One day I was at the grocery store, and I kept hearing someone whistling and sounding very cheerful. It seemed that the whistler was always one aisle ahead of me. I finally turned up another aisle, and there was a very little, very old woman, whistling “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean,” and grinning from ear to ear. I stopped her and told her that her whistling had brightened my day.

This chance meeting also sparked an idea for a story. “The Trouble with Whistling” was hatched that day and it’s now available on Amazon.com.

Sandi Webster, P.I., is having a memorable week. The cases are piling up, and she has an eighty-something woman, Tillie, and a teenage boy, Mike, suddenly left in her care. All of the distractions have left her feeling clumsy and accident-prone. 

Tillie seems to have a song to whistle for every occasion, and the young man, while mature for his age, might be a liability. However, they both aspire to the same thing; to go on ride-alongs with Sandi.

While investigating a burglary case, a man is murdered in the same neighborhood. Should Sandi take on this latest case? Or are her hands full with burglars, elderly victims and stalkers?

And why would whistling be a problem? Afterall, it’s just a form of entertainment for a happy senior citizen.

I’ve been off the grid, in a manner of speaking, for a while now. Between covid and the lockdowns (thankfully mostly over), health and family issues, and moving across the country, things haven’t been normal. It’s time for things to settle down and get back to normal (whatever that is), for all of us.

My daughter and I have moved to Mississippi and I’ve found that I love it here! I don’t think I’ll ever regret the move. Sometimes we have to make a change in our lives when led to do it. And who knows? Maybe life in this beautiful, wonderful, slower-paced life might lead to another story.

The quieter life has given me plenty of time to think and I believe it’s about time for Sandi and her husband, Pete, to make a return trip to Wolf Creek. (“Old Murders Never Die”) One of my older books was about Sandi and Pete being stranded in a deserted ghost town where Sandi dared to solve an old murder. What if she returns to the town and discovers another secret? It could be fun. I’ll have to give it a lot of thought.

Sandi solves current day cases, as in the latest story, but she has the most fun and the biggest challenges when someone approaches her with a vintage case that’s just begging to be solved.

The characters I write about are fun to work with and they seem to evolve into whoever and whatever they want to be, without much help from me. Tillie was definitely fun to create, and she reminds me of a number of seniors I’ve known throughout my life. Her great-grandson, Mike, has been involved in mysteries with his parents in The Bogey Man Mysteries. He’s grown into a mature thirteen-year-old who’s more savvy than anyone gives him credit for.

Thank you for joining me today and for letting me tell you a little about “The Trouble with Whistling” and an idea for a new story. Life is good here in Mississippi and getting better every day!

Until next time, I wish you good health and joy in your day-to-day lives.

The Sandi Webster Mysteries, The Bogey Man Mysteries, and The Accidental Gumshoe Mysteries are available from Amazon.com, along with a couple of standalone mysteries. I hope you’ll check out some entertaining stories.

Click here to take a trip to Amazon.com

Hearing Voices

 

Surprisingly, one question that’s been posed to me numerous times is, “Do you hear your characters’ voices in your head?” The answer is, of course. Although not audible voices, every character I write about speaks to me at one time or another.

Each character has his or her own personality, and his or her own habits. Fictional characters are just as individual as real people.

Yes, the characters talk to me. Sandi Webster tells me that she wants to be good at her job, and she’s not always happy when I write that she’s bumbled her way through a situation, or she overlooked something. She wants to be taken seriously. I can’t blame her. I feel the same way. She also tells me how frustrated she is sometimes. Sorry, Sandi, but that’s life.

Livvie Brewster, Sandi’s mother, is menopausal and when she talks, I listen, no questions asked. I always hope she’s remembered to take her hormone pills. Martha Workman, Sandi’s aunt, can be gruff and bossy, but as a retired school teacher she tries to be tactful. Okay, she’s not tactful, and she’s outspoken. These sisters are often pushy and take off in their own direction. Their voices can be loud and demanding.

It’s a bit different when male characters try to talk to me. They don’t always understand the women in their lives. Peter Goldberg is an ex-cop and Sandi’s husband and partner, and he was used to being in charge. He wants to protect Sandi, and he can’t understand why she’s so adamant about being in control of her own destiny.

Stanley Hawks is a meek and mild little man who works for Sandi and Pete and who hasn’t experienced much in his life – that is, until he met and married Felicity, and they had a son. All bets are off as he grows and learns. He talks to me about wishing he could be more like “one of the guys.” I try to help him with his wish.

The animals in my books can be especially fun to listen to, but they can be boring, too. They mostly talk about eating, playing, pooping and sleeping. No surprise there, but every once in a while they tell me they want to play a real part in the stories. Bubba and Clementine can be pushy when the want to be, but they do enjoy watching out for their people. 

There’s a new character on the scene, too (The Accidental Gumshoe – A Sandi Webster Mystery). Sioux Simms is Sandi’s great-great-great-aunt. She was a teenager back in 1920. Listening to her voice was a whole new experience since things were so different in that era. The situations she gets into and the slang in her speech made me sit up and pay attention.

The Bogey Man Mysteries is another series and a whole different set of voices, including that of a young boy. He has to speak a bit louder when talking to me because I’ve never had a son and I don’t always understand what he wants to say or do. The dogs in this series are different, too. They have issues they show me more than they tell me.

Writing about a bad guy or a victim is one of the hardest things to do. They speak to me and say things I’d rather not hear – ugly things and sometimes sad things. I’d rather watch the world through rose-colored glasses, and they won’t allow that. It’s simply not a rose-colored world and they frequently remind me of the realities of life.

Do you ever hear voices in your head? Sometimes they’re just memories or wishes. Or maybe you should be writing a book. Think about it.

Until next time, I wish you a week of rose-colored experiences and peaceful voices – one can always hope for the best.

CLICK HERE to buy mysteries by Marja McGraw.

Just released: The Accidental Gumshoe – A Sandi Webster Mystery (Aunt Sioux can be quite entertaining.)

 

The View from the Other Side

Every once in a while, Marja McGraw runs out of ideas for posts, so this week I’m giving her a break and taking over. My name is Sandi Webster-Goldberg, I’m a private investigator, and taking over is something I do often.

I’m not altogether sure how Marja thought me up, but I once heard her say she originally planned on basing me on a younger version of Sally Field. Well, I showed her. Within the first chapter of the first book, I took on a personality of my own. I didn’t want to be based on anyone but myself.

I later heard her say she’d decided to base my menopausal mother on Sally, but as you can read for yourself in the books, that plan fell short of the mark, too. My mother is a one-of-a-kind. Why, she once took down a mugger while in the throes of a mood swing. Poor guy – I almost felt sorry for him.

As a P.I., I’m proud of the work I do. I do a lot of work for insurance companies, but I’ve also brought down a number of bad guys – some of them really bad.

My life is full. I have Pete, my partner and now husband, our friends Stanley and Felicity, and I should probably explain that I hired Pete not long after I opened my agency. In true fictional form, the business took off and I needed help. We’ve had our ups and downs, but overall we make a great couple.

Stanley was one of our first clients. He was being stalked, but I won’t go into that because Marja has already written a story that will explain Pete’s and my relationship with Stanley. When we met him, he was writing verses for greeting cards, but now he works for us. Stanley met Felicity when Pete and I were out of town and she stopped in to ask for help. They are the cutest, smartest and clumsiest couple I know.

I have an elderly neighbor named Dolly who owns a cat named Miss Kitty. I always feel a little silly when I refer to Miss Kitty. Dolly is like the grandmother I never knew, and she loves what I do for a living even more than her soap operas. She hasn’t been in the last couple of books much, but she’ll be back soon.

I have a dog named Bubba. He’s half wolf and half Golden retriever, and he’s, well, big. Very big. And he smiles frequently. The first time he smiled at me he was a stray and I thought he was baring his teeth at me. I almost called the dog catcher. However, it turns out that Bubba’s just a big ol’ bear-sized lovable mutt. And he can be very protective when the need arises. The latest addition to the family is a Chiwienie named Clementine, half Chihuahua and half Dachshund. She’s quite a character.

 

So far Marja has exposed me to a hundred-year-old family-related murder, Bubba thinking there was a ghost in the attic, a young woman being harassed by a bum, and an eight-something year old woman (P.I. in the 1940s) who wanted me to solve a cold case for her. As if that wasn’t enough, Marja brought the Bogey Man into my life. I have to admit, he was quite a character. One of my favorite actors is Humphrey Bogart and this guy was a dead ringer for Bogey. After that, Marja sent Pete and me to a ghost town where we became stranded. Actually, that was a lot of fun.

 

We helped my mother and stepfather renovate an old house full of mystery to be used as a Bed & Breakfast, we saved a billionaire with the help of my eccentric Aunt Martha, solved a cold case in Battle Ground, Washington, where we now own a vacation home, and we became involved in a cold case involving an old gin mill. I could go on, but I don’t want to give away any secrets.

I can’t help but wonder what Marja has up her sleeve next. I know my author is sometimes frustrated with me. She wants to go one way and I want to go the other. She’ll write a scene for me, scratch her head and rewrite the whole scene. Sometimes I’m dizzy from all the rewriting.

After all is said and done, all I can say is that I think it’s very generous of me to take over the blog this week. I hope Marja is busily writing me into another mystery as I carry her load.

Like Marja always says: Until next time, have a great week and enjoy a big chocolate bar. We do have chocolate in common.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw’s website

CLICK HERE for a quick trip to Amazon.com

Marja: Actually, I’m working on a Bogey Man mystery right now (my 20th book), but Sandi’s latest case will be on the drawing board soon.