Roxy rears her head again!

It starts with a woman frantically banging her tiny fists against the car window, spraying sweat and desperation all over the impenetrable glass. It ends with Roxy Parker solving not only this suspicious death but the murder of a whimsical groupie whose body is found washed up in a creek on the hinterland property of an aging rock star ...

Yep, I've officially begun the SIXTH Ghostwriter Mystery adventure and I'm in imaginary heaven again. Is there anything more fabulous to a writer than this early, dreamy process? You have the bare bones, the skeleton, the start (and end) as I do, and you have to fill in the blanks.

Starting a new novel is always exhilarating, energising and slightly terrifying. There's a clean slate, a million possibilities and an empty road ahead. With Roxy books, they always fill in very quickly. Well, almost always. I occasionally hit a road bump, the proverbial writers block, but it rarely lasts long and it only takes a quick glance at a previous book (find the voice, remember the inspiration!) to get me over the speed bumps.

Okay enough of the crappy road metaphores. You get the picture. And soon you will get the book, but first I have to get cracking. This means, dear readers, that I may be out of touch for a while.

I'll let you know how I'm going along the way, but please be patient with me. Once I'm ensconced in Roxy's world, I often forget to come up for air (let alone write a blog, eat lunch, pick up the kids ...) but the end result is usually worth it. At least it is to me. (My hungry kids may have other opinions on that.)

In the meantime, happy reading everyone and thanks for all your support over this long and fabulous process. And please, never hesitate to get in touch. I ALWAYS have time to hear from readers, especially happy ones!

xo Christina

How cozy am I?

I'm often described as the author of 'cozy mysteries' and I have no problem with that. I've always celebrated that title because it sounds about right. I love cozy mysteries myself. I like to snuggle up in front of the fire and read/solve a good mystery without having my wits terrified or my stomach turn from all the blood and gore.

Give me a tiny dagger wound and a good riddle any day over a sleazy serial killer who tortures his victims and scares the bejesus out of his readers. No thank you!

And I guess I write that way, too. My murders are not prolonged bloodfests, there's no Mr Evil lurking on every page, stringing out your nerves or startling you under the bed covers. There's a quick death and a lot of clues to help you work out whodunnit.

There's just one problem...

My characters tend to swear a lot. I mean, A LOT. And that's largely because most of my books are set in Australia. I've discussed this before, but it's important to remind everyone that profanities are a regular part of the Australian discourse. Love it or loathe, Aussies are a pretty foul-mouthed bunch. It's just part of who we are. An adult conversation is rarely completed without the odd 'bloody', 'shit', 'crap' and—dare I say it—f-word.

Doesn't bloody matter who you are or what friggin' class/wage bracket you're in, most of us swear. We don't give it a second thought. It's the laid-back, laconic image we have manifested and can't seem to shake off, even when no one's listening. Most of us don't have a problem with it, either, it's just a cultural thang.

But is it a 'cozy' thing?

Therein lies my conundrum. Because some of my characters cuss regularly and are quite gritty, does this negate the cozy title? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I know that many American readers of 'Cozy Crime', want the writing to be as benign as the murders and that's fair enough. Yet, as I tell my critics, to erase all the bad language in my books (which are largely set in Australia) would be like taking out the big hair, guns and the word 'ya'll' from a mystery set in America's deep south.

It just wouldn't ring true.

Yet to say my books are not cozy would be like calling Agatha Christie's work 'Thrillers'. We are what we are, give or take a few f-bombs.

What do you think? Does it even matter? Perhaps all this labelling is a bloody big waste of time? I'd love to hear from you. Jot me a comment below or email me directly: christina.larmer@gmail.com

Happy reading, everyone.
xo Christina

WIN a paperback copy of my latest book

One of my favourite book websites and a keen supporter of my work is Goodreads, which many of you will know.  

They are currently running a giveaway, offering 3 paperback copies of my new Ghostwriter Mystery WORDS CAN KILL starring feisty Roxy Parker.

This book sees Australia's favourite 'Ghost' pack her bags and head to Europe on a quest to find her missing boyfriend, brooding photographer Max Farrell.
Or IS he her boyfriend? She's confused, he's gone missing (with another woman, no less) and the dead bodies are piling up, fast.

It's a fun, fast read and you can score a free paperback copy through the mail—thanks to Goodreads. Go check them out, and best of luck.

xo Christina

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Words Can Kill (A Ghostwriter Mystery 5)

by C.A. Larmer (Goodreads Author)

5.0 of 5 stars 5.00  ·  rating details  ·  3 ratings  ·  1 review

In her fifth and most heart-wrenching mystery yet, Ghostwriter Roxy Parker is hot on the trail of her estranged boyfriend Max. He's disappeared from a Swiss resort, a perky blonde by his side, and his flatmate has shown up murdered in Berlin. He was bludgeoned by his own 1920's Gibson guitar and the German police suspect Max of murder. But Roxy knows better.

Max Farrell ma...more

Better to sleep soundly?

My 10-year-old walked past a promotional poster for The Conjuring last week, and spent that night, wide-eyed and clawing at his sheets, terrified of falling asleep and into the nightmare-from-hell. He couldn't get the image out of his buzzing little brain.

He's never even seen the movie, not so much as a frame, but it didn't matter a jot.

My older son, meanwhile, could watch reruns of Halloween, Friday The 13th and I Know What You Did Last Summer then play a full game of Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil and still be blissfully snoring within minutes. (If his 'mean' mother ever allowed him, of course.) He's always slept like the proverbial bub and scary stories/sights seem to go straight over his head.

Is he the lucky one? Or is his brother?

My youngest may have an over-active imagination, one that keeps (us all) up at night, but I can't help wondering whether it's a gift in disguise. He's suffering, sure, but he's also a very creative character with a wonderful way with words. He can whip up a gripping story and take you into an imaginary world with incredible ease for his age (and spelling capacity).

Maybe his unsettled sleep is a small price to pay for a lifetime of conjuring?

What do you think? Please share your thoughts and comments below or send me an email: christina.larmer@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.

Happy reading!
xo Christina

The TRUE story behind my favourite "child"

Okay, I know you're not supposed to have favourites, but I have to confess, this one is really special to me (shhhhh, just don't tell anyone). I loved creating this 'baby', it reminded me a lot of my own wonderful childhood, and I still enjoy immersing myself in its many depths and delights.

No, of course I'm not referring to an actual flesh and blood kid. [I could never pick a fave—my boys are both so different and bring me pleasure (and some pain!) in wonderous and equal measure.]

I'm referring to one of my favourite Ghostwriter Mysteries: Dying Words which I am now making available for FREE through  Smashwords. That's a big drop from $2.99.

Why it's so spesh
I loved writing Dying Words—it poured out fast and fluently; I barely came up for breath. I love the content, the characters, the plot and the setting, part of it in exotic Indonesia. But most of all, I love the fact that it is based on a very real premise. That's the most exciting part of all, and that's why I've decided I want to share it with more readers and offer it for free.

Back in 2008 I was asked to write a book about my father's 45 years as a surveyor in Papua New Guinea. His company, Arman Larmer Surveys (ALS), began as a small, struggling business run from the kitchen bench of a home we shared with his business partner, Graeme Arman. Within 20 years ALS had moved into Indonesia, and become the largest survey company in PNG with capacity to deploy up to 20 survey teams at any one time, and working on major projects like the Ok Tedi Gold Mine and the LNG gas project.

It was a terriffic story and a joy to write. More than that, it was a unique chance to sit my father (a true 'man of few words') down and MAKE him talk. And not just about his work but about my childhood, how we came to be born and living in the tropics, and how he made such a success of it. All good stuff.

The fact behind the fiction 
During this process, I interviewed a charming, elderly man called Graham Matheson. He was the Surveyor General in those early days and a key player in Dad's career. After our interview, he handed me a framed, black and white photograph of a bunch of men sitting at a table during the 1970 survey congress. It was a fairly innocuous picture and, as I say in the novel, verging on outright dull.

Clearly it was not so dull to Mr Matheson. Late one night, some months after the book was published, I got a call from Graeme Arman frantic to know where the photo had ended up. Mr Matheson was on his deathbed, he had just hours to live, and was desperate for the photo be be returned. Pronto!

I madly did some research and realised it was with the publisher. One thing led to another and the picture was promptly couriered back. Mr Matheson died soon after. To this day I do not know whether he lived to see and hold that photo again, nor can I understand why he needed to so keenly.

Surely, on your deathbed, the last thing you care about is an old photo of a bygone time?

Then a friend in my bookclub said, "There's a story there!" and my imagination ran wild. I imagined it held the key to some elaborate mystery, maybe to a will with an enormous fortune?

I never learned the truth behind that picture, but I did get the germ of a great idea. The result is Dying Words, the fouth Ghostwriter Mystery. I do hope you enjoy it as much as I still do. And I thank you for being part of this adventure with me.

Happy reading.
xo Christina

Who Would Murder a Baby?

It seems like an outlandish question, but that's the title of a very old crime novel written by Australia's first Queen of Crime and mother of six, June Wright. And here's her crisp reply when one (no doubt male) reporter dared to criticise the title:

"Obviously you know nothing of the homicidal instincts sometimes aroused in a mother by her children. After a particularly exasperating day, it is a relief to murder a few characters in your book instead."

I just read this in a Sun-Herald book review and I had to laugh. I'd written a very similar comment a few blogs ago (see: Writing With Kids is Murder, March, 2014) and I can certainly empathise.

Our long-lost Agatha

June Wright (pictured above) is the (now) little-known author of six crime novels set in Melbourne's 1940s, the era in which she was writing. Once a telephonist, she turned her hand to writing when she became a housewife and only gave it up when her husband took ill and she needed to start earning regular income.

Still, she had a degree of popularity, apparently, and was only forgotten over time because, as one recent interviewer, Lucy Sussex, says: "Australia is a very sexist country and we tend to forget women's achievments ... There's always been a tradition of good women's writing but we privilege males. This is a country that's still coming to terms with women's writing, just as it was in her time."

My, how things have changed. Not.

Wright's books are being resurrected by a US publisher (of course!), called Verse Chorus Press. The first is titled Murder in the Telephone Exchange and its protagonist is a fiery telephonist who lives in a South Yarra boarding house. The last three have, of all things, a nun-detective! (I wonder if Amazon have a category to fit that one?!)

I can't wait to get hold of them, if only to see how a woman with six kids (including one with a severe intellectual disability), writing in a time when you still had to get up at dawn and light the copper (whatever the hell that is), managed it!

I won't complain about my lot, quite so much again. (And damn, there go all my excuses.)

Happy reading everyone.

xo Christina

Can you pick it?

I just got paid the biggest compliment a mystery writer could ever receive. The words were like finding the cold spot in a hot pool on a boiling day. Like discovering a lone chocolate TimTam sitting in the back of the fridge, forgotten by your greedy husband and just waiting for you to pick it up and dip it into that steamy cup of Darjeeling. Luscious. Rewarding. The kind of stuff that keeps you going, even when you feel like you're failing at it and wonder why you bother.

"I couldn't pick the killer."

Yes, yeeees, YEEEEEEES!

My sister just read Words Can Kill, the fifth Ghostwriter Mystery, and my mother before her, and both said the same thing. They had a few ideas, a vague inkling, but the murderer came as a wonderful and very satisfying surprise. And that's all you can ask for in a murder mystery. Well, that and a good ride along the way.

I think I can, I think I can ...

Before I started writing crime fiction, I was a voracious reader of the stuff. Still am, of course. (How can you not love crime fiction if you write it?) I can never seem to get enough but I always veer towards books and authors where I have a good chance of picking the killer. I don't necessarily want to succeed at it, and it's always so much more thrilling if I don't, but I need to be able to have a red hot go.

I don't read crime because I love murder and mayhem. I read to solve a puzzle.

For that reason, I can't stand books where most of the vital information is deliberately withheld, where there's no chance in hell you'll ever pick whodunit. (And don't even start me on books that end with, 'And then I woke up ...' No, really?!)

In my novels I always enable my readers to work it out. I don't want them to, please understand that, but I need them to know they can. If they're extra vigilant and super smart, they absolutely can.

I think that's crucial, and it's only fair. I don't hide any important truths (not forever, anyway) and I always embed the text with subtle clues. I might dazzle and distract as I plant those clues, and I might throw in a couple of stinky red herrings to put them off, but the point is they CAN solve my mystery if they want to.

Because of that, however, there is always the grave risk that readers will solve it long before it's over, and some of my readers get quite cranky with me when they do. It's as though I've robbed them of a rare gem, evacuated the gourmet restaurant just before dessert arrived. I feel their pain, really I do, but walking that tightrope between hiding the clues and making the book solveable is a tricky one. And apparently I've got the balance right this time (or at least that's what Michelle and Mum tell me, and believe me, very little gets past those two!).

How about you?

So how did you go? Have you read Words Can Kill yet and did you pick the culprit? I'd love to hear if you did solve the mystery and at what stage along the way.

And if you didn't solve it, I'd love to hear from you, too. Oh who am I kidding, I especially want to hear from you! Please get in touch; your comments are always welcome, below or straight to email.

In the meantime, happy guessing, everyone, and may the red herrings nip at your heels ...
xo Christina