Marilyn's Musings

FROM WHENCE COMETH YOUR  IDEAS? A common question, I wager every writer of thriller, cozy, and mystery novels fields at one time or other. I have and I do, so I thought I would answer it this time by addressing a single novel, one of my recent episodes in my Sean NMI Sean detective series. The novel is titled “The Case of the Purloined Painting.” All Sean's novels are “The Case of...” It's my small way of saluting a famous and very successful writer of mystery detective stories from a previous era, a man named Earle Stanley Gardner. A while ago I read a story in the local paper about a local art museum curartor and director who had had an interesting job in the army during World War II. He and a group of other art directors from  around the country became increasingly worried about the loss of art and culture of Europe. This was in the mid 1940's, as the Allies stepped up the bombing and prepared to invade Fortress Europe as it was called. The Allies were at w...

WHERE SHOULD THE BODY LIE? The easy answer is wherever it works best for the plot. In much detective fiction, the murder, or discovery of the body takes place at the beginning or very early on. But a lot of good stories take a while to develop, even when the motivation for the detective is the act itself. If the story is focused on the characters more than on the action, or, is a balanced presentation, then a murder may not take place until well into the book. Nothing wrong with this, assuming the writer has mastered all the other tools of the trade. A bunch of people standing around endlessly trading bon mots or quips or cutting insults becomes exceedingly tedious, even if, as veteran readers of crime fiction, we know it’s all leading to murder, or worse. On the other hand (isn’t there always?) a small clutch of really unusual interesting characters can carry a reader a long way into the story. Add other unusual or unsettling circumstances, such as weather or location a...

  Sean Sean is not your usual detective--he's really short with a really tall girlfriend, and doesn't act much like the usual detective in modern novels. He is in fact, a delightful hero, going about his detecting in a thorough though sometimes dangerous manner. In this particular case, Sean investigates a murder and finds himself in a tangled mess that involves a painting stolen during World War II, a suspicious woman, and a ledger. During his investigation, attempts are made on Sean's life while he drives his trusty car through snow storms. The weather is portrayed in such an excellent manner, I felt cold nearly the whole time I was reading the book. The mystery itself is compelling, but most of all I was entertained by Sean Sean himself. While I attending mystery conventions in various places--Love is Murder, Bouchercon and Mayhem in the Midlands, I had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know the author, Carl Brookins. The Case of the Purloined Painting i...