I’m reading this Tuesday, February 11 at Port Moody Library with six other authors. All contributed to the Port Moody Library’s White Pines Program which features local writers.
This free event is being held from 7pm – 8:30pm in the comfy Fireside room. Come and join us for a lovely, lively, literary evening.
WRITERS IN OUR MIDST#14 — Writer’s Biographies
Leesa Hanna is a writer and artist living in Port Moody, British Columbia. She has had poetry published by the online magazine, ‘the Story Quilt’. She has recently completed writing and illustrating her first children’s chapter book, The BIG Adventures of Little O – A Song for the Salmon. This book was longlisted for the CANSCAIP (Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators and Performers.) Writing for Children Competition 2019. It is also included in the White Pines Collection at the Port Moody Library. Visit her website at www.leesahanna.com
Writing from the burbs of Vancouver, Lesley Evans Ogden, specializes in stories about ecology, conservation, animal behaviour, and freelancing. She also explores the intersection of science, human rights, and policy. She crossed a bridge from scientist to writer after a PhD (SFU) and postdoctoral research (UBC) on shorebird and songbird ecology. Her work appears internationally at places like Natural History, National Geographic, BioScience, BBC Future, New Scientist, and on CBC’s The Nature of Things. Find her at lesleyevansogden.com and on Twitter @ljevanso.
Jim Peacock, author of Remember the Good Times, published in 2019, resided for more than 50 years in Port Moody. He had a 15-year journalism career and more years than that in the practice of public and media relations and communications consulting. An active volunteer, he is a past president of the Port Moody Foundation, The Glenayre Community Association and the Variety Club of British Columbia, He has been a long-time supporter of the Eagle Ridge Hospital Foundation. His book is a memoir.
Shannon Matter is a singer/songwriter, writer and aromatherapist. She lives in Coquitlam and performs her original music around the lower mainland often. She has four music compilations to her credit, a DVD, a documentary of her music, five books and more albums and books to come! Visit her website at www.shannonmatter.com
Gerry Bradley was born and raised on Prince Edward Island. He spent thirty-four years working in community mental health in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and is now recently retired. He lives in Port Moody with his wife, Sasha, and their dog, Roxy. When not cutting the grass or washing the car or trying to write, he plays the fiddle with an Irish band called Port na Gael–see @portnagael on Facebook.
In 1989, Gregory J. Robb began his odyssey to publish half a million words in online and traditional periodicals before fearlessly engaging the longer book form. His inaugural book, Transience: From Failure to Future in a Scarred Family, was published in 2015; his second book is currently in the final stages of production. Greg continues to pursue the greatest story of all from his beloved home of Vancouver, Canada.
W. L. Hawkin writes “edgy urban fantasy with a twist of murder.” Described as “intoxicating, lush, magically-edgy, page-turners,” her Hollystone Mysteries follow a coven of witches who solve murders. An Indie publisher with Blue Haven Press, Wendy is also a poet and reviewer with a background in literature and Indigenous Studies. She’s thrilled to have her books available locally in metaphysical stores and in the White Pines Collection at the Port Moody Library. Visit Wendy at http://bluehavenpress.com
This cozy British mystery is Book Eleven in the Ruth Galloway series. I’ve read them all and always look forward to the next. This was better than most as it hearkens back to the very first Ruth Galloway mystery—The Crossing Places.
Back in England, after their Italy misadventure, Nelson is awaiting the birth of the mystery baby—might be his, might not—as are we. After all, Michelle’s shocking pregnancy is what blew up Nelson and Ruth’s plans to get together at the end of the last book. Like us, Ruth thinks they might never get together. She’s back teaching at the University of North Norfolk and dating Frank. Sort of. Her heart’s not in it. Precocious Kate is now seven years old and it’s comforting to see Ginger Flint curled up in her bed.
In this story, DCI Nelson and his King’s Lynn team solve a thirty-year-old
cold case—the tragic disappearance of a twelve-year-old girl. Margaret Lacey
had last been seen at a street party celebrating Charles and Diana’s wedding in
July 1981. Now her remains turn up at one of Ruth’s archaeological digs on the
Salt Marsh, near a cist containing the bones of a sixteen-year-old Bronze Age
girl. One ancient, one contemporary, the girls’ remains bring Ruth and Nelson
back together.
They both receive cryptic letters in the beginning of this story that are reminiscent of those written by Erik Anderssen, Ruth’s Norwegian professor and mentor who drowned in the Salt Marshes. But, if Erik’s dead, who’s writing letters that harken back twenty years to the disappearance of Lucy Downey (Book One) when this all began? The thing is, I read this book carefully and took notes and I still don’t know for certain who wrote those letters. It seems a stone left unturned. I have a suspicion, but it wasn’t made clear enough, for me at least. If you saw a line written somewhere, please quote it in the comments. I hate missing things like that.
This book introduces us to a new character, a sort of sexy Alex Skarsgaard. Think True Blood, Season One. Leif Anderssen turns out to be Erik’s son. Like his father, he’s suave and handsome, a lady’s man and a little scary—a salty blond herring in this archaeological soup. An old friend of Cathbad’s, Leif is also a love interest for Laura, one of Nelson’s daughters.
While Nelson’s team are trying to solve Margaret Lacey’s
cold case, an elderly hoarder is murdered, a man suspected in her
disappearance. And to complicate things, a twenty-four-day old baby is stolen
from her cot. Margaret Lacey’s niece.
Yes, Elly Griffiths knows how to complicate a mystery with a cast of eccentric relatives and neighbours, who all have their own agendas. It’s all quite incestual. At one point, Nelson’s daughter Laura is living with Leif, who she met at Cathbad’s meditation class. The roots on this mind-map furl out like Yggdrasil. Also, in this book, Nelson finally comes clean with his daughters and admits that seven-year-old Katie (Ruth’s kid) is actually his.
I’m a little disappointed that Cathbad has lost some of his druidic charm in this story. He’s more stay-at-home dad than druid, which is sad because that’s his lure. His wife, DS Judy Johnson has stepped up, though, and seems to be Nelson’s right hand, though Tanya and Cloughie are still part of the team.
The climax isn’t quite as thrilling as some of the Ruth Galloway mysteries that gallop on suspensefully for pages and pages. And the reveal of John Mostyn’s murderer is a little too quick and matter-of-fact. What? Really? The newborn baby who disappeared and the twelve-year-old girl murdered twenty years in the past seem to take precedence over this poor elderly man who loved stones and was shot in the head. I feel bad for him.
And in the end, we’re left, not so much with a cliff-hanger, but with the tide going out again on Ruth and Nelson. We’ll have to wait and see if a full moon can draw it back into the Salt Marsh once again.
When you come across a good website, it’s best to save it somehow. I was in search of a word — that term that explains when an arrow is placed on the bowstring ready for flight. It’s called nocking.
What Kaitlin says here is very important. If you’re writing about something you don’t know much about, you must defer to the experts. Use the right terminology, watch some videos to get a feel, and if you have the opportunity try it yourself. Nothing beats personal experience, but articles like this are helpful.
In his latest crime novel, Vancouver author, Dietrich Kalteis, offers a nail biter as dark and gritty as a Kansas duster. The story would seem apocalyptic were it not set in 1930s America. A wind of sympathy buffets the underdogs as they try to eke out a living in a dead, inhospitable land ravaged by drought, banks, and the Ku Klux Klan.
When I read the title, Call Down the Thunder, a song kicked up in my mind — “The Rainmaker” — a 1969 Americana ballad by Harry Nilssen. But, though this rainmaker’s “cobb-buster” cannon is significant, Eugene Hobbs doesn’t make much of a blast himself. He has the technology, but not the touch.
In the end, I decided the protagonist was Clara Myers, a feisty woman in her mid-twenties who wanted to be a dancer but fell for a Kansas dirt-farmer. The story chronicles Sonny and Clara’s struggle to survive outside forces, as well as their own relationship. “Been married to a man more married to the land than he is to me,” Clara tells her mother. Several years into the marriage, Clara, childless and despairing, still longs to shine centre stage.
Sonny, a third-generation Kansas farmer, who inherited the family farm, is the “everyman” of his time. While Clara wants to escape, Sonny wants to stay. The problem is, everyone else wants him gone. Between the Knighthawks of the Great Plains (KKK) and the bank, Sonny has to use his wits and his fists frequently. Willing to try anything to keep the land his daddy’s buried beneath, Sonny finds himself embroiled in a couple of cash grabs that put further pressure on his marriage.
What really draws the reader into this story is Deitrich Kalteis’s characteristic writing style. Breaking the “rules” of contemporary fiction, he twists language to keep the phrases fluid and the plot spinning. There’s a fair amount of “head-hopping” as Kalteis writes using an omniscient viewpoint — meaning, he sometimes reveals more than one character’s thoughts and feelings within a scene. There’s nothing wrong with writing omniscient — it’s classic and fits well with this period piece.
He also switches past and present verb tenses frequently, like we tend to do in our own minds. It’s a trademark technique that drops the reader into the action. For example, when Clara questions the rainmaker about how he makes rain, we see this. “Crooking a finger, he wanted her to follow to the rear of his truck, flapping back the musty canvas.” It’s a way of cutting out all the little words so there’s room to pepper the prose with specific details and sensory images.
Deitrich Kalteis
Kalteis must time travel. How else can he know all the product brands and describe them in such detail they could be sitting on our shelf? Nine pages in, Grainger’s Mercantile is written like a eulogy to bygone days: “Life Savers for a nickel, Red Bud Soda Water, Tower Root Beer, Ace High hair pomade …” Clara’s come to the store to use the phone. She wants to tell her momma that she’s leaving Sonny. And she does leave Sonny. Unfortunately, the truck breaks down and she gets back to the farm just in time to experience a duster blowing, a flaming cross by their mailbox, and their barn burning down. That’s all in scene one — two chaotic pages that propel the reader right into the action and the character’s plight.
There’s a not-so-subtle political commentary blowing in the background of this text. The White Knights of the Great Plains don their masks and wage war on anyone who’s not them, including the unique cast of a traveling circus show. We also hear about FDR’s new deal: schemes to create work for down-and-out Americans. Like Sonny and Clara, the whole state seems to be on the move. I’m reminded of John Steinbeck as I read: The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men. The language is similar. Some words are now considered offensive, but at the time, this was the way things were and the Klan are the villains. They talk as they think. Nowhere does Kalteis slip outside the 1930s to be politically correct. He wants us to experience the chaos, the horror, and the despair of the moment.
This book is a crime novel driven by Sonny’s desperation, so I don’t want to give away any secrets. But there are some twists and surprises, like the introduction of several new characters from “The Happy Mustard Show” two-thirds of the way through the book. There’s a reason for it. A big reason.
But it’s Clara who’s the biggest surprise of all. Brave, strong, and independent, she might not have become a dancer, but she certainly takes centre stage.
