Marilyn's Musings

This one made me cheer! AAA Book Review Smell of Death Author: F. M. Meredith a.k.a. Marilyn Meredith Publisher: Tigress Press Reviewer: Jeff Edwards "Smell of Death is a tightly woven tapestry of romance, human tragedy, and murder. Officer Stacey Wilbur has problems. As a single parent and the only female officer assigned to the Rocky Bluff Police Department, her life is quite complicated enough. When she suddenly finds herself dealing with two murders, a kidnapped child, and a pair of clumsy burglars, things begin to get out of control. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, she’s beginning to fall for one of the detectives in her squad. Author F. M. Meredith has been compared to Joseph Wambaugh, and I can definitely see the connection. The cops of her fictional Rocky Bluff PD have lives that extend beyond the chase and the crime scene. They struggle to raise their children, deal with leaky faucets, and pay their mortgages. They have hopes, loves, fears, and nightmares. They co...

I wanted to share this photo from the conference because I love it. Keith Bettinger, retired cop, is receiving one of his prizes from Michelle Perin-Callahan, contest chair. Keith also took care of securing the hotel and solving all the problems that came up--and yes, they do happen in the best planned conferences. Keith has a wonderful sense of humor and keeps everyone in stitches with his cop stories. He's written a full-length book and lots of short stories. Michelle is a police dispatcher, writes for several law enforcement magazines, is a mom of two, and a newlywed, besides being in charge of the PSWA writing contest. She's a great gal and lots of fun to be around. To show how supportive she is, she drove authors to Henderson to a bookstore for a group signing after the conference even though she didn't have a book to sell. This is a great group. I could go on and on about them. If you write mysteries with characters in law enforcement or fire fighting or other public ...

Yep, I'm doing it again. In February, I'll be bopping around in space, visiting one blog after another. It should be interesting. I've certainly answered the most unusual questions and as directed, written some amazing and unusual articles about Smell of Death, the latest in my Rocky Bluff P.D. series. If you're interested, you can take a look at http://virtualbooktoursforauthors.blogspot.com:80/2008/01/smell-of-death-virtual-book-tour-08.html to give you an idea about the book and what I'm doing. I've written it under the name of F. M. Meredith, but obviously it's no secret that it's me who wrote the book. Years ago, I lived in a neighborhood with a lot of families where the husband was in law enforcement. We all partied together and the wives and I did coffee and our children were friends. I learned a lot about how the job affected the families and what was going on in the families affected the job. Later, my daughter married a police officer. I expe...