Mary Welk on Being an ER Nurse, Writing Mysteries, and Surviving Murderous Moments in a 39 Year Marriage

Hi, Mary! Thanks for chatting with me.

You are still a part-time ER nurse. What’s more stressful: the ER, or writing on a deadline? :)
Let me put it this way: I didn’t get gray hair from writing fiction! I may go sleepless some nights, but I can always find time to revise a manuscript, erase any errors in spelling or catch a flaw in the plot and correct it. Unfortunately, there’s no time for re-writes in the ER. You have to do things right the first time, or both you and your patient could be in big trouble. Compared to the stress of my job, writing on a deadline is a piece of cake!

Good to know--it puts things in perspective! You have written or published a story in seven (nine) books; you work; you are the mother of six children (one of whom still lives at home) and the grandmother of seven children; you review for Mystery Scene (and Reviewingtheevidence.com). How do you do it all? Are you just really efficient?
Don’t I wish! Luckily, I have a great husband who doesn’t mind shopping for groceries or putting in a load of wash when I’m at work. Also, our children are all grown now and generally don’t need Mom the way they did when they were younger. I have more time for myself than ever before, but I still don’t get everything done that I’d like to do. I’m juggling a half dozen different projects right now and wishing I could clone myself! :)

You are a role model for modern women.

Your Caroline Rhodes mystery series is set in the fictional town of Rhineburg, Illinois. How did you come up with this name and location?
My parents were first and second generation Americans of German descent. Although we lived in Chicago, many of our relatives lived in rural farm areas in the Midwest that had been settled by German immigrants. Each summer, when we made what I called the “annual pilgrimage” to Kansas City to visit my grandparents, we’d stop in these towns to see the relatives. They were all great storytellers, and catching up on a year’s worth of family tales made for great entertainment for a child on hot summer afternoons. I learned a lot about small town living from listening to these grown-up conversations, some of which – the more gossipy type – weren’t, of course, meant to be heard by ears as young as mine. The stories stuck with me, though, and when it came time to writing my own stories, it only seemed natural to set them in a place I knew from experience – a small Midwestern farming community settled by German immigrants where everyone knew everyone else’s business. There is no real Rhineburg in Illinois, but the name is Germanic, as are the names of many of the characters in my series.


That's so interesting! Didn't Washington Irving base a lot of his tales on German folk tales? Washington Irving experts, please check in.

Back to your characters: Like you, Caroline is an ER nurse; her husband is a professor of history. Is your husband a professor as well?
No, my husband worked for the U.S. Air Force for seventeen years and is now with another department in the federal government. My dad was a biology professor in Minnesota before he came to Chicago many years ago to work in medical research. Two of my sisters are retired teachers, and two of my daughters are now in teaching. My knowledge of university politics comes mainly from what I’ve learned from these family members along with my own experience in putting several kids through college. As for the history angle, I’m a history buff and enjoy reading historical non-fiction.

One of your books is titled A Deadly Little Christmas. What made you want Christmastime as a mystery setting, and how did you use the season to your advantage in writing the plot?
A Deadly Little Christmas was the first book in my “Rhodes to Murder” series. It’s been out of print for several years now, but thanks to Echelon Press LLC, it will be back on the shelves this fall in a revised second edition under the title A Merry Little Murder.

The idea for setting the story during the Christmas holidays came to me one snowy December day when I was putting up our artificial tree. It was an old tree, and the various colors painted on the ends of the branches to indicate where each one fit in the trunk had chipped off long before. Guessing which branch went where was a real pain, as was having to strip the tree of decorations three times after various strings of lights – previously working like a charm – died one by one. I was feeling more like Scrooge than Santa by the time I finished the job, so I didn’t take it kindly when my husband walked into the room and noted that I’d placed a medium sized branch where a long branch belonged. In a moment of total madness, I whipped that branch out of the tree, turned to my husband, and rammed the end of the steel shaft directly at his stomach.

Luckily, he pulled his abs in before I could do any damage to either him or our marriage. (We’ve been together 39 years now. :) While my actions didn’t land me in jail, they did give me an idea for a nifty murder weapon. A little research into plastic explosives convinced me that an exploding artificial tree was doable, so of course the story had to take place at Christmas. As for the rest of the plot, I revised and enlarged upon an unpublished story that I’d written years before, and voila! My first Caroline Rhodes mystery was born.

What a great story! Your latest book, The Scarecrow Murders, has a very scary cover. Do you have any input into how the books look?
I had no input into the cover of The Scarecrow Murders. I had a more humorous cover in mind since the whole idea of a battle of the sexes between the residents of Rhineburg – the town fathers picketing the university in support of the school’s football team while their wives marched in solidarity with a group of female rodeo riders – seemed amusing to me. But the publisher chose this cover, and I do think it’s good and scary for a Halloween mystery.

Do you like to read mysteries, or just write them?
I love reading a good mystery. One of the perks of reviewing for Mystery Scene and Reviewingtheevidence.com is that I get to read a lot of newly published books from both the major publishers and the independents. I’ve found some excellent new authors to add to my TBR list this way. When I’m not deep into a new mystery, I tend to read historical and political non-fiction.

Who are some of your favorite writers?
Among the bigger names in the mystery field, I’m a huge fan of Nancy Pickard, Lisa Scottoline, Barbara D’Amato, Sharon McCrumb, Dick Francis, Donald Westlake, Carl Hiaasen, David Morrell, and Martha Grimes, because I’ve learned so much about writing from reading their books. Among the now-gone-but-not-forgotten authors, I love Emma Lathen, J.J. Marric, Constance and Gwenyth Little, and Norbert Davis for their writing styles. Among the midlist authors, I enjoying reading books by Steve Brewer, S. D. Tooley, Mary Saums, Eileen Dreyer, Judy Clemens, Carolyn Haines, and others too numerous to name. For a little fun sci-fi/paranormal reading, I love Terry Pratchett.

What are you reading now?
Flawless by Joshua Spanogle. It’s a medical mystery, or as the publisher calls it, “a novel of medical suspense”. So far, it’s very good.

I met you at a mystery event in Schaumburg, Illinois. Do you attend many events and conferences throughout the year?
I attended many more in the past than I might in the future. Some conferences are now using the MWA membership guidelines for panel consideration or placement of books in the sellers’ room. I’m currently published by three different independent presses, not all of whom meet the MWA requirements. That means I don’t meet the requirements for all of my books, and it would be rather silly to attend a conference where only one of your titles could be stocked in the bookstore. So, I’ll be more particular in the future as to which conferences I’ll attend. I’ll still attend as many book fairs as possible.

What are your plans for the Caroline Rhodes series?
I’m currently working on a fifth “Rhodes to Murder” novel featuring Caroline and Carl. When it will be published depends on contract negotiations with Hilliard & Harris. Echelon Press LLC has expressed an interest in re-printing the second and third books in the series, and I hope to see the second one out in spring of 2008.

If you could go anywhere in the world to do your writing, what location would you pick as inspiration?
Much as I love Chicago, I’m most relaxed when camping along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Give me a cottage in western Michigan where I could watch the sun set over the lake each day and I’d be in heaven.

That does sound heavenly, I must agree. How can readers find out more about you and your books?
I have a new website at www.myspace.com/marywelk where readers can sample a chapter from A Merry Little Murder and where (hopefully!) I’ll have a blog running soon. Also, all my books are available at Amazon.com where readers can find reviews of the series.

Thanks for chatting, Mary!
Thank you for the wonderful questions!:)

Keith Raffel Chats About Sales, Scottish Names, and Silicon Valley

Keith, thanks for chatting with me! Your book, Dot.Dead, came out this year. What lessons have you learned since the publication of your first mystery?
To appreciate the female reader. When I stand in a bookstore with a tabletop of books to sell, about 75% are purchased by women. Men come into the bookstore and head over to the nonfiction areas like science, business, sports, history, and biography. Women make a beeline for fiction. As Ian McEwan has said, “When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.”

Good for both of you. You spent twenty years working for “high tech companies, big and small.” Did you like working in Silicon Valley?
Starting my own company, building it up to success, working with an enthusiastic team – wow! That was terrific even if it transformed me into a monomaniac. At times, though, I have found myself tied up like a dogie on the range in the bureaucracy of larger companies. In those cases I just remind myself – like a caveman of yore going hunting mammoths with a club – that I am doing it to feed my family.

The name of that company was UpShot Corporation, and in 2003 you sold it. I think we all want to know: are you as rich as Bill Gates? :)
There’s a great Talmudic saying which I have hanging on the wall in my office that asks the question “Who is a rich man?” and answers it by saying “The man who rejoices in what he has.” By that criterion, I am a very rich man indeed.

You are wise beyond my understanding. :) What’s the premise of your mystery?
Ian Michaels is a Silicon Valley hotshot. One lunchtime he comes home to find a young, beautiful woman stabbed to death in his apartment. Gwendolyn Goldberg was a stranger to Ian, but her family, old boyfriend, and the Palo Alto police seem to think they were lovers. He waits for the police to start looking for the killer, but realizes they are building a case against him. It’s up to him. As the investigation heats up, so does Ian’s interest in Gwendolyn’s sister, Rowena. By the end of the book, Ian realizes that there are far more important things in life than stock options and business success.

What are you writing now? Is it another Silicon Valley tale?
Way back when, I was counsel to U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee where I worked on anti-terrorism legislation, reports, and such. That’s a rich vein of literary ore to mine. Currently, I’m working on revising a book called Coup, where a Stanford history professor is called back to D.C. to work for – what a coincidence! – the Senate Intelligence Committee.

You have a wife and four children. That’s a fairly big family by today’s standards. Do you find yourself torn between work, book promotion, and family time?
Is it a big family? I know people who have told me they’re only having two kids because they live in a three bedroom house and want the kids to have their own bedrooms. Then I ask them who their favorite person is. Usually it’s a grandparent. Then I ask if that grandparent had his/her own bedroom. “Oh, no,” they laugh. “She grew up with seven siblings in a two-bedroom flat on the Lower East Side.” Typically, they don’t even notice the incongruity. Well, enough ranting on that.

I started a software company. That was all-consuming. I worked long hours six days a week (taking Saturdays off). On the day I signed the papers to sell the company, I got home at noon or so. My then 5-year old said, “Is it bedtime already?” (I have a good time in Dot Dead making fun of the fanaticism endemic to start-ups.) My current schedule is a lot easier than that was.

Your website tells me that much of your novel was written at “the crack of dawn.” Are you an extremely disciplined person?
Disciplined? I don’t think so. I do my writing at a café where there’s no WiFi so I can avoid the tempting diversions of email and the World Wide Web. Goal-oriented? Definitely. My objective was to get Dot Dead written and then published. I put the manuscript away when I started my company, but came back to it. Then after finishing it up, I queried dozens of agents before finding Randi Murray. I met Jackie Winspear at a Left Coast Crime; she’d worked with Randi and told me, “Don’t worry. Randi will find the right publisher.” And so it proved.

Growing up, you watched “local orchards and dairies replaced by tilt-up buildings filled with software engineers.” How did you feel about that? Did you see it as an inevitability?
In Dot Dead, I take an impish delight in contrasting the way Silicon Valley was when I grew up and how it is today. As an entrepreneur, I certainly have been a beneficiary of my hometown becoming the focal point of the world’s high tech industry. Still the changes are definitely not all for the better. When I went to Palo Alto High, the parents of classmates included school teachers, custodians, and shop owners, not just the venture capitalists, executives, lawyers, and doctors who are the parents today. Back in those days, we left our front doors unlocked. My mother dried apricots in the backyard every year. In fact, the old nickname of what’s now Silicon Valley was “The Valley of Heart’s Delight.” I can’t help missing those days and wonder why Silicon Valley should end up here, in the midst of some of the world’s most fertile farmland. Still, I feel awfully lucky to have grown up in the “good old days.”

Your protagonist’s name is Ian—a very cool name which I chose for my first-born. How did you go about naming your sleuth?
My mother said she wanted to give me a name unusual enough so that when she called me for dinner, I was the only one who showed up. That’s how I myself ended up with a Scottish first name. If it was good enough for me, I reckoned it was good enough for the protagonist of Dot Dead. When it came to the murder victim, I played around a little with the incongruity of a Celtic first name and a Jewish last one and named her Gwendolyn Goldberg.

Your plot begins with sort of an homage to some of the classic mysteries: a beautiful woman is found dead in a man’s bed. Are there any writers in particular who inspire you?

Besides that woman who wrote The Dark Backward?

Your flattery is most effective.

More than the books of any writer, I think the films of Alfred Hitchcock provide inspiration to me. You know, there’s some poor shmo blithely leading a middle class life when out of nowhere he or she gets caught up in a spy ring or a murder mystery. We have this ordinary person --played most often by Jimmy Stewart, but also by Robert Donat, Teresa Wright, and even Cary Grant -- who is confronted by an extraordinary challenge and has to raise his/her game and become heroic. That’s what I tried to capture in Dot Dead.



Stuart Kaminsky describes your hero, Ian, as “befuddled.” Is this a plot device, or just a way to make your character seem more human?
Ian had never been a suspect in a murder before. It would be a little unlikely for him to discover that he has an inner Jack Reacher. So of course, he’s confused just like one of us would be.


What’s an average day like for Keith Raffel?
Roll out of bed. Do some push-ups, 33 minutes on the exercycle while I read the Journal, Times, and Mercury, then eat breakfast, and drive to the office listening to a book on tape. At the office, go to meetings, talk on the phone, write memos, and answer e-mails. On the way home, stop at the local café and get in two hours of writing. Then dinner, spend time with the kids, read to my eight-year old (now in the midst of Peter Abrahams’ Behind the Curtain), read on my paisley armchair for an hour. If I haven’t fallen asleep reading, stumble into bed. Next day, the whole thing over again, just like Groundhog Day (one of the best 10 movies of the last quarter century).

Groundhog Day was very existential. And I admire the push-ups. I’ll have to try those. In case you didn’t notice on my blog, I invited you to lunch with me in Chicago. Will you ever be touring in this part of the world?
I’m a native Chicagoan (a Northsider, for those who care about such things). When I was a boy and student and went back to visit, I would be overwhelmed by grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins. Last time I was in Chicago was for a relative’s funeral. They’re all gone, either passed away or moved away. It’s kinda sad. Lunch with you though might be just the draw I need to get myself back there.

Okay, then. What are your hobbies, aside from buying and selling software companies?
I used to love betting on the horses. In fact I supported myself that way for six months – pre-wife, pre-kids, pre-high tech job, pre-writing. Who has time now? I read, I write in my “spare” time. That’s it. Oh! One more thing. I love going to a few mystery conferences a year. They’re sort of like summer camp for adults.

How can readers find out more about Keith Raffel and his mysteries?
Like you, I have both a website (www.keithraffel.com) and blog (www.keithraffel.typepad.com). It would be great to have people stop by the blog and leave a comment. Sometimes I think I’m just talking to myself there. It’s nice to have company.

In space no one can hear you scream. :)

Thanks for chatting, Keith!