EXCERPT from Freeze Before Burning: A Sam Tate Mystery

Nov 102021
 

Freeze Before Burning: A Sam Tate Mystery is the third book in the Sam Tate Mystery Series and will be released December 8th.

Ed Rizzo slid his ample body into the ornate confessional, crossed himself, and pushed a strand of thinning hair off his forehead. “Forgive me, Father,” he intoned, “for I have sinned, although I’m pretty sure God will cut me some slack even if my wife won’t, if you take my meaning.”

At ten in the morning, the sanctuary was deserted. Good. He didn’t need anyone listening to his confession, which he unloaded to the figure who sat beside him in the confessional over the next ten minutes.

Even as he talked, he considered who might be on the other side of the grate. Rizzo couldn’t make out the features of the man. He wondered if he’d landed the new priest. Maybe a younger person would make light of his transgressions, which mostly related to his perfectly legitimate reaction to his obnoxious neighbor, Frank Pagonis.

Rizzo had his justifications lined up. He hadn’t survived more than a year of enforced quarantine with three kids and a demanding wife, never mind the missing paycheck for a while, only to put up with the stolen newspapers, a lawn mower returned with a bent blade, and a television loud enough to wake the dead.

“But when his dog, which, by the way, he refuses to leash and that’s against the law, went and dug up my tomato plants, yeah, I sprayed some stuff on whatever the mutt left. Not enough to kill the animal, you understand. He can’t help it if he has a jerk for an owner. I would have sprayed his owner’s food if I could have. The point I’m making is, the dog got sick, but it didn’t die, okay?”

Rizzo cocked his head, thinking he might have heard a faint sigh.

“Now he’s coming around with a pile of vet bills and talking about suing me. I told him to take his threats and shove them. I tell you, Padre, I am this close to beating that smug face or maybe twisting that scrawny neck of his. My wife claims that kind of thinking is sinful. I don’t think it’s as bad as doing the deed. I haven’t told her about poisoning the dog, but sparing her the details isn’t the same as lying, is it?”

Nothing. The guy had probably fallen asleep. The confessional was stuffy, and Rizzo experienced a touch of claustrophobia. Time to move things along.

“If you can just suggest a penance to perform, I’ll get it covered. Then I can be on my way.”
He stopped talking, suddenly aware of the silence, how absolute and enveloping it was. The noises of the city street outside had receded. He could hear himself breathing.

“Hey, Father? You all right in there?” Rizzo scratched the grill dividing the two sides of the confessional. His head was pounding now, and he felt vaguely dizzy.

“I know I’ve been yakking a lot. How about we wrap this up, okay?” Again, no response. It occurred to Rizzo that the other man hadn’t said a word the entire time. What if the good father had suffered a heart attack?

He hoisted his bulk off the narrow bench and pushed himself out of the tiny space. The other side of the confessional had its own entrance. He rapped on the door, then tried the handle, more out of instinct than anything else. It turned in his hand, and he pulled.

The black-garbed figure sat with head bowed, hands folded in his lap as if in prayer or contemplation. Or asleep. Rizzo put a tentative hand on the man’s shoulder. With a sigh like a punctured balloon, the black-robed figure tipped sideways off the bench, fell to the floor, and rolled like a blow-up toy.

Startled, Rizzo jumped back. Stay cool, he told himself.

He bent over with an umph and put two fingers to the priest’s throat to search for a pulse. He expected to feel cold, not the scalding heat that burned his skin.

“Jesus Christ!” he yelled, forgetting for a moment where he was. He waved his blistered hand in the air and hopped around until a wave of nausea stopped.

With his foot, he nudged the body so that it rolled onto its back. He stared, speechless for once, at the face of the priest. Then he stepped farther back, pulled out his cell phone, punched in 9-1-1, and gave his report to the dispatcher in a calm, measured tone.

He agreed to wait for the police and medical authorities just outside the church. He even accepted the suggestion that he might dissuade others from entering until help arrived.

Without looking again at the body of the priest, Ed Rizzo crossed himself. He walked slowly to the front door, stepped into the fresh air, and threw up.

Information on the Sam Tate Mystery Series can be found here.

To pre-order this book, click here.

Missing My Muse

Feb 232021
 

Here’s what I’ve noticed after a year of relative lock-down: Few people seem happy about it. Sure, I know people who prefer texts to calls, online classes to sweaty studios, food delivery to crowded stores. Most people, though, are going stir crazy. They are feeling crowded, limited, and maybe even homicidal after living cheek by jowl with spouses, parents and restless children.

Quarantine life should be tailor-made for me. I live alone and have for more of my life than I care to admit. It may not be the life I wanted, but it’s one I own. I’ve gotten good at living it. I understand the difference between lonely and alone and can adjust to either. Believe me, I appreciate the absence of pressure, the luxury of solitude, the privilege of quiet time to think and room to breathe.

Besides, I have my dog. And my muse. Although she’s been absent lately.

I’m an author, which is to say, my identity and sense of purpose are wrapped up in my ability and my need to get my thoughts into a readable form and out into the world. The present circumstances would seem an ideal time to create content.

Yet I’m stuck. Unwilling, uninspired, digging for feeling, reaching for words.

This is more than writers’ block. It feels more existential. What’s it all about? Who cares? Why should I voluntarily put myself in front of this cold gray machine and try to enter random thoughts into it?

My muse has left the building.

Maybe I’ve misjudged the effect of so much isolating, avoiding, hiding away, stepping warily into public, limiting in-person contact, eschewing any physical contact. Maybe it’s drained me in ways I wasn’t expecting. Zoom, it seems, isn’t always ideal for observing, much less interacting.

Instead of experiencing the flow that comes from being productive, I’m obsessed with how slowly time is moving. I used to write several hours a day. Now I’m lucky if I can work half that long. I look at the clock and marvel that it’s only eleven o’clock in the morning. I wonder when I can take lunch, or whether a nap is in order, notwithstanding I was in bed for nine hours (albeit restlessly) the night before. I count the hours until I can crawl back under the warm covers.

I thought I’d accepted that quarantine would last this long (has it really been a year?). Perhaps I failed to understand how that would feel. Was I more social in my previous life than I realized? Did I depend on neighborhood gatherings, coffee with friends, a random evening out? Do I need human contact more than I want to admit?

Well, yes, as it turns out. People in all their imperfections, are the featured players in my writing. Technology has been invaluable in bringing me news of the world, as it is. It doesn’t let me read faces or hear tone.

There are tricks to summoning an absent muse. I’m trying them all as I struggle with my third mystery in a series about an intrepid female investigator (is there any other kind?) I still don’t know how the story will unfold. Instead, I try to get a sense of where I’m going by writing scenes of dialogue. You know, the kind people have when they’re face to face across a table or even at a crime scene. When they’re talking in real life.

Sometimes I can almost feel my muse. She’s hovering, more an observer than an interactive part of my process. It’s okay. I understand her hesitation. No one feels like working right now. But we muddle through.

For now, I keep my seat in the chair and my eyes on the screen for as long as I can. I don’t want my my muse to lose faith in me. After all, spring is around the corner. Vaccines are available to the lucky and the persistent. Herd immunity is the new mantra. I’ve got babies to kiss, friends to hug, and words to write. Onward.

Four New Mysteries to Savor

Oct 182020
 

I’m a mystery writer and I’m a mystery reader, too. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy other genres. I love world-building science fiction (NK Jemisin) and literary fiction (Anne Patchett) as well as select biographies.

My reading list, though, mainly consists of mysteries. While I like to encounter new writers, I have my favorite writers whose reputations are secure, whose skills are legendary, and whose stories never fail to entertain. I take my inspiration from these favorites. Among those at the very top of their game are the four below, all of whom have released new books in the last few months.

A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL by James Lee Burke

Burke is author of the mesmerizing Dave Robicheaux series. Set in Louisiana, the novels are odes to the raw splendor of the region and the raw brutality of life on the edges. Robicheaux is an on-again, off-again cop, a barely reformed drunk who shares with his imbibing buddy Clete Purcell, a fatalistic view of the world that directs their often-vicious response to injustice. In A PRIVATE CATHEDRAL, Burke has placed his story in the vague recent past, which handily fudges the issue of how old Robicheaux, a Vietnam war veteran, might actually be in 2020. It works. The book is bittersweet, the descriptive passages achingly beautiful, the action merciless, violent and swift-moving. The experience is heart-pounding.

THE GOOD DAUGHTER by Karin Slaughter

I’ve read a number of books by Karin Slaughter—I’m a fan of her Will Trent procedurals that feature a troubled cop working for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. This novel feels quite different. Her trademark gritty realism is on display, along with a no-filter depiction of violence found in many of her novels. And yes, it is, in part, a who-done-it. At the same time, the story of two physically and emotionally wounded sisters at odds with each other, their father, and the world reads like Ann Patchett or Barbara Kingsolver. Which is to say, this book contains more than a few moving passages mixed in with the nuts and bolts of a crime procedural. Highly recommended—and it would make a terrific film.

ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE by Louise Penny

Penny, the popular Canadian writer, usually sets her Armand Gamache series in Canada’s Eastern Townships region in a fictional town called Three Pines. Gamache, formerly Chief Inspector of Quebec’s Sûreté, is a learned man prone to philosophical reflection although capable of decisive action when necessary. The small, tightly-knit community is his refuge and his strength. This time, Penny sends Gamache and his indomitable wide, Reine, to Paris to visit their children, grandchildren and Gamache’s foster father, Stephen. There, he and his son-in-law, also a cop, uncover a dangerous scheme that draws in the entire family. Gamache’s wit, skill, and courage are as formidable as ever, particularly when his loved ones are threatened.

THE SEARCHER by Tara French

Tara French is an Irish-American writer who gained recognition with her Dublin Murder Squad series. In her newest book, she moves the action out into the countryside and adds a twist. Cal Hooper is a retired Chicago homicide detective who’s moved to find peace and perhaps a good pub following an acrimonious divorce and a disheartening epiphany about his work. His hardscrabble North Carolina upbringing should bind him to the scrappy locals, but theirs is an insular community and they keep their secrets. French unspools her story without haste, yet the throb of inevitability never leaves. Hooper realizes early on that this story won’t have a happy ending. As it turns out, though, it’s the necessary one. Sometimes that’s the best you can get.

 

 

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