Guest Blog: Heartbreaks, Half-truths, and Writing Inspiration by Judy Penz Sheluk

The authors of Heartbreaks & Half-truths: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense share their opening lines and the inspiration behind the stories.

The cast, in order of appearance:

From Burning Desire by KM Rockwood

My cousin Sophia leaned in close, her boozy breath assailing my nostrils. “Such a lovely party, Roger. Aunt Regina thought you might be pretty much down in the dumps right now, what with the wedding called off and all. She thought a party for your fiftieth birthday would be just the thing to cheer you up.”

The Inspiration: My family swarmed with well-intentioned aunts and cousins who tried hard to support relatives, regardless of the merits of their cause. Usually their attempted supports just missed the mark.

From The Devil’s Club by Peggy Rothschild

There were two things Jessie Mayhew hated: visitors and talking about the past. The man standing on her front stoop was a problem on both counts. Unwelcome, unshaven and underdressed for the weather, he stood in that familiar cocky way, gloved hands on hips.

The Inspiration: Hiking with a group in Alaska sparked the germ of this tale. I started to think about how living in an isolated area provided a perfect setting for murder.

From Blackjack Road by John M. Floyd

Dave Cotten sat on his back porch with a .38 revolver in his lap, staring at nothing in particular. Under other circumstances, it would have been a fine day: sunny and humid but not quite steamy, with the kind of fresh, crisp clarity that comes only after a recent storm.

The Inspiration: Growing up in a house where the back porch had a view of miles of fields and woods, as far as the eye could see.

From The Greatest Secret by James Blakey

August 1962

My Fairlane backfires, drawing glares from the foursome of old-timers lining up putts on the ninth green. I return shaking fists with a friendly wave and continue up the looping driveway to the valet station.

The Inspiration: Eight years old and hacking away at the golf ball while impatient men mutter snide comments

From So Long by Edward Lodi

Sunday

3:17 p.m.: Hey Sarah, Doc here. Not asleep I hope? The sedative should’ve worn off by now. I wouldn’t want to disturb you. You’ll need all the rest you can get to build up strength for what’s to come.

The Inspiration: While recuperating from an operation and listening to the messages on his Voice Mail, Edward asked himself: would it be possible to construct a suspenseful story consisting solely of voice messages left by various individuals on one person’s Voice Mail?

From Afterlife by Kate Flora

Since Hal died, Ida has had too much time on her hands. While he was with her, she never noticed how much of her day was spent taking care of his needs.

The Inspiration: This story of a widowed elderly woman watching the conflicts between young lobstermen stems from two things. My cottage on a lobstering cove in Maine, where I have lobstermen in front of me every day; and how, in my mystery fiction, my detective often goes for insight to the overlooked witness--a woman who watches her neighborhood or a child who isn't noticed.

From Tongor of the Elephants by Buzz Dixon

Here, lemme show you something you’ve never seen before.

I’ve only shown this to maybe six other people in the last thirty years, but I’ll be honest, I must’ve watched it dozens of times whenever I find myself in a bad mood, an ugly mood.

The Inspiration: I’ve long been interested in Hollywood’s history and folklore (viz. Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon books).  By chance in the weeks prior to writing my story, I binged watched six or eight old movie serials, and the next thing I knew, Tongor Of The Elephants materialized.

From The God Complex by J A Henderson

Jensen and Murphy peered through the smoked glass partition. On the other side, a dumpy, middle-aged woman sat at her console. She had unusually dark hair, short and bobbed, with a purple butterfly clasp fastened to one side. It looked suspiciously like a wig.

The Inspiration: It fascinates me that observation actually affects events on a quantum level. It seems like a great metaphor for reading, plus it makes me sound smart.

From For Elizabeth by Christine Eskilson

I’ve loved Elizabeth for years. From a pimpled adolescence obsessed with maritime history and video games through a lucrative tech career and right up to my present confines.

The Inspiration: Reimagining a sixteenth century scandal involving Queen Elizabeth I and one of her favorite courtiers, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.

From See You in Court by Robb T. White

Trey’s friends all said it at one time or another with a wink or a laugh: “He’s just like that lawyer in Body Heat.”

The Inspiration: A homicide case involving a Las Vegas wife who murdered her husband. Knowing she wasn’t strong enough to lift his dead weight into the trunk of her car, she prepared months in advance by a regimen of intense exercise.

From In the Halls of Mercy by Rhonda Eikamp

My womanly intuition tells me you’ve pieced it together, but I’ll go over it for you from the beginning.

You’ve got to understand what a scandal it was for us here at Mercy. We don’t get out much, you know.

From Near Warrenton by Sharon Hart Addy

Warrenton. The town’s name on the green expressway sign tripped a thought. I swung to the right lane and took the exit, hoping a quick visit would prove profitable. The idea of scrounging up cold hard cash in a free hour before my next business call had an inviting ring to it.

The Inspiration: In Warrington came from seeing a skinny old man tinkering with an ancient tractor in a farm's driveway. The house, barn and equipment in the barnyard was well past its best -- all except one brand new building that stood out like a sore thumb. Why a new garage when everything else needed so much attention?

From Exposure by Tracy Falenwolfe

Sheila and Edward Vandaveer sat shoulder to shoulder across the desk from Dax and Lorna Cosgrove. Dax let the Vandaveers stew while he unwrapped a butterscotch candy and popped it into his mouth.

From Living One’s Own Truth by Paula Gail Benson

In the fall of 1931, near Patriot in Posey Township, Switzerland County, Indiana, I was employed to teach literature at Framingham Preparatory Academy, basically an all-male village school elevated only by its presumptuous name.

The Inspiration: I wondered why a young woman might be reared to be a heartbreaker. At first, she told the story. Then, I realized she needed a listener and my true narrator was born.

From Deep Freeze in Suburbia by Susan Daly

Dina Calder, the Honourable Member for Vancouver-Capilano, leaned back in her leather chair and reveled in the luxury of her office, with its view of the Ottawa River and the East Block in all its Gothic Revival glory. This was the life.

The Inspiration: Deep Freeze in Suburbia started life as a story about a book club. And a book about a long-ago murder, that one member wanted to forget. Plus arsenic-laced Nanaimo Bars. It didn’t end up that way.

From The Angel of Maastricht by Chris Wheatley

According to at least one expert witness, the victim was alive and possibly conscious during the last, frenzied attack, during which she suffered no less than seventeen separate knife wounds.

The Inspiration: I was thinking about the real-life situation of a friend whilst reading a biography which partly covered the Sharon Tate murder. The two came together to form the plot.

From Pink Hearts Pierced by Arrows by Joseph S. Walker

1998

From her bedroom window, Crystal watched as her mother carried pile after pile of clothes out to the detached garage in the backyard, the garage where Crystal’s father kept the vintage Mustang he’d spent years lovingly restoring.

The Inspiration: Thinking about illicit affairs and the complicated emotional knots that can entangle three people, how alliances and sympathies twist and change--and how the whole thing can blow apart when you add money to the mix.

From Deadly Cargo by Blair Keetch

O’dark hundred.

My favorite time of day. Maybe I appreciated the pre-dawn hours because of the stillness. I’ve always enjoyed this pristine moment in time with no stress or any complications.

The Inspiration: As an airline project manager, I was always intrigued by the unusual and the bizarre in the world of aviation. So when I heard about the body of a stowaway falling from the landing compartment from an approaching aircraft into a into the garden near Heathrow airport, it sent my imagination into the dark motivations that drives dangerous actions.

From Ugly Fat by Steve Liskow

I’m coming back from the gym Saturday afternoon and the sun beating on my car makes my hair droop so you wouldn’t know I passed up the sauna. My gym bag huddles on the passenger seat like a sleeping dog.

The Inspiration: I remember nothing about when or where this story came to me. The draft I sent for the anthology is "Version S," which would be the 19th version. That’s far more than usual, and I don't know why there were so many. (Read more on Sleuth Sayers https://www.sleuthsayers.org/2020/06/heartbreaks-half-truths.html)

From Checkmate Charlie by Gustavo Bondoni

The small boy, as always, had set the difficulty level much too high. Charlie sighed inwardly and sent the holographic enemy out to get him.

The Inspiration: This one was actually built backwards. The title came to me first, fully formed, and I wondered who Checkmate Charlie might be. With a name like that, including cold war overtones, this Charlie had to be a sinister character.

From The Short Answer by James Lincoln Warren

HOLLYWOOD INVESTIGATIONS LTD. had been painted on the shopfront window in an arc, gold letters bordered in green, and below that, in a straight line and smaller print, was written “Sleuths to the Stars”, complete with quotation marks.

The Inspiration: I like to start a story by attempting to lodge a question in the reader’s mind. In this case, the question is, “Why would anybody with an IQ higher than a houseplant’s consider engaging a storefront private detective agency with such a cheesy name and motto?”

From Goulaigans by Judy Penz Sheluk

There’s a place about twenty miles north of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, called Goulais River. Now, you might be tempted to pronounce it the French way—Goo-lay—or the way it reads phonetically—Goo-lays—but either way you’d be wrong.

The Inspiration: Watching Lake Superior as the waves came crashing in, a canoe pulled into the shore, off in the distance, and thinking, “what if?”

Heartbreaks & Half-truths: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense

Edited by Judy Penz Sheluk

Publisher: Superior Shores Press

Release Date: June 18, 2020

Book Synopsis:

Lovers and losers.

Whether it’s 1950s Hollywood, a scientific experiment, or a yard sale in suburbia, the twenty-two authors represented in this collection of mystery and suspense interpret the overarching theme of “heartbreaks and half-truths” in their own inimitable style, where only one thing is certain: Behind every broken heart lies a half-truth.

And behind every half-truth lies a secret.

Find Heartbreaks & Half-truths: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense on:

Amazon (trade paperback and Kindle):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088ZGF18Y

Barnes & Noble (trade paperback):

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1137064575?ean=9781989495223