What would you do?

What would you do if you saw your husband kissing your sister? Really kissing her with his hands in all the wrong places?

In my new mystery, Murder in The Buff, Molly Darter handled that scenario by throwing everything that wasn’t nailed down at her husband. She kicked him out of their home. She quit speaking to her sister.

She knew what she saw. Her eyes didn’t lie. Worse, her husband looked guilty. He tried to talk to her about it but she couldn’t stand to be around him. Every time she saw him that kiss of betrayal flashed in her head again.

Molly and Hadley’s marriage is a rich vein of conflict in this mystery. It echoes the theme of broken relationships that come into play in the murder plot. Love and murder – it just doesn’t get any better than that in my mind.

I write about people who make mistakes because I’m curious about human behavior. Love can be very messy.

Some people honor their romantic commitments. Some people cheat. Some cheaters fall apart when they get caught. (What were they thinking?) In real life, these things never end well. Arguments get nastier. Lines get drawn in the sand. Hurt pride rears its ugly head. Outsiders take sides. No one can back down.

This type of emotional conflict is great fuel for a story, plus as an author, I get to create the ending I want. That’s the beauty of fiction.

But I’m curious as to how you might handle a situation like this in real life or in the pages of a book. Would you go all ballistic? Would you withdraw and cry out your hurt all alone? Would you get even? Would you listen to what your spouse had to say?

Would your answer have been different twenty years ago?

What would you do?

Maggie Toussaint

Puzzling her way through life

Puzzle People

You've seen them. They sit there for hours on end, fingering the edge of a piece of cardboard and oblivious to the world around them. Or perhaps they're sitting in a busy airport, pen in hand and inking letters into a black and white grid.

Puzzle people. They're a unique breed of determined, methodical individuals who know that sticking with something all the way to the end nets a grand reward. Oftentimes, jigsaw puzzlers start with the easy part, assembling the framework, then they work inward either by shape or color recognition or image alignment. Be forewarned though, looking at the box may be considered cheating by some serious puzzlers.

DIDJA KNOW: Jigsaw puzzles of the same size and series from the same manufacturer often have identical cuts and piece shapes.

In today's high tech world, assembling a jigsaw puzzle (or a crossword puzzle or a Suduko) may seem archaic and unimportant, but the activity has diehard enthusiasts and now the medical community is onboard singing the praises of puzzles.

DIDJA KNOW: Working on a puzzle stimulates your brain. Some say it may even ward off Alzheimer's, a memory impairing disease.

I'm one of them. A puzzler, I mean, though I probably have my share of memory issues. There's nothing I like better than seeing how something fits together. I've never been much of a take-aparter, but I dearly love putting together a puzzle. I couldn't imagine starting my day without a Sudoku number puzzle. I usually tackle the crossword puzzle for lunch. In the evenings, I engage my brain with whodunits in books or on TV.


At a mystery conference I once roomed with a woman who loved doing Sudoko puzzles on a handheld device, and she was always trying to best her former times. That's serious puzzling.

With aging relatives, I've been in and out of nursing homes over the last three years. I can recognize a puzzle person on sight. And the cool thing is, they recognize me right back. No introductions are necessary. You just slip into a chair and pick up a puzzle piece and you share in a wonderful fellowship.

If only everything in life were so easy!

Maggie Toussaint
Death, Island Style coming in February

PS ARE YOU A PUZZLER? Be sure and leave a comment about the kind of puzzles you enjoy or tell me if your relatives enjoy puzzles. I'd love to hear from you!