“Kill Like Christie” Update and the Deadline with Teeth

Here’s a little peek behind the scenes at Peschel Press. It involves our next book, “Kill Like Christie and Solve Like Sherlock,” the writing process, and a deadline with teeth.

The magic word today is “juggling.”

Actually, this is what we do every days. There are so many books to write, so many reviews to edit, so much paperwork to catch up on.

Like this post, which I’m writing at 7:34 a.m. this morning.

I’ve been meaning to post regularly. We do quite a lot of social media on Instagram and Facebook, and I want to add this website, Substack, and X as well.

Secretly, it’s because I want to do short-form videos as well. I have a lot of ideas, thanks to Chris Goor’s YouTube channel, and I can see we can build an audience repurposing our content for it.

deadline with teeth chris goor
Can it be done? I’d like to try.

But first, I need to show myself I can upgrade my posting game before I add another task to my to-do list.

Creating a Deadline with Teeth

Which brings me to “Kill Like Christie and Solve Like Sherlock.”

I’ve been working on this off-and-on since 2021 at least and have enough material to give a presentation at the last Pennwriters conference.

Now we’re closing in on the finish line.

So far, it’s going well.

deadline with teeth
Not every day is like this. Believe me.

Thanks to deadlines. A hard deadline with consequences.

See, we want to appear at the Gaithersburg Book Festival next year. As one of the speakers. And talking about the tropes found in the works of Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle (and others, like Nero Wolfe and Ellery Queen and contemporary authors), is our way of getting in.

But we need to submit a printed book by November. This November.

Which means I have to finish the book for Teresa and others to edit by the end of August. This gives me September to edit and design the book while they work it over, submit it to Amazon, and get proof copies back in time to send to the festival.

So by working backwards from the deadline, I know how many novels and short stories I need to review each week.

Three novels, eight short stories.

This is in line with Chuck Close’s quote:

“If you believe in the process and you knit one, purl two long enough, and you do it right—eventually you get a sweater.”

So now I’m knitting furiously, and in week three of the process, I need to process four novels (yes, I’m behind), but I’m a week ahead on the short stories.

I’ll catch up. I have notes from three of the four novels, and I’m working through other books about Christie’s process to catch up.

An Excerpt from the Book

In the meantime, let me give you a snippet from yesterday’s work. It’s only a first draft, so keep that in mind:

Murder Club: A group of crows is called a murder, and a group of crime fans are murder club. This is the descendant of the stories set in gentlemen’s clubs and dinners, with the ex-colonel, big-game hunter, noted barrister, and other manly men swapping strange tales. Agatha Christie introduced Miss Marple as a member of the Tuesday Night Club [MM2]. Anthony Berkeley created the Crime Circle, where Roger Sheringham and his fellow members tried to solve a “real life” crime. Ellery Queen created the Puzzle Club for five short stories, two of which were considered here [Q12.14, Q12.15].

The sub-genre continued with Isaac Asimov’s Black Widowers short stories. A group of men met regularly over dinner to talk, argue, debate, and hear an invited guest tell his tale. They debate possible solutions, but it’s Henry the waiter who always solve the mystery.

Today we have Richard Osman with his Thursday Murder Club series in which four elderly pensioners in a retirement village investigate local murders.