September 9, 2024 • 22 mins
Kate Delaney talks with Maureen Anne Meehan about her new book Rodeo. It's the latest in the Mary McIntosh series. If you've never been to Wyoming you'll want to go when you read this gripping story. The novel dives into the history of the state and professional rodeos. Prosecuting attorney "Mac' takes on a wild ride in this fictional account of a female serial killer […] The post Rodeo by Maureen Anne Meehan appeared first on WebTalkRadio.net.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, book lovers, and welcome to Author's Corner. Get ready
for a whirlwind tour of the latest and greatest reads
and the fascinating stories behind them. Join us as we
chat with authors and newsmakers from all over the world,
diving into their journeys and creative processes. And now here's
the host of Author's Corner, the Emmy Award winning Kate Delady.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
So please to welcome to Author's Corner Maureen Meehan oil Boy.
She has written this Mary Macintosh series and she's got
a new book out called Rodeo. I mean, first of all,
I'm in love with the cover, which I rarely say,
and people who know.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
That I've interviewed thousands of people.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I got to be honest, Morrien, I rarely say that,
but it's incredible, and we'll talk about that, and then
the mode to writing these books, the whole thing. So
thanks for joining us on AC.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
It's been my pleasure. Thank you for hosting me.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Okay, so let's talk about the road to writing the
these novels. How did it take place in the first place,
What motivated you?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I wish this was a happier story, but my legal
secretary was brutally murdered in nineteen ninety six, and it
was very foreseeable by her estranged husband, and it really
was life shattering. She had two young children she stabbed
to death, and so I started writing to keep her
(01:30):
alive in my heart. And she was my protagonist in
the first several novels, just having her there in a
legal support role as an attorney, a young attorney, and
she could have been one easily. She was very smart paralegal.
And after her started writing just therapeutically, I started realizing
how much I loved the craft of fiction, and so
(01:53):
I took a legal writing course at UC Irvine and
I had a professor that was found Tae, and that's
when I started writing Dying to Ski and courtroom drama.
I love to Ski, I love Jackson Hole. I'm from
Wyoming and it's a near and dear to my heart.
So I crafted Dying to Ski, which is a pharmaceutical
(02:14):
giant dispute between two partners and one of them ends
up dead on the ski slopes of Jackson Hole and
his partner's accused of killing him, and so the story
unfolds as to a lot of plot twists and turns,
as to how that unfolds. So we take it to
the next one, which is Snake River. Secret. In this novel,
(02:37):
Mary McIntosh's I call her mac her legal secretary is
murdered in the Snake River and so I kind of
bring it to fruition as far as how I felt
about losing somebody near and dear to me, and the
max fight for justice to at least have some some
(03:01):
closure with respect to the loss of this paralegal legal secretary.
Then I think I kind of transitioned out of missing
Lisa as much time enough time it probably passed that
I started riding Powder River Poison. And this is based
in Sheridan, my hometown of Wyoming, and it is based
(03:21):
on Buck Branneman's ranch. He's the horse Whisper if anyone
is familiar with that movie but book, and he's just
a really neat man. He owns a pristine ranch outside
of my hometown and where he trains horses. Well, a
company came in from I think it was Chicago, and
they bought the mineral rights under his ranch and they
(03:43):
started fracking for methane gas. And when they fracked, they
dig drill down and it pumps up all the saltwater
out of the earth. It flooded his ranch, It ruined
the pastures, it freaked the horses out. It's very noisy,
it vibrates, and it ultimately poisoned the Powder River in
that area, and you know, grouse, pheasant, I mean, all
(04:06):
wildlife suffered greatly. But he had to move his entire production,
his horse training elsewhere to other ranches, and it was
very disruptive for a long time for him. So that's
what Padda River Poison is based on. And it's based
on the trial that ensued as a result of the
damage to his property. And one of my very good friends,
(04:27):
so I used to work for us when I was
in high school. He was an attorney. He handled the case.
So he gave me the trial transcript and I was
able to really dig into that courtroom drama. Next we went,
I went to Pandemic Predator and I wrote it in
two thousand and eight, and I wrote it about a
serial killer who takes the H five N one bird
flew out of China and he infects women all over
(04:50):
the world with this, leaves a signature tattoo on their
inner thigh. He sexually assaults them and this because they're
in the t the business of you know, prostitution. They
infect millions of other people and this goes global. It's
a pandemic. It shuts down the world, much like COVID,
(05:11):
which is so odd. So next I went to poison
by Proxy and so Munchausen by Proxy book. It's about
a pristine family in Sheridan, Wyoming, and how the mother
is accused of poisoning her youngest of four children. And
it's Mac defends this little boy as kind of miners
(05:33):
counsel to try to figure out what's happening to this kid.
Why is he failing to thrive when his three older
siblings are great athletes, great students, great everything, and this
little boy, Levi is just shriveling. So she defends him
in a lawsuit and trying to figure out who who's
poisoning this little boy. The five I wrote about my
(05:56):
college roommates and we were to meet at my cabin
in Colorado one summer for a girl's weekend, long weekend,
and none of them. They all came up with excuses
at the end. So I'm up there for a week
by myself at nine thousand feet with nothing to do.
But hiking and sitting alone with my computer. So I
(06:16):
tortured them with the five. It's a serial killer based
on another true case out of Rhode Island. This man,
I think his name was something Chandler. He was a
serial killer at age twelve in Rhode Island and he
was put in juvie until age twenty one. But the
law in Rhode Island at the time was no matter
(06:38):
what you did at twenty one, you got released, not
even on parole, probation, nothing, You just got set free.
Will This man, he was a huge kid at twenty one,
goes out on a killing spree again and again foreseeable.
So I took this kid to Wyoming and he's he
(06:59):
coins anself as a lost hiker, but what he is
is really a serial killer. And he tells each of
these five ladies who are they've all they were roommates
in college and now they've gone their different ways. He said,
one of your husbands hired me to kill one of
you have to figure out who it is. And it
pits these ladies against each other because one of them
knows that one of them had an affair with the
(07:21):
other one's husband. There's all kinds of drama that goes
on between these are among these five and that's what
he does. He separates them at the cabin and tortures them.
So that's the five and that gets us forward to rodeo.
Rodeo is based in Sheridan, again, Wyoming, and it's about
the Sheridan Wyom Rodeo, which is in July every year.
(07:41):
It's on the circuit. It's a very famous rodeo and
it is extremely well attended, big purses, etc. But the
highlight of the night starts with what's called the Indian
Relay races. And the title that you saw the cover
of the book, that is a photograph my sister took
in July of the Indian Relay races. And these are
(08:02):
Native Americans from all kinds of different tribes and they
compete and what is There's three horses in the corral.
They have to take a running start, bear back, no chaps, nothing,
jump on these horses, this horse that's moving, and go
around the fair grounds once and then they come back in.
They have to jump off that horse, jump on the
(08:24):
next one. And they do three rounds of this and
whoever wins goes to the final. The final night which
I believe is on the Saturday, and it's like one
hundred thousand dollars perse so there's a big prize in
it for these Native Americans are very athletic. Sometimes they're
not sober. It's really it's really a I mean, everyone
(08:44):
goes for the six o'clock Indian relay races and if
you stay for the rest of the rodeo, that's up
to you. But that's that's the highlight. I showcase a
lot of the history of Wyoming, the history of rodeo,
but the plot is more about a serial killer female
who is snatching loaner kind of juvenile teenagers who were
(09:07):
kind of loaners, and she is carnival clown, so that's
how she's in disguise all the time. And these kids
would have no idea that the lady in the Haunted
House is, you know, clown in the Haunted House is
not a good character. So that and then I take
it from the Sharon Wyom Rodeo down to Frontier Days,
(09:28):
which is a big rodeo in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and she
repeats this crime and then it goes to the Wyoming
State Fair in Douglas and the process is that mac
is the Now she's the prosecuting attorney. She's no longer
a defense attorney. She's decided to take up being the
county council prosecuting attorney in Sheridan, and she's got to
(09:52):
try to figure out who this person is that killed
five teenagers in their hometown. It's a small town in
Wyom and you know, news travels fast, so obviously it's fiction.
But that is Rodeo and Macus has to prosecute this person.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
When people read Rodeo, what do you hope they take
away from that particular novel.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
I hope they take away the history of Wyoming. I
go deep into women's suffrage. That's the first state that
granted women the right to vote. Even though people think
podunk Wyoming out in the middle, but it's And I
describe the mountains the beautiful, you know, the Jackson Hole,
but where I grew up is in the crown of
(10:36):
the Big Horn Mountains and it's just majestic, purple mountain, majesty.
You know, it's really a beautiful state. I highlight the
how kind the people are. People are generous and kind
and genuine. Bruce Willis got a flat tire driving to
Jackson once and three or four pickup truck guy's cowboys
got out and helped him change his tire. He did
(10:57):
not change tire on a rental car from Denver, and
he wanted to give these guys money, and they're like, no, no, no, no,
this is just how we this is what we do.
And I think he wrote an article about it, how
he just couldn't believe how kind people are there, and
it's genuine. So I want people to get out, get
out of the get away and realize the kindness of
(11:17):
a place. You know, if you live in la or
New York, Boston, where people are honking and they drive
like maniacs. In Wyoming, you let people merge when they're
joining the interstate. It's just a different feel. And then
when it comes to rodeo. Rodeo is such a big
part of the West, and ranchers rodeo they worked really, really,
(11:39):
really hard, and the value of hard work, the fact
that your kids in the family have to work the
ranch before school and after school and do all their
homework and everything else. And the Native American culture that
you know, really promulgates a lot in Wyoming that the
natives are revered, They're loved there fired living off the land,
(12:03):
somewhat nomadic, you know, in a time when they were
kind of pushed out onto reservations. And I think that
when you see the read about this Indian relay ovation,
you see that people go to the rodeo for that
alone sometimes that people love this culture so and in
(12:25):
rodeo ends at the hole in the wall. That's where
Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid hung out, hid
out after their incident of cattle wrestling and bank robbery.
And I love describing this area because you unless you've
been there, you know, it's part of the Oregon Trail
with the rock as in Wayam where everyone signed in
(12:47):
before they dispersed, you know, on the for Lewis and Clark.
So it's just the history of the state is quite fascinating. Well,
i'd agree with you.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
I've been there and ski badly, but also toured around
and for everybody watching this listening to us one hundred percent,
I mean, you obviously are a daughter I'll call you
of the state, but as somebody who grew up in
one of those big cities going there, I didn't want
to leave it is incredible. It's like that eye candy,
(13:17):
and you're right that people are so genteel I would
call them and always willing to jump in. And how
do the people I would imagine the people from Wyoming,
the people you still know, they have to in a
way love that you feature Wyoming in these mac novels.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
They really they love it. They can't get enough rodeos
in production. It just got uploaded to the Ingram Spark,
so it's going to be I think, ready to order tomorrow.
I just went to my fortieth high school reunion and
I did a book signing for my dating books there.
But when I told them I was there was like
two hundred people in my class that showed up for this.
(13:55):
When I told them I was writing this, and I
was asking a lot of questions from people who still
live there because I don't still live there, but I
visit every year. My parents still live there, my little
sister and her family still lives there, and I still
keep in touch via Facebook with those sorts of things.
And people were so excited. They've loved the series, particularly
(14:17):
the ones that are in Sheridan or Jackson Hole, you know,
just because everyone's gone to Yellowstone. You can see it,
you can feel it, you can feel the town center
of Jackson. And then Shardan is like a quintessential Western town.
It's always in the top ten beautiful Western towns, and
(14:38):
I really try to highlight all those things. The Mint
bar is famous. There's a famous quote in Wyoming meet
you at the Mint, and that's where everyone meets. It's
a watering hole. It's so old school. I describe it
in detail in Rodeo because it's just classic.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Ooh.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I absolutely love that and your enthusiasm. It's just barn
which is great, and that's part of the deal I
think with the mac series, with the books. Also your
legal background, right they say you write about what you know,
and that's what you know.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
It is. I mean, I was a lawyer for a
long time in cut state of California, but I became
a judge and I'm a mental health judge and I
take it to my heart. I love helping people. We're
a collaborative team our courtroom, and all we do is
help people with mental health challenges, trying to get them services, housing, medication,
(15:33):
a warm bed, you know, whatever they need. And so
I do take a lot of my energy from the
mental health court and the experience I have with people
that have that you know, are suicidal or they're having
a bipolar moment, or they're having their schizophrenic and things
aren't going well for their lives and they burn out
their families. And we try to create a family atmosphere
(15:55):
with our team and been doing it for nineteen years.
So I do bring a lot of that, I think
with us into the journey of crafting novels and being
very accepting of other people's We all have our flaws,
we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and mental health
is underrated and under talked about in our country, and
I do try to bring it to life in some
(16:17):
of these novels that it's okay to talk about it,
it's okay to ask for help. And I love it
when our patients ask for help and we're able to
provide that through social services or behavioral health services. It's
important and proud of it.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah, and good for you for doing that. Absolutely, So
I have to ask what's next? I mean, exciting rodeo
comes out, boom gets the bounce, and.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Okay, but I'm glad you're sitting down. My next book
is again based on a true story. It's called Deputy Dog.
Dog is billed dawg. Are you really I say it?
It'll go crazy. But it's about a sheriff that is
(17:05):
killed in Netherland, Colorado, which is where my cabin is.
And it's a true story. Happened in nineteen seventy one. Well,
this guy was part of a gang. It was kind
of a spinoff of the Charles Manson Gang, but it
was the New York version of them. They all moved
to Boulder, Colorado and Netherland. They're total hippies, but they're
(17:26):
druggy hippies. These aren't nice hippies. These aren't like peace,
love and all that. They're dangerous. Well, Deputy Dog he's
a midget for real. He's like under four feet tall
as a grown man, and he's very much into peddling
drugs and harming people. But they're at the Pioneer Inn
in Netherland and he gets upset over gosh nos, I
(17:49):
don't know what. He shoots the sheriff drags him out,
shoots him on his way to his car and hides
his body up in the mountains and takes off and
disappears and was on the lamb years before he was
finally caught. So that is that is Deputy Dog. So
that's my that's my next one, and uh that after that,
(18:10):
I have another one in the works that's called Pumpkin Prairie.
It's based in Wyoming again and it's part of the
there's an existing there's there's minerals in Wyoming that might
get sold to countries like Russia, and without getting too
(18:31):
deep into it, these are minerals that might fuel a missile,
you know, and they track them out of Wyoming South
Dakota and North Dakota, through Canada and over over the
Strait and it exists to this day and they, uh,
(18:51):
it's it's a pretty weird story as how do they
can extract this kind of battle and get it out
of the country and everyone looks the other way. I mean,
I'm not going to point fingers at politicians, but there's
been a certain number of them over the last two
(19:13):
decades that have just turned the blind's eye to it.
And when you think about countries like Russia getting a
hold of this kind of you know, mineral alloy, it's
kind of scary. So that's the next one after this.
But I'm I'm working on Deputy Dog as we speak.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
No, I love that, and so of course people can
get your books all the things we talked about Mary
McIntosh novels, all the things that we mentioned on Amazon,
Barnes and Noble, wherever great books are sold. Would you
say anyone anywhere else?
Speaker 3 (19:42):
No, I think any marketplace is great. And they're all
available on my website, which is www dot marinmianbooks dot com,
so they're all available through that. But that I think
the fulfillment is best on Amazon. And I'm not pushing
Bezos on anybody, but it's just they have such a
(20:03):
good service, you know, He's mastered the craft of getting
people what they want as soon as possible. So but
anywhere Barnes and Noble is great. I did my very
first book signing there and they were super hospitable and wonderful.
So yeah, any place you can buy books.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Marie Meehan, you are wonderful. And congratulations on Rodeo. We
can't wait Deputy Dog and everything else that you have
coming out in the future. So thank you so much
for coming on Author's Corner.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Thank you for inviting me. It's been my pleasure. You
are such a pioneer of a woman breaking glass ceilings
for the rest of us when we couldn't get into
sports or radio or there's a lot of other things.
Being such a successful public speaker and motivational speaker, you
are a privilege for me to be able to spend
(20:53):
time with. And I'm just so proud of what you've
done on behalf of women all over the country. You've
really been a pioneer of all pioneers. Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Well coming from you, that is a huge compliment. Thank
you very much.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Midwest charm. You know it's You're easy to be around
because you can tell your phone your Midwest you know hostess,
and it's a pleasure to be in your company.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
All right, I love that. Thank you and again Rodeo woohoo.
I just a wonderful book. It's because I got a
secret copy and she didn't cover is beautiful. You will
all love it. So once again, thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Yeah, I'm just going to do a sneak peek. Yeah,
here's the cover. It's my sister took it and it
is the Indian Relay Races. So I love this cover.
It's my favorite of all time.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
That is so cool.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Thank you, My pleasure, take good care. Thank you for
hosting me. Thank you
Hello, book lovers, and welcome to Author's Corner. Get ready
for a whirlwind tour of the latest and greatest reads
and the fascinating stories behind them. Join us as we
chat with authors and newsmakers from all over the world,
diving into their journeys and creative processes. And now here's
the host of Author's Corner, the Emmy Award winning Kate Delady.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
So please to welcome to Author's Corner Maureen Meehan oil Boy.
She has written this Mary Macintosh series and she's got
a new book out called Rodeo. I mean, first of all,
I'm in love with the cover, which I rarely say,
and people who know.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
That I've interviewed thousands of people.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I got to be honest, Morrien, I rarely say that,
but it's incredible, and we'll talk about that, and then
the mode to writing these books, the whole thing. So
thanks for joining us on AC.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
It's been my pleasure. Thank you for hosting me.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Okay, so let's talk about the road to writing the
these novels. How did it take place in the first place,
What motivated you?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I wish this was a happier story, but my legal
secretary was brutally murdered in nineteen ninety six, and it
was very foreseeable by her estranged husband, and it really
was life shattering. She had two young children she stabbed
to death, and so I started writing to keep her
(01:30):
alive in my heart. And she was my protagonist in
the first several novels, just having her there in a
legal support role as an attorney, a young attorney, and
she could have been one easily. She was very smart paralegal.
And after her started writing just therapeutically, I started realizing
how much I loved the craft of fiction, and so
(01:53):
I took a legal writing course at UC Irvine and
I had a professor that was found Tae, and that's
when I started writing Dying to Ski and courtroom drama.
I love to Ski, I love Jackson Hole. I'm from
Wyoming and it's a near and dear to my heart.
So I crafted Dying to Ski, which is a pharmaceutical
(02:14):
giant dispute between two partners and one of them ends
up dead on the ski slopes of Jackson Hole and
his partner's accused of killing him, and so the story
unfolds as to a lot of plot twists and turns,
as to how that unfolds. So we take it to
the next one, which is Snake River. Secret. In this novel,
(02:37):
Mary McIntosh's I call her mac her legal secretary is
murdered in the Snake River and so I kind of
bring it to fruition as far as how I felt
about losing somebody near and dear to me, and the
max fight for justice to at least have some some
(03:01):
closure with respect to the loss of this paralegal legal secretary.
Then I think I kind of transitioned out of missing
Lisa as much time enough time it probably passed that
I started riding Powder River Poison. And this is based
in Sheridan, my hometown of Wyoming, and it is based
(03:21):
on Buck Branneman's ranch. He's the horse Whisper if anyone
is familiar with that movie but book, and he's just
a really neat man. He owns a pristine ranch outside
of my hometown and where he trains horses. Well, a
company came in from I think it was Chicago, and
they bought the mineral rights under his ranch and they
(03:43):
started fracking for methane gas. And when they fracked, they
dig drill down and it pumps up all the saltwater
out of the earth. It flooded his ranch, It ruined
the pastures, it freaked the horses out. It's very noisy,
it vibrates, and it ultimately poisoned the Powder River in
that area, and you know, grouse, pheasant, I mean, all
(04:06):
wildlife suffered greatly. But he had to move his entire production,
his horse training elsewhere to other ranches, and it was
very disruptive for a long time for him. So that's
what Padda River Poison is based on. And it's based
on the trial that ensued as a result of the
damage to his property. And one of my very good friends,
(04:27):
so I used to work for us when I was
in high school. He was an attorney. He handled the case.
So he gave me the trial transcript and I was
able to really dig into that courtroom drama. Next we went,
I went to Pandemic Predator and I wrote it in
two thousand and eight, and I wrote it about a
serial killer who takes the H five N one bird
flew out of China and he infects women all over
(04:50):
the world with this, leaves a signature tattoo on their
inner thigh. He sexually assaults them and this because they're
in the t the business of you know, prostitution. They
infect millions of other people and this goes global. It's
a pandemic. It shuts down the world, much like COVID,
(05:11):
which is so odd. So next I went to poison
by Proxy and so Munchausen by Proxy book. It's about
a pristine family in Sheridan, Wyoming, and how the mother
is accused of poisoning her youngest of four children. And
it's Mac defends this little boy as kind of miners
(05:33):
counsel to try to figure out what's happening to this kid.
Why is he failing to thrive when his three older
siblings are great athletes, great students, great everything, and this
little boy, Levi is just shriveling. So she defends him
in a lawsuit and trying to figure out who who's
poisoning this little boy. The five I wrote about my
(05:56):
college roommates and we were to meet at my cabin
in Colorado one summer for a girl's weekend, long weekend,
and none of them. They all came up with excuses
at the end. So I'm up there for a week
by myself at nine thousand feet with nothing to do.
But hiking and sitting alone with my computer. So I
(06:16):
tortured them with the five. It's a serial killer based
on another true case out of Rhode Island. This man,
I think his name was something Chandler. He was a
serial killer at age twelve in Rhode Island and he
was put in juvie until age twenty one. But the
law in Rhode Island at the time was no matter
(06:38):
what you did at twenty one, you got released, not
even on parole, probation, nothing, You just got set free.
Will This man, he was a huge kid at twenty one,
goes out on a killing spree again and again foreseeable.
So I took this kid to Wyoming and he's he
(06:59):
coins anself as a lost hiker, but what he is
is really a serial killer. And he tells each of
these five ladies who are they've all they were roommates
in college and now they've gone their different ways. He said,
one of your husbands hired me to kill one of
you have to figure out who it is. And it
pits these ladies against each other because one of them
knows that one of them had an affair with the
(07:21):
other one's husband. There's all kinds of drama that goes
on between these are among these five and that's what
he does. He separates them at the cabin and tortures them.
So that's the five and that gets us forward to rodeo.
Rodeo is based in Sheridan, again, Wyoming, and it's about
the Sheridan Wyom Rodeo, which is in July every year.
(07:41):
It's on the circuit. It's a very famous rodeo and
it is extremely well attended, big purses, etc. But the
highlight of the night starts with what's called the Indian
Relay races. And the title that you saw the cover
of the book, that is a photograph my sister took
in July of the Indian Relay races. And these are
(08:02):
Native Americans from all kinds of different tribes and they
compete and what is There's three horses in the corral.
They have to take a running start, bear back, no chaps, nothing,
jump on these horses, this horse that's moving, and go
around the fair grounds once and then they come back in.
They have to jump off that horse, jump on the
(08:24):
next one. And they do three rounds of this and
whoever wins goes to the final. The final night which
I believe is on the Saturday, and it's like one
hundred thousand dollars perse so there's a big prize in
it for these Native Americans are very athletic. Sometimes they're
not sober. It's really it's really a I mean, everyone
(08:44):
goes for the six o'clock Indian relay races and if
you stay for the rest of the rodeo, that's up
to you. But that's that's the highlight. I showcase a
lot of the history of Wyoming, the history of rodeo,
but the plot is more about a serial killer female
who is snatching loaner kind of juvenile teenagers who were
(09:07):
kind of loaners, and she is carnival clown, so that's
how she's in disguise all the time. And these kids
would have no idea that the lady in the Haunted
House is, you know, clown in the Haunted House is
not a good character. So that and then I take
it from the Sharon Wyom Rodeo down to Frontier Days,
(09:28):
which is a big rodeo in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and she
repeats this crime and then it goes to the Wyoming
State Fair in Douglas and the process is that mac
is the Now she's the prosecuting attorney. She's no longer
a defense attorney. She's decided to take up being the
county council prosecuting attorney in Sheridan, and she's got to
(09:52):
try to figure out who this person is that killed
five teenagers in their hometown. It's a small town in
Wyom and you know, news travels fast, so obviously it's fiction.
But that is Rodeo and Macus has to prosecute this person.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
When people read Rodeo, what do you hope they take
away from that particular novel.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
I hope they take away the history of Wyoming. I
go deep into women's suffrage. That's the first state that
granted women the right to vote. Even though people think
podunk Wyoming out in the middle, but it's And I
describe the mountains the beautiful, you know, the Jackson Hole,
but where I grew up is in the crown of
(10:36):
the Big Horn Mountains and it's just majestic, purple mountain, majesty.
You know, it's really a beautiful state. I highlight the
how kind the people are. People are generous and kind
and genuine. Bruce Willis got a flat tire driving to
Jackson once and three or four pickup truck guy's cowboys
got out and helped him change his tire. He did
(10:57):
not change tire on a rental car from Denver, and
he wanted to give these guys money, and they're like, no, no, no, no,
this is just how we this is what we do.
And I think he wrote an article about it, how
he just couldn't believe how kind people are there, and
it's genuine. So I want people to get out, get
out of the get away and realize the kindness of
(11:17):
a place. You know, if you live in la or
New York, Boston, where people are honking and they drive
like maniacs. In Wyoming, you let people merge when they're
joining the interstate. It's just a different feel. And then
when it comes to rodeo. Rodeo is such a big
part of the West, and ranchers rodeo they worked really, really,
(11:39):
really hard, and the value of hard work, the fact
that your kids in the family have to work the
ranch before school and after school and do all their
homework and everything else. And the Native American culture that
you know, really promulgates a lot in Wyoming that the
natives are revered, They're loved there fired living off the land,
(12:03):
somewhat nomadic, you know, in a time when they were
kind of pushed out onto reservations. And I think that
when you see the read about this Indian relay ovation,
you see that people go to the rodeo for that
alone sometimes that people love this culture so and in
(12:25):
rodeo ends at the hole in the wall. That's where
Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid hung out, hid
out after their incident of cattle wrestling and bank robbery.
And I love describing this area because you unless you've
been there, you know, it's part of the Oregon Trail
with the rock as in Wayam where everyone signed in
(12:47):
before they dispersed, you know, on the for Lewis and Clark.
So it's just the history of the state is quite fascinating. Well,
i'd agree with you.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
I've been there and ski badly, but also toured around
and for everybody watching this listening to us one hundred percent,
I mean, you obviously are a daughter I'll call you
of the state, but as somebody who grew up in
one of those big cities going there, I didn't want
to leave it is incredible. It's like that eye candy,
(13:17):
and you're right that people are so genteel I would
call them and always willing to jump in. And how
do the people I would imagine the people from Wyoming,
the people you still know, they have to in a
way love that you feature Wyoming in these mac novels.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
They really they love it. They can't get enough rodeos
in production. It just got uploaded to the Ingram Spark,
so it's going to be I think, ready to order tomorrow.
I just went to my fortieth high school reunion and
I did a book signing for my dating books there.
But when I told them I was there was like
two hundred people in my class that showed up for this.
(13:55):
When I told them I was writing this, and I
was asking a lot of questions from people who still
live there because I don't still live there, but I
visit every year. My parents still live there, my little
sister and her family still lives there, and I still
keep in touch via Facebook with those sorts of things.
And people were so excited. They've loved the series, particularly
(14:17):
the ones that are in Sheridan or Jackson Hole, you know,
just because everyone's gone to Yellowstone. You can see it,
you can feel it, you can feel the town center
of Jackson. And then Shardan is like a quintessential Western town.
It's always in the top ten beautiful Western towns, and
(14:38):
I really try to highlight all those things. The Mint
bar is famous. There's a famous quote in Wyoming meet
you at the Mint, and that's where everyone meets. It's
a watering hole. It's so old school. I describe it
in detail in Rodeo because it's just classic.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Ooh.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I absolutely love that and your enthusiasm. It's just barn
which is great, and that's part of the deal I
think with the mac series, with the books. Also your
legal background, right they say you write about what you know,
and that's what you know.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
It is. I mean, I was a lawyer for a
long time in cut state of California, but I became
a judge and I'm a mental health judge and I
take it to my heart. I love helping people. We're
a collaborative team our courtroom, and all we do is
help people with mental health challenges, trying to get them services, housing, medication,
(15:33):
a warm bed, you know, whatever they need. And so
I do take a lot of my energy from the
mental health court and the experience I have with people
that have that you know, are suicidal or they're having
a bipolar moment, or they're having their schizophrenic and things
aren't going well for their lives and they burn out
their families. And we try to create a family atmosphere
(15:55):
with our team and been doing it for nineteen years.
So I do bring a lot of that, I think
with us into the journey of crafting novels and being
very accepting of other people's We all have our flaws,
we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and mental health
is underrated and under talked about in our country, and
I do try to bring it to life in some
(16:17):
of these novels that it's okay to talk about it,
it's okay to ask for help. And I love it
when our patients ask for help and we're able to
provide that through social services or behavioral health services. It's
important and proud of it.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah, and good for you for doing that. Absolutely, So
I have to ask what's next? I mean, exciting rodeo
comes out, boom gets the bounce, and.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Okay, but I'm glad you're sitting down. My next book
is again based on a true story. It's called Deputy Dog.
Dog is billed dawg. Are you really I say it?
It'll go crazy. But it's about a sheriff that is
(17:05):
killed in Netherland, Colorado, which is where my cabin is.
And it's a true story. Happened in nineteen seventy one. Well,
this guy was part of a gang. It was kind
of a spinoff of the Charles Manson Gang, but it
was the New York version of them. They all moved
to Boulder, Colorado and Netherland. They're total hippies, but they're
(17:26):
druggy hippies. These aren't nice hippies. These aren't like peace,
love and all that. They're dangerous. Well, Deputy Dog he's
a midget for real. He's like under four feet tall
as a grown man, and he's very much into peddling
drugs and harming people. But they're at the Pioneer Inn
in Netherland and he gets upset over gosh nos, I
(17:49):
don't know what. He shoots the sheriff drags him out,
shoots him on his way to his car and hides
his body up in the mountains and takes off and
disappears and was on the lamb years before he was
finally caught. So that is that is Deputy Dog. So
that's my that's my next one, and uh that after that,
(18:10):
I have another one in the works that's called Pumpkin Prairie.
It's based in Wyoming again and it's part of the
there's an existing there's there's minerals in Wyoming that might
get sold to countries like Russia, and without getting too
(18:31):
deep into it, these are minerals that might fuel a missile,
you know, and they track them out of Wyoming South
Dakota and North Dakota, through Canada and over over the
Strait and it exists to this day and they, uh,
(18:51):
it's it's a pretty weird story as how do they
can extract this kind of battle and get it out
of the country and everyone looks the other way. I mean,
I'm not going to point fingers at politicians, but there's
been a certain number of them over the last two
(19:13):
decades that have just turned the blind's eye to it.
And when you think about countries like Russia getting a
hold of this kind of you know, mineral alloy, it's
kind of scary. So that's the next one after this.
But I'm I'm working on Deputy Dog as we speak.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
No, I love that, and so of course people can
get your books all the things we talked about Mary
McIntosh novels, all the things that we mentioned on Amazon,
Barnes and Noble, wherever great books are sold. Would you
say anyone anywhere else?
Speaker 3 (19:42):
No, I think any marketplace is great. And they're all
available on my website, which is www dot marinmianbooks dot com,
so they're all available through that. But that I think
the fulfillment is best on Amazon. And I'm not pushing
Bezos on anybody, but it's just they have such a
(20:03):
good service, you know, He's mastered the craft of getting
people what they want as soon as possible. So but
anywhere Barnes and Noble is great. I did my very
first book signing there and they were super hospitable and wonderful.
So yeah, any place you can buy books.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Marie Meehan, you are wonderful. And congratulations on Rodeo. We
can't wait Deputy Dog and everything else that you have
coming out in the future. So thank you so much
for coming on Author's Corner.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Thank you for inviting me. It's been my pleasure. You
are such a pioneer of a woman breaking glass ceilings
for the rest of us when we couldn't get into
sports or radio or there's a lot of other things.
Being such a successful public speaker and motivational speaker, you
are a privilege for me to be able to spend
(20:53):
time with. And I'm just so proud of what you've
done on behalf of women all over the country. You've
really been a pioneer of all pioneers. Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Well coming from you, that is a huge compliment. Thank
you very much.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Midwest charm. You know it's You're easy to be around
because you can tell your phone your Midwest you know hostess,
and it's a pleasure to be in your company.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
All right, I love that. Thank you and again Rodeo woohoo.
I just a wonderful book. It's because I got a
secret copy and she didn't cover is beautiful. You will
all love it. So once again, thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Yeah, I'm just going to do a sneak peek. Yeah,
here's the cover. It's my sister took it and it
is the Indian Relay Races. So I love this cover.
It's my favorite of all time.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
That is so cool.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Thank you, My pleasure, take good care. Thank you for
hosting me. Thank you
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