When I was writing Fatal Demand and Fatal Error, my two most recent Jess Kimball thrillers, I worked on a lot of scenes where Jess Kimball needed to get around quickly. She’s a runner, so that helped her move fast on her feet. And I put her on a moped for some of the story, which […]
Archive | Beyond The Covers RSS feed for this section
The Astronaut Beach House and More About Cape Canaveral
I love to write about places all over Florida because so many of my books take place in the Sunshine State. We’ve been talking lately about Cape Canaveral, and this week I dug up some more fun facts that you might find interesting: The Astronaut Beach House You know about Cape Canaveral Air Force Station […]
Agatha Christie’s Vacation Home
Where do great minds think? I often wonder where other authors do their thinking. I know Lee Child works from an office in his Manhattan apartment. As for myself, I work part of the year writing mysteries and thrillers in my Florida office, and I spend part of the year writing and researching books in Traverse […]
Why I Love Florida, Reason #5: Cape Canaveral
In a recent blog post, I referred to a cartoon that called the Cape Canaveral area of Florida “NASA’s Graveyard.” It was a joke, of course, but as a Florida resident and a Florida lover and an author who writes about Florida frequently, it’s worth pointing out what a neat place Cape Canaveral really is. In […]
Wi-Fi Precautions To Take When Traveling
FBI Special Agents Kim Otto and Carlos Gaspar have layers upon layers of security surrounding their wireless devices. Only the most determined hackers can penetrate them. Which is why Otto worries slightly less about confidential information getting hacked by fellow passengers on an airplane. But what about you? Should you be worried about your personal […]
Why I Love Florida, Reason #4: 900 Hidden Springs
If you have a basic familiarity with the state of Florida, you know it’s a peninsula, surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the east. But Florida is also home to many more “hidden” bodies of water. Of course, anything hidden is great fodder for my books! Have you ever […]
Why I Love Florida, Reason #3
Florida is a crazy place, but I love this wacky state. One of the wild things about Florida is that you can travel to a dozen different cultures and landscapes without traveling far from home. Sure, some cities are a ten-hour drive (or more) away from each other, but it’s all within a day’s drive […]
It’s A Bad Month for Italian Crime
When we hear about a food product “Made In Italy,” or when we imagine eating at an Italian café or shopping at a produce stand on the streets of Rome, it’s a mouth-watering, dreamy, appetite-inducing fantasy, isn’t it? But law enforcement officers have let us know this month that we can’t take that for granted. There […]
Why I Love Florida, Reason #2: Miami
Do you know one major city in the U.S. founded by a woman? Take a guess at which city it is: Dallas, Texas Miami, Florida Chicago, Illinois San Francisco, California If you guessed #2, you are correct! (The title of this blog post might have been a good clue…) The woman behind Miami’s history […]
Florida Crime: Blame It On The Heat?
Crime in Paradise is a frequent theme of my books. I’ve written eight books set in the Sunshine State. Partly because I live in Florida and know it well. But also because the statistics show that Florida’s weather may influence crime rates and the types of crime found in the state. When we think of […]
Follow Diane
