Susan P. Baker

Yesterday evening I was interviewed on Chat & Spin Radio UK about my books and writing experience. Scroll on the player below to 1:05:00 to listen to the short interview!

In these frightening times, with corona viruses springing up—that includes the really scary Covid 19—emphasis has been on washing hands and disinfecting surfaces, and that's really important. However, we should also be diligent about protecting our families from food that may have come into contact with people who have been exposed to a virus.

Some people suggest simply rinsing your produce under the faucet prior to eating. Others say spraying with white vinegar and rinsing prior to eating will disinfect. (This will clean but not disinfect.) When I lived in Mexico, there were vegetable and fruit washes on just about every corner. They're a bit harder to find here and not always effective, though if it's easier for you, certainly use them liberally on your fresh produce.

For a home solution, I suggest the following recipes:

For most fruits and vegetables: mix together 4 cups water, 1 cup white vinegar, and 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Fill your spray bottle with this solution and spray your fruit or vegetables liberally (you will want to put your produce in a colander in your sink). Wait about five minutes. Rinse with cool water and scrub thick skinned produce with a brush. Pat dry.

For leafy greens: fill a large bowl with 4 cups of water, one cup of white vinegar, a tablespoon of salt. Soak the greens for five minutes. Rinse completely with cold water. Dry thoroughly because wet greens decay faster in the refrigerator.

Of course constantly be diligent about scrubbing your hands with soap and water for two verses of Happy Birthday. And use disinfectant to wipe down surfaces with which strangers may have had contact.

If you're holing up in your house for any period of time, all of my books are available inexpensively as e-books. Simply go to www.susanpbaker.com for the links.

Stay safe!

 
I can't remember when I first thought of attending law school and practicing law. What I remember is thinking it could be fun practicing law with my father. Maybe the idea first came to me when I was nineteen. I was waiting in court to testify in a robbery trial, and my father entered the courtroom on another case. I remember sitting through docket call in that court. As the judge went down the list, he called several cases on which my father was the attorney and fussed at the defendants, because my father wasn't there. When Dad did appear, the judge chewed him out in open court. I was both embarrassed (and glad hardly anyone knew who I was) and amused. Many years later, when I was about to begin law school, my father became a judge. We never had the opportunity to practice law together, although for several years I shared office space with my father's former law partners, which gave me an inkling of what it might have been like.

Much later, when I was on the bench myself, I witnessed a well-known, and very rich, trial attorney behaving boorishly during a trial in the courtroom across the hall from mine. On one occasion, he pulled an associate down the hall by the ear. Or it could have been the young man's nose, I can't remember which. As well, I heard from various attorneys that the boorish attorney apparently didn't think the rules applied to him. That court's judge didn't enforce the rules, either. The attorney went so far as to provide food and drink to the jury. He made large contributions to various political figures around town. He was given his own parking place outside the courthouse. He didn't practice my kind of law, so I didn't have to deal with him personally, but I found all of the above offensive, way over the top.

My mind being what it is, I began to wonder what it would take, to what extreme he would have to go that would be so bad as to cause someone to kill him. So that was where the germ of the idea came from. Put that together with my wanting to practice law with my father and, I thought, why not have the alleged murderer's defense lawyer practice law with her mother, instead

For many years, I witnessed the frustrations of litigants who could not afford lawyers and would come to court ill-prepared to finalize their divorces. Judges are not allowed to practice law. We're not allowed to help people prove up their petitions. Many times I had to turn people away, telling them they had not properly prepared the paperwork, followed the rules or the law, or perfected service on their spouse.

The other thing is, over the course of practicing law and presiding over a family law court, as well as having been divorced myself, I saw the heartbreak of family disintegration. Although I had made my living as a (mostly) family law attorney, I did not enjoy people having to lay out thousands of dollars to prosecute their cases. That money could have been put to good use for their childrens' support and education. People who divorce are pretty much crazy for a couple of years, myself included. They make poor decisions. Their emotions take hold and control their behavior. I hated to see people fight when splitting up could be ever so much more peaceable.

One night, when I was on vacation, I dreamed I wrote a book for pro se litigants that guided them through the divorce process. When I woke up the following morning, I opened my laptop and began writing. Heart of Divorce came out less than a year later. Almost immediately after that, large publishers saw dollar signs and published thick books telling people how to fight to the death to win their divorce cases. There are no winners in divorce.

In my small book, in addition to chapters informing the reader of the process from breaking the news to one's spouse to finalizing the paperwork, I included anecdotes from some of my cases that I thought were interesting. All true! (Though names have been omitted.) The title Heart of Divorce, though awkward, was suggested to me by a professor who taught a nonfiction writing course I took in Minnesota. Perhaps it should have been Divorce with a Heart. That's what I want to get across to people. It's possible to minimize the heartbreak of a divorce.

In my mind, there's no great mystery about the source of my idea for Murder and Madness. For a long time, I'd been thinking about what probably had happened in one of the unsolved cases in my Murdered Judges of the 20th Century book. I'd wanted to use that case somewhere, whether fictionalizing the incident as a stand-alone novel or tying it into the Mavis books or the Lady Lawyers books (or what will be books, plural, as soon as I put the second one out [which is planned for late this year]). So I decided to let Mavis solve the crime.

I also wanted to move Mavis, at least temporarily, down to Galveston. I had started another Mavis book years ago where she and Ben had been at the beach and discovered something buried in the sand. (I won't say what because I may use that idea someday.) So, I thought, besides going for a weekend at the beach, what else would get her down here? Answer: If a client hired her to investigate a case in Galveston. And shouldn't it be water related? Ergo the victim being a cruise ship captain and the family living in a beach house.

Additionally, I'd done research, in the few years prior, about narcissists, sociopaths, and narcissistic sociopaths (as opposed to psychopaths), who I believe have a form of mental illness—madness, if you will. And I've long had an interest in stories about people who disappear, being estranged from their families or otherwise. Add in some odd characters, which we always have an excess of down here, drugs, alcohol, and the unique characteristics of the island, and there you are. Murder and Madness was born.

When I took the bench in '91, child support cases were heard by a court master appointed by the judge. If a person was unhappy with the result of the case heard by the master, that person could appeal to the presiding judge. Both of the men who had been hearing cases before I arrived on the scene had archaic attitudes toward the payment of child support, giving people who didn't pay chance after chance and rarely jailing anyone for nonsupport. The payors knew that and dragged their feet while the payees struggled to take care of the kids.

The first day I took the bench to hear appeals of child support cases, I informed the courtroom full of people that a new day had come, that all the proper procedures would be followed, but payors were going to pay or go to jail.

That's not to say I was unsympathetic to men (Most payors were men, though there were a few women including one I put in jail who didn't think I would enforce an order against her because she was a woman). I had represented a lot of men when I was practicing law. I'd heard pretty much every reason why child support hadn't been paid. For example, I had a client who "couldn't pay" because he had to pay the $500 payment on his Lincoln Continental. One had to take his new girlfriend to Cancun for vacation. One potential client said he wasn't going to pay that "bitch," because she didn't spend the money on the children. I didn't take his case. But there were also people who were injured on the job, laid off, or in accidents and would pay when they received their settlements. Those were a different story.

So I sit up there, hearing excuses, and all kinds of thoughts run through my head. One day, the idea popped into my head that children would receive Social Security benefits if their fathers were dead. I never told anyone I'd had that thought, but my imagination being what it is, I started thinking what if…what if I wasn't the only person to have had that thought? What if "Deadbeat Dads" started having accidents… So I extrapolated on that idea and came up with my protagonist, Jim, a laid-off investigative reporter. I did my best to put myself in Jim's shoes. How would he feel if, through no fault of his own, he lost his job and couldn't pay and had to go to court? What did he observe? What did he wonder about?

Eventually, federal laws went into effect. The state attorney general's office took over enforcement, but the procedure remained mostly the same with an appointed Associate Judge handling the cases. The title of the novel comes from the name of the proper document to be filed with the court when a person with a pending lawsuit dies, a Suggestion of Death. These are filed so the court has notice and can dismiss the case.
 

After I "retired" as judge in Galveston at the end of 2002, we moved to Fredericksburg, Texas, because I'd fantasized about living in the rustic Texas Hill Country, which I found to be beautiful, quite different from living on the Gulf Coast.

I was able to sit as a visiting judge (judge sitting by assignment) occasionally and was assigned to Bandera, Bourne, Fredericksburg, Kerrville, Ft. Stockton, and a few other small counties I can't even remember. I loved driving to and from those counties, through the hills, past huge, old oak trees, cactus, bluebonnets in the spring, being careful not to hit deer or other animals that populated the area. Thus the setting for Texas Style Justice.

In rural Texas, the population of a county is seldom large enough to warrant a district judge all its own, so frequently a judicial district will be made up of several counties. The judge will travel as needed. I call them "circuit riding" judges.

While living in the Hill Country, I conceived the basic plot of this book. Texas is so large that the state is divided into a number of administrative districts, nine at the time I wrote this book. The governor appoints the presiding judge of each administrative district, usually a retired judge. Otherwise in Texas, we elect our judges from justice of the peace to chief justice of the Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals.

I wondered, what if getting elected judge took a lot of money? Which it does. Who contributes the money to elect judges? Mostly lawyers. What if in rural counties, elections weren't as expensive, which they weren't when my protagonist originally was elected. And what if over the four years of her first term, circumstances changed as even rural counties became more urbanized? And what if my protagonist was just reelected and received a lot of support from lawyers in her counties and surrounding counties of her judicial district, but didn't understand the expectations of some of her supporters? What if she had personal reasons to harbor ambitions to rise to the highest court of the land? And in seeking the first big step toward achieving her goal, she unwittingly obtained the support of lawyers with certain expectations?

What would Victoria do when she learned of her predicament? How important was it for her to achieve her lifetime goal?

We see in today's political climate that there are appearances of impropriety in some of our courts. We can't help but wonder whether there is really impropriety or whether the rulings in those courts are made justly.

At any rate, we do know that in Texas, with judges being elected, anything is possible. Just ask yourself, were you in that position, what would your integrity be worth?

While St. Martin's Press, Inc. was in the process of publishing My First Murder, I was told to write the next Mavis Davis mystery because it was going to be a series. Though I was running for judge, practicing law, being a mother and a wife, I scratched out the sequel. The assistant editor accepted what I submitted, saying "it would do" and advised me to start on the third one.

A year later, I was midway through the third book when St. Martin's rejected the second one.

No one ever said why. My series became an "orphan." I tried to find another publisher, but generally if you publish the first of a series with one publisher, no one else will pick up the series. One editor I met at a conference did take it and held on to it for a year before rejecting it. Finally I shelved it. Being the first woman to run for judge in my county, much less to win, I was in high demand as a speaker. I was married and had two children. Somewhere in there I became the President of the Southwest Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, which took up even more of my time.

In 2005, Five Star Mysteries published a mystery of mine in hardback. In 2006, they published it in paperback. I thought if they published one of my novels, maybe they would publish another. I pulled out the second Mavis novel and read through it. I realized then why St. Martin's had rejected it! Why hadn't my editor, the assistant editor, or my agent told me it needed a lot of work?

People often ask where do I get my ideas? Over the twelve years I served on the family court bench, I heard many cases of spousal and child abuse, both sexual and physical. In some cases, a party would make allegations in order to get the upper hand in a custody fight. Sometimes the allegations were proven to be true. Other times, the allegations were shown to be false.

Cases involving allegations of child abuse are just about the hardest cases to come into court. They're heart breaking no matter which way the case goes. Just an allegation alone is devastating.

I was idealistic when I started practicing law. I was going to only represent women, because women had been so mistreated over the years. My eyes were opened quickly. My first court appointment was a misdemeanor wherein every time the father tried to exercise his court-ordered visitation with his daughter, the mother would call the police and have him arrested for criminal trespass. In another case, the mother alleged the father had abused the children. She fled to Europe with the kids and didn't return until they were grown. The abuse issue was never litigated because the father didn't have enough money to fight. I saw cases where one person married the other for his or her money. And cases where people were just flat out mean. People and their witnesses often lied in court. Hateful things happen on both sides. Either parent can be the accuser or the abuser, the perpetrator or the victim.

I engaged in what-ifs. Suffice it to say that after I revised the second Mavis book and renamed it, in 2007 Five Star Mysteries published the hardback of The Sweet Scent of Murder, a novel full of murder, kidnapping and sexual abuse allegations, criminal convictions, fraud, manipulation, you name it. Five Star Mysteries quit publishing paperback novels, so in 2015 I had a new cover designed and published the e-book, followed by the paperback in 2018.

Many parts of Ledbetter Street were inspired by events in my life. Here are some of them:

In the '60s, when I was in high school, girls who became pregnant were sent away to deliver and give up their babies. I often wondered what it would take for a woman to get her child back after surrendering him for adoption. When I was on the bench, I heard several heart-breaking cases involving contested custody and adoptions.

I volunteered at my class reunions and had conversations with people who were conflicted about seeing old beaus and/or reliving old experiences and reviving old resentments. No matter how old we get to be, we still have human emotions and attachments.

I have witnessed the suffering of those inflicted with Alzheimer's and many forms of cancer.

Once, an autistic boy, the subject of a Children's Protective Services case, came to my court and wandered around, in and out, and even in and out of my chambers while I heard the facts of his case. Though I have known other people on the spectrum, I've never been able to get Robert out of my mind.

Having sat on a family court bench, I heard numerous family violence cases. We had a trial once involving the termination of parental rights of a mother (the father relinquished) who couldn't protect the children (or herself) from their father. Though social services worked with her, and even though I spoke with her, she was emotionally unable to break away from his influence. She knew she was going to lose her children forever (and even that he might someday kill her) and yet left the courthouse with him after the trial ended.

I love to haunt pre-owned clothing stores in whatever cities I visit, even in other countries. Seeing how they are run and what they offer is a real treat for me.

From 1998 to 2003, I lived on a street that was undergoing a metamorphosis from the "old downtown" to an arts and entertainment district. There I met artists, musicians, antique and gift shop owners, restaurant owners, and even homeless people eating out of dumpsters.

What's depicted in Ledbetter Street is fiction but has a basis in what I witnessed on Post Office Street in Galveston, as well as my life's experiences set out above. https://www.postofficedistrict.com/

The inspiration for UNAWARE came when I was in my first year of practicing law. I took mostly criminal and probate court appointments, and was hired on a few criminal cases, a few civil cases, and "family" law cases.

Just like in the novel, one day a beautiful, twenty-something, blonde-haired woman came to talk to me about a divorce. Her husband worked on the wharves. He'd been violent with her. Her husband thought he could get away with anything. She was scared. He had threatened to rip her guts out with a cotton hook. Later, she told me he'd threatened me as well.

Over the course of the case, I met the husband. The husband was rather good-looking, but creepy with scary eyes. He refused to get a lawyer, insisting he'd come to my office to sign any paperwork he needed to sign, which was not my favorite thing with people like him.

I was married with two young daughters. My husband traveled frequently for his job. While the divorce was pending, I had an occasion to be out late one night and was followed home. My husband was out of town. I had no way to defend myself or my kids. Due to some action I took, nothing happened, but the next day I bought a gun. I used to keep it in the table next to my bed, unloaded but with the bullets handy. So you can see the basis for a suspense novel like UNAWARE.