Books : Camille Minichino

Category : Books

WHAT I’M READING: A MEDLEY

Filed Under : Books,Personal Favorites,Reading by Camille

Dec.10,2015

Recently, Marshal Zeringue invited me to share my current reading. In case you missed it on his site, which is always interesting.

I always have several books going at the same time, some paper copies, some on my e-reader.

Here’s my current stack and the excuses to read them:

1. Dead Wake: the Last Crossing of the Lusitania, by Erik Larson, for a nonfiction book group that has been meeting monthly in my home for more than 20 years. Like all his narratives, Larson’s detailed presentation of the WWI disaster reads like the best fiction. Here the characters are a luxury ocean liner and a German U-boat. I’m always amazed when a writer can accomplish suspense, even when we all know the outcome.

2. Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology, by Johnjoe McFadden and Jim Al-Kalili. Heavy! This one will take a while to finish. Biology is so much more complex than physics (five simple equations and you’re done).

3. Guilt by Degrees, by attorney Marcia Clark, for the December meeting of the Castro Valley Library Mystery Book Club, another longstanding group. The story, or “case”, is interesting, the author’s many years reading police reports obvious.

4. Fatal Voyage, by Karin Fossim, my new favorite thriller writer. For me, the darker the better when it comes to reading crime fiction.

5. Assorted magazines: The New Yorker (of course; makes feel like one); Science & Technology Review (to stay connected); Writers Digest and Publishers Weekly (to feel like a writer); Real Simple (makes me feel organized); the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (to enter a different world); and miniatures magazines (makes me feel crafty).

And, finally, just for fun

6. Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America, by San Roberts. Probably my favorite place on earth, and probably because I grew up with the radio show long before I ever saw the terminal. What can be more exciting to listen to while ironing than the crossroads of a million private lives?

Interview Number 329876

Filed Under : Books,Personal by Camille

Nov.19,2015

OK, I made up that number. It seems I’ve done a lot of interviews but I wanted to share this recent one, with questions from writer Judith Marshall.

The questioner: JUDITH MARSHALL


The answerer: THE REAL ME

Where are you from?

Here I am doing just what I tell my writing students not to do: starting at the beginning! My excuse is that Revere, Massachusetts is special—site of the first public beach in the country. At one time a 2-mile boardwalk of amusements and games stretched along the ocean; and inland every street corner had its own group of bookies. Numbers? Check. Dog-racing? Check. Horse racing? Check. All at your fingertips, only a few blocks from 2 roller coasters, a Ferris wheel, frozen custard, fried clams. That’s where I’m from—what’s not to like?

Tell us your latest news?

I’m in the middle of writing my 25th mystery novel, under my fourth pen name. I feel like I should do something silver. Or that I’m in hiding with WitSec.

When and why did you begin writing?

As early as I can remember, I put out a newsletter for my family, only one or two of whom could read English. I wish I could remember more about it, like how I made copies. I have a feeling I just handed the handwritten sheets over whenever Aunt Evelyn or Uncle Johnny stopped in for coffee. I do remember that the “news” consisted of things like Cousin Richard made a base hit at Friday’s game or Grandpa Minichino was caught making moonshine in the cellar.

What inspired you to write your first book?

I wanted to capture the Revere experience, the Italian-American culture I grew up with. I also wanted to present science in a good light and offer a female scientist protagonist who was fun to be with. Too many agenda items! Another thing I warn my students against, but I did it in my first 8 books, the Periodic Table Mysteries.

How much of the book is realistic?

Everything but the murder.

What books have most influenced your life?

I wasn’t much of a reader as a kid—no one in my family read English very well, and I thought of books simply as required for school. The first book I read for my own pleasure was a biography of Marie Curie, by her daughter Eve. After that, I couldn’t be stopped.

What book are you reading now?

I’m always reading about 5 books at the same time: a couple of mysteries for book clubs; a science/technology book to stay current for my science classes; a nonfiction book for another club; books on writing for my writing classes; a mainstream novel for the pleasure of the language. Currently, I’m into a Nevada Barr mystery for a book club; Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology is my nonfiction; an old Peter Robinson mystery in my purse; a gruesome Mo Hayder on my Kindle.

Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?

As a result of being chair of the Edgar® award for best novel last year, I was introduced to many new authors. Karin Fossum has my attention, as well as Todd Goldberg. Also new to me is Malcolm Mackay, a Scottish writer with a great hit man trilogy.

Name one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members.

Three writing organizations: the Mt. Diablo Branch of the California Writers Club; NorCal Sisters in Crime, and NorCal Mystery Writers of America. All of these groups were welcoming and encouraging at the beginning stages of my writing and are largely responsible for any success I’ve had.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Take advice cautiously! Find your own voice and your own rhythm. For a long time, I thought there were rules: write every day; write what you know; keep a journal. None of those worked for me. I realized that as long as I made writing a priority in my life, I’d find my voice. And I did.

New Series: The Postmistress Mysteries by Jean Flowers

Filed Under : Books by Camille

Nov.3,2015

From Cassie Miller in DEATH TAKES PRIORITY (Chapter 1) "I love my job. Who else gets to start the day by raising the American flag outside her office?'

The first book in my new series will be out November 5. Read the first chapter NOW.

Compare the cover of DEATH TAKES PRIORITY to a photograph of the post office in Revere MA, c. 1980:

It’s quite a happy coincidence.

Tags : cozy mystery, post office, Revere MA

Holiday Mysteries

Filed Under : Books,crime by Camille

Oct.15,2015

This summer I took advantage of an invitation to join 11 other mystery writers in an anthology of holiday stories and revisited retired physicist Gloria Lamerino and her crew. I was thrilled to be back in Revere—back in the ’90s in fact—picking up the Table at neon. The series has 8 novels, The Hydrogen Murder through The Oxygen Murder and now 2 short stories, The Fluorine Murder (2002) and THE NEON ORNAMENTS, released today, 10/15/15.

THE NEON MURDER is a historical and a prequel. Haven’t you always wanted to know how Gloria and her homicide detective husband, Matt Gennaro, got together in the first place? I have!

Here’s what happens: Physicist Gloria Lamerino meets her friend Rose in Boston for what she thinks is a girls’ getaway weekend. But Rose has other plans. She volunteers Gloria to help solve a murder. Of course, the chemistry between Gloria and the homicide detective help catch a killer?

Happy Homicides is a collection of thirteen cozy mystery holiday stories—nearly 800 pages of reading material—by a dozen different authors, all bundled into one ebook, featuring some of your favorite bestselling and award-winning mystery authors—Lois Winston, Joanna Campbell Slan, Neil Plakcy, Annie Adams, Jenna Bennett, Nancy Warren, Sara RosettNancy Jill Thames, Linda Gordon Hengerer, Joyce and Jim Lavene, and Teresa Trent.

We also have a holiday gift for you. We’ve put together a bonus file crammed with recipes, craft tips, projects, and more. You’ll find the link for the free bonus material inside Happy Homicides.

East is east

Filed Under : Books,crime by Camille

Oct.1,2015

My guest blogger today is my good friend and writer, Jo Mele. Jo is the published author of The ABCs of Asperger’s Syndrome, Parent’s Magazine, Third Times A Charm, Reminisce Magazine, and Flowers, Fauna and Firearms, Lamorinda Press. She has recently completed her first cozy, ‘Mystery In Monaco’, and a memoir, ‘The Primo Grandmothers’. She is working on ‘Homicide in Havana’ based on her travels to Cuba. Hard to find a good crime spot with everyone watching everyone.

Here’s Jo at the NYPL with a friendly lion:

Patience and friend

EAST COAST – WEST COAST

Having lived on both the east and west coasts, I feel qualified to write about the similarities and differences of life, food, and murder on each coast. Caveat: being of a certain age I feel qualified to talk on any subject.

I came up with a few examples of location differences to think about when writing about murder. Second caveat: in my geography east coast means NYC. To me, considering West Palm Beach, Florida, or Portland, Maine, the east coast is laughable. When people think of the east coast they think of tall buildings, crowded sidewalks, subways, traffic, horns honking, sirens day and night. In other words cities have ear-splitting noises as background music.

City vs country locations

Killing someone in NYC and not being seen by a camera, drone, snoopy neighbor, cop, street person, dog walker, pervert, taxi driver, bag lady, or phone-carrying teenager is almost impossible today. The crime will be captured on someone’s camera. Your face, name, and mother’s maiden name will be on the web, before the body can drop to the sidewalk. If there’s enough room for the body to land on a sidewalk, in NYC.

My advice, take your victim to the west coast. In the geography book according to Jo, that means California. Portland, Oregon is not the first thing you think of when you think west coast any more than Portland, Maine screams east coast.

In California there are forests, desserts, mountains, cabins, abandoned mines, and any number of secluded spots to commit a crime. One can dispose of a body and not be seen by another camera- carrying human.

Method

Weather is a factor in planning a crime. Last year would’ve been a great time for a winter murder in the East. The corpse would still be covered in a pile of melting snow in June and the killer long gone. It’s harder to kill someone on a sunny California day, everyone’s outside chasing Frisbees or texting.

Food: Killing someone with food requires a return to the east coast. You will never die drinking bottled water and eating kale, salad, fruit, seeds, yogurt and gluten-free crackers.

NYC is perfect for death by food. Every corner has an ice cream wagon or food truck. NYC has the best cheesecake, corned beef, hot dogs, knishes, greasy egg rolls, Italian pastry, cupcakes, candy, and pizza to die for. The victim could die of natural causes and the killer would be in the clear and sunbathing in Palm Beach.

If you don’t have time to wait for natural causes, go west. Feed the vic the kale, etc. He will either die of starvation, or happily commit suicide after a week.

Means are still a factor. It’s a fact, the wealthy and connected get away with more crime than the poor. Don’t believe me? Look who’s in prison. Only the rich can hire the right sleazy attorney or hit-man, cover their tracks, and still have enough money to rent a house on a secluded island. The poor always get caught because they have nowhere else to go. They head back home where their ‘friends’ turn them in for a reward, or fifteen seconds of TV fame. The rich don’t worry about this, they have no friends.

Motive is outdated just look at the uptick in stranger murders, drive-by and gun violence in general. All a killer seems to need today is a target. Drive-by shootings are a west coast crime. If you try setting this method in NYC your killer won’t make it of the block. He will be tied up in traffic. The cops will walk up to his car and catch him with the smoking gun still in hand.

Tags : asperger's, Monaco, NYPL

Ducks, Cartoons, Ants

Filed Under : Books,Writing by Camille

Aug.5,2015

I’m thrilled to have a guest blogger today: MARGARET HAMILTON, a longtime friend, author, and recently coauthor of a collection of short stories, SIX SCATTERED STORIES. Her story THE RETURN OF MARCUS CASTEEL is featured in the July 11 issue of New Realm magazine.

Murder Along the Mississippi - Margie and Friends

from Margie:

About twenty years ago I ran across a crayon drawing on one of my mother’s hallway shelves. My best guess is that I drew it in kindergarten. The picture was of three ducks in an almost vertical pond. Each duck had a conversation bubble that read: “QUICK”. Was the drawing an intended cover of a book I planned to write?

Chapter 1: Three ducks swim in a pond.

Chapter 2: Something threatens the ducks, maybe a fox or a hunter.

Chapter 3: The ducks warn each other to quickly fly away from the impending danger.

Or maybe I meant to print “QUACK” in the bubbles. In any case, I wish I had that drawing.

Most of my third through fifth grade artistic efforts were encouraged and nurtured by Miss Mattocks, my art teacher in the St. Louis school I attended. My first big project (it might have been for extra credit) was a story with pictures, kind of like a comic strip. I cut strips of butcher paper, taped them edge-to-edge, made vertical lines to denote frames, then drew and captioned my story. As I recall, it was about ten feet long. Miss Mattocks must have liked it because she let me tape it across a wall.

Around the same time, the boy next door and I published a newspaper of original cartoons (i.e., we made them up). We drew our cartoons on both sides of a large sheet of paper, then copied our work, by hand, onto a supply of same-sized paper. Then we hit the street, selling our latest edition to parents, neighbors, and relatives. The price per edition was probably a nickel.

At some point, I wrote the play I mention on my web site. I titled it Alice in Ant Land. The characters included a girl heroine and several ants. The plot had conflict, tension, and resolution. (However, in re-reading Chapter Four of Elizabeth Lyon’s A Writer’s Guide to Fiction, I think it fell short of the Heroine’s Journey.) Though Alice in Ant Land was set in present time, a few friends and I put on the play in our history class. As playwright, I assumed the role of Alice.

It was interesting and fun to think about my early attempts to draw and write fiction. Best of all, it made me recall the teachers, parents, friends, relatives, and neighbors who inspired and appreciated the budding little artists I suspect we all were.

The Bystander Effect

Filed Under : Books,crime by Camille

Jul.9,2015

A popular quote reads, If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me, attributed to Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Teddy Roosevelt, and supposedly found embroidered on a pillow in her home.

I like the sentiment (Dorothy Parkerlike), but one thing I resist is dissing another author’s work. I like to wait until I have only good things to say about a book before writing a review or comments.

Edgar® Nominee for Best Fact Crime

Kevin Cook’s KITTY GENOVESE: The Murder, The Bystanders, The Crime That Changed America (2014) is that book.

I suppose one reason I appreciated it so much is that I was living in New York at that time (1964), and remember the crime and its aftermath very well. Before reading Cook’s book, if I’d been asked what the incident was about, I might have said: a young woman was stabbed to death on the sidewalk in front of her building in broad daylight while everyone looked on.

That particular crime defined New York City for a long time and the effect rippled around the world, being reported by countries far and wide. “The 38” came to define the number of people who looked on; the outcry launched the “Bystander Effect.” It took Mayor Ed Koch to bring the city back to a favorable Big Apple image. The bigger the city, the bigger the recovery, apparently. I can attest to that from my many trips there, the latest ending just this week as I attended ThrillerFest. More on that later!

Cook’s research, which included interviews with Kitty’s partner, Mary Ann Zielonko, put the crime in a whole new light for me, shattering all the media spin I’d adopted as fact. I couldn’t put the book down

I learned that almost everything about the picture I’d formed was false, a set-up engineered by the press and the police administration of the time. The crime occurred not in broad daylight, but around three in the morning; most of it took place outside the view of all but two people, each of whom saw only a part of it, and one of whom reported it.

And so on . . . leaving you the chance to read it for yourselves.

In no way does the book lessen the horror of Kitty’s murder or the impact on Kitty’s family, especially on Mary Ann. The book is a social commentary, an excellent example of how we’re influenced by how others want us to view what’s happening around us, often in a way that’s far from the truth.

The sleuths behind the scenes

Filed Under : Books,crime by Camille

Jun.4,2015

In April, my 21^st cozy mystery, MANHATTAN IN MINIATURE, was released. In November, my 22^ndDEATH TAKES PRIORITY, will be released. I think I’ve earned my creds to speak about amateur sleuths! (Parts of this blog have been repurposed from previous rants—uh—posts.)

I know a gazillion amateur sleuths. Every day, on bookshelves everywhere, crimes are solved by florists, cooks, ghosts, beauticians, photographers, quilters, nurses, tour guides, and pet owners. They are solved on cruise ships, in cafes, in haunted and unhaunted houses, at concerts, in churches, and on the golf course.

Did I mention that amateur sleuths also include retired physicists, miniaturists, college math professors, and (with DTP) a postmistress?

I feel I know them all well, inside and out. They’re smart, brave, righteous, and sometimes too stupid to live (TSTL).

I’m constantly defending them:

• Of course she has motivation to investigate a murder, even though her day job is running a community garden and she has no training in criminology—after all, the victim was a bridesmaid at her roommate’s cousin’s best friend’s third wedding.

• She’s curious, so Yes! she drive out to the cemetery in the middle of the night to meet someone who says he has an important clue to the killer’s identity.

• So what if she withholds information from the real police? She has a good reason to—she wants to look into it on her own. She is, after all, an independent thinker/investigator. Never mind that she has neither training nor a badge.

• Yes! It is possible that the cupcake-maker sleuth found the clue that experienced homicide detectives and a crew of trained CSI techs missed. After all she has be very observant to bake cupcakes.

Members of my critique groups who do not write amateur sleuths are the biggest skeptics. Who’s going to believe blah blah blah? they ask me all the time.

I think the answer is: readers. They believe it enough to enjoy the story. There’s a reason there are so many cozies and a reason they are very popular. Readers enjoy reading about normal people like themselves—knitters, grandmothers, bakers, journalists, innkeepers, and beekeepers. They like to think anyone can be smart enough to follow a few clues, put the puzzle together and make the world safe again.

Don’t you?

Edgar® Week 2015

Filed Under : Books,Personal Favorites by Camille

May.7,2015

As promised: a pictorial summary of my week in New York for the Edgars®.

• A trip to the Museum of Arts and Design at Columbus Circle, for an amazing exhibit of paintings by photorealist Richard Estes. Here’s a shot of his Hotel Empire, oil on canvas:

• An orchestra seat (OK, the very last row!) at The Audience, starring Helen Mirren:

• The Edgar ® Banquet, black tie and glitter. And me (moderately glittery) presenting the Edgar to my new BFF, Stephen King:

• A tribute to New York’s way of dealing with trees. Instead of letting them get out of hand, trap them in beautiful art deco metal frames:

• A great traveling companion, Ann Parker, author of the award-winning Silver Rush Mysteries, shown here at the Oyster Bar in GCT:

• And when a building is high enough, add a few stories:

Start spreading the news . . .

Edgars® Past and Present

Filed Under : Books,Personal by Camille

Apr.30,2015

Jerry Orbach and friend at the Edgars®, early 21st century.

If scheduling went as planned: 1) last night (April 29, 2015) was the presentation of the Edgar Awards at the Mystery Writers of America banquet in NYC; 2) I was there to present the award to the winner; and 3) the world now knows the winner.

It’s not clear whether I’ll be able to post the winner here on April 30, since I’ll still be in NYC, but information should be at this link. I’ll also try to access the comments and put the information there.

Getting ready for Edgars® Present, I found this old photo of the banquet, 2001 or 2002, I believe.

I’d been General Chair of the awards and Jerry Orbach had been signed up to host the evening. Before the festivities began, I noticed Jerry sitting off to the side at a small table, by himself. What?

Now, true New Yorkers do NOT make a fuss over celebrities, but I claim right to call myself a NYer when it suits (cred: 5 years at Fordham grad school) and to call myself a fan-girl from California when that suits.

That night I put on my CA hat and went up to Jerry, told him I loved Lenny Briscoe, and enjoyed a brief conversation, after which he let me have this photo taken.

RIP, Jerry Orbach (1935-2004)