Mystery Lovers Get to Hear It Here First : Books: Writers and readers gather regularly by the hearth at a Naples bookstore to share their love of crime stories.
LONG BEACH — Wendy Hornsby has more than a passing interest in murder. But it’s not the crime that fascinates her, it’s the consequences.
When the Long Beach mystery writer was doing research for a book, she sat in on the trial of Randy Kraft, who was sentenced to death in 1989 for murdering more than a dozen people.
The resulting book, “Half a Mind,†was not just about Kraft or the grisly crimes. Hornsby explored what happened to the victims’ families and to the prosecutors and scientists who worked five years to bring the Long Beach killer to justice.
“The deaths weren’t final for any of these people,†Hornsby said. “Instead, they were the beginning of an entirely different existence for them.â€
Meanwhile, Kraft is cocky and unrepentant, she said. “He plays bridge every day in San Quentin with three other mass murderers on death row.â€
Hornsby, who has published four novels, is among a group of published and aspiring mystery writers in Long Beach who gather regularly to talk about mystery writing, give readings and sign books at Sherlock’s Home mystery book store in the Naples area. Among them are Gary Amo, Jan Burke and Larry Taylor, all of whom have had mystery novels published recently.
Burke, who manages a local carbide manufacturing plant, sent her first novel, “Good Night, Irene,†unsolicited to Simon & Schuster. The publisher accepted the manuscript and offered her a three-book contract.
The book is not yet in the stores, but the local group of mystery writers and readers has already heard parts of it around the hearth at the bookstore, owner Beth Caswell said.
“When I first started these events, I thought the customers would read,†she said. “It never occurred to me that the authors would want to read their work aloud.â€
Most of the authors are delighted to read their works, she said. Gary Amo often reads from his work before it has been published, Caswell said. And Hornsby read from her latest book, “Telling Lies,†before it was available in the stores.
Caswell also found that the customers had lots of questions for the authors: What do you like to read? Is that cruel woman in the book your mother? Do you write at dawn? When did you start to write? And most of the writers are glad to talk--about their craft and themselves.
Hornsby, who teaches history at Long Beach City College, says she scribbled her first stories as a child. It was the only way the shy little girl could express herself in an active, rambunctious family. She abandoned writing in college, but later, living in an old Long Beach house “with a lurid past†triggered her imagination.
The original owner of the home was a doctor who ran off with his nurse at the same time his wife mysteriously disappeared, Hornsby said.
The house appears in two of her novels, “No Harm†and “Half a Mind.†But Hornsby took the artistic liberty of moving the house to the beach and adding stained-glass windows.
Much of Hornsby’s work features strong female protagonists, which she said was inspired by novelist Sharon Miller’s character Sharon McCone, a savvy private investigator who came onto the mystery scene in the mid-1970s.
“Before then,†Hornsby explained, “there were people like Miss Marple, fluffy ladies, amateurs who happened upon solutions while they were knitting. But for a woman to actively go out and seek a crime to solve is something very new.â€
Hornsby has a surprise for hometown fans. In her fifth book, “Midnight Baby,†coming out next spring, she leaves a body in the canals of the Naples area of Long Beach, “which my neighbors will just love,†she said.
Amo writes in the women-in-jeopardy tradition of crime fiction. His heroine, a female Los Angeles deputy district attorney, gets into some close scrapes but manages to escape in one piece.
He had written novels, screenplays and short stories for 17 years before his first book was published.
“When I started ‘Come Nightfall,’ I said, ‘If this one doesn’t sell, I’m going to give up,’ †recalled Amo, a political writer for the Palos Verdes Peninsula News. Since then, he has published “Silent Night†and “Creeping Shadows,†and has a fourth book coming out next year.
Another member of the local crime writers fraternity is attorney Larry Taylor, whose first book, “To Honor and Obey,†was published this year. He sprinkled it with true-to-life details of selecting a jury and coaching witnesses. His hero is a lawyer who defends women in legal jeopardy, including one who has to explain why she carries a butcher knife in her Louis Vuitton bag and how her husband happened to end up in slices.
Two of the Long Beach group have been honored by Mystery Writers of America. Hornsby won the Edgar Allan Poe Prize this year for the short story “Nine Sons,†which recounts the mysterious death of an infant girl. It was inspired by her mother’s tales of families made of only sons; the girl babies were left to die of exposure on the Canadian plains.
Last year, Amo’s work, “Come Nightfall,†was one of five finalists chosen from 200 entries in the category of best first-published crime novel.
The gatherings and readings at the bookstore are held Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons. During hearth-side holiday readings in the next month, Amo will preview a book that has been accepted for publication, Hornsby will read from “Midnight Baby†and Burke will preview her second book, Caswell said. The events are open to anyone with more than a passing interest in mystery.
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