Three Fun Elements to Add to Your Mystery {+ Giveaway}

It is my great pleasure to welcome friend, fellow blogger and award-winning author Elizabeth Craig here today. Elizabeth is touring with her latest release, SHEAR TROUBLE, the fourth book in her Southern Quilting Mystery series.

This is a fun series to follow, but each book can be read as a stand-alone. While you don’t have to be a quilter to enjoy the books, Elizabeth does include quilting tips with each one as well as recipes. 

With the release of SHEAR TROUBLE this week, Elizabeth joins us to talk about ‘Three Fun Elements to Add to Your Mystery.’ In addition, thanks to Elizabeth and the lovely Danielle at Penguin Group, I have a print of copy of this delightful story to giveaway. Please see the end of the post for more details.

As the leaves begin to fall in idyllic Dappled Hills, someone puts too fine a point on a local ladies’ man. Fortunately, the detective skills of quilter Beatrice Coleman are a cut above the rest....
        The Village Quilters of Dappled Hills, North Carolina, are desperate to finish their quilts before an upcoming show. To help, fellow member Posy has opened the back room of her shop, the Patchwork Cottage, for everyone to use. But the ladies are less than thrilled when Phyllis Stitt and Martha Helmsley—members of their rival quilting guild, the Cut-Ups—ask to join them.
        Phyllis is hoping to leave the Cut-Ups and join up with the Village Quilters now that Martha’s dating her ex-fiancé, Jason Gore. She’s not pleased when he visits the shop and even more upset when her new shears disappear. After offering to search for them, Beatrice discovers Jason with the shears buried in his unfaithful heart. Now she must sharpen her sleuthing skills to find a killer before someone else’s life is cut short.… 

Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Elizabeth.

I grew up reading mysteries and they were the natural genre for me to write when I turned to writing. I love coming up with interesting characters, laying clues, and wrapping everything up neatly in the end. 

I’ve also enjoyed adding several additional elements to my traditional mysteries. If you’re a mystery reader, you may recognize them.

Three Fun Elements to Add to Your Mystery:


An Unreliable Witness. This is a trick I learned from reading Agatha Christie’s mysteries. Christie loved including a character who seemed completely unreliable to both the other characters and readers. But this unreliable character would either intimate that he knew something or would actually spew out a vital detail in the midst of his babbling. While the other characters would completely discount everything he said, he actually spoke the truth and frequently held the key to the mystery.

Who could unreliable witnesses be? There are plenty of possibilities, including garrulous dim-witted types, characters a bit too fond of drinking, characters with poor memories, or young children. 

A Touch of Nancy Drew. If you were ever a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys fan, you probably know what I’m talking about. As a kid, I would get totally wrapped up in books with secret passageways, hidden rooms, and abandoned houses. I finally released my inner Nancy Drew in one of my Southern Quilting mysteries, QUILT TRIP. I like to think that most mystery readers get a happy feeling of nostalgia when encountering any Nancy Drew tropes. 

Secrets. The fun thing about secrets is that they make mysteries more complex. With each murder mystery, you have at least one secret—the killer’s identity, which the murderer is trying desperately to protect. But the story gets a lot more interesting, and fun, if some or even all of the suspects are protecting secrets. If all the suspects have something to hide, there are not only red herrings galore, but lots of interesting discoveries about the suspects and what their motivations are.

As a reader, have you run into any of these elements? Do you have any favorite elements of your own to add?

Elizabeth, thanks for joining us today and sharing these elements. I’d have to say as a reader, secrets enhance a story and keep me wondering until the end.

Now for those who aren’t familiar with Elizabeth, let me give you a bit of background.

Elizabeth Craig writes the Memphis Barbeque series as Riley Adams and the Southern Quilting mysteries under her own name. A lifelong resident of the South, she enjoys finding inspiration for the Southern Quilting mysteries in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. 

She is currently at work on her next novel. Her newest Southern Quilting Mystery, Shear Trouble, released August 5th. 

For more about Elizabeth and her books, visit her website and connect with her on her blog, Facebook and Twitter.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS:

This giveaway is for one print copy of SHEAR TROUBLE. The giveaway is open to U.S. residents only and will end Saturday, Aug. 16. 

To enter, just click on the Rafflecopter widget below and following the instructions. The widget may take a few seconds to load, so please be patient. The winner from this giveaway will have 72 hours to respond after being contacted or another winner will be selected. The email will have ‘Thoughts in Progress Elizabeth Craig’s Tour’ in the subject line, just so you know what to watch for (in case it goes into your spam folder).

Thanks so much for stopping by during Elizabeth’s visit. What elements do you enjoy in a mystery?

*This post contains affiliate links. a Rafflecopter giveaway