What is Mutual Admiration from the Asylum Department? Good question. Jaki and Lynne met in a writers critique group and discovered a mutual taste for homicidal humor. We're happy to share our MAADness in the form of newsletters to anyone who sends their snail mail address to murraymade@aol.com.

ISSUE #1 - WINTER 1996-97

HOLIDAY GREETINGS PLOY TO CUT DOWN COST OF GREETING CARDS

MURRAY GREETING

Once upon a time in 1988...

I met Jaqueline Girdner. I handed her a blank business card and she thought it was a joke. it was an accident, but her reaction was the start of a beautiful friendship. We had just joined a mystery writer's critique group -- I had just published Termination Interview, about free-lance photographer and office temp Ingrid Hunter, and had the manuscript in hand for Death Flower, the second in the series. Jaki was looking for a publisher for Murder Most Mellow and revising Adjusted To Death. Over the next few years, we read each other's manuscripts and laughed at each other's jokes. The critique group slipped away. Jaki found a publisher for Adjusted To Death and proceeded to publish six more books while Death Flower was rejected by every known publisher in the English speaking world (though Argument Verlag took it to publish in Germany).

My third mystery was even rejected by my (then) agent. Now, eight years later, Jaki has seven books in print with another coming out in the Spring, and Orloff Press has agreed to publish Larger Than Death, the first in my new series about an unapologetic sleuth of size. Meanwhile, we have laughed together in the face of major life adversities. And gone to some strange places. Including this newsletter! Hope your holidays are filled with crime of the enjoyable fictional kind!

GIRDNER GREETING

Hi and Happy Homicide!

Um... of course I mean Happy Holidays. I'm Jaqueline Girdner, author of the Kate Jasper mystery series. Kate Jasper is Marin County's own organically grown, vegetarian sleuth, Tai Chi practitioner and generally ill-karma-ed finder of dead bodies. Well, you may be wondering why Lynne Murray, author of Termination Interview and the soon-to-be released Larger Than Death, are writing this newsletter. You see, Lynne and I met years ago in a dark and stormy critique group, she a published author, myself an "un." On the way down to kiss her feet, I noticed that Lynne was, well, strange, strange as myself. Sly scud missile jokes, discussion of murder methods over lunch, and an appreciation of the grotesque, especially my titles: Adjusted To Death, murder at the chiropractor's; The Last Resort, a lethal health spa; Murder Most Mellow, a human potential discussion group; Fat-Free and Fatal, a vegetarian cooking class; Tea-Totally Dead, the family reunion from hell; A Stiff Critique, a deadly writers' critique group; and Most Likely To Die, murder by pinball "Hot Flash" at Kate's high school reunion. I had discovered that rare species authorus-weirdus-friendus. And Lynne has not mutated in eight years. As for the newsletter, please let us know why we're writing it. And have a murderously merry... whatever!

BOOK TOUR OF MARS (REPORT BY LM)

Soon after life was discovered on Mars, Jaki's intrepid Famous Spouse Greg Booi booked her a signing there and I managed to tag along with my bag of... uh, collectible first editions as ballast. Martian readers had just discovered cozy mvsteries and they had grasped the number 1 rule: "Suspect everyone." We may have looked harmless, but they made us check our Salad Shooter and herbal tea at customs. They did let Jaki keep her sketch pad and pencil so she captured the press conference, below. Jaki can be seen hiding behind a stack of her books at the left, while Lynne peeks out at right from the fronds of the the potted palm that she brings along for camouflage on public occasions. The Martian Press Corps seems to have the situation well in hand(s).

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