But--I Didn't Do It!

LUCY BURDETTE: I'm writing this on Tuesday afternoon, so do not come here for the latest breaking news and opinion, okay?

Well, okay, you can come for opinion. Today's guest, Brad Parks, is hilarious. If you are ever at an author dinner event, and worried about being, ahem, bored?  Sit by Brad. He is incredibly entertaining. And, I might add: Talented. His brand new book got a star from Publishers Weekly.  And that, darling readers, is difficult to obtain.

The gloriously starred thrilled is THE BOUNDARIES WE CROSS. The title implies instant conflict, right? And, we instantly know, as we open the book, that someone is crossing some line. Or...are they?

WHAT HAPPENED ON WEEK ZERO

   by Brad Parks

BRAD PARKS: It’s happened to me.

It’s happened to you.

I bet it’s even happened to Hank. And we all know Hank is perfect.

Still, there it is: someone accuses us of something we know we haven’t done. But we can’t prove it.

Sometimes it’s relatively benign. Did you eat the last cookie? Did you leave those dishes on the table? Did you forget to put the toilet seat down?

​(Okay, maybe that last one only applies to, ahem, a few select guest authors here at Jungle Red.)

​But other times . . .

​Did you steal? Did you cheat? Did you lie?

A false accusation is at the core of my new thriller, THE BOUNDARIES WE CROSS ,which features Charles Bliss, a young English teacher at a well-to-do Connecticut boarding school who is fired for having an inappropriate relationship with a student.

He swears he didn’t do it . . .

But when the student disappears under suspicious circumstances, Charles is the obvious—and only—suspect.

That’s the fictional setup. Though for me, and I’m sure for many of you, there’s an element of this book that’s very much nonfiction.

Do you remember the first week of the pandemic? I always refer to it as Week 0, because none of us even knew what had started. On Monday of that week, when all of us were still stumbling around blissfully maskless—and “the coronavirus” was a thing only people on Italian cruise ships were worried about—someone I loved accused me of having done something pretty terrible.

I knew I hadn’t done it.

But I also couldn’t prove it.

And so, as that horrible Week 0 progressed and our lives became incredibly small overnight (lockdown? what’s that??), I was dealing with a different drama. What I was accused of may never have happened. But the impact it was having on an important relationship in my life was quite real.

Thankfully, it resolved itself fairly quickly. By the next Monday, the person realized they had been mistaken. All was forgiven. (Julia would never have Clare let Russ off the hook so fast.)

But for me a seed was planted. I realized the false accusation—and that awful, sinking feeling of being unable to establish your innocence—would make a delicious setup for a novel. And I subjected poor Charles to 405 pages of sheer hell as a result.

What about the rest of you? What’s the worst thing you’ve ever been falsely accused of doing? (I’m talking even worse than the toilet seat thing . . . which, for the record: It wasn’t me!)

Do you remember that awful feeling? Did you get it sorted out? Or is it still lingering?

LUCY: Great question!  We are eager to hear what you have to say, Reddies!

And:  One random commenter wins a free signed copy of THE BOUNDARIES WE CROSS. For more on Brad, visit his website .

A Day in the Life of a Running Pines Islander by Tessa Wegert

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Hello, dear readers! Welcome to another dull, featureless Tuesday. I'm sure there's nothing important going on, and that you're reading this while lingering over a second cup of coffee.

Wait, I'm getting a report... what? It's what day? Oh, I see.

Never mind.

In fact, you'll be happy to spend time with us anyway, because we have a great distraction. Tessa Wegert, who combines modern-day "locked room" mysteries with psychological suspense (honestly, her books read like Agatha Christie with an anxiety disorder) is out today with THE COLDEST CASE, the sixth Shana Merchant mystery. I love this series, in part because Tessa finds the most remote and dangerous places at the far northern edge of New York State. An island of less than ten souls locked in by the St. Lawrence River ice? Why didn't I think of that?

Having grown up in Saskatchewan and Quebec where extreme cold is the norm, I’ve always wanted to set a mystery in unspeakable winter conditions. With The Coldest Case, I got my chance. It follows a community of just eight people who overwinter on a remote island bordering Ontario and upstate New York (based on real-life Grindstone Island). Spend the day with Cary Caufield on Running Pine, where the weather is punishing and the people aren’t quite what they seem. 

 

 

I heard it again last night: the howling. Coywolves, calling one another somewhere in the snowbound woods. I’m learning that the cold isn’t our only enemy here.

 

Running Pine Island is not the frosty paradise we make it out to be.

 

As I drink my morning coffee, I count the cans of tuna in the cupboard beside the stove. Nine. It’s not nearly enough. The other cottages have chest freezers crammed with chicken breasts and chuck roast, entire closets packed with shelf-stable food while we eat meal after meal of white rice and tuna. I’m not sure what Sylvie and I will do when we run out of supplies. The islanders, of which there are six – just eight of us in all on this five-thousand-acre island – might be willing to lend us a snowmobile, but the ice is a minefield of soft spots, unseen currents conspiring to find an exit point. A crack, and the river could swallow me and the machine like a tern with a fish. It isn’t worth risking my neck for a pork chop, though the thought of hot, pan-seared meat makes my stomach feel like an empty stock pot.

 

On Instagram, our life is sparkle-bright. We don’t post photos of the tuna or the dirty dishes in the sink. The fire-fed air in the cottage is so dry that Sylvie’s lips are cracked and bloody, but no one will know because I can fix that. Correct imperfections and dial up the color. It’s not lying if it’s online.

 

Online, Running Pine is a dreamscape of glittering snowfields and hot pink sunsets, our snug cottage magazine-ready with its trendy camp blankets and sheepskin rugs. The mug in my hand? It came from a shelf of mismatched dishes that we use as pops. This particular cup is painted with an American flag, and one of these days I’ll fill it with gifted champagne and snap a selfie of myself toasting to our followers. They love Running Wild and our enviable life. They love us.

 

They have no idea what it’s like when we log off and go back to the business of surviving.

 

This all seemed so doable back in July, before the frost. Before the freeze. We’ll spend a year on the island, Sylvie and I said. Document our experience on an Instagram account called Running Wild. I think about that easy time when, a few hours later, I’m trudging down to the river with numb fingers and tingling toes. My task for the day is to catch up on posts: snap some pics, enhance them in Photoshop, share them with the world. Now that we have a healthy number of followers, the gifts from brands keep coming, which we showcase as part of our well-appointed North Country wilderness lifestyle. I know that Rich Samson – he’s the one who delivers the mail out here – isn’t happy about hauling boots and glassware and monogrammed Christmas tree stands across the river. They keep to themselves, the islanders, but Sylvie and I do worry. We’re not sure they like all of this attention. Their secret icy paradise put on display. They think we’re shallow, unprepared, naïve. That we’re exploiting Running Pine for our own gain. And unlike all those followers, the islanders are close by. Just a five-minute walk through the woods where coywolves hide in the winter-dark shadows.

 

The cold isn’t our only enemy on Running Pine Island.

 

And I’m terrified of what the night will bring.

 

Have you ever spent time in a remote frozen wilderness? If not, would you? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments!

 

THE COLDEST CASE: It’s February in the Thousand Islands and, cut off from civilization by endless ice, eight people are overwintering on tiny, remote Running Pine. Six year-rounders, used to the hard work, isolation and freezing temperatures . . . and two newcomers: social media stars Cary and Sylvie, whose account documenting their year on the island is garnering thousands of followers, and thousands of dollars’ worth of luxury gifts.

The long-term islanders will tell you Running Pine can be perilous – especially for city slickers who’ll do anything to get the perfect shot. So when Cary doesn’t return from ice fishing one morning, his neighbors fear the worst.

With the clock ticking to find the missing influencer, a police team are dispatched to take the dangerous journey to the island . . . but Sylvie, his frantic partner, will only talk to one person: newlywed Senior Investigator Shana Merchant.

Where is Cary – and what is it that Sylvie’s not sharing? With aspects of the case reminding Shana of an unsolved homicide from her past that haunts her still, she risks her own safety to help. But little does she know that a storm is coming – and if she doesn’t solve both crimes soon, she may become the island’s next victim . . .

 

Tessa Wegert is the author of the popular Shana Merchant mysteries, which include Death in the Family, The Dead Season, Dead Wind, The Kind to Kill, Devils at the Door, and The Coldest Case, along with the upcoming North Country thriller series. 

 Her books have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Shelf Awareness and have been featured on PBS and NPR Radio. A former journalist and copywriter, Tessa grew up in Quebec and now lives with her husband and children in Connecticut, where she co-founded Sisters in Crime CT and serves on the board of International Thriller Writers (ITW). 

 

Who Can We Write?

LUCY BURDETTE: I went to hear Betsy Lerner speak at RJ Julia booksellers two weeks ago about her new book, SHRED SISTERS. She was a long time nonfiction agent and editor before starting to write her first novel. I became most intrigued with her answer to how she could write about such a young woman when she is a long way from that age. She answered: I carry that girl with me everywhere. 

For me, this was like hitting a gong that reverberated from head to toe. In the contemporary women’s fiction that I am slowly drafting, the main character is in her early 20s and arriving in Paris for the first time. What in the world would make me feel like I had the slightest idea about what she might be thinking and feeling? I realized that I was drawing from my own experience going to France for 5 months in the 1970’s, feeling overwhelmed and terribly homesick. My memories of landing in Paris and barely speaking the language and knowing not a soul are still seared in my psyche. I was farmed out to a French family to celebrate New Year’s Eve when I first arrived. They ate very late and very thoroughly and all the conversation was in fast French and they served RAW OYSTERS. OMG, I was dying. Many years from now (I hope) on my deathbed, I think that scared and overwhelmed girl will still be with me. 

Two questions for the day: As a writer, do you have any trouble writing characters who are much younger or otherwise different from you? Must powerful characters come from personal experience? 

HALLIE EPHRON: It’s a challenge for me to write in a VOICE (narrator) who’s a lot younger than myself. That’s where the internet is so helpful because you can go out and LISTEN to podcasts and videos that help tune your ear. (And it helps to have an extended family loaded with “experts” on how their generation says stuff and thinks.)

And yes, I absolutely think the most powerful characters come from personal experience – truly negative traumatic experiences can be spun into gold.

RHYS BOWEN: I got a letter from a reader once saying, “I’ve just seen your photo and until then I thought you were the same age as Lady Georgie.”  Flattering, I suppose. But I have to say that when I write first person as either Georgie or Molly Murphy I really do think and feel like them. When I started both series the voice came to me instantly so that it was almost like dictating what they were saying.  I have to be inside the head of my protagonist. I don’t know how I would handle a protagonist I didn’t like.  And I don’t think I see the world as an elderly woman. Inside the wrinkles is still that twenty something. 

JENN McKINLAY: My main characters in the romcoms and the mysteries have ranged in age from 27 to 50. Occasionally I feel like a fraud for writing about a twenty-something who upends her life but then I remember when I was 25, I threw all of my stuff and my cat and moved 3,000 miles across the country with no place to live or job and I didn’t have GPS or a cell phone. When I remember that version of me, I know I’m fine. I do think personal experience is critical for writing. How can you write about fear if you’ve never been afraid? Etc. And, yes, there are versions of me that are so powerful, I still draw on them when I need to. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I don’t think I’d be able to write children as viewpoint characters, because those years seem so distant, and I can’t really connect with the emotions that child had. But the young woman I was? Oh, yes, so very much. Being in college, going abroad for school, the boys, the men, the dancing on the bar (Yes! Only once, though.) That somewhat wild young woman is still inside me, cleverly disguised by wrinkles and gray hair.

I do echo Hallie in that if I’m writing someone young TODAY, it helps enormously to have young people in your life to run the language past. Not just the slang terms - there are words and aphorisms most people under twenty don’t know. I said, “It’s a tempest in a teapot” to my 27-year-old K-drama-watching friend and she had never heard the phrase before. And when I went to explain it, I had to tackle “what is a tempest” first!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: This is a great question. I find it very easy to write little kids–age maybe 5 to 13. Their voices just come out of me, and it’s actually, I will admit, it’s  a pleasure. Not sure where it comes from, but I can hear them, and their hopes and fears and misconceptions.

A person older than 40, yes, got that, any gender.

But whoa, a thirty-something woman. That is so difficult, and I really have to think about it. Today’s 30’s are so different from mine–attitude, expectations, confidence. 

As for powerful–hmm. I have written powerful scenes that do not come out of my specific personal experience–I have never been kidnapped, for instance. But I can channel fear and darkness from my own fears, I guess, and apply them. It’s like method acting–I can pretend it happened, and then write that. And I do feel the fear–or suspicion, or anger– when I’m in that part of the book. I make myself be someone else. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I've always liked writing characters that were different from me. Two of my favorites from my very first book were women in the eighties. I felt so at home in their heads, even though I was on the cusp of forty at the time. I like writing children and teenagers, too–those ages are still in my head. Hank has a good point about writing about young women in their thirties and forties, who maybe have more confidence than I did at that age. But do they really feel any different about the basic things? 

LUCY AGAIN: As a human being, for everyone, is there a version of yourself that feels so powerful, you will never lose touch with it (even if you might want to?)