What’s Next for F. M. aka Marilyn Meredith

Today I'm hosting friend and fellow mystery writer Marilyn Meredith, whose newest book is shown below. She's been busily engaged in a blog tour the past few weeks, and she's now huffing and puffing toward the finish line. The photo shows her at one of her many talks to readers and writers. Welcome, Marilyn.

While I’ve been on this tour, I’ve been writing the next book in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series. I’ve also been reading chapters from the next in the Deputy Tempe Crabtree series to the critique group I’ve belonged to for thirty-plus years. I’ll be doing the final editing soon and send it off to the publisher. And guess what that means? I have to start planning the promotion.

There is a lot that can be done on the Internet to let people know about a new book—almost too much.

Will I do another blog tour? I don’t know, maybe I’ll come up with something different. Anyone have any bright ideas?

Of course I’ll be continuing to promote Dangerous Impulses until that time. I’ll attend any craft and book fairs that come along, and of course I’ll be at the annual PSWA conference in July.

I plan to do a speaking engagement at our local library and anywhere else that I’m invited.

On a personal note, we have two grandsons getting married this spring, one the last weekend in May and the other, the first weekend in June. And we’re hoping our granddaughter can come visit with her new baby.

No matter what, I’ll be busy, I know. The good thing is that it’s busy with things I love to do and events I look forward to participating in. We’ve been blessed with a large family, so there is always something going on. (Anyone who is my friend on Facebook knows it isn’t always good stuff.)

I want all of you who have faithfully followed me along on this tour, I truly appreciate your interest and response. If you decide to try Dangerous Impulses I would be delighted if you’d write a review on Amazon, or just send me an email, mmeredith@ocsnet.net

I’ll be contacting the winner of the contest by email and posting the results on my blog in the next couple of days.  Looking forward to seeing you, perhaps in person and if not, on Facebook.

Thank you, Chester, for hosting me near the end of my tour.

F. M. aka Marilyn

Now a bit about Dangerous Impulses:

An attractive new-hire captivates Officer Gordon Butler, Officer Felix Zachary’s wife Wendy is befuddled by her new baby, Ryan and Barbara Strickland receive unsettling news about her pregnancy, while the bloody murder of a mother and her son and an unidentified drug that sickens teenaged partiers jolts the Rocky Bluff P.D.

The Long Hot Summer

Sounds like the title of a book, doesn't it? Maybe I'll use it sometime, but this is about the here and now. All these 90-degree-plus days, ad infinitum. Harry Truman said if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. I suspect a lot of women are ready to head for the exits about now. Let's consider what it means to various people.


For the older generation, with which I identify quite readily, the simplest remedy is to remain in air-conditioned comfort, read books (hopefully, mysteries) and watch TV. They'll venture out shopping occasionally, maybe stop for a meal out. Some, including me, head for the nearest mall to get their exercise by walking the corridors before the stores open. They can be found around tables in the food court swapping yarns and exchanging gossip.


The downtown worker bees take shelter in their artificially-cooled offices. The problem comes when they have to hit the sidewalks at lunch time. You may find them dabbing a tissue to their foreheads or glancing into a mirror-like store window to check sagging mascara. The commute home brings another tense time, with creeping traffic adding to the problem of toasty temperatures.


The ones who really feel the fury of hot days are the outside workers like those in construction, cops, farmers, and lawn care workers. Unless they have bushy hair, you'll probably find them in hats or caps. And big handkerchiefs are in vogue. These folks may be heard discussing the weather in colorful terms.


The guys who suffer the most, though, are probably firefighters. Others can strip down to cope with the heat, but these people have to don heavy coats and hats before they head into even hotter spots. In cooler times, they can move away from the fire for a breif respite. Not so now. Some days it's not much better near or far.


There's another type of heat making the news these days. Like in Harry Truman's day, it's political heat. There's plenty of it in Washington these days as Republicans and Democrats go at it in Congress and President Obama faces steadily declining popularity.


So what does all this have to do with mystery writing? We toilers at the keyboard explore crises and how people react to them. Weather is a favorite background for mysteries. In The Marathon Murders, I used a sweltering August as a backdrop to the story. How the characters deal with the season adds to the realism of the book.


How are you coping with the current heat wave? Are you getting hot under the collar? Enough to commit...no, you wouldn't do that.


Visit my newly-designed website www.ChesterDCampbell.com

Getting 2009 off to a blogging start

It has been a quiet New Year's Day around here. Everybody but me slept till noon. I've been banging around on the computer most of the day, cleaning up this and that. Finally got around to setting up my new blog. Welcome aboard.

So why should you read mine in addition to the 99 million others out there? Will I have anything worthwhile to expound upon? There's the mystery. You'll need to check in now and then to find out.

In a world where the economy is sliding down a greased pole, where people like me have a granddaughter-in-law in Iraq and a grandson in Afghanistan, hopefully not getting shot at today, where legislators seem more adept at arguing than accomplishing, where food on the table is a luxury in many places, is this a a great time to be alive or not? You bet it is.

This is my eighty-third winter, and I've seen a lot of crazy goings-on in this topsy-turvy world. I've managed to survive it all by being an incurable optimist. Things are going to get better. You can count on it. And I plan to take part in the good times ahead. That's why I like mystery writing. The good guys may take a beating along the way, but they're gonna win in the end.

I hope you'll come along for the ride.

By the way, you'll find me blogging at two other sites: Tuesdays at Murderous Musings and the first and third Fridays at Make Mine Mystery.