Guest Post from Dana Green

Posted on October 30, 2026 by kaitlynkathy

Please welcome Dana Green, who is not only a Maine crime writer but also has an important book-related story to share.

Maine storytellers of crime, mysteries, suspense, and mayhem, oh my!

by Dana Green

It is one day before my second favorite holiday. Halloween is the most fitting day for me to scream Hallelujah from Bucksport.

If you’re not aware, my first published book (previously my focus was the magazine world) hit the streets on June 12th – Maine – A Short Story Collection: Mysteries of Rural & Seacoast Life. It holds a dozen of my favorite five-star cozy mysteries, notorious crime-thrillers along with fictional memoirs of growing up in small town Maine during the 1960-70’s. Yes, my fellow readers – no cell phones!

My collection holds in its palm the 2026 Next Generation Short Story Award – Silver Medal winner: “This World Will Remember Me.” As a native Mainer I am proud of this honor – category — for writers over the age of 70. The night of May 19, 2026, at 9:59 PM when my email cha chinged with the news this 72 y/o cancer patient did a happy dance. It is a moment I shall never forget.

I have non curable cancer (Waldenstrom’s disease) which means that once diagnosed a patient can have a life expectancy of 5 to 8 years. I just crossed year number six. My doctors at Dana Farber are impressed with my current state of mind, healthy outlook, and drive. I told my oncologist it is because the 2026 Next Generation Award gave me hope and a reason “to keep my head above water.”

Then the other shoe dropped on July 23. I received a letter of encouragement from Anushka Rajesh, Awards Coordinator for the Next Generation Short Story Awards — encouraging me to submit my paperback edition to the – IBA – Indie Book Awards — for consideration in the short story book of 2026. I am in the running as of October 1st. Keep your fingers and toes crossed.

My wife and I have been overwhelmed with the success of my first short story book. We have set up a charity book project for my fellow cancer patients in our region with the sponsorship of the Beth C. Wright Cancer Resource Center (Ellsworth/Baileyville, Maine). We currently have 200+ patients and caregivers in three counties that we are supplying with reading materials (hardcover, paperback, and magazines). My premier published book along with gifted books from my fellow Maine authors — are being delivered to patients receiving chemotherapy and radiation treatments at the regional Dana Farber oncology center. The three-country patient region (Hancock, Washington, and Aroostook) has a dozen patient and caregiver support groups. The travel area — 12,500 square miles!

As of this writing we have been blessed with financial support from several Maine Knights of Columbus councils, businesses, charitable organizations, libraries, friends, and relatives. Special “shoutout and thanks” for two Maine Crime Writers (Kathy Lynn Emerson & Matt Cost – for supplying copies of their books). We need more help. As a reader of this blog please consider supporting our cause. Hardcover and paperbacks accepted with our warmest thanks and gratitude. With the utmost respect — thank you to all of Maine’s remarkable authors.

Happy Halloween!

If you would like to contribute books, Dana can be reached at:
dgreen30422@gmail.com 
52 Baxter Blvd, Bucksport 04416
tel / cell / text 207-469-3150
On Facebook
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The Book that Scared You as a Child

Posted on October 29, 2026 by mainecrimewriters

It’s time for our monthly group post, where we share thoughts, experiences, books we’ve read, favorite Maine places, and more. This month, for Halloween, the topic is: The Book that Scared You as  a Child.

Kate Flora: When we were brainstorming about this what this month’s topic should be, and landed on this one, I couldn’t think of a single book that fit. Then, a few minutes later, mine popped into my head. It’s a story most people wouldn’t find scary at all, and yet it gave me nightmares for years. The story? Aladdin. It left me with vivid dreams of everyone saying “Goodbye” and sealing me up in a cave. Weird? Yes. But I had that dream for years. I guess you never know what’s going to be the thing that lingers. Now I’m curious about what my blog fellows will share.

Maureen Milliken: Whenever this topic comes up, my answer is immediate. The book that scared the hell out of me as a kid was “The Mystery of the Crimson Ghost,” by Phyllis A. Whitney.

The scary part revolves around a ghost-dog wailing in the night. I’m not sure why it scared me so much, because by then, I’m going to guess I was around 10 or 11, I was reading plenty of mysteries and horror without any adverse effects, but even seeing the cover now gives me a chill. I guess it’s the combination of something frightening and unexplained up against the need to do what’s right and vulnerability? The heroine was trying to save an abused horse owned by scary crazy person on a neighboring farm. The ghost must’ve been written in a way that made it terrible and inexplicable. I don’t even remember and I still can’t say. I do remember the feeling it gave me. As kids, we had a habit of reading out loud to each other. I’m not sure how this happened in our otherwise unruly and cranky group, but we did up into the early teen years of us older kids, when it faded away. Anyway, I have a vivid memory of being in an upstairs room on a summer night with the window open and hearing my brother, on the patio below, reading the book to our younger siblings. I’d already read it, and I knew what the resolution was, and I still had to shut the window.

The only thing that compares is a few years later, when I was 14, and inexplicably home alone on a chilly, dark fall day. For hours, I read “In Cold Blood,” by Truman Capote. Our dog kept barking for no reason and I several times got up to look out the windows and make sure there were no mass murderers lurking out there. I even locked the doors, which we never did at our house in Augusta, since there were so many of us coming in and out at all hours (including the occasional stranger, a post for another day). It’s one of the few times in my life that I remember being happy when people returned home and I was no longer alone in the house. Boo!

 

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson: I don’t remember being scared by any book when I was a child (movies, yes–the cyclops in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad had me looking over my shoulder for weeks after I saw that one.) but I do know what book terrified me most as an adult. That was Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, with his Salem’s Lot as a close runner-up. Much as I admire him as a writer, I’ve never read another of his books except for the On Writing. He’s just too darned good at evoking terror. This was the novel, by the way, that King said scared even him and I believe it. As an aside, years later, an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer made use of the same, shall we say unsettling possibility, but in televised form I found it much less upsetting. Go figure.

Matt Cost: The pig scene. The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson. I was 12, home alone, reading this book, when… well, let’s set the scene… I grew up in a tiny hamlet called East Madison, Maine. We, much like Kate Flora, had a hundred acres of fields and woods, and our house was set a quarter-mile from the road, a driveway that was only passable on foot in the winter.  We had wood stove heat only. The only running water was cold. And the house was built by my father, who’d never even built a birdhouse before. In the chill of the winter, the wind whipping the zero-degree temperature into minus digits, I was reading this fine book by myself, huddled on the couch, probably because I was too lazy to add a log to the fire, when I came to the part where the large demonic pig, Jodie, is seen outside the house, looking in with large glowing red eyes. I will swear to this day that I looked up at that point, across at the window, and saw those two large glowing eyes staring at me. I’m not sure if I ever finished the book, as I blacked out most of the next two years of my life in sheer terror that Jodie was hunting me.

Kait Carson: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. I don’t remember how old I was when I read the book, but it terrified me. I grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey, home of the then main campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University, and Iviswold Castle. Built in 1869, the Castle, as we called it, was originally known as Hill House. Despite the subsequent name change, and despite the building’s use as classroom space and administrative offices, the legend stuck. Generations of Rutherford kids dared each other to sneak into the ‘dungeon’ where all manner of horror, and certain death, awaited.

Rob Kelley: I couldn’t tell you the title or author of the book, but my family had a book on nature whose cover included a monstrously large drawing of what was probably a Rainbow Scarab Beetle. I would hide the book in the cabinet below the book case so that I didn’t have to look at it. As for a book whose story scared me, I’ll second Pet Sematary, which I read as a teenager. I don’t think I lost sleep over it, but I definitely remember wondering if I could bear to keep reading (I did!).

John Clark: Lovecraft’s books alternated between horror, fear, and macabre curiosity when I was a kid…Probably more curiosity now that I think back.

 

 

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Where are We?

Posted on October 27, 2026 by kaitcarson

By Kait Carson

The best compliment I ever received came from a friend’s next-door neighbor. She raced from her house one day, book in hand, and called out, “You gotta read this book.”

Long out of print awaiting revision

The book was Zoned for Murder, the first in the Catherine Swope series. She explained she thought it was a first book by ‘this writer’ and then said, “I really liked it, and you’d swear the author set the story in our village.”

I couldn’t help myself. I asked her if she wanted me to autograph her copy. She stepped back and gave me that…hum, do you need me to call the men in the little white coats look. Then she said, “Your name isn’t Kait Carson, do you know her?” I chuckled, pulled a bookmark from the stash in my handbag, autographed the book, and then took her on a sightseeing tour of familiar locations.

Cavalier Hotel from Pixabay

Setting is almost as important as characterization. Characters don’t exist in a vacuum. They exist against a backdrop, and that backdrop becomes a character as well. My stories take place in South Florida. Hurricanes and tropical storms make occasional appearances. Gator gushers flood streets. Heat devils shimmer on roadways. The air always tastes ever so slightly of salt. Homes and stores are tropical colors, and in the Keys, they’re built on stilts. In Miami, you can determine the age of a house by appearance. From elevated wood frame Bahamian Conch to stucco Mediterranean Revival to decorative Art Deco to the Jetson-style Miami Modern (MiMo) early homes were built with the climate in mind.

In spring and into early summer, South Florida streets disappear into a riot of color. Red royal poinciana trees, yellow tabebuia, and lavender orchid trees burst into bloom. The scent of orange blossoms perfumes the air. Jasmine runs riot. Bell shaped angel’s trumpets fill backyards, and all varieties of crepe myrtle turn the landscape into a crazy quilt of color.

Hurricane Wilma’s Revenge – a week before our Maine move

Details bring the reader into the story, set the story and characters apart, and create a shorthand between the reader and the author that serves as an anchor for the characters.

When I’m reading, I expect the writer to develop a sense of place. When I’m writing, I try to do the same for my readers.

What about you? Do you want to know where the stories you read take place? Does the setting make a difference?

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The Flattering Allure of AI Slop

Posted on October 26, 2026 by mainecrimewriters

Kate Flora: No published writer I know is immune from those enticing emails. “Come be a speaker at our conference in Wales,” they say. “We want you to a featured guest at our book club.” “I’m organizing a festival and want you to be on a panel.”

Back in the day, before AI slop took over and spammers multiplied like mice, an email inviting an author to speak at a library, or to a book club, or at a conference or festival was real. It was nice to get those invitations. Fun to think someone, somewhere, has read the books and thinks you’re worthy. Have something to say. Would be a good addition to their event or a fascinating speaker at a book club. Now so much of it comes at us, often several times a day, that we actually worry that one day we’ll miss the real one, the one where someone really does want to talk about making the Burgess books into a TV series.

I used to joke that I could write the quotes for the back of my books from the rejection letters I got. These days, it’s all the flattering comments that these emails contain. Such as this:

Kate, Teach Her a Lesson has the emotional depth, relentless pacing, and thematic urgency to become a standout in the psychological thriller space. Your premise taps into fears that are painfully real, and that’s exactly what makes readers unable to put it down. With the right visibility strategy, this book can reach the audience that’s actively searching for exactly what you’ve written.

Teach Her a Lesson has exactly the kind of premise that stops readers mid-scroll; a false accusation, a manipulative student, and a woman fighting to save everything she’s built.

The “nowhere to turn” tension you’ve created, where the truth becomes weaponized and innocence feels like guilt, is precisely what today’s thriller audiences crave. Your exploration of power dynamics, obsession, and how easily a life can be dismantled resonates deeply with readers who love authors like Karin Slaughter, Lisa Jewell, and Chevy Stevens.

I’m lucky. My spam filter catches at least 90% of them. Occasionally one or two sneak through. Sometimes they’re so determined I’ll get a follow up. Did I get their email? Would I like more information? How about the ones that appear to come from editors at legitimate publishing houses. Real name. Real publisher. But the email comes not from the publisher’s address and the query is usually for an already published book. Dear spammer, I wasn’t born yesterday. But I worry about newer authors, authors who haven’t become as cynical as I am. When they get an email from a famous author like James Patterson who wants to be their friend and read their work and talk about writing, it might be a thrill.

What amazes me is how, after the first wave of this crap, anyone thinks it’s going to work. Once we’ve seen dozens of cookie cutter emails that parrot at length the plots of our books (hello? I wrote the book, remember?) before getting into the pitch, how can there be anyone left on the planet to fall for them? Sometimes those scammers are in such a hurry that they have my email but someone else’s name and book and off it goes. Definitely not going to fall for that one. Once I wrote to correct them. I won’t do that anymore.

Often, they don’t even try very hard. An invitation to participate in a book festival in Wales happening in two days? Seriously? I don’t think so. A publisher who wants to publish a book I published six years ago? The problem is that AI makes it so easy. No effort. No research. No developing any knowledge of the “target” author. Just scrape and send. Scrape and send.

Sigh. Sometimes they’re so tempting. For example, how do I know whether this one is genuine? I’d love to talk about A Good Man with a Dog, but alas…One clue is that the Vermont Book Club (book club not bookclub) has its own website and she would have been writing from that.

Elowen Sinclair
<elowensinclaircr.vmtbookclub@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Kate,
>
I recently came across A Good Man with a Dog, and what interested me most was how your collaboration with retired Maine game warden Roger Guay brings readers into a world of search and rescue, wilderness investigations, and the remarkable relationships between handlers and their working dogs. I was particularly drawn to how the book follows experiences ranging from tracking poachers in the Maine woods to searching for missing people and assisting with rescue and recovery efforts following major disasters.

It made me curious about what first inspired you to help preserve Roger’s experiences in a book, particularly how you approached transforming years of personal memories, complicated investigations, and emotionally demanding incidents into a narrative that readers could understand and connect with. There is often a story behind a book that readers never get to hear, what first sparked the idea, what the author was trying to understand, and how those thoughts developed throughout the writing process.

My name is Elowen, and I’m an Author Engagement Coordinator with Vermont Bookclub. We’re inviting authors to join us for The Ideas Behind the Book, a relaxed conversation centered on the ideas, experiences, questions, and perspectives that shaped their work.

The conversation gives authors space to talk about what inspired their book, the experiences that influenced their perspective, and what they ultimately hope readers will take away from it. We also leave room for our community members to ask questions and engage with the author directly.

I believe A Good Man with a Dog could make for a particularly meaningful conversation because it brings together human compassion, the demands of emergency service, trust between people and animals, and the responsibility of preserving experiences that might otherwise remain unknown. I’d love to explore the possibility of having you join us and sharing more about the research, conversations, and decisions that shaped this remarkable collaboration.

Would you be open to hearing a little more about how the conversation works?

*********

A quick note: If you’re near Camden this coming Friday night, a bunch of us from MCW are doing a Noir at the Bar.

Posted in Kate's Posts | 6 Comments

Weekend Update: October 24, 2026

Posted on October 24, 2026 by kaitlynkathy

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kate Flora (Monday), and Kait Carson (Tuesday), with a group post on Thursday, and a post from special guest Dana Green on Friday.

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

Matt Cost will be at Noir at the Bar at the Village Cafe in Camden on Friday, October 30th, from 5:30 to 7:30, along with Maine Crime Writers Dick Cass (the lynchpin of this event), Gabriela Stiteler, Maureen Milliken, Brenda Buchanan, and Kate Flora, as well as others. Wow. This is an event that you don’t want to miss. Come for the readings, the food, the drink, and the good times.

Matt Cost is also excited to announce his latest debut, the first in a new series, 1955: A Jazz Jones & January Queen Raleigh Mystery. Check it out HERE.

“Ultimately, 1955 is a visceral and thought-provoking historical thriller that doesn’t shy away from the brutality of its setting.” ~~Book Review Cafe.

“Immersive and richly detailed, the novel drips with atmosphere, grit, and hard truths about race in mid-century America. With a pulse-pounding ending, 1955 will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.”  —Christi Keating Sumich, author of Lafitte Lives and The Swamp Ghost

from Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson: A “oops” to report on the reissue front. I publish my backlist through Draft2Digital and had scheduled the e-book of #4 in my Diana Spaulding 1888 Mysteries for December, a month after #3 comes out in e-book and trade paper. I was waiting to finalize the trade paperback of #4, Lethal Legend, until I could do another careful proofread of the text. So, I did that, made corrections to the e-book text already sent to D2D, and proceeded to go through the regular process for launching the print-on-demand version. I checked. I double checked. I clicked “approve.” The only thing I didn’t remember to look at was the release date. The print copy setup took everything I’d already chosen for the e-book . . . except for the release date. I totally forgot that unless I change it, that date automatically comes up as either the current date (e-book) or a date a week or so after approval (POD). So, dear readers, although it won’t be out in e-book format until December 8, the trade paperback of Lethal Legand can be ordered from all the usual bookstores NOW. Fortunately, book three, No Mortal Reason, will be available on November 10, so those collecting print editions of all four won’t have long to wait, but boy do I feel foolish!

Maureen Milliken will be at the Thompson Free Library Authors and Artisans Night Market, 4-7 p.m. today (Saturday, Oct. 24), at 186 East Main St., Dover-Foxcroft. The event includes local authors, vendors of crafts, baked goods, pottery, soap, fiber art, visual art and more. There is also hot food and hot drinks. Authors will be inside the library selling and signing books, vendors are outdoors and in the basement is the library’s 10 cent book sale. Come on up to beautiful Dover-Foxcroft, enjoy the last great days of fall in Maine, find some cool stuff and books, and help support a fantastic library.

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

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1955: A Jazz Jones & January Queen Raleigh Mystery by Matt Cost

Posted on October 23, 2026 by matthewcost

1955: A Jazz Jones & January Queen Raleigh Mystery was born on October 20th at 12:01 a.m., weighing in at 13.6 ounces and 9 inches tall.

The idea for this latest historical PI mystery came from a simple source. I have three kids living in the Raleigh, North Carolina area. I wanted to write a historical mystery, and setting it somewhere I visit often would let me research the novel during my free time when I sojourn there.

The next step was deciding when the story is set. The height of the Civil Rights Movement seemed like a captivating time period, so I chose 1955, one year after Brown v. Board of Education overturned the separate-but-equal doctrine and set the wheels in motion to end segregation in schools.

This demanded that the mysteries have this fight for equal rights at their core, as the backlash against this ruling was harsh, violent, and deep-seated, especially in the Deep South, which North Carolina bordered as part of the Upper South.

Thus, 1955: A Jazz Jones & January Queen Raleigh Mystery was conceived, nurtured, and born.

“Welcome to Antebellum,” the ghoul said. “You are the guest of honor.” Something isn’t right in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1955, and Jazz Jones will have to cut through the murk and set things straight.

“You heard about the dead boy?” She had said that her name was January Queen and that she was with the NAACP. Her eyes were a pair of sins, or maybe they just mirrored my own.

“Maybe we came to you,” she said, “because not only are you fair, but you have a firm grasp on what the word justice really means.”

And there it was, I thought. I was being asked to bring the killers to justice and expose the underbelly of seething hatred in my city, even if it meant offending my neighbors and inflaming the ire of otherwise good white folks who just didn’t know any better. And, possibly, break the law along the way. Whatever it took. Even if I had to dig some six-foot-deep holes along the way.

Jazz Jones is a white private investigator in Raleigh, raised by his aunt and her partner, a Black man, after his parents leave him there to return to the jazz circuit. This places him firmly in a no-man’s-land between white and Black at a volatile period in our nation’s history, a time when racial equality is tearing many communities apart.

January Queen is a Black representative of the NAACP sent down from New York City to investigate the lynching of a young Black man in Raleigh, which also happens to be the city in which she was born and raised. She hires Jazz to dig into the seamy elements behind the murder, and they uncover an entire bed of snakes, thrusting them into not only a fight for what is right, but a fight for their very lives.

Please join me in perusing the pages of a time in our country’s history when bad things happened, but good people fought back.

 

About the Author

Matt Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014, he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries.

Cost has published twenty books, mostly crime novels, from traditional PI to thriller to historical mystery. His most recent book debuts a new series: 1955: A Jazz Jones & January Queen Raleigh Mystery.

Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. Cost now spends his days writing at the computer.

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Crime Think

Posted on October 22, 2026 by Robert T. Kelley

In 2018 I had the chance to take a class called “Unputdownable” with the very talented author of Child Zero, Chris Holm, about making your writing gripping and suspenseful. He shared an anecdote that day that I have shared with many others including in classes I have taught.

He said that he’d find himself researching some dark, dangerous technique or technology and realize that his search history could brand him as an extraordinarily dangerous person who was interested in terror, murder, and general mayhem. He said that he’d type into his browser something like “Dear NSA. I do all this for research. I write novels,” just in case they were listening.

It was funny/not funny, nodding to the very real violence we explore in the crime genre encompassing real threats in the world. But it also raises the fact for me that the research I do for my current series often goes to some very, very dark places.

I had a great time exploring the world of 1990 for my debut Raven: technologies that were nascent now ubiquitous, fears of the Cold War now gone but replaced by newer threats. My upcoming series however is set in contemporary America, following technology journalist Olivia Wright as she explores unregulated technologies, political manipulation, and all the ways technology can be turned against its users.

As part of those stories, I’ve investigated the intentional misuse of social media to unduly influence people, the damage unregulated AI can do, and the corporate, political, and societal actors who benefit from those abuses. I also have had the chance to explore those working against these activities, both in public and in secret.

My editor for the first Olivia Wright book, Critical State (Fall 2027), asked me about a scene in which a whistleblower feels he must flee from the authorities who are intent imprison him for what he has revealed. He said it felt like it was real. It was as real as I could make it, researching how to disappear. It’s become much, much harder than it was even twenty years ago, but there are steps you can take, including having fake IDs made.

Now, if my character were in the CIA, there’d be a whole team who would help him create his false “legend,” complete with identification, disguises, even pocket litter consistent with the character he would play.

But if you are a private citizen in 2026 with access to Bitcoin, you can buy one online. The location for the marketplace (that is exactly like every e-commerce site you’ve ever been on) is on what is known as the “dark web.” It is inaccessible via a normal browser, but available via the secure Tor browser, which encrypts all traffic and masks your location. It’s considered mostly secure (though there are rumors the NSA has indeed penetrated it). The address of a very 1990’s style index of available interesting sites, known as the “Hidden Wiki,” gives you addresses of these sites. Once there, with enough Bitcoin, you can purchase fake drivers licenses complete with magnetic strip, holograms, and other embedded security features.

To be clear, I did not buy one. But did I load up a cart with them to learn how it works? Yes, I did.

For my next book in the Olivia Wright series (Fall 2028), I’m still researching and drafting. This book features a plot line with an Anti-AI activist/terrorist. The title of this post plays on one of the sites that has been extremely informative, CrimethInc, a repository of books and research on resistance movement ideas, history, and activities. That research has been even more interesting, both for me, and for whoever might be watching my browser history.

Wrapping up Emily St. John Mandel’s Exit Party, 2026.

Next in my TBR is Granite Harbor by Peter Nichols, 2024.

Posted in Rob's Posts | 4 Comments

How Character Background Shapes Pressure

Posted on October 20, 2026 by Vaughn C. Hardacker

Vaughn Hardacker here.  Several weeks ago, I received an email from ade@speedymetric.com, the CEO of speedymetric.com, asking if I would consider interviewing for a blog on the third novel in my Michael Houston & Anne Bouchard series: How Character Background Shapes Pressure in Quid Pro Quo: Vaughn C. Hardacker on Writing Tension.

I agreed. The result was very good. I requested, and he gave me permission to post the blog here.

How Character Background Shapes Pressure in Quid Pro Quo: Vaughn C. Hardacker on Writing Tension.

Author Vaughn C. Hardacker shares how professional experience, personal relationships, and loyalty shape Michael Houston’s motivations as the pressure intensifies in Quid Pro Quo.

In crime fiction, escalating tension is often built through difficult choices. As circumstances become more dangerous, a character’s background can determine not only how they respond, but also what they are willing to risk.

For Vaughn C. Hardacker, character background is central to creating that pressure.

In his Michael Houston and Anne Bouchard books, including Sniper, The Fisherman, and Quid Pro Quo, Hardacker considers Houston’s experience as a Marine sniper and BPD detective when developing his motivations and responses to the situations he faces.

Starting With the Character’s Background

Houston’s professional history gives him a particular perspective when confronted with danger.

Hardacker explains that in Sniper, Houston’s initial motivation comes from his military and BPD experience. However, the stakes become more personal when his former wife and daughter are jeopardized.

This shift changes the nature of the pressure surrounding him. What begins with professional instincts becomes connected to the people closest to him.

For Hardacker, this connection between a character’s background and the circumstances they face is an important part of developing tension.

QUID PRO QUO: Houston & Bouchard #3
by Vaughn C. Hardacker

Raising the Personal Stakes in Quid Pro Quo

In Quid Pro Quo, Houston once again faces circumstances that connect his professional instincts with deeply personal motivations.

According to Hardacker, Houston is motivated by a threat to his daughter, as well as by his loyalty to his former brother-in-law, mobster Jimmy O.

These motivations place Houston in a situation where his decisions are influenced by more than the immediate danger.

His daughter represents a deeply personal stake, while his relationship with Jimmy O introduces another layer of responsibility and loyalty.

The result is a character whose choices are shaped by the history he carries with him.

The Role of Loyalty

One quality remains particularly important to Houston throughout these stories: loyalty.

Hardacker explains:

“I always include Houston’s strong sense of loyalty.”

That characteristic becomes an important part of understanding how Houston responds when circumstances become increasingly difficult.

A character’s values can become especially significant when the available choices begin to narrow. Loyalty can create obligations, while professional experience can shape how a character assesses danger. Personal relationships can then make the consequences of those decisions even more significant.

For Houston, these elements work together.

Creating Pressure Through Motivation

Hardacker’s approach demonstrates how tension can be rooted in character rather than relying solely on external events.

The threat itself creates the situation, but Houston’s background determines how he responds to it. His military experience, law-enforcement background, relationships, and loyalty all contribute to the decisions he makes.

That gives the pressure in Quid Pro Quo a personal dimension.

The question is not simply what Houston will do when confronted with danger. It is also how far he will go when the people and relationships that matter to him are placed at risk.

By connecting external circumstances with internal motivation, Hardacker creates a character whose decisions are closely tied to who he is.

About Vaughn C. Hardacker

Vaughn C. Hardacker is the author of Quid Pro Quo and several other works, including Sniper, The Fisherman, Wendigo, My Brother’s Keeper, Black Orchid, The Exchange, Ripped Off, and The War Within.

His books have received literary recognition, including finalist placements for the Maine Literary Award.

Visit Vaughn C. Hardacker’s Official Website

Featured book: Quid Pro Quo by Vaughn C. Hardacker

About This Author Feature

This article is part of Speedymetric’s Author Insights series, featuring authors who share their perspectives on writing, storytelling, characters, and the ideas behind their books.

Speedymetric publishes these conversations to give readers a closer look at the creative decisions that shape different kinds of books and to provide authors with a place to share their perspectives.

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Category: Author Insights | Crime Fiction | Writing Craft

 

 

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Weekend Update: October 17-18, 2026

Posted on October 17, 2026 by kaitlynkathy

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Dick Cass (Monday), Vaughn Hardacker (Tuesday), Rob Kelley (Thursday), and Matt Cost (Friday), with an interview with special guest Henry Wise on Wednesday.

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

Last year’s Thompson Free Library Night Market, with added illustrations from the library’s Facebook page. It’s a fun event, and the local authors are indoors. 🙂

Maureen Milliken will be at the Thompson Free Library’s 2nd annual Night Market, 4-7 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 24, Thompson Free Libary, 183 Main St., Dover-Foxcroft. It’s a great event, with local authors (who are indoors!), crafts and artisans (outdoors), soup and chili, hot chocolate and coffee, and the library’s annual book sale in the basement. It raises money for the library and the local booster’s club, so come on by and say hi.

 

 

 

 

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

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Fall is a good time for writers to ‘get ideas’ or just enjoy Maine

Posted on October 16, 2026 by Maureen Milliken

I had a big idea for a blog post, but to quote Greg Brady, “Something suddenly came up.” If you’re of a certain age and watched as much TV as I did, you’ll know what that means.

In any case, given my lack of time, I’m going to post some photos I’ve taken recently that are quintessentially fall in Maine. People ask where we get our ideas. Lots of times, it’s small things. There’s something about fall in Maine that sparks the imagination in me. Maybe it’s because things are getting darker, even with the brief burst of color. In any case, if you’re a writer or aspire to be one, maybe one of these photos will prompt an idea. Or not. No pressure. [Sorry if you’re looking at this on a phone and the photos are all squished in a funhouse mirror kind of way.]

Willow and some Belgrade scarecrows.

It’s always fun when the town scarecrows come out for the season. My dog thinks they’re real people. Unfortunately, they tend to stay a little too long and deteriorate with the rain, wind and freezes, but on the other hand, maybe that makes them scarier? Part of the plot of my book No News is Bad News involved town scarecrows that had overstayed their welcome. It came to me just from seeing scarecrows around towns here in central Maine this time of year.

If you’ve ever been to Augusta, you may have seen the huge cemetery at the top of the hill near the airport. It’s actually several cemeteries, at least four or five I think, with some mini-cemeteries thrown in. We grew up down the hill and it was part of our childhood playground. Graves date back a couple of centuries, and there are even a few plots of soldiers who died at the Civil War hospital that was where the airport is now. This photo is from the Forest Grove Cemetery, in between Winthrop Street and Green Street.

I go up to the cemeteries a couple of times a week now, even though I live in an adjacent town, because it’s a good place to walk the dog on the way to the grocery store. Dogs are allowed, and there are even a couple of waste baskets in what’s officially the Mount Hope Cemetery, north of Winthrop Street.

This relatively unexciting photo is the grave of James G. Blaine, who represented Maine in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was speaker of the house for six years before serving a term as a U.S. senator. The governor’s mansion next to the State House is his former home. The annoying thing about this photo is that one reason he’s planted here at the top of the hill (along with his wife, Harriet Stanwood Blaine) is that it’s supposed to have a view of the State House dome, but it only does in the winter now because of all the trees. Yeah, I guess the trees are nice, too. Little known fact: The three-acre Blaine Memorial, right above Forest Grove Cemetery, was designed by Carl Rust Parker, a landscape architect from the Frederick Law Olmstead firm, and the same guy who tried to design Capitol Park, which I wrote about a few months ago, but was thwarted by a tight-fisted Legislature. The Blaine Memorial is a nice little park with great views (in the winter), so check it out next time you’re in Augusta. It’s listed by the National Park Service, since they list all U.S. parks designed by the Olmstead firm.

I’ve driven by the Ezra Smith Wildlife Conservation Area in Mount Vernon many times, so one day recently decided to get out and check it out and give Willow some exercise. Ezra was the father of someone that some of you may have known — George Smith, who was head of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine for many years and a newspaper columnist who wrote about the outdoors as well as travel for many more years. The 163-acre conservation area hasn’t been around that long. Most of it was donated to the Kennebec Land Trust by George and his wife, Linda, eight years ago, a little while before George, who had ALS, died. Since it’s small, with just two loop trails, I thought it’d be a nice quick walk for Willow. It actually was kind of a scary one, with very thick woods at some points. A couple of times, she stopped and stared intently into the woods and wouldn’t go fowward without extreme urging from me, which is highly unusual behavior. Still, we came out all right. But there’s definitely something in those woods.

I hope this quick juant though autumn in central Maine has sparked some ideas. People ask all the time where we get our ideas, but mine mostly come from walking around and observing things. Even if you haven’t been inspired writing-wise, I hope you enjoyed this foray into my area of Maine. There are a lot of overlooked places, maybe even near you. We’re not all lobsters, lighthouses and crashing waves. Get out and explore before the snow flies.

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