with Jackie King
We are delighted to welcome mystery author Jackie King to Omnimystery News today.
Jackie's second mystery to feature former society wife and amateur sleuth Grace Cassidy is The Corpse Who Walked in the Door (Deadly Niche Press; May 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we recently had the chance to catch up with her to talk about the series.
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Omnimystery News: Tell us how you came to write your first book.
Photo provided courtesy of
Jackie King
Jackie King: My mother told me that I should be a writer when I was very young. We had neither TV nor radio, and as far back as I can remember, I told myself stories. I was the princess with long golden hair or with long jet-black hair. Some called this daydreaming. My mother said it was writing-inside-my-head. And like most children, my mother's word was law to me. Even when I wasn't putting words on paper, stories filled my head for my own entertainment. When I was about 50, I decided to try and get paid for these adventures.
OMN: A cat plays a key role in The Corpse Who Walked in the Door. What is his backstory?
JK: I seldom plan to use animals when I'm plotting. When my fingers hit the keyboard, those furry critters just show up unexpectedly and wriggle their way onto my pages and into my heart. In my first mystery The Inconvenient Corpse, an orange kitten appears in the rain and Grace Cassidy snatches him from under the wheels of a bus. It's impossible for her to keep him, she thinks. The B&B owner where she worked would never agree to a pet. But there he was, dripping wet and crying from hunger, big amber eyes pleading for her to rescue him. Grace didn't want him in her life any more than I wanted him in my story. But falling in love is just one of life's risks. Grace calls him trouble, picks him up and slips him into her oversized purse just before she steps on the bus. What else could she do? What could I do? Both protagonist and cat were aligned against me, so I folded.
In The Corpse Who Walked in the Door, Trouble — the name stuck — finds a body in the bathtub. Since Grace's occupation becomes that of inn-sitter, she wrangles an airline ticket for him to fly with her to the next adventure.
OMN: What is the most rewarding — and most difficult — aspect to writing?
JK: The most rewarding thing: Holding the finished product in my hands and thinking, "I really did it! It's finished."
Followed shortly afterwards by: The most difficult thing: Fear. Still holding the finished product in my hands, a frisson of fear knifes me. "Can I do it again? Will I be able to come up with another story-idea? Who can I murder on paper and then connect all the dots in a fun way so the reader enjoys finding out whodunit?"
OMN: Do you have a favorite mystery author?
JK: That's a hard question. There are so many! But if I had to choose I'd pick Agatha Christie as my all-time favorite classic author. A couple of other contemporary favorites are Louise Penny and Robert Crais. But many, many authors have given me countless happy hours. I sit in my wonderful brown leather chair, put my feet up on the ottoman, and enrich my life by traveling over the world and even back through time to the age of Golden Mysteries.
The most wonderful thing in the world is a good book.
OMN: Where do you see yourself in five years?
JK: In five years I hope to be sitting at my computer with my fingers on the keys, pounding out the stories that fill my head. The magic trick of writing is keeping one's bottom in that darned chair and ignoring all of life's chores that call your name. Dust will wait! Dishes in the sink will wait! Laundry will wait! (Just to give a small idea of the things that race through my mind from time to time.) I also hope to have 3 to 4 more published books by that time.
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Jackie King loves books, writing tall tales, and murdering the people she dislikes on paper.She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, Oklahoma Writers Federation, and Tulsa NightWriters.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at WEBSITE or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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The Corpse Who Walked in the Door
Jackie King
A Grace Cassidy Mystery
Former society wife Grace Cassidy is learning to live on the minimum wage she earns as a bed & breakfast inn-sitter. Grace finds her cat's bloody paw prints leading away from a bathtub and wants to run for her life.
But she can't. Her 19-year-old son is accused of pushing his pregnant girlfriend down a flight of concrete steps and she won't abandon him.
