I was delighted when author friend, Sam Wiebe, announced his latest Dave Wakeland thriller, Hell and Gone, the third in the series about the introspective Vancouver private investigator (Harbour Publishing).
The first two Wakeland books were stand-outs: Invisible Deadwas a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award and Cut You Down was short-listed for both the Hammett and Shamus awards. But Hell and Gone is the best Wakeland novel yet!
The book opens with a harrowing robbery and shoot-out, one of the most gripping action sequences I’ve read in recent memory. Wakeland witnesses the crime, tries unsuccessfully to help the victims and struggles with PTSD as a result. He’s determined to bring down the perpetrators, but this puts him in conflict with his business partner, Jeff Chen.
Hell and Gone focuses on Jeff, who up till now was more Wakeland’s foil: the moral, stable, non-violent half of the partnership. Sam delves into the intricate historical ties to crime in Vancouver’s Chinese community and the traps that can befall the modern generation of business owners like Jeff. His portrayal of Wakeland’s PTSD is especially believable.
The plot offers enough twists and betrayals to rival Dashiell Hammett himself. (Sorry no spoilers!) You’ll stay up all night to get to the last page.
And for emerging writers, I highly recommend Sam’s online Mystery Writing Mastery courses. The 14 beginner’s lessons are free.
Do join me and my fellow crime writers for the Zoom launch of Carrick Publishing’s new crime fiction anthology, A Grave Diagnosis. This collection of tales of murder and malaise appropriately launches on Halloween!!
AND a special Halloween treat – here’s our video on YouTube! Thank you, editor and publisher, Donna Carrick!
Sara Carrick, book cover artist extraordinaire, worked her magic for the upcoming anthology, A Grave Diagnosis. All 35 authors voted and overwhelmingly this amazing cover was the favorite. Here it is!
The launch date this fall will be announced shortly!
Last year I had the best time at the wonderful multi-genre festival, WHEN WORDS COLLIDE! in Calgary, Alberta. I was part of a crime fiction panel and learned about coz-play and writing children’s books.
I also had the privilege of reading at Noir at the Bar and getting to know the great authors and editors behind Coffin Hop Press, the publishers of The Dame Was Trouble.
Visiting Calgary also became a sentimental journey. My childhood can best be described as unsettled. Five of my early years were in Calgary – where we lived in three different houses.
Strangely enough my memory of Calgary as a patchwork of disparate cityscapes proved to be accurate. And one of my old homes still exists! There I had a magical conversation with the current owner. (Stand by for a Surreal Trapdoor blog.)
Because more importantly, WHEN WORDS COLLIDE 2020, will be on Zoom this week, from August 14 to 16th.
Best of all registration is FREE!! Register here. THE PROGRAM AND LINKS IS NOW UP!!
I’m delighted to one of the TEN Mesdames of Mayhem who are on the conference. panels.
We Mesdames have our very own panel, Meet the Mesdames of Mayhem, Saturday, August 15th, 4pm (Toronto time), 2 pm (Mountain time). (Donna Carrick, Rosemary McCracken, Madona Skaff, M. H. Callway moderating.)
Donna CarrickRosemary McCrackenMadonna Skaff
We’re also out in force for The Long and Short of Crime,Saturday August 15th, 2 pm (TT), 12 noon (MT). (Jane Burfield, Rosemary McCracken, Lynne Murphy, Caro Soles, M. H. Callway moderating.)
Jane BurfieldLynne MurphyCaro Soles
Be sure to check out friends and authors Jayne Bernard, Melodie Campbell and Lisa De Nikolits.
Jayne BernardLisa De NikolitsMelodie Campbell
Jayne Bernard, Melodie Campbell Plot vs Character, Crime Fiction’s Eternal Grudge Match, Friday, August 11th 3pm (TT), 1pm(MT)
Lisa De Nikolits, Caro Soles, Can the Crossover Fit the Crime? Saturday, August 15th, 12 noon (TT), 10 am (MT)
Jayne Bernard, The Heroine’s Journey, Sunday, August 16th, 1 pm (TT), 11am(MT) ; From the Mean Streets to the Deadly Wilderness, Sunday, August 16th, 3pm (TT), 1pm (MT); Diversity in Speculative Fiction, Sunday, August 16th, 5pm (TT), 3pm (MT)
Heather Babcock is an accomplished author of poetry and short fiction. She has read and performed at a gamut of live venues in Toronto. (Read more about Heather’s accomplishments here in Goodreads.)
I became friends with Heather through our mutual friend, Toronto Poet. Ed and I have enjoyed her readings at Lizzie Violet’s Cabaret Noir and The Redhead Revue. We all share a love of things retro, especially very bad sci-fi movies from the 1950s.
I was delighted when Heather Babcock’s debut novel, Filthy Sugar was published by Inanna Publications. This independent press focuses on literature by and about women and is also the publisher of two dear friends and authors, Lisa De Nikolits and Caro Soles.
Set in the depths of the Great Depression, Filthy Sugar describes the often tawdry adventures of 19 year old, Wanda Whittle, who uses her beauty and her sexuality to get out of poverty. She ends up cruelly exploited – as a burlesque dancer, a sex worker and even as a “redeemed woman” for a tabloid – because she trusts or falls for the wrong guy. But Wanda is a fighter and in a great twist at the end of the novel (no spoilers!), she takes back control of her own life and finds real love.
It’s a credit to Heather’s terrific skills as a writer that she can unsparingly portray the romantic traps and sad situations that Wanda falls prey to and yet embody the pages with such vitality, you can’t stop turning the pages.
Heather submerged herself in the history of 1930’s culture – even listening to 1930’s music while writing – and her passion for the period creates magic on the pages. (Each chapter is referenced for history buffs.) Here are just a couple of my favorite lines:
When the lights are dim and the cigarettes are lit, the dames look like ladies and the mugs look like gentlemen and nobody sees the blood on your shoes at the Bow Tie.
When the only things alive are the rats in the walls and the little vampires under my mattress, it’s high time to blow.
I especially love Heather’s portrayal of 1930’s street talk. Some of the phrases are historical (she includes a dictionary at the end of the book) but the best ones, she created herself. Here’s a sampling:
Slug burger – a poor person’s burger served on stale bread
Crepehanger – a cynic
Flock of salami – bullsh*t
Underwood banger – a reporter
Filthy sugar – dirty money
Underwood banger and best of all, filthy sugar are Heather’s own phrases. History is the loser!
My long story, “Brainworm”, is featured on Donna Carrick’s Story Stocking,Part One on July 22nd and Part Two on July 29th. “Brainworm” first appeared in the Mesdames of Mayhem’s latest anthology, In the Key of 13.
In the story, Fiona, a middle-aged woman worn down by looking after her difficult stepmother, has a near miss on the highway during a biting winter blizzard. The shock forces her to face the danger about to devour her.
Back LtoR: Rosemary McCracken, Jane Burfield, Lisa De Nikolits, Donna Carrick, Lynne Murphy, Melodie Campbell, Sylvia Warsh Foreground: Marilyn Kay, M. H. Callway
Greetings Readers and Happy New Decade!
In business school, I learned that my job-survivalist strategies in the bureaucracy had a name: NETWORKING. To push through the inertia of the Ministry, I had to call on my friends for help. And trade favours for favours.
It took years to build my network, to gain friends from shared job successes, catastrophes or bosses from hell. But business profs urged a more active approach: Get out there, meet more people, throw your business card to the winds, attack and build your NET.
So I did – and discovered that gold, when it landed, always came from an unexpected direction.
Me? In the movies? NO WAY! Unlike the Ellen Burstyn character in Requiem for a Dream the last thing in the universe I want is to be on TV. Radio is fine (and I had a fab time as Alison Dore’s guest on Sirius) but the shock seeing of myself as others see me – GACK!!
Cat and my dear friend and author extraordinaire, Lisa De Nikolits, connected right away. They invited me for coffee and I thought, why not? Coffee and company, what’s a better way to spend an hour NOT writing!
The hour turned into three hours of lively and thought-provoking discussion. And after I viewed Cat’s wonderful documentary, Biker Bob’s Posthumous Adventure, I knew I had to make the Mesdames film happen.
The first hurdle: money! Cat planned to approach the CBC. Oh, well, I thought. I have several friends and my own daughter, Claire Callway, is in the film biz: the chances of a film ever getting financed are really low. BUT CBC came through.
Over the next several months, Cat and crew filmed miles of footage, interviewing many Mmes individually, including myself. How would Cat distill all this material into a coherent 15-minute film?
We had a lot of fun, including a garden party at my house where the weather cooperated beautifully. The atmospheric picture above is from the footage shot at the wickedly macabre Darling Mansion decorated mostly like a Victorian bordello. Here are some pics: a visit is highly recommended.
TaxidermyFriend Jane in the “boudoir”Friend Lynne and a bear
In my former life as a management consultant, I grew comfortable with chaos. When you walk into a work place experiencing problems, you’re overwhelmed by the trees of a prickly forest: the client’s urgency, too much or too little of the right data, human emotions, office politics. Fortunately, I liked to dive right into the metaphorical shark pool and swim around until patterns emerged. And soon I’d hear a phrase that crystallized those patterns into a solution.
Ironically, for our film, the person who uttered the key phrase was me. Cat had asked me why I liked writing crime fiction. To me, I said, it’s spiritual comfort food. When I open a mystery novel, I know that no matter how horrific the crime, by the end of the story justice will be done. And we all know life isn’t really like that.
In Cat’s film, The Mesdames of Mayhem, she shows that early life traumas propelled us to create crime fiction. There we can serve up justice to those who so richly deserve it! Cat focused on four of my friends: Jane Burfield, Melodie Campbell, Donna Carrick and Lisa De Nikolits. I’m there, too, flitting in and out: I even get to show off our latest anthology, In the Key of 13.
Word was that Cat’s film would make you laugh – and make you cry. On October 25th, I opened up the YouTube link and watched The Mesdames of Mayhem alone in my studio. It was a brilliant, emotionally intense experience, the work of a gifted professional.
I laughed, I cried! And you will, too, dear readers. HERE IT IS:
Very excited to start 2018 with a new adventure. My friend, Donna Carrick of Carrick Publishing has launched a new podcast, Dead to Writes. I’m honoured to be one of the first authors featured on the podcast. I’ve been on radio once before on Sirius XM as a guest of Allison Dore.: a breathtakingly stressful adventure. We went overtime on our talk, which means all went well and Allison and her radio crew earned my undying admiration. Huge amount of work and prep goes into every minute of a radio interview.
Tonight, January 8th, my interview with Donna goes live followed by the audio version of my story, “Snake Oil”, from the Mesdames of Mayhem’s latest anthology, 13 Claws. Stand by for a thought-provoking discussion on crime fiction and writer’s craft.
Tune in via iTunes or Google Play. See you tonight!
I’ve been away in Iceland, a fascinating spot. Photos and fab street art soon in my next Wanderings.
2017 was a year of peaks and troughs, but two best-ever events really stand out. On a personal level, my husband and I are going to become grandparents. Holy Cycle of Life, Batman. Some days I feel like I’m in a time machine except I age along with the scenery. As my kid says: This Time Machine Sucks!
And 13 Claws, the Mesdames’ new anthology launched to great success. (Read all about the event here.)
Even better, the book received great reviews from Maureen Jennings, creator of the acclaimed Murdoch detective series and Jack Batten, mystery reviewer for the Toronto Star.
Warning: Blatant Self-Promotion!My story, “Snake Oil”, received a shout-out!
The gimmick in the third annual collection of crime stories from this group of Canadian woman writers is that an animal plays a role in each tale…But just because the contributors to the collection write out of an affection for animals doesn’t mean readers need similar feelings to appreciate the stories. There’s enough suspense and intellectual fascination built into the plots of the majority of stories to satisfy even the most ferociously cynophobic reader… And M. H. Callway’s tale mixes snakes and the real estate business in a way that will make readers run a mile from both.
And Maureen wrote:
A great mix of shuddery dark and tongue-in-cheek funny. What devious minds all these nice women have.
More blatant promotion: 13 Claws makes a great stocking stuffer. It’s available on Amazon and at my favorite bookstore, Sleuth of Baker Street.
Excited about the launch of the Mesdames of Mayhem’s third anthology, 13 Claws, which I believe is our best collection yet.
Many years ago, my friend and fellow author, Jane Burfield had the idea for an anthology that centred on animals: animals as heroes – or villains. In 2016, our publisher, Carrick Publishing, gave us the go-ahead and here we are, better late than never.
Jane is a champion of encouraging new writers. The Mesdames held a contest and three authors new to the crime fiction genre, Mary Patterson, Roz Place and Marilyn Kay, have stories in the book.
If you’re in the Toronto area, do join us at the launch. There will food, drink and readings. Come out and support our favorite bookstore, Sleuth of Baker Street.
I was delighted when author friend, Sam Wiebe, announced his latest Dave Wakeland thriller, Hell and Gone, the third in the series about the introspective Vancouver private investigator (Harbour Publishing). 
