Janice Hamrick: Breaking & Entering

Many of us wonder if writers of crime fiction have any criminal tendencies. Janice Hamrick, author of Death On Tour and Death Makes The Cut, sort of answers this question while recounting her attempted B&E last summer. Check it out over at Algonquin Redux.

http://algonquinredux.com/2013/02/21/the-inexplicable-thought-processes-of-a-mystery-writer/

MysteryPeople Q&A with Janice Hamrick

Austin’s Janice Hamrick submitted her manuscript for Death On Tour for the Minataur/MWA First Mystery Competion and won herself a publishing deal. Her second book, Death Makes The Cut, is even better. Janice has gotten to be one of our favorite writers both on the page and in person. She was even kind enough to answer a few questions.

MYSTERYPEOPLE: How different was writing your second Jocelyn Shore book compared to the first?

JANICE HAMRICK: The writing itself came more easily. Having gone through the process once gave me more confidence when I ran into a snag or couldn’t figure out something. Knowing that I would be able to work through it and having developed some techniques from the first book made it go more smoothly.  It was also far more intense. In Death on Tour, the murder victims as well as the group of suspects were all strangers to Jocelyn, which made the deaths and the mystery shocking, but not painful. In Death Makes the Cut, Jocelyn is on home ground. The murder victim was a close friend and mentor. The suspects are all people she knows or thinks she knows. This is a very personal story for Jocelyn…and therefore for me. I admit I actually cried a couple of times while writing. How pathetic is that?

MP: You did a great job of portraying the high school teachers with their gossiping and cliques that rival the students’. As somebody who isn’t a teacher, how did you approach that world?

JH: To some extent, everyone shares a common high school experience. The wonderful but often weird teachers, the underhanded school politics, the intense competition is something everyone knows from their own student days. As far as I can tell nothing has changed at all (unless it has actually intensified) over the years. In addition, I experienced high school life and clubs as a parent volunteer and I also got to hear some pretty hair-raising stories told by my kids and their friends.  The astonishing mixture of high ideals and cruelty, of ruthless competition and overwhelming generosity all blend together seamlessly in every high school activity that I witnessed. Honestly, sometimes I felt like a puppy dropped into a shark tank.

MP: You use Austin locales with as much detail as you described Egypt in Death On Tour. What does setting provide for you as a writer?

JH: Setting is reality, and without a solid physical location, a story just isn’t grounded. In some novels (for example, in Death on Tour), the location is almost another character – the story really could not take place anywhere else. Even when the setting isn’t a major player, the overall ambience, the physical distances, even things like the weather, all come together to bring the story to life.

MP: Death On Tour reminded me a bit of the Audrey Hepburn/Carey Grant film, Charade, with the romance between Jocelyn and Alan taking as much precedence as the thriller aspects. In Death Makes The Cut, you put her in the center of a love triangle. Are the romantic comedy aspects of Jocelyn’s life as important as whatever mystery she’s in?

JH: Definitely.  Jocelyn is someone who has her professional life together – she loves being a teacher, she’s very good at it, and she has a great deal of confidence. But she’s had really bad luck (or made bad choices if you prefer) in her personal life. She’s already been divorced and her first husband is a real tool. She thinks she’s found love with Alan, but after a super start, their relationship is faltering. I find the contrast between her contained and controlled professional life with her messy personal life fascinating. I also love that whether things are going well or not, she tempers romance with a lot of humor. Her ideal man is also going to have to be her best friend. And now I’m going to go watch Charade – you have me really curious.

MP: You get a little rougher in this book, with Jocelyn getting beat up and packing a gun. Was it fun writing a more hard boiled “light” mystery?

JH: It was both fun and more challenging for me. The somewhat rougher, darker events grew naturally from the personal nature of the events and the characters. I enjoyed having Jocelyn care so deeply about Fred’s death. I also liked making the events both real and somewhat disturbing.  The light and humorous side of Jocelyn’s character permeate all aspects of her life, but she got thrown into the deep end in this story, and I wanted to be able to explore what that would mean to her. I think many of us have a flippant, half cynical attitude about daily life, but occasionally reality rips through the deck, and it was really interesting to look at that side of things.

MP: Can you hint at what’s next for Jocelyn?

JH: Murder, romance, and family crises, and not necessarily in that order. The third book in the series will find Jocelyn attended a Thanksgiving family reunion at her uncle’s ranch in central Texas. She and Kyla arrive to find their cousin is missing, the cousin’s husband is dead, and more than one family member is a prime suspect. Add a fixed horse race, a clandestine rendezvous at the rodeo, and a wild-card 95 year old uncle, and Jocelyn just might start contemplating the advantages of changing her name and moving to a deserted island.

Come out Friday, July 27th, 7pm when Janice discusses and signs Death Makes The Cut. Join us for a drink and celebrate a local author who is going places. Copies of Death Makes the Cut are available on our shelves and from www.bookpeople.com. 

MysteryPeople Review: DEATH MAKES THE CUT

MysteryPeople welcomes Janice Hamrick to BookPeople this Friday, July 27 at 7p.

Last year Janice Hamrick debuted with Death On Tour, a book that won the Minotaur/MWA First Novel competition and introduced us to Austin high school teacher Jocelyn Shore who had to solve a murder on her discount tour through Egypt. The book’s mix of Hitchcock style thriller and romantic comedy, infused with Hamrick’s eye for human detail, made a great read for fans of light mysteries as well as winning over some of us hard boiled fans. With her latest, Death Makes The Cut, Janice Hamrick proves that it wasn’t just beginner’s luck.

In the first book, Jocelyn mentions her experiences as a teacher helps her solve the crime. In the new book, Hamrick puts Jocelyn right in her element with the murder of the tennis coach on the first day of school. The plot deals with possible drug dealing, a Twilight-like movie being shot on campus, school politics and angry parents all putting her own life in jeopardy.

Jocelyn also finds herself in a love triangle. She starts to wonder about her feelings for Alan, who she met in Death On Tour, when the investigating detective, Colm Gallagher, makes himself available for her. There is a very funny scene when the two men meet one another with Jocelyn in between them. Even her ex-husband shows up.

Where Hamrick excels is in her use of the school setting. She shows the gossip between Jocelyn and her fellow educators with ease and believability. She depicts them having as many cliques as the students. She weaves the school politics, bureaucracy, and general soap opera atmosphere into the plot, proving that people are most vicious when the stakes are so low. She also  looks at the happiness the job can bring, especially when Jocelyn becomes the defacto tennis coach.

In Jocelyn Shore, Janice Hamrick has given us a character worth following. She is a smart, every day woman dealing with situations that are over her head in a believable way. What makes her even more relatable is the way she becomes frustrated by her own emotions as much as she’s frustrated by the corner criminals back her into. Start reading and before long you’ll see why it’s not just Alan and Detective Gallagher falling for Jocelyn Shore, it’s readers, too.

MysteryPeople welcomes Janice Hamrick to BookPeople to speak about and sign Death Makes the Cut this Friday, July 27 at 7pm.

On Sale Today: DEATH MAKES THE CUT

The latest book from award-winning Austin mystery author Janice Hamrick is on our shelves today. In Death Makes the Cut, single high school teacher Jocelyn Shore has to deal with the murder of a colleague, filling in as the tennis coach, and a homicide detective who is taken with her. We’re big fans of Janice’s first book, Death on Tour, and are thrilled to celebrate this new book with her on Friday, July 27 at 7p. Come out and discover why we’re so taken with Janice both in print and in person.

Congratulations, Janice!

Now in Paperback: DEATH ON TOUR

Our other big on-sale announcement of the day: Austin author Janice Hamrick’s Death on Tour is now in paperback! This novel, about a Texas high school teacher who works to uncover the mysterious death of a fellow tourist while on vacation in Egypt , won the 2010 Mystery Writers of America/Minotaur Books First Crime Novel Competition. The next book in the series, Death Makes the Cut, goes on sale July 17th. We’ll have Janice here to celebrate the release on Friday, July 27. Mark your calendars! And start reading these books, Janice is a wonderful writer (take a look at her previous posts on this very blog for the proof).

Malice Domestic – Not just the feeling you get when your kids won’t take out the trash

~Guest Post by Janice Hamrick, author of Death On Tour and Death Makes the Cut

Contrary to what its name might suggest, Malice Domestic is an annual fan convention “saluting the traditional mystery”. Think Agatha Christie, Mary Higgins Clark, or Elizabeth Peters, and you’ve got it. Held every year in Bethesda, Maryland, Malice Domestic is a chance for fans and writers to get together, find out what’s new, compare experiences, and talk about the books we love.

For me, going to Malice is a little like being a kid in a candy store. The convention starts off bright and early on Friday morning with Malice Go Round –sort of like speed dating for writers. Sitting in comfort at a table, I listened with delight as authors presented me with synopses of their latest works. I came away with a fistful of bookmarks, candy, and other literary swag and a list about a mile long of new novels I could not wait to read. The convention was barely an hour old, and I was already calculating how many books I could stuff into my suitcase without tipping the scales at the check-in counter. After that came the panels – and the hardest thing of all was deciding which one to attend out of the four or five scheduled for the same time. Imagine trying to choose between hearing Hank Phillippi Ryan, Laurie R. King, and Beth Groundwater for example. And that was in just one session.

Then there are the moments of serendipity – running into friends, meeting new authors, seeing authors whom I’ve revered for years. I passed Carolyn Hart in a hallway, and I’m sure I impressed her with my slack jawed expression and stuttered greeting. (She, of course, was completely charming.) Before my panel (If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium: Travel Mysteries), I met a reader who not only read my novel Death on Tour, but said she had preordered my second novel Death Makes the Cut and couldn’t wait to read it. It was amazing to hear something like that from anyone who has not given birth to me. (Unless, of course, she was my mom wearing a very clever disguise…but no, I don’t think so.)

One of the highlights for me came during the session given by The Poison Lady, Luci Zahray, who is an extraordinarily knowledgeable Texas pharmacist and toxicologist who provides information to mystery writers about common and easily obtainable poisons. As she explained just how deadly antifreeze can be, her two hundred plus listeners (instead of being both alarmed and appalled) frantically took notes and interrupted her with questions about symptoms and timeline to death. And I thought …yes, these are my people.

Malice Domestic has been celebrating mysteries for the past 24 years, and although this was only my second, a few intrepid fans have attended every single year. Someone asked me if I planned to come back next year. Let me think….a convention for intrigue, betrayal, murder, and the people who love them. Darn right I’ll be coming back!

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Janice Hamrick’s first novel, Death on Tour, was published after winning the Mystery Writers of America/Minotaur Books First Crime Novel award. The second Jocelyn Shore mystery, Death Makes the Cut, is now on shelves and she’s working on the third. Janice lives in Austin.

An Award to Remember…..

~Guest Post by Janice Hamrick, author of Death On Tour and Death Makes the Cut

The MWA Agents and Editor’s Cocktail Party is one of the many events making up the Edgar Awards festivities in New York City each April, and this year I got to go. I could lie and be all blasé about it, but it was pretty much as fascinating as it sounds – a room full of writers, editors, agents, and publishers at every level of experience and success sipping wine and sampling an impressive variety of bite-sized hors d’oeuvres carried by wait staff who were a great deal better dressed than I. I’m pretty sure I sampled them all – the hors d’oeuvres that is, not the wait staff. (Anything that fits in your mouth without the need to unhinge your jaw is too small to be counted as calories, right?)

This cocktail party was no evening soiree filled with tuxedoed gents and bejeweled ladies in cocktail dresses, but rather a festive business casual happy hour. Instead of a darkened glamorous room filled with hushed voices and the quiet tinkle of ice cubes floating in gin, this setting was exuberant, filled with laughter and the pearly gray light of a New York April evening. It was the kind of party where the participants stand in intimate little knots leaning toward each other with bent necks and cocked heads because it is too noisy to do otherwise. All around, little groups form and pause before breaking, swirling, and regrouping into new formations like the best kind of kaleidoscope. It’s the kind of party where friends who’d seen each other yesterday hugged, where acquaintances who hadn’t seen each other since the last Edgar Awards caught up with the happenings of a busy and fruitful year, and where strangers met for the first time, often with cries of recognition: “I’ve heard so much about you!” The energy and excitement were invigorating and…did I mention the wine and snacks?

Of course, the crowning moment of the evening was the presentation of the Mary Higgins Clark award by Mary Higgins Clark herself. The award is for a traditional mystery featuring a female amateur sleuth. This year, the nominees were

Now You See Me by S.J. Bolton
Come and Find Me by Hallie Ephron
Death on Tour by Janice Hamrick
Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry
Murder Most Persuasive by Tracy Kiely

Yes, that’s my name there in the middle, and I’ll end the suspense: Learning to Swim was the deserving winner, and although winning would have rocked, I was truly honored to be among such a wonderful group of nominees. For one thing, being nominated gave me an excuse to go to New York. For another, it gave me a chance to meet and speak with some of my fellow writers. As always, I found myself both pleased and startled to observe how truly nice they all are. For a group who spends a sizable portion of their time devising ways to kill other people, almost all my fellow writers are exceptionally kind and supportive. I say “almost all” only because I haven’t met all of them and surely there are one or two bastards out there. So far, though, I’ve never come across one. (Hmmm…maybe that means it’s me.)

In any event, the party made one of the best and brightest memories in my writing career so far. Getting to meet Mary Higgins Clark and my fellow nominees didn’t hurt. Getting to go to dinner with my fabulous agent David Hale Smith and editor extraordinaire Matt Martz didn’t hurt either. They have my heartfelt thanks for creating an evening that a very new writer will treasure forever. My next stop is the Malice Domestic mystery writers conference held in Bethesda. I’m looking forward to another few days of intrigue and suspense. Wonder if there will be wine and hors d’oeuvres…

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Janice Hamrick’s first novel, Death on Tour, was published after winning the Mystery Writers of America/Minotaur Books First Crime Novel award. The second Jocelyn Shore mystery, Death Makes the Cut, is now on shelves and she’s working on the third. Janice lives in Austin. 

The Mary Higgins Clark Award

The Mary Higgins Clark Award is given out at a special party the night before the Mystery Writers Of America’s Edgar Awards, which are given to suspense writers. I’m very happy to announce that two friends of ours (who we had the honor of hosting with their debut novels) made the list.

Sara J. Henry with Learning To Swim – This is a great cross between Du Maurier’s Rebecca and your favorite Harlan Coben thriller. Just released in paperback.

 

 

 

Janice Hamrick with Death On Tour – This is a very funny mystery about a murder on a discount Egyptian tour. Janice is an Austin author who not only won the MWA/St. Martins First Crime Novel Prize, but also wrote a chick lit style mystery an affirmed hard boiled fan like myself can love.

 

Congratulations ladies!