"RACING FROM DEATH" REVIEWED BY FELLOW CRIME WRITER, JUDY HOGAN

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Review: Racing from Death, a new Nikki Latrelle Racing Mystery

Cover of Sasscer Hill's second Nikki Latrelle racing mystery

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This is a major new talent and the comparisons to Dick Francis are not hyperbole.–Margaret Maron, New York Times Best-Selling Author


Wildside Press, Paper. Feb 2012. ISBN: 978-1-4344-4040-2. Wildsidebooks.com

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Sasscer Hill claims her Nikki Latrelle racing mysteries fit into a niche sub-genre. True, for horse-racing enthusiasts, they satisfy a known appetite, but you don’t have to know a thing about horses to enjoy Nikki’s trials and tribulations and eventual crossing the finish line in a lively, breath-taking mystery.

I was eager to read the second novel. The first, Full Mortality(Wildside, 2010), an Agatha and Mccavity nominee for first best mystery, I thoroughly enjoyed (see my blog post of May 8, 2011).

Nikki takes six of the horses in the stable of her trainer, Jim Ravinsky, to the Colonial Downs track in Virginia. With her go her friend Lorna Doone, a former addict, who can only keep her exercise riders license if she stays clean, and an old black man, Mello Pinkney, who has a sixth sense both about people and horses. He is especially close to Hellish, the horse Nikki saved form the glue factory in Full Mortality. Right before she left, a jockey named Paco Martinez died at the Laurel Park track, apparently from a drug he took to keep his weight down.

Greeting her soon after she arrives at the Virginia track is Jay Cormack, the Chief Investigator for the Virginia Racing Commission. He pressures her to spy for him, as he suspects drugs are behind the jockey’s death. She refuses, but he won’t give up. He trusts her and threatens that, if she doesn’t help him, he could throw her off the track because of Hellish’s disruptive behavior and an old felony conviction of Mello’s. 

Reluctantly Nikki takes his card. At the cottage arranged for them, Nikki’s cat, Slippers, picks up her own sidekick, a rooster which Lorna dubs McNuggett. Lorna is drawn to a local wild rich boy named Bobby Duvayne, like a moth to a candle. Nikki understands her attraction because she feels similarly beguiled by Bobby, and she warns Lorna to stay away from him, to no avail. Then Lorna comes back from her night with Bobby hopelessly enamored, and stoned.

To top it off, two new horses arrive from Ravinsky’s training stable, Stinger and Daffodil. Their spoiled, imperious, insensitive owner, Amarilla Chaquette, whom Nikki likens to a yellow jacket, has not one whit of understanding about how to treat and race her horses, and she is contemptuous of Nikki’s savvy and attempts to help her horses win races.

Creepy and inexplicable things begin to happen until it’s very clear that something is terribly wrong at this track, and Nikki is drawn into the middle of it.

As in Dick Francis’s novels, Nikki’s life and circumstances as a jockey and an exercise rider, pull us into the racing pace of Hill’s books. I love the off-beat characters like Lorna and Mello, including the cat and the rooster. I learn about a world unfamiliar to me, one thing I look for in a good mystery. I easily identify with Nikki, who doesn’t want to rat on anyone but has a strong sense of justice and an impulse to help those human and animal beings who need a lift up. She’s also a fierce fighter, once aroused. 

A favorite scene of mine in this book takes place when Nikki attends a very posh party among the rich owners and powers that be in this Virginia setting, all in honor of Chaquette. The contrast between Nikki’s unpretentiousness and the inflated sense of their importance among these rich folks adds a rich humor to the book.

May Sasscer Hill’s books continue to win all the nominations and awards they deserve.

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FINANCIAL MYSTERY AND Mayhem: Your Credit Score and Other Scams by the Banksters

I consider myself to be intelligent, educated, and fairly savvy. Recently I had a rude awakening. When it comes to credit scores, and how the banksters operate, I was naive and foolish.


Yes, yes, I knew about all the foreclosures, the people losing their homes, being forced onto the streets. Heck, Michael Connelly wrote a book about it. But I thought since I had cash in the bank and owned my home free and clear, none of this built-in-bankster-quicksand could sink me. Wrong.


My husband and I live in Prince Georges County, a high-tax and high-insurance Maryland suburb of Washington DC. Housing prices have plummeted in Prince Georges with the highest foreclosure rate of any county in the Virginia, Maryland, and DC metropolitan area. Our selling real estate agent clucked sadly when I told him my zip code. 

My home value has dropped over fifty percent and suddenly my once big nest egg – the family farm –  is fried. Foolishly, I thought I could take out a small first mortgage on my home for additional money to buy another home. I was sure the loan was a cinch. I only asked for a third of the home’s sad new value, and I have a brokerage account with money in the bank. 


Enter Credit Score. The bankster loan sharks “randomly” pull one of the three available credit scores from TransUnion, Experian, or Equifax. My scores on the first two are “excellent.” But USAA Bank pulled Equifax where my one lifetime late payment on a checking-account-overdraft-protection-line-of credit popped up. Loan application denied. 


At this point I have talked to a number of loan underwriters, asking questions, learning. Here is what I didn’t know. If you apply for a loan and are denied, your credit score goes down. If you have any credit cards or credit accounts and your balance is fifty percent or more of the credit limit, your score goes down. It doesn’t matter if you always pay on time. Your credit score goes down.

My checking account has been with Bank of America since 1987, and BAC is the bank who reported the late payment on the overdraft-protection-line-of credit. So I called them and when I finally got to the right guy – a supervisor –  I asked, “Don’t you think it’s weird that Bank of America was bailed out for billions of dollars, that I have been a customer since 1987, and BAC is the only company with a report against my credit score?” He made no reply. 


When I explained that this one late payment had occurred in 2010 when I was diagnosed with lymphoma and was undergoing cancer treatment, he said he would talk to the BAC Credit Score Team. I asked if there was a number where I could talk to these people. He said, “No, they are strictly back office.” See me doing the raised palm thing and rolling one eye? 


The boys in the back office.

In the meantime, ask yourself what is in it for the banks to keep lowering credit scores. Where is the money? How about this? 


Banks and these credit score companies make money managing and reporting this information. Everyone gets one “free” credit report per year. But if you want the score, you have to pay for it. People have been conditioned by the media and ads on TV and radios shows --  paid for by the banksters --  to constantly worry and wonder about their credit score. Once the score  goes down, these poor people wonder and worry even more. So they pay for their credit score. If they want a second credit report in their desperate hope their report has improved, they pay for it. 


If your credit score is low, the banks often charge a higher rate on loans, too. See how the banksters make money?


I imagine young whiz kids sitting in bank offices thinking up ways to screw people. I can almost hear them, “Awesome, man! Credit scores. Brilliant idea. We can take even more of their money! The will never see it coming.”


UPDATE, MARCH 21, 2012


Got a call from Bank of America this morning. They received the letter from my oncologist, and removed the BAC late payment report that was wrecking my credit score. Yay!!

RACING FROM DEATH: Now Available!

“Racing From Death” Now available from Amazon and other book sellers as a trade paperback! Read first 5 chapters for free. If you like them, pre-order the book!   Read First Chapters NowBy Clicking Here! 

“Sasscer Hill has done it again!  Racing From Death proves that Full Mortality was not beginner’s luck. This is a major new talent and the comparisons to Dick Francis are not hyperbole.” – New York Times Best Selling author, Margaret Maron. Winner of  Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Mystery Awards

Racing From Death

IN THE FIELD WITH A DEA AGENT: Law Enforcement, A Mystery Writer's Best Friend!

Sisters in Crime, Chessie Chapter, arranged for a DEA Agent to talk to us mystery writers on December 3, 2011. I will call him Agent A.

As a young college student, Agent A applied to the DEA, was accepted, spent 17 weeks training in Quantico, VA, and having no idea what he was doing – his words – he was given a gun, a badge, credentials and shipped off to a job in Switzerland where he did surveillance on an international drug dealer who was finally apprehended in a Motel 8 in CA.

DEA: Seized Drugs

I suspect this agent will be writing thriller novels in the future.  He can really tell a story. One point he made stuck with me. If agents are trained to lie, and you’re married to one, how can you ever believe them? Makes for a high divorce rate.


I lucked out yesterday as Agent A wound up at my table during the lunch. Loved it when he gave me the answer I wanted to hear. My new Nikki Latrelle novel takes place at Colonial Downs racetrack in Virginia and takes a hard look at the illegal drug trade in methamphetamine. When I write a book, and a couple of years go by, I worry. Is it still timely?


I asked agent A about meth. He said it’s once again one of their biggest problems. That, and the new synthetic cannabis and synthetic stimulants, many of which are coming out of China, some in the form of “bath salts.” He said he doesn’t believe the things people are willing to put in their bodies.

Agent A talked about the DEA’s fight against the Mexican drug trade, and coincidentally, the New York Times broke a story on December 3, about how DEA agents launder drug money as a means of tracking these criminals.


 http://tinyurl.com/76epyut  (To see this story, cut and paste into your browser bar)


Agent A said one of their best weapons against the Mexican drug cartels is the seizure of their money.  Thinking the recently increased violence in Mexico is a bad thing is somewhat counter intuitive. He explained by cutting off the Cartel’s money, cutting off their drug routes, these criminals are like rats in a cage. They turn violent –  turn on one another. Agent A believes our agents are relatively safe when fighting the Mexican cartels, since the cartels know that if they kill an American drug agent the wrath of the US Government will be on their heads. 


Regarding our two ICE agents that were murdered, he explained the agency’s furious backlash against the cartels caused one of these criminal gangs to give up the perpetrators of this crime in two days! 
He did admit he wouldn't want to be a Mexican drug investigator at this time and he wonders how much longer the Mexican government can fight this vicious war. 


I’d had no idea that DEA has so many agents overseas and around the world. Agent A spent two years in Haiti and here again, though it is one of the most dangerous places in the world, he felt fairly safe as a US agent. He said the trouble comes when an undercover agent does such a good job, the drug lords think he’s one of them, then think nothing of killing him if is suits their needs. What a life.

Nasty Most Wanted Guy!

Agent A suggested the DEA website (DEA.gov) is a great place for writers to root around. He’s right. Looking at pictures of their most wanted criminals in the area where I live was enough to keep me up half the night checking that windows and doors were locked, and my dog was on guard duty. 


On their site I found this picture:

And was fascinated to discover I’d already seen it, that I’d been there before. In 1993, one of my favorite mystery authors, Michael Connelly wrote a novel called “The Black Ice.” His character, LA detective Harry Bosch, ends up in a Mexican tunnel used to ship drugs into the US.  Because of Connelly’s authorial magic, this DEA photo brought on a tremendous sense of deja vu. I know Connelly works hand in hand with law enforcement agencies to get his books right. 


Personally, I am very grateful to these agencies who take the time to make sure us mystery authors get it right!

The DEA, Drug Enforcement Agency, operates under  the US Department of Justice, and is our nation's largest enforcement agency. 

TECH INFO FOR WRITERS: Latest Tips on Establishing Your Online Presence and Broadening Your Readership

Below are excerpts from October issue of “More” magazine. They are interesting suggestions and make sense. The “More” article was directed at job hunters, but so much of it pertained to writers or anyone who wants to broaden their presence online, I posted them here:


Produce an author video -- a two minute clip, and introduce yourself. List any writing or applicable awards you’ve garnered. Talk as if you were speaking at an author signing. What is your passion, how did you get published, etc. If you’re tech savvy– I’m not – you can use iMovie and do it yourself. Shoot inside with a white background and do some lighting checks to make sure you aren’t creating unflattering shadows. Avoid natural daylight and fluorescent bulbs. Use indirect soft light bulbs, like a lamp with a paper shade. The latter will create the most flattering look.


(I note here that you should get some good bulbs before they are permanently taken off the market!)

Otherwise, hire a video-production company like VideoBIO –  cost close to $300 –  but they will set you up with a videographer, offer script advice, will do the lighting, shooting and editing. (Videobio.com) Rehearse first!


I’m skipping the basic info on blogging as most of us have more samples of good blogs than we know what to do with. But this info was new and useful:


Consider vlogging (video blogging) if you are skilled with a webcam. You can interview other writers or people in the industry about which you write. Example: I write horse racing mysteries so I might interview a racing security officer who was involved in bringing down a race fixing ring.


Follow the top blogs in your industry. Pick five or fewer blogs. Find them at alltop.com. This is a way to keep up with the latest information pertaining to your genre or story related industry. Example: Having just checked the top equine blogs, I find that information on training riding-horses, show-horses and Quarter horses has a much bigger following (readership) than race horses. Could it be time to broaden my novels to reach this wider market? What about your market?


Get a good, professional profile picture to use on the internet. Use it at each and every site you appear on.

Regarding Tweeting, the new rule of thumb is 120 characters.  This allows followers to retweet and add their own commentary. You can check your Twitter influence by entering your name at Klout.com, a service that analyzes your tweets and followers.


Create a Facebook author or “brand” page. For extra security, consider downloading Reputation.com’s free uProtect.it tool, which encrypts everything you post to Facebook so your data won’t get leaked the next time privacy settings change.


Ditch your AOL e-mail address, ditto Hot Mail and Yahoo. Supposedly these are an instant give away that you are out of touch. Use Gmail, which enables you to take advantage of useful tools such as Google Documents (great for sharing/editing manuscripts without any worry about disappearing attachments), Google Reader (which allows you to track all your blog subscriptions and news feeds in one spot) and Google Video Chat.

BOUCHERCON BLAST

I arrived in St. Louis on Wednesday, September 14, to a cold, wind-driven rain. After checking into the conference hotel, I rolled one of my two suitcases – filled with copies of FULL MORTALITY– to the book dealers room. Truth is, many authors published by small presses have to carry their own books to these events and sell them on consignment. 


Don’t feel bad for me; there was an author from the big publisher, St. Martins, who’d been assured the book sellers would have this person’s book on hand. The poor author arrived at their book signing to discover they had no books at the conference. Not one. I’d rather schlepp an extra suitcase any day of the week than face that situation. Especially when Southwestern Airline allows two free bags per flight!

Richard Katz's Book Store in Milwaukee 

In the dealer’s room, where book sellers were busy unpacking hundreds of boxes and setting up their displays, I found the people who’d agreed to shelve my books and sell them: Deb and Wayne from Hooked on Books, and Richard Katz of Mystery One Books.


Both shops gave Full Mortality excellent shelf space and location. I’m grateful they had my books on hand and sold copies at both of my book signings.  
  
That evening, It was raining so hard, and the temperature dropping so fast, friend and fellow SinC member, Debbi Mack, and I took a cab. For a two-block trip. Seemed the only way to avoid drowning or freezing. We rode in $5.00 comfort to the Sisters in Crime “Great Writing” workshop, where panelists took a hard look at the incredible changes transforming the publishing industry. They discussed everything from e-books and social networking to three dimensional e-marketing strategies. 


Being informed by these experts that I need both a Facebook page and website for my character Nikki Latrelle, might have caused me to drop my head into my hands, or maybe I was just tired from schlepping suitcases.


On Thursday I attended some great panels including one I participated in, “Adding Depth to Character.” Panelists for this were Mysti Berry (Moderator), Sparkle Abbey, me, Joy Laughter, Victoria Laurie, and Sandra Parshall.


Then it was off to the book signing in the dealer’s room where I was lucky to sit between authors Tim Hallinan and David Housewright. I’d already read Hallinan’s “Queen of Patpong” and loved it. I started Housewright’s “Highway 61" since returning home, and so far, so excellent.

 Author Hallinan 

Thursday night, I had a great dinner with some of the Chessie Chapter SinC members including author Sandra Parshall. (Note: her book UNDER THE DOG STAR is fabulous!) Afterwards, at the opening ceremonies I met author Simon Wood and spoke again to Timothy Hallinan. Since my book, FULL MORTALITY was up for a Best First Macavity award, I waited a bit anxiously. Hallinan seemed a bit stressed, too. Not surprising since his book, QUEEN OF PATPONG, was up for Best Novel! 

Sasscer Hill, Simon Wood, and Debbi Mack

When they announced the title for the winner of the Best First Macavity Award, sadly, it wasn’t FULL MORTALITY. Hallinan's QUEEN OF PATPONG didn’t get the nod for Best Novel, either. Time to suck it up. 


Support from SinC members made my loss a bit easier to swallow.  A phone message from David Housewright claiming, “You were robbed!” didn’t hurt either. Later, some of us went to the bar and partied. I had a chance to speak to Kate Stine, Janet Rudolph and Hank Phillippi Ryan – lovely women, all three. I met Guest of Honor, Colin Cotterill, and had a drink with him and author Tim Hallinan. When you don’t win, make the best of it!

Janet Rudolph founder of Mystery Reader's International and Sasscer Hill

Shaking it off with a good night’s sleep, I attended some great panels on Friday with Debbi Mac. The best panel for me was “The Last Detective” an interview of Robert Crais by Greg Hurwitz. These two have worked together before, and it showed. They were sharp, funny, and very quick.


Hurwitz razzed Crais by saying that best selling author Lee Child insists his protagonist, “Jack Reacher,” would pulverize Crais’s “Joe Pike” if the two were put to the test.


Crais shot back, “Jack Reacher is Joe Pike’s bitch!”  

 Robert Crais and Co-Program Chair Judy Bobalik

Debbi and I laughed so hard, we almost fell out of our seats. That evening I had dinner in my room and watched NCIS. Why? Because my alarm was set for at 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning. I had to be fed, dressed, and made-up by eight for my first ever panel as a moderator, and I was scared to death of being late or messing up somehow. Besides, I planned to go to the live-band dance Saturday night, too.


I arrived on time, but I still screwed up. Our panel was “RELEASE ME: Finish Your Research and Write Your Book,” with a host of great historical fiction authors: Dan Johnson, Frances McNamara, Judy Moresi, Roberta Rogow, and Nancy Means Wright.


Being nervous and convinced that notes on cards would be lost, I put my questions for my five panelists in a notebook. Only, I couldn’t pull the notebook close enough to the microphone, so my first questions came out very slowly and with big gaps of silence as I tried to read the pages that lay off to the side. Probably, I scared my panelists to death. Our moderator is crashing and all of us will burn! 


I warmed up after the first few minutes, and listening to a tape of the panel that arrived in the mail yesterday, I was relieved to hear my voice smooth out and the pace pick up until there was laughter and the audience seemed to be enjoying the show. 

 Dancing fiends from Saturday Night. Can you say blast?

Saturday night, I danced to the great sounds of “Cruisin’” from eight-thirty until midnight, crawled into bed at one a.m. and staggered to the airport and back to Maryland on Sunday.

My Saturday Night Dancing Partner Was So Cute!

Passengers, sardined into that Southwest flight to Baltimore, never suspected they were surrounded by people who kill for a living – me, Marcia Talley, Debbi Mack, and Laura Lippman, to name a few.


If that plane had gone down, the D.C. area would have lost half its mystery writers. Fate, apparently, has other plans.



Read First Chapter of RACING FROM DEATH!
Click on following link to read: http://racingfromdeath.blogspot.com/2011/09/first-chapter-of-racing-from-death.html

A SHAKEN, HOT AUTHOR

The northeast Pleasant Hills Chimney

In Maryland, the earthquake of August 23, followed almost immediately by Hurricane Irene, left behind a number of devastated historical homes. Many of Maryland's Prince Georges County landmarks were hard hit: Pleasant Hills, Tulip Hill, Weston, Mount Calvert, Bellefields, Bowling Heights and others. The ground rocked wildly, building a force that cracked the mortar joints of old brick walls and whiplashed the tall chimneys above. 




At several locations two, or even three, chimneys broke and fell, tearing huge holes in the roofs. Within days, Hurricane Irene dumped torrents of water inside these historical treasures.


At Pleasant Hills, we were very lucky to have the chimneys stay up. Still, we have to take two of them them down brick-by-brick, cover the resulting hole, and then rebuild each structure. If we don’t, another production by Mother Nature may bring them down and break open our roof. 

When the earthquake hit, Mr. Duval, a local religious man, was in the graveyard at St. Thomas Church in Croom. The belfry and tombstones shook so hard he thought  Doomsday had finally arrived. Had I been there, I’d have kept a sharp lookout for Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer. 


As an author, I  see no use for the earthquake other than to write it into a novel.

In the meantime, former Baltimore Sun writer Ross Peddicord, who is now head of the Maryland Horse Industry Board, invited me to do a FULL MORTALITY book signing at the Maryland Department of Agriculture’s exhibit at the Maryland State Fair in conjunction with the Timonium’s horse races. I said yes!


In the 91 Degree heat of September 4, I arrived at the fairground’s Farm and Garden building, a block structure without air conditioning. The Department of Agriculture provided me with a hand-held paper-fan, but waving it only made me hotter. It was a sweatbox in there. 

Any jockey who wanted to make racing weight that day, could simply walk across the midway, past the Ferris wheel, and into in the Farm and Garden Building. We even had an Equicizer in our booth, except it was supposed to be for the children.  

In a daring display of bravery, I rode the fake exercise horse.  A dangerous sport, as I was laughing so hard, I almost fell off.  


After losing two pounds of water weight, selling a dozen books, and eating several fresh peaches, I took home a load of ripe red tomatoes, and first-blush farm apples. 

When I got home, the chimneys were still standing and I decided life is pretty sweet.