Blog Tour with Guest Post: Death in Dutch Harbor by D. Macneill Parker

 Synopsis (from Amazon):

When two murders strain the police force of a remote Alaskan fishing port, veterinarian Maureen McMurtry is tapped by Dutch Harbor’s police chief for forensic assistance. The doctor’s got a past she’d rather not discuss, a gun in her closet, and a retired police dog that hasn’t lost her chops. All come in handy as she deciphers the cause and time of death of a local drug addict washed ashore with dead sea lions and an environmentalist found in a crab pot hauled from the sea in the net of a fishing vessel.

When her romantic relationship with a boat captain is swamped by mounting evidence that he’s the prime suspect in one of the murders, McMurtry struggles with her own doubts to prove his innocence. But can she? McMurtry’s pals, a manager of the Bering Sea crab fishery and another who tends Alaska’s most dangerous bar assist in unraveling the sinister truth.

Excerpt from DEATH IN DUTCH HARBOR

D. MacNeill Parker

 

By the time Police Chief St. George and his two deputies, Chet and Michele, drove out the gravel road and located them on the beach, the two women had thoroughly examined both sea lions.

Maureen held up the lead slug she’d extracted and offered it to the chief. “I found bullet wounds in both the animals. Looks like it might be a .30-06.”

The chief wore a bulky police parka over jeans. He held out a gloved hand.

She dropped the bullet in his palm and watched him roll it around there.

“Yeah, looks like a .30-06 or maybe a .308. Bag it,” he said, passing it to Chet “And get the GPS readings on the carcass locations before we move them.”

“So, you know something about ballistics?” he said, turning again to Maureen.

“Brothers,” she said. “Dad took us deer hunting.”

“Really?”

Maureen could tell the chief was still trying to size her up. “Nothing worth talking about,” she said, knowing it was nothing she wanted to talk about.

Michele was already down the beach taking photographs of the other corpse. They could see the camera’s flash pop in clusters.

The chief turned back to Maureen, his eyes getting a bead on her from beneath a wide-brimmed western hat. . His mouth was pressed shut. Maureen had learned that meant he was thinking and wanted to get it right before he spoke.

“I’d like you to remove all the bullets and give me an estimate on time of death.” He hadn’t asked her to take a scalpel to anything before, so the query was measured. Sure, she was a vet but the question came anyway. “Can you do it, Maureen?”

The city council had hired Ray St. George as its police chief five months earlier. Like most remote Alaskan communities, the town didn’t have a medical examiner. And unless the community was lucky enough to have an appointed coroner to determine cause of death, the state police expected all evidence, including unexamined corpses, to be sent to Anchorage for forensic analysis. Dutch Harbor didn’t have a coroner, and its lone doctor worked at the hectic clinic. Chief St George had learned quickly that once state police took possession of a body, they also took possession of the investigation, often leaving the local police out of the loop. To Ray St. George, a retired Army investigator, this protocol was unacceptable.

“Can you do it?” he asked again, watching her kneeling in the sand to get her medical kit back in order.

Looking up, she stated the obvious. “The cause of death seems pretty clear, Chief.”

The chief waved it off. “I know these are sea lions, but it’s still a  crime I won’t tolerate. I want to know how many shooters were involved. To do that, I need to know if the bullets were fired from the same or multiple weapons. And I can’t begin to investigate properly without knowing if it happened this morning or last week.”

“Well, not this morning.” She lifted the flipper again and let it drop. “They’ve already passed through rigor.”

Maureen closed the kit, stood up, and hung it over her shoulder. “They’re gonna want to do their own necropsies,” she said, nodding down the beach where Kate still knelt, taking notes by the other corpse.

The chief had three inches on Maureen, making him about six feet tall. His face was clean shaven and his graying hair clipped short. His posture made you want to stand up straighter. She could tell by his expectant face that he was waiting for the wheels to turn in her head.

“Let me think about it,” she said.

Chet stood over the corpse, entering its GPS location in his notebook. He looked over at the chief. “What now?” he asked.

 The sea edged closer, and the surf shot foam their way. The chief pointed toward the tideline. “Look for shell casings,” he said. “And there may be more animals washed up on the beach. I want to collect as much as we can before the tide takes it away.”

Chet, young and with a gait that showed he was eager to please, pulled a yellow tide book from his pocket. “High tide’s in less than two hours. We could lose them.”

 “Don’t worry, Chet, we’ll figure it out.”

Michele offered to call the Northward plant and ask that they send out a flatbed truck to pick up the sea lions. An Aleut native, she’d served as the senior deputy for three years. Among her many duties, she penned the police log. Its droll language made it the favorite section of the town’s weekly paper, The Dutch Harbor News. She’d already keyed in the fish plant’s number and looked to the chief..

 “Ask them to send one with a crane,” he said.

Maureen joined Kate, who’d begun to walk the tide line again. They were almost to the river when their roving flashlight beams landed on another mound of seaweed. Kicking away clumps of kelp, a hideous odor rose to scorch their nostrils.

Half buried in the sand lay a sneaker attached to a white foot. It lay turned away from a twisted leg, its bruised skin exposed like a warning. Maureen knelt beside it and began to strip away the seaweed until she uncovered a shoulder. Following its sloping angle, she found strings of long hair that clung to a scalp like seaweed to a rock. The turned head revealed the nose ridge of a man.

Kate moved the flashlight beam to where the nose met the sand. The beam faltered, quaking as if the earth moved beneath it. But it was Kate, unable to quell her shaking hand.

Maureen  hollered down the beach. “Chief, over here. Hurry!”

Their flashlights bobbing, the chief, Chet, and Michele loped their way to the spot where Maureen and Kate shined their lights. The chief knelt down. He reached for the man’s shoulder and rolled him over.

Looking up was someone they all recognized.

Guest Post

D. MacNeill Parker

DEATH IN DUTCH HARBOR

Subject: What I didn’t know before I wrote my first book.

The most important thing I did not know before writing DEATH IN DUTCH HARBOR was how much fun it would be to let my imagination loose from its corral. But I had to tame it.  Not into submission mind you, but I had to maneuver a bridle on that wild mustang so I could ride her into the sunset after a day of work around the ranch. Some things came naturally. Others required discipline. None of it is original, but this was the winning combo for me. Maybe it’ll help you tame your inner mustang.

Front and center are these three words: Just do it! From that flows hands-on learning.

Another three words: Keep it simple! Pick a genre that’s not complex. I chose crime mystery, of which there are several subgenres. What’s better than a whodunnit with an obvious goal; find the killer? But there are other simple genres like romance, western and action thrillers. Literary fiction was not my aim. Just fought for a great story that would keep readers entertained and flipping the pages. And pick a Point of View that’s simple like first or third person with a single protagonist. I chose third person. It took me a while to figure out how to get inside the protagonist’s head using third instead of first person, but that’s where I was most comfortable.

How about four words this time: Write what you know! I know commercial fishing in Alaska so that was my backdrop. It gave the book an authentic feel, and no research was required!

Here’s four  more words: Story structure, learn it! Kurt Vonnegut is well known for his offered plot line guidance. He throws the protagonist into a deep hole. The story is how the hero climbs out by the book’s ending (Kurt Vonnegut, YouTube). Aside from that trek out of the big hole (a hero’s journey), each scene should have its own set of pot holes that are navigated using five components (Story Grid, YouTube). This was the light bulb lesson for me. Start each scene (often a chapter for me) with an inciting incident that launches your protagonist on a path with progressive complications or obstacles to overcome until they reach the turning point complication that forces a crisis question for the protagonist to answer with an action, the climax. This choice is never easy because as an author, it’s your job to keep clobbering your hero with tough choices. The protagonist’s chosen action often reveals something of his or her character and allows readers to get to know the hero better without being told (remember, show don’t tell). The resolution is the final scene segment when you get to see how the choice worked out for the protagonist. I often dropped inclusion of the resolution in the same scene (allowing it to crop up later) because I wanted to end it with a cliffhanger. I wanted each scene to leave readers wanting more. A page-turner…

Are you a Plotter or Pantser? Plotters draft a detailed outline before they start writing. They’ve got a roadmap! They know where they’re going! They make fewer wrong turns than Pantsers. Pantsers write by the seat of their pants. I’m a Pantser. It’s an adventure because not even I know how the story will unfold. But I’m not a total empty-head. I know where I am going. To solve the murder! I just don’t know what’s going to happen along the way. So, for instance, when I started writing my book, DEATH IN DUTCH HARBOR, I knew it was a crime mystery, I knew it would take place in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and that it would use commercial fishing as a backdrop to the action. I knew the protagonist was a veterinarian working with the local police chief and I knew she had a three-legged police dog and a couple of close buddies that were critical to the story. Finally, I knew someone would be killed at sea. I even wrote a prologue describing the murder (which later became a chapter), but I had no idea who did it or why. Armed with little else, I began to write. Each time I started, my brain seemed to relocate to the tips of my fingers, waiting there poised over the keyboard, for the action to begin. Where would it take me? I couldn’t wait to find out! By the end of the first chapter another dead body had washed ashore. After I wrote a few more chapters, I decided it was time to use a compass and so wrote the last chapter where all the whodunnit stuff was revealed. No pressure really because I knew I could change it later if it made for a better story, which I did. With the compass now pointed north, I returned to writing chapters knowing that each scene must drive the story forward in that general direction. In the case of a murder mystery, I knew I had to offer up a clue, a red herring or a complicating factor in every scene. My fingers marched across the keyboard anxious to see what it might be. I can tell you that there were a few times when I was so astonished, I stood up, walked to the bathroom mirror, pointed at myself and raved that I was a genius. “You are brilliant!” Of course, I’m not a genius but what a fun adventure, sort of like life itself. But there’s a downside to the Pantser world. It’s called revisions. Without the roadmap used by Plotters, we Pantsers are likely doomed to writing many revisions because our plot or characters take a wrong turn and get stuck in the mud somewhere. I’m not sure if a person is born a Pantser or Plotter or if it’s a conscious choice. Perhaps something down the middle might be the best course. A Plotser?

Finally, join or start a writing group. What’s the downside to having a deadline, constructive criticism of your work and a gang of new friends? I doubt I could have produced chapters at such a regular pace without my writing group. Thank you, Gang!

So, write the darn book. And take some courses along the way for a hands-on learning experience because I’ve just scratched the surface of what there’s to learn about writing a book. Most importantly, have fun! Hopefully, you’ll get it published. Then write another…

Author Bio:

D. MacNeill Parker and her family are long time participants in the Alaska fishing industry. In addition to fishing for halibut, salmon, crab, and cod, she’s been a journalist, a fisheries specialist for the State of Alaska, and a seafood company executive. She’s travelled to most ports in Alaska, trekked mountains in the Chugach range, rafted the Chulitna River, worked in hunting camps, and survived a boat that went down off the coast of Kodiak. Parker’s been to Dutch Harbor many times experiencing her share of white knuckler airplane landings and beer at the Elbow Room, famed as Alaska’s most dangerous bar. While the characters in this book leapt from her imagination, they thrive in this authentic setting. She loves Alaska, the sea, a good yarn and her amazing family.

Website: https://www.dmparkerauthor.com/

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Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198615907-death-in-dutch-harbor

 

Praise:

“From the first scene, she evokes the real Dutch Harbor and the dynamic people who call it home. It’s a roaring mystery that braids together oil rigs, fishing, sea lions and the kind of Russians we love to hate. Death in Dutch Harbor is a must read for anyone who wants to vicariously experience a rugged world on the edge of an unforgiving sea”

—  Lori Swanson, Former Director Marine Conservation Alliance, Federal Fishery Observer

“Any fan of the Deadliest Catch television show should reach for this book!”

—Captain Sig Hansen, FV Northwestern and a star of the Deadliest Catch TV series

 

“Death in Dutch Harbor grabbed me at the outset and did not let go. Right away you can tell Ms. Parker knows the issues facing the fishing industry in the Bering Sea. She weaves them into the tale and uses her characters to draw the reader deeper into the murder mystery.”

— Frank Kelty, Former Mayor of Dutch Harbor/Unalaska

 

“What a banging beginning for this author. Parker successfully tied together the multiple themes with strong characters, especially the women, with a believable and exciting plot. I recommend this book and look forward to Parker’s next novel.”

— Men Reading Books

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