Tag Archives: Mystery

Isabel Long Mystery Series

News about Isabel Long Mystery Series

So, what has P.I. Isabel Long been up to these days? Plenty. And fans of the mystery series will soon be able to read about it when I release no. 8 — Finding the Source. That will happen late May, a date to be determined. Right now, my son Ezra Livingston is working on the cover.

For those just tuning in, Isabel Long was coming off a bad year when she decided to investigate what happened to a woman who walked home from her family’s general store and was never seen again. That was 28 years ago. When she began the case, Isabel was coming off a bad year after her husband died unexpectedly and she lost her job as editor-in-chief of a local paper. With that case solved, she moves onto others. 

Each book features a cold case Isabel tries to solve in the fictional hilltowns of Western Mass. I wrote the first, Chasing the Case, eight years ago.

Writing a series means that I can hold onto the characters I love but let them do something else. Certainly, that includes Maria, Isabel’s 93-year-old mystery-loving mother who is her Watson; Jack, who owns the Rooster Bar, where Isabel has a part-time job and with whom she has a relationship; the Old Farts, a group of gossipy old who provide great intel; Annette Waters, aka the Tough Cookie who owns a junkyard. Others are one and done.

So, what’s Finding the Source about? Isabel Long and Maria are about to have lunch in a nearby city when they are approached by a homeless man, Tom McKenzie, who announces his mother had been murdered 43 years ago and the case never solved. Tom was only 12 when he found her beaten and strangled in their home.

His mother, Abby McKenzie, was a likeable and smart book buyer, finding vintage editions where people don’t value them like in yard sales. She sold books to collectors and at her store in the small town of Dillard. Her body was found beside a smashed bookcase where she kept her most valuable books.

Here’s a chance to help somebody who obviously was traumatized. Naturally, Isabel is interested.

So, as she did with her other cases, Isabel gets to work finding sources to interview. Fortunately, Tom has accumulated helpful information in a notebook.

One of the obstacles Isabel faces in this case is that many of the suspects are dead. They include an avid book collector, a former town official who stalked her, and the man who was allegedly the last to see Abby alive. But there are others to interview like the collector’s twin brother, a supposedly best friend, and Abby’s ex-husband. Hmm, what about his current wife?

Then there is Jim Hawthorne, Dillard’s police chief, who has become Isabel’s nemesis running interference on her other cases. He even tried to pin a murder on her.

In this midst of all this drama, there is fun, including a big Halloween bash at the Rooster.

As I get closer to the release, including making a formal announcement, I will tell you a whole lot more, like how a chance encounter inspired this book.

For those who want to catch up, here is the series: Chasing the Case, Redneck’s Revenge, Checking the Traps, Killing the Story, Working the Beat, Finding the Source, and Missing the Deadline. You can find those and other books I’ve written for Kindle and paperback in this link.

By the way, I was very happy this weekend, when a reader bought the entire series to take home to Canada. Thanks Murray.

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Podcast

An On-Air Conversation about Writing

I can’t ever resist an opportunity to talk about writing and in particular my books. That’s happened at readings and various interviews. Recently, I was invited to be on a podcast, my first, for Greenfield Community College’s Backyard Oasis with host Denise Schwartz.

Backyard Oasis’s podcasts cover a variety of topics although it focuses on people with some miles on them aka older adults. Denise reached out after a mutual friend, Jim, who had read one of my books, suggested I would make a good podcast interview. When Denise and I met in person at a holiday party, I knew this would be a fun experience. I was right.

As a long-time journalist, it’s always interesting to be on the other side of an interview and even put on the spot with an unexpected question, so I would have to do some fast thinking. I knew Denise and I were going to talk about my writing experience, but I purposely didn’t overthink it. Of course, I wasn’t given the questions ahead of time, a rule I followed as well as a reporter.

It was obvious to me Denise did her homework, including reading books in my Isabel Long Mystery Series, so she was well prepared.

The podcast’s title is: “Meet Isabel Long: Investigator of Mysteries and Solver of Cold Cases in the Homey Hilltowns of Western Massachusetts.” It includes my photo, so maybe some people will think that I am her. That’s okay. To be honest, there is a great deal of me in Isabel, the protagonist in my Isabel Long Mystery Series, since she tells the stories. (By the way, no. 8, Finding the Source, will be out this spring.)

Here is the pitch by Backyard Oasis for the podcast: “Denise talks with author Joan Livingston about the art and business of writing, how ideas for her novels pop up in the strangest places, and why small towns, people watching, and experience as a newspaper reporter covering rural villages help her create authentic characters — including private investigator Isabel Long — and solve mysteries!”

That sums it up nicely.

By the way the podcast was labeled “clean” by Apple Podcasts, which means, thankfully, I didn’t use any curse words.

The podcast was produced by Alex Audette in the Teaching and Learning Innovation Center’s Multimedia Studios at GCC. He oversaw the recording and editing.

It is obvious from our conversation that Denise and I were enjoying the experience. I hope those who listen to it feel the same.

(Interestingly, the podcast went live on the same day the audiobook for Professor Groovy and Other Stories was released on Audible.) 

So here are those links, and if you are so moved, please give the podcast a five-star review.

Apple Podcasts: 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/backyard-oasis/id1713761468

Spotify:

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Isabel Long Mystery Series

Listening to My Mistakes

When I was a kid, reading aloud meant an adult with a good voice repeated the words of a book to me, sometimes with voices to make it interesting. I did the same for my own. But as a writer, the term reading aloud has a different meaning. It’s how I listen to the mistakes I made in the book I wrote.

I reserve the Read Aloud function of Word for the last round of edits of the books I write. That’s what I did recently for Finding the Source, the eighth in my Isabel Long Mystery Series. I want it to be as clean as I can possible before I submit it to my publisher Bloodhound Books. And that’s where Samantha, one of the voice options available for Read Aloud, helped me out.

Read Aloud offers a variety of voices but I chose her since the book is a first-person narrative by a woman. Plus, hers was the least weird to me. (When I had an earlier version of Word, the narrator was a man I called Frank.)

Here she is reading the novel’s opening words.

Samantha’s voice has zero emotion and some of her pronunciations are a bit odd. But she’s been so useful bringing to my attention missing words, typos, repeated words, and parts of sentences that just don’t cut it. Frankly, Samantha helped me find a lot of them. 

I had gone over this novel many times, half-way through, and then when I reached ta-da the end. But as I did with other books, I’ve found it so effective to hear Finding the Source being read by somebody else, and that’s where Samantha helps out. I follow along, reading the words on my computer screen as she says them. I interrupt her to make any changes.

Yes, I tried reading my books aloud myself but Samantha does a much better job.

It is a time-consuming process. Finding the Source is almost 76,000 words, so I spread the task over four days to keep things fresh. Of course, another set of eyes and a fresh mind will likely find more. That’s what real editors are for. But right now, I am pleased with the work Samantha did.

And, yes, I did use Read Aloud for the first three books in my Isabel Long Mystery Series, recently republished by Bloodhound Books: to Chasing the Case, Redneck’s Revenge and Checking the Traps.

ABOUT THE PHOTO ABOVE: This is a scene from the village where I live. Certainly, one of the most unusual ways to fix that problem.

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Isabel Long Mystery Series

Transferable Skills

Isabel Long, the protagonist of my mystery series, was a long-time journalist before she became a private investigator. So was I, but I don’t plan to become a P.I. Instead, I will continue writing about one.

The series is set in the small, rural hilltowns of Western Massachusetts, where I got my start in the newspaper biz. I was hired as a correspondent — paid by the inch — to cover the hilltown where I lived, Worthington, population 1,200, for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. I had no previous experience, except for reading neswpapers, but that didn’t seem to matter to the editor who hired me.

That experience grew into a 35-year career working for newspapers. including as editor-in-chief for The Taos News in Taos, New Mexico — an immensely interesting experience. My most recent gig was an editor-in-chief overseeing three daily newspapers in Western Mass. — Greenfield Recorder, Daily Hampshire Gazette and Athol Daily News.

But back to the start, I reported first on Worthington as I learned the ropes and eventually covered several towns, plus did regional stories. I loved breaking a news story and getting to know what people did. I went to town meetings and reported what interested the community from truck pulls to school events to country fairs. I covered fires and what little crime there was. I did profiles. A few of my stories went national. I even went to the White House.

One of the greatest benefits was listening to the way people talked and writing it down. I believe it has paid off with realistic dialogue in my fiction.

It also gave me insight into how people behave, and certainly I had a total immersion into the hilltowns of Western Mass., which I use as a setting for much of my fiction.

And as an aside, working as reporter broke a 25-year writer’s block.

Back to Isabel, who also covered the hilltowns of Western Mass. until, like me, she moved up to being the top editor. She lost her job managing a newspaper when it went corporate. (To set the record straight, that didn’t happen to me.) In Chasing the Case, no. 1 in the series, Isabel decides to revisit her first big story as a rookie reporter — when a woman went missing 28 years earlier from the fictional town of Conwell.

She relies on the skills she used as a journalist for that case and the ones after. The first three in the series were recently re-released by Bloodhound Books: Chasing the Case, Redneck’s Revenge and Checking the Traps.

By the way, since Isabel snagged a bunch of cold case files from her newspaper, it was an opportunity for me to write news stories again — although for made-up subjects. Here’s the start of one with the headline: Conwell woman missing.

CONWELL — Police are investigating the disappearance of Adela Snow Collins, 38, a Conwell native, who was reported missing Tuesday, Sept. 15 by her family when she failed to show up for work at the town’s only store.

State Police, who were called to assist the Conwell Police Department, issued a statement they are treating her disappearance as a missing persons case and at this time, do not suspect any criminal activity.

Her father, Andrew Snow, said in an interview he became concerned when Collins wasn’t on time because she was always prompt even during bad weather. “She only lives three hundred yards from the store,” he said.

Snow said he walked to his daughter’s house on Booker Road when she didn’t answer the telephone despite calling several times. He said he thought maybe she was ill although she seemed fine the day before.

But Snow said he couldn’t find his daughter or her car in the garage. Her purse was on the kitchen table and her dog was inside the house.

“That’s when I called the police,” Snow said. “This isn’t like my daughter at all. The last time I saw her, I was locking up the store. She always tells us where she’s going especially if she’s leaving town, and she didn’t say anything. We’re all so worried for her. Please, if anyone knows anything, call the State Police.”

Customers at the Conwell General Store also expressed concern for Collins, who has worked in the family’s business since she was a teenager. She grew up in Conwell and attended local schools. She has one son, Dale, 10, who was staying overnight at his grandparents’ house, according to police.

“You couldn’t ask for a sweeter person,” said Thomas MacIntyre, who works on the town’s highway crew. “We‘ve known each other since we were kids. I hope she’s okay.”

Franny Goodwin, who was Collins’s first-grade teacher, says she can’t recall anything like the woman’s disappearance happening in the small town.

“We only have a thousand people living here,” she said. “How can a woman just up and disappear? You tell me.”

State Police say anyone who may have information about Collins should call the barracks in Vincent.

So what skills would Isabel find transferable? Certainly, breaking down the elements of a story and figuring who to contact. Good interview skills are a must. Developing a network of sources for tips is another. And she’s got to be good kind of nosy.

And there are times when a journalist has to be a bit brave. For Isabel, that means talking with somebody who has something to hide — like maybe murdering another person. By the way, she’s really good at that.

IMAGE ABOVE: That’s my first press pass. By the way, I only had to use it twice to prove I was a journalist: at the White House and Cummington Fair.

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Isabel Long Mystery Series

Meet My Victims

My mysteries always have a victim. And it’s Isabel Long’s mission to find out what really happened to that person.

Isabel, a longtime journalist turned P.I., focuses on solving cold cases in the fictional hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. So, I try to give her cases that will challenge her — and readers of the series. 

Since the setting is a rural area, likewise the characters I create fit right in. Most are locals whose families have lived there at least a couple of generations although there are newcomers, including Isabel who moved with her family to the small town of Conwell, population 1,000, from Boston.

After living in small rural towns for many years, I feel I have done enough people watching to create authentic characters although I should be clear none are based on real people. As I’ve shared before, my motto is: I take what I know and have my way with it.

Currently, I am completing the eighth in the series. In all but one, which was the case of a missing person, the victims are long deceased. Their deaths were ruled accidents, presumed dead or a suicide, but a person closest to them doesn’t believe that’s what happened. Actually, let me back up and say that no. eight has an outright murder that happened 43 years ago. 

But for this post, I am going to focus on the victims from the first three books in the series, since they were recently republished by Bloodhound Books.

In the first, Chasing the Case, a woman disappeared 28 years earlier. Adela Collins walked home from her family’s general store and was never seen again. It was also Isabel’s first big story as a rookie reporter. As she finds out when she pursues this case, Adela has a few secrets.

In the second, Redneck’s Revenge, Chet Waters, a junkyard owner supposedly died in a fire because he was too drunk to get out. But his daughter, Annette Waters, who now owns that junkyard, doesn’t believe it. Chet might have been an SOB, but Annette, believes he deserves better.

And in Checking the Traps, the victim is a highway worker by day and a poet by night. The official ruling was that Cary Moore jumped from a bridge known for suicides. For years, his half-brother Gary has been trying to get someone to look into it, and now that Isabel has solved two cases, he turns to her for help.

In each book, I try to give readers a portrait of each victim through the words of the people Isabel Long interviews. You can check out her handiwork in the first three books in the series: Chasing the Case, Redneck’s Revenge and Checking the Traps. Thank you if you do.

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