Eight Mystery Writers You Should Be Reaing Nowwww

by Michael Guillebeau

  “I know that,” I said. “But you didn’t come here to tell me that, either.”

  He looked pained, but let it pass. “A situation’s come up. Malone asked me to come by and ask you to take a look at a crime scene. A courtesy.”

  “From me to her, or from her to me?”

  “From the department to you,” he said. “And vice versa.”

  “Paul has a Cub Scout meeting tonight.” I slung the saddle over the saddle rack and looked pointedly at my watch. “I’m just about to go pick him up.”

  Frank shook his head, his lips pressed tight.

  “Aw, shit,” I said.

  He held out a clear plastic evidence bag, and in it was a sepia-toned Vietnam-era photo of a young guy in fatigues, a small Asian girl on his shoulders and an infant in his arms. The photo was creased, as if it had been crumpled in a fist, and there was a rust-colored stain on one corner. He flipped it over, and I saw another stain, like a bloody thumbprint, across the back. Scrawled in pencil beneath the thumbprint was a phone number and address. My office number and address.

  “What’s this?” I said.

  “You know who this is?”

  “Of course I know who it is.” The crooked grin, the shock of buckskin-colored hair, the slant of the jaw . . . I saw them every day in the photo on my bedside table, saw similar features in the mirror every morning. So like him, my mother used to say, and trace my cheekbones with her thumbs.

  I reached for the bag, as if a closer look might prove me wrong, and after a moment he handed it over.

  “You know the routine,” he said. “Don’t open it.”

  I knew the routine. I looked at the picture, smoothing the plastic over the photo with my thumb to reduce the glare.

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “We got a call, one of those Strip-o-Gram girls works downstairs in your building.”

  I worked out of an office on the top floor of a former boarding house. One of the downstairs offices belonged to a grandmotherly type who ran a call-out strip business. Bachelor parties. Birthday parties. Boys’ nights at the office.

  “They prefer to be called women now,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Or so I’m told.”

  “This one looked like a girl,” Frank said. “Eighteen, nineteen, maybe. But then, they all look young to me these days. She went out to toss a trash bag in the dumpster—guy who works on the second floor carried it out for her—and when they opened it, there was a dead woman inside. Asian.” He nodded toward the photo in the evidence bag. “That was in her hand.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “And yet, there it is. So what we need to know—what I came here to ask you—is why there’s a dead girl in your dumpster with a picture of your father in her hand?”

  Interview

  Michael Guillebeau: We’ve tried to put together a wide variety of stories in this collection. What kind of reader should give your stuff a shot?

  Jaden Terrell: I’d say my work appeals to readers who like their stories dark but not bleak. Narayan Radhakrishnan, of New Mystery Review, said of my first novel, “The book is not noir, but it has a noir feel,” while Sheila Deeth, who reviews for Café Libre and is an excellent author in her own right, called the series “the perfect combination of noir and human hope.” The world can be dark at times, but as human beings, we have the ability to make it better.

  MG: Tell us a little about how your writing has evolved?

  JT: I started as a fantasy writer, but while I was still learning the craft, I fell in love with Jared McKean, the hero of my private detective novels. That was the series that attracted interest from agents and publishers, so the fantasy went on the back burner. My first attempt at Racing the Devil was abysmal. I was lucky enough to get an agent right away and some very encouraging rejections because I was strong enough at character development to obscure the fact that there was hardly any plot. It was just a coat hanger to put this elaborate character sketch on. But since I believed in the story and the characters, I kept revising it, adding scenes and distilling the character development until eventually, the Permanent Press picked it up. It was short-listed for a Shamus award, which was extremely validating, considering how far it had come.

  I think I’ve gotten better at the craft as a whole over the years. At least, I hope I have. Writing is one of those things where there’s always more to learn. Every book has a different challenge. In A Cup Full of Midnight, which was inspired by the “vampire” murders in Kentucky several years ago, the challenge was dealing with intensely emotional situations while weaving together the main plot and several subplots that echo the main themes. The next book, River of Glass, is about human trafficking. Two of the biggest challenges in that one were building the relationship between Jared and his newly discovered half-sister and keeping the tension high as they pursue inevitable dead ends. It’s the first book that has scenes from a point of view other than Jared’s, to show the perspective of the young woman being held captive.

  MG: Which writers inspire you? Which writers do you think your books are like? Who do you wish they were like?

  JT: Readers who like Robert Crais, Steven Womack, Dennis Lehane (especially his Kenzie and Gennaro novels), and Jonathan Kellerman would probably enjoy mine, even though I don’t claim to be as good as those guys, who are all favorites and inspirations to me. I wish I could use description and characterization as well as S.J. Rozan, Michael Connelly, Lawrence Block, William Kent Krueger and Timothy Hallinan. John Connolly’s prose is so lyrical sometimes it just makes me want to weep because I know I’ll never be that good. For dialogue, action, and stripped-down, punchy prose, I love Lee Child. And J.K. Rowling’s Robert Galbraith books have rich and beautiful characterizations. I go back to all these authors again and again to see how they handle transitions, how they use dialogue, how they weave in interior monologue, and so on. I read their books once for pleasure and then over and over again to try and parse out how they make the magic.

  I read outside the genre as well—J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin, and J.V. Jones, just to name a few. I try to learn from everybody.

  MG: Why do you write the kind of stories you write?

  JT: I think we often write about what we love, what we fear, and what we don’t understand. When I was 18, my father was killed. At the time, we thought it was suicide, but we learned later that it was more likely murder. We never got a definitive answer about what happened or why, and at this point, we never will. Real life is messy that way, but in fiction, you always know. The bad guys get caught, and the world is put right. You can explore the why. Of course, Dad’s death isn’t the only reason I write what I do. The high-stakes situations intensify a character’s emotions and make the genre a perfect vehicle for exploring what people become when everything they love is at risk.

  MG: What is your best marketing tip?

  JT: Try only to do things you would be glad to have done, even if they didn’t result in a single sale.

  MG: What are you working on now? What is your next project?

  JT: It’s the fourth book in the Jared McKean series. It’s called A Taste of Blood and Ashes, and it’s about the Tennessee Walking Horse soring controversy.

  MG: If you were a super hero, what would your name be? What costume would you wear? What would your superpower be?

  JT: My super hero name would be Swan Song. I’d wear either all black or all white, with a flowing cape of feathers (only molted feathers; no swans would actually be hurt in the making of this costume). I’d be able to sing magic, especially healing and protective magic.

  MG: Do you dream? Do you have any recurring dreams/nightmares?

  JT: I have spectacularly vivid dreams, but I’m rarely in them. There’s usually a point-of-view character who acts as a protagonist, and I understand that I’m this person, but watching the action from outside, like a movie. Some of them are fully formed stories, and I give them titles, like “The Polar Bear King,” in whic
h two children go to the Winter World to ask the Polar Bear King to put the world in balance by making it snow in Africa or “God’s Shadow,” in which a community’s faith makes them invisible to an invading army of barbarians. I rarely have nightmares, and when I do, they often turn into something else. “Cloudy with a Chance of Zombies” started as a horror story about zombies attacking humans and ended with a musical montage in which humans and zombies lived together in peace. I don’t know what they did about their need for brains, but somehow it all worked out.

  LISA WYSOCKY

  It is obvious that Lisa Wysocky loves both books and horses! As an author and motivational speaker who trains horses for and consults with therapeutic riding programs, she stays really busy, but wouldn't have it any other way.

  Her debut mystery, The Opium Equation, is an equestrian cozy mystery set near Nashville, Tennessee and features an unlikely cast of characters including a (possibly) psychic horse. The book won four awards, including a Mom's Choice award for fiction. The sequel, The Magnum Equation, won Best Equine-related Book from the American Horse Publications, the first time a fiction book had been awarded such an honor.

  Lisa is a PATH International therapeutic riding instructor and has been chosen as one of the country's Top 50 riding instructors by ARIA. Her book Therapy Horse Selection helps horse owners who are considering donating their horse to a therapy program understand what kind of horse a therapeutic riding center might need, and also helps centers find horses for their programs.

  SHORT STORY

  Searching for Bubba

  “Cat?” Darcy’s voice at the end of the barn aisle was dead calm, and that alone made my insides crawl. One of my top riding students, Darcy was usually a high-strung and excitable high school senior.

  “In here,” I said. I was in a stall untangling the tail of Sally Blue, a young Appaloosa mare who some people claimed was psychic.

  “Frog Berry just called my cell. He saw Bubba.”

  This was the news we had been waiting for, but I tried not to get too excited. At sixteen, Frog Berry had been in jail more often than he’d been home. He also has a thing for Darcy and thought his missing front tooth and spiky, multi-colored Mohawk were sexy. In my book, for those reasons alone, he couldn’t be trusted. I glanced at Sally to see if she had any psychic reaction to this news, but she just blinked.

  Darcy anticipated my question. “Frog saw him this morning, near the Walmart in West Nashville.”

  Our eleven-year-old neighbor, Bubba Henley, had run away from home for what must have been the ba-zillionth time. Considering the kind of person his dad was, I couldn’t say I blamed him, but an eleven-year-old did not need to be out on the street. I really did hope that Frog had seen Bubba, but past experience made me dubious. “Was Frog sure?”

  “Very sure. Remember that Frog and Bubba are friends. Well, sort of. But Frog certainly knows what Bubba looks like.” Darcy paused. “You think Frog was lying?” she asked.

  I gave her a look.

  “Like I know Frog maybe just wants attention, but he gave me a lot of detail that he’s not smart enough to make up on his own.”

  “Such as?” I untangled the last few strands of Sally’s tail, gave her a pat, and closed the stall door.

  “Frog said Bubba was behind that pizza place next to Walmart and he was talking to a thin, blond girl wearing a torn, brown hoodie.”

  A cold spear of ice ran through me. That area housed a number of homeless men and women. Most were peaceful, down-on-their-luck people, but some had been known to be dangerous.

  “What was Frog doing in West Nashville?” I asked.

  “Driving through with his dad on his way to court. He saw Bubba from the road. Cat, can you go get him? Bubba annoys me, but he’s just a kid.”

  Darcy had recently moved in with me. Her mother lived overseas and her dad ran a huge Internet publishing business. With only Ruby the housekeeper at home most days, Darcy must have thought I was better company. I was surprised that I didn’t mind having her in my extra bedroom. Usually, I was a solitary sort.

  “You know the Nashville cops won’t go look just on Frog’s word,” said Darcy. “And even if they did, by the time they got out there he could be all the way across town.”

  Darcy was right. Plus, I knew that kids grew up fast when they were homeless. I didn’t want Bubba to have that kind of education.

  “Yes,” I said, putting my arm around her as we headed down the aisle. “I’ll look for him.”

  *****

  Bubba’s dad was Hill Henley, a no-account, white trash trainer of Tennessee Walking Horses who lived two farms away. Bubba’s mother had run off a number of years ago, and Hill often left Bubba alone in their aging double-wide, which was decorated in a tattered Confederate flag motif. Knowing Hill, life was probably better for Bubba when Hill wasn’t there.

  I thought of the irony. Bubba had risked his life to save mine earlier in the year. Now maybe it was my turn to save his, although I hoped there wouldn’t be much risk involved. I had a boyfriend who frowned on that sort of thing. Then I sighed. Because of a stray kid, I’d have to cancel a rare lunch date with said boyfriend, who was a very nice veterinarian named Brent. He took the news a little too well, which put me in a bad mood, so I was short with Jon Gardner, my barn manager and all-around right arm when he asked if I could pick up some Epsom salts before I left Walmart. We soaked horse’s feet in the salts whenever they got an abscess, which was rare, but it sometimes happened.

  The area around Walmart was not as crowded as I had expected, even though it was coming up on the noon hour on a breezy Tuesday. In addition to the breeze, there was an autumn chill in the air, which was odd for us this early in September. The shoppers I passed in the parking lot moved quickly, eager to find the bright warmth of the mega-store.

  After I made a quick scan of the parking lots of the little strip mall where Bubba had been seen, as well as the parking areas for Walmart and its neighboring big box, Lowe’s, I parked my truck behind the strip mall. Before I left the farm, Darcy had printed off a few copies of the only photo I had of Bubba. It was a great likeness of him in happier times sitting on our champion Appaloosa gelding, Hillbilly Bob.

  I showed the photo to two ragged and bearded men who were sitting on top of a low pile of pallets that someone had left behind one of the stores. They passed a half-empty bottle between them as they looked at the photo. The picture drew a shake of the older man’s head, but the younger, a man who had introduced himself as Jay, suggested I try to find someone they called The General. This man, apparently, was the head homeless person in the area and knew everything that was going on.

  “Where should I look for him?” I asked.

  “No looking involved,” Jay said, swiping a dirt-stained hand across his lips. “Just hang around the stores and parking lots. He’ll find you.”

  “If anyone’s seen your boy, The General will know about it,” said the older man, speaking for the first time. “Watch it, though. He’s a little crazy.”

  Oh, goodie.

  I moved my search into the stores. Bubba had been missing for nearly a week, as far as we could tell. Hill hadn’t been home when Bubba had taken off, so the actual date and time of the departure were unknown. Bubba was resourceful, and had some street skills from his earlier runaways. But, he previously had either gone to Frog’s house, or into Ashland City. This was the first time I knew of that he had headed toward Nashville.

  In each store, I looked at the face of every stocky, five-foot tall person that I saw, but none of them were Bubba. As I was exiting Lowe’s, a large man dressed in a striped poncho, pink sweat pants and a battered cowboy hat that long ago had lost any color that it might have had, stood on the sidewalk smack in front of me. It was like he had appeared out of thin air.

  Instinctively, I pulled away and was about ready to scream when he saluted me. Then he took off his hat to reveal a few wisps or gray hair, and bowed.

  “The General is at your servic
e, ma’am.”

  Before I could say a word, the man beckoned, and then limped off toward the woods behind the store. I hesitated, then sent texts to Jon, Darcy, and Martin Giles, a young Cheatham County deputy who happened to be the brother of the veterinarian I should have had lunch with. My nature was to be impulsive, but even I wasn’t going to skip off into the woods with a crazy homeless man without telling people where I was going.

  The General looked back and eagerly waved me to the edge of the woods with his right arm. I put my cell into the pocket of my jeans, then stuck my hand into my purse and got a firm grip on the can of pepper spray I had started to carry after I got kidnapped last February.

  I glanced around, still not sure this was what I needed to be doing, then I thought of Bubba. The General was an older man, and not in great shape from the way he walked. I had pepper spray and I could always clock him with my heavy purse if the need arose. I was also pretty fit from riding horses six to eight hours most days. I gave one last look around the parking lot, and then stepped into the woods with The General.

  We traveled down a dry, narrow path that paralleled the Cumberland River, which ran behind Lowe’s. After what must have been the equivalent of a long block, we entered a clearing that had been made for a monster of a utility tower. Large cables ran through the many, long arms of the silver tower, and I was sure I could feel the electric current vibrating through my body as we passed underneath it. Or, maybe my insides were just shaking with fear. The General led me into more woods on the other side of the clearing and we walked another hundred yards to a second open area. In the center were five blue sleeping tents, each identical and standing about five feet in height.