As my protagonist, Maggy Thorsen, recently put it: “If things had gone as I’d planned that weekend, the book would be called Fifty Shades of Sunburn, not MURDER ON THE ORIENT ESPRESSO.” But let me explain: This being the eighth installment of my Wisconsin-based Maggy Thorsen mysteries, I decided my coffeehouse owner should take a well-earned break from the cold and accompany her main squeeze, Sheriff Jake Pavlik, to South Florida for a mystery writers’ conference, where Pavlik is to speak. This wasn’t as much of a stretch for me as it was for Maggy. I now live in Fort Lauderdale and am treasurer of the Florida Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, which puts on the premier mystery writers’ conference in the world, Sleuthfest. For the record, Sleuthfest does NOT pile various warring factions of writers, reviewers and fans onto a night train into the Everglades to re-enact Agatha Christie’s MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. And if we did, we’d make damn sure the weather was good, the tracks were solid and . . . well, I can’t promise you an absence of critters. They are a bit of a nuisance down here. Anyway, I’d been dying to give…

According to Wikipedia, the Romans made promises each January to the god Janus for whom the month was named. The Babylonians, likewise, promised their gods at the start of the year to return borrowed items and repay debts. The impulse is deeply human, and so is the tendency to let those good resolutions fall by the wayside as daily life intrudes. Yup… no matter how you sugarcoat it, that means most of us will make promises to ourselves that we fail to keep. Depressing. That’s no way to start a brand, sparkling new year! So this year I’m going to make some resolutions right now that I know I will be able to keep. Join me in my attempt to stamp out self-loathing resulting from year end madness! In 2014 I resolve: 1 – To watch what I eat. If I watch it closely enough, nobody can steal the best goodies! 2 – To not buy anything frivolous. After all, the tablet I bought was absolutely necessary for promotional purposes, as proved by the one time I actually used it to update my Facebook page. Perfume? Everyone deserves to smell nice, right? And no one knows the perfume I like…