Marilyn's Musings

Yes, Tangled Webs is about lies, but also not revealing important information to those you love. When I wrote this one, I knew I wanted to complicate the budding romance between Chief Chandra Taylor and the mayor, Devon Duvall. The perfect idea popped into my head. I also wanted to write more about Detective Milligan's daughter Beth--how she is developing as a person. What's one of the worst things that can happen to a parent? A missing child. Yep, that's there too. Those of you who have read other books in this series know that Milligan's ex-wife, Kerrie, is a shrew. Well, the shrew is back. It is so much fun to write about disagreeable characters. Yes, there is a murder in Tangled Webs , a popular teacher at a day care center is stabbed on her own front porch. Much of the business about the day care center did come from my experience working in various day cares--however no one was murdered during the years I did this. (I loved working wit...

On Saturday we're headed to Southern California, Burbank and the Buena Vista Library. I'm going to be on a panel called "The Grim Reaper-Lies, Sex and the Dark Side of Murder" at 2 p.m. with mystery authors Jeff Sherratt, Stephen Schwartz and Jeri Westerson. Jeri's the only one I've met before. When I saw the title, I wasn't quite sure why I was asked to be on that panel--but we're all members of  Sisters in Crime LA and I've always wanted to do one of these panels--enough that I'm willing to drive 3 plus hours to get there. Analyzing the panel topic, of course there is usually death in every mystery and murder is always dark--but though my characters do have sex, it happens behind closed doors. Sure hope I can keep up my end of the stick in this discussion. If nothing else, I can make people laugh. A bookstore comes in to sell the book and of course they didn't order mine. (Not surprising since my publishers are both small.) So I...