JENN McKINLAY: After sixty books written, I have to say I’ve had to research a wide variety of topics from hoarding to driving in Ireland. But in A MERRY LITTLE MURDER PLOT (coming out on Oct 8th), I had to research the possibility of death by electrocution using a string of holiday lights…well…oh, wait, I can’t tell you anymore because it might spoil the book. Suffice to say, it is very possible.
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Now tell me, Reds, what is the most interesting/oddball/alarming thing you learned while researching one of your books?
HALLIE EPHRON: How easy it is to kill with an overdose of Tylenol. It’s scary how little it takes. Also: dead bodies don’t bleed. If it’s bleeding it ain’t dead (yet). Also: It’s pretty easy to “accidentally” kill someone in an MRI lab (between the super-powerful magnets and the massive amounts of liquid nitrogen, easier than you want to know). It’s amazing that mystery writers can even sleep through the night.
RHYS BOWEN: as Hallie said, in real life too many people get away with murder. How easy it is to tell an elderly person he’s forgotten to take his pills so that he gets a double or triple dose. And if an autopsy is done you say “ he was getting so forgetful!”
My garden is full of oleander. While not as deadly as rumor would have it it looks like a bay leaf in a casserole.
The most interesting research I ever did was asking John to help me in a scene where Evan has to wrestle a gun away from a man on a steep mountainside. We tried to act it out and ended up in an interesting position entwined on the floor, much to the horror of one of our kids!
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, so much fun! And if someone looked at my search history, they would really be perplexed. How long does it take to drown in salt water, what does someone look like when they’ve been asphyxiated. Can you make mac & cheese with bananas? Seriously, I cannot tell you why I looked that up.
There are always, always, wonderful things you find that you were not looking for. For instance, my character Jane Ryland is called Jane Elizabeth. Her idol is Nellie Bly, the reporter. Guess what Nellie Bly’s real name was? Elizabeth Jane. I just loved that, and I did not know it when I wrote it.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: Just think what our collective search histories would look like! a veritable smorgasbord of murder methods! Jenn, I electrocuted someone in my very first book, and learned why it's not unreasonable that regular outlets are not allowed in bathrooms in the UK… Also for that first book I remember posing myself on the stairs as if I'd been pushed down them–ouch! And like Rhys, we've done our share of role-playing. The lengths we will go to for our plots!
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I went down a rabbit hole while researching the 1930s scenes in OUT OF THE DEEP I CRY and wound up learning how to harness a horse team for plowing. I actually used some of, too, as Harry McNeil questions someone!
Weirdest research was with the help of my dear late friend, Tim LaMar. Tim was my go-to guy for guns and violence. Despite being a gentle and very physically unimposing man, Tim knew his stuff, and he walked me through how to turn a sapling into an offensive weapon, and what hitting someone's head with a big rock sounded like.
And I second the concern over our search histories! You can imagine the sorts of things I was Googling for when researching the upcoming book, which is about a Neo-Nazi militia. Please don't come for me, FBI!
LUCY BURDETTE: The searcher would find my history heavy on poisons as well! Lily of the Valley? Check! Some kind of poisonous nut that would work well in a pie crust? Check! I also loved my research for the golf lovers mysteries–I went to actual LPGA tournaments to talk with the players, and even bought a slot to play in the professional/amateur tournament. It took most of my (admittedly small) first advance, but I wouldn’t trade that memory for anything. John caddied for me and was paid $50 at the end:)
How about you, Readers, what bizarre information have you learned while reading or researching that you didn't know before?
Hhhmmm . . . I think perhaps the oddest thing I ever came across was the fact that, in the Middle Ages, books were often chained to shelves to keep them from being stolen . . . .
ReplyDeleteFascinating
DeleteI know some librarians who'd be okay with that. LOL.
DeleteIn my first book, someone is killed by a blow to the head, so I researched that. It turns out that most of us have pretty tough skulls, thank God, so the average bang on the bean isn't going to kill us; a murderer has to get it just right!
ReplyDeleteLaughing... yes it turns out it's far harder to kill someone that way than one imagined. Even just to knock someone out. Very inconvenient
DeleteWhen I was a child watching tv with my Dad, I remember seeing a scene where a man hit another man in the head and he fell asleep. My Dad told me that you could kill someone that way. I think that happened sometimes in real life.
DeleteIt's so true! Having cracked my own noggin a few times, I'm grateful for my thick skull.
DeleteI love this topic. The talks and webinars from Luci Zahray, the Poison Lady, have been such a help over the year. Datura tea, American yew, liquid nicotine in vape cartridges, Tyenol taken while drinking alcohol, rosary peas? I have used them all.
ReplyDeleteElsewhere I learned what a body kept in a dry place for ninety years would look like (the skull probably fell off the spine and the skin is brown). How toxic castor beans are. That you have to sharpen a knitting needle for it to pierce the neck. Such fun!
This reminds me of a story that sadly happened in real life. This lady was taking medication for acne. The lady decided to eat a cheeseburger and died because that particular medicine 💊 and the cheeseburger is a DEADLY combination!
DeleteIt's amazing that there are more accidental deaths!
DeleteI have learned not to heavily insure myself and name any of the Reds as beneficiaries.
ReplyDeleteI can’t stop laughing!!
DeleteDebRo
LOL!!! Very wise, Jerry. ;-)
DeleteI have read mysteries in which unusual murder weapons are used in unexpected ways. An icicle, a bocce ball, over-the-counter eye drops.
ReplyDeleteA bocce ball! Has someone else besides Maddie Day used it?
DeleteThere was a tv show where wine bottles were used as a weapon to kill. Also a tree shaker.
DeleteIt's amazing how resourceful some murderers can be.
DeleteI think that some of the most interesting facts I've learned reading mysteries, exclusive of poisons and such, have been in historical mysteries. James Benn's stories are absolutely the most informative about events and battles and mistakes during WWII. I have learned a lot from Dianne Freeman's books about society at turn of the 20th Century Britain, Rhys's historicals, even Her Royal Spyness is chock full of goodies, and Allison Montclair for post war surprises.
ReplyDeleteI do love historicals for the details. Life was so very different then - we take so much for granted these days.
DeleteAs I get older and having read so many books, I realize that you authors have to go a long way to trip me, as I have read most of your tricks. In that vein, I appreciate when you can fake me out. I don’t remember the title but one book/movie got me with a garden tour – sure it will be the digitalis, or maybe the oleander, or maybe the bergamot. Nope it turned out to be a sneaky blunt instrument! Well done!
ReplyDeleteIt also means that I keep my eyes and brain awake as I read magazines. Yes, I knew about Ricinus, and I knew about datura, but sweet peas – takes a while, but it works. Doubt that I will write a book, so that one is free for you looking it up and using. To quote the local vernacular – fill your boots!
Thank you, Margo! We appreciate the tip!
DeleteToo early for me to be very specific here but I marvel that I learn something new everyday from books that I have read! My hat is off to all the wonderful authors with their imaginations and diligent research!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Judi!
DeleteLike Judi, it's early to think of specific things, because I learn a lot from reading. I mostly like learning history through reading novels. I recently read Horse by Geraldine Brooks, and I had never heard of Lexington, the famous racehorse the book is centered around. This despite having had a mom who brought us stories about Seabiscuit, Man O War, and lots of famous horses of the past.
ReplyDeleteWill check this one out, Gillian.
DeleteOh, I've not heard of that one either.
DeleteI second, Horse by Brooks is a wonderful book. (Heather S)
DeleteHallie, my oldest daughter used to be an ER nurse. One of the saddest consequences of an aborted suicide attempt by Tylenol is lifelong liver damage. At one point there were several young women admitted to their ER who regretted using that failed method.
ReplyDeleteCastor beans are the source of deadly ricin, and there used to be a massive display of them at an amusement park nearby. For a hot minute I thought about growing them until I looked up the plant using Google Lens. Since then I've seen several other places where they are used at (pretty dramatic) landscape plants. Eek!
When I was interviewing subjects for my book on how to make money with sewing, I found the following unusual specialties, just a sample of the ingenuity of those who sew: making clothing for cross-dressers (at the time not available widely readymade); leather and rubber fetishwear; stall curtains for show horses and polo ponies; museum banners; color guard flags and banners (I helped make lots of them one summer); plastic covers for dog food kibble machines, to keep the greasy pieces from flying out of the machines; theater curtains--requiring vast space to manage all that fabric; clown costumes; magician trick clothing--this one isn't in the book; and neither is "leather butts", which are replacement seats for a certain type of riding pant. There were lots more, but these are the ones I think of more often.
My friend Rick grows them. A few years ago I admired the gorgeous plant but gasped when he told me what it was, because I was writing ricin into a book. He sent me some dried pods, which I handled very carefully, with gloves...
DeleteFascinating, Karen.
Delete(I meant Rick grows castor beans...)
DeleteKaren,
DeleteOne of my sisters used to do a lot of sewing. Some years ago her best friend, who is a nun, asked her if she could sew habits for the nuns in her monastery, on a temporary basis. They would pay her. Their regular habit maker was quite ill at the time. There was no pattern to follow, so it was challenging. I think she did it for about a year until their regular person recovered. Up until then, I always thought one or two of the nuns sewed the habits for everyone else.
DebRo
DebRo, I think that used to be the case, especially since most of the religious orders take vows of poverty.
DeleteIsn't Castor an exotically beautiful plant? Large and upright, with huge, red-edged, maple-shaped leaves and dark beans. Really striking in a landscape. Some cheap beads made overseas as made from them, or at one time were.
Now I have to look up castor bean plants and leather butts - thanks, Karen - you're making my search history even more interesting.
DeleteI was talking with fellow author Jessica Ellicott just last night, and she told me much of her story-creating process involves research to begin with. She discovers a single thread, an interesting fact that seems promising, and then digs in with research in order to see if it can be pul out enough other threads to weave a whole novel.
ReplyDeleteThat's such an accurate description of the process!
DeleteI've wondered what the powers tbe might make of my online searches, too. Particularly when we were getting clearance to emigrate to Portugal.
ReplyDeleteFor my first Portugal mystery, I had my husband act the part of a killer threatening the life of my protagonist. He had to hold me agnst the wall with one hand around my throat and the other around my waist, too tight for me to struggle, so that I could see what she could see over his shoulder. He is so gentlemanly and mild mannered, it's an understatement to say he was uncomfortable. But I did find out what I needed to know.
Husbands come in handy sometimes:-)
DeleteHe's a good man to help out when he was so uncomfortable.
DeleteLove both these comments. 😊
DeleteEvery time I attend a talk by Luci Zahray, aka The Poison Lady, I am astounded at a) how many poisons are in the average home or backyard, and b) how little it would take to kill someone.
ReplyDeleteRight? I'm always curious how their lethalness was discovered. Did someone die so we could have this knowledge?
DeleteBack in the seventies I worked in the Trust Department of a bank. We were trying to locate an heir who was the beneficiary of an inheritance from his grandmother. Neither his ex wife nor his siblings knew where he was. The bank hired a private investigator who located the man in Canada. He had changed the spellings of his first and last names. I told my boss that I thought the man didn’t try hard enough to escape detection, that I read if you want to go into hiding you shouldn’t choose a name that’s at all similar to your real name. His mouth dropped open, and he asked “what kind of things do you READ?” I didn’t tell him that I had read it in an alternative newspaper. Remember, this was back in the seventies when there were a lot of domestic terrorists who were in hiding. My coworkers were all old enough to be my parents, and were nice but a little stodgy. Oh, and the heir apparently was a gambler and owed a lot of money to the “wrong” kind of people.
ReplyDeleteDebRo
Oh, that's a mystery novel there!
DeleteI'm reading the new Martin Walker, A Grave in the Woods, and learning so much interesting history about that region of France and things that happened at the end of the war (WWII.) (The book is current, but there is a historical plot line.) My daughter and I were having a discussion just the other night about how history should be taught using novels, not from dry dates and battles (and always about the men!)
ReplyDeleteSO agree!
DeleteYes, it's tragic that textbooks are so dreadfully dull. There's just no need for that. History is fascinating!
DeleteMy favorite college history course had no textbooks. We read novels set in the period we were studying. I loved it!
DeleteDeb
That is such a cool idea, Deborah, I hope some teacher will try it.
DeleteI taught U.S. history to 7th and 8th graders, two sections of each, four classes a day. Sadly, there isn't time in a year's curriculum to read novels. However, for the close of each unit I tried to find appropriate films, which I showed in the evenings with snacks. It was MUCH harder to find films for 7th grade: pre-history to 1820. Conquest, rape, murder, etc. are not appropriate for that age. Even the lightest treatment of slavery was difficult. We went into it more thoroughly in 8th. My experience is that children matured a lot between 12 and 13-14. Movie nights were really popular. For long films, I made sub sandwiches so the kids could eat dinner + snacks. (Selden)
DeleteNothing to do with murder. I was reading a cozy mystery and learned about a new gadget. I contacted the author and asked her if that gadget really existed. She sent me a link with a video of the gadget and I was surprised that it really existed. It was a coffeemaker with new parts that I thought to be only seen in science fiction movies.
ReplyDeleteThis is the 21st century.
LOL - how nice that she sent the info!
DeleteIt is scary how easy it is to kill someone. Any little thing will interrupt life, really. That's what I've learned from 20+ years of reading murder mysteries.
ReplyDeleteSo true. It's a wonder we're not all paranoid...or are we? :)
DeleteI just read RObert Harris' PRECIPICE, and whoa. ANyone know about the Venitia Stanley/H.H. Asquith affair? I had NO idea. Ao agree, Debs the perfect way to teach history. After all, they are STORIES!
ReplyDeleteOh, adding it to my list. Thanks, Hank!
DeleteI have to tell you all that your research you talk about has a spill-over effect, as when I read and comment on the blog, it takes a long time because of all the rabbit holes your posts send me down. I've looked up more on places and people you mention all the time. Hank, I'm getting ready to google Venitia Stanley/H.H. Asquith affair. Of course, my mind is blank right now, and I can't think of a single item out of all the ones I looked up and learned from.
ReplyDeletePM Asquith was besotted with her, and told her all kinds of state secrets and confidential stuff in the lead up to WW1--it was outrageous. I just looked on WIki, and the entry is VERY sanitized. :-).
DeleteLOL, Kathy, after the rabbit holes, you'll have plenty!
DeleteI did something like the history in novels when I taught elementary school. We would read a novel about an American child in a certain time, and then a novel about child in another country in the same period of time. Then we would move forward in time and ,again, read two novels, one American, one foreign, etc. We were looking at the differences between American experience and foreign experience of the same time. It was fun and interesting, but since all the books to teach this way were bought by me personally, the program only lasted as long as I taught at the school.
ReplyDelete