sisters in Crime anthology--Great Saturday reading

Secrets and lies… The seven stories contained in Deadly Debut are united by three factors—the sex of their authors, their general location (New York) and the presence of secrets at the heart of the crimes. There’s one other commonality as well—all the stories are very good even when the crimes are very bad. Secrets and lies lurk in the depths of these stories—secret lovers, secret lifestyles, secret sins. (At least two of the stories feature secrets hidden in closets. Be advised—nothing good is ever behind a locked closet door.) Sense of place is strong here, whether the story unfolds in the dressing room of a club frequented by belly dance aficionados (Lina Zeldovich’s “Murder in the Aladdin’s Cave”) or in a pocket park smack dab in the middle of gang territory (“Strike Zone” by Terrie Farley Moran). These aren’t stories that could take place just anywhere, and in Elizabeth Zelvin’s Agatha Award-nominated story, “Death Will Clean Your Closet,” it’s perfectly plausible that her protagonist never associated the slight stink in his bedroom with the dead body in the aforementioned closet. This collection, edited by Clare Toohey, is a showcase for the art of the short story and each one included is a gem and each one shows a writer at the top of her game. “Imagine if Maurice Villency and Victoria’s Secret had a one-night stand and spawned a line of furnishings destined for a Poconos honeymoon suite,” suggests Dierdre Verne in “None of the Above.” What else do you need to know about the décor of the room she’s describing? Stories by Triss Stein, Peggy Ehrhart, and Anita Page round out the collection and again, each of these stories has a secret or a lie at its center, a hard, cold kernel that has been transformed into a pearl. Crime fiction collections are notorious for ignoring women writers; this anthology shows what readers have been missing. Find it here.

Criminal Element runs a promotion for Whipping Boy!

I've been working as a "Fresh Meat" reviewer for Criminal Element," the crime fiction blog hosted by Macmillan publishing for a little over a year now. (And I learned about the paid gig via Twitter, which is something I tell my clients who see no value in social media because they don't think "anyone wants to know what I ate for breakfast.")

I am a proud indie author but it's still kind of fun to drop the phrase, "My editor at Macmillan," into casual conversation.  The editor in question is Clare Toohey, and she is awesome. She set up a great promotion to celebrate the publication of my debut mystery novella, Whipping Boy, and is running it in conjunction with an excerpt on Criminal Element today.  She's also helped me hone in on a description of the book that fits my brand of crime fiction, which is not that easily defined. Did I mention she's awesome?  Here's how she describes Whipping Boy:

Whipping Boy by Katherine Tomlinson is a California cop mystery novella, the debut of a female criminalist whose strange existence swings from the darkest crime scenes to life among Hollywood royalty--no wonder she has such a bad attitude (available March 12, 2014). 

 

If you love crime fiction in all its varieties, you should be checking out Criminal Element. And you should definitely stop by today because if you leave a comment about the excerpt, you can win excellent swag! Here's a link to the excerpt.