Newsletter Archives

read past issues

 

 

All the News That's Fittin' to Print (Fall 2007)

with apologies to the venerable NY Times

 

THE MARATHON MURDERS - COMING IN FEBRUARY

 

That's right, it's finally almost here. The fourth Greg McKenzie mystery will be out officially on Feb. 11, 2008. And something new—it will be available in both hardback (ISBN 9780979916700) and trade paperback (ISBN 9780979916717). The hardcover edition will sell for $26.95, the paperback $14.95.

 

The Marathon Murders will be the premier (as in "first") book released by a new mystery publisher, Night Shadows Press of Tucson, AZ nightshadowspress.com. In the book, Greg and Jill take on what appears to be a 90-year-old murder case involving a 1914 automobile, dragging them into a present-day conspiracy filled with chicanery in circles of power and chaos created by a frenzied killer. You can read more details, plus opening chapters, on my website.

 

WIN AN ADVANCE READER COPY OF MARATHON

 

I'm giving away an ARC of the book on November 15th. To get your name in the hat, send an email by clicking this link: ARC Giveaway. You'll also find a link to it on my website that says WIN, but that's for people who aren't subscribers to this newsletter.

 

ABOUT THAT WEBSITE

 

That's the other big news. The banner at the top of the newsletter, showing the Nashville skyline, comes from the completely re-done www.chesterdcampbell.com. Check it out and see what's new. Let me know what you think of the new format. And there's more . . .

 

DISCOUNT BOOK SALE—33% OFF

 

As explained on the website, my former publisher has pulled the first three Greg McKenzie books from circulation. I have obtained a supply of all three titles, however, and am offering them through the website at a 33% discount. You can use your credit card and pay by PayPal. It's a great opportunity to get any of the first three (Secret of the Scroll, Designed to Kill, Deadly Illusions) you don't have and stock up for Christmas gifts.

 

WHAT WE'VE BEEN UP TO

 

If you happened to be in the the Gulf of Mexico the middle of last month and heard a loud rumbling, it wasn't thunder. It was Sarah's tummy. My wife and I went on a Caribbean cruise arranged by my high school (East Nashville High) alumni association. She has an inner ear problem and is prone to motion sickness. It got her the second night out. I'm not sure if she was more unhappy about the queasiness or losing on the slots in the casino. I enjoyed the trip, eating a different fish at dinner each of the five nights on board. We visited Progreso and Cozamel on the Yucatan Peninsula, although Sarah didn't feel up to doing any of the side trips. She had previously taken an Alaska cruise, but that was always in sight of land (glaciers, or what not). Ever the game one, though, she may opt to do Alaska again next year.

 

After a brief rest, we headed north to Muncie, IN for our fourth visit to Magna cum Murder, the conference sponsored by Ball State University. Jim Huang of The Mystery Company in Carmel, IN did his usual masterful job with the program. I took part in a discussion on titles and a panel on "The Voices We Hear," dealing with "voice" and point of view in writing. I think the subject of "voice" is one of the most difficult aspects of fiction to define. It involves an author's style of writing as well as what makes characters unique. Brian Kaufman, in Roundtable Reviews, summed up what I've tried to do with Greg McKenzie this way:

 

"A wonderful protagonist with an older man's wisdom, crossed with the droll voice of an unrepentant rebel...I loved the way the author worked the foibles of age into the narrative, while maintaining the essential strength of his characters."

 

WHAT'S NEXT?

 

I'm still polishing up The Surest Poison, the first book in the Syd Chance P.I. series. I've changed the title since the last newsletter (it's taken from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote: "the surest poison is time"). I'm hoping to have it out by Night Shadows Press the middle of 2008. I have two other manuscripts in the mill, both standalones of the thriller persuasion. I'll keep you posted.

 

Meanwhile, keep reading mysteries and supporting mystery writers. If you like my books, tell your friends to try them. "Buzz" is the buzz word these days. That's the number one factor in making a book or an author a success. Word of mouth sells more books than anything else. Incidentally, Deadly Illusions got a four-star review in the November issue of Romantic Times. Watch for reviews of The Marathon Murders.

It has been a hot summer and a really warm fall, but winter is on the way, so stay warm. Curl up by the fire with a good book, and I'll see ya in a few months.

Chester

 

 

Spring/Summer 2007 Edition

ANYBODY OUT THERE?

I feel like the painting of the old Indian with hand to brow gazing out across the plains. I’m doing the agent search routine for the first book in the Sid Chance/Jaz LeMieux mystery series. I’ve settled on the title Miss Demeanor and Five Felons Poker Club. Club members include Jaz (Miss Demeanor), Sid, and four other guys with past or present links to law enforcement—Homicide Detective Bart Masterson, Patrol Sgt. Wick Stanley, former Criminal Court Judge Gabriel Thackston, and retired crime reporter Jack Post. A few agents have taken time to write a short note, saying they like my writing or the book sounds like an interesting project. They end with the old killer phrase “but it isn’t right for me.”

Never fear, I shall persevere . . . until I find the one who says, “Hey, it sounds great. Send it on.”

You’ll be able to get a look at some of the Miss Demeanor crowd in the next few months via a short-story anthology titled Headstones & Red Herrings. My story The Last Pony Chase features Sid solving a case with the help of Jaz and some of the others. The incident is briefly mentioned in the book.

Meanwhile, I’m still looking for a new publisher for The Marathon Murders, the fourth Greg McKenzie Mystery. When I hear something positive, you’ll be the first to know.

SAME NAME GAME

Ever wonder how many people have the same name as yours? There’s a website where you can find out. If your name is quite uncommon, you may not get an answer. I did, however. It said there are 176 other Chester Campbell’s around. That’s getting into fairly unpopulated territory. If your name were John Smith, for instance, you'd have 49,886 others to get confused with. The site is http://www.howmanyofme.com. The home page says there are 302,095,890 people in the U.S. (even more now, I’m sure), so how many of them have your name? It probably isn’t very accurate, but if you’re into trivia, give it a try.

DUMMY @ YAHOO.COM

Don’t you hate those immature, inconsiderate yahoos (I use the term in context, as will be seen), probably high school or college students, who have nothing better to do than sit around and try to mess up somebody’s carefully-devised cyber presence. One of them has been making repeated forays onto my website, signing up thirty or forty bogus names for this newsletter. I discovered it when checking Vertical Response to see who had been added to the list recently. The dummy didn’t show much originality. All the email addresses were a first name @yahoo.com. And they all listed the hometown as Moscow, NY. It was a useless gesture, anyway. Without replying to the double opt-in email, which went to a non-existent address, none of them would receive the newsletter. But it cluttered up the list, skewing the total.

Enough of ranting. On a somewhat related subject, every issue we get a bunch of bounces because people didn’t advise me when changing their email addresses. If you have a change coming up, be sure to send the new one to chester@chesterdcampbell.com. Specify it's for the newsletter.

TRAVELING THE HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS

With no new book out, we’ve limited our travels lately. However, a couple of interesting junkets only a week apart in May took us to Florida and Ohama, Nebraska. We made a familiar trek down I-65 and U.S. 331 to the Destin area for the beach wedding of Sarah’s granddaughter, Brandy Metcalf. Actually, it took place on the white sand at Grayton Beach, a small community of mostly large rental houses. There were twenty people from both sides of the family in the beachside tri-level where we stayed. With five kids plus a baby, it made for a lively time.

 

The wedding planner fashioned a large heart out of sand near the incoming tide and sprinkled it with rose petals. The ceremony took place there a little before dusk. After the I do's, a box of shells was passed around the wedding party. On the count of three, we made a wish for the newly-marrieds and threw the shells into the Gulf. None of the fish threw them back, so I guess all went well.

While in the area, we had a booksigning at Bayou Book Company in Niceville. The crew at Debbie Pomerenke's store were great hosts.

The following week, we steered northwest through Kentucky and Illinois, across the state of Missouri, up the western edge of Iowa, and across the Missouri River into Omaha. Our destination was Mayhem in the Midlands, the mystery conference sponsored by the Omaha Public Library, Omaha Sisters in Crime, and the Lincoln City Libraries. It was a fun conference with around 200 people, including 50 mystery writers. We met a couple from Des Moines the first night who wound up buying all three Greg McKenzie books. That’s always heartening.

I moderated one panel and appeared on two others. A lively discussion took place on the subject “60 Is the New 30: Senior Sleuths.” The moderator was quite a character, Doris Ann Norris, who bills herself as “the 2000-year-old librarian.” Heck, turns out she wasn’t as old as I am. Everybody on the panel was a senior except fellow-Nashvillian Mary Saums, who just started a new series with senior sleuths. Others included Camille Minichino and Radine Trees Nehring.

The Embassy Suites Hotel sat across the street from Omaha’s Old Market area, a few blocks of weathered buildings turned into quaint shops, boutiques, galleries, pubs, and restaurants that encouraged a leisurely stroll in the early evening.

Coming from drought-stricken Tennessee, the most striking scenes along western Missouri and Iowa were flooded cornfields. We hadn’t seen that much water in ages. We experienced one thunderstorm while visiting a casino at Boonville, MO, where we stayed overnight. I’m happy to report we left with more cash than we brought in. Not much, but a little. The lady van driver who took us back to our motel bought a copy of Deadly Illusions. That’s why I always carry a box of books in the trunk.

UPCOMING ON THE WEB

On Aug. 3, I will be the featured author on www.reviewedbyliz.com. They have a summer reading program encouraging people to read books by authors they’re never tried before.  A new author is featured each day. There’s also a contest involved. You’ll find information on that at www.reviewedbyliz.com/?p=394.

That’s about it for now. You’ll notice this is the Spring/Summer issue of the newsletter. That’s because Winter came out late and I flat missed Spring. Don’t know how folks manage to put out a monthly newsletter, even worse a daily blog. I’m writing this on a Saturday since I don’t usually have so many family responsibilities to take care of on weekends. Boy, how tempus fugits!

Have a great summer, stay well, stay dry (except at the pool), and watch out for chiggers. And, of course, keep on reading. Maybe soon it’ll be something by me.

Chester

 

 

 

Winter 2006-7 Edition

CONTENTS

THE LAST PONY CHASE

WHERE'S THE MARATHON MURDERS?

OLD WOMAN WINTER

FINDING BOOKS

IF I DIG A VERY DEEP HOLE . . . ?

WHAT'S NEW IN THE WRITING RACKET

THE LAST PONY CHASE

Sounds like the name of a children's book, but it's a mystery short story I wrote for an anthology titled Headstones & Red Herrings. The book will be out during the latter part of the year. I'll let you know when. It came about through my membership in a small Internet email list called All About Muse, a spinoff from the old All About Murder list. The group published an anthology of holiday mysteries titled The Holiday Mixer just before Christmas. Headstones will be the second. Top check out the publisher, click here http://www.haypennypress.com. It's a creation of the list moderator, Scout DeWitt.

 

What's interesting about the The Last Pony Chase is I used it to get a feel for the characters in my new series featuring private investigators Sid Chance and Jaz(Jasmine) LeMieux. Also making his first appearance is Homicide Detective Bart (a.k.a. Bat) Masterson. The story involves a New York gambler who disappears after using a $200,000 bad check to pay off a bet. Sid is hired to find him.

 

It was the first short story I had written in about fifty years. When I came home from Air Force service in Korea in 1953, I spent several months writing short stories that didn't sell. Mostly they didn't sell to The Saturday Evening Post. I won 12th place in a Writer's Digest short short story contest, but it didn't pay anything. My wife was an OB nurse, and when she got pregnant, I gave up fiction to get a paying job as a newspaper reporter (see REFLECTIONS below).

 

I have another short story titled Double Trouble I'm currently marketing. More about that later.

 

WHERE'S THE MARATHON MURDERS?

Speaking of marketing, I'm still waiting to hear from the last publisher to look at the fourth Greg McKenzie mystery. One editor read it and the other editor emailed me to be patient, he would get to it. So I'm waiting, but not patiently.

Don't worry about Greg, he's not aging as fast as I am. As far as he's concerned, it's still 2004. Chronologically, Secret of the Scroll took place in November 2002, Designed to Kill in November 2003 and Deadly Illusions in March 2004. The Marathon Murders is set in August 2004. Wish I could slow down the aging process like that.

OLD WOMAN WINTER

I'm against gender discrimination. How do they get away with this Old Man Winter stuff? The way the snow has been burying a broad section of the country lately, I'd say both members of the old couple have been hard at work. The snow has by-passed us in Nashville, but the deep freeze hangs on. Seems evening temps in the teens have decided to camp on our doorstep. Yeah, it's still the sunny South, but the sun hasn't done much for the thermometer.

I had delayed this newsletter in hopes of having some news on a book sale, but I decided I'd better go ahead and get the Winter Edition out while it's really winter. The weather lady on TV (see, no discrimination, and, yes, I always use the term "lady" except where an editor will see it; anyway, "weather woman" sounds so . . . blah) says it will get warmer this week.

FINDING BOOKS

The first two Greg McKenzie mysteries are about out of print. The publisher has no plans to reprint them (he can't afford it). I have been accumulating a fair supply, so if you need a copy and can't get it from a bookstore or on-line, send an email to chester@chesterdcampbell.com and I'll tell you how to order. Follow the same procedure if you'd like an autographed copy of any of my books.

I hope eventually to get back the rights to my books and make arrangements for reprinting.

IF I DIG A VERY DEEP HOLE . . . ?

When I was a kid, they told us if we dug a hole deep enough, we would come out in China. We shoveled out a small pile of dirt now and then hoping to see Charlie Chan, but we never got ambitious enough to go all the way. Turns out we were lucky. Had we made it straight through the earth, we'd have drowned. On the opposite side from my home in Nashville is a spot in the Indian Ocean around a third of the way between the western coast of Australia and the east coast of South Africa.

How did I find out? My Internet provider is Earthlink. They put out an email newsletter that includes links to sites wacky and weird, as well as useful. One had the engaging title: "If I dig a very deep hole, where I go to stop?" Despite the lapse in grammar, it proved intriguing. It takes you to a world map with the continents handily labeled (for the geographically challenged). You move the hand-shaped cursor to a spot on the map approximating your home and click. You can use the zoom scale on the left to get right down to your house, which shows as an aerial photo. Then you click on "Dig Here." Up comes the corresponding spot on the diametrically opposite side of the earth. If you're all wet, as I was, you have to zoom out until you can get a picture.

If you'd like to "dig," click here http://map.pequenopolis.com/index.php?lang=en. To link this back to writing, I was doing research at the time on a character in my new book (see below). I used the Google map to check out the area where I wanted her to live. Just goes to show you never know how handy a little digging on the Internet can be.

WHAT'S NEW IN THE WRITING RACKET

I'm past the halfway mark with The Missing Partner, working title for the first Sid Chance book. My goal was to have it finished by the end of February, but my goals are subject to that infernal condition know as the real world. Little things kept getting in the way, like grandson catching the flu, work on Sisters in Crime chapter projects , shopping trips, endless waits in doctors' offices, delivering Meals on Wheels, helping with church newsletters. I'll have to confess, though, the real culprit is the Internet. I spend too much time on-line. I've almost quit posting to the various lists I'm on, but I can't seem to wean myself from reading what others write.

Okay, I'll lay my hand on Webster's International and take the pledge: "I promise to write at least four hours a day, every day, come hell or high water, illness or the Internet. So help me Hannah."

Now, I have to wrap this up so I can get back to the book. Check out my web site and see what's new . . . send me an email with your comments . . . stay warm.

One last thing. If you change your email address, please send me the change so Vertical Response will get the next newsletter to you. Also, if you're on AOL and want to get the HTML version, be sure I'm in your address book at: Chester_D._Campbell@mail.vresp.com.

Happy reading!

Chester

 

 

 

 

Fall 2006 Edition

CONTENTS

MYSTERIOUS MIDSUMMER MATCH WINNERS

IT'S NICE TO BE APPRECIATED

PLEASANT BOOKSIGNING SURPRISE

GREG IN SEARCH OF A PUBLISHER

SID CHANCE, NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

THAT MYSTERIOUS TV INTERVIEW

WHAT DO MISSOURI, WISCONSIN AND INDIANA HAVE IN COMMON?

MYSTERIOUS MIDSUMMER MATCH WINNERS

The Mysterious Midsummer Match contest sizzled away in July and August as the weather outside followed suit. It attracted lots of entries, with the winners being drawn on August 21st. Here are the lucky winners:

Ann Brooks of Pennsylvania, First Prize - Autographed set of Greg McKenzie Mysteries.

Richard Mann of Utah, Second Prize - Deadly Illusions tote bag.

Jill Knight of Tennessee, Third Prize - Deadly Illusions wall clock.

Susan Hooker of Washington, DC, Fourth Prize - Deadly Illusions tee shirt.

Susan Davco of Massachusetts, Fifth Prize - Deadly Illusions coffee mug.

IT'S NICE TO BE APPRECIATED

If you ever get the urge to say something nice to a mystery writer, by all means follow through. The occasional congratulatory email soothes like the balm of Gilead (did you know Gilead includes the area where Khaled Assah found the scroll in Secret of the Scroll?). Here's an email I just received from a member of the DorothyL listserve, where I post comments now and then:

"Dear Chester:

"This is one of the most interesting websites I have ever read on DorothyL. Why? Because you point out your career path has been like that of a snake and then show how that is so. The metaphor is riveting and just so you know, websites DO work. As soon as our current blizzard ends, likely tomorrow, I am off to buy your books!"

Val Reed in Manitoba, Canada

PLEASANT BOOKSIGNING SURPRISE

My wife Sarah and I attended the ConMisterio mystery conference in red-hot Austin, TX back in July. I had set up a signing at Barnes & Noble in Round Rock, a few miles up the road, for Thursday evening before the conference started.

 

When I walked back to the Customer Service counter to let them know we had arrived, I saw a white-haired gentleman dressed nicely in suit and tie standing to one side. He looked at me, grinned, and said, "Chester Campbell! I knew there couldn't be but one Chester Campbell."

 

I didn't recognize him until he said, "Warran Ross." Another member of the East Nashville High School class of 1943. I might add defensively that his white beard threw me off a bit. He didn't have that when I last saw him at graduation in June of 1943. I use the name "Warran" because that's how it's spelled on his business card. In the school annual it's spelled "Warren." He's a retired orthopedic surgeon in Austin and still does consulting work. We chatted a bit and found both of us had followed similar paths into the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet program after graduation.

 

Warran had seen in the Austin newspaper events schedule that Chester Campbell would be signing that night. He bought all three of my books. It was a pleasant surprise and the start of a great evening.

GREG IN SEARCH OF A PUBLISHER

In the last newsletter I told about finishing work on the fourth Greg McKenzie mystery, titled The Marathon Murders. Unfortunately, the book won't be available for a while yet. I'm looking for a new home for Greg (a publishing home, not the log house in Hermitage). A few publishers have turned it down, unwilling to take over a series started with a different publisher. But I still have a few left to try, so just hang in there and hopefully I'll have a new book for you to read before long.

SID CHANCE, NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

To better my chances of getting an agent and a contract with a larger publisher, I decided to start a new series. So I'm hard at work on the first book featuring Sidney Lanier Chance, a private eye who specializes in finding missing persons. Of course, he won't get off easy. The investigations will take him into murderous territory.

To give you a little background, Sid is a Nashville native who lives in the Madison suburb (oddly, that's where I live). His mother is a retired English teacher and an American literature major who named him after a favorite poet. Now 61, Sid was a Special Forces lieutenant in Vietnam, worked 19 years on the Metro Nashville police force until wounded in a shootout with a drug dealer, then served 11 years as police chief in a small town southwest of Nashville. He quit that job after being falsely accused of taking a bribe from a drug dealer. He's been a private investigator for five years.

Sid is a bachelor, having been divorced back during his Nashville police days when his wife couldn't stand the pressure of being a cop's spouse. He has an attractive female sidekick named Jasmine LeMieux who is 45, a former professional boxer and an ex-cop.

I got the idea for the character and the plot of the first book from a fellow graduate of East Nashville High School, Norma Mott Tillman. Norma has been quite successful in finding missing persons, including locating people for an Opra Winfrey reunion. It landed her an appearance on Opra's show and great publicity for a book she wrote on tracking missing persons. She has also recently published a book titled Private Investigation 101.

I'll keep you informed on Sid's progress.

THAT MYSTERIOUS TV INTERVIEW

In case you missed my Midsummer Match contest, you probably missed word about the interview I did with an imaginative reporter for Nashville's Channel 4 (NBC). He wanted a "mysterious" flavor, so they set up the camera in my office above the garage, using only a light in back of the desk. After setting the stage with black-and-white footage of downtown Nashville after dark, the camera panned up to me silhouetted in the window. The interview was done as I typed at my computer. It was a lot of fun and the news anchors got a bang out of it. The piece appeared on the ten o'clock news and the next day's mid-day news. It runs about three minutes and you can see it by going to my website at http://www.chesterdcampbell.com and clicking on the TV Interview link.

WHAT DO MISSOURI, WISCONSIN AND INDIANA HAVE IN COMMON?

Okay, yeah, they're states, but there's more. They're places the old Camry burned up a bunch of expensive gasoline traveling to for three interesting mystery conferences during the past several weeks. First was the Midwest MysteryFest in the St. Louis suburbs. A small, one-day symposium sponsored by the Greater St. Louis Chapter of Sisters in Crime, it attracted an enthusiastic group of readers and writers. I was on a panel discussing "Villains, Characters to Die For." We talked about what makes a good bad guy and how we create villains. Hint: I don't base 'em on myself.

A couple of weeks later we were off to Madison, WI for Bouchercon, subtitled "A Prairie Plot." With 1200 registrants, around a third of them authors, it was easy to get lost in the crowd. But we enjoyed a lot of great panels, including the one I was on--"I'M NOT MY CHARACTER! Am I?" I pointed out how Greg is like me in some ways and not in many others. One of the more interesting sidelights in the Wisconsin capital was the wildly decorated cow sculptures that appeared along the streets. Sort of put you in the mooood for mayhem.

After a couple of more weeks, we headed north again to Muncie, IN for Magna cum Murder, one of the excellent small conferences. Jim Huang, who runs The Mystery Company bookstore in Carmel, IN, does the programming, and this was one of his best (at least for the three years we have attended). I moderated a panel titled "LATE BLOOMER Publishing a book after age 50" which featured four women authors. Since Secret of the Scroll came out when I was 76, they no doubt figured I was a natural for the moderator.

That's all for this time. I hope you found something of interest here, at least mildly amusing or entertaining or, well, if nothing else, educational. Send me your comments on the newsletter, the books, the website, the elections (oops, scratch that last one!). Write me at chester@chesterdcampbell.com. And don't forget to notify me if you change your email address. I hate to get bounces.

Happy reading!

Chester

 

 

GREG McKENZIE MYSTERIES NEWSLETTER

Summer 2006 Special Edition/Chester D. Campbell, Editor & Publisher

This is a special Summer Edition of my newsletter to announce a new CONTEST. As you may remember from the last newsletter, I said I had a great idea for a unique new contest that I would be telling you about shortly. Well, great ideas don’t always pan out, and this one was a bit too unique.

 However, don’t despair. I’m holding a MYSTERIOUS MIDSUMMER MATCH to determine who will win a bunch of prizes. Judging by the way the mercury has been spiking around here lately, I expect the competition to sizzle. What’s up for grabs? Here’s the list:

First Prize – An autographed set (all three books) of Greg McKenzie Mysteries.

Second Prize – A Deadly Illusions tote bag.

Third Prize – A Deadly Illusions wall clock.

Fourth Prize – A Deadly Illusions tee shirt.

Fifth Prize – A Deadly Illusions coffee mug.

 What’s so MYSTERIOUS? Who’s going to win, of course. And your chances are as good as anybody’s. As a newsletter subscriber, you only need to send me an email with one simple bit of information. Go to my website, http://www.chesterdcampbell.com, click on the link at the top of the home page that says “Click this link to check an imaginative TV interview.” Write down the name of the TV station whose logo you see. Send it in the body of an email to chester@chesterdcampbell.com with the subject “Contest.” Be sure to write your name and email address so I’ll know who to contact if you’re a winner.

 The DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES is Sunday, August 20.

 The heat’s on, so don’t sweat it–check out the website today and get your entry in. Is there any simpler way to be a winner? As Greg McKenzie would say, “You gotta be kidding, babe!”

 Good luck.

 Chester

 

 

GREG McKENZIE MYSTERIES NEWSLETTER

Spring 2006 Edition/Chester D. Campbell, Editor & Publisher

CONTENTS

IT’S (Almost) CONTEST TIME!

BLOG…PLOG…FOG?

IT’S “THE END” FOR THE MARATHON MURDERS

RESEARCH: THE FUN PART

TRAVELS—PAST AND FUTURE

TH…TH…THAT’S ALL, FOLKS!

IT’S (Almost) CONTEST TIME!

I’m working on an idea for a really cool contest, but it hasn’t quite jelled as yet. I hope to be able to announce the details in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, if I don’t get this Spring newsletter out now, it’ll have to be called Summer. And nobody wants to miss Spring (hear the birds chirping, see the flowers blooming, feel the mosquitoes biting—oops, strike that last part).

I’ll send out a special edition of the Greg McKenzie Mysteries Newsletter with all the info, so keep an eye on your mailbox.

BLOG…PLOG…FOG?

If you haven’t noticed (and how could you have not?), there’s a mushrooming trend by writers to clutter up the internet with Blogs, or as they’re called technically, web logs. I have several writer friends who blog and most I have visited sound pretty interesting. However, I suspect they could quickly become addictive and take up way too much time. Time I could better spend writing and promoting my books. Some of the major blog sites are blogger.com, typepad.com and blogspot.com. There’s even one called blogcheese.com that features webcam videos. A site called globeofblogs.com has 40,743 blogs registered.

I recently heard about Amazon.com’s version called a Plog. It’s available through Amazon Connect and appears on your personal page when somebody checks out your books. After looking at the long list of mystery writers using the gimmick, I bit the bullet and signed up. I’m afraid I wasn’t too creative when I posted my first plog, but hopefully I’ll improve over time. If I can find the time.

IT’S “THE END” FOR THE MARATHON MURDERS

If you’re not familiar with the manuscript process, this means it’s finished. You always type THE END at the end so the editor will know it’s the end (you’d think they’d somehow gather that when nothing follows—oh, well). Anyway, the fourth Greg McKenzie mystery is ready for publication, which, regrettably, won’t be before 2007.

Books have a habit of plowing their own furrows, to use a rural metaphor. I had originally envisioned Marathon taking place mostly around Nashville. The characters had other ideas and shifted much of the action to the small rural county of Trousdale forty miles to the northeast. Actually, there’s lots going on at both ends of the corridor, which runs up U.S. 31E and state route 25. We get reacquainted with characters from Secret of the Scroll and Deadly Illusions. If you haven’t read those yet, you might want to dash out and get your copies while they last. And if you’ve wondered about the possibility of Greg being tempted, well there’s this woman…I’d better not say anything else, Jill might be listening.

RESEARCH—THE FUN PART

I have always enjoyed research. Back in my newspaper days and while freelancing for magazines, I would spend hours pouring over yellowed newspaper files in the library. I once researched an article on Ned Buntline, the character responsible for a long-barreled .45 pistol called the Buntline Special made famous by Wyatt Earp. Buntline was the pen name of Edward Zane Carroll Judson, who wrote hundreds of dime novels back in the 1800’s.

I ran into a mention of Judson (Buntline) being in Nashville in 1845-46 and looked him up in the old newspapers. This was in 1960 before libraries put everything on microfilm. The newspaper pages were brittle and had to be handled carefully. There were stories about his arrest for murder at the age of 23. It involved a bit of hanky-panky with a young woman. Judson was strung up by a mob but managed to get cut down before too much damage was done. In pursuing the story, I went to the top floor of the Davidson County Courthouse and found old jail records in a musty attic-like room. I must have spent a couple of hours sitting on the dusty floor reading prisoner records. And, yes, I found Mr. Judson among them.

Which is a way of introducing the fact that I really enjoyed researching The Marathon Murders. Digging into the old Marathon Motor Works was quite revealing, and I came across some fascinating Civil War lore in Hartsville (Trousdale County seat). My wife Sarah accompanied me on my field trips and found the manuscript that much more interesting for having been there. Sorry you couldn’t have joined us. Hopefully, you’ll get the flavor anyway.

TRAVELS, PAST AND FUTURE

We made so many trips down I-65 and I-75 toward Florida the past few months that the old Camry wanted to head south whenever we pulled out of the driveway. It started in early February with a junket that hit Murder in the Magic City (Birmingham), Murder on the Menu (Wetumpka, AL), and a signing at Barnes & Noble in Destin, FL. The two conferences were a lot of fun. At MMC I was on a panel answering questions in our protagonists’ voices. I pointed out as usual that Greg is bigger and bolder than me, though we think a lot alike. During the Wetumpka luncheon, the authors did a version of musical chairs, spending about ten minutes at a succession of tables with five readers each. I met some interesting folks.

Early March found us sailing down I-24, I-75 and the Florida Turnpike to our sixth consecutive SleuthFest mystery conference in Fort Landerdale. It was one of the best yet, with headliner Robert Crais giving some excellent advice about writing what you want to write. Also on hand were Mystery Writers of America’s president, Janet Evanovich, and past president, Michael Connelly. A couple of weeks later we headed back to Florida (Ft. Walton Beach) for the Emerald Coast Writers Conference, where I spoke on “Where Are We?—Setting and Description.” Shortly after that, we headed north to Boonville, IN, for the Southwest Indiana Book Expo. Met some great readers there, too.

Now we’re headed for Fairhope, AL and MWA Southeast Chapter’s Skill Build May 6, where I’ll introduce some speakers, and a signing at Barnes & Noble in Mobile the next afternoon. Future conferences will include ConMisterio in Austin, TX July 14-16; the Midwest MysteryFest in St. Louis, Sept. 16; and Bouchercon in Madison, WI Sept. 28-Oct. 1. I hope to do some signings along the way, and they’ll be listed in the On the Go page of my website: www.chesterdcampbell.com

 

TH…TH…THAT’S ALL, FOLKS!

 

Thanks for your continued interest in my books and my random musings. If you like the books, tell your friends. Word of mouth is the best promotion a writer can get. And, as promised, I’ll get back to you shortly with CONTEST news.

 

 Chester

 

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas - Happy Hanukkah Happy New Year

Chester D. Campbell, Editor & Publisher
HOLIDAY ISSUE, WINTER 2005-06


CONTENTS

HOLIDAY FRUSTRATION
CONTEST WINNERS
MARATHON MEANDERINGS
FALL IS FOR TOURING
BIRTHDAYS ARE FOR THE BIRDS
NEED A CHRISTMAS GIFT?

HOLIDAY FRUSTRATION

Chilling temperatures, brisk northerly breezes, dark folds of cloud that appear packed with snow--that's a sure sign winter is closing in on Middle Tennessee. And all those red knit hats mean Christmas is in the air. It's a great time for mystery writers to hit the bookstores and hawk their wares to throngs of gift buyers. The past three years I've done well during the holiday season at Books-a-Million stores in the Nashville area and at Paducah, KY. I lined them up again this year only to be told the company has a new policy that if your books aren't carried in all their stores, they won't order them for a signing.

Fortunately, the Murfreesboro store ordered books anyway and got a shipment of 25. We sold all but one last Saturday. That one should've sold, also, if we'd stayed a bit longer, but I don't care for driving after dark. Clarksville is scheduled for this week. The manager tried re-ordering. I've got my fingers crossed.

CONTEST WINNERS

If you haven't checked the website for the results of my "Thank You" Contest, here are the winners:

First Prize, copy of Deadly Illusions, Debra Cushman
Second Prize, copy of Designed to Kill, Greg Babic
Third Prize, Deadly Illusions coffee mug, Carol Wittack
Fourth Prize, Deadly Illusions tee shirt, Helen Sandoval
Fifth Prize, Deadly Illusions tee shirt, Jim Vargas

Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to all who entered the contest. I'll have another one soon. By the way, Greg Babic is a new subscriber from Australia, one of nine countries outside the U.S. where I have subscribers.

MARATHON MEADERINGS

Sarah and I have enjoyed doing research for the new McKenzie mystery, which has the working title of The Marathon Murders. I wanted to work the TBI (Tennessee Bureau of Investigation) into the plot, so the story unfolds partly in Trousdale County, some 40 miles northeast of where we live. We've made one on-site tour so far. Trousdale is Tennessee's smallest county area-wise, covering only 110 square miles. In population, it ranks fourth from the bottom with 7,484 residents. There is only one town, Hartsville, the county seat. You pass the county's main claim to fame heading out Highway 25 toward Smith County (birthplace of former Veep Al Gore). About four miles from Hartsville, a monstrous concrete monolith rears its flat top above the cornfields and pasture land of the rural countryside. It's the 560-foot cooling tower of TVA's Hartsville Nuclear Plant, on which construction continued from 1977 until 1984, when it was abandoned after all the furor about nuclear power. We're still paying back the two billion dollars spent as part of our utility bills.

We learned another interesting fact after noting a patrol car parked beside the courthouse painted with "METRO SHERIFF" in large letters. In small print it added "Hartsville and Trousdale County." We're accustomed to Metro Police and Metro everything else around Nashville, since the city and county were consolidated forty years ago. When we inquired inside Trousdale's old wood-floored courthouse, a clerk told us Hartsville and Trousdale County had established a metropolitan form of government a couple of years ago.

FALL IS FOR TOURING

We made the familiar jaunt down I-65 through Birmingham and Montgomery in October for our Hurricane-Delayed Mini Gulf Coast Tour. The leaves were still green down that way. By contrast, many roofs in the coastal area were still blue. Tarps, that is, covering storm damage. A year after Ivan slammed the Pensacola area, evidence of the destruction remains all around. We stayed at the Comfort Inn Corry Field, near the Navy airfield, where work continued on repairing damage to the motel's first floor rooms. Many others were occupied by Katrina victims, who lived there until something else became available. They displayed "Do Not Disturb" tags on their doorknobs to let the maids know they were taking care of their own rooms.

We started at the Orange Beach Public Library in Orange Beach, AL, where I was scheduled to speak to a writers group. I hope it wasn't because of me, but only a couple of folks showed up. I talked about my writing and answered a lot of questions. I didn't sell any books, but the library already has them. The next day the Southwest Branch Library at Pensacola set me at a table opposite the entrance. We sold a bunch of books, including all three to one librarian. Saturday took us to Pensacola's Barnes & Noble, where Bridget McGinn, a great CRM (Community Relations Manager), stayed with us much of the time, marveling at the way Sarah greeted the customers. We did B&N at Spanish Fort, AL (near Mobile) on Sunday. CRM Pat Mackey warned us at the start not to expect much, that they were "too out of the way." I think she was shocked when we sold twenty books.

Shortly after that we attended the Magna cum Murder mystery event sponsored by Ball State University in Muncie, IN. We had a great time there, met some new readers and sold a few books. The piece de resistance came a couple of weeks later when we signed at the Kentucky Book Fair in Frankfort. Crowds of eager buyers flocked through the aisles most of the day (Saturday, Nov. 12). Some 175 authors manned tables that lined the Convention Center. Dummy that I am, I failed to make an accurate count of how many books they had when we started, but I'm pretty sure we sold at least sixty, including all three McKenzie books. Sarah thinks it was more like seventy-five. Whatever, it was the best one-day event we've attended.

BIRTHDAYS ARE FOR THE BIRDS

I think I'll stop. I've had enough. On Nov. 30th, I reached the big one—eighty! I can't believe it. I always thought people that age were OLD. Not any more. Of course, I subscribe to the theory that age is strictly a state of mind. Most of the time I don't feel much different than I did at sixty. One of those times is driving at night, which is okay on a well lighted street. With unlighted, wet pavement, it's murder. I can still walk two miles at fourteen minutes a mile, better than that if I really push it. On my birthday I climbed a steep hill to my son's cabin at a property out in the boonies. Happily, I had no aftereffects the following day.

So, maybe I will go on having birthdays. I don't really relish the alternative.

NEED A CHRISTMAS GIFT?

Got a mystery lover on your list you'd like to give a signed book? I'll send you a personalized, autographed copy by return mail. Just send signing instructions and a check to Chester D. Campbell, P.O. Box 281, Madison, TN 37116-0281. Here are the prices for media mail (add $1.50 for priority mail):

Deadly Illusions $15
Designed to Kill $18
Secret of the Scroll $18

That's about it for now. I'm using a new mailing service (VerticalResponse) with this issue, and they will include a method for opting out below. Thanks for your interest and comments. Email your thoughts to me at chester@chesterdcampbell.com. Check my website for new touring info, contests, and such at http://www.chesterdcampbell.com.

Chester

 

 

 

Greg McKenzie Mysteries Newsletter

Chester D. Campbell, Editor & Publisher

FALL 2005 ISSUE

______________________________

 

CONTENTS

 

IT’S CONTEST TIME

SUMMER ON THE ROAD

PROMO OP--SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

AUTOGRAPHED BOOKS

A 90-YEAR-OLD MURDER

UPDATE ON HELL BOUND

FIVE STARS IS NO ILLUSION

TRAVELS COMING UP

GET OUT THE WORD

NEWSLETTER TRIVIA

 

 

IT’S CONTEST TIME

 

This is a Thank You Contest for all the support you’ve given me. You can win books, tee shirts, coffee mugs, lots of goodies. With five prizes, your odds are great. The first place winner will get a copy of Deadly Illusions; second a copy of Designed to Kill; third a Deadly Illusions coffee mug; fourth a Deadly Illusions tee shirt; fifth a Designed to Kill tee.

 

Entering is a snap. Just send an email to chester@chesterdcampbell.com with CONTEST as the subject. And please put your full name in the body of the email. Some of you have wild email addresses that make it difficult to figure out who you are. You must have your entry submitted by Nov. 23rd. The drawing will be held on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 24th (well, it is a Thank You Contest). Oh, and only one entry per person, please.

 

SUMMER ON THE ROAD

 

We logged a bunch of miles during the summer, roaming back and forth from the mountains of East Tennessee to the muddy Mississippi at Memphis, down to Mobile and back up to Virginia and Pennsylvania. We had 21 events--book signings, fairs, clubs, TV and radio interviews?June through August. Early in July Sarah and I got chased off the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Dennis. As workmen nailed plywood sheets over the windows of the store next door, we cut short a Books-a-Million signing and headed north. Bumper-to-bumper traffic crept and crawled up I-65. It took five hours to go from Mobile to Birmingham. But we were lucky compared to what happened in New Orleans a few weeks later.

 

I was to have introduced the speakers at a Mystery Writers of America Skill Build in Bay St. Louis, MS that weekend, but Dennis caused a cancellation. We rescheduled the session for Oct. 15th, then Katrina came along and leveled Bay St. Louis. That tragedy, of course, is still unfolding.

 

Our big event for the summer was grandson Dan Campbell’s wedding in New Cumberland, PA on Aug. 20th. Never make a trip without scheduling a book event is my motto. We did four--Barnes & Nobles in Camp Hill and Lancaster, book clubs at the Mechanicsburg Mystery Book Shop and New Cumberland Public Library. Oh, yeah, the wedding went great. Dan and younger brother Andrew wore kilts. Grandpa was not so daring.

 

Click here to see the grandsons.

 

PROMO OP--SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

 

Nashville’s premier book event the weekend of Oct. 7-9 provided a great promotion opportunity. In its lead-up to the festival, The Tennessean, Nashville’s major daily, ran an article on me and my books Sunday, Oct. 2nd as the first of three profiles on local authors. The book review pages featured a great review of Deadly Illusions.

 

Click here to see the article.       Click here to see the review.

 

AUTOGRAPHED BOOKS

 

If you’d like an autographed copy of one of my books, there are two ways to get one. Write a check payable to me and send to Chester D. Campbell, P.O. Box 281, Madison, TN 37116-0281. Here are the prices:

 

Deadly Illusions   $15.00

Designed to Kill   $18.00

Secret of the Scroll   $18.00

 

This covers the cost of the book and mailing (Media Mail). Please note how you want it personalized.

 

The other way is to order a signed bookplate. Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope along with signing instructions to the address above.

 

A 90-YEAR-OLD MURDER

 

I’m hard at work on the fourth Greg McKenzie mystery, tentatively titled The Marathon Murders. Well, with all that’s going on, there might be some question about how hard I’m working. It’s difficult to eke out the time to write, but I’m trying. The plot revolves around the old Marathon Motor Works, which produced a popular touring car in Nashville from 1910-1914. The company went bankrupt amidst questionable shenanigans among its officials. In the past few years, a colorful entrepreneur has worked on restoring the old Marathon buildings as sort of a living museum with office space for artists, photographers and musicians.

 

I’m bringing back a character from Secret of the Scroll. He’s Col. Warren Jarvis, the Air Attache in Tel Aviv who helped Greg toward the end of the book. You’ll also get to meet the woman named Abby Farrell that Jarvis told Greg about.

 

UPDATE ON HELL BOUND

 

In the last newsletter, I mentioned shopping around the literary agent community with a suspense story manuscript. I’ve mailed 33 queries to date, with the last five still to be heard from. A couple asked for chapters. A few wrote notes saying nice stuff but not my thing. I’m getting quite a tidy collection of rejections. Don’t suppose there are any collectors on Ebay who would buy it, do you?

 

Stay tuned.

 

FIVE STARS IS NO ILLUSION

Deadly Illusions has received great reviews. Nothing but five stars on Amazon.com. Here are a few comments:

 

“DEADLY ILLUSIONS is another winner in the Chester D. Campbell literary cabinet. Campbell obviously has many stories to share, and he continues to write fabulous mysteries.” Shelly Glodowski, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

 

“A fabulously quick read, a page-turner that will not disappoint.” Brian Kaufman, Roundtable Reviews

 

“An enjoyable, well-written yarn…has a lot to offer fans of mysteries and soft-boiled private eye yarns.” Bill Stephens, Gotta Write Network

 

“This book continues the author’s track record of strong writing, realistic characters and complex mysteries.” Kevin Tipple, Blue Iris Journal/Blether.com

 

“Deadly Illusions is a look into a funhouse mirror. The images shift and alter. Just when you think you have it figured out, the picture changes again.” Nancy Mehl, MyShelf.com

 

“The Greg McKenzie series is fast becoming one of my all-time favorite series.” Dawn Dowdle, The Best Reviews

 

Click here to read the reviews.

 

TRAVELS COMING UP

 

Check the website: http://www.chesterdcampbell.com for my complete travel schedule. Here’s where I’ll be in the next few weeks:

 

Thursday, Oct. 13, 6:00 p.m., speak to writing group, Orange Beach, AL Public Library

Friday, Oct. 14, 2:00-4:00 p.m., signing at Southwest Branch Library, Pensacola, FL

Saturday, Oct. 15, 5:30 p.m., signing at Barnes & Noble, Pensacola, FL

Sunday, Oct. 16, 2:00-4:00 p.m., signing at Barnes & Noble, Spanish Fort, AL

Friday-Sunday, Oct. 28-30, Magna cum Murder Crime Festival, Muncie, IN

Saturday, Nov. 12, Kentucky Book Fair, Frankfort, KY

 

GET OUT THE WORD

 

I know you’ll find this difficult to fathom, but some people have never heard of Greg McKenzie or his mysterious doings. But guess what--you can tell them! If you enjoy the Greg McKenzie mysteries, tell a friend or relative. Tell a whole bunch of them. Spread the word. That way we can keep the series going.

 

NEWSLETTER TRIVIA

 

If you collect trivia like I do, here’s one for you. This issue is going to 418 people in nine countries besides the U.S. The newest addition is South Africa.

 

Please send an email to chester@chesterdcampbell.com with any comments. If you would like your name removed from the newsletter mailing list, just send me an email with “Cancel Newsletter” as the subject. See ya again soon.

Chester

 

 

 

Greg McKenzie Mysteries Newsletter

Chester D. Campbell, Editor & Publisher

SPRING 2005 ISSUE

______________________________

 

CONTENTS

DEADLY ILLUSIONS NOW AVAILABLE

AN INSIDE LOOK AT HOMICIDE

CONTEST WINNER

BURNING UP THE HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS

WHAT'RE GREG AND JILL DOING NEXT?

SHOPPING AROUND

WEBSITE REVISED

 

DEADLY ILLUSIONS NOW AVAILABLE

The third Greg McKenzie mystery is finally out! Order it at your local independent bookstore (or mystery bookstore if you're lucky enough to have one). Barnes & Noble bought it, so you might find one there. It's also available on-line. There’s another book called Deadly Illusions (yep, the identical title) that came out in January, so be sure to give  my name or ISBN 1930754655. Write me if you’d like a signed copy, or click the "on the run" link on my home page to see where I’ll be in the next month or so.

AN INSIDE LOOK AT HOMICIDE

Since Deadly Illusions involves homicide detectives, I decided I needed a close-up look at the breed during the writing process. I called a detective who had spoken to our Sisters in Crime chapter and asked if I might do a ride-along with a homicide officer. He said the new police chief was discouraging the practice but gave me the captain’s name who heads the Homicide Division. The captain either hadn’t heard from the chief or didn’t care.

"Sure. When do you want to come?" he asked.

The following afternoon, I was ushered into the inner sanctum of Metro Nashville Police Headquarters, where I found Homicide down a dimly lit hallway. The detectives’ office contained tall dividers with pairs of gray metal desks containing computer screens and keyboards, thick case folders on the shelves. Some had laptops. I stopped first in the cubbyhole occupied by the shift sergeant, who assigns cases and is generally in charge.

"Actually, we handle every kind of case but rape and robbery," he said. "But mostly homicides. One thing you’ll find about these guys, they have huge egos. It goes with the job."

He also told me I’d hear a lot of macabre humor, which they use to keep their minds off the gruesome details of their cases. Eighty percent of murders in Nashville are drug related, the sergeant said. One of the detectives later told me it was more like 90 percent.

When a call came in from a woman with an apartment rental firm about strange things found in a just-vacated duplex, I climbed into an unmarked white Malibu with a 27-year veteran officer. Though it wasn’t an emergency call, he drove like the proverbial bat out of hell. An hour or more later, I rode back to the station with a younger detective whose driving habits were similar.

At the duplex, we found blood in the tub, bloody rags, an Uzi submachine gun with a silencer, and a pair of girls’ panties. This brought in a crime scene officer, an ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) agent, a youth services officer, and someone from the medical examiner’s office. Checking into the former tenant’s background, we learned he had worked for a dialysis clinic. The medical people concluded that he had used a portable dialysis unit on himself in the bathroom. The youth services officer, whose unit had an open case involving a missing girl, decided the panties had no significance, and the ATF guy took over the weapon. That about wrapped it up.

Back at the station, I chatted with a young detective who worked at his laptop, cleaning up a case from the previous night. He brought up the original incident report and all other pertinent documents, plus several pages of thumbnail photos from the scene. He had been up most of the previous night and said it wasn’t unusual to work lots of overtime on a case. Talking about when he was a patrol officer, he gave me a line I used in the book:

"A patrol officer does more in a week than an FBI agent does in a year."

When the shift ended and I was leaving around 11:30 p.m., the sergeant apologized for not having any murders for me. "You should have been here last night," he said. "We had two." My bad luck that night was some citizen's good luck.

CONTEST WINNERS

If you haven’t checked the website to see who won my recent Deadly Illusions contest, here are the winners and their prizes:

First place (an autographed copy of Deadly Illusions), Lillian Porter, who hails from the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.

Second place (a signed copy of Secret of the Scroll), Constance Allen.

Third place (a Deadly Illusions T shirt), Anne Harris.

Fourth place (a Deadly Illusions wall clock), Rosie Davis.

BURNING UP THE HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS

From the end of February to the end of April, we did our bit to support the petroleum economy. Our travels included Nashville to El Paso to Ft. Lauderdale and back, then down to Ft. Walton Beach, FL and up to Arlington, VA. It looked like we were chasing spring across the map, not to mention the guy who kept upping the ante on the gas price signs.

The weatherman (or woman) smiled on us most of the way. However, when we arrived in El Paso for Left Coast Crime (okay, it’s the left coast of Texas), a blustery cool snap followed us to town, making it not so warm as advertised. The Texas hospitality made up for it—actually, El Paso seems more Mexican than Texican. My thriller panel turned out to be quite entertaining, and Sarah and I had a great time overall.

Then we pursued spring across Texas, through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama into Florida. Along the way, my good wife couldn’t pass up all those casino signs, and since we needed a pit stop anyway, we plunked down a supply of quarters and listened to all the bells and music as the wheels spun with promises of untold wealth. Fortunately, we were able to depart with about the same wealth we had on arrival.

Swinging off the mottled ribbon of I-10, we took a brief traipse through our old stomping grounds at Perdido Key, FL, the locale for Designed to Kill. We hadn’t seen the place since Hurricane Ivan pounded it last September. Even after six months, the scene was one of devastation. A couple of our favorite restaurants were gone. Nothing but bare sand. The building that housed my brother’s condo (called Gulf Sands in the book, actually Sandy Key) looked a wreck, the first floor mostly blown out, bedrooms showing through holes in the walls at both ends. The owners have just decided to rebuild to current codes standards, which will take multi-million bucks and likely another year for construction.

At SleuthFest in Ft. Lauderdale, I took part on a panel about how to keep your characters age appropriate. Simple. Since Greg and Jill are mid-sixties (I can remember that far back), I just have them act like I do. Well, mostly. I also served as moderator for a thriller panel. The two headline speakers proved quite interesting—Lisa Scottoline and Chris Whitcomb. A former FBI agent, Chris described hair-raising experiences while investigating the USS Cole bombing in Aden, Yemen.

A few weeks later, we headed south again to Ft. Walton Beach for the Emerald Coast Writers Conference. We had to dodge workers who busily repaired hurricane damage for the hotel’s official re-opening a couple of weeks later. I made two presentations, one on research, one on promotion, and we enjoyed the small but lively conference.

Our major travel season ended at the Malice Domestic mystery conference in Arlington. This is the biggie devoted to "cozy" mysteries. I sat beside Eve Sandstrom (JoAnna Carl) on a research panel moderated by Bill Albert. Our message was: with all the resources available, there’s no excuse for getting it wrong—though we all do occasionally.

WHAT'RE GREG AND JILL DOING NEXT?

Good question. I’m still mulling over that one. It will probably take place around Nashville, possibly involve a smaller town that will bring in the TBI (Tennessee Bureau of Investigation). Stay tuned.

SHOPPING AROUND

I wrote a book titled Hell Bound just before I started Secret of the Scroll. It’s the story of a busload of senior citizens on a trip to New Orleans. One of the passengers is a former investment advisor for a New York crime family who testified against the mob and nearly wrecked their operation. A Mafia hit squad dogs the bus, trying to figure out which one is the "traitor." I won't give away any more of the plot, except to say it winds up in the foremath (I guess that's what comes before the aftermath) of a hurricane. I’m currently shopping the manuscript among literary agents. Keep your fingers crossed.

WEBSITE REVISED

 

I've updated my website since the last newsletter went out. It has a whole new look and lots of new stuff, including my current travel schedule. Take a look at http://www.chesterdcampbell.com.

 

Please email me at chester@chesterdcampbell.com with any comments about my books, the newsletter, anything on your mind. If you would like your name removed from the newsletter mailing list, just send me an email with “Cancel Newsletter” as the subject. See ya again soon.

Chester

 

 

Greg McKenzie Mysteries Newsletter

Chester D. Campbell, Editor & Publisher

WINTER 2005 ISSUE

______________________________

 

CONTENTS

NEW CONTEST--BIGGEST YET

THE AGATHA AWARDS

NEW JOB WITH M.W.A.

PRICES GOING DOWN

THE SECOND COMING

TRAVELING BRIEFLY

MURDER BY COMMITTEE

NEWSLETTER STATS

 

NEW CONTEST--BIGGEST YET

 

To celebrate the publication of Deadly Illusions, the third Greg McKenzie mystery, in March, I'm holding a major league contest (don't you just love 'em--not too many places you get something for nothing anymore). There will be four winners! First Place gets an autographed copy of Deadly Illusions. Second Place gets an autographed copy of either Secret of the Scroll or Designed to Kill, the first two Greg McKenzie mysteries. Third and Fourth Place winners get items from my McKenzie Mysteries Cafe Shop, which is currently being updated with new items. Watch for more info on this choice soon. To enter the contest, send an email to chester@chesterdcampbell.com with CONTEST as the subject and your name plus "Subscriber" in the body of the email. That's all it takes. Deadline for entries will be March 15, with the drawing to be held the following day. Good luck!

THE AGATHA AWARDS

Are you registered for the Malice Domestic mystery convention? Are you a procrastinator like me and haven't sent in your nominees for the Agatha Awards? How about considering Designed to Kill for a nomination? In her Blue Iris Journal review, Elizabeth K. Burton calls it "technically a cozy." That should be good enough to qualify for an Agatha. But get those nominations in right away. The deadline is this Friday, January 28.

NEW JOB WITH M.W.A.

I was recently elected to the Board of the Southeast Chapter, Mystery Writers of America, as West Area Representative. I'm responsible for supervising MWA activities in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. It should be exciting, but a lot of work, too. I'm tasked with organizing two Skill Build seminars for both beginning and experienced mystery writers.

PRICES GOING DOWN

Would you believe my publisher is reducing prices? That's right. Deadly Illusions will cost only $12.95, in contrast to the $15.95 price of the first two books. I don't have a definite release date yet, only that it will be in March. You should be able to order it in the next few weeks, however, from your local bookseller or one of the online providers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, etc.). I'm working on an update of the website and hope to have info, including the first two chapters, up by next week. Be sure to check it out. I should also have more reviews to include shortly.

THE SECOND COMING

Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's almost that exciting for me. Designed to Kill has gone into a Second Printing. Hold onto that first edition copy you bought. It may become a collector's item (don't I wish). The first edition sold out in only about nine months. I'm sure that wouldn't have excited Dan Brown, but in the small press world of lesser knowns, it's enough to break out the bubbly.

TRAVELING BRIEFLY

As promised in the last newsletter, Sarah and I have stuck fairly close to home the past couple of months. We did a Christmas Rush Tour of Books-a-Million stores, hitting Murfreesboro, TN; Clarksville, TN; Madison, TN, and Paducah, KY on the four weekends before Santa's arrival. The only other events until February are a talk to the Downtown (Nashville) Lions Club and a group signing at Barnes & Noble in
Brentwood, TN the 28th.

We'll be hitting the road again in February, heading west to the Left Coast Crime mystery conference in El Paso, TX Feb. 24-27. I'll be on a panel Friday morning titled "Thrillers and Crimes other than Murder." Panelists will include David Dun, Barry Eisler and Michael Newton. We'll be home only long enough to re-pack and head for Ft. Lauderdale, FL for SleuthFest 2005, the mystery conference sponsored by the Florida Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. It runs March 4-7. I'm on a Friday panel "Age Appropriate: Keeping Your Characters Consistent." I'll also moderate a Saturday panel called "Against All Odds: Plotting the High Risk Mission." Barry Eisler, Robert Herrick and K.J.A. Wishnia will be panelists.

Check the On The Go page on my website for more appearances. You'll also find when I'm doing radio interviews, maybe one in your area.

MURDER BY COMMITTEE

If you'd like to read a wild mystery, check out Murder by Committee on P.J. Nunn's website: www.breakthroughpromotions.com. The current (January) chapter is by yours truly. Go to the website and click on the Mystery Morgue link. It's a wild tale with each author leaving the next one a cliff-hanger to work the characters out of. The goal is to inject some humor into the story as well. Julia Spencer-Fleming wrote the first chapter. Other chapter authors are Elliot Light, Rhys Bowen, Libby Sternberg, Harley Jane Kozak, Carl Brookins, Jeffrey Cohen, Mark Terry and Robin Burcell.

 

NEWSLETTER STATS

 

This issue of the newsletter is going to 360 email addresses in 10 countries, including the U.S., Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, The Netherlands and United Kingdom. Please let me know if you change your email address. I had a number of bad addresses on the last mailing and had to drop several subscribers.

 

That's it for this time. Please write me at chester@chesterdcampbell.com with any comments about my books, the newsletter, anything on your mind. If you'd like your name removed from the newsletter mailing list, just send me an email with “Cancel Newsletter” as the subject. See ya again soon.

Chester

 

 

Greg McKenzie Mysteries Newsletter

Chester D. Campbell, Editor & Publisher

FALL 2004 ISSUE

______________________________

 

CONTENTS

NEW CONTEST

HAVE WE BEEN TRAVELING!

WHERE'S DEADLY ILLUSIONS?

WHO ARE GREG AND JILL?

SPEAKING OF BOOKS

HOPE TO SEE YOU IN 2005

ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER

 

NEW CONTEST

 

Would you like to be a character in my next Greg McKenzie mystery? Here’s your chance. The first place winner in the new contest will have a character named after them. You can pick whether to be a good guy or a bad guy, but I can't promise anything beyond that. The second place winner will get a tee shirt bearing the cover of Designed to Kill. Just send an email to chester@chesterdcampbell.com with CONTEST as the subject and "Subscriber" in the body of the email. That's all it takes. Deadline for entries is December 14. The drawing will be held on December 15. Good luck!

HAVE WE BEEN TRAVELING!

Would you believe from one end of I-40 (Barstow, CA) to the other (Wilmington, NC)? Actually, it started on a mid-September weekend with the Southeast Booksellers Association show in Atlanta, where we signed and gave away a stack of Designed to Kill books to eager (well, they looked that way to me) booksellers. I signed at the Sisters in Crime booth with such great writers as Patricia Sprinkle, Kathryn Wall, Sarah Shaber, Elizabeth Terrell, Christine Kling and Kelly Nichols (1/2 of P. J. Parrish). Sarah and I returned to Nashville in time to hop back into the Camry on Monday morning and point its nose westward.

We made it to Shawnee, OK for the first stop and tried a Days Inn beside the interstate. Sorry, no no-smoking rooms. Being price conscious (after all, these trips cost much more than we make selling books), we checked the AAA directory for the next best bet, a Best Western, and headed off in search of it. The location should have given us pause--Kickapoo Spur. We promptly encountered a few problems. The restaurant was closed for renovation. Our "non-smoking" room smelled like a burning tobacco barn. Heading back to the office, we passed the indoor swimming pool bearing a sign "closed by order of the health department." Our key card wouldn't open the next room door. We finally made it on the third try.

After passing through lots of Indian country (Native American if you prefer the PC term) the next day, crossing the Texas Panhandle, over and around buttes and plateaus and cornfields and oil wells, we headed into the high plains of New Mexico (speed limit 75 mph--actual speed...?). Zipping over the Rio Grande at Albuquerque, we climbed our way above the 6,000-foot level to the small town of Grants. It sits at the edge of some of the largest lava beds on the continent. Though we didn't wind up glowing in the dark, we learned that uranium reserves in the area are among the world's largest. At least the motel was nice.

Continuing our climb the next morning, we crossed the Continental Divide at 7,245 feet, galloped through Gallup and made our usual Cracker Barrel lunch stop at Flagstaff, AZ. Then it was a slow descent through arid desert areas, including one 50-mile stretch with no service stations. Most of the little towns we passed boasted of their location on Route 66. Several had Route 66 museums. At Kingman, the main stop on the historic "Main Street of America," I-40 turned south before crossing into California. We stopped just inside the border at Needles, CA for another educational motel tour. Getting smart this time, we used our trusty cell phone to call ahead for a non-smoking room. But when we arrived, the clerk informed us their air conditioning was kaput. So we scooted across the street to a new Motel 6 where the rooms were cheaper, nicer and COOL (the temperature was 90-something). Yes, they left the light on for us.

Heading west through the Mojave Desert the next morning (another long stretch of nothing but sandy brown mountains and valleys), we made a pleasant discovery. California posted a 55 mph speed limit for trucks and, lo and behold, the 18-wheelers heeded it. At Barstow, we took I-15 southeast to the L.A.