First Day of Class

First Day of Class

Today was the first day of my "Investigative Principles" class at the local community college. The only other class I took at a community college was called "Wines of the World." Now that was a good class -- sampling different wines and commenting about them. My latest course, I hope, will be useful in writing my Rachel Christie mystery series in that it will help keep the facts about police procedural more accurate.

The instructor for this class is the retired chief investigator of the small city in which I live. It's a small town of just over 10,000 people, but that's all right. Rachel Christie lives in a town of about 10,000 people. Also, the instructor's husband is a retired police chief from this city. I hope to pick their brains for some good information on cases and police procedures as applied to small towns.

We had to introduce ourselves today.  Most of the people watch CSI and other such shows and believe that they are true to life. I go into this class with no preconceived ideas on what police work actually is. I have an idea that it is probably a little boring at times like most professions. I think, however, that the class will be interesting and informative.

Sixth Novel in Series Published on Barnes and Noble

Sixth Novel in Series Published on Barnes and Noble

Yesterday, the sixth novel in the Rachel Christie Mystery Series, "Murder Along the Blue Ridge," was published on Barnes and Noble and on Create Space and has already sold several copies. Making all the icon covers for the different media and making the cover for Create Space are always a challenge. Deciding on what to put on a cover is the hardest and takes a lot of hours of planning and producing.

"Murder Along the Blue Ridge" is an emotion-packed murder mystery that has roots in something that happened fifteen years ago. Rachel Christie, the private investigator, must deal with Deputy Skyler, for whom she has no respect. She doesn't want the case, but finally the deputy's daughter asks Rachel and Rachel cannot say no.

I try to make all of my mysteries stand-alone novels. A minimum of background information from previous novels is only included if the present mystery warrants it. That way the reader is not sitting and wondering why something is happening the way it is.

The novel is also available on Amazon and will be available from Create Space as a physical book in a couple of weeks.

I want to thank my fans for their continued readership and wish them a prosperous, healthy and happy new year.

Safety or What?

Safety or What?

How many times have you seen a sign that said "Safety First?" Do they really mean it or is it just a bunch of words? I ran across this sign in the picture at a local factory. The fact that this sign, which says nothing of itself, covers over a sign important to safety shows a questionable attitude that some businesses have toward safety. It appears that safety is only the employee's concern.

Whenever I worked as an engineer, we had many safety classes and were informed of the dangers in the plants and other work environments. Sometimes that safety lesson was in the form of films which showed gruesome injuries to people. Since then industry has learned that showing such films does not do that much good. People are de-sensitized by all the horror in films.

Some companies claim that there is no such thing as an accident and that all accidents can be prevented. A friend of mine once told me that if there were an accident in his unit, then he would feel it in his paycheck. Those people obviously had a greater concern for safety than those in the picture above.