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Today is the book birthday for Blood Will Tell, the second in my Point Last Seen series inspired by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office Searcn and Rescue team. Nine months ago, over 100 people signed up for the lastest round of clases. They underwent hundreds of training, and during that time the unit provided over 30,000 hours of volunteer work. It’s a tough course - just 53 finished and 33 completed all 87 requirements for graduation.

Two things make MSCOSAR different. One is the group is teen led and made up primarily of teens. The second is that about 30 percent of what the group does is search for crime scene evidence.

This book features the same three friend as were in Blood Will Tell. Alexis, whose mother is mentally ill. Ruby, who understand things far more than she understand people. And Nick, who desperately wants to prove that he is as strong and brave as he longs to be.

Real-life roots
Blood Will Tell was inspired by two true stories. Back in 1987 in Colorado, a bicyclist checked out what he thought was a mannequin in a field and discovered it was really the body of 37-year-old woman. She had been stabbed in the back and died from blood loss.

But before the bicyclist realized it was really a body, a 15-year-old saw also saw it while walking to school. Thinking it was a mannequin left as a prank, he did not report it to the police. After his father told police that his son usually walked through that lot, the police pulled the teen, whose nickname was ”Toothpick,” out of class.

He was questioned for hous alone, but always said he was innocent. Still, they zeroed in on him because he had never reported the body to the police. There was no physical evidence. They did find hundreds of violent drawings, a couple of knives, and a newspaper clipping about the murder.

Eventually, he was tried for the murder and convicted. It was covered on a lot of “real-life” TV shows, with titles like Drawn to Murder and Murder Illustrated.  In the end, DNA evidence proved his evidence and he won millions from the state of Colorado.

Can DNA lie?
The other case was in San Fransisco. A millionaire was tied up and robbed. He ended up suffocating on the packing tape used to keep him from crying out. A forensics team found DNA on his fingernails that belonged to an unknown person. The sample was put into a DNA database and turned up a “hit” — a local man with a long criminal record.

Arrested and charged with murder, that men spent more than five months in jail with a possible death sentence hanging over his head.

Then his defense realized he had been hospitalized the night of the murder. But how did an innocent man’s DNA end up on a murder victim?

I won't give away the answer, but I will say that for 15 years, German police searched for a serial killer they called the “Phantom of Heilbronn” — an unknown female linked by traces of DNA to six murders across Germany and Austria. Police had found her DNA on items ranging from a cookie to a heroin syringe to a stolen car. She had been involved in over 40 crimes, rangning from murder to a car-dealership robbery and a school break-in,

In 2009, the police found their “suspect”: a worker at a factory that produced the cotton swabs police used in their investigations. She had been accidentally contaminating them with her own DNA.

Those two cases really make me wonder about our reliance on the infallibility of DNA evidence. After all DNA can’t tell your when it’s been left or under what circumstances. It may  not lie, but it may not tell the whole truth either.

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Even a justified shooting by a police officer is classified as a homicide. And that's what took place Thursday right outside my kung fu school, on a stretch of sidewalk I walk on six days a week.

This guy was wanted for several bank robberies. What's more disturbing is that a few months ago he grabbed a teenager working at Palm Beach Tan, pushed her into his minivan and assaulted her. He then took off with her in the van. She escaped by jumping from the moving vehicle. She survived with serious injuries.

Recently, girls who attend the nearby middle and high school had reported a "creepy guy in a van" following them. Three cops, including one who is assigned to the high school, went looking for him. They found his van, but he didn't match the description and said he was going to the library. After he left, they noticed the front and rear plates of the van didn't match.  The high school resource officer found the guy and asked him to put his hands up.  Instead, he reached for a gun. He was shot in the head and the heart and died. The cop was wounded in the hand.

This all happened before the kung fu class I would normally attend.  lass was cancelled last night, but I was actually out with Mutlnomah County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue as they heard from a death investigator. She was a fill in because another medical examiner was doing an autopsy on the dead guy. Circles within circles.

Very strange and unsettling all the way around. Today two reporters tried to interrupt our kung fu class, but were turned away. I could have parked in the spot where I think he died but chose to park on the other side of the street. You can see my car on the right behind the reporter, on the other side of the street.

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This non-fiction account that reads like a novel traces the path of a boy who grew up to be a killer..

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Last month, David Pogue, the New York Times tech guy, had a story about how after someone stole his phone, he used his Find My iPhone app and his 1.4 million (no, that’s not a typo) Twitter followers and a nice cop to get his phone back after it was stolen on an Amtrak train.

You can read the whole story here.

Our exerience
A few months ago, Teen got her phone and wallet stolen while she was at a all-ages venue. The next morning, we used Find My iPhone to track it to a very sketchy area in outer SE Portland. It was at an apartment complex. Sadly, the app isn’t so granular that it will show which apartment it is in, so we were reduced to going door to door and asking tenants if they knew who had “accidentally” picked up her phone. Most of them spoke Korean, Spanish, or Russian. Or they asked their five-year-old to translate. Or the only person who answered the door was a five-year-old, with no adults in sight.

We did not recover the phone.

What has dozens of yellow cars parked in front of it?
That night, Teen checked it again. It had moved to a new location. Satellite view showed it was a building with a couple of dozen yellow cars parked in front of it. We did some Googling and figured out yellow cars = yellow cabs = Broadway Cab. The phone did not move, so we thought it must be in someone’s personal car. I tried talking to the dispatcher, a crusty old guy, and told him the address. He wasn’t able to help me, but he did say it was policy for cabdrivers to turn in anything they found.

By the next morning, the phone was back at the apartment again. This time we went back with a question: does anyone in this apartment building work for a cab company?

And they all pointed at the same apartment in the corner.

Eventually we were able to talk to the taxi driver on Teen’s phone. He offered to give it back to her for $50. (I think it's likely that whoever stole her phone left it in his cab.) I thought about protesting, but it seemed likely that the phone might simply disappear or end up in someone else’s hands. So we got $50 from an ATM.

The handoff
Teen had arranged to meet him in front of The Hilton. She was afraid he might turn tail if he saw two angry parents waiting with her, so she wanted to do the trade herself. I told her, no matter what you do, don’t get into his car. I don’t care what he says, or what he does, or if he says the phone is in another location - do NOT get in his cab.

We parked up the block. I gave her my cell phone. She walked down to stand in front of the Hilton, while my husband waited on the corner opposite with his cell phone.

A yellow cab pulled up. A guy got out and started talking to Teen. I couldn’t see any detail - not what he looked like, not his license plate, not his cab number.

But what I did see was: Teen getting into the back seat of the car.

My heart nearly stopped. But it turned out she had called and cleared it with my husband - she wanted to check to see if her stolen wallet was there, too.

What if...?
So it all turned out okay. But can’t you see it as the great beginning to a book - the door slams, the cab takes off, the girl is gone. Why would someone take her? Was it all a carefully planned ruse to get the girl by getting her phone first? Is she even the real target? Or is it one of the parents, who can only get her back by turning over money or a secret or....

That’s how all my books begin. Thinking “What if....”

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I am a bit behind on reviews, and probably won’t be able to catch up until the weekend.  I returned home from vacation to a broken well, and let me tell you, not having water is not pleasant.  All of the little things you take for granted are suddenly no longer possible – flushing the toilet, washing your hands, taking a shower – even cooking and making coffee!  Thankfully we had it repaired in a few days, but now I have piles of laundry and a billion other things I had to put off until it was fixed. 

In the meantime, one of my favorite 2012 releases, Under the Never Sky, is currently discounted to $2.99 for the Kindle.  If you haven’t read this yet, give it a try.  I am counting down the days until the release of Through the Ever Night.

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi will be discounted at Amazon until Sept 17, so grab your copy soon!  Click the cover for the Amazon product page.

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A lot of you have probably already seen the Salon piece about the author whose book was panned by the New York Times.

The part that most interested me was how, after the fact, an editor began an email correspondence, not with the writer, but with his character. Talk about meta-fiction!

I thought it might be fun to make a real email address for Ben, though, and to let readers email him, especially if they had questions about the puzzles in the book. Ben is a kind of wayfaring pothead version of Will Shortz, and likes to make up riddles and puzzles here and there. He sees life in terms of games. Most of the riddles and puzzles are answered within the book, and none are crucial for the story. Still, thinking it would be amusing – a meta-game for readers – I went to Gmail and made Ben’s address and posted it on my website. I invited people to write him if they had questions about anything in the book.

In the six months the address was up on my site, one person wrote to Ben. It was my friend Hannah.

But when I logged in to Ben’s account on that Monday after the Maslin review, badly hung over, I found a new email awaiting me.

It was not from Hannah. It was from an editor at the New York Times.

The subject line was “Did you get hit on the head?”

Here it is: (Our exchange is published with his permission)

Dear Mr. Hanson,

Given the vagaries of fictional life, I understand that you might not be able to answer this question, which has come up after one of our readers read the review of “This Bright River” that we published. But – in the prologue, are you the person who is hit on the head?

-Ed Marks, Culture Desk


Read more here.

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A lot of folks write crime fiction, and a lot more read it. Not many crime writers have actually spent time in prison, though. Les Edgerton has. He’s also been homeless, an actor, an award-winning hairstylist (a skill he learned in prison), worked in an escort service, a drug addict, and an insurance salesman.

You can read an interview with Edgerton here.

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In 2004, a Julliard student was murdererd after going out for a jog. Her nude body was left in a remote corner of a park with tulip petals strewn around her.

Last week at BookExpo, the prime suspect showed up, hawking a book he had written about the murder. As the New York Daily News said, “He carried around a sealed envelope containing the name of the supposed killer, which came to him in a vision of white letters on a black ground.”

Read more about this bizarre story here.

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Ok, so I am really going riding, but that doesn’t have the same connotation.  My buddy persuaded me to go trail riding this morning, and as the significant other had to work, I thought why the heck not.  This will be Blondie’s first time on the trails, and the first time I have gone in two years.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just the slightest bit apprehensive about  whether or not Blondie will behave, but since Laurie’s mare can be a handful, too, I figure at least I am in good company if Blondie decides that walking through the woods is the scariest activity ever.   If I can snap some pix of the wilderness (local Metro Park) I’ll post again later. 

I hope all of you enjoy your Saturday!

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Halloween is all about the scary and sometimes freaky, but you won't find anything this October 31'st that will compare to the strange, weird and oh so true stories and events in the latest Ripley's Believe It or Not.

This book is 254 pages packed full of the most astonishing and unbelievable things you could ever imagine.  Like the "Head Shrinkers" on page 23, or the "Elephant Face Girl" on page 103.  What about the world's biggest hairball found in the stomach of an 18 year old girl - it weighed 10 pounds!

Here's more of what you can expect among the pages of Ripley's Believe It or Not;

• Strange But True
• Weird World
• Animal Antics
• Extreme Sports
• Body Oddity
• Travel Tales
• Incredible Feats
• Bizarre Mysteries
• Fantastic Food
• Artistic License
• Amazing Science
• Beyond Belief

If you want to learn more about this weird, wacky world around us, grab the latest copy of Ripley's Believe It or Not, available wherever books are sold. 

Ripley's also has a web site; http://www.ripleys.com/ Check it out!

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Stealing from Life: You Can’t Make this Up

I was talking to my friend, LFP, and he told me about a funny thing that happened on the way to work.

It started with a retriever. LFP reads electric meters in a rural area, driving a company truck from house to deer camp to trailer to house. Yesterday, a retriever started following the truck, just keeping them company. The roads were clear, but ditches, fields and driveways-in-the-shade still retained some ice from last week’s winter storm.

Retriever PLUS. Driving along, retriever following, LRP drove up to the next house. It was a nice house, with a two-car garage which was open. Chickens roamed freely in and out of the garage, and as you might expect, the retriever bounded after them. Now there was squawking chickens and a barking dog making a ruckus while LFP tried to get the meter read without dying of laughter.



Retriever Plus Chickens Plus. But wait. One of the chickens, trying to dodge the retriever, dashed into the garage. The dog leapt after the chicken and hit a patch of ice and slid, not stopping until he hit a large trash can full of aluminum cans to recycle. Can you hear it? Chickens squawking, dog barking, cans clattering.

Retriever Plus Chickens Plus Clattering Cans Plus. Oh, but it gets better. Now, a man, dressed only in boxer shorts, dashes out of the house. He carries a broom and starts swatting at the dog, protecting his precious chickens. Swat, squawk, bark, clatter.

Retriever Plus Chickens Plus Clattering Cans Plus Boxer Shorts Plus. Oh, yes. The man suddenly hit a path of ice. Off balance from swatting at the poor retriever, who was just having an adventure, the man slid, lost his balance, dropped the broom, windmilled his arms, and flipped neatly, landing on his boxer shorts.

Thump, swat, squawk, bark, clatter. And now laughter. LFP said it was the funniest thing he’d seen in months.

Writers Listen to Life

What does a writer do with something like this? Laugh.
And file it away for reference.

Because my imagination couldn’t come up with something that good. The slapstick humor, the way the scene and event builds — what a great model for a scene in my next novel. Times like this I’m reminded how important it is to listen to real stories about what’s happening around me.

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Tell me why you love "Mad Men", the AMC TV show that vivifies 1960s Manhattan, the dawn of a certain kind of advertising, the red pucker of big lips, and unblinkered gazing into another's eyes. All right, perhaps you haven't seen the show, perhaps this post is thereby to you seemingly irrelevant, but nonetheless, I have climbed onto this cliff and I will stay here until I explain:

I love "Mad Men" for its subtlety. Yes, subtlety. I know we are talking ad men and 1960s style TV, but I claim subtlety as the reason that all writers out there should be watching this show—sitting up straight and taking note of how the hard stuff gets done.

There are, for example, those leitmotifs. There is the submergence of the same, the way the show seems to move on, spiral forward, until suddenly the show's past is its present again—an old argument surfaces, a familiar sweater appears, a longing is ripped back open, and the whole thing burgeons with the messy complication of life and how life is lived. I am not going to fight you, Don Draper says to his wife in one episode. I'll say what you want me to say, but I won't fight you. And there it is—an answer to a question, all a viewer has to know about what has gone on behind the scenes in a household that is permanently unsteady. Somewhere off stage, an argument we had seen coming but did not fully witness has been had. Agreements have been made. The rules have changed.

One of the hardest things about writing well is recognizing that life is never neat, never only present-flowing, never summarily concluded. Writers have to honor that fact without burdening the reader with knotted tangents. "Mad Men" honors the messiness of life while being one of the most gorgeous and most carefully crafted TV shows of all time.

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A friend emailed today and told me I've been neglecting my 'real life'.

By that she meant this blog. (I think)

Well, whatever she meant it got me thinking.

Maybe I have been neglecting this real life. But, maybe I've been neglecting my real real life, too. I'm seriously starting to think I need to completely unplug for a few days and breath.

But can I do it? Can I really do it? I mean, how will I know what all my "friends" are tweeting about? What if I miss out on something? And what if I have something really clever to tweet myself? All of my 133 friends will miss out, then.

And how will I survive not checking how well Smudge's Mark is doing in the Amazon sales ranking? I mean, so what if no one on the planet - other than the mute and hidden gods of Amazon - knows what the ranking system means; I still want to know. Every day.

And how can I live without the Yahoo news headlines? I mean, think about it. If I'd unplugged myself yesterday, I'd totally have missed out on seeing Lady GaGa's flaming brazier today.

And how would I survive without my email account? I mean, what if I get a rejection email from one of the agents I've queried. I sure wouldn't want to miss out on that, not even for one day! I've been waiting so long for those!

"Real life", or real real life?

Hmmmm...

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