From MEMPHIS WOMAN October, 2005

If you were not familiar with the organization, and a woman told you she was a

member of Sisters in Crime you would probably a assume she was in a gang- the

type that has that has every vacant building in town tagged. If she said she

was in the Malice in Memphis chapter, then perhaps your suspicions would be

even further confirmed. The reality is arguably a bit more interesting.

Carolyn McSparren at The Wolf River Cafe in Rossville

The international organization of mystery writers began in Baltimore, the same

city where Edgar Alan Poe spent much of his life. It was founded in 1986 as an

organization for female mystery writers –3600 at last count- “…to combat

discrimination against women in the mystery field” according to part of the

mission statement . A bit has changed in almost twenty years, most notably the

prevalence of women mystery and true crime writers. The organization now has

several male members, including one of the founders of the Malice in Memphis

chapter.

“Writing mysteries is fun. How fun is it to kill someone and solve the crime

without getting your hands dirty or going to prison?” said past president and

current publicity chairman, Phyllis Appleby. She was born in Mississippi but

raised in Nebraska. After moving to Savannah, Georgia she came in contact with

some of the people involved in the MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL

story which became a book and movie. She had always loved mysteries, but now

she wanted to write.

After moving to Memphis and getting a job writing ad copy for THE COMERICIAL

APPEAL, she made that difficult decision to quit her day job and go full time

writing mysteries. Her current job is “Death De Jour,” a series of dinner

theater plays acted out at Spaghetti Warehouse in Memphis, Columns in Tunica,

Huffman’s Café in Cordova and Mama Mia’s in Millington. The audience gets to

participate in the play and can become a victim or one of five suspects. The

rest of the audience gets to ask questions in order to solve the mystery. “I

really like characters that’s how I found a niche with dinner theater,” she

said. “Working with actors is a bit slicker, but not as much fun,” she said.

Another plus in setting a play on these lines is “part of the love of mystery

is getting into the story.” Appleby said. Here the audience can.

Appleby sees this part of the country as a great place for stories. Not because

of something special about the area or the characters, but those telling the

story. “Southerners tend to be story tellers. That almost instinctive, part of

their heritage,” Appleby said. In addition some true stories have come out of

this area.

Take for instance Debra Groseclose, who was beaten severely in the summer of

1977 and put in the trunk of a car where she was found dead. Her husband was

convicted of hiring hit men to do the job and he is now on death row. Her aunt,

Doris Porch, wrote the book MURDER IN MEMPHIS, not to be confused with THE

MEMPHIS MURDERS about the1969 serial killings or two other books titled MURDER

IN MEMPHIS, both about the Martin Luther King assassination. “It was a healing

thing for her,” Appleby said. In the 1930’s George ”Machine Gun” Kelly was

captured on Raynor Street by the FBI. A teenage girl was kidnapped in East

Memphis in November, 1981 and then found alive and unhurt the following March

in the crawlspace under the pews of a church where she had been kept during

that time. “The incongruity” of the situation drew her to the story, “a

kidnapping in a church where you should be safe,” she said. One of the

organization’s founder’s, Carolyn McSparren, is setting a murder mystery “the

book of my heart” she said in Memphis during the 1878 yellow fever epidemic

that depopulated the city.

Talking with McSparren is more like talking to a detective than a writer. All

she needed was a badge and Glock 17 on her hip to complete the picture. This

reporter first noticed the group at the Memphis room of the central library and

she remembered me listening in. “I noticed you. I was not surprised when you

called,” she said. If I had any warrants out it would have been all over for

me. In mysteries, McSparren said,. “The most important person is the detective.

The second is the victim. It’s the detective we identify with. He’s the guy or

girl we want to be,”

Born and raised in Midtown Memphis, McSparren lived away for twenty years in

Europe and North Carolina. McSparren first started writing romance novels and

still does, but she defiantly prefers mysteries. “It is a very difficult

market. So long as my editors at Harlequin let me do romantic mysteries I am

perfectly happy,” she said. She and her husband have lived in Fayette County

for the last 22 years.

In a nearby town, Rossville, she found an old Southern home and it inspired her

to write HOUSE OF STRANGERS, set in a town modeled after Rossville with the

Wolf River Café, commercial buildings in the town square and even a bear statue

that stands in front of one of the offices. A farmer came up to her and said “

you got our town pretty good. I think it’s a real stitch thinking of one of

those farmers reading a Harlequin romance,” said her husband George McSparren.

The story involved a mysterious ex pilot who was grounded after a crew member

attacked him attempting to crash the plane (another local true-crime reference)

who moved in and started remodeling the abaondoned house. She had never been in

the home.

McSparren agrees with Appleby who said the love of mysteries involves solving a

puzzle and seeing justice prevail. The world of crime drama hit close to home a

few years ago when her best friend and “closest thing I had to a sister” was

killed in a Collierville car jacking. “Everyone I know has been touched by

violence,” she said.

Phyllis Appleby performing "Death De'jour"

The group helps writers and some non writers understand better how novels are

written. They also teach writers on how to market their works and publish a

list of Sisters in Crime writers and their books. “Talent isn’t your best

commodity. You have to know the business,” Appleby said. Meetings may have a

guest speaker. Guests have included a bounty hunter, a medical examiner and a

cold case detective from the Memphis Police Department. A trip to the Memphis

Room of the Main public library, librarian Dr. Jim Johnson discussed famous

true crime cases with the group. In the fall they have a retreat in a wooded

conference center. “Basically it’s a sleep over,” McSparren said but has found

the place very conducive to learning and discussion but they had time for a

movie and a midnight walk in the woods. The group has also taken on an

ambitious project.

“The only way to learn to write is to write,” Appleby said. Since so many of

the members have been thinking and only thinking about becoming authors,

Appleby and McSparren, have decided to get the group to write a book. Not a

person in the group, but the whole group.” It may take us five years but we

will have a good time with it," McSparren said. There is a lot of

brainstorming. One person researches the setting. A few are each assigned to a

suspect and someone else researches the victim. “Making them think gets them

into the mindset of becoming a writer,” Appleby said.

Writers are generally used to working as creative individuals. To keep Malice

in Memphis from turning into Mayhem in Memphis, Appleby and McSparren are “the

cement” according to Appleby to hold the work together, tentatively titled “The

Poison Pin.”

Of course after the characters and setting are created, the job is not even

halfway done. “Every fiction plot is character driven but sooner or later the

characters have to do something,” McSparren said

Here is how it goes …. A female FedEx courier who is also a graduate student is

selling antiques to a dealer at Cooper and Central (how is that for local

color?) The antiques dealer is killed by a poisoned hat pin stabbed in the back

of the neck. It’s being investigated by a detective who hates antiques. A

twist, the woman had also been selling fake antiques on Ebay. “We have killed

three or four more but we’re not sure how many we are going to kill off, “

McSparren said.

Don Donaldson, a founding member, had his tenth novel published in December. He

said Sisters in Crime promotes the members and makes it easier for publishers

to see the novels. He gets feedback on his characters from the sisters and

brothers of the group, plus enjoys the people there. “They are lively people to

be around,” he said. “I write a lot about women characters so I want to see if

they are believable,” Donaldson said.

Writing mysteries is “like writing a sonnet. They have rules, but nothing is

ever the same,” McSparren Said. “Readers are very savvy. You can’t do the old

Sherlock Holmes whodunit, “ Appleby said adding the material must be fresh and

original. She sees the stories more character driven and more psychological in

their plot than in earlier years. She sees more legal ALA John Grisham and

medical mysteries and African American heroes are becoming popular. Appleby and

McSparren agreed fans of the genre are “All puzzle solvers, they all want to

know why and put the world in the right place,” she said. In writing a mystery

research is very important. True crime cases are researched to create

characters, methods and find motives. “There are just a few motives and they

are all in the Bible, like lust and greed,” Appleby said. But more difficult is

researching the characters. “I will conceive of what kind of character. I will

conceive of the crime, who is the victim and why did he die,” she said. She

sees some trends in mysteries such as fewer “damsels in distress” and more

strong gutsy women. Perhaps because “women read more mysteries” she said and

write about forty percent of mystery novels, according to Appleby.

A trend Appleby does not welcome is the anti-hero such as Hannibal Lector who

gets away with his crimes. She thinks most mystery readers like the case to be

solved. “If they are not solved, then that’s just like real life,” she said.

One cliché’ she says disappearing is the woman whose husband murders her for

the inheritance, she said but in doing a light hearted piece like her dinner

theater plays, cliches can be used for comedic effect. McSparren is saying many

American writers are going for the bloody and shocking. “I think it reaches the

point where there is a diminishing return,” she said adding she is drawn to the

less violent British novels.

After a career of poring over true crime cases, listening to law enforcement,

looking at the physics of crime and studying death and destruction, plus

planning perfect crimes and how the criminal is captured, Appleby gave a piece

of advice for anyone who crosses paths with a mystery author. “People who write

mysteries know a hundred ways to kill you. Don’t make one mad,” she said.

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