This blog is due to post on March 28. That means the next Ali book, Overkill will go on sale next Tuesday, April 1. So happy April Fool’s Day everybody.

The sole Seattle area Overkill event will be at Third Place Books at 3 PM on April 6. J.A. Jance at Third Place Books. Seating is free, but must be reserved.   Also here is the link to the Poisoned Pen event earlier this month: Overkill at Poisoned Pen.

Please remember that when I did the Poisoned Pen appearance, I was fresh off that hair-raising, three-hour drive through a raging dust storm, so I wasn’t exactly at the top of my form.

Now, on to the real topic of this blog.

You’re probably thinking, “ID Discovery? I thought she didn’t use real cases to write her books.” The truth is, I don’t and I’m not. However, one of the side benefits of my career as a writer has been the unexpected and enduring friendships I’ve made over the years. For example, someone named Loretta once plucked a tattered copy of Until Proven Guilty off a “free to good home” bookshelf in the waiting room of a VA hospital where her husband was being treated for Agent-orange-related brain cancer. She’s read everything I’m written since and was my intermediary with James, the guy who inspired Blessing of the Lost Girls.

Teresa is a fan from Yuma who drove all the way from there to Surprise, near Phoenix, to see one of my talks. Since she had come farther than anyone else, we ended up having lunch. Gerri is a fan from Willcox whose cousin turned out to be the now-deceased real-life serial killer whose death was mentioned in last week’s blog. It turns out that Teresa and Gerri were college roommates long ago, while Teresa’s husband, Eric, was a high school quarterback who once played a football game at the Warren Ballpark in Bisbee. That was long before the athletic field’s aging lighting system was replaced. He said it was so dark that night that, he could barely see his receivers. Years later ballpark’s lights were replaced in part by monies raised by my parents collecting aluminum cans.

The above paragraph is designed to prove, once and for all, that Walt Disney was right and it really is a “small, small world.” My apologies if I’ve just infected you with a persistent and very annoying ear-worm.

Two other friendships of note I need to mention are the one with my At Seventeen singing idol, Janis Ian, and the other with everyone’s favorite Homicide Hunter—Joe Kenda. Yes, I’m a television true crime buff, and both Homicide Hunter and American Detective are among my favorites. Joe’s off-the-cuff and oft-quoted comment, “My, my, my,” is an iconic piece of dialogue that’s burned into my memory. I met Joe and his wife, Kathy—my fan—when she dragged him to one of my speaking engagements a number of years ago. Since then they’ve become friends with Bill and me.

I’ve learned a lot by following Joe Kenda on ID Discovery, and that gave me a big boost this week. Please be assured that our friendship isn’t completely one-sided. When Joe and Kathy moved into a new house that was really dark in places, we suggested that they solve their lighting issue by installing Solatube skylights. Ever since, said Solatubes have been doing their jobs and brightening the corners where Joe and Kathy live.

One of the things I’ve learned from watching Joe Kenda on TV is that once an investigation stalls out, the thing detectives have to do is go back to the very beginning of the case and start over. Months ago, I told you that I was starting work on the next Ali book, Smoke and Mirrors. It charged out of the gate like gangbusters, but several chapters in the story stalled out. I mean it came to an absolute stop, and no number of sleepless nights spent tossing and turning fixed it. The story simply would not move forward.

As a result, yesterday, I did what Joe Kenda would do—I went back to the very beginning of the manuscript, the Prologue, and started over. Then a miracle happened. When I got to the last sentence of the prologue, I gave a middle name to a character who hadn’t had one before, and suddenly the way forward became clear.

Once I’m done writing this blog, that’s what I’m going to do. Go back to Smoke and Mirrors. I’ll have to change some of what I’ve already written, and I’ll be able use other bits and pieces of it later on in the story, but this time I’m pretty sure it’ll work because now I have a character who will be in jeopardy as well as someone for readers to root for.

At the end of each episode of his new series, Joe says, “And that’s what it takes to be an American detective.” To that I might add that changing my mind is often what it takes to be an American mystery writer.