nicely done, Jilli.

It's missing a "with"

dealing --with--common Goth....

Otherwise, it's very good.

Ah-ha! Thank you, Deena! And thank you, DebetEsse, for prompting me to go look at my bio page for part of this.

Mystery writers and fans: For my next mystery, I want it to be one where it's not a whodunit...where we know who the killer is. But I don't want my detectives to look stupid...I need some advice about clues.

Mystery writers and fans: For my next mystery, I want it to be one where it's not a whodunit...

erika, have you read Laura Lippman's latest? It still sort of a whodunit but not really.

erika, you could write it so that we find out things as the detectives do. Or, if they already know who did it, how they pull together evidence to try and convict the person. Or tell it from the murderer's viewpoint, put them in the position of being able to watch the detectives detect, and see how they do it.

I think the main thing is to give a fair number of other people good motives and at least possible opportunity. You can go too far with that, of course; there was a P.D. James novel that after I found out why many people would want to kill this person, I wanted her dead too.

Oh, I'm already planning to put the killer in, part of the time. Thanks for all the thoughts.

I wish I had some advice for you, erika, but my complete incomprehension of how you pull off that clue thing is why I don't even think about writing mysteries. Love reading them, can't imagine writing one. Balancing how much you reveal with how much you keep hidden so that the answer doesn't come out of left field but isn't staring the reader in the face for too long, either, it's like a magic trick.

Yeah, I'm saying. David Simon says the crime story is *the* form for the 21st century. But no, if David Simon jumped off a bridge, I wouldn't go with him. His account of the way down would be so much better than mine.