Work in Progress (July 2026)

View of the Sheepscot River from Fort Edgcomb Historic Site in Lincoln County, ME.

Sailboats moored in Rockland Harbo, Maine, seem to glow in the setting sun.

July 2026

Work in Progress

I was so distracted by hosting a couple sets of visitors, planning, scheduling, and traveling for our family reunion, and then getting over the bug I caught while traveling, that for the last four weeks I barely opened the files for the mystery I am (supposed to be!) working on, Next of Kin.

It didn't help that I upgraded my iPhone, and have had to put in some time learning the latest iOS features, figuring out how to use the camera, and so on. Thank goodness for the many excellent third-party resources on YouTube! that show how to make the most of your tech. I also took a few more online webinars to continue improving my craft.

I'm happy to be home so I can concentrate on my writing for the next few months.

What I'm Consuming

You might be familiar with the saying, “Don’t meet your heroes” —the implication being that an in-the-flesh person can seldom measure up to the way we build people up in our minds. I think I’ve stumbled upon a corollary along the lines of, “Don’t re-read your favorite childhood books.”

The U.N. celebrates World Oceans Day on June 8 of each year, and many of the ocean conservation organizations I follow designate the whole of the month of June for ocean awareness and appreciation. As I prepared to visit my father in Maine in late June, various social media posts and blog articles got me to thinking about some of the books I read during childhood that shaped me into the ocean-lover I am. So I bought a copy of a book my mother and I read on one of those long-ago summer vacations in Maine, A Seal Called Andre, and started to read it.

It’s a memoir of raising a harbor seal pup as a family pet in the MidCoast region of Maine during the 1970s. Equal parts entertaining and, to my grown-up mind, appalling, it made me realize how far our understanding and treatment of animals has come since the enactment of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The book opens with Andre being plucked from the ocean and taken ashore by a well-meaning fisherman who assumes, just because the curious pup swims up to his boat without its mother anywhere in sight, that Andre has been orphaned. I know from years of volunteering with various beach-watch organizations that such a judgement is only made these days after trained observers monitor a lone pup for hours or even days before they declare it has been abandoned…at which point the pup is turned over to specialists who raise it to be released into the wild.

Anyhow, what was supposed to be a literary stroll down memory lane turned into a bit of a shocker for me. I purchased two other childhood favorites at the same time, and I’m seriously debating whether I should even open them! I may just put them on my bookshelf to admire from afar.

I’ve continued to enjoy short stories in back issues of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, plus the anthology Crime Travel, short stories that combine crime and time travel, edited by Barb Goffman.

Mystery Novels and Science Fiction/Thrillers

Red Team Blues, by Corey Doctorow
Ironwood, by Michael Connelly
Cat on a Hot Tin Woof, by Spencer Quinn
Apprehension, by Mary Robinette Kowal
Mask of the Deer Woman, by Laurie L. Dove

TV and Movies

The Sheep Detectives
The Lincoln Lawyer (2011, starring Mathew McConaughey)
Castle

Have You Read Anything By Spencer Quinn?

Whenever we embark on any kind of long drive, I try to find an audiobook that my husband and I will both enjoy. The Chet and Bernie mystery series by Spencer Quinn is our favorite shared read. The stories are told with humor and compassion from the point of view of Chet, a very observant but easily distracted dog who flunked out of K-9 school.

Chet is undyingly loyal to his human partner (in both the PI business and life), Bernie Little, an ex-soldier and former cop. Bernie has a big heart, very little business sense, and a broad network of friends and associates on both sides of the law. One of the pleasures of these mysteries is the recurring secondary characters who weave in and out of the tapestry of the series: Bernie’s ex-wife, their son Charlie, neighbors, cop friends, the mechanic who keeps their current beater Porche on the road, ex-soldiers Bernie served with, and old and new girlfriends.

Over the course of sixteen books thus far, Chet and Bernie take on cases that involve murder, disappearances (of humans and various animals), organized crime, political intrigue, fraud, biker gangs, bad business deals, dog shows, and elder abuse. During investigations, Chet gets to know an elephant, a reindeer, a pig, an alligator, several horses, and humans from all walks of life.

Chet’s sensitive nose and ears can detect clues that he cannot explain to Bernie. But he often gets distracted (by such things as the scent of bacon) during a conversation with a potential suspect or witness, meaning that he—and his readers—miss crucial evidence. Although this could be frustrating to mystery lovers trying to solve the puzzle, Quinn’s warm writing style turns these lapses into laugh-out-loud moments.

Cat on a Hot Tin Woof came out in April, and was perfect for the long drives involved in our June family reunion. Chet’s long-standing animosity towards cats stems from a feline being involved in him flunking out of K-9 school. Now he is faced with the nightmare of having to recover a missing cat…who is also an Internet influencer! The tale is full of convolutions and well-drawn characters, and action is balanced nicely with Chet and Bernie’s gentle philosophical musings on human frailties.

(BTW, the full story of Chet’s failure in K-9 school is available as one of the Chet and Bernie Short Stories on Spencer Quinn’s website, all of which I have read and enjoyed.)

Although relationships and running jokes evolve from the first book (Dog on It) to the latest, it’s easy to jump in with any of the Chet and Bernie mysteries. Whichever story you start with, you’ll probably spend much of the time laughing aloud.

Where I've Been

Jenna with her father, Bob Kinghorn, celebrating his 90th birthday aboard the schooner Olad in Camden, Maine. Photo courtesy of Diane Dexter.

I spent most of June preparing for a family reunion in Maine to celebrate my father’s 90th birthday on June 25th. The festivities involved friends and family coming in from California, Colorado, New York, Virginia, and Washington. We gathered in various configurations over five days, three parties, and two birthday cakes.

While I love the ocean and everything that swims in it, my father’s great passion is automobiles, which he has been collecting and rebuilding since he was fourteen. (Yes, before he even had a driver’s license!) So when I started planning his birthday bash, I reached out to his beloved Owl’s Head Transportation Museum (https://owlshead.org) in Thomaston, to see if I could book their STEM department’s “model bridge” design-and-build experiences for our group.

They responded enthusiastically that the room and experience—which included a seemingly infinite supply of pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, and ways to hold them together, plus the time of two staff members to run the challenge—would be their birthday gift to my Dad, who has now been part of their team of volunteers for THIRTY-THREE years! He leads tours for visitors, drives cars from the collection during special event days, stuffs envelopes for fundraisers, writes articles for their quarterly magazine, spends a couple days a week tinkering under the hoods of cars that need mechanical help, and uses his network of connections across the country to track down obscure auto parts. At the end of our STEM challenge, which resulted in two very different designs that were both successful, museum staff joined us to sing Happy Birthday to Dad and help us eat cake.

We decided 90 candles was a potential fire hazard, so Dad just blew out two candles, a 9 and a 0.

On Saturday we chartered Olad, a schooner sailing out of Camden, and a slightly smaller group of extended family spent four lovely hours sailing on gossamer winds from Camden to Rockland and back. We spotted a few porpoises, harbor seals, and a gray seal—a first for me. Then dinner at Dad’s favorite Chinese restaurant, followed by a second birthday cake!

Our trip on the schooner Olad started out in light fog, ended in bright sun, and was filled with scenic beauty and tantalizing glimpses of wildlife.

Dad has lived in his house in Maine for more than 30 years now, and although I’ve visited at least ten times during that span, I still find new places to explore on each visit.

This year, looking for a rest stop on the drive up from Boston, we discovered a lovely little park at the Fort Edgecomb State Historic Site, only about 40 minutes from Dad’s house. The fort is a single building, a two-story wooden octagonal blockhouse with walls studded with slots for rifles. Built in 1808, it protected the important shipping center of Wiscasset in the War of 1812. We stretched our legs, read interpretive signs, and took in the beautiful view.

McLoon's lobster roll lived up to its reputation of excellence!

I have to eat a lobster roll when I'm in Maine! When we were deciding where to eat dinner on Wednesday, Dad’s childhood friend Paul, who had driven up from Rochester, NY to join us, pulled a clipping from Yankee Magazine from his shirt pocket and said, “How about this place called McLoons Lobster Shack? (https://mcloonslobster.com) It’s supposed to serve the best lobster roll in the state.” It was another place I had never heard of, let alone been to, but after a twenty minute drive we arrived at an absolute Norman Rockwell scene of a traditional lobster pound.

Summer in Maine in one photo: a beautiful boat, lobster trap floats, and a red channel marker with a bell that rings at a certain tone to tell fogbound mariners where they are.

Twenty or so picnic tables with umbrellas dotted the gradual slope leading down to the water, where the pen of live lobsters was periodically winched up onto the dock to replenish supplies. High school and college kids hustled around delivering orders, and family groups encircled fire pits to toast marshmallows. We ordered lobster rolls and blueberry soda from a tiny shack, and basked in the slowly sinking sun. I thanked Paul for bringing the place to my attention as I made a note of it in my phone—I’m sure I will return on many future visits.

Paul, who is just a few years younger than my father, said he had been holding on to the article since he had read it in 2017! I expressed amazement at his ability to file something away that long ago, remember he had it, bring it along on a trip nine years later, and pull it out of his pocket at the exact right moment. I wish I could be that organized.

On the Sunday after Dad's birthday, as family and friends scattered back across the country, a glorious double rainbow seemed a fitting end to the festivities.

My Furry Muses

Since we flew across the country for our family reunion, our furry family members had to stay behind. The separation was hard on all of us!

Sundance (left) and Butch tried to stow away in my luggage.

We had a wonderful cat sitter stay at the house with the boys while we were gone. We got lots of photos of them having fun playing with their new human friend. They showed no signs of neglect when we returned, although they were happy to see us. They were also very happy to see Mia, greeting her with enthusiastic bunts!

Mia got to board at her doggy day care, where she had fun making some new friends and playing and cuddling with existing pals. She was thrilled to see us, but equally happy to go back to doggy day care on her usual day the week after we returned.

Mia rolling in the sunshine while playing fetch at doggy day care. Photo courtesy of Haden Starbuck.

It was wonderful to connect with family and friends and see childhood stomping grounds, but boy is this introvert glad to be home and looking forward to some quiet weeks ahead!

That's it for this month. Thanks for being a reader – Jenna