Author Archives: Elaine Viets

About Elaine Viets

Elaine Viets has written 30 mysteries in four series, including 15 Dead-End Job mysteries. BRAIN STORM, her first Angela Richman, Death Investigator mystery, is published as a trade paperback, e-book, and audio book. www.elaineviets.com

Character Building

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By Elaine Viets

When I started writing Sex and Death on the Beach, the first mystery in my new Florida Beach series, I wrestled with a problem I hadn’t had for some time: Creating characters.

All my mysteries have new characters, but when I’m introducing a new series, I have to create characters I can use throughout the series. This took at least five rewrites.

My main character is Norah McCarthy, who inherited a 1920s apartment house in mythical Peerless Point, Florida. Norah was orphaned at age four and brought up by her grandmother, a retired Florodora Girl.

The residents of Norah’s building belong to an exclusive group. They must be Florida Men and Women, but the benign variety. The exploits of Florida Man often include alligators and alcohol. You’ve seen the headlines: “Florida Man Busted with Meth, Guns and Baby Gator in Truck.” The residents are her adopted family, and they will appear in future mysteries.

Bare bones characters

Some characters will probably only appear once in Sex and Death on the Beach. Like Elwin Sanford.

Elwin is “a rotund man in a hardhat, neon safety vest and gray cover­alls. He had a wispy mouse-colored mustache and weedy patches of hair clinging to his sweaty scalp. In fact, with his round body, gray coveralls and twitchy nose, he looked like a cartoon mouse.”

Elwin’s appearance is a clue to his character. A city inspector, he is a crook and looks like one.

Important supporting characters

Norah McCarthy has two live-in staff members at the Florodora apartments. One is the handyman-gardener Rafael, a native of Colombia. In the first rewrite, Rafael is “a dark, stocky man who knows inventive ways to repair ancient machinery, handles maintenance and takes care of the grounds. He keeps the building one step ahead of the city inspectors, who are determined to shut us down. Rafael has a bachelor apartment above the garage.”

Rafael ducks difficult questions by looking confused and saying, “No spik Engleesh.”

At that point, was Rafael a real character?

Not  yet. All I have are the bare bones. Rafael is simply someone who has a few quirky mannerisms.

For the third rewrite, I sat down and wrote a bio of every major supporting character. In that version, my main character Norah chided Rafael when he used his “No spik Engleesh” routine with a cop. Norah tells him:

“Eventually you’re going to get caught, Rafael. You speak excellent English. You were a judge in Colombia.”

Norah instantly regrets her thoughtless remark: “As soon as the words passed my lips I wished I could take them back.

“The sudden sadness in Rafael’s eyes was a terrible rebuke. Rafael fled Medellin in 1986, after Pablo Escobar killed Rafael’s wife and baby son. Grandma hired him, and he’d worked at the Florodora ever since. His ambition died with his family.

“Late at night, I’d often see Rafael sitting on the flat roof of his garage apartment staring at the ocean, as if he could see all the way to his troubled country.

“Rafael never discussed his family’s murders. He hid his heart­break with superficial jokes and his ‘no-spik-Engleesh’ routine.”

I also wrote this bio of Rafael’s red truck: “The old truck rattled and lurched. A loose spring in the seatback poked passengers every time Rafael hit the brakes.

“The air conditioning worked when it felt like it. Whenever the air-con quit, Rafael would give the dashboard a hearty whap and cool air would pour out again.”

The Florodora has five permanent residents.

I’m partial to Billie the banana bandit. Billie held up a convenience store with a banana and stole three overdone dogs from its hot dog roller grill. Billie worries his crime will somehow come to light, even though there was no police report and he ate the evidence.

At first, that’s about all I said about Billie, except he was a movie buff who perpetually held his own personal filmfest.

Billie needed more depth, so I had him write retrospectives about movies. His first book was a New York Times bestseller.

Billie had “turned his obsession into a successful writing career.”

He was currently researching his new film book, Seeing in the Dark. This week it was the Rocky movies, and Billie was looking for the thirty-five goofs and plot holes that were supposedly in the Sly Stallone boxing movies. That’s how he prepared for his work, by looking for the mistakes in the movies.

Billie comes downstairs “wearing baggy jeans and a red Bruce Willis T-shirt that read, “I survived the Nakatomi Plaza Christmas party 1988.”

Nakatomi Plaza. The setting for Die Hard.

Norah tell him, “Let me guess. You’re also doing a Die Hard retrospective for your new book.”

“Yep,” Billie said. “Did you see the first Die Hard movie?’

“It’s been a while, but I liked it.”

“Me, too,” Billie said. “But there are supposed to be more than a hundred mistakes in the first movie alone, and I’m trying to find them all.”

Billie will tell Norah about as many as possible.

Another favorite character in Sex and Death on the Beach is Mickey, the artist. At first, I described Mickey as single, “kind and gentle,” and wearing offbeat clothes, including “a funky orange-striped caftan.”

Boring. Mickey had to be more than a heap of clothes. Readers had to care about her.

So I added, she “works as a freelance artist, but she’s been known to vandalize for a good cause.

“When posters appeared on the local telephone poles insulting black people, Mickey was horrified. She went around Peerless Point, covering the offensive posters with her homemade one, which said, ‘I covered the ugly racist poster here with a cat photo.’

“My favorite prank was what Mickey did in the local gas station bathroom. In the restroom was a wall-mounted infant diaper changing station that pulled down into a changing bed. Mickey put a sign on the plastic baby bed that said, ‘Place sacrifice here.’”

Mickey drives a “powder blue VW Bug with a sign in the back window: ‘Adults on Board. We want to live, too.’”

For this series, I recorded how all my characters got around. Some took the bus or bummed rides, others drove.

The Florida Beach bios total 22 pages single spaced, and describe buildings, apartments, cars and characters minor and major, first and last names. I hope you’ll enjoy them.

Writers, do you use character bios for your books?

Buy Sex and Death at the Beach online. NOTE: Prices may vary. Please check before you buy:

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/326up5ny

Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/3tx8x4fb

Thriftbooks https://tinyurl.com/3vk9yhb5.

Or order it from your local bookstores, including Harvard Book Store https://www.harvard.com/book/9781448314799.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating(?) the Florida Man

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By Elaine Viets


      Bigfoot, werewolves and other large hairy creatures abound in stories. We’re  glad they’re myths.

“Sex and Death on the Beach,” my new Florida Beach series has another creature who is not mythical. The legendary Florida Man and Woman  can be large and hairy, but they are definitely real.

Florida Man is the measure for the residents of the Florodora, the most exclusive apartment building in Peerless Point, Florida. The Florodora is more than a hundred years old, the first apartment building in this south Florida beach town between Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

The Florodora is owned by Norah McCarthy, granddaughter of the original owner. You don’t need money or social status to rent an apartment at the Florodora. You must be a member of a more exclusive group. You have to be a genuine Florida Man or Woman.

You’ve seen the headlines. “Florida Man Busted with Meth, Guns and Baby Gator in Truck.” Or: “Florida Woman Bathes in Mountain Dew in Attempt to Erase DNA after Committing Murder.”

Yes, those are real headlines. So is this one: “Florida Man Arrested by Coast Guard for Trying to Cross Atlantic in Human-sized Hamster Wheel.”

That was hamster man’s second arrest trying to wheel across the Atlantic.

Florida Men and Women stories often involve alcohol and alligators, although the Florida Man who tossed a live alligator the size of a Labrador through the drive-up window of a burger joint was probably sober.

Seems this Florida Man found a gator by the road and dumped it in the back of his pickup (pickups are Florida Man’s favorite vehicle). Then he got out of the truck and chucked the gator through the burger joint drive-up window. After he paid for his soft drink.

Unbelievable? That’s the standard reaction to Florida Man. Are there any limits on his –  or her – so-called pranks?

Nope. And many of them aren’t funny. Including the Miami Cannibal, a naked marauder who attacked an innocent man, chewed off the poor guy’s face and left him blind. The cops shot that Florida Man dead.

A slang dictionary says Florida Man “commits bizarre or idiotic crimes, popularly associated with – and often reported in – Florida.”

Florida Man, known as the “world’s worst superhero,” became nationally famous in 2013 when he was given his own Twitter account. He’s inspired a play, two TV series, songs, and more.

Like many Floridians, my feelings about Florida Man and Woman are somewhere between appalled and perversely proud

Some people piously claim that reveling in these tales of Florida Men and Women is wrong, because the perpetrators are poor and uneducated.

Not true. Florida Men and Women come from all classes. Check out this story from the Miami Herald:

“How did a Florida man afford 27 Ferraris and a yacht? A $22 million tax fraud.”

The article began:

“As some fully employed people found their Social Security contributions were $0 for recent years, a Stuart man and his wife luxuriated in a 7,700-square-foot three-bedroom, eight-bathroom house with a small dock and cove.”

Nothing poor or uneducated about that Florida Man.

The tradition of renting to a Florida Man or Woman at the Florodora started with Norah’s grandmother. Eleanor Harriman had a soft spot for scapegraces, since she was one herself. She was a Florodora Girl, a superstar chorus girl a century ago. Grandma was in the 1920 Broadway production of Florodora, before she eloped with handsome Johnny Harriman, a millionaire, back when a million was real money. She was married at sixteen and madly in love.

Version 1.0.0

Johnny died a year later, leaving Eleanor a very rich widow.

When Norah was old enough, Grandma told her about poor Johnny’s accidental death, which involved a champagne bottle and a chandelier.

As my new mystery, “Sex and Death on the Beach” begins, the plumbers are digging up the  Florodora yard, trying to fix the pool. Norah hears a commotion, and discovers the plumbers have dug up the body of a missing porn star, Sammie Lant. Sammie ruined a college football player when she had sex on the beach with him. Norah is a suspect in the woman’s death, and soon the Florodora is swarming with police.

Norah’s residents enjoy swapping Florida Man stories, just like me. I’ve sprinkled these tales throughout the mystery. Here is my favorite, told by Norah’s lover and Florodora resident, Dean. Dean and Norah are drinking coffee.

“Have you heard the latest Florida Man story?” Dean asked.

“Does it involve alcohol and alligators?” Norah said.

“Nope. Satan in schools.”

“You got me,” she said.

Perversely, Dean took a long drink of coffee before he started his story. Finally, he said, “Our very own elected Florida Man, Governor Ron DeSantis, wants more religion in the state’s public schools. He signed a new law to have volunteer school chaplains.”

“Doesn’t separation of church and state keep religion out of public schools?” Norah asked.

“It should,” Dean said. “The governor says the chaplains can participate after school. At least one group responded quickly to his call: the Satanic Temple. They have an After School Satan program.”

“What are they going to do with the little devils? Sacrifice a goat?” Norah asked.

“According to reports, the After School Satan Club’s activities include games, solving puzzles and promoting critical thinking. Also, the Satanists say they do not promote a ‘belief in a personal Satan.’”

“Hah! They never had class with my geometry teacher,” Norah said. “What did the governor say about the Satanists’ offer?” I took a long drink of coffee.

“His communications director said, ‘HELL, NO.’”

I nearly snorted coffee out my nose. “Warn me when you do that again.” I was nearly choking with laughter.

Dean waited until I set down my coffee cup. “The governor has said repeatedly that the Satanists are not a religion. However, the Satanists say they are recognized by the IRS.” Dean took a sip of his cooling coffee.

“The Devil knows his own,” I said.

 

          “Sex and Death on the Beach,” my new Florida Beach mystery, will be published June 3 as a hardcover and an ebook. You can preorder copies from your local bookstore, as well as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other outlets. Thriftbooks.com has the best price for the hardcover right now: https://tinyurl.com/yz32f8c7

 

Writers Beware: Here’s what readers really hate

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By Elaine Viets

Don and I are moving, and our condo is chaos. I’ve reposted a favorite blog about what readers dislike. Are these your pet peeves? Would they keep you from buying or recommending a book?

Does the novel you’re writing have a long dream sequence? And it’s in italics, to enhance the ethereal effect? How about sizzling sex scenes? And, for comic relief, a talking cat who solves crimes and a wisecracking kid who’s five going on forty?
Uh, you may want to rethink that work in progress.
Ron Charles, the Washington Post book critic, “asked readers of our Book Club newsletter to describe the things that most annoy them in books. The responses were a tsunami of bile.”
Here are some things that Ron salvaged from the tsunami.

(1) Readers hate dream sequences.
Yes, I know dream sequences are a staple of literature. In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov has guilty dreams, including one about a whipped mare. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the Boy Who Lived is deceived by thoughts implanted by a bad guy. Winston in 1984 worries his dreams will get him in trouble with the Thought Police. A Christmas Carol is a long life-changing dream. And then there’s Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
So why should we be wary of dream sequences?
Raging readers told Ron Charles this:
“‘I absolutely hate dream sequences,’ writes Michael Ream. ‘They are always SO LITERAL,’ Jennifer Gaffney adds, ‘usually an example of lazy writing.’”
Aha! So readers hate lazy writing and literal dream sequences. Writing coaches caution writers to avoid cheap tricks, especially the old “and then I woke up” dodge. They say you can use dream sequences if the dreams are premonitions, illustrate an important inner conflict, or help a protagonist realize something major. In short, the dreams must advance the plot. So craft your dream sequences carefully.

(2) Readers hate historical anachronisms and factual inaccuracies.
The Washington Post says, “Karen Viglione Lauterwasser despairs over errors ‘like calling the divisions in a hockey game “quarters” or having a pentagon-shaped table with six chairs.’ Deborah Gravel warns authors that taking a cruise to Alaska is not enough to write a novel about the Last Frontier. Kristi Hart explains that when your characters are boiling maple sap to make syrup, they should not be stirring it. ‘You just boil it until the sugar content is correct, and then you’re done.’”
My pet peeve includes the treatment of black people in historical novels in the first half of the Twentieth Century. With some exceptions, until the late 1950s or 1960s, black people were not allowed to eat in most white restaurants or sit at lunch counters with whites. Nor could they stay at white hotels, go to white schools, use white toilets, or even drink out of white people’s water fountains.
In 1968, I encountered my first segregated water fountain, on a trip through Mississippi. In the local courthouse, the white people drank chilled water from a modern metal fountain. Black people had to drink warm water from a dinky white porcelain fountain. At a Catholic church in the same state, my family arrived late for the service, so we sat in the back. An usher told us that section was for black people (actually, he said “Negroes”) and we had to move.
Encountering this segregation was shocking, but it existed, and to deny it in novels is to deny the shame, hurt and humiliation black people suffered – and still do.
(3) Readers hate typos and grammatical errors.
This is also bugaboo for TKZ readers and writers, and we’ve written often about how to catch typos, while understanding those slippery little devils slip into the best books. But typos seem to be getting worse, especially since traditional publishers are cutting back on copy editors and some indie authors don’t hire them.
The Washington Post noted: “Patricia Tannian, a retired copy editor, writes, ‘It seems that few authors can spell “minuscule” or know the difference between ‘flout’ and ‘flaunt.’ Katherine A. Powers, Book World’s audiobook reviewer, laments that so many ‘authors don’t know the difference between “lie” and “lay.’” TKZ’s Terry Odell wrote a helpful blog on that subject. Read it and sin no more. https://killzoneblog.com/2023/03/are-you-lying-or-laying-around.html

Personally, I wish writers would know the difference between grizzly and grisly murders. While it’s true the Cocaine Bear and some bears in the wild do kill humans, in most mysteries humans performing those grisly murders.
And please realize that the South American country is spelled Colombia, not Columbia. There’s more, but it’s not a good idea to get me started.
“While we’re at it,” the Washington Post wrote, “let’s avoid ‘bemused.’ Bemused ‘doesn’t mean what you think it means,’ says Paula Willey.”
And please, please learn how to use “chute,” as in where you toss your dirty clothes. I’ve seen major writers call it a “laundry shoot,” which can put holes in clothes.

(4) Readers hate bloated books.
According to the Washington Post, “Jean Murray says, ‘First books by best-selling authors are reasonable in length; then they start believing that every word they write is golden and shouldn’t be cut.’ She notes that Elizabeth George’s first novel, A Great Deliverance, was 432 pages. Her most recent, Something to Hide, is more than 700.
“But it’s not just the books that are too long,” the WashPo says. “Everything in them is too long, too. Readers complained about interminable prologues, introductions, expositions, chapters, explanations, descriptions, paragraphs, sentences, conversations, sex scenes, fistfights and italicized passages.”
(5) Readers hate long italicized passages.
“‘Long passages in italics drive me nuts,’ Susan Spénard told the Washington Post.
“‘Cormac McCarthy does entire chapters in italics,’ adds Nathan Pate. ‘Only the rest of his writing redeems that.’”
(6) Readers hate when writers don’t use quote marks.
“‘Sometimes you have to reread a passage to determine who is speaking,’ one reader said.
Quick now, a few more complaints:
(7) Readers hate “gratuitously confusing timelines.”
“‘Everything doesn’t have to be a linear timeline,’ concedes Kate Stevens, ‘but often authors seem to employ a structure that makes the book unreadable (or at least very difficult to follow). There seems to be no reason why this is done other than to show off how clever they are.’”
(8) Readers hate two kinds of show-offs.


“Unrealistically clever children or talking animals . . . are deeply irksome in novels — along with disabled characters who exist only to provide treacly inspiration.”
Some cozy readers adore talking animals who solve crimes, so this objection doesn’t apply to everyone.
(9) A few more things readers hate, according the Washington Post:
– “Susan C. Falbo is tired of ‘protagonists who have had a hard day, finally stagger home and take a scalding hot shower.’” My protagonists sometimes do that, so I guess the key here is to not overdo it.

– “Connie Ogle and Susan Dee have had it with ‘lip biting.’ Ogle explains, ‘If real people bit their lips with the frightening regularity of fictional characters, our mouths would be a bloody mess.’
– “Gianna LaMorte is tired of seeing ‘someone escape a small town and rent a large house, get a job at a local paper or make a living gardening.’” The person who flees to a small town and makes a living writing for a newspaper gets my goat. Especially if they have their own office and come and go as they please. Small town newspapers barely pay enough to keep reporters in cat food. And editors want to know where they can reach you at all times.

And I’m with Tobin Anderson, who wrote, “Vomiting is the new crying. I think it’s part of the whole hyper-valuation of trauma — and somehow tears seem too weak, too mundane. But imagine a funeral filled with upchuckers.” I’m seeing a lot of barfing on TV these days, and watching folks toss their cookies while I’m eating in front of the tube makes me want to . . . well, you get the point.
So, TKZ readers, what are your pet peeves?

Let Us Prey

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By Elaine Viets

For nearly a year I’ve been fighting a series of computer scams. Let me tell you what I learned. The hard way.

The problem started last spring when I found an extra $120 from Instacart in my bank account. I contacted Insta and was told I needed to call a special number for seniors.

I did. The person on the phone assured me the extra money would be taken back. I left for a trip to St. Louis.

A day later, about four in the afternoon, I got a frantic call from a young man with a cornpone accent who said he was in California. The poor country boy said he’d made a terrible mistake and “accidentally” put $1,200 in my account. Now he was going to be fired. Could I please go to the nearest Western Union and wire him the money? Please, please, please?

No. I had to give a speech.

I hung up. Cornpone called back. He begged. He pleaded. He did everything but break down in tears. “Please ma’am, I’ll lose my job. This money will come out of my paycheck. I’ll go broke. Please wire me the money.”

No. I hung up again.

This time Cornpone called back and said, “OK, if you can’t wire the money, could you write a check and mail it?” He gave me the name of a woman in South Carolina, all the way across the country from California.

Wait a minute? I said. Why do you want this mailed to a woman in South Carolina? Why not send it to Instacart?

“She’s my supervisor,” he said.

Nope. Something didn’t smell right. I closed my bank card and the account.

When I got home, the money in my compromised account was transferred to my new account. Including the $1,200. I also filed a police report. I didn’t expect the police to haul Cornpone and his pals off in handcuffs.

I’ve had at least three suspicious incidents since then, for purchases I couldn’t possibly have made. Each time I’ve closed my bank card. The most recent attack this Saturday was more serious. I got this text in all caps: DID YOU ATTEMPT PURCHASE TARGET $789.88 ORLANDO. Y(YES) N (NO). CASE #818992 TO OPT OUT REPLY.

Orlando? I live 220 miles away in south Florida.

Before I could reply, I got a phone call from a young man with an instantly forgettable name. I think his last name was Johnson. He asked if I’d made the Target purchase.

“On my BigBucks bank card? No,” I said.

He said he would instantly close the card. Fine. He then asked me to call up my account and confirm my recent purchases, which I did. The latest was from a gas station. I also told him the amount in my checking and savings accounts.

He said this was “a very serious case of fraud” and he needed the physical card. He gave me an address that was the headquarters of BigBucks Bank and asked me to take the card to FedEx. I said no.

He said he’d send a Lyft driver in a red Prius to pick up the card and take it to FedEx. The helpful Mr. Johnson stayed on the line while I waited outside my condo building and handed the card to the Lyft driver.

I thanked Mr. Johnson for alerting me to the fraud. He warned me not to buy gas from a pump. “That’s probably how they got your bank card number.” He hung up.

In the elevator on the way upstairs, I wondered why BigBucks needed the physical card. Didn’t it have all that information in the computer?

At about the 12th floor, I realized I’d been had. I ran to my condo, locked my bank card and all my accounts. I ignored the latest text from Mr. Johnson, which said, “Alert. Your new Temporary User name is BigBucks41946. Reply with old Username to deactivate.”

 

No, thanks. I called my bank’s fraud division. They confirmed what I suspected. Fraud.

What were the clues?

Check out that text again: DID YOU ATTEMPT PURCHASE TARGET $789.88 ORLANDO. Y(YES) N (NO). CASE #818992 TO OPT OUT REPLY.

Notice what’s missing? The bank’s name. Which I helpfully provided.

It took two days to get a new bank card and bank account. I also made a police report and alerted condo security.  That so-called “Lyft” driver was in on it, too. He didn’t have a sign on his car. Thanks to security, we now have video of that red Prius.

Again, I don’t expect the scammers to get caught.

But all they got was my time. No money.

And scammers don’t always win. After all, I got to keep that $1,200.

Where did the scammers get that kind of cash? The bank said they have a sort of revolving scam fund – when they get the money from one scam, they use part of it for the next scam.

I’m not the only one who nicked them. One banker said a Latino woman went through the same thing. She found an unexpected windfall in her account from a company. The scammers wanted their money back. Something didn’t seem right to her. The woman got scared and went to her bank.

The bank closed her account ASAP. The scammers cruelly threatened the woman, telling her they’d report her to immigration.

The bank said, “Sorry, the account’s closed.”

She kept the money.

Preorder “Sex and Death on the Beach,” my new Florida beach mystery. Get the low price at Thrift Books. https://www.thriftbooks.com/browse/?b.search=sex%20and%20death%20on%20the%20beach%20by%20viets#b.s=mostPopular-desc&b.p=1&b.pp=50&b.oos&b.tile

Murdering English

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By Elaine Viets

          What the heck?

Lately, reading has been a painful experience. Especially online. One story after another has some outrage against the language. I wanted to rant like a pedant and point out each mistake, but I showed some self-restraint. After all, pedantry is still outlawed in most southern states.

Instead, I put these errors into a short story. There are at last 30 mistakes in the story. See if you can spot them all.

A Horrifying Tail of Murder and Mutilation

The Corliss boys, Billy and Justin, created a rein of terror in the town of Blister Bend. The thugs would exorcise their ferocious Dobermans in the town square. The snarling dogs were all teeth and mussel. The very site made mothers grab they’re children to protect there tots.

Sherriff  Sam Wich said, “The Corlis’s are the most callus outlaws in the county. No regard for anyone’s feelings.”

Deputy D. Awg said, “Billy tried to bribe me when he didn’t break at the red light on Main. Pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and waived it in my face. I said I wasn’t for sail.”

“Billy keeps a loaded weapon on his mantle,” Sheriff  Sam said.  “What I wouldn’t give to test that. I bet its connected to at least three grizzly murders.”

“Ever thought about going to the staties?” the deputy asked.

The sherrif glared at him. “What good would that do? I should complain to the state troupers? About Billy Corlis? Whose been paying off the Colonial for years? Are you trying to get me killed?”

“Uh, no, sir. I forgot.” The deputy gave him a rueful smile. “I’m sure one of the Corlises will slip up and we’ll catch them.”

Sheriff Sam snorted. But Deputy D. Awg showed real forsight. Less than a week later, he suprised Billy and Justin burying a body at a construction sight on the edge of town. The deputy got the drop on the killers, and handcuffed them both.

Turned out the decreased was the town butcher.

Sherriff Sam arrived on the seen and staired sadly at the dead meet man. “Its a gristly end  for a good man,” he said.

Then he growled at the cuffed killers. “But those two . . . Now their an arresting site.”

“Why, Sheriff,” the deputy said. “I had no idea you were homophonic.”

A Horrifying Tail of Murder and Mutilation: The Reveal

The Corliss boys, Billy and Justin, created a rein of terror in the town of Blister Bend. The thugs would exorcise their ferocious Dobermans in the town square. The snarling dogs were all teeth and mussel. The very site made mothers grab they’re children to protect there tots.

Sherriff  Sam Wich said, “The Corlis’s are the most callus outlaws in the county. No regard for anyone’s feelings.”

Deputy D. Awg said, “Billy tried to bribe me when he didn’t break at the red light on Main. Pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and waived it in my face. I said I wasn’t for sail.”

“Billy keeps a loaded weapon on his mantle,” Sheriff  Sam said.  “What I wouldn’t give to test that. I bet its connected to at least three grizzly murders.”

“Ever thought about going to the staties?” the deputy asked.

The sherrif glared at him. “What good would that do? I should complain to the state troupers? About Billy Corliss? Whose been paying off the Colonial for years? Are you trying to get me killed?”

“Uh, no, sir.” The deputy gave him a rueful smile. “I’m sure one of the Corlises will slip and we’ll catch them.”

Sheriff Sam snorted. But Deputy D. Awg showed real forsight. Less than a week later, he suprised Billy and Justin burying a body at a construction sight on the edge of town. The deputy got the drop on the killers, and handcuffed them both.

Turned out the decreased was the town butcher.

Sherriff Sam arrived on the seen and staired sadly at the dead meet man. “Its a gristly end for a good man,” he said.

Then he growled at the cuffed killers. “But those two . . . Now their an arresting site.”

“Jeez, Sheriff,” the deputy said. “I had no idea you were homophonic.”

***

As you probably guessed, most of these mistakes are homophones, words that sound alike but are spelled differently. These words have tripped up many unwary writers:

tail/tale

exorcise/exercise

rein/reign/rain

mussel/muscle

callous/callus

break/brake

sight/site

seen/scene

waive/wave

sale/sail

mantle/mantel

troopers/troupers

grizzly/gristly, and grisly

stair/stare

meet/meat

whose/who’s

Misusing it’s for its drives me crazy, (and that’s a short drive). My teachers pounded this helpful hint into my head: “It’s” is a contraction of “it is.” Replace “its” with “it is” and if the sentence makes sense: “It is a gristly end . . .” you’re using it correctly.

Ditto for whose/who’s. Whose is a possessive adjective, as in “Whose book is that?” It also identifies someone or something: “I haven’t seen my ex-boyfriend, whose name I forget, in years.”

Who’s is a contraction of “who has” or “who is,” as in “Who’s a good boy?”

If you’re not sure, replace “who’s” with “who is” and see if it works.

As for the grisly business of grizzly, gristly, and grisly: Innocent grizzly bears and gristly, tough T-bones are being accused of grisly murders.

Misspellings include forsight, colonial for colonel, decreased and surprise. I worked for a newspaper that printed an expensive color Sunday magazine. The printed magazines were delivered early in the week.

On the color cover was a huge one-word headline: “Suprise!”

“Sheriff” confuses me so badly, I have to write down the correct version on a Post-it note to get it right.

“Sheriff” with one R and two Fs is the correct spelling for a law enforcement officer.

The double-barreled “Sherriff”  (two Rs and two Fs) is an English author, screenwriter and playwright, R.C. Sherriff, best known for “Journey’s End,” based on his World War I experience.

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Last, but not least, are the perilous possessives for a name ending is S.

TKZer P J Parrish has warned us to avoid using names that end in S, but sometimes we can’t help it.

I had the evil Corliss boys. This line: The Corlis’s are the most callus outlaws . . .” should not have any apostrophe.

What if you want to say something belongs to the Corlisses? That’s depends on what style you or your publisher uses: Mine prefer Corliss’s. Others use Corliss’.

Both are correct.

Enjoy these tips to become better writers. Or is it righters?

My new Florida Beach mystery is due out in June. Preorder Sex and Death on the Beach here: bit.ly/3W6Y2Rp

Starting a New Series: 5 Questions

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By Elaine Viets

Last year, I started a new mystery series. It’s been a long road to publication, including five rewrites.

My editor liked my Angela Richman, death investigator series. But I longed to write another series set in south Florida.

Here’s the new cover.

 

In Sex and Death on the Beach, Norah McCarthy owns the Florodora apartments. Plumbers repairing the pool discover the body of porn star Sammie Lant, notorious for having sex on the beach with a college football star. When more bones are uncovered, Norah is shocked to her core.

When I start a new series, I have to answer five questions: who, what, where, when and why.

Who is my main character? She’s Norah McCarthy, age 41. Norah owns the most exclusive apartment building in Peerless Point, Florida. The Florodora is more than a hundred years old, the first apartment building in this south Florida beach town between Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

You don’t need money or social status to rent an apartment at the Florodora. You must be a member of a more exclusive group. You have to be a genuine Florida Man or Woman. You’ve seen the headlines: “Florida Man Busted with Meth, Guns and Baby Gator in Truck.” Or: “Florida Woman Bathes in Mountain Dew in Attempt to Erase DNA after Committing Murder.”

Yes, those are real headlines.

Norah is descended from an early Florida Woman, her grandmother, Eleanor Harriman.

Grandma always had a soft spot for scapegraces, since she was one herself. She was a Florodora Girl, a superstar chorus girl a century ago. Grandma was in the 1920 Broadway production of Florodora, before she eloped with handsome Johnny Harriman, a millionaire, back when a million was real money. She was married at sixteen and madly in love.

When Norah was old enough, Grandma told her about poor Johnny’s accidental death, which involved a champagne bottle and a chandelier.

“I loved that man,” Grandma said. “I’m glad he died happy.”

Johnny’s death made Grandma a rich widow at seventeen. She moved to south Florida and built an apartment building right on the ocean in 1923, on a narrow barrier island.

What am I writing? A funny cozy mystery.

You’d be surprised how many mystery authors aren’t sure if they’re writing a cozy, a thriller, or a traditional mystery. Answering this question will set the tone and pace for your novel.

Where is it set? This Florida Beach series is set in mythical Peerless Park, a beach town between Fort Lauderdale and Miami, which has much in common with Hollywood, Florida, where I currently live.

When is it set? Right now in the present day, with occasional trips back in time when Norah’s grandmother was still alive.

Why write a new series?

Let me tell you about my latest walk on Hollywood beach, near my home. I was on the Broadwalk. That’s  not a typo, that’s what the city calls the wide walkway of pink pavers along the beach.

It was close to sunset on a sparkling bright day. The light was soft, the air was brisk, and the sky was smeared shades of flamingo pink and purple.

Against this colorful background, I heard German, English and Spanish. I saw a smiling shirtless man wearing earbuds dance the mambo on the Broadwalk. He followed the steps perfectly: Step. Pause. Other foot. Pause. And repeat.

Right after the mambo dancer, another man was loading a stunning macaw with long indigo tailfeathers into his van. A third man was rocking gently in a rainbow-colored hammock.

And last, but not least, four people were setting up for a beach wedding, assembling a five-feet tall rose petal heart as the backdrop for the couple’s seaside ceremony.

I wanted to write about Florida’s life and color. That’s how my Florida Beach series was born. Yes, I know there’s much to dislike about Florida, from the humidity to the hurricanes and more. Look at any news site, and you’ll find at least one story proving some residents of the Sunshine State are a little dim.

But Florida has its own brand of wackiness that appeals to someone with a slightly skewed sense of humor.

Like me.

Preorder your copy of Sex and Death on the Beach here: bit.ly/3W6Y2Rp

 

The Write Stuff: Holiday gifts for writers and readers

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by Elaine Viets

Stumped what to give your favorite writer or reader for the holidays? Here are a few suggestions, gathered from the four corners of the internet.

Sherlock’s Study Candle. What better way to write your historical novel – or read the adventures of the Master, than with a Sherlock’s Study Candle, scented with cherrywood, tobacco and rain. Fortunately, this soy candle does not have those less romantic scents of horse sweat and the Thames at low tide. Etsy. $9+ etsy.me/4ioTSxP

Book Nook Reading Valet. Park your book on the wooden triangle and  hide your cell phone under it. There’s room for your specs and a wineglass or mug. $50 Uncommon Originals. bit.ly/3ZOV32m

Always Check Behind the Shower Curtain. Hang this in your guest bath and I guarantee they won’t use all the hot water. For mystery writers and true crime lovers. $58. Etsy, etsy.me/3Dc98xM

The James Bond Vesper Martini Cocktail Shaker. For your favorite Bondophile, this stainless steel shaker has Bond’s Vesper Martini recipe from Casino Royale on one side:  “A measure of Gordons, 1 of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet, shake it over ice. Then add a thin slice of lemon peel.” The 007 logo is on the other side. It’s $39 at the 007 Store. The store has other Bond-themed gifts including Turnbull & Asser silk ties and pocket squares. https://bit.ly/3ZzonbP

Books! Book lovers never have enough books. Give one of your latest mysteries. Or if the person has them all, give them an author you admire. Better yet, give them a gift card to a bookstore.

 

Blind date with a book. Here’s a Goodreads-Rated Blind Date with a Book Gift Set. The set has a book in your favorite genre, and ways to enjoy this good read, including popcorn, a magnifier, a bookmark, tea, cocoa. Etsy. $13.49+ bit.ly/41pn0ik

Subscription box  for a blind date with a book. Give a three-, six- or twelve-month subscription. Each book bundle arrives at once, stuffed with books, bookmarks, stickers and drinks – coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. Just choose the genre. Etsy. Subscriptions start at $49. bit.ly/3ZLErIy

Whimsical cat with glasses handmade wrist rest. Purrfect for any cat lover. $28.95  bit.ly/3OQreYJ

Happy holidays, TKZers. I’ll see you next year.

Solving the Mystery of TOD

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By Elaine Viets

 Bowls of melting ice cream once helped solve a brutal murder. An entire family – father, mother and two small children – were shot to death at their dinner table. The neighbors heard a commotion and called the police.

When the police arrived, a death investigator determined that the family had finished their main meal, and the mother was dishing out ice cream when the family was shot.

The death investigator photographed the ice cream, and measured how far it had melted in the bowl. Then she bought the same brand of ice cream and timed how long it took for the ice cream to melt in the same type of bowl.

That gave the police a vital clue to the estimated time of death (TOD).

Estimated is the crucial word. It’s nearly impossible to determine the actual time of death, unless the person dies at a hospital or in front of witnesses.

I heard this story about the ice cream when I took the MedicoLegal Death Investigators Training Course, given by St. Louis University’s School of Medicine. I’m not a death investigator, but the course was helpful.

When you write your mystery, you don’t want your pathologist to check out a body just found in a field and announce, “The time of death was at seven-fifteen.”

The pathologist doesn’t know that.  There’s no way they can know for sure. There are too many variables, including these three:

Rigor mortis. A body stiffens, starting about two hours after death. Around 24 hours later, the rigidity starts to disappear.

Algor mortis. The dead body’s temperature decreases until it reaches room temperature.

Livor mortis. When the heart stops pumping, the blood settles and the skin turns dark. One way police can tell if a body has been moved is if it’s found face up, but there’s dark purple livor mortis on the chest.

Humidity, what the dead person is wearing, and the temperature are a few of the things that can affect the time of death.

Let’s say your victim is shot in their home. If it’s summer and the killer turns down the air conditioner, that can slow down the processes. In the winter, turning the furnace on high can speed things up.

Time of death calculators can help mystery writers estimate TOD. Here’s one: https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/time-of-death

If your novel has a person found dead in their home, here are some clues your investigator can use to determine their time of death:

Has the mail been taken in?

Are the curtains open or closed?

Are the lights on or off? In which rooms? This clue is less helpful now that some homes have door-activated lights that turn on automatically when the room door is opened.

Is anything cooking on the stove or in the oven?

What about the food in the fridge: Has the milk soured, the produce wilted, or the meat spoiled?

Are any food items on the counter? Butter? Ice cream? Is it melted? Is the bread moldy?

Can you still smell food cooking on the stove?

 

Pathologists will tell you that TOD is an art and a science. TOD is also German for “death,” but that’s another story.

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Book Lovers Special: MURDER BETWEEN THE COVERS, my Dead-End Job mystery set at Page Turners bookstore is 99 cents all month. https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Between-Covers-Dead-End-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0D2R9NZ77

Words, Words, Words

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By Elaine Viets 

As I write this, Hurricane Milton is barreling, charging, barging, and otherwise on its way to wreak havoc on Florida.

The hurricane is supposed to go up the state’s west coast, but hurricanes are unreliable. Their paths can shift any moment.

Don and I live in a condo on Florida’s east coast near Miami, where the state is only 110 miles wide. We’re supposed to just get sideswiped by Milton.

Right now, a tornado is twisting down Alligator Alley, the main road across the southern part of the state. The tornado is currently 16 miles from my house. We’re also under a tropical storm warning and a flood warning.

The wind is gusting outside, and condo residents have been warned not to walk across the pool deck that joins our two buildings. At least one resident was knocked over by the wind.

And we aren’t even in the hurricane’s direct path. We weren’t ordered to evacuate.

Since there’s a chance we can lose internet service or electricity on Thursday, I’m writing a blog that you can jump in and add your comments. Recently TKZ’s Deb Gorman invited us to pet our peeves here: bit.ly/3U0gFoQ

I’d like to continue that thread with some of my favorite – and not so favorite – new words and phrases. Here goes:

Weather event:  Webster says an event is “something that happens.” Or, “a noteworthy happening.  A social occasion or activity. An adverse or damaging medical occurrence, for example, a heart attack or other cardiac event.”

          So yes, a tropical storm, a flood, and a freaking hurricane are definitely “something that happens.” But they’re not an event. Nobody wants to attend these events. Not when innocent people are killed. So call these disasters out by their proper names.

I was today years old: This translates as “I just realized.” Some of these observations are fun to read, like this one from Jay on X: “I was today years old when I found out California has a bigger population than Canada.”

But jeez Louise, that’s a clumsy phrase. Let it fade away soon.

“Clean” as a noun. Clean is creeping into commercials as a noun. Hucksters for various kinds of soaps tell us their product is “the best clean for my family.” Or the “best clean for my clothes.”

Stop this abuse. You’ve gone clean out of your mind.

Doomscrolling. Now that’s a new word I can embrace. It means “continually scrolling through and reading depressing or worrying content on a social media or news site, especially on a phone.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m doing a lot of doomscrolling right now. About the election, and the hurricane.

Which brings me back to the beginning of this blog. The hurricane that’s about to devastate Florida Wednesday night. If you want to help people, please check out the link below.

Meanwhile, wish me luck, and all the people in Milton’s path.

And tell me some of your words and phrases.

How can you help people hit by the hurricane? Here are some reliable organizations recommended by ABC News. bit.ly/3zVUvNR

Confessions of a Book Reviewer

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I’m rushing to finish the rewrite of my new novel.  Will the reviewers like it? Here’s a repeat of an interview with a reviewer.

Confessions of a Book Reviewer

By Elaine Viets

A reviewer for a major print magazine complained to me about a novel he was reading, when it dawned on me – this was news writers could use. If we know what’s wrong, we can fix it before the reviewer writes about it, for all the (mystery) world to read.
This reviewer is not some crank who looks for excuses to rip writers. If he has to give a book a bad review, he agonizes over that decision.
But here are some writing wrongs that upset this reviewer.

(1) Padded Middles. This is my reviewer’s number one problem – novels that slow down in the middle. “The padding doesn’t advance the narrative,” the reviewer said. “It’s pages and pages of the thoughts and feelings of people who aren’t very interesting. They offer no valuable insights. Sometimes, I wonder if editors make writers add this unnecessary information because big books are so popular. Most books I’ve read recently are 20 to 30 pages too long. Often, there’s a good book buried in that excess fat.”

(2) Switching names. “The character is introduced as Joseph Smith. Then the author proceeds to call him Joe, Joey, Joseph, and sometimes just Smith. It’s hard to figure out who the writer is talking about.”

(3) Who’s talking? “A character is introduced in the first 50 pages, and then shows up 200 pages later with no ID.” Take tax accountant Mary Rogers. She has a brief scene in Chapter 2 and then in Chapter 25 we see this line: “I think the suspect embezzled half a million dollars,” said Mary Rogers.
Huh? Our reviewer said, “I’m frantically pawing through the book, trying to figure out who Mary Rogers is and why she’s saying that.

“It would help if the author gave us a hint who Mary was. Something like this:

‘I think the suspect embezzled half a million dollars,’ said tax accountant Mary Rogers.’ That two-word take makes it easier for readers.”

(4) Writers who fixate on a certain word. “Like ass. I read an author who used ‘ass’ constantly. His character fell on his ass, showed his ass, got his ass kicked and had his ass handed to him. He dealt with asshats, ass clowns and of course, assholes.”

Cuss words are necessary for realism, but don’t overdo it.

(5) Dumb and proud of it. “Writers who want to assert their real-people identities trot out lowbrow snobbery. Their favorite phrase is ‘I don’t know anything about . . .’ Then you can choose one or more of these – opera, classical music, gourmet food, Shakespeare.”

Assume your readers are intelligent – after all, they bought your book.

(6) The hero with the drinking problem. He – or sometimes she – “is haunted by the awful things they did when they were on the sauce. Yes, people drink. And some authors handle this well. But most of these characters are tiresome cliches.” Reading these novels is like getting your ear bent by the garrulous drunk at the end of the bar.

(7) Writers who don’t do their research. If you really want to frost this reviewer, have your hero open a Heineken with a twist-off cap – there’s no such animal. And Jack Daniel’s whiskey always has an apostrophe.

If you’re writing a thriller set in Nazi Germany, you’ll score extra points with this reviewer if you don’t say “Hitler was elected president in a democratic election.” You’ll find plenty of people who’ll write that, but the Website Mythfact.com says it’s complicated.
“In America we hear ‘Hitler was elected President in a Democracy’ a lot,” the website says, “but the sentence is so semantically wrong . . . In summary, the whole thing is almost too complex to apply the ol’ ‘Hitler was elected democratically’ quip to, but since it is important, perhaps it is best phrased as, ‘Hitler and the NAZI party seized power in a democratic system.’”
Got that? Good.

(8) Basic copyediting errors. “These are turning up in books by major authors,” our reviewer said. “I’ve seen ‘grizzly murders,’ when I’m quite sure the local bears are innocent. Clothes are tossed down a ‘laundry shoot,’ and people ‘tow the line.’” If you really want to see steam come out of this reviewer’s ears, mix up “it’s” with “its” and “your” with “you’re.” Granted, we all make mistakes, especially when we’re writing quickly. But somebody should catch those errors before the book is printed.

(9) TMI in the first chapter. Nearly every one of us at TKZ has written about this problem. Overcrowded first chapters slow the pace of your novel. Our reviewer said, “It stops a good book dead when the first chapter has an overlarge cast of characters and I can’t keep them straight.”

Reader, what stops you when you’re reading a novel?

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Enjoy A Scarlet Death, my new Angela Richman mystery. The hardcover is $4 off here: https://tinyurl.com/mts557z5