On Thursday I was wishing you a Merry Christmas. Now, I’m wishing you a Happy Thank You Note Day. It’s an actual thing — I’m not making this up! See? So, are you a thank you note writer? This week we did a #tbt to days of yore re-visiting Plant’s Palace. In that vein, let’s harken […]
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Saturday Special: 5 More Safety Apps
First of all, thank you to all those who entered the #XmasAudio audiobook giveaway here on the blog Tuesday. We sent an email to the winner, so be sure and check your inbox — and your spam box— sometimes cyber gremlins get ahold of things they shouldn’t! If you didn’t enter the giveaway, maybe you’ve […]
How West Point Inspires Honesty
I love these little minions for their honesty! Here’s one of their latest truisms: Are you a cash stasher? I’m not. But if I was, I like to think I’d be a law-abiding cash stasher. As a fiction writer, I do tons of research to make sure every detail in my books is definitely plausible. On […]
Saturday Special: What To Do After Over-Indulging
Did you have a wonderful Thanksgiving? I hope so! Mine was fantastic, but now… Please tell me I’m not the only one who had a second slice of pumpkin pie! It’s times like these that I ask myself, “What would Jess Kimball do?” Easy. She’d go for a run. She’s an investigative journalist, you know. […]
5 Recent, Weird, and TRUE Pieces of DNA News
As a crime writer, I love DNA to the moon and back. Seriously— DNA is so valuable for clues and evidence in the books I write, I don’t know what I’d do without it. Well, no one would exist without it. But you know what I mean. DNA is frequently the subject of mind-bending news […]
When One Book Closes, Another Opens
When I was writing earlier this week about how Dominick Dunne went from novelist to investigative journalism, it reminded me that my friend, Lee Child, worked in television production at Granada Television before becoming a novelist. Lee was a fan of crime novels, but had never been completely happy with the ones he read. He once […]
Flying? Coffee? Reading? There’s An App For That
You saw this week that I told you about 4 of Kim Otto’s Rules, right? One of her guiding principles is to never sleep on an airplane. Her theory is that in any airplane disaster, you have a better chance of surviving if you’re awake. So I found this app that I’m thinking Kim Otto […]
The Scariest Bookshelves You’ve Ever Seen
Today is Halloween. So are these the scariest bookshelves you’ve ever seen, or what?! These creepy bookshelves remind me of a bookstore in St. Petersburg, FL that’s said to be haunted. It’s called Haslam’s Book Store, founded in 1933, and it happens to also be the biggest new and used bookstore in the state of […]
How Food Can Help Solve Mysteries
Today is National Food Day, and October is Mystery Month. So, the overlap had me wondering: what are the most mysterious foods? Clearly, cereal is one of them. I’m kidding, of course. It does turn out, though, that there are plenty of connections between food and forensics. For example, a scientist named Alison Davidson is […]
Saturday Special: May Your Ending Be Unexpected
We’re smack dab in the middle of October — which, as you may know, is Mystery Month. How do you like your mysteries to end? With a twist, right? That’s the answer I hear most often. As I wrote earlier this week, a fairy tale ending isn’t always my favorite. I prefer surprise. There’s an […]
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