Marilyn's Musings

When I first started writing this book, I really wasn't sure where I was going with it.
I knew I wanted to use some of my experiences when I taught in several different pre-school/day care centers. Yes, some of what I wrote did happen--though not in the way I depicted anything. And of course, no one was murdered.
I also wanted to have Detective Milligan's teen daughter Beth carry a larger role in this mystery--not as a part of the mystery, but a big distraction to her father. To do this I gave her a new friend--one with serious problems.
The new mayor of Rocky Bluff gets the shock of his life--one that becomes a problem for him and his new romance with Chandra Taylor, the Chief of Police in Rocky Bluff.
And  of course, life moves on for all the other characters in this series. That's one of the fun parts of writing such a long series--I get to see what's happening with these people I've created and grown to love.
Because every mystery is solved, each book can be r…

Always when a new book comes out, it's time to do a lot of promotion. I'm never quite sure what works the best.
At this point as I've written previously, I've scheduled some in-person events--though as yet, not a formal launch, which I still hope to do. My biggest problem has been being too busy. When you go out of town for an event, it throws all the other have-to-do projects off. 
So far, besides Facebook, I've a blog tour planned to later this month, and I'm offering Final Respects, the first book in the series free for five days the first week in November. Of course, the reason for this is to get new readers interested in the series. I've done a lot of promoting for this event that will happen when the book is actually free. 
I've done a few other things too, we'll see how it works.
Blurb: Too many people are telling lies: The husband of the murder victim and his secretary, the victim’s boss and co-workers in the day care center, her stalker, an…

Whenever a new book comes out, there is so much to do--plus life keeps moving on.

The book, of course, is Tangled Webs, # 15 in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series. I can assure you when I wrote Final Respects eons ago I had no idea that I'd have 15 books in the series!
That first book was inspired by my late police officer son-in-law who stopped by in the morning after his graveyard shift ended for coffee and to chat about his night. He's the first officer who took me on a ride-along. And yes, I was greatly influenced by all the things he told me. He even let me look at his written reports. 
We lived in Oxnard California at the time, but that first book wasn't published until we'ld been in Springville for several years. It underwent many rewrites and several publishers.
Tangled Webs, though a part of the series can be read as a stand-alone though many of the characters who appeared in the first book are in this one too. In fact, the characters are what kept me writing new boo…

NO! I do not want to retire because I’m a senior. Absolutely not!
More than ever, seniors are living full and engaging lives. More than 45 million Americans are over the age of 65 and millions of them still work—some bychoice, some by necessity.

In what I consider my BOLD THIRD ACT, I’m writing mysteries. I’mbringing my passion for writing together with my rather unusual upbringing. In doing so, I amwriting with more insight and purpose. As seniors, we can use our life experiences—whetherfailures, challenges or successes—to bring about enjoyable and productive lives filled with doingsomething we relate to and love. This is why the seniors in the mysteries I write are strong, smartand active main characters.

Mysteries and crime are probably in my DNA. It never occurred to me that my father and his
friends were doing anything illegal. The environment I grew up with seemed perfectly natural to me. It’s what I saw everyday: my father was a bookie. He also owned a gambling hall where the …

Most people see the 1960s as a time of social turmoil, a rejection of traditional values, rebellion and an attitude of “please yourself” and “turn on, tune in, drop out.” However, in Middle American, the mindset among the common folk was more like the 1950s.
My new retro-cozy series, the Psychedelic Spy, is set in a small rural Southern Indiana town in the 1967—much like the hometown where I grew up during the 1960s. In a town of 10,000, we had about 30 Protestant churches and one Catholic parish and elementary school. The town had at least one black church, a small AME (African Methodist Episcopal) congregation. The nearest synagogue was 30 miles away, so the city’s religious makeup was pretty homogenous.
The public schools in my town never scheduled activities on Sundays or Wednesday evenings because those were “church times.” In deference to the Catholic students, on Fridays the school cafeteria always served fish sticks (that tasted like cardboard)—even though after Vatican II in…

Yes, I now have the cover for Tangled Webs, the latest in the Rocky Bluff P. D. series. As you'll note on the cover, it's #15. (I find this hard to believe, and I write them all.)
Don't have the publication date yet, but it will be soon. 
Of course this is a murder mystery--a beloved day care center teacher is stabbed on her own front porch. Perhaps she wasn't as beloved as people said. Too many are not telling all the truth.
And life moves on for those who inhabit Rocky Bluff including the police officers.
Family situations cause problems for Detective Milligan, Sergeant Navarro and Ryan Strickland.
Officer Gordon Butler has a rookie to train--maybe one who is a tad too eager. 
As usual, I enjoyed myself spending time with these characters. I hope you will too.
Marilyn who writes this series as F. M. Meredith.