Cover Reveal: MALICIOUS MISCHIEF by Marianne Harden

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I'm thrilled to be part of a group of bloggers who are helping Marianne Harden reveal the cover of her upcoming debut - MALICIOUS MISCHIEF (October 22, 2013; Entangled: Select). Marianne is not only a fantastic writer (and I can honestly say this, having been one of the MALICIOUS MISCHIEF's early readers) but she is funny. On top of that, I consider her one of my writing sisters, and she's going to be my partner-in-crime at Bouchercon this year (look out, Albany, here we come!).

In celebration of this momentous event, Marianne is giving away a $25 gift card to the book retailer of the winner’s choice, so be sure to enter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And now, without further ado, here is Marianne's fantastic cover!

Book Summary:

Career chameleon, Rylie Keyes, must keep her current job. If not, the tax assessor will evict her ailing grandfather and auction off their ancestral home. When a senior she shuttles for a Bellevue, Washington retirement home winds up dead in her minibus, sticky with a half-eaten s'more, head clad in a cellophane bag, and a pocketed complaint letter accusing her of driving by Braille, her goal to keep her job hits a road bump.

The deceased was thought to be a penniless Nazi concentration camp survivor with a silly grudge against Rylie. However, the victim has enemies who will stop at nothing to keep their part in the murder a secret.

Forced to dust off the PI training she's kept hidden from her ex-detective grandfather, Rylie must align with a circus-bike-wheeling Samoan to solve the murder, all while juggling the attentions of two very hot police officers.

Excerpt:

~When the chips are down, the buffalo is empty~

Am I a flake? Sort of. But I’m trying to change. My grandfather has property tax issues, and what troubles Granddad, troubles me. Good thing I’ve held down a steady job for months. A major big deal. Not the getting a job part—I’ve had lots—but the held down aspect. Somehow, I always end up unemployed, but not today.

Today, I am Rylie Tabitha Keyes, chauffeur to the seniors at Fountain of Youth Retirement Home (FoY.)

It was dawn Sunday as I eased my employer’s van from one freeway onto another. After that, I concentrated on the wet asphalt up ahead. I didn’t want to think about my job history or our financial woes. Instead I focused on the summery sunrise over the Cascade Mountains due east. I stared at it a moment, charmed by its contrast to the more typical Bellevue, Washington gloom brooding overhead.

I should’ve been asleep, but I needed to toss trash from a fundraiser rolling around in the back of the van. Leland Rosenberg, my boss at Fountain of Youth Retirement Home, had asked me to dump the bags at his second business, Rosenberg Laboratory, as FoY’s Dumpsters were full from a recent bathroom remodel. His mood had been edgy, kind of insistent I dispose of them last night. I confess, before I could carry out this task, a minor traffic accident and an all-important overnight obligation had waylaid me. I didn’t bother to sigh over how blunders always seemed to pepper my work performance. Some things were fated to be. After all, I slogged at my job for money not joy. It isn't that I don't like working at FoY, it just isn’t my dream gig. You see, I yearned to be a private detective, a Veronica Mars 2.0. Problem is, my grandfather is against the idea. Dead set against it.

So with the stench from the trash bags mounting, I steered FoY’s van onto the off-ramp and headed toward Rosenberg Laboratory just off the freeway exit. My mind was filled with thoughts of a steamy shower, maybe a few hours of shut-eye before punching the clock at nine. I stared forward, squinted. And iced over. Up ahead. Wrong-way traveling. A panel truck advanced, peeling rubber.

Faster.

Closer.

Zeroed in to hit me.

I whipped the van off the road, the red, white, and blue panel truck whizzing past. I slammed on the brakes, fighting to control the wheel. I wrestled with it, panicked, my mind flashing on one fortunate thing: no seniors were in the van.

Tons of hazards burst before my eyes. I struggled to absorb them. A mangled guardrail zigzagged up ahead; its many gaps from other out-of-control vehicles big as life. Worse was the wall of giant Douglas-firs growing beyond, lower trunks scarred, limbs low and swaying.

I was going to careen through the railing.

I was going to hit the trees.

I was going to die.

Book Links:

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16129273-malicious-mischief

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Malicious-Mischief-Mystery-Entangled-ebook/dp/B00BMKKOGM/

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/malicious-mischief-marianne-harden/1113749209

About Marianne: 

Marianne Harden loves a good laugh. So much so, she cannot stop humor from spilling into her books. Over the years she has backpacked through the wilds of Australia, explored the exotics of Asia, soaked up the sun in the Caribbean, and delighted in the historic riches of Europe. Her goals in life are simple: do more good than harm and someday master the do-not-mess-with-me look. She divides her time between Switzerland and Washington State where she lives with her husband and two children.

Find Marianne:

Website: www.marianneharden.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/MarianneHarden

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorMarianneHarden

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6572367.Marianne_Harden

Forensic Case Files: Guatemalan Genocide

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Guatemala was once home to an advanced Mayan civilization that flourished from about 250 C.E. to nearly 1000 C.E. Their declining civilization was overrun by the invading Spanish in the 16th century. Conquered by weapons of modern warfare and devastated by European diseases, the Mayans became the Guatemalan peasant and labouring class to the Spanish upper class. But not even invading Europeans would wreak as much death and destruction as Guatemala’s own government in eighteen months between March 1982 and August 1983.

Coffee production is one of the Guatemala’s main industries and was heavily invested in by Americans during its infancy in the early- to mid-20th century. Large coffee plantations were run by the white upper class, while the indigenous Mayan population worked the fields. As a result, a large gap formed between the police-protected white populace and impoverished natives.

During the 1940s and into the 1950s, successive governments made great strides in improving conditions for the native populations, but a C.I.A.-facilitated coup in 1954 overthrew the existing government due to the rumoured threat of Communism. A military dictator was installed to lead the country and this became the style of government for the next several decades. During that time, several guerilla factions rose up to threaten the government, leading to the Guatemalan Civil War (1960 – 1996). The government’s response was to deal quickly and violently to any guerilla threat.

In March of 1982, General Efrain Ríos Montt overthrew the government in power and installed himself as President. His views regarding the guerilla resistance were very clear: “If you are with us, we’ll feed you; if not, we’ll kill you.” Officially, he ordered paramilitary ‘death squads’ out into the mountains with the intent of discovering and killing guerilla soldiers.

But something much more tragic took place. Over the course of the next year and a half, 669 massacres occurred at Mayan villages. Death squad soldiers would wait until the village gathered together for a celebration or market day, and then the entire community was targeted under the guise of harboring guerilla rebels. Peasants were shot, stabbed or bludgeoned to death. Many had their limbs amputated. Some were impaled and left to die slowly, or doused with gasoline and set afire. Women and girls were raped, the elderly were slaughtered, babies’ heads were smashed against poles, and children were thrown into mass grave pits of the dead and buried alive. Afterwards, soldiers took or killed the livestock, destroyed crops, fouled the local water supply, and desecrated any sacred places. Then they burnt what was left of the village to the ground. It was true ‘scorched earth’ warfare. Those fortunate enough to flee to the mountains were hunted by soldiers with the goal of exterminating the entire village. Hundreds of thousands of displaced peasants became refugees.

More than 200,000 native Mayans were murdered and another 50,000 ‘disappeared’ during that eighteen month period. The Mayan population refers to this time as the ‘Silent Holocaust’—when villagers were killed simply due to their ethnicity, not because they supported any rebel faction. The government supported their actions with the claim that the Mayan communities had organized, allied with the guerillas, and were working towards a Communist coup.

In 1994, FAFG, the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation started out as a small group of forensic anthropologists and scientists dedicated to the goal of uncovering the dead from this atrocity. In 1995, those five scientists began their first exhumation aided by massacre survivors. Currently the group numbers more than ninety and FAFG scientists are considered to be the world’s experts on mass graves. They have assisted in exposing other massacres, such as Srebrenica following the Bosnian War. They work to discover and exhume mass graves, recover human remains, determine the traumatic cause of death, and attempt to ID the victims based on skeletal structure and associated grave goods.

Shortly after the exhumations began, the U.N. investigated the Guatemalan genocide. In 1999, they finally released a report detailing horrific human rights violations by the military as ordered from the highest levels of the Guatemalan government.

In 2009, the National Security Archive presented a report citing President Montt and his military of carrying out genocidal assault against the indigenous Mayan population. Part of their supporting evidence was a ‘death squad diary’, outlining the disappearances, tortures, and executions starting in the summer of 1982 and continuing into 1983.

For the very first time, a previous head of state is on trial by the justice system of his own country for crimes committed within that state. Currently 86 years of age, and decades after his time in office, Efrain Ríos Montt now stands trial. So far, more than 70 witnesses for the prosecution have testified to the atrocities.

Unfortunately, the trial has been plagued by procedural and technical errors. On May 10, 2013, Montt was convicted of ordering the deaths of 1,771 Mayan peasants and sentenced to 80 years in prison.  But on May 20, that ruling was overturned based on ‘illegal proceedings’—Montt had fired his attorneys on April 19th and was left without a lawyer for a short period of time while the trial proceeded. Guatemala’s constitutional court ruled this past week that the trial should have been halted until Montt had lawyers in place and that all court proceedings must roll back to April 19th and start again. All witness testimony up to that time will stand, but the final weeks of the trial now must be repeated.

Guatemala stands as the only modern genocide in the Western Hemisphere during the post-World War II era. One can only hope that justice will be done, but it will be a small consolation to the Guatemalan people, many of whom still mourn those lost during the massacres.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Writers—Share Your Self-Publishing Tips!

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Ann and I finished our novella this past week-end. A part of our ongoing Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries series, NO ONE SEES ME ‘TILL I FALL (working title), will publish in the fall of 2013, between DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT, publishing in 2 weeks(!), and A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH, scheduled for May 2014. With our publishing house’s blessing, we’re self-publishing this title; however, as self-publishing newbies, we have many questions. But we know that many of you have already gone down this road to great success, so we’d love to learn from the masters.

Our crit team is going to be going over the novella this week and then we’re lucky enough to have our editor from both DEAD and FLAME on board to freelance this project for us. So we believe we’ll be producing a quality product that’s up to standard with our full length novels. But our questions lie in how to go about actually getting the project out there, and we’d love to hear what worked for you.

Some questions we already have are:

  • Formatting the manuscript—is this a relatively easy process? Any tips on formatting or file types?
  • How easy is it to get one work out on all platforms?
  • Did you use a distributor like Smashwords or Bookbaby to assist in distribution? Was it worth it?
  • Did you do your own cover design? If not, can you recommend someone who did a great job for you?
  • Is it worth it to buy an ISBN for your title?
  • What do you think of the Kindle KDP program?

As newbies, there may also be other things we’re not thinking of, so if you have tips in any other areas, we’d love to hear those too. Writers, please share with us!

Photo credit: Appsmanila

The Final ARC Giveaway!

This is it! It's the very last Goodreads giveaway for an ARC of DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT! Enter here: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/53543-dead-without-a-stone-to-tell-it

Never Lose The Spark That Makes You YOU

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Last month, my brother, Mychael Danna, held a fundraiser at our family church to celebrate his Oscar win. A packed crowd of 400 people came to hear him talk about his roots in Burlington, Ontario and his life as a film composer. A question and answer period concluded the evening. The final question of the night was asked by a student from Wilfred Laurier University who had made the trip out to see Mychael.

Her question: What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out in film composition?

His answer: Don’t lose the spark that makes you YOU.

He went on to explain that he gets demo CDs in the mail all the time and nearly every one of them sounds like John Williams (Jaws, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark); nothing made them stand out as original. He encouraged her to cultivate that part of her that made her sound original because it would make her stand out from the crowd.

It struck me that his advice applied to writing as much as composing. Each author brings something specific to the table. In our case, it was our combined backgrounds in and mutual love of science that gives our series its realistic forensic angle. Sometimes it’s tempting to look at someone successful—Stephanie Myers, Nora Roberts or James Patterson—and try to emulate their writing or storytelling style in an effort to harness their success. But it simply doesn’t work. To let your spark free, you have to write the book that’s in your heart, not someone else’s.

In many ways, this is like another futile effort—following the market. You see that the current hot trend in fiction is Amish goblins, so that’s the book you write. Except that most books take 2 – 3 years from concept to publishing, so by the time your book about Amish goblins comes out, the market has passed you and hobo erotica is the hot topic now.

Author Marianne Harden and I have had this conversation a few times. We both write mysteries—Marianne, hysterical cozies set in the Pacific northwest starring Rylie Tabitha Keyes, and myself, forensic police procedurals. We know we’re not writing in the hottest of genres right now; to do that we’d be writing urban fantasy, paranormal romance or erotic romance. But we agree that this is where we should stay as it’s not only where our strengths lie, but it’s also what we love to write. If you try to force yourself to write something simply for the market, that special spark you bring to your prose could easily be extinguished.

Part of the authoring life is about paying it forward. Most of us receive help from those who have gone before us; and then we, in turn, help those who come after us. And in helping those who are still learning their craft, we should always encourage their individuality. A new writer could be the next J.R.R. Tolkein, but if they try to slot themselves into the wrong genre or style, we may never see their talent bloom. And it would be a shame to miss out on that kind of brilliance.

Photo credit: Jessica Newton

Forensic Case Files: Cannibalism in Jamestown in the Early 17th Century

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Jamestown, Virginia was settled on a swampy peninsula in 1607, making it America’s first permanent English colony. The soggy ground was considered un-farmable by the local Powhatan native tribes, and was rife with malaria-carrying mosquitos. But the lack of local inhabitants and a defensible position—the peninsula is surrounded by two rivers and Chesapeake Bay—made it ideal from an English perspective for the planned location of Fort James.

Initially, interactions between the local Powhatan tribes and the English were good—the natives provided food and hoped to continue to do so in trade for European metal tools. But the English, finding that the land truly wasn’t suitable to farm, especially after 1608’s poor harvest, couldn't produce enough food on their own. They attempted to force the natives to provide more food than they had even for themselves. The resulting conflict led to native raids on the fort and, eventually, to the Anglo-Powhatan War of 1610-1614.

The winter of 1609-1610 was especially brutal, and is referred to as ‘the starving time’ in historical records. The lack of food, ravaging disease, and attacks by the Powhatans led to dire conditions. By the time help finally arrived in May of 1610, only 60 of the original 500 colonists were still alive, and the fort was less of a military installation than a charnel house.

Writings of the time tell of cannibalism in the colony—including a husband who murdered his pregnant wife, and then salted and ate her flesh, a crime for which he was later executed. But no recovered remains provided evidence to support these tales. Until last week.

Archeologists were excavating what was essentially a 17th century garbage heap in the a cellar of a dwelling inside the remains of the fort when they unearthed a human cranium, lower jaw and some shattered leg bones scattered among horse and dog bones. Dr. Doug Owsley, a forensic anthropologist with the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History was called in to examine the remains. Long-time readers of this blog may remember Dr. Owsley as the forensic anthropologist who examined the remains of the unknown Union solider discovered in 2008 at Antietam. For the first time, Dr. Owsley was able to substantiate historical records, describing the discovering as ‘very strong evidence’ of cannibalism.

Kerfs from several tools are clearly visible on the bones of the skull. Chops from a hatchet or axe tentatively score the forehead, and then more substantially mar the back of the head as the attacker gained confidence and used more force. Knife marks on the cheeks and jaw show where muscle was sliced from the bone. The left side of skull is missing—tool marks from a pry bar on the remaining bone attest to the fact that the cranium was shattered when it was forced open to extract the brain. Blessedly,the regular nature of the kerf marks reveal that there was no struggle; most likely, the victim was already dead.

Forensic anthropology reveals clues about the victim of this horrific act—she was young, probably about fourteen years of age from the analysis of the skull, teeth, long bones and from epiphyseal fusion at the knee joint. Strontium analysis of the bone has determined that she grew up in England and arrived in America mere months before her death. She likely died of starvation or sickness in the first months of 1610, and, shortly thereafter, met her final fate at the hands of another colonist. Researchers have christened her ‘Jane’.

Most colonies did not last for even a year in the New World, so, in many ways, Jamestown is a story of persistence and survival during the worst of times. Sadly, it was at the cost of too many lives, some of them lived in desperation as the few remaining colonists struggled to hold on at all costs, buoyed by the faint hope of spring and the sight of a supply ship on the horizon.

Photo credit: Carolyn Kaster/AP