75 Facts About the Queen of Crime

by John Curran, Editor of the Official Agatha Christie Newsletter

1. According to the Guinness Book of Records, Agatha Christie is the best-selling fiction author of all time with an estimated two billion copies of her books in print. By comparison, around 270 million copies of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books have been sold.

2. Agatha is the most-translated fiction author in the world, according to the UNESCO. Her work has been translated into more than 70 languages. It is often said that she is outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.

3. She wrote 80 novels and short story collections and 19 plays. She also wrote two books of poetry, a children's book, and two autobiographical works.

4. Agatha penned six romance novels under the name of Mary Westmacott. This pseudonym remained a secret for almost 20 years until her nom de plume was revealed by the Sunday Times.

5. On average 97 per cent of adults in the UK know of Agatha Christie and one third have read at least one Christie novel; more than half have seen a Christie film.

Interested in reading all 75 facts? CLICK HERE.

MYSTERY AUTHOR!!!!

READY TO GUESS ANOTHER HEARTSONG MYSTERY AUTHOR? HERE WE GO!






Hello, Mystery Author!
Hi, Nancy!

What part of the country are you from?
Well, let's see. . .I was born in Michigan but transferred when the plant where my husband worked closed. Now we call Southeast Texas home.

You have a few other talents besides writing. What are they?
Along with writing, I work as a freelance editor and public speaker. I've edited novels for Virginia Smith, Sandra Robbins, and Marcia Gruver, to name a few. I'm also a part-time youth minister (giving a shout out to FBC VERTICAL!!)

What is a “Max’ism?”
Max'isms are spiritual truths I've learned by watching my Dachshund. Don't laugh. Animals can teach us a lot.

What’s the first name of the main character in your Heartsong Mystery?
Her name is Casey.

What is her job?
Casey is a part-time sleuth, full-time website designer and lover of Brandy Purcell crime novels.

Finally, you wrote your Heartsong Mystery with a co-author. Can you tell us something about her that most people don’t know? (Don’t give us her name!)
(Laughing) Something no one else knows...now that could be dangerous! How about this--my co-author is a snake charmer (read her blog to learn more).

Thanks, Mystery Author!

If you would like to win a copy of this Mystery Author's newest Heartsong cozy mystery, leave a comment (with your e-mail address), and we'll announce the winner next week!

Thanks to everyone who reads Spyglass Lane. Please tell your friends about us!

Nancy

Short Story Mystery

Ride Into the Fog

By Linda Kozar

PART 2

I held onto the door handle. “Please Kels, don’t go. We could--we could take the kids to the zoo tomorrow. How about it?”

She peeled my hands off the handle and took them in hers. “Marcy, you know you have to work tomorrow. Besides, we’ve already overstayed our welcome with you.”

“But you only got here yesterday. One day, that’s all. It’s nothing.”

She laughed. “Say goodbye to the kids Marcy.”

“Please!”

She opened the door and threw in a diaper bag. The kids surrounded the car, scented with sun and play, glistening hair clinging to their heads. My brow still crinkled in disapproval at her, I stared down at Shay and softened. He was the oldest, the one who’d seen the most. Things a child shouldn’t see.

Tall and thin for his age; he seemed older than seven years, guarded, yet vulnerable. My heart went out to him. “Shay!” I wrapped my arms around him and gave him a big bear squeeze. “Your Aunt Marcy loves you!”

The freckled face smiled back at me. For a moment, he reminded me of Kelsey, the way she used to be. I lifted him up and planted a kiss on his cheek, then turned to the others; Amy, Tammy, the twins Bobby and Trace and the baby, little Marce-- my namesake. I lingered longest with her and nibbled on her tiny ear until she giggled.

“Time to go!” Kelsey ordered.

We fastened seat belts and car seats in her old blue Impala and she leaned in to start the chugging engine off. A gray cloud of noxious smoke from the exhaust blew out. I coughed. Her eyes met mine as if longing to tell me something, mouth moving as if to speak, but nothing.

I broke the silence. “Kels, I. . .”

She interrupted. “I love you Marcy, always have. You are my truest friend in the world. The only one.”

Tears swelled and overflowed my eyes. “I-I love you too.” I reached over to her and pressed a wad of money into her right hand.

“What this for?”

I shrugged. “It’s to help you start a new life, if you chose.” I closed her fist around it with my hands.

With surprising force, she pushed the wad of money back into my hands. “Keep it, Marcy. Keep it! I wo--, I don’t need your money,” she corrected.

“Don’t be proud, Kelsey!” I fired back, annoyed. “You know you’re going to need it! If not for you, then take it for them.” I pointed toward the kids, their tiny faces turned toward us, hanging on every word.

“My answer is NO. And you know how stubborn I am. I don’t need it and I won’t take it from you. Not now. Not ever.” Her features set in stone, I knew it was pointless to argue. Why upset the kids? They’d certainly been through enough.

We fell into each other’s arms and clung, trembling. I spoke what was in my heart. “I’m so sad all this happened to you. I-I wish your life with him had been better, happier.”

Tune in next week for Part 3 of Ride Into the Fog

Monday Mystery Theater

The Case:

Willie is found dead in a field. His wife is arrested when a sock belonging to Willie is examined, along with a container of starch belonging to his wife.

The Mystery:

How did Willie’s wife waste him?

The Clues:

1. The sock was not part of a pair.
2. Willie’s last landing wasn’t exactly a breeze.

The Answer:

Think you know the answer? Fill in the comment box to submit your guess. Winner receives a free Heartsong Presents Mystery!

Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes

Special Features, Part 4

Guess which famous author was a big Conan Doyle fan? Dame Agatha Christie, the Queen of the Mystery! A very shy child, kept out of school by her mother, she invented whole communities of people to keep her company. During World War !, she worked as a nurse, eventually assigned to the hospital dispensary. Poor gal was so nervous she’d make a mistake and poison a patient! Perhaps to get the worry out of her system, she concocted a total of 83 poisonings in her books. She was very much impressed by Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. She admitted writing in the Holmes tradition by featuring an eccentric detective and a straight laced assistant.

Trivia Question:
Which character did Dame Agatha Christie name her child after?

MYSTERY AUTHOR WINNER!

Last week's winner of our Mystery Author contest is...TINA RUSSO! She guessed that the Mystery Author was...ME! Tina will get copies of IN THE DEAD OF WINTER, BYE,BYE BERTIE, and FOR WHOM THE WEDDING BELL TOLLS! Thanks for playing, Tina!

There is no Mystery Author today. Instead, we have a great column by Mary Connealy, a wonderful author and a super person. You will enjoy what she has to tell you about her upcoming cozy mysteries.

Mystery Author will return next week!

Nancy

I am too afraid of MICE!!!!!!!!!!

Why would a person lie about a thing like that?

Just because I’m bringing this misunderstood phobia out of the shadows, does not mean I should be mocked.

Some may read Of Mice…and Murder and see the humor, mystery and drama. But for those of us who are musophobes (look it up, I can’t do EVERYTHING for you) this is an intense, life and death struggle.

You know, I decided at a very young age (too young to be deciding anything) while pondering eternal things like heaven and … well…NOT heaven, to avoid four letter words.

I gave considerable thought to whether instead of eternal darkness, or a lake of fire, I might possibly end up in a room full of mice.

God knows each of us, you know. God knows what our definition of NOT heaven might be.

The worst of that youthful pondering was the horrifying thought that maybe, talking eternity to adjust after all, I might actually get so I didn’t mind being in a room full of mice.

That makes me really sad.

But I’ve made my peace with God and accepted Jesus as my personal savior, mice being the least of that decision, so I don’t dwell on that much anymore.

In Of Mice…and Murder my heroine Carrie is afraid of mice. Nothing else. She’s a very brave woman, but mice…….EEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!

In book two of the Maxie Mouse Mystery Series, Pride and Pestilence, my heroine is a shy insomniac bookworm. Hello, borrowing from my life again!

Yes, I am a shy, insomniac bookworm, musophobe. My life between the pages of a book. And yes, when I meet people they inevitably say, “You’re not shy.”

But it’s all internal. I know how to behave myself in public, but inside I’m a squirming, twitching, overly sensitive, lunatic. All my reactions are to go home, go pull the covers over my head, better yet, go write. Have both sides of the conversation myself. Create COOL tough, bold women. Exactly NOT like me.

Or read books with those same cool, tough, bold women. Now THAT’S living.

So then, book three in the Maxie Mouse Mystery Series—The Miceman Cometh. What part of that is me?

The heroine in that is a genius who’s so caught up in her studying and thinking that she’s detached from the world. She tends to fall over her feet and say the wrong thing and her clothes are always a mess because she doesn’t notice.

Okay, except for the genius part, that’s me.

And it’s all set in small town Nebraska. Now THAT’S me. That’s the world I know.

In book #1 Of Mice…and Murder, the small town newspaper, I actually worked at one. The horrible, hilarious typos, we did that. You know there are a LOT of words in a newspaper. It’s seriously hard to get every SINGLE one of them right. The really funny mess-ups, I can’t even write them here, too awful.

Book #2 Pride and Pestilence Melnik builds a new library. This is inspired by the beautiful new library our town just built and how much work and fund raising and community support it took to get done.

Book #3 The Miceman Cometh is the effort (continued from the earlier books) to energize tiny (fictional) Melnik, Nebraska. Small towns struggle all the time to grow and provide services and keep folks in town to shop. But then if the town does grow, as it’s growing in Melnik, you have the dreaded newcomers, who don’t fit in. And who don’t understand how small towns work. They bring their weird big city ways and odd lifestyles. Small towns are pretty resistant to change, even as their in the midst of proclaiming all their changing and growing.

So get a peek of Mary-the-Lunatic within the pages of the Maxie Mouse Mysteries, and a really nice, if somewhat exaggerated, look at life in a small Nebraska town.

The basic rule of small town life

Everybody knows

That’s it.

The best thing and the worst thing about a small town is the same thing.
Everybody knows

If you need help, have a death, lose a job, are sick or injured, everybody knows. They’re at your door with food and lawnmowers and company and even cash.

If you mess up, humiliate yourself, get caught in some outrageous act (you ALWAYS get caught) everybody knows.

Welcome to Melnik
There is no escape

http://www.maryconnealy.com/