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I'm sure he'll be happy with small, unmarked bills hidden in the hollow of a tree.

Anything with a masked madman carrying a blowtorch works.

Congratulations, Casper!  Good wishes for your success!

Welcome Blessing and Helena.  I will happily read and review anything you guys have on the site.  Rhia

Somebody said that "freedom of the press is only a right to those who own a printing press."  Well, these days, we all own a printing press (or can rent one through providers like Amazon).  Time for aggressive marketing.  It's not true that build it and they will come.  But tell them about it after you build it, and they will come.

I killed off one of my characters at a reviewers' suggestion.  And an important subplot (or perhaps the plot) of my current work revolves around making a character really sympathetic, then killing her off.  But no Spocks, Supergirls, Captain Kirks, or Sherlock Holmes, all of whom came back.  (Although maybe Holmes is not an example of a beloved character.  Doyle wanted to kill him off because he began to hate him.  Thousands of working-class men wearing black armbands and a few death threats later, he brought him back.

Kdot, it is, viewed one way, "The Adventure of Heather's Escape."  Certainly, the plot structure supports that interpretation.  It starts with her imprisonment, goes through events where she tries to exonerate herself, then concludes with her trial and the aftermath.  (Can't say more w/o spoiling.) 

But the precipitating event is Modrin's death, the injury to order that is caused by it, and the detective coming in to restore that order (a typical, classical mystery plot).

The key, in the first instance, is--is the adventure fun and exciting?  Is the reader fascinated or thrilled by the scene changes and the characters' adapting to them?.  From the responses of you and other reviewers, I have turned that key well.

If you have a list of possible suspects, then the mystery is working, as well--especially, if characters come off and on it, depending on which chapter you're on.

Thanks!

Be safe, Marilyn.  And oh, do you want to trade some of your water (I hear the hurricane is big and wet) for some of our fire?

The next chapter I will post reveals "whodunnit."  After that is falling action--suspenseful but falling. I'd appreciate posts on who you think did it and why--the why being conditioned by clues you think you perceive.  You know--"I think Heveydd did it because he has a red beard, and men with red beards aren't trustworthy." 

This way I can gauge how well I'm bamboozled you all.

Thanks in advance!

Love, Rachel.

Ann, it's good advice even if you don't want to query the big publishers.  They will take notice of first-timers if and only if they have a big following on social media.  Of course, if you have a big enough following, you might not need the big publishing houses.  I'm making a few dollars a month on Amazon, but I'm reminded of a saying--one needs three hobbies:  one to keep fit, one to be creative with, one to make money.  For me, karate/shooting, writing, tutoring (not that teaching isn't creative).

You, think too much, John?  Probably.  You do seem to let over-thinking get in your way.  My advice?  Just do it.  There's a place for thinking.  You are looking down a cliff. Can I survive a fifty-foot jump?  Even then, when there's a hoard of very angry cannibals heading toward you armed to the teeth, you might not want to over-think.  Can I talk my way out of this?  Is it really true that in water, even .44 magnum cartridges slow enough that they might not penetrate my skin? You may just want to jump.

And it doesn't matter if it's Malloy or Bambini who is karmically discharged.  Malloy may be the narrator, Bambini may be the m/c.  You like writing about Bambini, he always appears, even if a minor character.  You've established him as totally evil--the scene with the dog is one that makes me want to kidnap you and do a ritual purification to save your soul.  So maybe have him, because of some incestuous fetish with his mother, do something good.  (He finds out he has a sister, saves her, and dies horribly because of it, or maybe he saves the world from nuclear destruction because he can't have fun if the world comes to an end.  That wouldn't be good, though, as to make it an actual plot, you have to have the seeds of his final, good, deed, sewn in the very beginning.  Maybe the world is about to be eaten by a cosmic dog and the Government is full of dog lovers, so Bambini has to man up and well, you know... You can write the scene and tack it on the end after you're done with all the character portraiture and outre metaphors.)  You have him sitting next to Malloy on a cloud at the end.  Malloy asks him WTF happened?  And he says:  Fuhgeddaboutit.  (Jeez, there's a conventional spelling of that word--my Grammarly just told me to fix it.)