Beth Terrell – Lady With an Alias

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books, detective, mystery, PI, suspense

Jared McKean is a private investigator with a past. He falls for women in distress and in Racing the Devil, Terrell’s first in the PI series, he finds himself in bed with a black-and-blue bruised woman in a halter top in less than 15 pages. The sex is “all animal ferocity and passion, sweat and thrust and howl and moan.” Ten pages later, he’s wanted for murder and you are not going to put this book down.

It’s a beginning that startled me, having met the author Beth Terrell (pen name Jaden Terrell) six months earlier.  Beth is soft-spoken, maybe a bit on the shy side, and nearing middle-age, not at all the in your face, no holds barred writer of a private “dick” novel — that’s what the soon-to-be dead woman called Jared.

Beth confessed she took the pen name Jaden thinking the name had more of an edge and element of mystery to it than her given name. She also uses a “headshot” on her social media that begs you to want to know more and is light years away from what she Beth says is her cherub-faced school -teacher appearance.  She’s probably right, but after reading Racing the Devil, Beth’s writing stands on its own, her real name and real face are irrelevant.

Beth knew she wanted to be a writer from the time she was eight years old. And, when stories about hard-boiled private investigators called, she schooled herself in the genre by reading everything she could find. She also attended the local Citizens Police Academy, the FBI Citizens Academy, the Tennessee Bureau’s Citizens Academy and Lee Lofland’s Writers’ Police Academy–one experience not being enough to satisfy Beth’s curiosity and thirst for knowledge.  Then, too, she’s a member of nearly every crime writer’s organization I know, Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and Private Eye Writers of America. For many years, Beth served as the Special Programs Director of Killer Nashville, the mystery/thriller writers’ annual conference in Nashville.

Oh, and did I forget to mention Beth holds a Red Belt in Tae Kwan Do?

The softer side does come through, both when she exposes the kinder side of Jared McKean and when Beth explores the tortured relationship McKean has with his ex-wife, a woman he can’t forget—at least as far as I have read.  That side of Beth comes from a career in special education, a passion for ballroom dancing, and a certification in Equine Massage Therapy, the latter explaining why horses make frequent appearances in her novels.

You don’t have to take my word for how well written her PI series is or how devoted she is to her craft.  Beth is a Shamus Award nominee, and winner of the Magnolia Award for service to her local chapter of Mystery Writers of America.

A Taste of Blood and Ashes is the fourth installment in Beth Terrell’s series.  It is available on line and in bookstores everywhere as are the other installments, if like me, you are starting with the first.

I want to be Beth Terrell when I grow up, but for now, I’ll just count myself as one of her many friends on facebook and in real life. She has come to my rescue at a book signing in Nashville—a city where I barely knew more than a handful of people—shouting out my event across her network. I couldn’t ask for more.

Read more about Beth Terrell on her website.

http://www.jadenterrell.com/

 

Nancy Drew – My First Girl Detective

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books, detective, first books, mystery, sleuth, thriller

Can you remember the first “real” novel you read—or at least an early, early one—a book that launched you down the reading path? In my case, it was a hand me down. I had an older sister who loved to read (and still loves to read, devouring a book or two each week) and so, when she discarded a book it found its way to me.

If memory serves me correctly, my first was a Nancy Drew mystery. With over forty titles in the series by the early 1960s, I can’t say now whether I started with “The Secret of the Old Clock,” or “The Hidden Staircase,” or the “Clue in the Diary,” or “The Message in the Hollow Oak,” or “The Haunted Bridge”… There seemed to be an unending supply of the books for girls, written as I later discovered by a syndicate under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene.

In retrospect, I suppose they were perfect novels for girls who would become women in the 1970s. Nancy triumphed where others failed. She even went on to be “Nancy Drew, Girl Detective” in the series that continued into this century. Somehow, I think Nancy changed with the times; and I shudder to think of her texting or playing pokemango. For me she’ll forever be climbing dark staircases, running through dark forests, or exploring attics, on her own or with an occasional sidekick. And, of course, she’ll always find the clue and solve the mystery.

The books are definitely for the young reader. Consider the opening words of “The Hidden Staircase.”

Nancy Drew began peeling off her garden gloves as she ran up the porch steps and into the hall to answer the ringing telephone. She picked it up and said, “Hello!”

“Hi, Nancy! This is Helen.” Although Helen Corning was nearly three years older than Nancy, the two girls were close friends.

“Are you tied up on a case?” Helen asked.

“No. What’s up? A mystery?”

“Yes–a haunted house.”

Nancy sat down on the chair by the telephone. “Tell me more!” the eighteen-year old detective begged, excitedly.

There you have it, in less than one hundred words: three exclamation points, a mystery, a haunted house, and a sidekick. Oh yes, and long garden gloves that have to be peeled off.

Seriously, maybe there is a reason to go back and read a few books from the series. In this very short passage there’s drama, tension, suspense, and the beginnings of character description.  With chapters titled “Strange Music,” “Frightening Eyes,” and “An Elusive Ghost,” to come, what’s not to love?

With my own new novel, a thriller, coming to market this fall, maybe I can call my publisher and ask them to hold the presses while I inject a bit of Nancy into my own heroine.