Which is the better story? My retired detective and his disabled operative find out that their partner/father did not really commit suicide. but was murdered for some reason I'll have to determine.

Or He did, but they find out something pivotal about some last case that might have been nagging at him at the time of his death?

erika, I like the second option better, esp. if your detectives were hoping to find out that the suicide was a murder but find the pivotal information instead.

How about they THINK it's suicide (and each feel guilty for their own reasons) for the first chunk of the book and so look into the nagging case--and then find out it was murder?

Erika, I like the second scenario better, but I think you should leave the question of whether or not he committed suicide unanswered until everything comes together at the end.

Suicide with secret. Always more plausible, and in any case, far more adaptable to the concept of illuminating human frailty. That's what keeps things fresh, because human frailty has no known boundaries - it becomes a question of how far and deep you're willing to explore them.

Insofar as my life could ever have a Mission Statement, Deb, that could be it. What if I'm trying to create something I've not got the ability for? Speaking of frailty...

I like Anne's suggested scenario.

Yep - Anne's is a good one. So is the idea of not revealing whether it was suicide or murder until the end, if at all. I like leaving my readers with some ambiguity, but I like leaving the characters with it even more: did he fall or was he pushed, let the reader decide, don't let the characters know for sure.

Yeah, well, that part could be simple enough because in the first book(I love saying that!) I set up that father and daughter had not been speaking much at the time of his death.

Hard one. Harder than usual, believe it or not.

Heroin (One Question I Never Asked Him)

You tie off, first. It forces the vein up to the surface, makes it easy to hit, yeah? Right there, blue, pulsing away, alive.

Get your works together, cut it, mix it, take the strength up or down. Straight into the vein.

The rush - bloody hell, so hard, so fast. Doesn't matter if you're sick - it can't fucking touch you. It's you and the moon. And the sex? With that shit, I could fuck you for hours, leave you begging me for a few hours more. Brilliant shit.

Help me stop, love, will you? I need to stop.