"It's a mystery..."

I've done a lot of reading as I research the type of mystery novels I want to write. With police and lawyer stories at one end and cozy mysteries at the other, my favorites are somewhere in the middle, stories with characters who have a variety of interests, who can grow and develop into someone you'd like to know. I also like when they are set in a specific locale that became intrinsic to the plot.

Here's a great NHPR interview with Brendan DuBois, the author of the Lewis Cole mystery series that I have read over the years. Reading his books helped me figure out the type of mystery I want to write. 

November quiet

Thanksgiving has come and gone, with lots of great family time. Now it's quiet here again, and I pulled out a poetry book to enjoy in front of the fire, From the Box Marked Some Are Missing (Hobblebush Books, 2010), by Charles Pratt. My family and I used to visit Charles and Joan Pratt's orchard, Apple Annie's, and it became a very special place for us. In the poem "November: Sparing the Old Apples," he describes the old trees in the orchard  as "...broken-winged umbrellas/Black sea birds drying angular wings on a rock." The poem ends with him knowing what he should do but can't: "And I put my chainsaw away for another November/As if having endured conveyed some right to endure." There's something both exhausted and strong in that last line that appeals greatly to me.