Designed to Kill Is Free Today

If you're new to retired Air Force investigator Greg McKenzie, and his wife, Jill, here's your chance to get started for free. Today (Saturday, Sept. 14) through Monday (Sept. 16), the second book in the series, Designed to Kill, will be available in ebook format for the Kindle at no cost.

Don't have a Kindle? No problem. Download the free version to your Windows computer or tablet, Android phone or tablet, iPhone, iPad or MAC, Blackberry or Windows phone. Just go to the Free Kindle Reading Apps Page and pick your device.

Designed to Kill is a tale of greed that leads to murder. It involves a high-rise condo on the beach at Perdido Key, Florida designed and engineered by the son of Greg and Jill's best friends from the first book in the series, Secret of the Scroll. A party in the 15th floor suite celebrating completion of the project ends abruptly when the balcony falls, killing two celebrants.

The investigating sheriff's officer tells Tim Gannon his balcony caused two deaths. The next morning Gannon is found dead of a gunshot wound at the nearby Gulf Islands National Seashore. The deputy says "suicide" and the medical examiner agrees.

Tim's dad, Sam Gannon, Greg's best friend, disagrees. He asks Greg to go down to Florida and find out what happened. As Greg digs into the case, assisted by Jill, he finds lots of disturbing facts.There are plans missing, an obstinate contractor, a too-slick developer, and an inspector angry over a disrupted love affair.

When Mafia goons rough him up, Greg realizes it's time to target a murderer. But who? Jill's help with the case leads to a partnership that goes through the next three books. And there's another in the works.
I

Who Are the McKenzies?

I introduced Greg and Jill McKenzie to the fictional world in October of 2002 with publication of Secret of the Scroll. Since then the pair has garnered a long list of favorable reviews over four more books in the series. Whether you've been a fan of the McKenzies from the start or are new to the couple, here's a rundown on just who we're dealing with.

Greg was a tough, uncompromising law enforcement professional with a quirky sense of humor during his career with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. He grew up in St. Louis where his mother taught school and his father was a master brewer with Anheuser-Busch. After his parents were killed in a plane crash on the way to his graduation from the University of Michigan, Greg tried his hand at police work as a deputy with the St. Louis County Sheriff. He spent four years there before joining the Air Force.

Greg retired as a lieutenant colonel, the highest rank of a long line of Scottish military men he was descended from. It started with the first muster of the 98th Argyllshire Highlanders in 1794 at Stirling Castle, north of Glasgow. Sixteen McKenzies answered the call. Greg’s grandfather, Staff Sgt. Alexander McKenzie, was a member of the 1st Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Regiment, a descendant of the old 98th. He fought in the Boer War in South Africa and in Europe during World War I. A battle wound forced his retirement and led to his emigration to America when Greg’s father was fifteen.

Jill Parsons was born in Nashville, where her father was a highly successful life insurance salesman. She met Greg when she was a junior in the aviation program at Middle Tennessee State and he was on his first assignment at a nearby air base. They married after her graduation. Her father died a few years later, leaving her well off financially. She operated her own air charter service at times during Greg's OSI career.

When Greg retired from the Air Force, they indulged a desire to wander for a few years before settling in Jill's hometown. Greg soon became bored with retirement and took a job as an investigator for the District Attorney. He lost that job after his comments about a Murder Squad detective wound up on page one of the morning paper. 

That's where we find them when Secret of the Scroll, first book in the series, opens. All five books are available on Amazon in both paper and ebook. Next week, book two, Designed to Kill, will be only 99 cents for the Kindle.

Visit my website at ChesterDCampbell.com

5th Greg McKenzie Mystery FREE Tomorrow

A Sporting Murder, the fifth novel in my Greg McKenzie mystery series, will be free to download for the Kindle tomorrow (April 8) through Wednesday. If you enjoy a good, rousing whodunit, this one is for  you. The plot revolves around a reported plan by local businessmen to bring a National Basketball Association team to Nashville. This greatly upsets a group of dedicated Nashville Predators' hockey fans who feel it could be the death knell for their sport.

When rumors of shady dealings involving the NBA plan surface, the group's lawyer hires PI's Greg and Jill McKenzie to investigate. A potential informant is promptly murdered. The book has several good reviews, but one I particularly like is that of veteran reviewer Sylvia Cochran, who wrote:

"Campbell knows how to spin a good yarn, and it shows. There are the murderous plot involving the NHL team and the engaging sub-plot of the man with a grudge. There is some back-story and some lovin'. Keeping all the balls in the air at all times, the parallel investigation makes for an exciting read, especially since there is never a shortage of action.

"The protagonists are a charming couple of seasoned professionals (not the bumbling `chick lit' characters that mystery writers of late seem to favor). They are also not the brooding private eyes with the haunting past, which make up pretty much the other half of the genre.

"Just like the plot, they are straight forward in a most refreshing way, which leaves the darker twists and turns to the plot without allowing the main characters to get in the way. The story is a welcome departure from recent genre pieces, which automatically turns A Sporting Murder into a must-read."

You'll find the book for the Kindle at its Amazon page. It will go free at midnight PDT.

Old Car Keeps 'Em Interested

I had a fun time Thursday talking to members of the Stones River Woman's Club at Nashville's Marathon Village, the restored plant and offices of the old Marathon Motor Works that built a popular touring car between 1910 and 1914. We met in the former showroom where I stood near a blue 1914 Marathon with yellow wheels, the same one depicted on the cover of my fourth Greg McKenzie mystery, The Marathon Murders.

I told the ladies how I came to write the book after a suggestion from neighbor Kathleen Mays, whose father had worked on the assembly line in 1914. Since I'm a mystery writer, I looked at the place from a different point of view than most visitors. I found the company's history fascinating, but I concentrated on the dark side, with an eye to anything that might have led to murder.

I found it in Marathon officials' actions that ultimately led it its downfall. The owners made some crucial changes to put a successful company on a fatal decline. They fired the engineer who designed the car and brought in some people who didn't know anything about making automobiles.

What put them in bankruptcy was things like charging too little for their products and selling cars "out the back door," which kept the money off the books.

That was where I found my plot. I had an assistant treasurer disappear and be accused of embezzling funds. His family had no luck trying to refute the charges but never believed he took the money. When his body was found five years later, sitting in his car in an abandoned barn west of Nashville, there was nothing to indicate what had happened or where the money might have gone.

Now, ninety years later, during restoration of the Marathon office building, papers in an envelope bearing the assistant treasurer's name and addressed to the attorney general are found hidden in a wall. The construction foreman plans to bring them to the long-dead official's grandson but never arrives.

My PI's, Greg and Jill McKenzie, are hired to locate the foreman and recover the papers, but they soon find him dead. The woman's club members seemed to enjoy hearing about the book, and several bought copies. It was an enjoyable event for me, since I like nothing better than talking about my books.

To learn more about them, visit my website at ChesterDCampbell.com.

It's Freebie Time Again

Starting at midnight tonight, Pacific Standard Time, my fourth Greg McKenzie mystery, The Marathon Murders, will be free to download for the Kindle until midnight Wednesday, February 27. You'll find it at this link.

Some people glance at the name and think the story involves marathon runners. A good look at the cover should take care of that. It shows a skeleton seated behind the wheel of a Marathon touring car from the early twentieth century. The book involves a 90-year-old cold case, the murder of the assistant treasurer of Marathon Motor Works, a company that built a popular line of automobiles in Nashville from 1910 to 1914.

Actually, the company took its name from an event at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis. Its car models were given such names as Runner and Winner. An industrious entrepreneur bought the rundown, long-vacant plant and office buildings a few years ago and restored them to provide space for artists, photographers, musicians, and other small businesses. That's where I got the idea for my mystery.

In The Marathon Murders, a construction worker finds some old company records from 1914 hidden behind paneling in the wall of a former office. The envelope includes the name of the assistant treasurer, Sydney Liggett, and a note indicating he planned to turn it over to the District Attorney. The job foreman finds Liggett's grandson, age 84, in a local nursing home. He promises to bring over the papers, then disappears.

McKenzie Investigations, run by senior sleuths Greg (retired OSI agent) and Jill McKenzie, are hired to find the missing papers. What they encounter is a string of murders committed to keep the secret of the 1914 documents hidden. The chase takes them to a small rural county near Nashville where things get pretty tense.

The book gave me the opportunity to highlight the work of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which provides a vital investigative arm to law enforcement agencies outside the major cities. Midwest Book Review said: "This fourth installment of the Greg McKenzie Mysteries is proof positive the series remains strong and fresh and is a major contender in the mystery venue." If you're new to the Greg McKenzie series, this is an opportunity for a free look. Just click the link above (after midnight).

Creating Secondary Characters

Our main characters, the folks who are in charge of the story, have elaborate backgrounds that we bring out in various ways. They are described as they move through the pages, and we learn about relatives and friends, places they've studied, jobs they held, all sorts of interesting facts as the story calls for them. We insert a lot of this "backstory" in small doses to avoid slowing the pace.

But what about secondary characters? They can be just as crucial to the story, depending on the roles they play. So how much background should they have? I don't have rules for writing. That sounds too inflexible. But I have a modus operandi, to use a good crime-speak term, that I follow with below-the-top-tier characters.


a. Use some sort of physical description, not necessarily any of the usual height, weight, eye or hair color. Here's one I used for lawyer Arnie Bailey in the first Sid Chance book: "Bailey launched his short, chubby body through the door like a well-dressed groundhog storming out of hibernation."


b. Provide some background pertinent to the story. In A Sporting Murder, which involves a basketball franchise, I used this bit for Greg McKenzie's friend, Sam Gannon: "He grew up in a rural area south of Tulsa and met Wilma at the University of Oklahoma, where he played basketball."


c. Describe their relationship with one of the main characters. Sam Gannon's wife, Wilma, is the best friend of Greg McKenzie's wife, Jill. Here's a spot where I gave a little comparison of the two women: "The daughter of one-time missionaries to China, Wilma liked to say Jill was born with a silver spoon in her mouth while she arrived with wooden chopsticks."


d. If possible, show how they think, how their opinions differ or mirror those of the protagonists. Here's an example from The Surest Poison, where Sid reflects on his friend Patrol Sgt. Wick Stanley: "Without a feature unique enough to stand out in a crowd, he would have made a great undercover man, Sid thought. Wick had no interest in detective work, though. He liked to be out on the street, dealing with the rough and tumble of everyday life."


Walk-on characters who fill minor roles in the story need less description. When Greg goes to a delivery service to find out who sent him a bottle of Scotch laced with arsenic, I described the man he talked to this way: "An older man with an abundant white beard that made him resemble a character out of a nursery rhyme greeted us from behind the counter." The man, who had only three lines of dialogue, was described otherwise as squinting through large, round glasses.


As I said, these should not be taken as rules, just the way one mystery writer does the job. Other opinions may differ.

Protags...who are they and where do they come from?

There's a thread running around the mystery lists currently about physical and other attributes of protagonists. Some writers leave physical descriptions to the imagination; others go into great detail to paint characters in unmistakable terms. It got me to thinking about my own private detectives, what I say about them and where it all came from.

The first one I created was Greg McKenzie. I had a plot in mind for Secret of the Scroll, and it involved the protagonist going on a mission to rescue his abducted wife. I wanted someone with professional investigative experience, someone more toward my own age (though not quite that far--I was 73 at the time). Falling back on my own experience, I made him retired Air Force and of Scottish lineage. I had been in intelligence rather than criminal investigation, so I made Greg a former Office of Special Investigations agent.

When it came to physical characteristics, I chose to make him larger than me, five-foot-ten, and on the hefty side. I've made his struggle with keeping the weight down a constant problem through the series. It provides opportunities for wife Jill  to needle him on occasion. In the first book I had him going through the throes of giving  up cigarettes, backsliding as events closed in on him.

When I started writing this post, I looked back into my directory and found a March 6, 1999 file titled BACKGROUND. It contains this bit of description, some of which has never made it into the books:

"Gregory McKenzie was born in St. Louis in 1935. His father, Clyde, was a burly, garrulous, red-faced Scotsman who was a master brewer for Anheuser-Busch. And since he took his stature more from his smaller mother, Greg had grown up almost in awe of this jolly giant who was fond of quoting Bobby Burns in butchered Gaelic. What he had learned from his father was that being assertive was a major part of being a man. It had not always stood him in good stead.

"Greg was in Air Force ROTC in college, where he majored in political science. His elective courses varied from statistics to archeology.

"Martha McKenzie had some Highland blood in her from her mother’s side of the family, so Greg proudly claimed his Scottish heritage. In fact, at one point he had seriously considered learning to play the bagpipe. But when he was at the point of joining a class, the Air Force transferred him 3,000 miles away.

"Jill was a bit more reserved than Greg, and she wasn’t the demanding type. But whenever she put her foot down firmly, he knew better than to try and budge it. After he retired, Greg told her if he was going to be an RV vagabond, he should grow a beard. She quickly retorted that no man with a beard was going to sleep in her bed. He didn’t really think she would kick him out of bed, but he knew she was capable of it. He recalled that she had complained occasionally that he scratched her face when he kissed her before shaving. He quickly abandoned the idea of a fuzzy face."

I added this to his colorful background later, most of which appears is a book or two:

"Greg is descended from a long line of Scottish military men. It started with the first muster of the 98th Argyllshire Highlanders in 1794 at Stirling Castle, north of Glasgow. Sixteen McKenzies answered the call. Greg’s grandfather, Staff Sgt. Alexander McKenzie, was a member of the 1st Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Regiment, a descendant of the old 98th. He fought in the Boer War in South Africa and in Europe during World War I. A battle wound forced his retirement and led to his emigration to America when Greg’s father was fifteen."

Creating characters with all their imperfections and strengths is one of the more fun parts of fiction writing. I'll take up some of my other creations, particularly Jill McKenzie, in future posts.

Hitting the Mark

This is a bit of a departure for me, but with the first review in for my fifth Greg McKenzie mystery, I decided to feature it in today's blog. The review is written by Larry W. Chavis for The GenReview. The site is devoted to reviewing genre fiction, which it describes this way:

"Referred to as 'popular fiction' by many (and as 'trash' by some snooty members of the pseudo-intelligentsia), the term genre fiction usually connotes stories written primarily for their entertainment value.  While this may seem to be a very broad definition, what is implicit is that the genre fiction story or novel is mainly intended to pass the time rather than expand your consciousness."

Having said that, the site adds, "the line between genre fiction and so-called 'literary fiction' is a very fine one and often is obscured.  Certainly The Maltese Falcon is genre fiction, but it also explores the dark side of the human psyche and what drives people to do what they do.  So, it’s not always clear-cut.  However, while most authors of genre fiction would be pleased to have their work called 'literary,' most authors of literary fiction would be offended to have their work described as genre fiction."

Here's the review of A Sporting Murder:

In the week before Christmas rumors have surfaced that something is amiss with a proposed deal to bring a National Basketball Association franchise to Nashville. Local P. I. Greg McKenzie, with his wife and partner, Jill, are hired to investigate by a group of hockey fans opposed to the NBA’s coming, fearing loss of the hockey team’s fan base.  An informant promises information on the deal that will “blow your mind,” but turns up shot in the face instead. Is his murder the result of being in the wrong part of town or connected to the case? Greg and Jill determine to find out.

But this will be no ordinary Christmas week. Besides the murder and Greg’s finding the body, an old case rears it head in the person of a former Air Force lieutenant whom Greg had helped convict of drug-dealing back in his days as an OSI investigator. He’s out of prison, and still carrying a grudge. As the book moves along at a fast pace, the McKenzies are hard-pressed to unravel the events and dangers into which they are thrust. Are they connected to the NBA deal or to Greg’s old enemy? We are kept guessing until the disparate threads all come together on Christmas Day in a rousing and satisfying climax.

Readers of Mr. Campbell’s previous books will be pleased to be back in his Nashville with Greg and Jill McKenzie. His writing is clean and spare, giving us enough sense of place and character to feel as if we’ve settled in with friends, and then in turn ratcheting up the tension and suspense. Greg McKenzie is not a hard-boiled private investigator, but he’s tough and smart, well aware of the qualities Jill brings to the partnership. The way the case plays out against the backdrop of their lives gives them a genuineness that makes the reader feel these would be good folks to spend an afternoon with - or to have along in a gun fight. Once again, Campbell has hit the mark.

Copyright 2010 Larry W. Chavis

The book will be available in early fall. It can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com.

A design for writing

A few people seem to possess a sort of inherent compass that guides their minds into creating stories that satisfy all the requirements of good writing in one fell swoop of the pen, or a single foray across the keyboard. I'm in awe of the one-draft author. That's because I’m the polar opposite. I constantly edit and revise as I go.

Every writer must find what works best for him or herself. I don’t advocate that anyone follow my style of creating a book, but if you find something here that validates what you do or in some way intrigues you into trying a different approach, I’ll feel I have succeeded in some small manner.

I approach a new a novel with a basic idea for an incident that could lead to lots of complications. In my second Greg McKenzie mystery, for example, I considered what might happen if a penthouse balcony collapsed during a party at a new beachfront high-rise condo, killing two people. That presented the questions: what caused the accident, and who was responsible?

With the major premise in hand, I needed a cast of characters. I’m not a detailed plotter or an outliner, so I depend on my characters to dictate the direction of the story. I decided on a young architect/engineer from the previous book to bear the brunt of blame for the accident. For potential bad guys I picked a developer, a contractor, and an inspector. I later added a female real estate agent.

At that point I needed a little initial research to put me on the right track. Since I knew little if anything about condo construction, I consulted a couple of friends. One was a civil engineer, the other a structural engineer who dealt with concrete, the material of choice for building beachfront condos. That gave me enough information to start writing.

I began with a Prologue that, thanks to later revision, introduced all the suspects and most of the major characters, except for my protagonists, Greg and Jill McKenzie. I set it at the penthouse party and used a third person omniscient viewpoint so I could let the reader know the balcony was in trouble from the opening line. Starting with Chapter 1, the story is told in first person from Greg's point of view.

The architect/engineer is found dead the next morning of what the sheriff calls a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The young man’s parents are the McKenzies’ best friends, and his father doesn’t believe he would commit suicide. He asks Greg, a retired Air Force investigator, to look into it.

After the first few chapters in Nashville, the story moved to Perdido Key, FL. It was time for more intensive on-scene research. My brother had a condo there where my wife and I had stayed a couple of times a year, which is how the plot idea came about. We spent two weeks there checking out various angles. Since the so-called suicide occurred at the Gulf Islands National Seashore, I interviewed the National Park ranger responsible for law enforcement. Following up on what I learned from him, I talked to a sheriff’s investigator, a medical examiner’s tech, and a man in the building inspection office.

I also researched locations and backgrounds on Perdido Key, in Pensacola and around Escambia County.

Although I don’t outline, I did extensive character sketches for the major characters and typed up detailed notes from my research. And early on I plotted out where all the main characters were each hour on the night of the murder.

By this time I knew who the murderer was (or so I thought) and had a pretty good idea of where the story was headed. I sat down to write in earnest. But things happen. About halfway through the book, I changed my mind about the murderer. It required going back to make sure I had left enough clues to make the ending believable. That’s what I love about fiction. You’re free to alter the past anytime you like. Makes you feel like God tinkering with the universe.

As I mentioned at the start, I am a constant rewriter. Each time I sit down to write, I go back at least to the start of the last chapter, read through it and make changes where something doesn’t quite fit. Now and then I’ll start from the beginning and do a quick edit up to the point where I left off. Sometimes I may change a line back to what I had on the first try.

When I get to the end of the book, what might be called a first draft is really anything but. I take this opportunity to go back through the manuscript looking for places I can make the writing more colorful, more dramatic, more scintillating (okay, so I don't scintillate all that much). I also delete those too-cute phrases that I got carried away with in their creation. I try to smooth out the rough spots Chris Roerden cites in her book Don’t Murder Your Mystery.

By the way, the book described above is Designed to Kill, the second of my Greg McKenzie mysteries. Like all my books, it's available on Amazon (see link below) in paperback and for the Kindle. You can read opening chapters at my website:

www.chesterdcampbell.com

Books on Amazon

Books by the Bundle

An indoor library signing with wife Sarah.

I manned a table at a small rural church's Fall Fest last Saturday, displaying all five of my mysteries. My long-time writers group colleague, Beth Terrell, took part for half of the day, then left for a bookstore signing. This time of year in Nashville usually brings mild weather, with highs in the middle 60s to the 70s. Saturday was an exception. The mercury grudgingly inched into the 50s. A stiff wind blew acres of graying clouds overhead, leaving us huddled in our jackets to keep warm.

There were half a dozen other exhibitors, including one with two tents filled with all sorts of bric-a-brac. The sun finally peeked out after noon, but the hoped-for crowds apparently stayed inside and watched football games on the tube. The church was Scottsboro United Methodist, where my wife, Sarah, had attended as a girl, and she enjoyed chatting with old childhood friends. Several of them had already read my books.

As it turned out, the day was not a dud because of a simple trick I had learned from somebody on one of the online lists I read. It may have been Rob Walker. The idea is to display your series books in a bundle, which you offer at a discount. I had my four Greg McKenzie books tied together with a ribbon and offered at $45, a 25% discount from retail.

Two people, one the Scottsboro pastor, bought book bundles. Other than that, I only sold two books, but the bundles made the day worthwhile. I've done the same at several other selling venues. I highly recommend it if you have several books in a series to market.

Without a lot of customers to disturb me, I had lots of time to think about what it means to be a "selling author." Some writers think their job is just to sit at the computer and write. I wouldn't mind doing that, but it would mean all that work produced nothing but words on the screen. I write for the enjoyment of it, but I also enjoy having others read what I write. For that to happen, I must get our there and promote.

It's always nice to have someone stop by at a signing and say, "I've read one of your books and really like it." Sure beats those occasional characters who look at the flyers my wife hands out at the bookstore entrance and say, "Who's he? I've never heard of him."

December in August, Mysterious Weather

I’m writing a story set around the Christmas season, but the temperature outside is definitely August. I know there’s been a lot written about using weather in mysteries, but I think it adds something to the setting. I used it right off the bat to set the stage and bring up something from Greg McKenzie’s past. The first line (at the moment) is:

“I disliked the place as soon as I stepped out of the car, my breath vaporizing in the cold December night as though I had lapsed back into the smoking habit.”

Later, Greg contrasts Nashville’s snowless state with his experience from an assignment to a base at Minot, ND where the average December temperature was -13 degrees. John Sandford comments on Minneapolis-St. Paul’s temperature early in his new Wicked Prey, latest of his Lucas Davenport books. He wrote:

“As they went out the door, the heat hit them like a hand in the face. Not as bad as Alabama heat, but dense, and sticky, smelling of burned transmission fluid, spoiled fruit and bubble gum.”

Patricia Stoltey wrote a recent blog about the supposed “rule” that says don’t start your novel with the weather. She debunks it by citing openings from such authors as James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, Robert B. Parker, and Margaret Truman. She also mentions the "rule" about using dreams. I’ve commented previously about my experience with that subject. A professional editor read an early version of Secret of the Scroll and said eliminate the nightmare, it’s passé. Then my editor at the publishing house saw the mention of waking after a dream and said to elaborate on it.

As I indicated, my only problem with the weather in the new book is creating the feel of winter during the dog days of summer. Incidentally, the “dog days” was invented by the Greeks and Romans who believed Sirius, the Dog Star, was the cause of all this hot, sultry weather. I’m trying to get my star to rise to the occasion and create some great frozen metaphors and similes.

I don't care for frequent "weather reports" in mysteries, but when a storm or a heat wave or some other weather phenomenon affects the outcome of a scene, or helps to set the stage, I say bring 'em on. How about you? Do you duck under an umbrella or throw the book against the wall?

Cast of Charcters for Mysteries?

There’s been a thread running lately on DorothyL, the big mystery listserv, concerning the use of a Cast of Characters in mystery novels. It’s something early practitioners of the genre like Agatha Christie did. I’m not a historical mystery reader, but I understand writers of historicals frequently put in a Cast of Characters to keep everybody straight.

I think it’s a good idea. I keep a list when I’m writing and add names to it when I come up with a new character. It prevents the confusing practice of using names that sound too much alike, or starting more than one character with the same first letter. Sometimes the latter can’t be helped, as in my current work in progress. I have the name of a real person I promised to use in the book, and up pops a character from a previous book with the same first letter. I’m also using a couple of characters with “T” names who appeared in different books. One is a minor character, though, and the names don’t sound much alike.

I understand historicals often use a Cast of Characters to show relationships. It’s the old Family Tree idea. If I did that with my Greg McKenzie mysteries, it would only look like a twig. Greg and his wife, Jill, would be left hanging out on a limb. One book does include a cousin, but that would hardly warrant a trunk and branches.

I’ve thought about putting Casts of Characters for my current five books on my website. New readers could drop by and pick up a program (you can’t tell your players without your program, as the ball game hawkers used to chant). I thought I’d try it out here to see how it works. So if you haven’t read the first McKenzie mystery, Secret of the Scroll, here’s your chance to get started. The characters are listed more or less in order of their appearance.

SECRET OF THE SCROLL (October 2002)
Cast of Characters

Khaled Assah – Palestinian youth from Ramallah studying archeology in Jordan
Abdullah Kafi – Assah’s cousin from Ramallah, Palestinian town near Jerusalem
Levi Katz – Israeli border police sergeant at Allenby Bridge entry point
Greg McKenzie – retired Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent from Nashville, TN
Jill McKenzie – Greg’s wife, former charter air service owner
Sam Gannon – retired Air Force pilot, friend of the McKenzies and Holy Land tour organizer
Wilma Gannon – Sam Gannon’s wife, Jill McKenzie’s best friend
Tim Gannon – Sam and Wilma’s son, young architect/engineer
Jake Cohen – American working as a travel guide in Israel
David Wolfson – co-owner of Nashville market research firm, Bible Codes buff, friend of Cohen
John Peterson – young CPA, target of Metro Nashville homicide detective over wife’s disappearance
Tessa Peterson – John’s wife, a successful interior designer and mother of a small son
Harland Walker Blackford – Tessa’s father, president of large Nashville bank
Mark Tremaine – Metro homicide detective who goes after Peterson
Pat Intermaggio – another Blackford son-in-law, owns firm that hauls equipment for musicians
Sgt. Christie – Metro patrol officer, brother-in-law of Mark Tremaine
Phil Adamson – Metro homicide detective who checks into Jill’s disappearance
Jay Rogers – the McKenzies’ next-door neighbor
Ricky Rogers – Jay’s observant 12-year-old son
Charles (Chili) Hankins – Nashville Bell South security man
Julian Quancey Welch – Vanderbilt Divinity School Old Testament professor
Ted Kennerly – OSI Special Agent in Charge at Arnold Air Force Base south of Nashville
Kevin – Metro police sergeant, Wilma Gannon’s nephew
Eli Zalman – former Mossad officer now employed by the Temple Alliance
Asher Lipkowitz – colleague of Zalman
Kamal Nazari – Palestinian affiliated with the Guardians of Palestine
Colonel Erikson – Greg’s former OSI commander, now Ted Kennerly’s superior
Alice Baker – neighbor of Kermit Nagy (a.k.a. Kamal Nazari)
Capt. Grubbs – Tennessee Air National Guard C-130 pilot
Yolla – classmade of Khaled Assah, daughter of Jordanian official
Moriah – code name for Moshe Levin
Moshe Levin – former Mossad officer now security chief for the Temple Alliance
Col. Warren Javis – Air Force Attache in Tel Aviv
Mr. Jabbar – Bedouin owner of the Saladin antiquities shop in a Jerusalem bazaar
Kamal – Arab owner of jewelry store in Jerusalem
Father Coughlin – American priest at the Church of St. Peter in Galicantu
Yelena – Russian Jew working for the Temple Alliance
Ambassador Hamilton – American ambassador to Israel

Except for a few walk-ons who merited no more than a paragraph in the book, that covers the cast. Is this the sort of thing readers would be interested in? Please leave a comment.

When fact becomes fiction...

True crime writers take a murder case and explore it from beginning to end, going into great detail about the partipants, their actions, and their motivations. It takes a mountain of research to make sure all the facts are correct. Otherwise, they would likely face a lawsuit. Some do anyway.

Mystery fiction writers take an actual case and change enough of the facts that they can say whatever they wish without getting into trouble. That's what I did in my first Greg McKenzie novel.

I wanted to saddle Greg with a recent troubled past. I had him quickly tire of retirement and take a job as an investigator for the district attorney in Nashville. I needed something that would get him fired from his job, plus anger many in the police department. I picked a case that remained unsolved but was in and out of the news on a regular basis.

A young lawyer had reported his wife, a talented artist, missing two weeks after she supposedly left home for a "12-day vacation" following an argument. Her friends said she would never leave her young son and daughter like that. The police quickly targeted the husband but were unable to find a body.

I changed the husband to a CPA and the wife to an interior designer. They had only a young son. But I kept most of the circumstances of the police search and their concentration on the husband as the murderer.

In the real case, the wife was the daughter of a prominent local attorney, who sided with the police in believing his son-in-law guilty. I made the missing wife the daughter of a prominent banker, who was the chief backer of the district attorney. When my protag, Greg McKenzie, makes some off-the-cuff remarks quite critical of the lead investigator, they turn up on the front page of the newspaper. The wife's father is infuriated and Greg gets fired.

Long after my book was published, the actual case reached a conclusion when the husband's father turned on him and testified he had helped dispose of the wife's body. The story was told in a true crime book titled An Unfinished Canvas, by Nashville author Phyllis Gobbell and Michael Glasgow.

Fictionalizing fact is a much simpler operation. Of course, Nashvillians who read my book recognized the similarity to the Janet and Perry March case. After his conviction in August of 2006, March was sentenced to 56 years in prison. I can't tell you what happened to the young CPA in Secret of the Scroll. That would be a spoiler.

How to develop a series character

When I started writing The Surest Poison, I set up my protagonist, Sid Chance, as a former Metro Nashville cop who got shot in the line of duty and, after recovering, took a job as police chief in a small town south of Nashville. I had him divorced by a wife who couldn’t take the stress of wondering if her husband would survive the next shift.

After I was a few chapters into the manuscript, one of my critique group members made a remark that struck a nerve. She said she was tired of reading about all the PIs who were sama-samo wounded ex-cops pining over a lost love.

Back to the drawing board. I looked at the plot, which involved a toxic chemical spill behind a plant in a rural area. What kind of background would make a guy really concerned about such a situation? I also needed him to be trained in law enforcement so he would qualify for the police chief job. In doing research for Designed to Kill, my second Greg McKenzie mystery, I had interviewed a ranger at the Gulf Islands National Seashore on Perdido Key, FL and knew they were graduates of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center near Brunswick, GA.

I had my answer. Sid Chance became a veteran National Park Service ranger who was wounded in the line of duty after 18 years on the job. He became a rugged outdoorsman who had earlier trained in living off the land as an Army Special Forces soldier. I did away with the wife and left him a lifelong bachelor.

As the story developed, a key part of the plot involved his experiences as chief of police in the fictional town of Lewisville, TN. I covered that facet of his background extensively. His role as a Green Beret in Vietnam merited a few mentions, with one relevant incident recounted. Sid’s ranger job provided only a couple of peripheral details, mainly as motivation for his intense interest in the pollution case.

In the next book I will develop his background as a National Park ranger as part of the plot. All I know at this point is that he was shot while working on an inter-agency drug operation. Since he had a reputation as something of a maverick, some of the higher ups took advantage of the opportunity to rule him unfit for duty because of the injury. That was when he applied for the police chief job. Before I get to that, I need to make a journey to Gatlinburg and interview a ranger at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park headquarters.

That’s how I develop characters in a series. Each additional book provides opportunities to explore new facets of a character’s life, bring out experiences that helped shape how he or she approaches the world around them. It helps readers make those comments:

“I can’t wait for the next one to come out.”

Heavy-handed chefs pile it on

I often use restaurants in my books as a convenient location for characters to interact and discuss matters of importance to the plot. I mention what they order but don’t usually go into detail about the food or their reaction to it. Considering one of my pet peeves these days, I may change that in the next book.

I could have Jill McKenzie tell her husband, Greg, “They put entirely too much food on that plate. You don’t need more than half of it.”

She gets on his case now and then about overeating. He has a weight problem.

I don’t have a weight problem because I’m not a big eater. My wife and I dine out once or twice a week, and one point on which we agree is that restaurants overload our plates with food. Maybe it’s an age thing. I don’t know. A lot of our friends express the same feeling. It isn’t unusual for us to get a take-out box and haul half of our meal back home. It gives us a handy lunch the next day, but a warmed-over plate is rarely up to par with its original savoriness (is that a word?).

You can get a modest meal at a fast food place, but the modesty is only in the portions, not the ingredients like fats and sodium. Of course, you can get stuff with little nutritional value in regular restaurants, but you usually have more choices that will offer acceptable healthy food value.

I think the nicer eating establishments would attract more business, especially from those of us eligible for an AARP card, if they put a smaller meal option on the menu with a slightly reduced price. They would also save a lot of waste from plates that come back with meals only half eaten. If you’re on a trip, you don’t want to carry half your dinner back to the motel.

Considering my Scottish heritage, I prefer the thrifty lifestyle. Which means we use coupons whenever possible. Red Lobster, Olive Garden, O’Charley’s, and Logan’s Roadhouse are good about supplying us with a few dollars off now and then. It makes us feel a little better when we face a platter piled with enough food to satisfy a one-hump camel.

Broccoli is a flagrant example of the pile-it-on mentality. They love to fill one side of your plate with the pretty green bloomlets. George Herbert Walker Bush hated the stuff. My wife won’t touch it, either. It’s rich in vitamin K, a no-no for folks who take warfarin. I sometimes manage to eat close to half of it.

If it’s something easy to divvy up, like crab cakes, we’ll get one order and split it. But some restaurants charge extra for sharing. Like it costs them several bucks more to wash an extra plate and fork. Heck, they’ll give you utensils and a napkin if you only order coffee.

Okay, enough ranting. I’ll get ‘em when I write my next book. I won’t name names, though. The only thing worse than an overloaded dinner plate is a hungry lawyer.