This week, In Reference to Murder's "Author R&R" (Reference and Research) welcomes Georgia writer Tina Whittle. Tina's book The Dangerous Edge of Things was the first in her series featuring Atlanta gun shop owner Tai Randolph and debuted in February 2011 to starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus, and Library Journal. The second installment, Darker Than Any Shadow, was just released by Poisoned Pen Press.
In the sequel, Tai's best friend Rico is competing for a national slam poetry title, and Atlanta is overrun with hundreds of fame-hungry performance poets clogging all the good bars. Everything goes according to plan until one of Rico's fellow poets is murdered and Rico becomes the prime suspect. Tai's love interest, the SWAT-trained corporate security agent Trey Seaver, doesn't want her anywhere near the case, but someone apparently does, sending anonymous clues and clandestine tip-offs her way. But is the mysterious someone wanting to help Tai or lure her into a deadly trap?
The novel also has an unusual element that Tina had to research while writing this book, as she explains:
There's an old piece of writing advice that goes something like this — if the tension in your novel starts to sag, bring in a man with a gun. But trust me on this — if you really need to liven things up, bring in a giant snake.
I know this because I took my own advice for my second Tai Randolph novel, Darker Than Any Shadow, which has a ten-foot reticulated python in a key cameo. I auditioned several menacing serpents for this walk-on role, including boa constrictors and Burmese pythons. However, I decided on the retic (as reticulated pythons are sometimes called), the big daddy of the snake world. Here are a few snaky tidbits about this amazing creature:
1. You don't tackle this much snake alone. One rule of thumb for snake handling is one person for every three feet of snake. For an average python — about fifteen feet long — you’ll need four really brave friends. For the largest python on record — 33 feet long and 300+ pounds — you'd need a NASCAR pit crew.
2. Captive-bred specimens are remarkably even-tempered. Wild caught pythons, however, are extremely nervous and will bite. They may not be venomous, but their teeth point backwards (the better to hold onto you as you squirm, my dear).
3. As a rule of thumb, these snakes seem able to swallow prey up to ¼ their own length, and up to their own weight.
4. A python doesn't kill by strangling — it constricts its victim's rib cage slowly and inexorably with every exhale, leaving each subsequent inhale shallower and shallower until there's literally no room to breathe.
5. Like all snakes, pythons aren't slimy — they're dry and cool and silky. They're also dense with hard-packed spongy muscle, like a scale-covered gummy bear.
6. Pythons are ambush predators; they lunge from the shrubbery, sneak up on you in the water and — in the case of the green tree python — tumble from the branches right on top of you.
7. Pythons normally snack on small mammals, though they occasionally snag deer and gazelle. Swallowing such large prey makes a python slow and clunky and vulnerable to predators. If necessary, however, it can instantly upchuck the whole business right back in its attacker's face and make a speedy getaway. Take that, crocodile!
8. Pythons use their supersensitive tongues to "taste" where you are . . . and find out which end is your head, for easier swallowing.
9. They're extremely valuable creatures, selling anywhere from $500 to $5000. A lavender albino ball python was once listed as the most expensive pet in the world— $40,000. Before you decide to adopt one, however, know it's a long-term arrangement; they live 20-30 years in captivity.
10. Best estimates are that anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 Burmese pythons now call the Florida Everglades home. Right now the only way to deal with the problem is to hunt them down one at a time and drag them out, which the State of Florida hires people to do. New career, anyone?
The world is divided into two camps, it seems — those who fear snakes, and those who find them utterly fascinating. I'm firmly in the latter category. But even if you're in the former, don’t fear. The python in my book is only ten feet long, and you can handle that, right?
If you'd like to see how Tina incorporated those tidbits into her story, Darker Than Any Shadow is now available via Poisoned Pen Press and Amazon, and you can also read an excerpt on Tina's website.
Tina,
How fast do these snakes reproduce? If there are 30,000+ in FL, how fast can will that number double without snake hunters?
Also, how can a snake be used as a murder weapon. Does it instinctively attack humans or does it have to be threatened by a human?
Great Book!!! Loved it.
Posted by: Susan Newman | March 08, 2012 at 01:47 PM
Hi Susan! I'm glad you like thinking about snakes as much as I do. For your first question, the answer is - I have no idea. But I do know this -- the snake hunters can only do so much against a species with no natural predators and a perfect environment for reproducing and thriving. Of course, humans are destroying that environment by the hundreds of acres for commercial usage. This is definitely one of those "we'll see" situations.
As for your other question, snakes are not murderous creatures; they attack for two reasons -- to eat and to defend. If you're non-threatening and too large to swallow, you're in no danger. If I were going to use an animal as a murder weapon, I'd skip the snake and go right for the honey badger. Now THAT'S a dangerous animal!
Posted by: Tina | March 08, 2012 at 02:55 PM