Volume 40, No. 3, Fall 2024
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ARTICLES
- Unforgettable Duos: Fictional Partners in Crime by Ayoola Onatade
- If You’re Ever in a Jam, Here I Am by Margot Kinberg
- Morse & Lewis—The Perfect Partners in Crime by Paul Charles
- Those Loveable “Sidekicks!” Who’s Your Favorite? by Lou Armagno
AUTHOR! AUTHOR!
- An Author and Her Characters Team Up by Annamaria Alfieri
- Partners Balance Crime Fighting by Saffron Amatti
- A Study in Contrasts by Paul A. Barra
- Why Two by Two? by Albert Bell
- A Partnership—Not that I Wanted One by J. F. Benedetto
- Two Voices Morph into a Third by Cordelia Biddle and Steve Zettler
- Collaborators Continue the Molly Murphy Series by Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles
- Partners in Crime: The Pear Mystery Series by Robin Castle
- Partners in Magic and Murder by Ron Cook
- The Working Group by Susan Courtwright
- You Can’t Do It Alone by J. Salvatore Domino
- Double Doubles: Two Sets of Partners in Crime by Martin Edwards
- Partners Write Partners by Lee Elder
- Cronies, Chums, and Colleagues by Kate Fellowes
- The Unique Partnership in The Nest by Hal Glatzer
- When Two Are Not Enough by Bradley Harper
- The Birth of “Ticket to Ride” by Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski
- The Partner Sleuths in My Mysteries by Adrian Magson
- (Life) Partners in Crime by Ron Katz
- One Plus One Makes It More Fun by Tim Maleeny
- The Equalizer by Jeanne Matthews
- The Conjuror and the Copper by Tom Mead
- Why I Write with Partner Sleuths, Sort Of by Mike Orenduff
- Father/Daughter Detective Duo by Marcy McCreary
- Multiple Accomplices by Josh Pachter
- Writing Together Can Be Murder, But That’s Not All Bad by Larry and Rosemary Mild
- In It Together by Priscilla Paton
- Bop City Swing—or How I Fell in Step with a Dancing Partner by M.E. Proctor
- A Partnership with Heart—and Fur by Neil Plakcy
- Life Partners/Partners in Crime by Lev Raphael
- Detecting Partners, Writing Partners by SJ Rozan
- He Said, She Said: On Writing Devils Island by Midge Raymond & John Yunker
- Partners in Small-Town Crime: Samuel Craddock and Loretta Singletary by Terry Shames
- Finishing Each Other’s Sentences by Jennifer Slee and Jessica Slee
- Brainstorms & Nuclear Bombs: Writing with Your Spouse by Alexandra Sokoloff & Craig Robertson
- Partners in Crime—Michael and Stanley by Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip
- My Mother, My Partner by Charles Todd
- Parasols and Poisons: Gilded Age Partners in Crime by N. S. Wikarski
- Detection in the Harem by Elizabeth Zelvin
COLUMNS
- Mystery in Retrospect: Reviews by Aubrey Hamilton, Claire Hart-Palumbo, Lesa Holstine, Dru Ann Love, LJ Roberts, and Jonathan Woods
- Children’s Hour: Partners in Crime by Gay Toltl Kinman
- Unexpected Partners in Real Crime by Cathy Pickens
- Crime Seen: Assorted Ampersands by Kate Derie
- From the Editor’s Desk by Janet A. Rudolph
Double Doubles: Two Sets of Partners in Crime
by Martin Edwards
Both my current series feature ‘partners in crime’ who solve mysteries together, but that’s about all they have in common. Hannah Scarlett and Daniel Kind in the Lake District Mysteries are a contemporary couple solving cold cases in one of the most beautiful parts of England (or anywhere, really). Rachel Savernake and Jacob Flint investigate dark and intricate mysteries in the Britain of the 1930s. Each book in both series stands alone, and I take care to make sure that the stories can be read in any order, even though the relationships between the main characters develop over time.
When I launched the Lake District series with The Coffin Trail, my original thinking was that Daniel, an Oxford historian who has fled to the countryside after the death of his lover, would be the central character. Hannah, a Detective Chief Inspector who has been put in charge of the newly formed Cold Case team, only makes her presence felt in the second half of the book. But my friend, that great writer Peter Robinson, who kindly read the novel in manuscript, told me that he thought Hannah was ideally suited to taking the lead in future stories, and he was absolutely right.
The connection between Hannah and Daniel stems from the fact that Hannah once worked with Daniel’s father, Ben. Ben was a mentor to Hannah as she was starting out as a detective. He’d left his wife and children for a new relationship and moved to the Lakes, but he dies in a hit and run accident before the series begins. Daniel is drawn to the Lake District by a yearning to make a connection with the father he lost when he was a boy. When he meets Hannah for the first time, both she and he are in relationships with other people. But I always envisaged that, as time passed, the two of them would come closer together. And so it has proved…
Hannah is the expert crime solver, Daniel the amateur, but they share a professional and personal interest in the past, and in each book they collaborate so as to unravel a baffling murder mystery. Theirs is a genuine partnership, but since each case is different, the way they deal with the challenges varies from novel to novel.
In the latest book, The Crooked Shore (US title The Girl They All Forgot), which is the eighth so far in the series, Hannah and Daniel confront some of the demons from the past. This is a novel I absolutely loved writing. The danger of a series is that it can become formulaic, so I try to overcome that risk by writing each book from a slightly different angle. This approach keeps me excited about the stories and the characters—and if I’m excited about them, I reckon there’s a better chance that readers will love the books too!
The Lake District books are set in the present, but are traditional mysteries. The Rachel Savernake books are set in the past, but I’m aiming to write books that play with all the great ideas of the Golden Age of detective fiction—locked room mysteries, ciphers, dying message clues and so on—but do so in an original way.
I began to write the first book, Gallows Court, with not much more than an idea about a character whom I found intriguing and mysterious—and, yes, exciting. Rachel Savernake is a young woman who is fabulously wealthy—and exceptionally ruthless. She arrives in London with three servants, who are rather more than servants. They are more like co-conspirators. She buys a great house in the heart of the city and becomes entangled with a bizarre murder mystery. It becomes clear that she isn’t afraid to take the law into her own hands. A young journalist, Jacob Flint, becomes fascinated by her and determined to discover her hidden agenda.
That was my starting point, but as I kept writing, the dynamics between Rachel and Jacob began, quite subtly, to shift. Rachel is the dominant figure, the brilliant solver of elaborate puzzles, while Jacob’s impetuousness leads him into trouble too often for comfort. But there’s a frisson between them. And often, Jacob’s work as a crime reporter enables him to supply evidence that only Rachel can make sense of.
So this is a very different partnership than Hannah and Daniel’s. In a strange kind of way, the relationship between Rachel and Jacob has developed into something like that between Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. But there’s a touch of menace about Rachel that keeps Jacob on his toes. And in the latest book, The House on Graveyard Lane (UK title Sepulchre Street), he finds himself hunted by both the police and a merciless criminal, for a crime he did not commit. Can Rachel save him—and solve the complex puzzle that has lured Jacob into danger?
The Rachel Savernake books offer a Gothic take on Golden Age mysteries and they are great fun to write. What’s more, readers can compete with Rachel to solve the various puzzles in the stories. The three most recent books, Mortmain Hall, The Puzzle of Blackstone Lodge, and The House on Graveyard Lane, all have Cluefinders at the end. So you can see how many of the clues you spotted in the story! Go on, see how your detective skills compare to Rachel’s…
Martin Edwards has published 23 novels and has won the CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in British crime writing. His other awards include the CWA Dagger in the Library, voted by UK librarians, and two Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America. His lifetime achievement awards include the Golden Derringer for his short mystery fiction, and he has been President of the Detection Club since 2015.
A Partnership with Heart—and Fur
by Neil Plakcy
My golden retriever mystery series is all about how man’s best friend can also be his best partner in crime-solving.
When the series begins with In Dog We Trust, Steve Levitan has returned to his hometown of Stewart’s Crossing, with his tail metaphorically between his legs. An ill-fated attempt to help his wife after her second miscarriage sent him to the three major credit bureaus, where he hacked in and placed a red flag on her accounts to keep her from bankrupting them by retail therapy.
That led to prosecution, incarceration, and divorce. After a year as a guest of the California penal system, he takes possession of the suburban Pennsylvania townhouse his late father left him. Quickly he meets his next-door neighbor, Caroline Kelly, and her effusive golden retriever, Rochester.
It’s not an auspicious encounter, as Rochester jumps on him and spills his coffee. Steve is careful to keep his distance from the dog, until Caroline is killed and his high school pal, now a police detective in town, asks him to keep Rochester for a few days.
The gregarious golden is determined to win Steve over—and convince him to become an amateur sleuth by digging up clues to Caroline’s murder. He teaches Steve how to love again—and they begin a series of adventures in crime-solving.
I have two golden retrievers myself, and I observe their behaviors to come up with ways Rochester can provide clues to Steve. It might be nosing out a scrap of paper or torn fabric on a branch, scratching up a newspaper with a relevant article, or knocking something down with his big plume of a tail. Then it’s up to Steve to (legally) use his hacking skills to connect that clue to evidence his pal can use to convict.
Rochester is also a good judge of character. If he holds back from greeting someone, an alert reader will keep that in mind, though that person might not be the criminal. Maybe he or she has used a perfume Rochester’s sensitive nose doesn’t care for, for example. But if a good person is upset, you can count on Rochester to comfort them with a lick of his tongue or a paw extended in friendship.
Together their partnership has tracked down murderers, thieves, and other criminals in Stewart’s Crossing and at Eastern College, where Steve works. Their newest adventure, Food of the Dogs, takes them to Vermont where Steve and his new bride plan to enjoy a leaf-peeping honeymoon. But murder gets in the way, and it’s up to this partnership to solve a crime in unfamiliar territory.
New sights, smells and people prove no challenge to this intrepid team, though, and their new family of three succeeds, and returns home happier and more secure in their partnership.
Neil Plakcy is the author of over 60 published novels in mystery, romance and adventure.
Partners in Small-Town Crime: Samuel Craddock and Loretta Singletary
by Terry Shames
In A Killing at Cotton Hill, the first in the Samuel Craddock series, the first person named in the book is Loretta Singletary. She’s hurrying up the steps to Samuel’s house to tell him, “You know Dora Lee Parjeter, lives out in Cotton Hill? She was found murdered this morning.” When Samuel is all set to drive to Dora Lee’s farm to find out the particulars, Loretta is waiting in his truck. “You’re not going out there without me,” she says. On the way to the farm, she tells him that she found out about Dora Lee’s death through the ever-present grapevine. It’s the device Loretta uses to help Samuel solve the crimes in every book. Although Loretta wouldn’t consider herself a detective, she is vital to Craddock’s work as chief of police.
I write in first person from the viewpoint of Samuel Craddock, and he can’t possibly know everything that goes on in town. That’s where Loretta comes in. I think of Loretta as functioning as the Greek chorus. In Greek plays there was a chorus of voices that clued in the main character as to what was going on in the background.
In the fourth book, The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake, Loretta says what she knows of the Blake family. They don’t attend church, and they keep to themselves. “I don’t mean like they think they’re better than anybody else. Just that they don’t mingle much.” Also, John Blake has Parkinson’s and has always “been a little off in the head.”
Loretta knows these things through her strong connections to the grapevine, including her participation in the Baptist Ladies’ Circle. Some might say she’s a gossip, but her tales aren’t cruel or meant to hurt. They are merely “talk of the town.” In Murder at the Jubilee Rally, when told about an altercation between two women, Loretta puts her hand to her heart. “They’re both good people, but they’ve never gotten along. They’re like oil and water.” And then she details ways in which both women’s attitudes are understandable. Although she is a gossip, she knows how to keep a secret. She would have been a great spy!
Even after Samuel gets a deputy he comes to depend on, Maria Trevino, Loretta is still vital to the investigations. And Maria knows it, too. Often, when an investigation is stalled Maria suggests it’s time for Samuel to consult Loretta.
In A Reckoning in the Back Country, Samuel thinks, “It’s valuable to have a conduit to town gossip, and I couldn’t do any better than Loretta.” After she tells him that the victim had money problems and a lawsuit against him, he thinks, “Why do I even bother searching for information on the Internet when I can just ask Loretta?”
In book eight, I decided it was time to get to know Loretta better, so A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary focuses on her disappearance. Samuel and Maria pull out all the stops to find her. Samuel realizes he has come to take her for granted, and vows to do better.
In Guilt Strikes at Granger’s Store, the latest in the series, Samuel is trying to figure out the identity of a body stashed away at least thirty years. Loretta provides facts about who worked on the renovation of a building where the body was found. One of the men died a couple of years ago, but Eddie Polasek’s mamma still lives in town. “She remarried after her husband died in an (industrial) accident… in Bobtail. (And Eddie) moved a while back to… Dallas. Long time ago.” That information eventually ties to things that make it possible to solve the crime.
In every book, Loretta brings baked goods to her neighbors. “She makes it her mission to bake for her friends… That way she can do a good turn and also catch up on the latest gossip.”
Terry Shames writes the popular, award-winning Samuel Craddock series. Guilt Strikes at Granger’s Store was one of Library Journal’s top mysteries of 2023. Perilous Waters, the first in her Jessie Madison thriller series, came out in April 2024. Terry lives in Los Angeles and is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime.
Buy this back issue! Available in hardcopy or as a downloadable PDF.