Please Welcome My Guest, Mystery Author, Jean Henry Mead

Today I'm happy to host Jean Henry Mead, a delightful mystery writer and Internet friend.
 

Jean Henry Mead

 Jean Henry Mead is a mystery/suspense and western historical novelist. She's also an award-winning photojournalist. One of her fortes is interviewing writers, actors, politicians, artists and ordinary people who have accomplished extraordinary things. She began her writing career as a California news reporter/editor/photographer,first in Central California and later in San Diego. Mead later transferred to Casper, Wyoming, to serve as a staff writer for the statewide newspaper. While there she served as editor of In Wyoming Magazine and two small presses. She also freelanced for other magazines, both domestic and abroad, among them the Denver Post.. Her first book was published in 1982. She's since published fourteen novels and nonfiction books.
You can reach Jean at http://www.jeanhenrymead.com/


Writing with Humor

by Jean Henry Mead

I’m not a comedian but I’ve found that adding humor to my books increases sales. In fact, I’ve received several reviews stating that the reviewer hoped I would add more humor in my next novel. A Village Shattered takes place in a central California retirement village where Sew and So club members are dying alphabetically. Nothing humorous about that, but I added a couple of quirky characters to the mix: a love starved widow and a rednecked cassanova, which not only makes it a fun read but enjoyable to write.

The second book in my Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense series is Dairy of Murder, which takes on a more series tone when Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty, two widows traveling in their motorhome, learn that Dana’s sister has died and her husband claims it was suicide. Dana knows her sister Georgi, a mystery writer, would never take her own life, so she and her friend Sarah set out to prove it was murder. Along the way they stumble over more bodies and a vicious drug gang. The only humor comes from Sarah’s dialogue and reviewers complained that it wasn’t as funny as A Village Shattered.

My first novel, Escape on the Wind, republished twice and retitled Escape, a Wyoming Historical Novel, was probably my most humorous as well as my best selling novel to date. It features a kidnapped young heiress, Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch, and a little known member of the gang, Tom “Peep O’Day, an alcoholic horse thief who nearly takes over the plot because he was so much fun to write about. Good-natured and bungling, he causes the gang to botch the Belle Fourche bank robbery.

I added humor to my first, recently released children’s novel, Mystery of Spider Mountain, as well as the second, The Ghost of Crimson Dawn, which I’m currently writing. I’ve also added humor to my nonfiction books. Casper Country: Wyoming’s Heartland, was researched by spending two years behind a microfilm machine reading 97-years’ worth of newspapers, dating from 1889. I’ll never do that again, but I found some funny incidents to add to the centennial history book, which was eventually used as a textbook at Casper College.

One of the things I remember was an article about three young boys stealing watermelons from a railroad boxcar. They were housed briefly in the county jail during the early 1900s. When police were asked about the case by a reporter, an officer remarked about how good the watermelons tasted. I doubt the young boys had watermelon for dessert.

In my latest novel, Murder on the Interstate, Dana and Sarah discover the body of a beautiful young woman shot and killed along I-40 in northern Arizona while traveling in their motorhome. The killer returns to make sure his victim is dead and disables their RV. A woman trucker then comes to their rescue and they chase the killer in “Big Ruby” MCurdy’s produce truck to record his license number. Along the way Ruby alerts other truckers to keep an eye out for his dark red Dodge pickup and the resultant conversations are humorous. When the two women find themselves trapped in a Hummer during a flash flood, they’re cracking jokes to prevent hysteria.

To research the book, I drove my own 36-foot motorhome along the same mountainous interstate while listening to truckers on my CB radio, so the language is authentic.

                                      To order Murder on the Interstate, go to http://tinyurl.com/3qvolo5.

                                      To learn more about Jean and her books, you're welcome to visit her at her website at http://www.jeanhenrymead.com/.

Please leave a comment below to welcome Jean to Acme Authors Link.