SHOTSMAG CONFIDENTIAL |
- The Darker Side of a Blonde by Linda Regan
- Performing the Perfect Crime
- How a Small Nevada Town Inspired a Crime Novel by Heather Young
| The Darker Side of a Blonde by Linda Regan Posted: 12 May 2022 12:00 AM PDT
 The Burning Question will be my ninth, published, novel. I always wanted to write, but being born into a show business family meant my career as an actress kicked in at an early age, consequently writing books took a back seat. However, I always kept a diary, and to day I am very grateful I did. I would highly recommend any budding author to do the same. Mine was a kind of journal at a young age, methodical I'd say (ie: marmalade and toast for breakfast. Daddy learning to play Beatle songs on his guitar)! However, my diary scribbling changed when I was seventeen, and worked with Diana Dors. I only had one line in a television show with her, and she was a Hollywood legend. To say I was nervous would be an understatement. I was determined to make no mistakes and be professional. However, it wasn't to be and on the day in question things went from bad to worse, with the consequence I arrived an hour late at the studio. The complete unit had been kept waiting for little me, who was a mere one-line actress. Diana too, had been kept waiting, sitting in her Winnebago for the whole hour that I was late. As I arrived the director was standing at the gates, and quite rightly shrieked at me, calling me unprofessional and extremely rude and threatened that I would never work again. I immediately burst into tears, making matters much worse, as my perfectly made-up face was now streaking black mascara down the cream foundation blended onto my face and making me look like Crewe Railway Station. The make-up department then started yelling at me. That was the point that Diana Dors came out of her trailer, with hands raised and palms facing my angry employers, she told them all to, 'Pipe down and stop yelling.' She put her arm around me and took me to her trailer. There, she dried my eyes with a tissue, listened to my understandable reason for my lateness, and handed me a hand mirror telling me to redo my face while she made me a cup of sweet tea. That's when she told me I should keep a diary, 'As, when you are young and blonde and dolly, (her words), you got picked on a lot in this industry. She said she kept a diary because one day she intended to write her autobiography from it, (which she did, and I can highly recommend all volumes). I took her advice and when I read back my diary input from that day, I notice my writing style changed. Diana had, unknowingly, taught me to pour out my fears, emotions and feelings onto the blank page. So that was my first lesson in crime writing. As an actress I have faced the terrors of many a first night in a play, the fear of forgetting lines, the fear of finding a theatre and a town when you are on the road, touring, alone. And then, finding your way back after a show, again, alone in the dark, in a strange town, to where you are living for the week your show is performing there. I now write about those stomach-churning moments, in the guise of my victims as I write my books. I love creating characters (something I have done for many years as an actress, creating characters from larger than life, to timid, or quirky etc), and here's where my police come in. They have colourful, hopefully, in some cases comedic and entertaining, personalities. They can bring the lightness and the dark to a tale, something I strongly believe every story needs. And again, who doesn't love a bit of romance, there's always a bit somewhere in my books. I think we all need that, too. My latest crime novel – The Burning Question, is about arson. Personally, I have never been in a fire, and have no idea how it found its way into my mind, I did read arson attacks have increased greatly in London, where my book is set. But, the arson is only part of it. The puzzle comes in the question of who are the victims and what is their connection. The crimes are taking place miles apart, but the signs are the same. So, there is a serial arsonist who needs to be stopped. But with no clues to who or why, most of the murder team are baffled. However, a new, and very young police recruit has worked it out. If she offers this information, she will put her own life in a perilous situation, but if she doesn't, how many more young victims will meet that terrible end? Enter an unexpected clue, or person, that sets the whole force watching their backs.  The Burning Question by Linda Regan (Headline Accent) Out Now When an arson attack strikes in south London, leaving three people dead, it quickly becomes clear that the youngest victim, Danielle Low, was the intended target. With no clear motive, and the killer at large, DCI Banham must act fast. But working with his partner, DI Alison Grainger, has its own challenges that threaten to stall the investigation. Then another body is found in similar circumstances and he knows that there is someone far more sinister at work. As they begin to unravel a dark web of secrets, the case unexpectedly leads close to home and with time of the essence, and the killer always one step ahead, can DCI Banham and his team work together to put a stop to the depravity before another life is lost? More information about her work can be found on her website. You can also follow her on Twitter @Linda_Regan |
| Posted: 11 May 2022 10:00 PM PDT
 My second cosy crime CURTAIN CALL AT THE SEAVIEW HOTEL launches in ebook, hardback and audiobook on May 12 2022 (paperback coming in October). It's another fun, cosy crime set in Scarborough and published by Headline. It stars an acting troupe who arrive at the Seaview Hotel to rehearse a play they hope will save a much-loved local theatre. There's a lot riding on this play. However, the leading lady is a diva, the playwright is highly strung and tensions in the troupe run high. When one of the actors is found dead on the beach, landlady Helen Dexter sets out to solve the crime. And just when Helen thinks things can't get any worse after one of her guests is murdered, the hotel inspector arrives! It's the second in the series of my cosy crimes, the first one being MURDER AT THE SEAVIEW HOTEL which stars 12 Elvis impersonators (called Twelvis!) and one is found dead with his blue suede shoes missing. I've already written about MURDER AT THE SEAVIEW HOTEL here on the Shots Blog. So, now that CURTAIN CALL AT THE SEAVIEW HOTEL is released, it means I've now written two cosy crimes about people pretending to be someone else, whether actors of Elvis impersonators. It's started me wondering what it is about the role of performance I enjoy so much and why it lends itself to writing crime. Whether it's actors in a play or singers pretending to be the king of rock and roll, there's something I find appealing in pretending and faking. Not in real life, I must stress, but in fiction. In the real world I prefer an honest, straightforward kind of life but in fiction, well, I'm all for smokescreens and people who aren't what they seem. And what better way to disguise what your motives are for doing something horrid than by protecting yourself behind the job that you do? It all happens in CURTAIN CALL AT THE SEAVIEW HOTEL. So, settle into your favourite chair with a bag of popcorn, put your feet up and enjoy the performance!  Curtain Call at the Seaview Hotel by Glenda Young is published by Headline on May 12 in ebook, hardback and audiobook. It is released in paperback in August 2022. Helen Dexter has started a new chapter in her life as sole proprietor of the Seaview Hotel. But things take a dramatic turn when an acting troupe book into the hotel to rehearse a play they hope will save a much-loved theatre from being closed down. Helen immediately picks up on tension between the actors, but there is worse to come when the charismatic leading lady is found dead. With so much at stake, it's clear the show must go on. Helen is roped into helping the troupe with their performance, giving her ample opportunity to discover who wanted their diva dead. However, the murder is not the only thing on Helen's mind. She's receiving threatening phone calls, her car is vandalised - and she's just learned of an impending visit from a hotel inspector which could change the fortunes of the Seaview Hotel. With her trusty greyhound Suki by her side, Helen is determined to uncover the identity of the killer - even if it means she has to give the performance of her life. You can watch a very short teaser video of Curtain Call at the Seaview Hotel below Find out more about Glenda Young on her website at http://glendayoungbooks.com |
| How a Small Nevada Town Inspired a Crime Novel by Heather Young Posted: 11 May 2022 11:19 AM PDT
 One hundred miles east of Reno, Nevada, there is a town. You can't see it from Interstate 80, but I stumbled upon it one day when the pumps at the Exit 105 Chevron were broken. Lovelock, it's called. "Lock Your Love in Lovelock," says the billboard on the interstate. As I drove its short main street I slowed the car. I tried to imagine why 1,847 people might choose to live there, in the middle of the desert, so far from anyone else. This wasn't unusual for me; I've always been fascinated by small towns. I grew up in a subdivision, but my parents grew up in picture-perfect Midwestern villages, with elm-shaded streets and white-painted bandstands. Each summer we visited my father's hometown, and I walked to the soda counter and swam in the community pool. It was a theme park version of the perfect childhood, and when we left I'd feel cheated. My parents had had that life. Why couldn't I? Then, when I was in high school, my mother said she wanted us to move back to Iowa, and suddenly I could imagine nothing worse than living in those cornfields, far from the malls and multiplexes of my teenaged suburban world. You'll be Homecoming Queen, my mother promised, as though there were nothing better than being Homecoming Queen in a small Iowa town, and I realized the nostalgia I'd always heard in her voice was really regret. She'd never wanted to leave. But my father had always wanted to live in the wider world, so we didn't go back. And ever since, I have driven slowly through small towns. I think about my mother, who wanted to stay, and my father, who wanted to leave. I think of my own internal conflict: my heart is drawn to the slow beats of these lovely pastoral villages even as my mind revels in the kinetic energy of the large city where I've chosen to live instead. Lovelock, though, is not a lovely pastoral village. It's an unsightly scab on a bleak landscape. Its drab commercial buildings house pawn shops and slot casinos. Its houses are small and nondescript, with sandy lots and concrete sidewalks cooking in the sun. Yet its existence out there in the desert struck me as kind of wonderful, as if I'd found a secret pocket in the lining of a raggedy coat. I'd assumed the appeal of small towns lay in their quiet beauty: in grassy town squares, white-steepled churches, and graceful homes with wraparound porches. But it couldn't be beauty that kept people in Lovelock. I knew that someday, I would set a story there. The Distant Dead is that story. It's about a man who moves to Lovelock seeking sanctuary only to meet death at the hands of the demons he tried to outrun. It's about a woman who feels trapped in the town where she was born, and a young boy, burdened with a terrible secret, who wants a place to belong. All three wrestle with the idea of home: what it means, how much it matters, and whether it's possible to leave it and start fresh. Through their interwoven stories, I examine the mystery at the heart of the question I've asked myself my whole life: how the same small town can offer succor to one person and feel like a cage to another. The answer, it turns out, lies in the human connections that are only possible in small towns. The bartender at the Whiskey Barrel on Main Street explained it when she told me how she'd married her high school boyfriend, followed him while he served in the Army, then moved back with him when his tour was over. There are prettier places, she allowed. But they wanted to raise their children alongside people they'd known since they were born. The owner of the town's only coffee shop echoed her. She knew the town was struggling, but her family had been there since the beginning. Leaving would feel like a betrayal. Anyone else in Lovelock would tell you the same thing: they don't stay because they like the weather. They stay because their people are there. Their history is there. Their dead are there. That's also, of course, why they leave. Because for some, the fact that their name makes everyone in their town nod in recognition is a claustrophobic horror, and the generations that came before are not a legacy to be honored but a haunting to be outrun. But whether they stay or go, they will always feel the weight of home in a way I never will. My investigation of this one small town taught me that this—the birthright my parents denied me when they left Iowa--is why I'm fascinated by all such places. I will never be known the way my parents were. Nor will I ever know anyone else as deeply or effortlessly as the people in Lovelock know one another. I desperately wish I had had that opportunity. I'm profoundly grateful I did not. And so I will always drive slowly through small towns, feeling envy and relief in equal measure.  The Distant Dead by Heather Young (Verve Books) Out Now A body burns in the desert... Does the boy who found it know more than it seems Sal Prentiss, orphaned and burdened with a terrible secret, just wants a place to belong. Sal lives with his uncles on a desolate ranch in the hills, and finds himself at the centre of a brutal murder mystery when he discovers the body of his maths teacher, charred almost beyond recognition, half a mile from his uncles' compound. In the seven months he worked at Lovelock's middle school, the quiet and seemingly unremarkable Adam Merkel had formed a bond with Sal and was one of the few people to look out for the boy. Nora Wheaton, the school's social studies teacher, sensed a kindred spirit in Adam - another soul bound to Lovelock by guilt and duty. After his death, she delves into his past for clues to who killed him. For Sal's grief seems shaded with fear, and Nora suspects he knows more than he's telling about his teacher's death. |
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