The Tumbleweed Murders: Introduction

I first met Rebecca Rothenberg when I called her in 1992 to ask about the medium-sized New York publisher that had just published her first mystery, The Bulrush Murders, and was about to publish mine.  She had visited their editorial offices and likened the operation to WKRP.  I knew instantly that this was someone I could love.

As I got to know her over the next few years, I learned that she was witty, wise, accomplished, self-deprecating, and possessed of an enviable gift for language.  She had been a songwriter in Nashville and an epidemiologist in Los Angeles.  What's more, she had seized the vast and arguably unlovable San Joaquin Valley for her Claire Sharples series and had invested the region with charm and appeal. 

Becky and I did a lot of book signings together, often with a sheaf of bulrushes quietly crumbling in the back seat.  Her series was botanical and one of my books took place in the flower-growing industry, so we also ended up on a lot of the same mystery discussion panels.  We lived less than a hundred miles apart, but much of our time together was spent a continent away at the Malice Domestic convention in Washington, D.C.  Becky's parents lived nearby and she attended as what she called a "day student."

In the fall of 1994, while Becky was staying with me during San Diego signings for The Dandelion Murders, my brother was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  "I have a brain tumor," she told me matter-of-factly, adding that it had been diagnosed a full eight years earlier.  This is a disease steeped in the rhetoric of hope, featuring dreadful treatments and appalling survival statistics—and she had survived eight years.  With that astonishing revelation, she metamorphosed for me from a savvy and talented colleague into a shining beacon.

The beacon dimmed when that tumor finally caught up with her in 1998, and we lost her at the age of fifty.

Becky left an unfinished manuscript for The Tumbleweed Murders, the fourth Claire Sharples mystery.  Being asked to complete that manuscript was a frightening challenge and an awesome responsibility.  Many people participated in this process, and I am grateful to all of them.  For all of us, this was a labor of love and sorrow.

Sandra Dijkstra, Becky's agent, set the entire process into motion and then graciously stepped aside to streamline the legal and contractual matters. 

Meredith Phillips of Perseverance Press wanted to publish The Tumbleweed Murders and believed wholeheartedly in the project, and my role in it, from the beginning.  John and Susan Daniel, of John Daniel & Co. Publishers, have been wonderfully supportive. 

Jane Chelius, my agent, handled the necessary contracts and agreements, and did it without taking a commission.  In one of those twists that define the family nature of the mystery community, it was Becky who first introduced me to Jane, back in 1993.

I would like to be able to thank all the people who helped Becky with the research she had completed on this book, but I don't know who you all are, so I can only offer a blanket, but heartfelt, appreciation. Heidi Asparturian and Liza Taylor offered me insights into this manuscript based on their relationships with Becky and her writing.  David Alderete of Kern Delta-Weed Patch Cotton Ginning Company shared his knowledge of the San Joaquin cotton industry, including a terrific cotton gin tour.  Wendy Owen of the Bakersfield Californian helped with agribusiness information and the Californian's excellent Oil Centennial issue was very helpful. 

Sharan Newman provided the Latin, and Richard Barre shared his exhaustive Kern County connections.

One of those was musician Inez Savage, a veteran of the Bakersfield music community.  When I sat down with Inez and began telling her the history of this project, a strange look came over her face.  Several years earlier, she told me, Becky herself had talked to her as part of the research for this book.

Martha Rothenberg, Becky's sister and literary executor, has been helpful and patient and cooperative as liaison to the Rothenberg family.  I am grateful to her, to her sister Tish King, and to her parents, Herbert and the late Marjorie Rothenberg.

When I finally met Martha and her husband Vincent Griscavage in person, she told me about a CD of Becky's original music that her friend Richard Haxton had put together after her death.  Since music is an important component of this book, I asked for a copy of that CD and was utterly charmed by it.  Her collaborator Terry Fain filled in some of the musical blanks and permissions.  Whenever song lyrics are used in The Tumbleweed Murders, they are from songs that Becky wrote.

I wish that Becky had finished this book herself, and I made every effort to complete it as I thought she would have wanted.  To the extent that I have succeeded, it is tribute to the strength of her writing.  For any shortcomings, the responsibility is entirely mine.

As I followed Becky's footprints and tire tracks around Kern County, I had a tumbleweed rolling around in the back seat for old times' sake.  I sure do miss her.

On Completing The Tumbleweed Murders

Finishing The Tumbleweed Murders was the most challenging writing task I've ever undertaken.  Rebecca Rothenberg was a wonderfully gifted prose stylist and stepping into her voice was really tricky. 

It wasn't simply a question of picking up on her last page and following an outline to the conclusion.  There was no outline, and nobody seemed to know how she had planned to finish the book, which was about two-thirds written when she died of a brain tumor in 1998.  Fortunately the science was already in place, since the protagonist was a plant pathologist and I couldn't possibly have written convincingly about agricultural disease in the San Joaquin Valley, that broad strip running north and south through central California that produces so much of the nation's food supply.

I took a research trip to Bakersfield, where most of The Tumbleweed Murders was set, and visited all of the places Becky had already written about.  I looked around to see what else I could find that might logically fit into this book.  I did know that she'd planned a climactic scene in a cotton gin, so I took a gin tour and learned much more than I ever thought I'd know about growing cotton.

I love to write, but this was such a daunting task that I found myself engaged in all sorts of avoidance behaviors.  Finally I made myself start.  I set up what she'd already written in the format that I normally use and gave myself permission to make some small changes.  Some of this was extremely minor, but psychologically important.  I reformatted the whole thing to leave two spaces after a period instead of one.  I moved the page numbers from bottom center to upper right corner. I was really stalling!

Then I started at page one and worked through the entire manuscript, adding lines, or phrases to scenes where they seemed right, omitting a few things that didn't seem to be working, and heading toward the abyss at the end of the manuscript.  Wherever possible, I used her language, and I was able to incorporate some material that she'd written as freestanding scenes.  By the time I got to the totally unwritten part, where I was flying without a net, I was comfortable enough to keep going.

Becky used some very complicated punctuation, including a lot of semi-colons, dashes, and semi-colons within dashes.  I have a personal prejudice against semi-colons, and I did take a bunch of them out.  But as I became more immersed in her style, I found myself using them instinctively.  When I started to notice semi-colons creeping into my e-mail, I figured everything would be all right.

One thing I did that I think really enhanced the book was  to incorporate music that Becky had written during her Nashville songwriter period.  Country music was a significant component of The Tumbleweed Murders and there were several places where song lyrics were indicated.  I was able to use Becky's own lyrics in those places, and we put together a special CD of her singing the six original compositions used in the book.

All content © 2005-11 by Taffy Cannon.