Donald Bain

MAY 2008

HI EVERYONE!

Welcome to first-time visitors and welcome back old friends.

Spring has definitely sprung. Renee has been out in the garden getting dirt under her fingernails, working to find a nice combination of flowers to give us color all summer, and trying to find a way to keep the neighbor's cat from digging up her plants. Don has been beavering away, as the Brits say, on his other book project due the middle of this month. When the weather cooperates, we're looking forward a bit of lounge time on the deck, where we'll start brainstorming the plot for the next Murder, She Wrote novel.

Murder on Parade is getting nice notices. Everyone seems to enjoy a visit from former Sheriff Amos Tupper, although we did get a complaint that he wasn't featured enough. We dedicated that book to a good friend, Anne Mann, whose Research Fund for Waldenstrom's is working to combat a rare blood cancer. The disease also plays a part in the plot. The book takes place in your favorite setting, Cabot Cove, Maine. There's a link on the left for an excerpt. See below for a more detailed description. We hope you enjoy it.

We're still basking in the glory of Don's winning the IAMTW's highest award last year, its Grand Master, for lifetime achievement. IAMTW represents writers of tie-in media novels, and we're delighted to note that both of us will be judges in different categories for the organization's 2008 Scribe Awards.

We've returned the copyedited manuscript for A Slaying in Savannah to our editor. The book is due out in hardback this fall. We'll post an excerpt from it next month to whet your appetite. The book takes Jessica to this colorful Southern city to investigate an unsolved murder from 40 years ago. There are old lovers, family secrets, underground passages, and a ghost!

Our editor is now reading Madison Avenue Shoot, which takes place in New York City during the filming of a television commercial. Fans of Jessica Fletcher's nephew, Grady, will be pleased that he'll be back in this book playing a major role. Donna is there, too, of course. And you'll get to meet their nine-year-old son Frank, named for Jessica's late husband.

In case you missed it, Renee had the lead article in the fall newsletter of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. The editor invited her to write about me and our writing lives together. If you'd like to read it, there's a link on the bottom left.

Here's the latest news on the books:

"MURDER ON PARADE"
Every American loves the Fourth of July and its special meaning for all Americans. Cabot Cove celebrates it each year with traditional, festive parades, contests, special events for the youngsters, and, of course, fireworks. But this year, the "bombs bursting in air" includes a fatal gunshot that takes the life of one of the town's most controversial citizens. Jessica finds herself right in the middle of the investigation, aided (or perhaps hindered) by a stranger whose arrival in Cabot Cove has tongues wagging. Former sheriff Amos Tupper makes a return appearance in this novel, to be published in April 2008. And Seth Hazlitt, who's seriously wounded by a mugger, faces a tough decision that has Jessica worried, and will determine whether he closes down his medical practice and leaves town.

"PANNING FOR MURDER"
In this, the latest novel in the "Murder, She Wrote" series, in bookstores now, Jessica had planned a leisurely Alaskan cruise to rest and regenerate. But when the sister of a Cabot Cove friend disappears from a cruise ship in Alaska, Jess is persuaded to include her friend on her cruise in the hope of tracking down the sister. Alaska's most famous brothel owner from the days of the Gold Rush (a distant relative of the sisters) had allegedly hidden a stash of gold, and the missing sister had hoped to find it. Along with Alaska's stunning vistas and abundant wildlife, Jessica encounters wildlife of a different sort--a smooth con man, a vicious killer, and an adventure she'll not soon forget.

"COFFEE, TEA OR MURDER?"
Jessica and Cabot Cove friends are invited on the maiden flight of a new trans-Atlantic airline from Boston to London. The airline's founder, a former Cabot Cove resident, has gone on to become a highly successful businessman, alienating plenty of people along the way. The flight to London is smooth. But once there, this celebratory event turns deadly, and it takes some sophisticated sleuthing by Jessica on the return flight, aided by an extra passenger, Scotland Yard Inspector George Sutherland, to bring a killer to justice at 35,000 feet over the Atlantic.

Remarkably, every book in the "Murder, She Wrote" series is still in print, and more than 3 million copies have been printed. NOTE: The second book in the series, MANHATTANS & MURDER, which takes place in New York City over the Christmas holiday, is being reissued this December.

"Murder HE Wrote"
The "Murder, She Wrote" series, the Veronica Lake autobiography, "Charlie and the Shawneetown Dame," and "Coffee, Tea or Me?" are among the almost 100 books I've written over a long career. The stories behind these books and all the others, are contained in the new, large format paperback edition of my autobiography, "Murder HE Wrote: A Successful Writer's Life," published by Purdue University Press. For reviews and endorsements from top publishing figures and fellow-writers, please click on the book's title, "Murder HE Wrote" to your right. Perfect gift for the writer in your family.

"CHARLIE AND THE SHAWNEETOWN DAME"
The Purdue University Press reissue of a book I wrote more than 30 years ago, CHARLIE AND THE SHAWNEETOWN DAME, continues to create a buzz in Hollywood. It's a dramatization of a true story from the Prohibition era, involving one of the more bizarre gang wars in the annals of crime in America, replete with tank wars, bombing from an aircraft, and chronicling the life of Charlie Birger, a flamboyant, slightly mad Al Capone wannabe. I've completed a screenplay based upon the book, and of the more than 90 books I've written, this has always been a particular favorite. Click on the title at the right for reviews, and an excerpt from the book.

"THE CIA'S CONTROL OF CANDY JONES"
The reissue of the controversial THE CIA'S CONTROL OF CANDY JONES is difficult to find in stores, and on amazon.com and at barnes&noble.com. Twentieth-Century Fox bought the film rights many years ago as a vehicle for Jane Fonda but has never made the movie. I've tried to buy back the rights, as have a dozen Hollywood producers. For some reason, Fox won't let go. That's a shame because it would make a wonderful motion picture. Besides, the American public should know about the perverse CIA experiments that took place during the "Cold War."

"COFFEE, TEA OR ME?"
Penguin Books' reissue of COFFEE, TEA OR ME? last year, which includes a new foreword by me, and all the original Bill Wenzel illustrations, continues to sell well. I've recently participated in meetings in Los Angeles about mounting a TV series based upon the book.

IN ADDITION
Friend and fellow-author, Lee Goldberg, whose "Diagnosis Murder" and "Monk" novels are big hits, and whose noir novel, "The Man With The Iron-On Badge" has been receiving rave reviews, has launched an organization for "Tie-In Writers," the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers (IAMTW.org). Tie-in books are original novels based on characters from a television show. There are hundreds of talented tie-in writers laboring in the publishing vineyards who do not receive the recognition they deserve. IAMTW hopes to rectify this. To learn more about tie-in writing and writers, visit the IAMTW website.

Stop back again soon.
Donald Bain