I like mysteries. That seems self-evident given I also write them. But the mystery I’m most interested in at the moment isn’t fiction. It’s an American historical mystery—a lost immigrant story that unfolded in turn-of-the-century Idaho.

Last year I posted a blog about my great-uncle who lived in Deadwood during the gold rush of the late 1800s, as well as a family tree I pieced together that stretched back to the King Henrys (maybe). However, there was one branch missing, the fourth leg of the stool if you will: my maternal grandfather’s line. As a good mystery goes, what little I’ve discovered during the past year has only led to more questions.

My maternal great-grandfather, John Melise (previously, Giovanni Milesi or Melice), arrived in the United States in 1884 at the age of twenty. From where precisely, I’m not sure, although family lore places his hometown in Italy near the boarder of Austria. That same family lore also gives John Melise at least one brother, a brother who also married my great-grandmother’s sister. But the big story is that my great-grandfather abandoned my great-grandmother and her six kids, including my 5-year old grandfather, to strike it rich in the Idaho silver/gold rush.

My research (thus far) suggests none of my family stories are true. John Melise was still living with my great-grandmother in the midst of the Idaho silver-mining boom in 1920, at which point they’d been married nearly seventeen years. And he died shortly after the 1920 census (my only reference material for those years), in 1922, around the time my great-grandmother likely moved back to her hometown of St. Louis. That doesn’t seem like abandonment.

Then there’s my possible great-uncle, Joe Melici (or Guiseppi Milesi), who may or may not have married one of my great-aunts. Yet through the 1940 census there is no record of a marriage or kids. He worked his entire American life as a silver miner in Wallace, Idaho, always single, always living in boarding houses. By the 1940 census (the latest available) he was living in the historic Jameson Hotel, which may have been a run-down boarding house in those days, but is currently on the market for $549,000.

Included in that price is a ghost named Maggie who awaits a long-lost love who never returned from a quick-trip East after striking it rich in the silver mines. It’s a bargain!

Perhaps Maggie’s lost lover, like my great-grandfather, didn’t abandon her. Perhaps he simply died. Or did he? >> Read the rest.

It’s the Susa Group (Dian Fossey studied the group; there are twins) and the baby is the cutest:

A close encounter:

Watch the leg chop (and me getting a little scared!):

I like my entertainment soapy—romance, drama, intrigue!—as does much of the world. I figure this is a good thing. It’s easier to connect with people, easier to find amusement, easier to translate between cultures. Certainly easier to survive three months living with a Georgian family, especially when 90 percent of the time we had no common language beyond charades.

And I did survive, thanks largely to telenovelas: campy, silly and melodramatic. Where the women wear more make-up than a South Beach drag queen on Halloween. Where a man’s jaw is always clenched, his fists ready for a fight. Where furrowed brows and tears speak louder than words, and I FEEL the pain.

Unlike their American soap opera cousins that run for years, telenovelas average around six months and play nightly on primetime, which makes them highly profitable and exportable to new and growing audiences the world over.

In Georgia, we watched telenovelas every evening on a small television above the kitchen table. True, I could barely communicate with the women gathered around the table. Nor could I understand most of the words on the television, although I’d catch snippets of random Spanish in the background thanks to atrocious dubbing.

But I could stare at the smoldering Alejandro, a man I understood without words. A man who didn’t like the restriction of shirts, or chest hair, but if he absolutely must cover his magnificent, rippling torso for a dinner party with his no-doubt-evil mama, only white linen or pink/turquoise silk would touch his perfectly bronzed skin. And, por supuesto, buttoning said shirt was never an option.

>>Read the rest on Novel Adventurers.

“If this debut novel by Edith McClintock comes across as realistic, it’s because the author experienced the setting and situations – if not the murders – in the book. The protagonist, 25-year-old Emma Parks, has just completed a stint in the Peace Corps when she signs up for six months in a Suriname rainforest, studying monkeys (much like McClintock, who did the very same).

McClintock does a wonderful job describing spider monkeys, poisonous caterpillars, and an Amazon river filled with piranhas and anacondas. Just as dangerous are the other workers with the International Wildlife Conservation. They are constantly at odds with each other, and Emma finds herself an outsider most of the time (a budding romance, however, lightens the book a bit).”

Read the rest by Lourdes Venard at Review the Evidence.

Books & Books

But in the meantime, it’s book promotion time, or so my sister keeps telling me, so I’m giving away two autographed Monkey Love and Murder promotional books over the next couple of weeks to a random selection of people (pulled from a hat?) who already like/ and or will like my Facebook Author Page and Amazon pages between now and January 31^st. I’m also doing guest blogs, so let me know if you have one or recommend one. I did one today for The Displaced Nation blog about writing muses. Or that was the idea–I may have gone a little dark.

Or for those of you who want to help with promotion, ten bonus points and undying friendship if you call your local library and ask them to buy the book (this one inspired by Michelle). Or even better, have your book club buy and read the book (this one inspired by Kiki, who understands this promotional business better) and/or ask your local library to carry it and then have your book club read it. Hope that makes sense.

Or any other promotional ideas you can think of, let me know.

Winners will be announced everywhere. And I’m open to shipping anywhere in the world.

Also, below are a few photos from the Inauguration on Monday (bonus of living in D.C. for a bit–it was pretty amazing).

Through security but waiting for presidential limo (and extensive escort) to pass on way to Capitol. Not for the claustrophobic, but generally the crowd flow went well. Glad I didn’t have to enter the metro afterward though.

We could see the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir–the red helped–but not much below.

So we located ourselves strategically next to a big screen, a semi-undercover security duo (we did have my niece with us after all), and the porta potties (because that’s just good planning).

Looking backwards to the Washington Monument and 800,000 plus people.

“This romantic-suspense debut is perfect for those seeking adventure mixed in with their mystery. McClintock creates a vivid jungle environment, a perfect venue for a closed-room mystery.”

And it’s only $19.46 from the Book Depository with free worldwide shipping.