While many people prefer to give green gifts these days, I’m still a fan of the helpful, practical variety. For example, if you have a friend who’s a writer, helping them untie a knot in the plot of their story is certainly going to be appreciated far more than some trinket.

For example, since I am beginning a series of mystery novels, I have to think of clever ways for people to die, and then even more-clever ways for that death to be mistakenly interpreted. After all, if the evidence were clear, there’d be no mystery, correct?

Unfortunately, people look at you funny, even suspiciously, when you start asking questions like, “If someone swallowed a lethal dose of rat poison, how long would it take for them to die, and if they were severely beaten up as well, would the poison be obvious enough to be the actual cause of death on a coroner’s report?”

Still, it’s questions like that that mystery writers must grapple with to come up with satisfyingly hard-to-guess mystery thriller plots, and a little professional expertise is always welcome.