Haunted Halloween Bits from the SSA Authors

We're sharing our personal haunts this week. Feel free to share your own when you're finished reading -- if you dare.

Scariest book I ever read.....

The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith, and its sequel Passenger. -- Elle Cosimano



Salem's Lot by Stephen King - "I read it while visiting my aunt over Christmas in sixth grade. She had this old radiator that hissed when it came on and it was right under the window. I didn't sleep the entire time -- but I didn't stop reading the book either!" -- Laura Ellen



 It by Stephen King -- Deron Hicks 


The Hot Zone by Richard Preston -- Elisa Ludwig



The Sandman by Neil Gaiman - "I know it's not really straight-up horror, but some story arcs in that series are profoundly chilling and disturbing." -- Mary McCoy


A House in The Sky by Amanda Lindhout - "Nonfiction, but reads like a novel. Captivity narratives in general freak me out, but this one packs a punch." -- Diana Renn

 

 

 

 Spookiest place I ever visited...

St. Mary's

"I spent four nights in the St. Mary's Art Center in Virginia City, Nevada during the NV SCBWI Mentor Retreat. http://www.hauntedhouses.com/states/nv/saint_mary_louise_hospital.htm" -- Elle Cosimano

Holy Trinity Church

"In college I used to cut through a cemetery to get to work. I t freaked me out every time. I'd get jumpy and hear things -- I took to timing myself to see how quick I could get through." -- Laura Ellen

"Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. We were there on a cold, overcast day. The grounds surrounding the church are packed with ancient graves. If ghosts are real, that's the place you would find them." -- Deron Hicks

"The cemetery behind my college campus, when a few of us decided to visit at midnight with a Ouija board. " -- Elisa Ludwig

The Capuchin Crypt from debbzie.com

ParaPedia

"The Capuchin Crypt in Rome - each room is decorated wall-to-wall with the bones of friars. In one room, there's a plaque that reads 'What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.' In another room, a woman's heart is entombed in the wall." -- Mary McCoy

"Zelve National Park in Turkey. Lunar landscape, centuries of buried civilizations, caves, isolated hikes, creepy guys following my husband and I around." -- Diana Renn

The one thing that creeps me out the most. . . 

 

"I really, REALLY dislike spiders and scary clowns." -- Elle Cosimano

"I am with Elle on the clowns -- and dolls with porcelain faces. Just too creepy." -- Laura Ellen

"Snakes. Ugh." -- Deron Hicks

"Rats. And serial killers." -- Elisa Ludwig

"Anything having to do with demon possession I just cannot handle." -- Mary McCoy

"Spiders! I grew up in a house by a lake, and we always got supersize spiders on all our windows. They would spawn more spiders, and eat their dinners right in front of us, and fight -- I am truly traumatized by this." -- Diana Renn

 

The freakiest thing that ever happened to me . . 

"I used to sell real estate. One day, I was showing an historic property (an old farm house built in the 1800s on the edge of a Civil War battlefield) to a lovely couple who were considering a purchase. The house itself had some very strange features. The upstairs bedrooms on both sides of a long, crooked hallway had padlocks that locked from the outside, and the entire house had a very creepy, cold feeling about it. In the dining room, there was a hidden stair behind a door in the wall (an old servant staircase). While we were discussing the property, the door unlatched and swung all the way open, very, very slowly and all three of us felt we weren't alone. Needless to say, we left post haste!" -- Elle Cosimano

"I was staying with my sister in her rental house in Eugene, OR. Alone in the house and taking a shower, l I heard someone yell something outside the bathroom door. When I came out, no one was there, but the microwave was on and I heard a shuffling sound in the living room closet. To get out of the house, I would have had to pass the closet so instead I stood watch  in the hall with a kitchen knife, scared out of my mind, until mys sister and brother-in-law got back a few minutes later. When we checked the closet, no one was in it."  -- Laura Ellen

"My grandmother had a large old photograph of some distant, stern looking relative that she hung in the extra bedroom in her home. The house was old and constantly creaked and groaned. When I was young, I had to sleep in that room. It always seemed that the moonlight would illuminate that photograph. My creepy relative would stare down at me in bed from his spot on the wall as the house creaked and groaned around me." -- Deron Hicks

"I was pretty sure at the time that I saw a UFO during a high school Astronomy Club visit to a field at night. Not sure I'd be as convinced now." -- Elisa Ludwig

"My dorm room sophomore year may have been a little bit haunted. More than once, I saw a shadowy figure standing by the window that disappeared the moment I reached out to touch it. I did some research and found out that somebody had died in my room a few decades before. I might add that I relate this story as a person who doesn't believe in ghosts AT ALL." -- Mary McCoy

"I can't think of one single freaky thing, but I've often felt that I have a vague psychic connection. I will think of someone, or dream something, and soon after find my thoughts or dreams are true, something really happened to that person (nothing horrific), or I will run into that person somewhere. Unfortunately I have not been able to channel this vague, intermittent psychic vibe into anything useful like predicting lottery numbers." -- Diana Renn

Interrogation Room #40: Elle Cosimano, author of NEARLY GONE

Today marks the release of a book that I've been dying to read since I first met Elle at a conference in the summer of 2011.  A YA thriller with page-turning tension, a mind-bending mystery and a melty romance?  I'll take two!

Kirkus Reviews calls NEARLY GONE "Tense and engaging."  Publishers Weekly says that "Cosimano weaves together math riddles, science-based clues, an edgy romance, and psychological terror to create an unpredictable page-turner."  And, in a starred review, School Library Journal said, "Eloquently written and packed full of suspense, debut author Cosimano strikes gold with this page-turning thriller that will have teens chomping at the bit to get to the end."

Bones meets Fringe in a big, dark, scary, brilliantly-plotted urban thriller that will leave you guessing until the very end

Nearly Boswell knows how to keep secrets. Living in a DC trailer park, she knows better than to share anything that would make her a target with her classmates. Like her mother's job as an exotic dancer, her obsession with the personal ads, and especially the emotions she can taste when she brushes against someone's skin. But when a serial killer goes on a killing spree and starts attacking students, leaving cryptic ads in the newspaper that only Nearly can decipher, she confides in the one person she shouldn't trust: the new guy at school--a reformed bad boy working undercover for the police, doing surveillance. . . on her.

Nearly might be the one person who can put all the clues together, and if she doesn't figure it all out soon--she'll be next.


Elle agreed to sit in the interrogation room to allow us to help celebrate the launch of her debut novel, and to learn more about the book that has readers staying up into the wee hours of the morning.

1)  I know you are an alumni of the Writer's Police Academy.  How did your experiences there influence NEARLY GONE?

Every class I take at WPA is an opportunity. The experiences and lessons ad authenticity and a richness to my settings, plots, and characters. But a few in particular stand out as being exceptionally helpful with this book. First were the classes I took about serial killers -- the various kinds, what defines them as such, and perhaps most importantly for me, what motivates them. My killer needed a motive. There had to be a compelling reason for the murders. And these classes helped take me inside my killer's head.

The other was a ride-along with a deputy sheriff. During our ride, he took me through a trailer park very much like the one my character lives in. We talked at length about the challenges residents face there, and the types of crimes they often see, and how the teens in this neighborhood adapt to the challenges of poverty, drugs, and unsafe living conditions. It was an eye-opening first-hand look into Nearly's life, and I felt the experience brought me much closer to her story. During the same ride-along, I learned that the deputy had a lot of previous experience working with confidential informants. I had the opportunity to ask a lot of questions about CI's (what motivates them and how they work) that helped me to better understand Reece's character.

2) I love that your main character, Nearly Boswell, is obsessed with the personal ads, and that the killer uses the personal ads to leave clues to the upcoming murders.  Where did this aspect of the story come from?  Did you read a lot of personal ads to prepare?

The inspiration for Nearly's character came from watching one of my co-workers read the Missed Connections during her lunch break at work. She read them obsessively, making fun of the people who wrote them, but when she thought she was alone, she looked so lonely reading them. As if maybe she secretly hoped one of the ads had been written for her. I did read a lot of Missed Connection ads when preparing to write certain scenes of the story. Some of them did make me laugh. But a lot of them were heartbreaking too. It was a fascinating look into Nearly's world, and it really got me thinking about what she might be looking for in those ads.

3) I find that writing a mystery presents its own set of challenges.  What was your process for constructing the mystery?  Did you plot it out in advance?  Were their suprises along the way?

I created a loose plot and an outline, but tried to give myself the freedom to recognize opportunities along the way. This left the door open for some really fun surprises. Of course, it also leaves openings in the floor for some big, fat plot holes. Once the guts of the mystery and plot were in place, it took me several passes to tie up all the loose ends. 

4) What was the most challenging aspect of writing a thriller for a young adult audience?

The things I love about YA lit are also the elements that make it so challenging to write. Within the scope of YA, genres can be bent and blended any which way. It's not unusual to see books that fall into three or four different categories, as is the case with NEARLY GONE. It's a thriller, and a mystery. It has a pinch of paranormal, but could be described as contemporary, and it has a strong romantic thread. It's definitely YA, but it has a lot of cross-over appeal for adult readers. And the trick with a book that crosses so many boundaries is that it has to commit to do all of these things well. NEARLY GONE couldn't be just a great thriller. It had to have a solid mystery that's difficult to solve. It had to have a compelling romance. And the paranormal elements had to be woven in very carefully. 

5) Rumor has it that NEARLY GONE has an amazing romantic element.  How did you balance the romantic aspects of the story with the thriller aspect?  Were you influenced by any particular authors or genres?

The romance between Nearly and Reece was the spoke in my wheel while I was building the story. It's the part of the story that remained the same from draft to shelf, the part I held tight to when the rest all fell away through three major revisions. In Nearly and Reece's case, the balance has always come from the tension between them -- tension that helped keep the plot tight and magnify the other conflicts in the story. For the romance to stand out, the tension had to be strong enough to stand up to the tension of a rising body count. If the romance wasn't as tense as the mystery or the thriller elements, then it would fall even flatter by comparison to the rest of the story. Nearly and Reece had to be strong. There had to be fire between them. And their romance had to be tested at every turn.

6) NEARLY GONE is your debut novel.  What has been the most satisfying part of the publication journey for you so far?

It's a strange and lonely thing, to have all these characters living inside your head, and then on the page. They almost don't seem real until I share them with someone else -- a crit partner, my agent, my editor. And suddenly, lots of people are getting to meet Nearly. Her story is out in the world, and so is the piece of my heart where she lived for the three years it took to bring her into the world. It's a beautiful and terrifying thing, to finally be able to share her with so many people. 

7) Now that NEARLY GONE is out in the world, what's next for Nearly?  For Elle?

A sequel, NEARLY LOST, is planned for release in 2015, in which Nearly takes an internship at a local forensics lab, and the crimes start hitting a little too close to home. As for me, I'm looking forward to attending RT Convention in New Orleans in May, and another round at the Writers Police Academy in September.

Visit Elle on Facebook

Visit Elle on Twitter

___________________________________________________________________________________
Elle Cosimano is the daughter of a prison warden and an elementary school teacher who rides a Harley. As a teen, she spent summers working on a fishing boat, baiting hooks and lugging buckets of bait. She majored in Psychology at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and set aside a successful real-estate career to pursue writing. She lives with her husband and two young sons, and divides her time between her home near Washington, DC and a jungle tree house in the Mayan Riviera.

12 Days of Mysteries: Day 4

The clock is ticking. Faster. Faster. Your heart is in your throat as December 25 bears down on you. Your shopping isn't done. In fact, you haven't even started!

If you have young thriller fans in your life, we can save you. To celebrate Day 4 of our 12 Days of Mysteries (and thrillers) are some thrillers that are sure to make great gifts!

Elle Cosimano says, "I LOVED 'THE LOCK ARTIST' by Steve Hamilton. This beautifully written and character-driven thriller unfolds slowly, and non-linearly, drawing out the reveal for an intense and satisfying conclusion." This book one the Edgar Award for YA in 2011. Here's the description:

 

 

 

"I was the Miracle Boy, once upon a time. Later on, the Milford Mute. The Golden Boy. The Young Ghost. The Kid. The Boxman. The Lock Artist. That was all me.

But you can call me Mike." 

 

Marked by tragedy, traumatized at the age of eight, Michael, now eighteen, is no ordinary young man. Besides not uttering a single word in ten years, he discovers the one thing he can somehow do better than anyone else. Whether it's a locked door without a key, a padlock with no combination, or even an eight-hundred pound safe ... he can open them all. It's an unforgivable talent. A talent that will make young Michael a hot commodity with the wrong people and, whether he likes it or not, push him ever close to a life of crime. Until he finally sees his chance to escape, and with one desperate gamble risks everything to come back home to the only person he ever loved, and to unlock the secret that has kept him silent for so long.

Avast! How about a thriller at sea? With pirates? Diana Renn really enjoyed the newly-released YA thriller by Nick Lake, HOSTAGE THREE. "I'm always looking for good YA fiction set in different countries. This unusual thriller takes us off the coast of Somalia, where a yacht is taken over by pirates. This is a character-driven thriller that will get you shifting your perspectives and redrawing your lines of allegiance, over and over again."

 Here's the official summary:

The last thing Amy planned to do this summer was sail around the world trapped on a yacht with her father and her stepmother. Really, all she wanted was to fast-forward to October when she’ll turn
eighteen and take control of her own life. Aboard the Daisy May, Amy spends time sunbathing, dolphin watching and forgetting the past as everything floats by . . . until one day in the Gulf of Aden another boat appears. A boat with guns and pirates – the kind that kill.

Immediately, the pirates seize the boat and its human cargo. Hostage One is Amy’s father – the most valuable. Hostage Two: her stepmother. And Hostage Three is Amy, who can’t believe what’s happening. As the ransom brokering plays out, Amy finds herself becoming less afraid, and even
stranger still, drawn to one of her captors, a teenage boy who wants desperately to be more than who he has become. Suddenly it becomes brutally clear that the price of life and its value are two very different things . .

 

I Witnessed A Murder... Or Did I?

Recently, unbeknownst to me, I was a participant in a fascinating social study.

Someone in my Facebook feed posted a suggestion I couldn't resist.

If you type coordinates 52.376552, 5.198303 into Google Maps, you'll find a man dragging a body into the lake.

No way, I thought.

But I did...

And I'll be damned. There it was!

Haven't seen it? Go ahead and look. Don't forget to zoom in. I'll wait.

OMG!

Do you see it too? The trail of blood on the pier behind the body? The man getting ready to drag it over the edge? This is, without a doubt, an image capturing a violent and horrific crime. Are you as ready to call the FBI as I was?

Hold on. Don't make that call just yet.

So what if I give you the same coordinates, but make no mention of a body? What if I never planted the suggestion of murder in your mind, and you pull up the image without any pretense? What might you see then? How might your mind interpret this image differently? Still not sure?

Okay.

What if I give you the same coordinates and tell you that the big, brown dog with the two men on the pier has been swimming, and just climbed onto the redwood walkway, soaking wet, leaving a happy trail of water behind his big, furry feet?  Look at the picture again. Do you still see a crime in process? In the middle of the day? In a public place? When there is no trail of blood leading to the pier at all? 

Still ready to call the FBI?

Or are you second-guessing yourself?

Apparently, so were a lot of other people. You can read more about the "body into the lake" viral post on Snopes. Normally, these kinds of urban legends in my Facebook feed irk me. But this one really got me thinking about the power of suggestion on eyewitness testimony, and how many variables affect how we interpret what we see. Did we really see something as it was? Or did we see what we expected to see, based on preconceived ideas within our own cognitive framework?

A brief filed in 2011 by the APA explains that "... juries don't understand the many factors that can influence a witness's ability to accurately identify a suspect, including how much stress a witness is under, whether a weapon is present, the amount of time a witness had to look at the person, the lighting present at the time, how long it's been since someone first witnessed the crime or suggestions of guilt by police." Azar, B. (2011). The Limits of Eyewitness Testimony - American Psychology Association.

This experiment reminds me that each of my characters, and each of my readers, has his own schema -- her own cognitive framework for interpreting the world. Life experiences, cultural understandings, societal influences, stresses, fears and memories -- we all understand the world around us through a very complex lens. Experiments like this remind me that the richest mysteries don't focus on the blood on the pier, but on the hearts and minds of those who think they saw it.

Science Sleuths: Forensics For Kids

As a homeschool educator, I'm always sleuthing out new opportunities to integrate the sciences with the arts in my lesson plans. Recently, I was delighted to learn that the Science Museum of Richmond has a forensic science exhibit for kids. "Science Sleuths" is a hands-on opportunity for kids to explore the science of the human body, while developing their deductive reasoning skills.

Kids get a first hand look at the various ways forensic scientists help law enforcement professionals solve crimes. Exhibits explore the our DNA, and how our uniqueness enables investigators to narrow the scope of possible suspects. How forensic artists use witness observations to recreate an image of a suspect's face. How forensic anthropologists use what they know about human bones to identify the features of decomposed bodies. How our own digestive system can reveal the secret of a victim's last meal, or the presence of a particular insect can shed light on the approximate time of death.

These kinds of activities can become fuel for engaging creative writing projects, and home or classroom based experiments. Don't worry if you don't have a "Science Sleuths" exhibit at your local museum. You can easily create opportunities like this on your own!

For example, The Barrie School in Silver Spring, MD recently offered their students a one week forensic science program, where students were given a fabricated crime scene, and the tools to solve it.

The summer months also offer unique opportunities for kids to explore science through summer camp programs like this one, offered through the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Too far from home? Try Googling forensic science camps near you. You'll be surprised how many are offered through your local museums, universities, and recreation centers.

Like this summer camp, sponsored by the Seattle Science Foundation, where students perform crime scene investigation, forensic anthropology, fingerprinting, serology, toxicology, hair analysis, DNA analysis, and forensic psychology.

If you're an educator looking for ways to include forensic science in your curriculum, I've found some websites you should check out.

The Kids' Science Challenge offers entire units on forensic science with a downloadable curriculum for grades 2 - 12, including reading suggestions, writing topics, experiments, and discussion prompts. Click this link, then scroll a third of the way down to the section called Detective Science Project.

The Science Spot Kid Zone provides an organized list of links to websites featuring activities, experiments, videos, and resources about forensic science. Find information on everything from fingerprinting, blood analysis, entomology, accident reconstruction, and our favorite -- mysteries. For teachers, they offer links to complete lesson plans on a variety of forensic topics, such as hair and fiber analysis, DNA, chromatography, impressions, and more.

Are you a teacher or parent who's found an exciting way to introduce forensic science to your student? Have you participated in a forensic science program you think we should share with our readers? Respond in the comments and let us know! We want to hear from you.

ELLE COSIMANO set aside a successful real-estate career to pursue writing. She lives with her husband and two young sons, and divides her time between her home near Washington, DC and a jungle tree house in the Mayan Riveria. Her YA novel NEARLY GONE will be published by Kathy Dawson Books/Penguin in March 2014, with a sequel coming in 2015. Learn more about Elle on her website, twitter, facebook, and Goodreads.

STOP! CITIZENS' POLICE!

On March 15th, registration opens for the Writer’s Police Academy. This three day hands-on workshop is instructed by actual police, investigators, crime lab specialists, corrections officers, undercover detectives, forensic experts, K9 handlers, firearm instructors, and first responders. If you write crime fiction, I can’t recommend this program highly enough. You can read more about it here, and you can register here.

But the WPA isn’t the only place to learn about police procedure. The answers you need to become a more informed writer (or more critical reader) are right in your own backyard, at your local Citizens’ Police Academy.

The concept for a Citizens’ Police Academy was born in the UK in the 1970s, beginning as a night school for regular citizens with an interest in learning about police procedure. The concept made its way to the US almost a decade later, and became the first Citizens’ Police Academy in Orlando, FL in 1985, with the goal of reducing crime through a stronger citizen commitment to the police department. The program was an instant success, and Citizens’ Police Academies were adopted throughout the country. 

You can find local police departments with nearby academies on this national list of Citizens’ Police Academy members. Then type “citizens police academy” + the name of the county/city of your nearest CPA program in your favorite search engine. Most police departments have a page dedicated to their CPA program, if one is offered.

What happens at CPA?  Most Citizens’ Police Academies offer a wide range of classes, including: Patrol Operations, Special Investigations (ie: V.I.C.E., Narcotics, Gangs), Jail Tours, Domestic Violence, Animal Control, Firearms Safety, Basic Criminal Law, Crime Analysis, Crime Prevention, Forensics, K-9 Demonstrations, DUI & SET Units, SWAT Team, Bomb Squad, Professional Standards, Criminal Investigations, and even Ride-Along Programs. Programs generally require 30-40 hours of classroom time, spread between one and twelve weeks, and may offer more than one session per year. At the conclusion of the program, most departments offer a graduation ceremony, and some even offer alumni groups. Best of all, most of these programs are free of charge!

So what are you waiting for? Will we see you at the Writer’s Police Academy in September? No? Then get thee to your local Citizens’ Police Academy and report back! We’d love to feature you on our blog and read about your experience!

Fresh Blood: ELLE COSIMANO

I'm still scratching my head, wondering how I got here.

I've never been a rabid fan of traditional mysteries. Never found myself addicted to Sherlock Holmes or Nancy Drew.

As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I set out to write a romance, but when my story landed in my agent's slush pile and I told her I wasn't really sure what kind of story it was, she said, "You are a thriller writer." I suppose she was right.

That's how NEARLY GONE began. As a romantic seed. It burrowed in one afternoon while I watched a woman combing The Missed Connections, a section of the personal classifieds intended to search for a specific person -- a handsome stranger someone was too shy to talk to. A beautiful face across the subway train that disappeared into the crowd. On the surface, the woman was laughing, like the ads amused her. And yet, when she thought no one was watching, she peeked inside the folded pages, looking inconsolably lonely as she read them to herself. I couldn't help but wonder... what -- or who -- was she really searching for?

Curious, I thumbed through them when she set her paper down. The ads were mostly romantic -- some yearning to find, others yearning to be found. They read like a mini-mystery, a story of a missing person masked as casual flirtation in a two-line hook. Just harmless fun.

But what if they weren't?

What might happen if someone posted an ad with malicious intent? What if those two anonymous lines became bait for a lonely girl? What if the ads escalated into a dangerous game of cat and mouse? What if the missing started turning up dead, and what if no one believed her?

From those roots, NEARLY GONE grew into a dark and twisted mystery.

Don't get me wrong. There's still plenty of making out.

But buckle up for the ride.

I'm a thriller writer.

Elle Cosimano is the daughter of a prison warden and an elementary school teacher who rides a Harley. As a teen, she spent summers working on a fishing boat, baiting hooks and lugging buckets of chum. She majored in Psychology at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and set aside a successful real-estate career to pursue writing. She drinks too much coffee and is a professional puppy and little boy wrangler. She divides her time between her home near Washington, DC and a jungle tree house in the Mayan Riviera. 

Elle's debut YA thriller, NEARLY GONE, releases in early 2014 with Kathy Dawson Books, an imprint of Penguin Books for Young Readers. 

You can find Elle on her website, twitter, facebook, and goodreads.

Fresh Blood!

Happy New Year! We're back from our holiday break . . . and we're bigger! (And not in the ate-too-many-holiday-desserts way). (Though some of us might have done that too). (Oops).

Well. We are thrilled to announce some big changes here on the Sleuths Spies & Alibis blog!

1. We're expanding our subject matter to include THRILLERS. 

You'll still find plenty of mystery talk here -- blog posts about the craft of mystery writing, recent and forthcoming books we're excited about, and interviews with new and established authors. But there are so many books where the mystery and thriller genres converge, we decided not to limit ourselves. If a book's mysterious, thrilling, or dealing with crime, we'll consider it on our beat. Besides, there are just so many great thrillers out there now for younger readers, and many more coming in 2013 and 2104. We can't wait to share our reading lists -- and find out what you're reading too! (You can click here for a previous discussion of mysteries vs. thrillers on this blog).

2. Fresh Blood: FIVE new authors joined our blogging team!

These fantastic YA and MG authors have recently published their first books or are soon-to-debut.

This brings our total to 13 authors on this blog, which seems particularly auspicious for 2013!

Starting tomorrow, we'll be blogging every Tuesday and Thursday, as before, with Interrogation Room interviews and guest posts added at whim. We'll let our new recruits introduce themselves more fully in their first posts, but for now, here are some mug shots and rap sheets! (Oh wait, these are the good guys -- here are their dazzling author photos and bios!)

ASHLEY ELSTON lives in Northwest Louisiana with her husband and three sons. She spent ten years working as a wedding photographer but quit to focus on her writing. She has been in cake withdrawal ever since. Her YA debut, THE RULES FOR DISAPPEARING, will be published by Disney/Hyperion in May 2013, and the sequel in Spring 2014.

ELLE COSIMANO is the daughter of a prison warden and an elementary school teacher who rides a Harley. As a teen, she spent summers working on a fishing boat, baiting hooks and lugging buckets of bait. She majored in Psychology at St. Mary's College of Maryland, and set aside a successful real-estate career to pursue writing. She live with her husband and two young sons, and divides her time between her home near Washington, DC and a jungle tree house in the Mayan Riveria. Her YA novel NEARLY GONE will be published by Kathy Dawson Books/Penguin in Winter 2014, with a sequel (NEARLY LOST) coming in 2015; she is also working on two other YA thrillers.

DERON HICKS is a lifelong resident of the state of Georgia who currently resides in Warm Springs, Georgia with his wife and children. Deron is a proud graduate of the University of Georgia, where he obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting. Having obtained a degree in painting, Deron took the next logical step in life -- he went to law school (more specifically, Mercer Law School, which he loved). Deron currently serves as the Inspector General for the State of Georgia. His first MG novel, THE SECRETS OF SHAKESPEARE'S GRAVE (Book 1 in the Letterford Mysteries series) was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2012.

MARY McCOY is a librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library, and has been a contributor to On Bunker Hill and the 1947project, where she wrote stories about Los Angeles's notorious past. Mary grew up in western Pennsylvania and holds degrees from Rhodes College and the University of Wisconsin; she currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband. Her debut novel, DEAD TO ME, will be published by Disney/Hyperion in 2014. It's a YA mystery set in Golden Age Hollywood about a teenage girl who uncovers some sinister business while trying to get to the bottom of her aspiring film star sister's disappearance.

SARAH SKILTON After growing up in the suburbs of Chicago and graduating with a TV/Radio degree from Ithaca College in upstate New York, Sarah moved to sunny Los Angeles, where her blood promptly thinned out, preventing her from returning to either location. Kicking around Hollywood for ten years, Sarah worked as a movie-of-the-week production assistant, a TV extra, a freelance writer, a film reviewer, and a blogger at a Japanese marketing group. She currently reads TV and film scripts for a company that streamlines the casting process for agents and actors. She and her husband, a magician, live in Santa Clara, CA, with their young son. Sarah is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, a fact that came in handy while writing her martial arts-themed debut YA novel, BRUISED (Amulet Books, March 5, 2013). Her second book, HIGH AND DRY (Amulet, 2014) is a YA mystery about corruption in high school.



To find out more about their books (as well as those of the other eight sleuths here), please see the "Our Books" tab at the top of our blog!

And please join us in welcoming our new Sleuths!

A Look at a Book on Identifying the Dead

Did you read the awesomely hilarious post yesterday by guest hosts Megan Miranda and Elle Cosimano about what they took part in during the Writer's Police Academy last month? If you missed it, read it -- it is a fun post!



I attended the WPA with Megan and Elle and besides a ton of information and a lot of fun memories, I also brought back a book I thought I'd share: Forensic Identification: Putting a Name and Face on Death by Dr. Elizabeth Murray.

Dr. Elizabeth Murray is both a professor of biology at Mount St. Joseph's,and a forensic anthropologist. As a forensic anthropologist, Dr. Murray is often called upon by law enforcement to help with identifying the dead. 

Her book Forensic Identification: Putting a Name and Face on Death goes through the processes it takes to identify bodies when identification is unknown. It is written for grades 7-12  -- which means for a not-so-scientifically-oriented adult, I found it easy to comprehend!

This is a great resource for writers, science enusiasts, and those aspiring to go into forensics or law enforcement. I highly recommend it.

Want to learn more about Dr. Elizabeth Murray or forensic anthropology? Here are a few links:

Lerner Publications Facebook Interview with Dr. Murray

CAA website profile of Dr. Murray

WPA speaker profile

Forensic Anthropology site

Another forensic anthropology site


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Laura Ellen is the author of Blind Spot which releases October 23rd!

Special Report: Writers Police Academy!

We're interrupting our regular programming here at Sleuths, Spies & Alibis to bring you a special report from the mystery/thriller writing trenches! Ever wonder how mystery and thriller writers nail the details when dealing with crime, police procedures, and special investigations? Authors Megan Miranda (author of Fracture and the forthcoming Hysteria, Bloomsbury/Walker) and Elle Cosimano (author of Nearly Gone, coming 2014 from Kathy Dawson Books/Penguin) recently attended the Writers Police Academy in North Carolina to find out for themselves.

For the record, our own sleuth Laura Ellen was there too, but since she's busy getting ready for her imminent book launch, we're letting our guest posters tell you all about this fantastic conference!

SPECIAL REPORT FROM MEGAN MIRANDA & ELLE COSIMANO: 

“What’s the best way to get away with murder, officer?”

Smile so you don’t freak him out. Wait, the smile is totally freaking him out. Look serious. Wait, that’s a bad idea. Crap, too late.

Hey, remember that time your critique partner put you in cuffs and you got to play with Luminol and then you learned how to storm a building, SWAT style?

And then you came home with the answers to every inappropriate question in your manuscript (see above), and also ideas for four more stories, and a steady ache in your side from laughing all weekend? Or maybe that ache was from when the instructor challenged you to slip your cuffs . . . 

Yeah. Me too.

Wait, we should probably back up a second . . . 

A few weekends ago, we had the pleasure of attending the Writers Police Academy. Which is… wait for it… a police academy. For writers. Basically, it’s an opportunity to see and learn first-hand. And it’s also an opportunity to ask all those hypothetical what-if questions that might otherwise land you a) in someone’s spam folder, or b) on a watch list.

Oh, and also, it’s ridiculously fun.

Here are some of the classes we attended, and the crazy what-if questions these generous law enforcement professionals indulged for the sake of our art.

Really. It’s for the art. We promise.

Question:  “Hypothetically, what would you do if you got a tip that there was something, er, body-sized and, um, body-shaped hidden in a lake?”

Answer: “Deep questions require even deeper answers.”

Underwater Recovery Class

Question:  “What if the blood at a possible crime scene wasn’t really blood at all? What if it was beet juice or chocolate pudding or ketchup?”

Answer:  *snaps on latex gloves, hands over plastic vial and a bloody cloth* “There’s a test for that.”

Presumptive Blood Testing and Blood Spatter Analysis

Question:  “Is it possible to slip a pair of handcuffs?”

Answer:  “Here. Put these on your critique partner and let’s find out.”

Handcuffing Techniques

Question:  “If I was locked in a jail cell, where could I hide a weapon?”

Answer:  *passes out Scavenger Hunt Checklist and more latex gloves*  “I’ve hidden twenty items of contraband in this empty cell. Let’s see how many you can find.”

Jail Searches

Question:  “The detective in my story finds a body in the woods. What does he do next?”

Answer:  “He tapes off a perimeter and restricts the rabid fans and paparazzi from the scene, because Marcia Clark and Lee Child can’t be distracted while they’re working!”

Shallow Graves

Question:  “What if my bad guy is heavily armed and holed up inside a building. What does my hero do?”

Answer:  “Break into teams. Suit up.  Let’s go.” (For the record, one should not giggle while hypothetically searching a building, or one might end up with a hypothetical weapon pointed at one’s hypothetical head.)

Building Searches

Question:  “What does your average undercover cop look like?”

Answer:  You have to go to WPA to find out. We could show you this guy’s picture, but then we’d have to kill you.  And we don’t want to. If you haven’t already figured it out, covering up a crime scene is really hard to do!

Anatomy of an Undercover Cop (Photo redacted)

Question:  “What happens if a suspect doesn’t cooperate with the cops?”

Answer:  “Sign this waiver and follow me. Don’t worry about all that legalese in the second paragraph.  You probably won’t get killed.  Just don’t touch the dog or his handler. Don’t stand in front of the sniper rifle. Don’t step off the curb. And don’t draw a weapon. You didn’t bring a weapon, did you?”

Live Demonstrations

Question:  “Ooooh!”  *giggles and rubs hands*  “We get to play with Luminol?”

Answer:  *rolls eyes and passes the spray bottle*

Presumptive Blood Testing and Blood Spatter Analysis

Question:  “What happens when EMS arrives at the scene?”

Answer:  “Ever intubated anyone before?  Would you like to learn?”

EMS Demonstrations

Question:  “My heroine is trapped in a car. How long will it take to get her out?”

Answer: “This is the kind of question we can really sink our jaws into.”

(Side note: one of us may or may not have added a firefighter to her current cast of characters after this)

Jaws of Life Demonstration

We feel educated. We feel inspired. We feel ready to put our characters into horrifying situations. We feel ready to get said characters out of said horrifying situations.

And we’re ready for round two.

Will we see you there next year? Hope so! We'll be the ones holding the Glocks. 

ELLE COSIMANO is the author of the YA thrillers Nearly Gone and Nearly Lost, coming 2014 and 2015 from Kathy Dawson Books/Penguin. You can stalk her at her website, Facebook, and Twitter (@ElleCosimano).

MEGAN MIRANDA is the author of the YA thrillers Fracture (published in 2012, Bloomsbury/Walker) and Hysteria (coming 2/5/13, Bloomsbury/Walker). You can stalk her at her website, Facebook, and Twitter (@MeganLMiranda). 

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