A-Thrill-A-Week Reviews: The Meerkat Murders

by Citizen scientistsMeerkat MurdersMeerkats and MurderMurder Mystery

So watch your back Timon, no hakuna matata for you!

New 4-star review of The Meerkat Murder on A-Thrill-A-Week!

“Did you know that the cute and cuddly meerkat, made famous by the Disney movie The Lion King is the most murderous mammal known to science? A 2016 study published in the journal Nature found that Suricata suricatta, also known as meerkats, beat out 1,023 other mammals at being the most murderous. They found that approximately 20% of all meerkats will be killed by one of their own. Sounds like a good topic for a good murder mystery, eh? Well, R.J. Corgan does just that with his latest addition to the Kea Wright series, Meerkat Murders…”

Click here to read the full review

A-Thrill-A-Week also reviewed Cold Flood, which you can find here

Murder on Masaya – Fieldwork Nibbles

by Citizen scientists

My next novel, Murder on Masaya is set on the slopes of Volcan Masaya, Nicaragua and continues the adventures of Kea Wright.  I’ve included on this blog some photos of tools and techniques the scientists were using in the field that might not make it into the book.

Fieldwork nibbles

One of the many research projects conducted on the slopes of the volcano involved the collection of gravity measurements. These required a great deal of patience due to the sensitivity of the instruments. Below you can see two researchers patiently taking gravity readings on the side of the road on the slopes of Masaya.

The gravity meter in our field work was similar to the one you seen below (image from University of Newbrunswick). Their unit is a 1964 machine that’s been refurbished. 

A gravity meter similar to the one we used on Masaya.

As old as it is, believe it or not, it still is worth as much as two new cars…

For us newbies, the device can take either five minutes to take a reading to forty. Or, if you’re almost done after forty minutes and someone accidentally knocks the base plate with their foot, it can take one hour fifteen…

Interactive Earthwatch Iceland Story Map!

by Citizen scientistsicelandMurder MysteryVolcanoes

ESRI Story maps are a free way to create inspiring, immersive stories by combining text, interactive maps, and other multimedia content. Publish and share your story with your organization or everyone around the world. I’ve used their tool to explain the research we conducted in Iceland (as described in the novel Cold Flood) with interactive maps.  

Enjoy and remember you can create your own story maps just by going to https://storymaps.arcgis.com/

Guest Post on Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile: The Character in the Flaw

by Murder MysteryWriting

I was invited to be a guest poster on Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile’s site, talking on the topic of building characters in fiction: how to make them interesting, without resorting to giving them, say, an eye patch.*

Excerpt: “Asked to read a first draft, a beta reader informed me: ‘It’s okay, but your main character doesn’t have enough flaws.’ A second reader said of the same draft replied, ‘She has too many flaws!’ This led me to ask the question: When is your lead character sufficiently flawed enough to be interesting, but not too much that it alienates the reader? In the case of Sherlock Holmes, the character does heroin for a little while, either for undercover work or for fun/addiction, but only enough to make him dark and edgy. Watson, the reader’s guide, dries him out. You can make you character an alcoholic, but at some point the character has to remain vertical long enough to solve a crime…”

You can read the rest of the post on Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile’s site here!

(*Disclaimer – I love eye patches!)

Another solution might be to give your character an adorable companion… like say a puppy… or forty-four meerkats.

Shameless Plug: Meerkat Murders by R. J. Corgan is coming in Summer 2019!!