murder and mystery in your hometown
Photographs stir the imagination, right? Some years ago, I used pictures of my father’s WWII Platoon to help me develop a character for my first mystery. For starters I stole the last name of one of his comrades, Beer, and gave it to my protagonist. Then I rounded out Jack Beer’s family background by borrowing from my own family’s history… taking some truths but fabricating most of it.
I know that many readers prefer to actually hold a book in their hands. If that’s you, my mysteries are available at Gregarious Cravings on Main Street, Exeter, The Village Bookshop, Main Street, Bayfield and Fincher’s on the Square in Goderich. Due to Covid the stores are no longer taking on new orders for me. So, go to ‘Contact’ and I’ll make arrangements to get a book to you, if you’d like. Thanks.
Or, if I can swing it, I will deliver your book in person. Just get in touch and we’ll see if that’s possible.
I used to offer a mail service but the costs have risen so high, I found most people took a pass. But, if you insist, contact me and we’ll get ‘er done.
As a Hitchcock fan, I like to think he would have used ‘The Interview’ to create one of his creepier episodes. Go to ‘Buy Now’ if you would like to read this short story (at no cost). I retrieved a Bruce Peninsula memory to draw the farmhouse in which the interview took place.
This pic from the winter edition of Boomers’ Magazine (Huron-Perth). My fellow-traveller (on a 3400 km bicycle ride. Uphill and into the wind all the way) inspired one of my characters from Things Left Behind. By the way, there were no barber shops in Western Canada in the early ‘70s.
Sometimes my writing needs a creative jump-start but for every day inspiration, I look at a forest scene painted by my daughter Beth… like this one, hanging above my computer screen.
Ever make up a bedtime story? You can be silly. You can fly off in all directions. You don’t have to make sense. And kids get into it, throwing in some goofiness of their own.
Going way, way, way back, I wrote down a few of my made-up ditties, including one about the kid who fell headfirst into a bowl of porridge and disappeared. I may resurrect it with the younger grands.
My fifth Jack Beer mystery is coming along. Like the earlier books, this one is set in and around Grand Bend except this time it starts out in an exotic locale. ‘Franklin’ offers up a hint. Or, if you’d rather not guess, I’ll send the prologue. Just let me know. (photo by Tim Hundey)
I recently read a good mystery in which the author made reference to the Niagara Escarpment’s Precambrian Shield geology… the problem being, the Bruce Peninsula’s exposed rock formations are not at all connected to the Precambrian Shield. Come evening I mentioned the book’s misstep to Jane, my wife. She felt I was nitpicking. Then again she wasn’t a geography major.
Same evening, we watched Sam Gamgee free his pack horse before entering the mines of Moria (Lord of the Ring trilogy, movie 1). But wait…. the ‘Fellowship’ had no pack horse on their journey to the mines (unlike the book). This time, Jane and I went to bed agreeing that was indeed a big blunder.
But nothing compares with William Shatner’s cover of ‘Lucy in the Skies with Diamonds.’
Been away from book stuff for a few weeks while my wife was laid up, so I took the opportunity to read some nonsensical sketches by Mark Twain (published in 1903). His ‘Personal Habits of Siamese Twins’ gave us a bad case of the giggles… particularly the part describing their roles in the Civil War: you see, twin Eng joined the Union side and twin Chang the Confederate side. Once in battle, they managed to capture each other. When a Tribunal couldn’t determine who exactly was the captor and who was the captive, the solution was to consider them both caught and to work out a prisoner exchange.
In addition to a notice for a subscription to History Magazine (love it), my father-in-law included an old penny with my birthday card. Our phone conversation afterward:
‘I found it,’ he said. ‘There’s a story behind this coin.’
‘Probably.’
‘There is,’ he said, forcefully. Translation… not ‘probably.’
So, I wrote a short piece, which a number of people seem to like. If you want a copy, get in touch at jrhundey@sympatico.ca. and I’ll send one along.
couldn’t get the real coin in focus.