by JHowatt | Mar 29, 2023 | Crime Writing
From a Turtle Poem to True Crime: A Writer’s Journey March 26, 2023. My love affair with books began before I could walk. The best part of the day was when my father would read to me. He’d help me turn the pages of a cloth book with buttons to button, shoelaces to... 
by JHowatt | Dec 21, 2022 | Crime Writing
Quiche for an Informant and a Killer’s Best Friend December 2022. Why is it that something as ordinary and familiar as a Quiche baked in a Rosenthal dish could bring back a flood of memories? Making a quiche in that Rosenthal dish wasn’t on my mind this chilly... 
by JHowatt | Oct 27, 2022 | Crime Writing, Life Style, News
Pick a Dream. Any Dream. Then Do It. October 10, 2022. Camarillo, California. Why is it that the day a dream finally happens is a day like all the rest? I fixed the dogs their breakfast of Farmer’s Dog mixed with kibble, then I headed outside past the fire pit and... 
by JHowatt | Oct 13, 2022 | Crime Writing
An American Story: Lena and Wilhelm Open the Golden Browne Bakery My last two blogs told the stories of two women: my mother, Katherine, and my mother-in-law, Adria. Kay Gaffney taught seventh and eighth grade for fifty years, then spent one year at the San Diego... 
by JHowatt | Aug 22, 2022 | Crime Writing, Life Style
Three Women Who Shaped Me: A Teacher, An Officer’s Wife and A Plucky, German Grandma August 14, 2022. My non-fiction book titled “Jigsaw and Jane: Thirteen Years of Murder and Mayhem with Badge Number One,” which chronicles my thirteen-year crime-solving journey with... 
by JHowatt | Jul 29, 2022 | Crime Writing
Jigsaw Takes Jane to the Bradford Crime Scene August 31, 1984. In our thirteen years together, John St. John and I had more than a few epic battles. We argued over the use of profanity in a scene (I wanted less. He wanted more). We disagreed about diet (He liked...