UPDATE FEBRUARY 7, 2012
2011 was a year I wish hadn’t happened, personally, but I kept on writing. I now have five completed Sophie mysteries, and in 2012 I will have to decide whether to publish two, three and four myself as e-books — or try to interest an agent or acquiring editor in my eldersleuth series. My understanding is that the latter is highly unlikely unless the writer has written something like a bestseller. So we continue to get best sellers — not the best reads. Frankly, I have found some stunning works on Kindle for $2.99, $1.99 and even FREE.
My mysteries are hybrids: not a good thing, according to Those Who Know. My characters have backgrounds. That makes them literary. Yet mysteries are a commercial genre. So what are literary characters with depth doing on those exciting pages? There’s another problem: I’ve thrown a little romance in the relationship, but the older detectives don’t lend themselves to killer sex.
I had some very sage advice from my 82-year-old aqua therapist. My original idea was to engage people our age (70 and above) in the adventures of this crafty ”problem solver” who will not retire. Carolyn said that my plots are too complicated, that people her age want not to have to keep track of things or puzzle things out. She said: “Anyway, it is younger people who need to read about aging issues. We already know about them.” She’s right.
SOPHIE REDESIGNED (2010) introduces the retired librarian who desires a more exciting life. She has to prove to Reuben Samuels, aka Sam, a police detective in her small Florida town, that she is of professional value to him. She finds a body in her backyard, and thinks a ditsy neighbor who suddenly takes a trip knows who murdered him. Research into a dysfunctional family of brothers reveals how a grandfather’s vow of revenge can turn into a killing corporation.
WINDOW ON THE POND has Sophie on her own in Florida’s historical landmark, Bok Tower Garders. She meets a lonely widower, who gets trapped in a plot to kill a man who looks like him. The plot revolves around rotten real estate, and the undertow of deception, of self as well as others.
THRIFT SHOP takes Sophie to the east side of Florida where her sister Minnie lives in an assisted living high-rise home, Serenity Towers. The facility’s laundry man and a quiet resident who collects Asian ceramics are stabbed to death on the same day. Drugs are found in a beaded handbag in Towers Treasures, a thrift shop.The resident kleptomaniac is smothered in her bed. The collector’s former partner says coins and netsukes are missing. This story addresses the casual labeling of forgetfulness in older adults as “dementia” and the real problem of preventing theft of prescription drugs.
GIPSIES introduces Sophie to London and Oxford, and a family mystery that inspires her to find the runaway sister of her host. Instead, she discovers deep antagonisms, twisted personalities, and a lead to the real killer of an elderly activist. Sophie is accosted by a Gypsy beggar outside Harrods, threatened by a bicycle rider on a canal path, mauled by dogs crossing Port Meadow, and held hostage on a boat before she can leave “that green and pleasant land.”
I’ll tell you about HOUSE ON FIRE in my next update.
Meanwhile, I will get back to promoting SOPHIE REDESIGNED, now reduced to $2.49 on Kindle. I did end the year with a small check from my publisher for hard copies, a tax receipt from Amazon totalling over $30, and people tell me they like Sophie a lot (see review below). All I have to do is go out there and fight for attention alongside the other authors of eldersleuth series.
Tell me: How can older characters not have backgrounds? Ahhhh….that’s where dementia comes into play.
NEW REVIEW
Lavanya Karthik for bookpleasures.com
March 30, 2011
Crime & Mystery
•
Author: Karen Dahood
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN: 978-1-4327-5344-3
Why not live dangerously for a change, muses the byline of this detective story from debut author Karen Dahood. And danger is precisely what her protagonist Sophie George opts for, after a lifetime of quiet, uneventful living.
Sophie, a retired librarian and bored inhabitant of a residential development for the elderly, yearns for intellectual stimulation as she spends her days exercising, discreetly observing her neighbours and maintaining a cordial , if distant, relationship with her son. She is proudly computer-savvy, unlike her ‘pre-Internet’ friend Captain Samuels (“Sam”), a policeman she has helped with research on past cases. Appreciative of her skills at sifting information, Sam nonetheless gives her the brush off when she offers her services as a consultant to the police department. But Sophie will have the last laugh, when a neighbour’s body is found in a nearby pond, and her keen observations help Sam make some headway in the case. Together, the duo slowly begin to piece together a mystery that grows progressively darker, involving everything from carrier pigeons, vindictive Mafiosi, secret societies, reclusive tycoons and age old vendetta, to cults and the elusive entity known as the “ghost of Serenidad”.
Not since Miss Marple has crime fiction boasted an elderly sleuth (without a background in law enforcement, that is), solving mysteries armed with little more than superior powers of observation and good old common sense. Stubbornly independent Sophie, with her no nonsense attitude, wry humour and people -reading skills certainly seems like a fitting heir to the Marple legacy.
This is not a conventional, quick- paced mystery with the usual tropes – climactic confrontations between killer and sleuths, last minute rescues, violent shoot outs. Sophie does not defy death anywhere, or whip out a gun and mete out her version of justice. Rather, Dahood chooses to keep it real, plotting her narrative at a pace comfortable to her heroine, and focused on the things she is good at – observation, the assiduous pursuit of clues, rational deduction. At the same time, Dahood writes with energy, and deftly throws in enough twists, turns and red herrings to keep her readers hooked to the story.
The Sophie-Sam chemistry is interesting – their fractious exchanges, and her patient endurance of his often condescending remarks, do suggest deeper currents that I expect will emerge in future books. There is also enough left unsaid about her past – a dead husband she never seems to think about, a distant son – and his, for Dahood to mine profitably in Sophie and Sam mysteries to come.
Reviewer Lavanya Karthik: Lavanya is from Mumbai, India and is a licensed architect and consultant in environmental management. She lives in Mumbai with her husband and six-year old daughter. She loves reading and enjoys a diverse range of authors across genres.
PURCHASE FROM AMAZON (KINDLE VERSION AVAILABLE) OR BARNES & NOBLE.
The Launch of Sophie George
The launch of Sophie Redesigned: A Sophie and Sam Mystery, attracted at best count 42 people, and resulted in a sale of 33 books. Some of the people who came out of support already had read the book. That took place at CLUES UNLIMITED, TUCSON, ARIZONA – Saturday, August 28. It was a party.
Two weeks later I had a signing and discussion in my hometown at 150-year-old JANKE BOOK STORE, WAUSAU, WISCONSIN. The store sold 30-some books and had me sign what was left of 50, just in case people had heard me interviewed on WSAU-Radio or saw the write-up in CITY PAGES.
The point of these events was to find out how interested people could be in elder issues that run underneath the plot. In fact I found several people were ecstatic about the idea of having an older woman sleuth who was complex, and at the launch party people were interested in the question of how one reinvents oneself at retirement.
As I perceive Sophie Redesigned the elder issues were mainly two: how single women of my generation (not career-oriented) can support themselves in retirement when they have been depending on men; and how people can rid themselves of anger and desire for revenge so they might truly “rest in peace.”
Please leave comments, if you have read my book. You can get the paperback for as little as $14 and the Kindle download for $5.
Why not live dangerously for a change?
She knows she’s smart, but she’s bored. When Sophie meets “Sam,” a pre-Internet police detective who depends on her professional skills at the Dorado Bay Public Library, she decides to retire and go freelance. He’s reluctant to hire her as a consulting researcher until she beats him to the murder scene and knows the victim. They awkwardly proceed to solve the crime with opposing techniques, uncovering a decades-old killing corporation and a religious cult, all in the same dysfunctional family.
SOPHIE REDESIGNED is the first in a series of Sophie and Sam collaborations to solve crimes committed under Sophie’s sharp nose for trouble. Elder issues drive 
the plots while family ties are tested, including Sophie’s relationship with her son Robin, who thinks “active retirement” should not mean sneaking around the country for clues. Then there’s the problem of growing warmth between two senior citizens who are past their romantic prime. Or are they?
SOPHIE REDESIGNED IS available through Amazon (including Kindle), Barnes & Noble, and other bookstores, and from Outskirts Press. PB Retail Price: $14.95. Watch for announcements of discounts for special events. Meanwhile, explore this website and find out what “Moxie Cosmos” says.
KAREN DAHOOD is a septuagenarian whose nonfiction writing career has included all of the arts and humanities and some health care. Elder issues became a special interest as she witnessed older friends and family members struggle to keep their dignity in a culture of ageism and denial.
“Aging is rewarding,” she says, “but too often for the wrong people.”
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SEE WHAT READERS HAVE SAID ABOUT THIS BOOK. LOOK AT THE NEW “REVIEWS” PAGE ON THIS WEBSITE.
Outskirts Press PB $14.95 Available at bookstores and on line (Kindle $5). Wholesale orders (10 or more) at http://outskirtspress.com/buybooks. Talk to me about book club orders. EMAIL kdahood@cox.net