Mystery Music

My heartfelt thanks to all veterans, past and present. God bless you!

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I turned on the local news on Saturday morning and heard a story that should pique the interest of most mystery writers. Imagine that.

The Delaware River runs between New Jersey and Delaware. For the last couple of weeks people have been hearing loud (lots of base) music. It starts in the early evening and ends around two or three o’clock in the morning. It’s equal opportunity music, meaning it’s rock, jazz, salsa, classical and who knows what else?

The people in both states hear it, and it sounds like it’s coming from the Delaware side of the river.

Needless to say, it’s driving people nuts and interfering with their sleep. There have been numerous complaints to the police about the noise, and yet no one has been able to determine where the music is coming from. Apparently the music suddenly stopped, but many people have said they’ve heard it occasionally over the past few months. It was only recently that it became a nightly event.

By the way, I don’t live in either state, but across the country. However, how could I, in good conscience, pass up sharing this story?

Would this inspire a mystery? Of course, it would. The story could take so many different directions.

Ghostly music trying to lead the authorities to a murder scene? Maybe someone is purposely trying to drive people nuts. It could be an elderly woman who can’t hear the music without the volume turned up. She could be a little crazy and she’s buried bodies in her basement over the years. Maybe someone is trying to make some kind of point.

If you presented the original scenario to seven hundred mystery writers, they could probably come up with at least five hundred ideas. (You have to draw the line somewhere. I figured five hundred was a good cutoff point.)

You could add something to the music. Maybe the music suddenly stops and a loud scream is heard from one side of the river to the other, and then the music starts in again, like nothing ever happened. Or a dog could howl soulfully.

Anything can inspire a good mystery, so why not music with a secret source? I kind of like the little old lady idea, although it reminds me a bit of “Arsenic and Old Lace,” which you should watch if you haven’t seen it – talk about crazy people and good laughs.

There’s always the possibility that some kids are playing a prank. What if that prank went awry?

Oh, here’s one. What if it turned out the music was coming from an old cemetery and the only music anyone heard was from a specific time period, like the 1880s or the 1920s? Since I don’t believe in ghosts, I’d have to come up with another idea for the source of the music. I know, plenty of people do believe in ghosts, so I’ll leave those story ideas to them.

If an individual decided to look for the source of the music, bear in mind that curiosity killed the cat, figuratively speaking.

I wish someone would take this news item and run with it. Create a good mystery. I’d probably read it.

Can you think of a good storyline with the music in mind?

Until next time, pay attention to any unusual stories you hear on the news. You might come up with a unique idea.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw’s website

CLICK HERE for a quick trip to Amazon.com

A Well-Kept Family Secret and Bubba’s Ghost are now available in audio format. Prudy’s Back! is in the works. Just thought I’d mention it.

If you’re looking for something light, you might give One Adventure Too Many a try. These are all Sandi Webster Mysteries.

Mystery Writer Meets Mystery

Several years ago a friend and I had to put our detecting skills to work. After all, we write mysteries and we’d know how to do that.

I have two close friends, who for privacy reasons I’ll call Brenda and Jackie, who also write mysteries. The three of us live in different states and we’re spread from the west coast to the east coast. Brenda was moving to a new home and Jackie and I knew we’d be out of touch with her for a few days. Not a big deal, right?

Well, a few days went by, and then a few more days, and still no word from Brenda. We tried to call her on her cell phone, but it went straight to voice mail. Jackie and I began to worry, which is something we do well. We’ve had plenty of practice.

 Where's Brenda?

It suddenly struck Jackie and me that we write mysteries for a living. If anyone could track Brenda down it should be us, because after all, we know how to do these things. We write about them. We research them. We lined up our facts and moved on from there. We knew that Brenda had hired a moving company that was owned and run by women. We knew when and where she was moving to, although we didn’t have the new address yet. And we both knew how to use the Internet. It would be a piece of cake. Uh huh.

I checked online for moving companies in the area we were interested in that were owned by women. I found one, and only one. Remember, this was a long time ago and not every company showed up online. Well, I called the company, but they said they’d never heard of Brenda and they said that they were the only female-owned company in the area. It never dawned on me that they might say that because they didn’t want me checking with the competition. That was one of my bigger Duh Moments during this caper.

I checked a map and the Internet for the small town that our friend was moving to, and called both the local police station and the county Sheriff. They couldn’t help me because I didn’t have enough information.

Then Jackie hit on something. She’d saved some emails from Brenda and she thought maybe the recipients of those notes could help us locate friends or family. She was right. The address line held names that had become familiar to us from stories Brenda had shared.

We began emailing people who’d probably never heard of us. As it turned out, Brenda had mentioned us, so they were great about helping with the search. A friend had received a phone call from Brenda, but the connection had been terrible. At least she’d heard something.

As it turned out, Brenda didn’t have good phone service at the new home, and no Internet connection was readily available – the woes of living in a rural area. On top of that, her electricity had gone out during a storm.

Where did we get our information? Her ex-husband had received one of our emails. What a guy! He’d been in touch with her.

So Jackie and I ended up feeling pretty good about our deductive reasoning skills, and maybe this little exercise would help us in telling some of our stories. In the meantime, we were grateful that our friend was okay.

The point of this story? Sometimes it takes a writer’s mind to figure out a mystery without the aid of a private eye or the police. If this had happened today, you can bet we would have taken even more steps to find our friend, but in the meantime, we patted each other on the back – figuratively speaking, since we lived in different states.

Until next time, wishing you a fun little mystery of your own and the skills to solve it.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw’s website (To be updated soon)

CLICK HERE for a quick trip to Amazon.com

Epiphany

Sometimes in books a character will have an epiphany and solve a case. And once in a while we have epiphanies in real life. Such was the situation this week.

My post will be a bit more personal than usual because I’m hoping that figuring things out might touch someone else the way it touched me. I’ve seriously been considering giving up my writing. Life just hasn’t been kind over the past couple of years.

I lost my husband to what he used to refer to as, “The Widow Maker.” In other words, he had a sudden and unexpected heart attack, and that was it. (I miss him more than I can express, and more than I want to talk about.) Among other things, I had some health problems, made a major move from Arizona to Washington, and more recently, book sales have dropped with a thud.

I’ve spent a lifetime picking myself up and moving on when things didn’t go well or as planned. I haven’t been able to do that this time – until now.

Sometimes answers come to us when we least expect it and in ways we wouldn’t dream of. I read the email of someone who’s having a rough time because of life, people and writing, and it caused an epiphany. Here’s the realization that came to me and pretty much changes everything.

Writing has been an uphill battle. In fact, without going into details, my whole life has been an uphill battle. I can’t explain it, but this person’s email brought that up from the depths of my heart and mind.

I’d hoped my writing would supplement my income. Didn’t happen, or maybe I should say, barely happened. Then I remembered something very important. I started writing because it’s something I love to do. From now on I do it because I enjoy it. If the books don’t sell, oh well… What more can one ask for than to be doing something that makes them happy?

And this goes for the rest of my life, too. The heck with it. No more worrying about every little thing. I can’t possibly please everyone, and I can’t accommodate every request that comes my way.

It’s too cliché to say that when life hands me lemons, I make lemonade. Nope. It’s not that easy. However, when life hands me chocolate, I fully intend to eat every bite and savor the flavor. It’s comfort food, and besides, I don’t like lemons or lemonade anyway.

It’s time for a downhill slide. Easy peasy. Struggling is passé. It’s time to yell, “Wheeeee” as I take the easy way down from the top of that hill. Sliding is so much easier than climbing.

I have faith and that’s what counts. Faith in what? Faith in God, in myself, in my talent, and in those I care about.

Here’s to a new life and a new beginning, for all of us who need them.

Now I’m going back to work on “Black Butterfly,” my latest work in progress. I’m ready to write, and I hope the story is ready for me.

Until next time, take a ride down that hill and enjoy every moment of it.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw's website

CLICK HERE for a quick trip to Amazon.com