Category Archives: News

My Wild Welcome to Portugal

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During our trip to Europe last month, my husband Will and I flew from Naples to Portugal. At Lisbon airport, we got a taxi. Naively, we didn’t think to ask in advance what the fare would be or question the absence of a meter in the cab. Friends who have been to Portugal a few times had told us taxis in Lisbon were inexpensive. 

Our taxi driver drove quickly to downtown, which isn’t far from Lisbon airport, and arrived at our Airbnb apartment. He told us the fare was 35 Euro (about $57 CAD). This wasn’t cheap, perhaps a little more than we’d pay for a similar ride in Calgary, where I live. We gave him cash, since he didn’t take credit cards, and didn’t add a tip to his inflated price. The taxi took off and we found the phone number for Pedro, who was supposed to meet us at the apartment to let us in.  

Before we could phone, a police car drove up and parked. The officer strode toward us. 

“How much did you pay for that taxi?” he asked.   

“Thirty-five euro.”

“It should only be fifteen euro from the airport,” he said. “I want to take the driver to court. Can you show me your passport?”

We looked down the street and noticed the taxi and another police car were stopped. Presumably, the first police car had followed us from the airport and notified the second car to block the taxi from leaving the narrow street.

Pedro heard the commotion from our balcony and came down to see what was going on. He and the police officer spoke for a while in Portuguese. We guessed the officer was explaining the situation. With Pedro there, I felt assured the officer’s request to see our passports was legitimate. 

The officer photographed Will’s passport and told us that we wouldn’t have to go to court, but he needed the information for the case. He asked for our phone number and Canadian address. 

“Did you pay cash?” he asked. “What bills did you give him?”

“A fifty-euro bill.”

 “Did you get change?”

“Yes.”

“What denominations?

“Five and ten-euro bills.”

Details make the story convincing for a court case. 

Still holding onto Will’s passport, the officer jogged to the taxi and other police car. He returned and handed Will his passport along with a twenty-euro bill for our overpayment.

After the officer and all the vehicles left, Pedro led us into the apartment building and said, “I hope this is only bad thing that happens to you in Portugal.”  

“Oh no,” I said. “It was interesting.”

Evidently, Portugal appreciates the economic value of tourism and wants visitors to feel welcome in the country. Authorities are using police and legal resources to discourage locals from taking advantage of foreigners. Certain matters, like taxi fares, are less regulated than they are in some other countries and tourists should be alert to this. 

At the same time, locals need to earn a living. Was fifteen euro too cheap for that airport taxi ride, given the cost of gasoline and car maintenance? If our driver had charged us a fair rate, I hope we’d have tipped him generously.        

Looking down to the spot where the police car cut the taxi off at the pass

Home Sweet Homicide – but please don’t try this in your own home

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In August, at Calgary’s annual When Words Collide Festival for writers and readers I sat on a panel titled Home Sweet Homicide: the multitude of ways victims die at or near their homes. The moderator asked us panelists to describe the various methods we’d used in our mystery novels and why we’d chosen those approaches. 

I talked about my Paula Savard Mystery Series set in Calgary. Paula, my sleuth, is an insurance adjuster whose work gets her involved in crimes. In books # 2 and 3 of the series, Paula investigates a building fire and a hit-and-run collision near a victim’s home. She comes to suspect both apparent accidents were coverups for murder. Book # 4 begins with Paula investigating a theft from a bicycle store during the COVID-19 pandemic. A murder takes place in the adjacent furniture store, which has closed for the pandemic and become the home of a squatter. The victim is bashed on the head with a weapon of opportunity: a candlestick from the store’s dining room display. 

Home Sweet Homicide panel at WWC 2025

The panel’s most engaging questions related to the allure of poisons and medications thanks to our expert panelist, Lee-Anne Hancock, a retired nurse who worked at the BC Drug and Poison Information Centre. Lee-Anne told us about ordinary plants and medicines that can kill if used incorrectly — or correctly from a killer’s perspective. She noted that poisoning has been called the female murderer’s method of choice, perhaps because it is less messy and violent and doesn’t require physical strength.

As a mystery writer, I’m intrigued by the medicinal method that can easily be disguised as an accident. In two of my short stories, someone kills a relative by administering an overdose of their prescribed medicine. Even if suspicions arise and victims are autopsied, it would be normal for traces of their own medicines to show up in their bloodstreams. 

In my novel, A Killer Whisky, set in 1918 Calgary, a man dies in his living room after drinking a glass of whisky. His symptoms are consistent with the “Spanish Flu” that has struck the city and the attending doctor diagnoses the flu as the cause of death. But the man’s neighbour, who is the doctor’s receptionist, suspects someone laced the whisky with a poison or a medicine that reacted with the alcohol to produce a toxic brew. She convinces a sympathetic police detective to investigate.       

The Home Sweet Homicide panel took a light hearted approach that entertained the audience at the end of a busy festival day. Afterward, I pondered why I’ve tended to kill off my novel victims in their homes or on nearby streets rather than farther away. I came up with three thoughts. 

1. My killers and victims always know each other, which is most common with real life murders, and relatives and friends often hang out together at or near their homes.  

2. Homes are, by definition, private rather than public. There will likely be fewer potential witnesses to a crime and perhaps no witnesses. Any friends or relatives present might lie or conceal information to protect themselves, someone else, or the victim.  

3. Home is supposed to be our safe place. A home break-in feels like a violation, and a killing in our home or neighbourhood threatens our sense of security.  

My WWC 2025 panel: Home Sweet Homicide

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On today’s BWL author insider blog, I talk about part of my experience at Calgary’s annual When Words Collide Festival for Writers and Readers. https://bwlauthors.blogspot.com/

WWC is a great three-day event for writers and readers of all genres of fictions. I’ve attended the festival every year since it began in 2011 and love the energy, information, networking, and more. For information about WWC 2026, check out the Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society website. https://www.alexandrawriters.org/

My Changing Author Photograph

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When my first novel, A Deadly Fall, was published in 2011, I decided to get a professional author photograph for book promotion. A friend recommended her friend, Deb Marchand, a local Calgary photographer who specializes in portraits, family pictures, and special events like graduation photos. 

I contacted Deb, found her cost reasonable, and arranged a photo session. Deb likes to shoot outdoors and prefers the evenings for better light. We picked a date, but that summer kept getting hit with evening thunder showers, and we had to cancel our first date. The next time, another storm loomed, but we agreed to chance a downpour. 

Deb chose a location on a park ridge. I had asked her advice on clothing for my portrait. Since it would be a head shot, clothes only mattered from the chest up. Deb said a plain coloured top with a rounded neckline would be best. I had also read that it’s best to avoid jewellery in portraits since it detracts from the face, which is what people most want to see about the person. 

I looked through my wardrobe, couldn’t find the perfect top, and threw a bunch into a bag with the plan to discretely change on the ridge until we found the top that worked. Fortunately, on that evening of looming clouds few people were out walking in the park. After taking numerous photos of me in several tops, I went to Deb’s house, in the rain, to go through the selections on her computer. An agonizing choice when so many photos looked similar and I’m not the biggest fan of pictures of me. 

In the end, I settled on a photo of me wearing a white top with a V-neck. I liked the look so much that I had the photo enlarged for my family room wall. 

Deb and I became Facebook friends. She came to my book launch and read A Deadly Fall and my next two novels. In 2019, I realized my eight-year-old photo was out of date and asked Deb if she’d be interested in another photo shoot. This time, we met on a clear, spring evening in Calgary’s St. Patrick’s Island Park, and I had the perfect top–red with a rounded neckline.  

Six years passed. I published three more novels, let my hair go naturally gray, and. thanks to cataract surgery didn’t wear glasses anymore. Every time I sent out my author picture, I felt it didn’t look like the current “me.” I messaged Deb who was enthused about working with me again. She suggested Prince’s Island Park downtown for our third photo shoot.  

Deb asked if I’d prefer a city or nature backdrop. I chose nature because I liked the greenery in my past photos and thought high rise buildings in the background would portray the wrong image for my shift to historical fiction. Deb thought a light-coloured top would be a good contrast to nature colours. I chose a pale pink rounded-neck T-shirt top. 

On a warm, slightly windy and smoky evening in June, we walked around the Prince’s Island Park and caught up on each others’ news. Deb photographed me on a staircase to the Bow River and in front of trees and flowerbeds. She had me do models’ poses–chest out and swish your arms down your hips to your thighs–and fussed with my windblown hair. It reminded me that I wouldn’t want to be a model. 

After the session, Deb emailed me a longlist of photos as well as her five personal favourites, from which I chose my two author photos. Here they are:

Deb and I shared a few laughs during the photo shoot. She said that, as a bonus, she’d add a joyous portrait as her gift to me. “It will be one of those great laughing photographs that makes me smile as big as your smile in the photo.” 

Many thanks to https://www.debmarchandphotography.ca/ for all these years of great author photos. 

Do The Happy Hollisters Stand the Test of Time?

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When I was a child, I devoured novels about children and teenagers who solved mysteries and crimes. The Bobbsey Twins, The Happy Hollisters, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden. I loved them all and passed the books down to my two sons who enjoyed reading them. Since my granddaughter loved Robert Quackenbush’s series of Sherlock Chick mystery picture books that I got from the library, I wondered if she’d like these classics for older readers now that she is almost eight.   

The Bobbsey Twins were my gateway mysteries, but I could only find one Bobbsey book in my house. My granddaughter liked reading it with her dad, so I thought of trying her on a mystery series for the next reading level: The Happy Hollisters. 

The Hollisters are a family of five children aged four to twelve. People they meet in the stories always comment on their happiness. The siblings never quarrel or pick on each other or complain about doing household chores. Their parents are equally happy. They don’t yell or punish their kids who constantly get into dangerous situations.  

Since the novels were published between 1953 and 1970, I decided to read the first book in the series to check that it wasn’t too dated for modern children. 

Naturally, the story reflects the times. The Hollisters live in a “white” middle class world. The two boys play Cowboys and Indians. Only the girls (cheerfully) help their mother make sandwiches for a family picnic and all three love playing with dolls, even “tomboy” Holly. The boys tend to be more rambunctious and daring than their sisters and take on the leadership roles. 

But Pam Hollister beats all the neighbourhood boys in a mini-car race, and the girls get into scrapes and contribute to solving the mystery.  

As a modern reader, what startled me most about the book was the children’s freedom. Mrs. Hollister lets four-year old Sue follow her older siblings everywhere. The Hollisters live on a lake, and Sue almost drowns. (Their intrepid family dog rescues her). When the older children build a campfire, Sue’s dress catches fire. Her brother Ricky burns his hands while saving her. Mrs. Hollister takes all of this in stride. 

The other adults are equally unprotective. When the children find the final clue to the mysterious thefts, they prudently take their information to Officer Cal. He invites them to hop in his patrol car and help capture the thief.  Children of the 1950s might have believed Cal would do this, but would today’s more protected kids find it plausible? But if they don’t, would believability matter if they’re engaged in the Hollisters’ adventures?  

In the end, my son felt the books were a bit too long for his almost-eight-year-old. We’ll wait another year to try them on her. The Happy Hollister series was out of print from 1983 until 2010, when the publisher started to reissue the novels in paperback, hardcover, digital, and audio formats. You can buy the complete 33-paperback book set for $285. https://thehappyhollisters.com/product/the-happy-hollisters-bundle-collection/ The reissued books are described as faithful to the originals. I think for modern children, the stories could use some updating. For starters, I’d made the children, their parents, and their dog a little less than totally happy.   

Garage Sale Season

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My project this winter was to declutter the Calgary home I’ve lived in for twenty-nine years. My husband Will and I loaded fifteen boxes of books into our car to donate to charity book sale. Will sold our old foosball table and other items of some value on Kijiji. We filled an old suitcase with items to bring to our son in Ottawa for him to keep or sell in his neighbourhood garage sale. 

The Great Glebe Garage Sale takes place annually in Ottawa the fourth Saturday in May. About a third of the homes in the Glebe neighbourhood participate. Shoppers come from all over the city and make the event into a festival. People line the sidewalks, food trucks set up on main streets, and flea market vendors rent spots in the high school yard. 

This year, our spring visit to Ottawa corresponded with Great Garage Sale. Will and I helped sell items to the thousand or so people who browsed the goods that lined our son’s driveway. Our old suitcase sold for $10. A woman paid $25 for a dilapidated rocking chair that had belonged to my grandparents. She plans to refurbish it into a cherished antique. 

Two weeks after The Glebe, my Calgary neighbourhood hosted a Parade of Garage Sales. Will and I were inspired to give it a try. From the Parade organizers and our son, we picked up a few garage sale tips.

  • Painter’s tape is good for price stickers since it peels off easily and cleanly
  • Elevate items as much as possible, using TV tables and boxes in addition to regular tables
  • Organize items by categories and prices
  • Wear a fanny pack for holding coins and bills
  • Have lots of coins and small bills on hand to make change
  • Offer deals: 2-for-1bundles, or “fill a bag” for $5

As it turned out, we didn’t need the change since almost everyone paid with coins or small bills, and the deals didn’t entice people to add to their own clutter, although our neighbour bought our whole box of fridge magnets for one dollar.

We generally priced our goods lower than our son did his because our prime goal was to get rid of stuff and we knew our shoppers would be a fraction of the Great Glebe’s. Our first buyer arrived a half hour before the official start and got first dibs on our vintage board games and other items. We heard the word “vintage” several times that day, which was nicer than saying “junk.” People enjoyed nostalgic moments at the sight of toys they recalled playing with as children. A woman reminded me that I’d bought my abacus in Hong Kong 50 years ago. 

Another woman fell in love with a heavy mirror in a carved wood frame that had been on my father’s wall. She bought it for five dollars. My father liked garage sales and collecting “vintage” goods. He’d be happy the mirror went to this woman rather than remain stashed in my basement corner. 

It was great to see bulky items go to people who’d appreciate them. My old guitar with broken strings, a folding lawn chair that we’d found uncomfortable, a bean bag game we hadn’t played in years. 

A lot of stuff was left over at the end, including a ping pong table. But the table’s large surface was so handy for displaying items like board games that we don’t mind storing it disassembled in the garage for a future garage sale.

Yes, we’ll probably do it again. Garage sales seem to run in my family blood and one of these years I’ll convince Will to sell his “vintage” childhood wagon that a few of our buyers spotted in our garage. 

Now our task is to throw out the real junk, pack up China and household items for Goodwill donation, and return a few unsold things to our house to keep until next year. I’ll return my abacus to the wall unit as a source of Hong Kong memories instead of a piece of clutter. 

The sale has also inspired our next project — to clean up and organize the garage. It will be a pleasure to drive inside, when there’s finally room again for the car.