An Unholy Alliance by Judy Nedry |

When you read a book, leave a review somewhere. Wouldn’t you like the same? –C. Hope Clark 

The sentiment above struck home for me because as a reader I do want to share the joy I find in reading with others. And while I talk to my friends and we share recommendations, it seldom goes any farther.

So today, gentle readers, meet Caroline Graham–a nice English lady a few years my senior. She is author of the DCI Barnaby series which just recently began airing on OPB Friday nights as “Midsomer Murders”.

Graham began writing mysteries at age 40, and wrote seven Barnaby books in all. I completed “The Ghost in the Machine” a couple nights ago and it has stayed with me. It takes Graham nearly 150 pages to finally get someone murdered, but the leadup is so completely entertaining it matters not.

Life in the English villages of fictional Midsomer County, as seen through Graham’s eyes, is anything but dull–rife with petty jealousies, sarcastic asides, sexual depravities, and most important, secrets. Lots and lots of secrets. By the time Barnaby arrives on the scene with his sidekick Sgt. Troy, he has considerable sorting out to do.

For the mystery reader, Graham is not to be missed. Her attention to detail, sense of place, character development, convoluted plot and subplots, and wicked sense of humor put her right up there with P.D. James and Elizabeth George.

Over the past couple years I’ve watched ”Midsomer Murders”. The television series spans several seasons and is available on DVD through Netflix and Multnomah County Library. Quality varies depending upon the screenwriter, but the setting, characters, and tone–even when the stories aren’t Graham’s–are spot on.

Hope Clark, by the way, just released her first mystery, “Lowcountry Bribe” published by BellBridge Books. She writes the weekly e-newsletter “Funds for Writers”.

“When you read a book, leave a review somewhere. Wouldn’t you like the same?” Of course we would. If only.

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“When did you know you wanted to be a writer?” someone asked me last week. OK. How about always.

As soon as I could read–and I was reading chapter books in second grade–I was completely hooked. I wanted to be able to do the magic that would transport others just as I was transported by books.

What did I read? Well, hardly any great literature at first. The Bobbsey Twins. The Boxcar Children. Bambi over and over again. Then it was the Hardy Boys, sometimes over and over again. And the beautiful Little House books. Escape. Adventure. Information. Delight.

For me writing and editing are unlike anything else in the world. I find myself huddling over a manuscript, gathering it to me like a miser hoarding gold, pen in hand, ready to strike out an offending word and replace it with the correct one.

When writing, the world just disappears. Last week I came to in the middle of writing my most recent blog. It was 2:55 p.m. and I was due for an acupuncture appointment at 3. I’d sat down to spend 15 minutes and suddenly an hour had passed. I rushed out the door muttering to myself like the White Rabbit.

Presumably this is what is supposed to happen when one is doing what she is supposed to do. I am so grateful to have my life arranged so that I can.

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The Artist Date is a once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore something that interests you…think mischief more than mastery…they spark whimsy….  –Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

Julia Cameron and I met on the pages of The Artist’s Way approximately 15 years ago.Her “morning pages” outlined in one of the early chapters of the book, have been a part of my daily practice ever since.

But for me, the “artist’s date” has proven more taxing, more difficult to do on a consistent basis because often I feel guilty.

Basically, the artist’s date is a date with yourself. Cameron calls it “wooing your artistic self”. The idea is to do something out of the daily norm, and that simple act will, simply through doing it, kick-start your own creative process.

What does one do? When I do take advantage of an artist’s date, I might take myself to movies I wouldn’t normally see, explore a neighborhood. Hawthorne is a blast, just for example. Go to the library without any particular agenda and simply wander and pick up books. Go to the library and spend an hour or two in the magazine section. Snoop in the designer section at Nordstrom and try on clothes I could never afford. Have a beauty makeover at the Lancome counter. Eat at a new restaurant all by myself. Drive to the coast to walk in the sand.

I can think of a hundred things I want to do once the weather gets nicer. But for now, I just need to turn off the computer, get my rump off the office chair, and get over myself. I can visit a second-hand store or someplace I’ve never been in the Pearl. Buy lunch at a food cart. Go to Portland Art Museum.

You need to get out too, because one never knows where that Muse might be hanging out today. She’s out there somewhere waiting for us, hoping to spark some whimsy. And what is more fun than whimsy? I can’t think of one darned thing!

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When readers met Emma Golden for the first time in An Unholy Alliance it was quickly known to all that she was not a youngster. In fact, she was past what any of us would consider her prime–age 55, in fact. While it would be against her code to state an exact age, she does refer to menopause, a little bit of forgetfulness, the need for the occasional nap. One quickly gets the picture.

So why, when it’s so much easier to create a young, attractive, sexy amateur sleuth to fill Emma’s shoes did I choose an old, beat up tomato?

Perhaps because women of a certain age have more experience than the younger ones. Emma is a mother, was a wife, and has been through a lot. She earned every bit of the baggage she packs around with her.

More important, I wanted a character who would be underestimated. What is easier to underestimate than an old lady? Just look at Miss Marple, sitting there quietly knitting and figuring it all out while her village, or her friends’ villages, are awash in murder.

And while Emma is no old lady–at least she doesn’t think she is–who’s going to pay attention to her? Her career is washed up. She is unremarkable in her looks. She doesn’t have enough income to even dress particularly well. When she returns to wine country in the debut novel, things have changed so much that the new players don’t know her and the old ones barely remember her.

Emma is invisible, and she’s not happy about it. As she says in The Difficult Sister, the men she wishes to meet not only aren’t interested but they run across the street to avoid making eye contact. And those women in the St. John suits? Forget it. They don’t even know she’s there. She, like Miss Marple, is in the perfect position to see and hear everything. And for the most part no one sees or hears her. Unless she makes a fuss. What perfect positioning for someone on the trail of a murderer.

But the main reason I chose an Emma is because I’m just plumb sick of the younger, cuter models.

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Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Elizabeth Strout (see linked interview for further insights) describes “place” as a major character in her novels. She goes so far as to suggest it is the major character, the backbone of her own very special New England tales.

Which brings us to the location of my second Emma Golden mystery. The first was set in the vineyards and wineries of Oregon’s northern Willamette Valley, an important place/charcter in the series. This is definitely Emma’s turf. She owns it. She spent the prime 20 years of her life here. However, as you will see, something happened in Emma’s and Melody’s lives that required a radically different locale.

June 2008, even before publication of  An Unholy Alliance, the “Sister” was taking shape in my mind. It would be set in Montana–until a friend and I spent the night in a beautiful home outside Port Orford. I’d known the Oregon Coast since childhood, but this was new territory. Once we turned off the main highway and inland this region became a different world than the one we associate with fabulous Oregon getaways. It gripped me. This was the place–the true setting for the book.

One year later, a friend joined me on an investigative trip to Bandon. We dined and shopped in charming downtown. We discovered the Face Rock and learned the story of the foolish girl who drowned in shallow water. Mist engulfed us near the legendary rocks. We even pulled into the parking lot of the second-hand store where, in the story, Crabby Daniels…. Oh, I can’t tell you that part yet.

We drove the backroads of Coos and Curry counties and witnessed the poverty and hopelessness that are hidden where the tourists don’t see them. It was not a great leap in my mind, given this wild and disparate setting, to go in very short order from hidden to sinister. I had found my major character for The Difficult Sister here on the southern Oregon Coast, and it is one that tests Emma to her limits.

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