Terry Shames writes the popular, award-winning Samuel Craddock series. Guilt Strikes at Granger’s Store was one of Library Journal’s top mysteries of 2023. Perilous Waters, the first in her Jessie Madison thriller series, came out April 2024. Booklist calls it “The perfect escapist caper . . . The action is fast and furious…featuring a feisty, likable heroine.” Terry lives in Los Angeles and is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. She blogs bi-weekly on 7 Criminal Minds: https://7criminalminds.blogspot.com/. For more, see https://linktr.ee/terryshames.
Here’s the elevator pitch for The Troubling Death of Maddy Benson, which will be released on October 2, 2024.
In a small town like Jarrett Creek, everyone knows everyone. So Chief of Police Samuel Craddock is
perplexed when he receives a call from a woman asking the police to rescue her sister. Who is Maddy Benson?
When Craddock finds Maddy, she’s already dead. His career is jeopardized as he learns more about the woman and the real reason behind her recent move to Jarrett Creek. Can he unravel a knot of lies, threats, and dangerous politics to reveal the truth about why she died?
Plunging Into New Waters: I always intended to write standalones in addition to my Samuel Craddock series. To that end, I noodled with several books during the time I wrote the eleven Craddock books. Last year, I thought one of them was finally ready to send out. Imagine my surprise when my agent said, “No, this isn’t a standalone, it’s a new series. The Jessie Madison series.” Perilous Waters is the first in the series. I love the title and the cover the publisher came up with. The only problem? Selling it as the first of a series meant I had to come up with another story!
Because of my obligations to contracts for the Craddock series and for some short stories, I’d never spent dedicated time on Perilous Waters; I just poked at it here and there—for years! So now, I had to get serious about a second book. And I had to do it fast since the contract spelled out a date at the end of summer.
The Craddock books are relatively easy to write. I am familiar with the setting of Jarrett Creek, which is based on the town where my grandparents lived when I was young. I loved the town, and it’s in my bones. The characters in the series are also familiar. I may not always focus on the same secondary characters, but Samuel, his friends Loretta Singletary and Gabe LoPresto, and Samuel’s girlfriend Wendy Gleason always play a significant role. Even the plots seem to spring up easily, usually from some story I heard growing up or family lore. The books are traditional mysteries featuring Craddock as a chief of police.
The Jessie Madison series, on the other hand, is a thriller series. Before it was billed as a thriller, I thought of it as an adventure story. Set in the Bahamas, it emerged from several trips my husband and I took to the Bahamas on our catamaran, Black Pearl. So I knew the area well. Another part of the story came from an article about pirates around the Caribbean island of St. Vincent. (yeah, I know…Black Pearl, Pirates of the Caribbean—believe it or not, I didn’t even think of the connection at the time.) The first book was written and rewritten many times because I had the time to massage it. Contracts have changed that. Time is of the essence.
When I knew Perilous Waters would begin a series, I had decisions to make. I wanted subsequent books to be set in various countries around the world. We had sailed all over the Mediterranean and in Scandinavian waters. We had boated in Hawaii and been diving in Australia. I wanted to take advantage of that. But how? What would Jessie do after she had managed to survive the first book? She had been in FBI training, but early in the first book, she was kicked out. Where would she land? At the end of the first book, Jessie was offered a job that seemed limited to me. There were not that many possibilities for new and different adventures in that milieu.
I wracked my brain for what she could do. Jessie was a diver. That was her world. So, how could I keep her in the dive world? And then…a breakthrough. While researching diving, I came across something I was totally unaware of the FBI Dive Team. Who knew there was such a thing? It turned out the FBI dive teams are often invited by other countries to investigate underwater events—plane crashes, shipwrecks, and piracy, to name a few. But Jessie had been kicked out of FBI training, so how could she rejoin? I punted! I decided to have her called back in for one mission based on her bravery and quick thinking in the Bahama adventure. Was that even possible? I decided that poetic license would prevail.
I already had an idea for a plot. It just needed a setting. At first, I chose the Calypso Trench west of the Greek Islands. The problem? The Calypso Trench is too deep. The plot I had in mind wouldn’t work there. So, where could it be? And then, I had it: the Aeolian Islands, a set of volcanic islands north of Sicily. We had sailed all around the islands on Black Pearl. The setting is not only beautiful, but interesting. The islands are even mentioned in The Odyssey. As we found when we had to anchor there, the islands are newly formed (geologically speaking), and although there are built-up rock formations, the islands are surrounded mainly by deep trenches—thousands of feet deep. It makes diving treacherous in some spots—the perfect setting for a thriller.
I had one more problem: I had made Jessie a diver. Why is that a problem? I’m terrified of diving. I love snorkeling, but my one major dive experience on the Great Barrier Reef made me vow never to dive again. So to write the book, I’ve had to call on the experience of friends who are long-time divers. In addition to my pedestrian fears, divers have filled me in on dangers I didn’t even know existed. For example, currents can be overwhelming on dives, a factor that I’ve slotted into the book.
As for my poetic license, it turns out it wasn’t license at all. I called an old friend who was with the FBI for many years, asking a few particular questions. In the conversation, he casually mentioned that experts on various things are often called in to join a particular dive team mission. Whew! Jessie was in! And I didn’t have to cheat. So, now I have to spend another month doing what it took ten years to do on the first book—revise, revise, revise! Wish me (and Jessie) luck.
List of FB Groups:
Reds and Readers
SSB Authors
Denise Swanson’s Mysteries, Romances, and More
Writers Helping Writers
Writers and Author Promotions
First Chapter Fun
Author Book Promotions
Writers Who Kill Group
4MA
Lone Star Lawless Authors
Here are links—one to an independent bookstore: https://bookshop.org/shop/thebookjewel.
And links to the three books on Amazon:
The forthcoming Troubling Death of Maddy Benson.
The last Craddock, Guilt Strikes at Granger’s Store, came out in paperback on July 30, 2025.
The first in the Jessie Madison series, Perilous Waters.
Wow, writing your new one sounded like a real adventure. Congrats for sticking with it and best of luck with your new series.
You certainly have been busy, Terry! Looking forward to reading your new series. It sounds intriguing. I love that you are sending Jessie around the world.
I loved learning about your sailing adventures. It sounds like you have enough material for this new series. I’m looking forward to reading all of them!
Switching from a standalone to a series – serious skills!!
This was an enlightening post, George and Terry. I loved hearing about your experience of writing a second book in a fraction of the time it took you to write the first one. To be honest, I hope that problem is one I myself will have to deal with someday. Should I be so fortunate, Terry’s post here will serve as encouragement.
Terry, I love your writing almost as much as I love you (in a non-Biblical way, of course). You are one of my favorite people and reading about your adventures on the Black Pearl and how you used them to create a new series was a real treat. I have to say, if the Jessie Madison series is as good at the Craddock — and why wouldn’t it be? — I’ve got some grand reading in store for me.