Wee Snippets from A WEE HOMICIDE by Fran Stewart
Sometimes it takes only a moment to set a scene, a few words to evoke a mood, a mere sentence or two to describe a relationship. One of the things I enjoy most about writing is being able to conjure up a mental picture for you, so you’ll see what I’m seeing in my head, smell what I’m smelling, understand how I feel about the characters as you turn the pages (or advance the screens) of the book (or e-reader) you’re holding in your hand.
I’d like to share a couple of
passages to demonstrate what I’m talking about. In A WEE HOMICIDE IN THE HOTEL,
the small police force of the town of Hamelin is not only dealing with the
yearly influx of tourists who descend for the annual Highland Games, but
someone suspected of wanting to assassinate the president has been spotted at
the Burlington airport, and may have made it to Hamelin before the Secret
Service advance team. Marti Fairing was a very minor character in the first two
ScotShop mysteries, but in WEE HOMICIDE, she blossoms:
=========
Sergeant Marti
Fairing’s mouth watered as the smell of grilled sausage wafted past her nose.
She felt vulnerable without her duty belt, but the chief didn’t want the man
targeted by this operation to be scared off by a blue uniform. Even without her
uniform, she found herself occasionally holding her arms akimbo, the way she’d
learned to hold them to avoid bruising the inside of her arm on the butt of her
weapon or brushing into any one of the half-dozen items she carried around her
waist on a daily basis.
Today her pistol was in an
ankle holster under her wide-legged pants, but with that as her only resource,
she felt . . . undressed. She watched, hoping she looked like an idle
bystander, as dozens of tourists poured into the meadow through the
flower-bedecked arches at the end of the path from town. The mug shot hadn’t
been that clear. How was she supposed to spot one person in all this horde? It
would only get worse, too, once the scheduled events started. Of course, by
then there’d be dozens of agents milling through the crowds.
She smiled to
think that the agents hadn’t caught the guy. They’d had to ask the Hamelin cops
for help. She bet that stuck in somebody’s gullet.
=========
Can you tell I like Marti
Fairing? Can you tell how feisty she can be? Can you foresee that she’ll play
an important part in the plot from here on?
Then there are Peggy and Dirk,
an unlikely coupling indeed. A modern-day shop owner and a 14th-century
Scottish ghost. When busy sales at the ScotShop deplete Peggy’s stock of one’s
and five’s, she runs home to replenish her supply of low-denomination bills.
Dirk, of course, accompanies her:
=========
I opened the bottom drawer of
my desk and pulled out a small metal cash box. I usually bundled the bills into
fifty-dollar stacks so I wouldn’t have to count them out each time I needed
some.
Dirk made a disapproving sound.
“Ye think such a wee box is a good hiding place? A wean could find it.”
“I don’t have many weans
running around my house,” I said. This was an old argument between us, and he
hadn’t convinced me yet. “I lock the doors whenever I leave. You know that.”
“Ye didna used to.”
“That was before.” Before the
disturbing events of last summer. But I didn’t want to think about that. I
wrapped the money in a legal-size sheet of paper and tucked it into the cloth
bag suspended from my heavy black belt. Much more convenient than a purse.
“See? Perfectly safe.”
“Unless a cutpurse comes upon
ye.”
I shortened the string so the
bag wouldn’t bang against my knees and draped the plaid folds of my arisaidh
over it. “Is that better? Does it meet with your approval?”
He nodded grudging agreement
and we left the house. He paused outside the front door, blocking my way.
“What’s wrong? Why did you
stop?”
“Ye didna lock the door.”
Oh. “Sorry.”
He opened his mouth, but
apparently decided not to berate me.
I turned around and locked up.
=========
Such a short conversation, but
can you see how it shows the easy connection between Dirk’s ghostly pragmatism
and Peggy’s rather slapdash approach to life? The two of them had problems in book
#2, A WEE DOSE OF DEATH, as Peggy got more and more irritated with Dirk’s
insistence that his ancient times were in many ways better than this one. Now,
however, with this one scene, you can see that they’ve healed a lot of their
past differences and Peggy has come to appreciate her ghost for his commonsense
practicality.
And finally, there is Dunedin’s
Drusilla, better known as “Scilla,” the Scottish terrier who is introduced in
WEE HOMICIDE. I love presenting her point of view, since she’s such an integral
part of the plot:
=========
Silla was delighted with such a
long walk. Especially when that other person turned around and went back the
way they had come. Then it was just Silla and her person. And squirrels. And
bushes to sniff. And deep leaf mold. And the fragrant footprints of raccoons
and even a skunk.
Her person’s footsteps got
slower and slower. When he finally stopped walking altogether, Silla went back
and leaned against his leg. Her nose, so full of exciting smells, caught the
whiff of sadness. And of pain. And of anger. Silla stood, stretched her legs
wide apart, and growled, even though she was not sure what she was growling at.
Her person laughed and reached
down to stroke her back. Silla liked that. She liked the fresh happy smell. She
liked being able to change her person’s unhappy to gladness.
“As long as I have you, Silla,”
her person said. “As long as I have you, all that other stuff doesn’t matter.”
Silla could have told him that.
If he had asked her.
=========
I think you’ll be cheering for
Silla throughout WEE HOMICIDE, for she truly does save the day, as I’m sure
you’ve already figured out just by reading her thoughts.
These few snippets will, I
hope, whet your appetite to experience more of Peggy and Dirk and the cast of
supporting people (and dogs) who make up the town of Hamelin, Vermont.
And thank you, Meredith, for
letting me share some of my writing with your readers.
===================
Author Bio:
Fran Stewart lives her life
with enthusiasm, excitement, and expectancy, and is never disappointed, for she
has found that everything she spends, whether time, money, or emotion, can be
viewed as either reducing her assets or enriching them. She chooses enrichment
every time.
Author of fourteen books,
including the Biscuit McKee mystery series and the ScotShop mysteries, as well
as A SLAYING SONG TONIGHT and FROM THE TIP OF MY PEN: a workbook for writers,
Fran lives and writes quietly beside a creek on the other side of Hog Mountain,
Georgia, after having moved repeatedly from her birth through her fourth
decade. The small fictional towns she writes about embody the hometown she
always wanted—except for the murders.
Learn more about Fran at http://FranStewart.com
Book Blurb:
The annual Highland
Festival in Hamelin, Vermont, means caber tossing, sword dancing, and just a
spot of murder...
Hamelin is overflowing
with tourists enjoying the Scottish-themed games—and most of them are donning
tartans from Peggy Winn’s ScotShop. And her fourteenth-century ghostly
companion, Dirk, has been indispensable, keeping an eye out for shoplifters and
matching customer’s family names to their clan plaid.
Adding to the chaos is Big
Willie, a longtime champion of the games, but not everyone is happy to have him
in town. So when he misses the first event of the weekend, Peggy senses
something is awry. After Willie is discovered dead in his hotel room, the
victim of a bagpipe-related crime, Peggy decides it’s up to her and Dirk to
suss out a murderer—because another death would really blow...
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