Meet Isabel Long P.I. — Star of My Mystery Series

Books start with an idea. In my case, I wanted to write a mystery with a female protagonist that’s set in a rural area. She wasn’t going to be a sweet, young thing, but a woman with some good miles on her — what the French call une femme d’un certain âge. Thus, Isabel Long was created. And once I wrote the first book, I kept going with others because I so enjoy solving crimes with her.

By the way, the first three books, Chasing the Case, Redneck’s Revenge and Checking the Traps, have been re-released Nov. 15 by their new publisher Bloodhound Books.

First, Isabel Long had a long career as a journalist — starting as a reporter covering the fictional hilltown in Western Massachusetts where she lives, population 1,000, and then clawed her way up to being the editor in chief of a newspaper until it went corporate. When the new owner said the staff had to reapply for their jobs, Isabel said, “To hell with that.”

Yeah, Isabel is a bit on the sassy side. She doesn’t take crap from anybody. She’s also savvy. The skills she learned as a journalist come in handy as a private investigator. Other transferable skills: Keeping an open mind and being able to talk with anybody. Oh, yeah, being relentless until she gets her story — or the culprit.

Losing her job was part of Isabel’s bad year. Her husband died of a heart attack. But after a year of properly grieving for him, she was ready to reinvent herself — as a private investigator and as a single woman. She also takes a part-time job tending bar at the Rooster, the town’s only watering hole, which is a great place to find clues for her cases. She also develops a relationship with its owner, Jack, which has its ups and a big down. But I’m not going to spoil what happens for readers.

I wrote Chasing the Case during the winter of 2017, when I lived in Taos, New Mexico, and finished it in the spring. Her first case turns out to be also her first big story as a rookie reporter — the disappearance of a woman 28 years earlier.

By the way, Isabel has an interesting sidekick — her 92-year-old mother who came to live with her. Maria is one sharp woman who loves reading mysteries and smutty romances.

I enjoyed writing Chasing the Case so much, I wrote a sequel — Redneck’s Revenge — while moving back to rural Western Massachusetts, where this mystery series is set. Many of the same characters make it into the second book along with new ones.

I was having too good of a time solving crimes with Isabel, so I kept going with Checking the Traps. (By the way, she and I are working on the eighth case.)

So, how much of me is in Isabel? I’d like to say the sassy and savvy part, especially since I wrote these books in first person. I, too, was a journalist who started in the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts, where I’ve lived twice. Like Isabel, I moved there from Boston to enjoy rural life. But unlike Isabel, I didn’t become a P.I. Instead I write about one, and that’s fine with me. I wouldn’t want the danger she attracts.

Here are the links to Chasing the Case, Redneck’s Revenge and Checking the Traps.

Memoir, Uncategorized

Doing the Dishes — My College Job

Dennis Merritt shared a recent Substack post Showdown at the Pembroke Dish Room in which he wrote about a job he had in college unloading dishes in a school’s dining hall. It brought back a memory although my experience was different, especially since a dean tried to get me fired.

In my junior year at Bridgewater State College (now a university), I was hired to work in the dining hall at Tillinghast Dorm, know as Tillie. My job was in the dish room for the early morning shift, which meant I had to be there before 7 a.m. Sometimes that meant I came straight to work from a party, left a boyfriend behind in my off-campus apartment, or had pulled an all-nighter studying. My shift lasted until my first class.

But I had motivation. During the summer, I worked at a textile warehouse in New Bedford, MA, which covered most of my expenses. But I was hoping to travel to Europe. I thought I could swing it if I didn’t spend any money, except for food and rent.

As in Dennis’s experience, the dining hall had a large machine with a conveyer system. Unlike his, we used large racks to hold the contents while they were being washed. Students and faculty brought their plates, cups, and utensils to a metal counter in the dish room’s large opening. There were two of us on duty, my friend Betty and me. One of us scraped plates and loaded everything onto a rack, which then traveled through the machine. The person on the other end removed the rack and stacked it on a counter for lunch time.

The shift started slowly with the early risers, but it got very busy.

On the few days Betty couldn’t make it to work, I had the job of loading and unloading the dishwasher by myself. I had to be careful the racks didn’t back up on the end, so I was running around a lot. Frankly, the experience was rather Chaplinesque.

Then one of the college’s deans got wind that I was working in the dining hall. The woman, who shall remain nameless, wasn’t pleased about the emergence of the hippies on Bridgewater’s campus. Of course, I was one of them. So one day, she approached my boss at the dining hall. She wanted him to fire me because, get this, I was an immoral person.

I found out about it when my boss took me aside. He told the dean he wasn’t firing me because I was one of his best workers. I thanked him for backing me up.

Actually, the dean’s attempt was a big source of amusement for me. I was too immoral to scrape food off students’ plates and get them clean? Perhaps she had hoped I would fool around enough that I would get poor grades and drop out. But that didn’t happen either.

By the way, that’s a photo of me from that time. And, yes, I did save enough to travel to Europe.

Northern Comfort, Uncategorized

Free Book: Northern Comfort

I’ve decided my book Northern Comfort needed more readers. So it is free for Kindle readers on Nov. 9 and 10. Here’s the link.

Northern Comfort is one of my Hilltown Books. It’s not a mystery, like my Isabel Long Series, but it is set in the familiar fictional hilltowns of Western Massachusetts.

This books is about the harsh realities of rural life — the haves and have nots in a small town. It begins with a tragedy and ends with reconciliation and hope. Let me tell you more.

Willi Miller is a single mother trying to raise her young son, who was brain-damaged at birth. They live in a cabin left to them by the loving grandfather who took them in after Junior Miller, the boy’s father, abandoned them. Willi’s situation is a desperate one. But she’s doing the best she can.

In the opening scene, Willi is home from her job cutting hair at a country beauty shop and hanging clothes on a line in her backyard. It’s the worst of winter, cold and dark, but the job has to get done. She doesn’t have a drier because she can’t afford one.

Willi tries to keep Cody close to her as she works. But then tragedy happens when the boy’s sled quickly takes him into the path of a truck driven by Miles Potter. Willi and Miles have known each other since they were kids, but until the moment her son dies, they were separated by their families’ places in town.

How Willi handles this situation demonstrates her resilience and the kindness of those living in her small town, including Miles. Then, there is Junior, who eventually faces his failings as a father.

That’s what Northern Comfort is about. It’s not the stuff for pretty postcards although I do include a lot of the hilltowns’ traditions like maple sugaring and making old-time music.

Here’s how the book starts.

Willi Miller pinned her best blouse to the rope line, shaking her bare hands to keep the blood moving, as she reached into the broken plastic basket for something else. She should have done this miserable chore before she went to work this morning, but she didn’t have the time. Short and thin-boned like her mother, but yellow-haired like her father, Willi spun around for her boy, who stood a half foot away, staring at the dog whimpering and jerking its chain. “There you are, Cody. Stay near me,” she said.

Her boy, dressed in a one-piece red snowsuit, his mittens packed tightly on his hands, didn’t say a word. He only made noises that sounded like words, and he was seven. His ‘Ma,’ Willi had decided, was exactly as an animal would say it.

Earlier this afternoon, she got Cody at the babysitter’s house, where the van took him after school. Willi was a hairdresser at the Lucky Lady Beauty Shop in nearby Tyler although the running joke among the gals who worked there was it should be called the Unlucky Lady because of the stories the customers told about their men. Cheaters, drunks, and bums, the whole lot of them, it seemed, by their complaints.

The Lucky Lady was busy today with high school girls who wanted their hair curled and piled high for the semi-formal tonight. They were fun customers, so excited about their dates and the big Friday night ahead, she didn’t mind their lousy tips. Willi remembered not that long ago she did the same.

She fed Cody cereal after they got home just to hold him until she made dinner. He ate a few spoonfuls before he began playing with it, making a mess as usual, so she dressed him in his snowsuit and took him outside after she lowered the damper on the wood stove.

Now he walked beneath the hanging laundry toward the dog, named Foxy by her grandfather, who used to own the brown,short-haired, pointy-eared mutt. Willi called to her boy, who moved step by step across the snow, breaking through its icycrust until he sank to the top of his boots. He turned toward his mother. His green eyes peered from beneath the brim of his cap. Yellow snot bubbled from one nostril.

“Yeah, I’m watchin’ you,” Willi said, bending for a towel.

Snow seeped through a crack in her right boot. Cold numbed her toes. She should put duct tape over the brown rubber, but it was her only pair, and it’d look like hell.

“Hey, Cody, where’re you goin’?”

Her boy marched with fast little feet past the junked truck to the back of their house, where his sled, a cheap thing she bought, was propped against the wall. “This is a red sled,” she told Cody in the hardware store.

Her boy uttered a sound that might have been “red” but only she would know. She understood his ways most of the time. He wanted things tick-tock regular when he ate, what he wore.

Her eyes followed her boy, dragging his sled, grunting, toward her. He dropped it at her feet and sat inside. The heels of his boots kicked up and down. “Maaaaa,” he called.

Willi sighed. Cody wouldn’t let up until she gave him a ride. Her boy liked it when she towed him in his sled along the driveway to get the mail. He made happy chirps and flapped his mittens. She wiped her hands on her black jacket, a man’s, too big and open in the front because the zipper was broken. Its bottom swayed against her legs as she walked.

“All right, Cody, but just a little ride.”

She reached for the towrope and pulled Cody in a large circle. His mouth formed a wide, sloppy smile, and he let outgleeful sounds as Willi went slowly, then gained speed. Her feet sank through the snow although the sled glided easily on its surface. She was careful to stay on the flat part of her land, away from the edge of its tabletop, where it plunged onto her neighbor’s property then to one of the town’s main roads below. When she squinted, she could see the Mercy River flowing through its snowy valley like a blue vein on a woman’s wrist.

Round and round Willi towed her son. She slipped on the packed ring of snow, and her straight, yellow hair dropped to her jaw when her knit cap fell. Cody’s head rocked back as he yelped in pleasure. After a while, she stopped, out of breath.

“I gotta finish hanging the clothes before it gets dark. Alright?” she told Cody although she did not expect his answer.

She picked her hat from the snow. The sun was low in the sky, and the dark smudge spreading from the west likely carried more snow. Willi frowned. It would be too much trouble to take the clothes down again. She hated this part of winter, mid-January. It snowed every day, not much, but enough to keep the road crews going with their plows and sanders. Winteralways has a week like this, unsettled weather, the worst of the season, of the year, as far as she was concerned. Often, it happened after the thaw, so that brief warm spell seemed like one cruel joke.

She bent for one of Cody’s shirts. She had to work faster because the clothes were stiffening inside the basket. After she hung them, they would freeze into thin slabs, like shale, and after a day or two, they’ll be dry. If she had any money, she would buy a dryer. She glanced toward her house and saw missing clapboards. She’d fix those, too.

When she was a girl, she used to keep a mental list of what she’d get if she were rich: stuff like pink high heels and a long white coat. None of them seemed practical for a town like Hayward, where half the roads were dirt and fancy things were in other people’s houses. Now she would buy a car that worked without worry and hire a lawyer to make her ex-husband,Junior, pay child support.

Her boy bucked his body while he lay on his belly inside the sled, wailing as if he were wounded. Willi shook her hands and grabbed a pair of jeans from the basket.

“Shit, I hate this life,” she said.

My other Hilltown Books? The Sweet Spot and The Sacred Dog.

Here’s the link again for Northern Comfort.

Substack

One Year on Substack

Today, Substack confirmed that I have published every week for the past 52. Yes, this my one-year anniversary.

My first post, in which I introduce myself, has the title, “Yes, dammit, I’m a Wordsmith. ”I began with an anecdote in which a lawyer once said during a deposition, “Joan Livingston is a wordsmith. She knows how to use words.”

I laugh still how that lawyer attempted to use my writing against me. I can hear his voice, pronouncing ‘wordsmith’ like ‘arsonist’ or ‘murderer.’ But truthfully, I was flattered.

I use a number of social media sites, largely to connect with readers, writers, and, of course, family and friends. But Substack is my favorite largely because people put a lot of thought into what they write.

Some I have stayed with since the start. Others I try out, especially if they subscribe to mine, to see if what they post interests me. I am not a fan of A-I enhanced photos, long posts, or people who barrage me with posts. Among my favorites is the author Sherman Alexie. I have read nearly all of his books and smile when he responds to my comments, sometimes even more than a “Thank you, Joan.” I also look forward to what Frederick Fullerton, an author who I have known since college, writes.

Over the year, I’ve created 83 posts. Some weeks I published twice, but most often, once, usually on Friday or the weekend. Even after a year, though, I am still learning all of its features. I’d like to add audio and video, for instance.

What do I write about? Writing, of course, and the books I create, including details about the characters and inspiration. Then there are personal experiences, including travels. (The image above is a tiled mural I saw in São Miguel, Azores.) I stay away from politics, an old habit from my days as a journalist when I kept my opinions to myself on social media

Then there is the series I call Hilltown Postcards. In those, I share my experiences moving from Boston to the sticks of Western Massachusetts and how we “stupid city folks” learned our way around this rural area. I have plenty more to write about, including stories about interesting people. In some instances, the names have been changed to protect me from the guilty.

Among the most popular Hilltown Postcards is “Friday Night at Liston’s.” My husband Hank and I went there to dance — and Liston’s is indeed the inspiration for an important but fictional bar in my Isabel Long Mystery Series.

It’s 9-something on a Friday night, and the band is into the first set at Liston’s. The tables are filled so Hank and I sit at the bar, a good idea because the band bought larger speakers since the last time we heard them.

Another popular Hilltown Postcard is: “When a Potato Field Goes Barren,” about the troubles experienced by the town’s largest landowner, who was elusive to me when I was a reporter until he needed my help.

For decades, the town of Worthington could set its calendar by what was happening at Albert Farms. In the spring, when the ground was warm and dry enough, seed potatoes were planted in its fields. The plants sprouted, grew, and blossomed. In summer the farmworkers cultivated the fields and later in the season, sprayed a chemical to kill the vines that left a stink in the air.

Every week Substack sends an email about how many weeks in a row I have published. “That’s longer than 95% of writers. Keep your streak and start your next draft.” I took the challenge, even while visiting Madeira and São Miguel, Azores, making sure they ran while I was gone.

When I returned and wrote about my adventures in those islands, I honored subscribers’ request to write about the food we ate. Here’s how “Cozinha de Madeira e Azores” starts:Quero um pastel de nata. Translation: I want a pastel de nata. That’s an egg custard tart I consumed, uh, several times, on our family’s recent trip to Madeira and São Miguel, Azores.

I currently have 221 subscribers. That’s not a lot compared to those Substacks to which I subscribe, but I genuinely appreciate each one, especially those who have pledged payments even though I don’t have a paid option. (I’m working up to that option and deciding how I could reward those who want to pay for posts while offering free ones.)

Would I like a lot more subscribers? Of course, and soon I will be launching incentives to make that happen. Stay tuned.

Hilltown Books

The Sacred Dog is Free Nov. 2-3

Right now, I feel like I’m the mother of several children who all need my attention. Certainly, as the mother of six, I’ve had good practice, but I’m talking about the books I have written. I decided needs some love from readers. So I am making it free for Kindle readers on Nov. 2-3. Here’s the link.

The Sacred Dog, set in 1984, is not part of my Isabel Long Mystery Series. But I am hoping fans of that series will want to read this one. Afterall, the setting is very familiar — the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. And once again, I try to capture its flavor through the characters I’ve created. I call it one of my Hilltown Books.

I feel I know the area so well from my many years living here and certainly when I was a reporter and then an editor. Of course, that includes stories about personal conflicts and feuds between people who live there, but none so dark as between my book’s two main characters, Frank Hooker and Al Kitchen.

Frank is an all-around good guy who runs the town of Holden’s only bar, The Sacred Dog. But he has a fault. He hates Al because he blames him for the death of his reckless brother Wes. And Al hates him for the way he’s been treated. Al grew up in one of those rough households with an abusive grandfather and a loyal although faulty grandmother.

If that weren’t enough, there is Verona Hooker, Frank’s ex, who will be returning to town with their daughter — and a secret.

All is about to come to a reckoning.

The Sacred Dog is fast-paced and as those who have read it already have said, suspenseful. Here I will give you a look on how it starts.

Frank Hooker, tall, broad, and as handsome as an aging cowboy actor, lit a cigarette from the pack he kept beside the bar’s double sink. The rain fell hard, and it had started lightning. The storm, he was certain, would finish off tonight’s softball game at the Rod and Gun Club between the team he backed and Glenburn Sanitation, sponsored by a guy in the next town who pumped out septic systems.

Right now, Frank figured the men were sitting in their pickup trucks and cars, drinking beer, and waiting to see if the weather broke until the ump made the official call. Then, rather than go home to their families and ruin a good night out, they’d head to The Sacred Dog, or The Dog, as the regulars called his bar. Taking a drag of his cigarette, Frank anticipated their early arrival. He made a quick check inside the cooler, satisfied to see it filled with cold bottles of beer.

A pickup truck pulled into the parking lot, its tires grinding into the crushed stone Frank had put in this past spring, and Early Stevens, the only customer in the bar, twisted his head toward the door to see who would be the second. Early, his given name Ernest, had been sitting on his stool since 4:45 that afternoon after he was done hauling the day’s outgoing mail from the Holden Post Office to the one in Butterfield. He drank his usual: a Budweiser with a peppermint schnapps chaser. His topic of discussion today was a story he read in a magazine he found at the toilet in the Holden General Store that claimed the world was going to go to hell in 2000.

“The way it looks, we’ve got about sixteen years to get ready,” Early said. “What do you think, Frank?”

“I think you should find better readin’ material,” Frank answered.

Minutes later, when Al Kitchen came through the bar’s front door, Early muttered under his breath, “Shit, here comes trouble.”

The muscles around Frank’s mouth tightened as Al lumbered across the room to take a stool one over from Early. Al was all-smiles because he thought maybe he was on decent terms with Frank these days. But Frank stared at him blankly as he stubbed out his smoke. “What’ll it be?” he asked as if this wasn’t Al but someone else in front of him.

“Give me a Bud,” Al said, as he retrieved his wallet.

No tabs for Al. That was one of Frank’s rules. Another was a two-beer limit. Frank came up with the second after Al’s grandma, who raised him, begged to let him have some place to go closer to home, and considering The Sacred Dog was the only bar in town, this was it. For years, Al didn’t have the nerve to show his face in his bar.

“Two beers. He won’t be stayin’ long at your place if that’s all he gets,” Jenny Kitchen had said. “Besides, what’s the harm in two beers?”

Frank wanted to tell this old lady, who smelled like kerosene, what harm her grandson had already done. Jenny only came up to his chest, but she made her eyes small and defiant when she faced him. He told her if there was a lick of trouble, Al was out for good, and he’d call her and the cops.

Besides, Frank reasoned it was better to keep someone he disliked at close range. Actually, disliked was too soft a word to describe his feelings for the man, considering what happened to his younger brother, Wes.

The Sacred Dog is free for Kindle Readers only two days: Nov. 2 and 3.