Paty is an award-winning author of 46 novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it. This is what Mysteries Etc says about her Shandra Higheagle mystery series: “Mystery, romance, small town, and Native American heritage combine to make a compelling read.”
Puzzling out a Murder Mystery
At book #6 in my
Shandra Higheagle Mystery series, my daughters both asked me how long I planned
to make the series. At the time, I said, until I can’t come up with anymore
ideas or the readers start complaining the books/characters have soured.
I just released book 15
in the series. Capricious Demise has my amateur sleuth, Shandra
Higheagle, a Native American potter beginning the book with a dream about two
children. A boy and a girl.
To get you up to speed
if you haven’t read the series, Shandra was estranged from her Native American
family on her father’s side after he died. As an adult, she reconnects with
that family at her paternal grandmother’s funeral. And ever since the funeral,
her grandmother comes to her in dreams, giving her clues that help Shandra and
Ryan Greer, a detective with the Weippe County Sherriff’s Department in Idaho.
When I began what I
call my stewing and brewing process for this book, I had the intention of
bringing children into their lives. It wasn’t until I had a scene with one of
the secondary characters play out in my head, that I realized the children
would become orphaned when their parents were killed.
For me the best part of
writing this series and coming up with this particular book, is seeing the
story arc of not only the main characters but the secondary characters as well.
The secondary characters that are brought to life in the first book, Double
Duplicity, (which is
free at all ebook vendors) all have had lives that continue to move through
life, not just show up in different books because I needed a person. I have
built a secondary cast of characters who, whether Shandra is at home in
Huckleberry or visiting relatives on the Colville Reservation in Washington,
will have a growth in their lives from the last book they were in.
For this book, I had to
delve into one of the parts of murder I find fascinating—motive. I won’t say
too much because I don’t want to give the killer away. This particular book, I
started with the dream, the children, two deaths by different means, and then
built my motive from my title.
Each book I have a
different path that leads me to the motive. Sometimes it’s the motive I come up
with first and build the rest of the story around it. Other times it’s the
deceased I have first and the motive comes along as I build the story. I
believe that is why I enjoy writing murder mystery books. I have as much fun
piecing the story together like a puzzle as I have when I read a mystery and
try to puzzle out who the killer is.
What is your favorite
thing about writing or reading mystery books?
About CAPRICIOUS DEMISE
Book 15
Shandra Higheagle Mystery Series
Vengeance…Envy…Murder
Shandra Higheagle’s deceased Grandmother enters
Shandra’s dream, showing her two lost children. Her grandmother never comes to
her dreams unless there is a murder to solve. But whose? The children? Or
someone related to them?
Ryan is called out to a suicide, that isn’t. While
contacting next of kin, he finds the victim’s husband also murdered and their
two children missing.
Using her dreams, Shandra helps locate the missing
twins whom they take into their home as foster children. The hunt for the
reason the parents were murdered becomes urgent when the children reveal they
may have seen the killer.
Contact Paty
