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 #5 - WINTER 1997-98

HAPPY HOLIDAYS ALL! Mutual Admiration from the Asylum Holiday Caroling Issue

CAROLING MAADly
By Lynne Murray

To start the holiday off right, imagine Jaki singing this carol she wrote especially for the season:

GOD REST YE MERRY MURDERERS
by Jaqueline Girdner

God rest ye merry murderer
Let nothing you dismay.
Ignore those burly officers
Tell them you've nothing more to say
So maybe you murdered your Aunt Matilda
early Christmas Day
Think of tidings of Hercule Poirot
Hercule Poirot
Think of tidings of Hercule Poirot
Maybe he can get you out of this
Or maybe, then again, no.
Think of tidings of Hercule Poirot

She had penned this carol along with the holiday artwork in this issue just before taking a little unscheduled vacation. One minute she was trying to teach some carolers the lyrics to "Jingle Handcuffs." Then suddenly they all surrounded her and began finding some unusual ways of applying festive ribbons and those fancy sticky gold seals, and a silence fell over the area and the carolers -- or the mob as I was now mentally referring to them -- all turned to look at me.

I had been trying to get into the festive mode by reworking Jaki's book titles into the 12 days of Christmas. But I had already run into the problem that there are only (only!) 8 Kate Jasper mysteries -- with one on the way in Spring -- I would need at least 3 more to properly describe the 12 days of Christmas. I hid my notebook and pen until those carolers had passed muttering something about Silent Nights... So you, the MAAD Newsletter reading public, are the only people who have an opportunity to hear the unfinished lyrics to The 9 Days of Christmas (hint: there's a Jaqueline Girdner Mystery Title for each day. You can find them by the numbers in the footnote. You can also find them in a bookstore from Berkley Prime Crime.).

THE 12 (OKAY, THE 9) DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
by Lynne Murray

On the first day of Christmas, Ms. Girdner gave to me -- a corpse on a chiropractor's table...
On the second day of Christmas, Ms. Girdner gave to me -- two health spa killings...
On the third day of Christmas, Ms. Girdner gave to me -- three hot tub murders...
On the fourth day of Christmas, Ms. Girdner gave to me -- four veggie victims...
On the fifth day of Christmas, Ms. Girdner gave to me -- five poisoned kinfolk...
On the sixth day of Christmas Ms. Girdner gave to me -- six writers sniping...
On the seventh day of Christmas, Ms. Girdner gave to me -- seven bullies dying...
On the eighth day of Christmas, Ms. Girdner gave to me -- eight gurus falling...
On the ninth day of Christmas, Ms. Girdner gave to me -- nine authors choking....

As I mentioned above, the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth days are still under construction...

FOOTNOTE:

1. Adjusted to Death, 2. The Last Resort, 3. Murder Most Mellow, 4. Fat Free and Fatal, 5. Tea-Totally Dead, 6. A Stiff Critique, 7. Most Likely to Die, 8. A Cry for Self Help, 9. When Death Hits the Fan (due in hardcover from Berkley Prime Crime in April 1998). Warning: the body count in each book may not be quite as high as in the holiday carol above, but hey, I can't practice poetry without a license, can I? (Oh, you're saying I just did?)

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