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 #8 - WINTER 1999

HAPPY HOLIDAYS ALL! Mutual Admiration from the Asylum Department Celebrates the Season with Homicidal Caroling and Vegecidal Recipes from Jaqueline Girdner and Lynne Murray [Disclaimer: The holiday season can bring out the MAADwoman in any of us, so if fictional murder with a dash of humor is your cup ofeggnog, join us in celebrating the old fashioned way -- with festively decorated murder victims.]

PREVIEWS OF COMING ATTRACTIONS:

Spring will bring the 10th Kate Jasper novel from Berkley Prime Crime. In Murder on the Astral Plane, Kate attends a psychic soiree, seeking relief from the karmic impairment that sends her stumbling over dead bodies repeatedly... only to discover yet another corpse. Now Kate must answer that faint telepathic whisper, "Whodunit?"

MERRY CHRISTMAS MELLOW MEATLESS MASSACRE

[Warning: This recipe contains violence to vegetables and may not be suitable for younger readers -- although it looked pretty tasty to us.]

A Recipe from the kitchen of Jaqueline Girdner

Yield: Massacre for 4... and final triumph

Ingredients:

1. Stalk your ingredients in local markets. Carry a stun gun. You never know when the veggies will get wise to you.
2. Use revolver to blow away the ends of the zucchini and eggplant, then hack them into desired state of submission.
3. Drown the mushrooms and scrub them till they hurt before slashing to bits.
4. Place tofu in your favorite marinade, then pull the switch to electrocute. Dismember the soy body.
5. Place unsuspecting sesame oil in frying pan, then scald. Add garlic, ginger, basil, green onions, maple syrup, soy sauce and sherry.
6. Keep the heat on until they squeak for mercy.
7. Add eggplant, mushrooms, zucchini, and tofu. They deserve it!
8. Continue cooking until the vegetables are limp.
9. Stir in the mustard, hot and sweet, the ultimate irony.
10. Serve over seething soba noodles or rice. It won't do them any good. You may now eat and celebrate your single-minded mastery.
11. Hide the remains.

CAROLING CAUTIOUSLY

We have pretty much managed to scrape off the sticky gold foil seals applied during last year's attack by disgruntled carolers who didn't appreciate Jaki's version of God Rest Ye Merry Murderers. It's amazingly how sturdy that festive ribbon is when you're firmly tied up to a Yule Log and threatened with death by bonfire if you don't adopt a Silent Night policy. A sane person would imagine that such an experience would stop us from doing it this year. Obviously, if we were sane, we wouldn't be writing mysteries, now would we? There's a reason we're MAADwomen. If we let a little thing like total lack of an appreciative audience slow us down, we would have gotten into an easier line of work years ago. Beside there was some popular acclaim for our carols last year. Well, to be brutally specific, one person asked for a repeat. However, that one person was wearing a Santa outfit, and Jaki and I feel it's only prudent to keep on "Big Red's" good side. So here are some slightly recycled hits from the hit women:

GOD REST YE MERRY MURDERERS

God rest ye merry murderer

Last year I created a carol with a footnote, using Jaki's book titles to the tune of The 12 Days of Christmas. At that point there were only (only!) 9 Kate Jasper mysteries. This Spring there will be 10 -- the lyrics are still unfinished but we're getting there! (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 (MORE OR LESS) DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

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....
On the tenth day of Christmas, Ms. Girdner gave to me -- ten psychics channeling...
For numbers eleven and twelve -- tune in next year...

Ad-"dead"-dum by Ms. Girdner -- Excuse me! Ms. Murray has two books which could fill out the last two days. Herewith, I submit:

On the eleventh day of Christmas, Ms. Murray gave to me -- eleven personnel directors shoved out windows...
On the twelfth day of Christmas, Ms. Murray gave to me -- twelve plus-sized clothiers dying...

...And you guys know how the rest goes -- or we hope you do because we've obviously forgotten.

FOOTNOTES:

From Ms. Girdner 1-10:

From Ms. Murray 11 & 12:

Warning: the body count in each book may not be quite as high as in the holiday carol above, but the holiday season sometimes has the effect of increasing the casualties.

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