Hey there!

I've written before about how much I enjoy researching locations in the Pacific Northwest as I'm writing the Danica Burns books.

(Like in this essay about the guy I met in a bar in Cle Elum.)

One of my favorite parts of the research is visiting museums. The weirder, the better.

For example, I spent a happy few hours wandering around the Cranberry Museum in Long Beach, WA, learning about the process of the cranberry harvest and admiring all the horrifying implements that could conceivably become murder weapons.

In a book, I mean.

Obviously.

Though, just check out this pruning rake:

I don't just love visiting museums locally. Finding weird museums is one of my favorite things to do when I'm traveling, too.

Like our trip to the Derwent Pencil Museum in Keswick, England, which delivered a surprised dose of true crime and spycraft along with the expected information on graphite mining and pencil manufacturing.

We're coming up on a three-day weekend in the U.S., and while most people are using it to get out of town, I'm actually excited to not go anywhere for the first time in weeks.

Instead, my goal is to go on a couple of long hikes in the Columbia Gorge and find at least one weird local museum that I haven't been to before.

A little staycation, if you will.

If you have any suggestions for museums in the Portland area that I should check out, let me know. And, of course, I'm always open to recommendations of your favorite weird little museums anywhere in the world. :)

How about you?

What's the strangest museum you've found yourself in? Hit reply and let me know.

For Your TBR

Here are a few books that caught my interest and might catch yours too!

Since I've already talked about how much I love traveling in the Pacific Northwest, you won't be surprised to know that Justice caught my eye because of its setting.

I've been to Kellogg, Idaho, a few times. Today it's a charming little town, but it has a very dark environmental history. I took a recent deep dive on Kellogg—and many other industrial locations in the Pacific Northwest—when I read Caroline Fraser's Murderland, and I'm curious to see how it's handled in this story.

Justice is free to subscribers via Patricia Grayhall's website, link below.

Justice by Patricia Grayhall When Department of Justice attorney Jo Turner arrives in the mountain town of Kellogg, Idaho, she expects a routine environmental investigation. Instead, she uncovers a community poisoned—literally and morally—by a century of mining and corporate greed. When her investigation ignites violent backlash from townspeople desperate to keep their jobs, Jo must decide how much she’s willing to risk—for the truth, for justice, and for the lives caught in the crossfire between survival and conscience. Get My Copy!

Frontier Outlaws by Michael Cardwell After the best-selling success of his first novel, FRONTIER JUSTICE, Michael Cardwell pulls his fans into another action/adventure. If you like mysteries and crime stories with resilient heroes, slam-bang action, and nail-biting suspense spiked with a splash of wilderness humor, you’ll love this second book in the Coogan Mystery series. Eight months after the showdown with the domestic terrorist group that nearly cost him his life, Danny Coogan, a Montana Fish and Game Officer, faces a new threat to his community—and his career. It starts with a dead steer. Which happens to be near the body of a dead rancher. Both of which are on the Dead Horse Indian Reservation. Soon, Danny, the Tribal Police, the local Sheriff’s Department, and a US Marshal are pressed into action. Danny’s connections to the Rez draw him into the murder case and plant him firmly in the crosshairs of the killers. Another victim is discovered, tortured, and murdered—but why? What secret painted a target on these locals? Get My Copy!

Happy reading,

Jessie