Episode 19: Maine Crime Writers Noir at the Bar

Explicit content warning

04/09/17 • 93 min

The audience listens as Brenda Buchanan tells them what the deal is.

In a VERY SPECIAL episode, we feature the April 2 Noir at the Bar event, in which a dozen members of the Maine Crime Writers blog and some guest speakers read (brief!) passages from their work. The Maine Crime Writers blog is a loose group of published mystery and crime writers who live in, and often write about, Maine. The genres run the gamut from cozy to hard-boiled — a little something for everyone. There may even be some lobsters and lighthouses.

Those who read at the event were Sandra Neely, Lea Wait, Maureen Milliken, Jen Blood, Vaughn Hardacker, EJ Fechenda, Brenda Buchanan, Richard Cass, Bruce Robert Coffin, Brendan Rielly, James Hayman and Chris Holm.

It’s a fast-paced fun-filled crazy quilt of mystery and crime! And sure, it may sound like you’re in a bar, but that’s because that’s where we were. So pop open a cold one, sit back and enjoy!

Don’t worry, we also have our weekly recommendations feature and stuff.

Noir at the Bar, in photos! Click on author’s name in above post for more information

The audience listens as Brenda Buchanan tells them what the deal is.

Don’t worry, we also have our weekly recommendations feature and stuff.

Noir at the Bar, in photos! Click on author’s name in above post for more information

Previous Episode

Episode 18: Logan Marr, the little girl who never had a chance

Logan Marr was too young to understand why the state of Maine kept taking her away from her mother. Her mother, Christy Baker, didn’t really understand either. Baker did everything she was asked, but a tangle of poverty, culture and, most importantly, a bureaucracy that valued its own prejudices over the well-being of a child and her mother, won out. Logan Marr died at the age of 5 at the hands of a foster mother who, if state rules were followed, shouldn’t have had her in the first place. She and her mom never had a chance.

Also, on Episode 18, we try not to sound dumber than we ever have before in a chaotic Ask a Lawyer. At least we have some good recommendations! Join us.

Next Episode

Episode 20: The tragic story of Bruce McKay and Liko Kenney

Ah, bucolic small-town life, where everything is wonderful. NOT. More like, where everything can be a real cluster f***. Take Franconia, New Hampshire, in 2007 for instance. Mix in a messed-up kid, a hard-ass cop and a vigilante gun-nut bystander and the only outcome there’s going to be is trouble. On May 11, 2007, Like Kenney shot Franconia police Cpl. Bruce McKay, then ran him over, at a traffic stop after McKay pepper-sprayed him. Bystander Greg Floyd then fatally shot Kenney with McKay’s gun.

And Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire’s attorney general at the time, called Floyd a hero and, the next day, let him off without an investigation or any charges.

But that’s only the beginning of the story that inspired Maureen’s first mystery novel Cold Hard News.

Join us for Episode 20!