How Resort to Murder Came to Be

You might think that three successful, busy writers might already have enough on their plates besides editing an anthology, but when they tried their hands at such a task in 2005, the result was the very popular Silence of the Loons. The three editors (each of whom also contributed a story) William Kent Krueger, Ellen Hart, and Carl Brookins who comprise the authors' team known as Minnesota Crime Wave came up with a highly original idea. "We wanted to bring the Minnesota Mystery community together in order to showcase the talent of these wonderful writers and friends. A short story anthology seemed the perfect way. But that, in itself, was too easy. These are writers used to dealing with locked rooms and battling serial killers. We realized we needed to give them an additional challenge, something that would, in its way, unify the collection. This was the challenge. We created a set of eight clues or elements, a pool from which each author had to dip into in order to construct their stories."
Each author invited to be in the book had to include at least eight of the clues, among them a page torn from a dictionary, the sound of a train whistle, a wig— and the one that possibly piqued the public's fancy the most: a headless Barbie doll.
Naturally, readers demanded a follow-up volume, and thus was born Resort to Murder, thirteen stories united by one common theme: each had to take place in a real, but fictionalized Minnesota resort.
The result is a book that will keep you up late at night reading. Enjoy!

Resort to Murder's First Review

Resort to Murder has been reviewed in the prestigious Publishers' Weekly. Here's what they had to say: "The Minnesota Crime Wave’s entertaining second volume of short stories from Minnesota writers (after 2005’s The Silence of the Loons) introduces some promising talent to a wider audience. Taking a somewhat darker tack than the previous anthology, many of the 13 stories center on actual or suspected infidelity or some other betrayal, concluding with satisfying but somewhat anticipated twists. No stories stand out as either duds or stunners, though Pat Dennis’s “Mother’s Day,” about a neglected son’s homicidal plans for the holiday, and David Housewright’s “Miss Behavin’,” which follows a philandering physician down a spiral of bad luck and poor choices, are particularly taut and suspenseful. Several authors include notes of local color, giving a nice sense of continuity from one piece to the next and appealing to Minnesotans and visitors alike." (Publisher's Weekly 7/23/07)

Interview with Resort to Murder Editor

Carl Brookins, one of the three editors of Resort to Murder, was interviewed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune this week. He was asked why there were so many mystery writers in Minnesota, what were some of the personality traits of said writers, and what were some characteristics of the mystery field. Carl pointed out that mystery writers are "not really writing about killings and beatings and things of that nature, we're really writing about the human condition." Click here for the complete interview. Carl, along with Ellen Hart and William Kent Krueger, edited the volume, and together make up Minnesota Crime Wave.