about the mystery have been answered, but others are raised. FYI, Jen has a special deal on the entire series right now. You can get all five books for 50% off the regular price. I HIGHLY recommend these books. I could hardly put book one down and can’t wait to dive into the next one. (Plus, main character Erin Solomon has her dog with her throughout the book and any mystery author who can write about a dog so skillfully is tops in my books.)

Introduction

Today I talk to John Mefford who has written three mystery thriller series; the Booker series, the Greed series and the brand new FBI agent Alex Troutt series.

John shares how he has been influenced all his life by strong women and how he built this latest series around a flawed but strong female character, who is on a journey to understand herself better. John is a prolific author who plans to write and release six books in his new Alex Troutt series this year alone.

You can find John at JohnWMefford.com, where the first books in both the Greed and Booker series are available for free. John is also on Facebook. And Twitter.

Press play (above) to listen to the show, or read the transcript below.

A quick programming note as well; It’s a Mystery Podcast is now available on iTunes, so you can subscribe to it there. And you can also listen to it on Stitcher, if that’s your preferred podcast site.

You can also click here to watch the interview on YouTube.

Transcript of Interview with John Mefford

Alexandra: Hi everyone, this is the It’s a Mystery podcast, and I’m here today with John Mefford. Hi John.

John: How you doing, Alexandra?

Alexandra: I’m good. How are you?

John: Very good. Thanks for having me.

Alexandra: Oh, you’re so welcome. I’m happy to have you here. I’m going to give everybody a little bit of an introduction about you. Throughout his four decade writing career best-selling author, John Mefford, has written about storks, a story about his mother and her dog, every sport imaginable, and, here in the last few years, mystery thrillers. He much prefers writing mystery thrillers.

He’s published 11 novels across three series and in January 2015 released the first book in his new Alex Troutt series titled “At Bay”.

We’re going to talk about Alex Troutt a bit here today. I thought we could start out, maybe, you could tell us a bit about your other two series, though, because they’re both mystery thrillers as well, correct?

John: Exactly. The “Greed” series is the first series that I ever wrote, the first novel being “Fatal Greed”. Have to say it was inspired by some real life events through my day gig at the time, and back in those days there was a lot of tumultuous things going on in the business world. And while I did have this idea around a mystery thriller theme, there were just so many things going on in the business world that I felt had to be communicated in a way that people could really understand it and relate to it, but still have a lot of fun in the mystery thriller aspect of it.

It just somehow all came together. It was my first ever novel, so I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time. Took about 25 re-writes and, you know, many, many, many hours, many, many days and nights of working on it, and I can’t tell you how many folks looked at it. But, nonetheless, that was the very first one. And that really gave me the bug.

While I’ve wanted to write a book for so many years, getting that first one done, I think, is such a special,