There Goes the Neighborhood

I'm jazzed that Mystery Scene magazine ran my essay about why I created a fictional town as the setting for my Mace Bauer Mystery series. Just got the issue (Holiday Issue, # 107), and it looks terrific.

Here's a snippet:

As soon as I saw the hand-lettered sign propped outside a remote country store, I knew it was a bad omen for Okeechobee, and for my new book, Mama Does Time, set in down-home Florida.

I circled back in my pickup truck. Nope, I hadn't read it wrong:

Boiled P'nuts/Cappuccino.

Cappuccino?

In a spot where cowboy is used as a verb, where barbecue is a religion, and where the local high school mascot is a 1,500-pound Brahma bull named Bubba?

There goes the neighborhood . . .

And here's a picture of me, writing along the Kissimmee River near Okeechobee, which is the real-life counterpart to my made-up town of Himmarshee.