Marcia Talley--Mile High Murder

DEBORAH CROMBIE: One of the many perks of being part of Jungle Red Writers is having the opportunity to showcase your friends--especially when they have a new book! Marcia Talley and I met at Malice Domestic in...mumble mumble--a LONG time ago! Seriously, that would have been around 1994, right, Marcia? We were both newly minted authors then, and we have been friends and brainstorming buddies ever since. So I am more than thrilled to bring you Marcia and her newest Hannah Ives novel, MILE HIGH MURDER.

 

MARCIA TALLEY: I live in Maryland where marijuana has recently become available for medical purposes and where the legislature is actively considering legalizing the weed for recreational use. To date, nine U.S. states as well as the District of Columbia allow the recreational use of cannabis, but the plant is still listed as a Schedule 1 drug – along with heroin and cocaine – and as such, is against federal law. Banks that are part of the Federal Reserve System are prohibited from handling “drug money,” therefore in the states where it is legal, it is largely a multi-million dollar all cash business. Bags of marijuana lying around, I thought.  Sacks of money. What could go wrong?

During my research, I became fascinated by cannabis culture, that is to say the businesses that have sprung up, particularly in western states like Colorado, Oregon and Washington where they thrive, as a result of legalization. Canna-tourism is huge. Guests stay in “bud and breakfasts,” weederies sprawl over many acres and provide Disney-style tours, and (taking a page from the wine industry) restaurants offer food and cannabis parings.  At marijuana shops like Starbuds, Karmaceuticals, and Grateful Meds, budtenders are available to help you choose the perfect weed for what ails you.

The variety of products infused with cannabis is staggering.  Edibles like Berry Bomb Bites, Honey Pot, Mystical Blueberry Jam, Herba Buena Tea and Ganja Grindz Coffee should start your day off on a high note.  There are thousands of topical lotions and balms – Hannah can’t resist the Speakeasy Lip Balm.  Even your dog can mellow out on Bark Avenue Doggie Treats.

What could be more fun than sending Hannah and her friend, Maryland state Senator Claire Thompson, to a “bud and breakfast” in Denver, the Mile High City, to join a diverse group of pot pilgrims and medical refugees? Naturally, one of the group turns up dead, and a closer inspection of the body reveals the victim had been traveling under a false identity …?

I already hear you asking about the research I did for this one!  Let’s just say, quoting former president Barack Obama, “I inhaled frequently; that was the point.”

Research can be hell, folks!

DEBS:  That quote cracks me up. I remember we talked about this book at Bouchercon a few years back.  It sounded like a winning plot then, and how great that Publishers Weekly agrees. Mile High Murder is "witty and well-constructed,” they say and, “Fair-play clues lead to a surprising motive behind the murder [in this] timely and illuminating trip into the often befuddling world of marijuana legislation.”  

Booklist likes it, too.  “As the … series approaches its twentieth anniversary, it’s showing no signs of slowing down. Hannah [is] a woman who’s seen darkness in her own life but who hasn’t let it change who she is ... a sympathetic and likable protagonist, the kind of person we might like spending time with … [T]he mystery she solves here is a very entertaining one ... and its solution is both surprising and memorable.”

And, of course, one of the reasons I adore Hannah Ives is that reading Hannah is like sitting down across the table from Marcia with a cup of tea. (Or a glass of wine... Or...)

As you wait for your copy of MILE HIGH MURDER to arrive, please enjoy this excerpt:

FROM CHAPTER 4:

We’d been waiting outside the terminal for no more than five minutes when a long, white limousine that had been idling a few hundred yards away swept into an opening created by the departure of a yellow Hertz van and eased soundlessly to a stop. The vehicle seemed to go on forever, so long that its hood would reach our B&B hours before its trunk. I counted five windows, back to front. A logo painted on the passenger-side door read Happy Daze Tours, its letters curved in a semicircle under a colorful graphic of a five-fingered marijuana leaf superimposed over a bell.

‘Let me guess,’ I said.

Claire laughed. ‘Our chariot awaits.’

'What’s with the bell?’ I asked, referring to the logo.‘

'That’s the name of the B and B we’re staying in. Bell House.’

In Colorado these days, B&B stood for ‘bud and breakfast’ more often than not. Serious cannatourists flocked to such private establishments, the only ones where smoking, weed or otherwise, was permitted on the premises.

We watched as the chauffeur climbed out carrying a whiteboard that read Thompson in black marker pen.

'That would be me,’ Claire yelled above the noise of the traffic, thumbing her chest.

The driver grinned, revealing a row of impossibly white teeth. ‘Welcome to Denver,’ he said.

‘You must be Austin Norton,’ she said.

‘It’s the shirt. It always gives me away.’

Under an embroidered leather vest that flapped loosely at his sides, Norton wore a black T-shirt that read: IT’S 4:20 SOMEWHERE. He’d belted the shirt neatly into a pair of blue jeans that had been pressed into a sharp crease. I guessed he was around fifty. An aging hippie, I thought. His hair, prematurely silver, was tied back in a low ponytail.

‘Are we waiting for anybody?’ I smiled into his eyes, but saw only my own reflection in his mirrored sunglasses.

‘Nope,’ he said. ‘You’re the last.’ He took our bags and somehow managed to fit them, like pieces to an intricate puzzle, into a trunk already crammed with luggage. Then he held open the door, stood aside and invited us in.

The last time I’d been in a stretch limo had been with a guy named Ron at my high-school prom. This limo, too, had a bar – stocked with designer water – and circular bench seating. But there the resemblance ended. In the Happy Daze limo, LED lights pulsed green, like Kryptonite, turning Claire’s red jacket a dirty shade of gray. A wide-mouthed glass jar containing frosty buds of marijuana took pride of place on a low, central table.

A young guy holding a glass pipe scooted over to make room for us. ‘Welcome to the Mile High City,’ he said as we cut our way through the smog. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and a captain’s hat, soft and faded from repeated laundering, perched at a jaunty angle over his crewcut.

Claire eased into her seat, inhaled and sighed. ‘Ah, this is what I’m talking about!’

As for me, I tried not to breathe too deeply. All my fellow passengers seemed to be smoking something: the guy with the glass pipe; a young couple, their blond heads touching, sharing a hookah like a cream soda with two straws; two women sucking on vape pens. I understood about people going on wine tours of Napa or Sonoma, but they’re not opening bottles of merlot the minute they leave baggage claim. Still, it must be a relief to get high without being hassled by the cops.

‘You trip out early in Denver,’ the young guy said, as if reading my mind. He took a hit from his pipe, held his breath and closed his eyes.

Marcia Talley is the author of MILE HIGH MURDER and fifteen previous novels featuring Maryland sleuth, Hannah Ives. A winner of the Malice Domestic grant and an Agatha Award nominee for Best First Novel, Ms. Talley won an Agatha and an Anthony Award for her short story "Too Many Cooks" and an Agatha Award for her short story "Driven to Distraction." She is author/editor of two star-studded mystery collaborations, NAKED CAME THE PHOENIX and I’D KILL FOR THAT, and her short stories appear in more than a dozen magazines and anthologies. She divides her time between Annapolis, Maryland and a quaint Loyalist cottage in the Bahamas.

DEBS: Here's more about MILE HIGH MURDER:

It’s a fact that some of the cancer support group survivors Hannah Ives works with take marijuana. Recreational use of the drug may be illegal in Maryland, but a few patients, like Maryland State Senator Claire Thompson, are prescribed it on medical grounds. Claire has co-sponsored a Cannabis Legalization Bill and invites Hannah to be part of a fact-finding task force that testifies before the Maryland State Senate.

Before long, Hannah is in Denver, Colorado – the Mile High City – staying at a B&B with a group of pot pilgrims and medical refugees. But when one of the group is found dead, and a closer inspection of the body reveals the victim had been traveling under a false identity, Hannah is plunged into a dangerous cocktail of deception, drugs and death.

Stop in and chat with Marcia, who will be joining us from her "Loyalist cottage in the Bahamas." Sigh... 

PS: And she will answer questions about her "research."