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Carolyn Mulford

Carolyn Mulford

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Monthly Archives: December 2014

Reviewers Value Books’ Characters

Carolyn Mulford Posted on December 22, 2014 by CarolynDecember 22, 2014

Yesterday two reviewers gave me an early Christmas gift, appreciation of the people who inhabit Show Me the Gold, the newly released third volume of my mystery series.

In Living on the Page: Personal Journal of Author Sandra Parshall, the Agatha winner wrote, “The plot has enough twists, turns, and blind alleys to keep readers turning pages, but the greatest strength of Carolyn Mulford’s writing is her gift for creating likable characters with the kinds of flaws that make us all human. … Highly recommended for readers who love character-driven stories with realistic small town settings.”

If you need a model for writing book reviews, read this one and others at http://livingonthepage.blogspot.com/2014/12/review-show-me-gold.html.

Few newspapers give space to writers these days, but Columbia Tribune arts reporter Amy Wilder surveyed the local scene literary scene in “Missouri scribes fill shelves with varied volumes.” She even read Show Me the Gold before she interviewed me.

She focused on the fast pace, the sense of place, and my characters. She wrote, “Mulford is interested in, and draws a lot of inspiration from, social dynamics she has observed in people throughout her life — both while she lived and worked abroad and at home.

“While many things have changed” since the author left Missouri decades ago, “I don’t think people have changed very much,” she said. “I didn’t have an awareness of as many of the strains of Missouri life as a child, as I do as an adult — particularly as an adult who’s come back; you see a place more clearly when you return to it after being away.”

You can read the full article at http://www.columbiatribune.com/arts_life/ovation/missouri-scribes-fill-shelves-with-varied-volumes/article_4a7f2a0d-7e14-5858-86b1-ecff2f4e7041.html.

Those two perceptive reviewers made December 21 a great day for me.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in News, Reviews of Carolyn’s books, Show Me Series

Glimpses of Chile

Carolyn Mulford Posted on December 15, 2014 by CarolynDecember 15, 2014

Chile_relief_map_1974For decades I traveled Peace Corps style: riding buses and trains, staying at B&Bs and austere hotels, and buying most of my food in markets and small restaurants. Traveling on a low budget took extra time, planning, and effort, but it enabled me to experience life in unfamiliar countries somewhat as the natives did.

Gone are the days. I’ve reconciled myself to touring with a group of curious, well-traveled retirees on two-week trips planned and directed by people who make sure hotels and restaurants meet high standards and know where to find a bathroom every two hours.

In November I took such a tour of Chile and Argentina, two countries I’d avoided in my do-it-yourself days because their governments made lots of people disappear. Comfort, congenial companions, and the organizers’ good mix of places and personal encounters made the trip enjoyable and stimulating.

What we saw and heard aroused my journalistic curiosity. I can’t satisfy that, but here are some glimpses of things in Chile that intrigued me.

Protests in Santiago

Although we saw the shacks that trumpet poverty on the way from the airport, most of Santiago looked like a pleasant modern city. Jacaranda bloomed in parks. Well-dressed people (almost all white) rode a clean, quiet subway. Restaurants (seafood is huge) and ice cream places abound. We had some really good ice cream in unfamiliar flavors, and lots of young (and not so young) people were eating cones in the street.

We saw many new high-rise apartment buildings, some near blocks of old mansions that had been turned to other uses—businesses, apartments, schools. Despite a high literacy rate, quality education is more goal than reality, we heard, with the public schools bad and the private ones expensive.

The most surprising, and encouraging, thing to me was the number of protests. For years after the 1973 CIA-assisted coup that ended with leftist president Salvador Allende’s death, protestors tended to vanish. Thousands of others fled the country, with some returning after the repressed but more prosperous citizenry astonished General Augusto Pinochet by voting him out of office in 1988. (The United States gets some credit for helping Chile improve its economy.)

When we went for a walk in the central area, unionized government workers were gathering with signs to push the legislators to put a pay raise in the new budget. Stilt-walkers and drummers added a festive air. We saw small groups of protestors marching in the street several times. Police were plentiful but not obtrusive. They didn’t wear riot gear or carry military arms.

My cynical reportorial self wondered—but couldn’t investigate—who really staged these peaceful scenes.

A British tourist told me he saw a different scene from his hotel window early one morning. Police used water cannon against a group of young protestors, targeting one man in particular. A Chilean said he was probably an anarchist making trouble. A defensive excuse? Probably, but anarchists (like looters) do mix with protestors.

Put the protests in Santiago in context. International television news was showing report after report of looters and arson in Ferguson, Missouri. For months the area police had shown they didn’t know how to handle demonstrations. When I lived in D.C., people were brandishing signs whenever I passed the White House.

Lakes and Volcanoes

One reason for the trip was to see Andean scenery. The warm-up was Chile’s low-lying agricultural heartland, where grapevines, fruit trees, and corn often line the highway. The first two provide major exports. I can testify that the fruit was excellent. My companions enjoyed the wines. As to the corn, it forms a major part of the local diet, turning up in casseroles, stews, and salads.

Osorno Volcano

Osorno Volcano

The most scenic area was to the cooler south around the pretty Patagonian resort town of Puerto Varas. Here our hotel looked across the huge Lake Llanquihue to the snow-topped, cone-shaped Osorno and the long, irregular Calbuco volcanoes. A few years ago an eruption spewed masses of sand-colored ash, most of which drifted east into Argentina. A ten-inch layer of ash drove nearby residents away and killed forests, crops, and the tourist trade. People have returned to the towns, and their beautiful gardens attest to the ash’s nutritional properties.

We made several interesting side trips.

• A horse-breeding ranch where huasos, a father and son, showed how they compete in rodeos quite different from ours. No roping, no bull riding, no bucking broncs. Competitors receive points for maneuvering a steer cuddled between their sidestepping Andalusian horses in prescribed patterns without harming it. Dressed in traditional garb that includes a flat-brimmed hat and a heavy, hand-woven poncho in the ranch’s colors, the horsemen eschewed lassos, and their large, round-tipped spurs didn’t harm the horses. A kinder and gentler rodeo tradition.

Market in Puerto Montt

Market in Puerto Montt

• A Saturday market in Puerto Montt where shoppers found a variety of  fresh seafood, large vegetables, and such other items as cheese. One of our most intriguing finds was a picoroco, a barnacle. The gray, tulip-shaped shell contained a white mass that shoppers took home or ate at the vendor’s stand with lemon juice. I preferred one of Chile’s favorite staples, empanadas. Turnover-sized and shaped, the empanadas held ground meat and potatoes, seafood, or cheese. In the market we saw some Native American faces.

• Petrohue Falls, a national park where green water from a lake rushes through lava formations. The low falls don’t equal the Great Falls of the Potomac near D.C., but the view of snow-capped volcanoes in the distance adds beauty.

Petrohue Falls

Petrohue Falls

In Puerto Varas, we were near the last-held ground of the Mapuche. The Spanish conquistadors and their descendants (plus some other Europeans) pushed the indigenous peoples who survived attacks and diseases toward the colder, less hospitable south just as we forced native tribes west. Today the Mapuche make up approximately four percent of Chile’s population, and they’re still struggling for their rights.

A Mapuche activist and culture preservationist talked to us about the Mapuche philosophy of life, government persecution for such acts as displaying their flag, and the ongoing fight to regain the land the Pinochet government took from them and awarded to his friends. The preservationist also noted that the Mapuche, by choice, have no written language. His grandparents say the words lose their true meaning on paper.

Our program director told us that eighty-five percent of Chile’s people have mestizo (mixed) blood, and that most of them deny it.

Like most other countries, Chile has a ways to go to build a true democracy. From my limited reading and observation, class constitutes a bigger problem than race, and economic and educational inequality presents one of the country’s greatest challenges. We face the same challenge.

I filtered my observations of Chile through others’ opinions and my experiences in other countries. The friendliness of the people made me root for them. The tour didn’t give me any expert knowledge, but those few days will help me understand what I read in their history and literature and what I see on the news.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in Events, News, Uncategorized

Library Journal and Gumshoe Like Show Me the Gold

Carolyn Mulford Posted on December 8, 2014 by CarolynDecember 15, 2014

One of the most important reviews for any author comes from the Library Journal. With Show Me the Gold to be released December 17, I started searching for the review, only to discover it came out October 1, 2014.

I’d missed two months of feeling good. The reviewer, librarian Viccy Kemp, put Phoenix Smith in the company of three of my favorite mystery protagonists: Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone, Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone, and J. A. Jance’s Joanna Brady. Those three writers pioneered in introducing intelligent, tough female investigators.

Here’s the review: “Ex-spy Phoenix Smith and Sheriff Annalynn Keyser respond to a call from a neighboring county in rural Missouri and kill two bank robbers trying to escape an abandoned farmhouse. Now they are the No. 1 targets of the surviving members of the Cantree clan. The third entry (after Show Me the Deadly Deer) in this character-driven series will intrigue fans of female PIs such as Sharon McCone, Kinsey Millhone, or Joanna Brady.”

The December issue of Gumshoe Review delighted me by posting two reviews. Both reviewers gave the nod not only to Phoenix and her two old friends but also to her canine sidekick, Achilles.

Verna Suit concluded, “The complex plot of Show Me the Gold finds Phoenix getting into lots of tight corners as she hunts down the elusive Cantrees. Frequently she is saved at the last second by the alertness of her Belgian Shepherd, Achilles, who easily earns his place in the series’ cover art. This very satisfying book traces the exploits of a 50-something single woman creating a new life for herself in small-town America; a CIA agent’s second act.” (See http://www.gumshoereview.com/php/Review-id.php?id=4513.)

Mel Jacob focuses on how Phoenix and her friends, Acting Sheriff Annalynn Keyser and singer/musical comedy director Connie Diamante, deal with crime and personal problems and what Achilles contributes. Jacob endorses Show Me the Gold by writing, “Readers will be looking forward to [the] next installment on Phoenix, Annalynn, Connie, and, of course, Achilles.” (See http://www.gumshoereview.com/php/Review-id.php?id=4682.)

Nothing beats knowing that readers enjoy my books.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in Mysteries, News, News releases, Reviews of Carolyn’s books, Show Me Series

“Aura of Death” Published in That Mysterious Woman

Carolyn Mulford Posted on December 5, 2014 by CarolynDecember 11, 2014

Experience has taught Jessica to keep secret her ability to see character-revealing auras. When an inexplicable cloud over a murder victim’s grave leads her to a killer, her unusual perceptions pose a dilemma and place her in danger.

I tell this tale in “An Aura of Death,” one of 27 short stories that appear in That Mysterious Woman, a new Shaker of Margaritas anthology published by Mozark Press in paperback and e-book editions (available on Amazon). Among the other writers are Paula Benson, E. B. Davis, Sharon Woods Hopkins, Edith Maxwell, Harriet Sackler, and Donna Volkenaant. The writers come from around the country and tell a variety of tales.

I write few short stories, and rarely anything that includes a supernatural element, but the idea of identifying a cold-blooded murderer and having no way to prove his guilt intrigues me. So does the ability, or burden, of seeing auras, which stems from a neurological condition called synesthesia.

Maybe some day Jessica will see another disturbing aura.

—Carolyn Mulford

Posted in Events, Media Materials, News, Short Fiction

Latest Postings


I Am a River

Carolyn Mulford Posted on April 19, 2025 by CarolynApril 19, 2025

Each week I lunch with a group of friends and discuss a topic. Last time the coordinator posed this question: What is the shape of your life? The answers included a rectangle, a vase, a cloud, and an octagon. Usually I wing it, but this time I wrote my response. The Shape of My Life I am a river, Birthed in a puddle, Nourished by rain, Pushed to overflow And grow broader And deeper.   Springs and creeks fed my flow. Widening waters gathered force, Thrusting me against unyielding barriers And cascading me over rocky falls.   Other streams joined … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized

Where to Find My Books

Carolyn Mulford Posted on April 1, 2025 by CarolynApril 1, 2025

While only one of my books, Show Me the Sinister Snowman, continues to be published in print and electronic editions, several of my novels are available from online sellers. Most of the copies are used, but columbiabooksonline.com, my supportive local bookstore, has a small stock of new Show Me hardbacks and paperbacks. I also have a few copies of all my novels except The Feedsack Dress, my historical children’s book, and Show Me the Murder, the first in my mystery series featuring a former spy returning   home and solving crimes with old friends. Fortunately e-editions still exist. Barnes and Noble … Continue reading →

Posted in Mysteries, The Feedsack Dress, Uncategorized

Looking Forward 60 Years Ago

Carolyn Mulford Posted on February 28, 2025 by CarolynFebruary 28, 2025

Reminders of my attempts to start my writing career arrived last Christmas. A friend, Joyce Campbell, sent me letters I had written to her while we were serving as Peace Corps Volunteers (teaching English) in Ethiopia from September 1962 to July 1964 and in the months after we returned home (Chattanooga, Tennessee, for her and Kirksville, Missouri, for me) after traveling through Europe. On December 21, 1964, I wrote, “Has anything turned up for you yet? People don’t seem terribly impressed with Peace Corps experience for job qualifications it seems to me. I’m going down to the University Placement Bureau … Continue reading →

Posted in Writing

Mid-Continent Earthquakes, Past and Future

Carolyn Mulford Posted on December 16, 2024 by CarolynDecember 16, 2024

About 2:30 a.m. December 16, 1811, an earthquake threw people in New Madrid, Missouri Territory, out of bed and crumbled brick houses and cabin chimneys, forced the Mississippi River to run backward and change course, disturbed sleep along most of the East Coast, and toppled dishes from shelves in the White House. That marked the beginning of some of the most powerful, prolonged quakes the United States has experienced. These weren’t the first in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, which is centered near where Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky come together. Geologists and other scientists have found indications that powerful … Continue reading →

Posted in Historicals, News, Thunder Beneath My Feet

The Turkey That Bullied Me

Carolyn Mulford Posted on November 26, 2024 by CarolynNovember 26, 2024

I grew up with animals as friends, the first being our dog Roamer. He and I wandered around the yard, the barnyard, and the garden. Roamer barked at squirrels and chased rabbits from our vegetables. He made me ponder one of life’s great puzzles: Is it okay to sympathize with Peter Rabbit in the story but condemn him when your own carrots are at risk? Roamer knew not to chase our chickens or cows or pigs, and he joined me in playing with an orphaned lamb and the kittens whose parents kept the barn free of mice. What he didn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized

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