Author Interview: Herbert L. Smith, HURRICANE KINGDOM

Herbert L. Smith (Herb to his friends) is a native of Glenwood, Iowa, the town that is the prototype for Hillville, the setting for his Starfire Mystery Series.

The stories are set in the 1950’s, and Hillville appears to be enjoying a Golden Age of mid-century, Midwestern optimism and wholesomeness–that is, except for the murders.

in addition to being well-published (eight books and counting!) and well-traveled (Egypt and the Middle East, Argentina, Idaho, and even exotic central California), Herb is an accomplished musician, with a strong interest in sacred music. He has worked in different churches as organist, sometimes doubling as choir master as well.

Herb currently lives in Eugene, Oregon, with his wife, Glenda, where, despite the demands of his literary and musical endeavors, he claims to be “retired.”

Q: Herb, thanks for stopping by! Can you tell us a little about your Starfire Mysteries, and about Hurricane Kingdom? 

A: Hurricane Kingdom is number three (of four – so far) in the Starfire Mystery series. The books are all set in the semi-fictional Hillville, Iowa and feature a team of detectives who work together there. The running theme through all the books is life in Southwest Iowa in the 1950’s. For some of us it is a nostalgic look at our past, and for many others it’s the discovery of life as it was in that time, which they have heard about but can’t really understand – unless they read books like this. As an author who lived there at mid-century, I can tell it like it was.

Iowa, especially Hillville, may not seem very interesting initially, but just beneath the surface of little rural towns – whether in Iowa or any place else in the world – there’s another kind of society, one that isn’t out in the open and obvious to casual glances, but it’s there, and it influences everyone who lives in and around the community. It’s a world of criminality and vice, corruption in many different forms, and intrigues that can get folks into all kinds of trouble, even murder, either as a victim or a perpetrator. I can tell you about that world, too, because for some strange reason I developed a good ‘nose’ that searched out that kind of thing. I listened and learned from my earliest memories, and was able to put it together at a shockingly young age.

Q: On a scale of Michael Connelly to Joanne Fluke, how “gritty” versus “cozy” would you say your books are? Do you include graphic details, or does most of the unpleasantness happen offstage? 

A: I don’t report most of the crimes I write about in savage or disturbing mental visuals, and there are lots of comedic twists and sub-plots that go on all the time. Sub-plots are really the glue that hold the books together and make them live. They are real, too, and are great fun to recall and report. Food, social interplay, music, history, the town layout, specific places, and even events are dredged out of memory and placed on the pages of the books. One interesting thing is that all the houses and buildings I describe are really there – places I lived or visited often, and I can see and smell them as I write. Hoffman’s Bakery, the Hog Ranch, the Starfire office, the house on Green Street (the place where my memories begin) are mostly still sitting in their places after more than sixty five years, and will go on for a great many more, I hope. The one great loss is the County Court House, a beautiful, graceful, Pre-Civil-War building, which was replaced in the late 1950’s. Its destruction still raises hackles among people who recall its grand and gracious presence.

Glenwood Courthouse, 1915

Q: Guy and Caleb seem like unlikely friends; they have different personalities and a considerable age difference as well. Can you tell us a little bit about them, and what draws them together?

A: Caleb is mostly a fictional character. He is young and eager to get ahead, and has a good sense of self, but often gets into trouble due to a mouth that speaks before he thinks very much. In my young years I was a lot like Caleb, so I suppose I am Caleb, at least to some extent. I didn’t have the experiences he has, nor lead the same kind of life, but did live for a short time in the house on Vine Street that his parents bought when he was young, as well as the little ‘honeymoon house’on Green Street, where I came to fully conscious memory when I was three.

In many more ways, I am also Guy, the older and more thoughtful (sometimes) part of the equation. He is almost forty years older than Caleb, and the intergenerational relationship they have is key to the whole plot. Over time, they have become friends, and they treat each other as equal partners in their business. It was Guy who insisted on naming the Starfire Agency after Caleb. He didn’t expect to remain active in it very long, but Caleb felt the need for the stability that age and experience brought, so Guy was persuaded to stay.

Q: So what do these two very different men have in common? 

A: Both men have a lot of faults and flaws, but both have lots of integrity when the chips are down, and they work together in a kind of bantering (sometimes intense) style that does them both credit. They argue and get angry at times, but all things considered, they are good people to write about.
Guy has a secret; a criminal past. He was convicted of rum-running in New Jersey during the prohibition days of the late 1920’s and served eight years in a prison there. After he got out he went to work – after quite a long time trying to figure things out again – in a ‘bank’ in New York City, but the so-called bank was nothing but a crooked ponzi scheme. He managed to embezzle a little more than two-hundred-thousand-dollars before he knew time was short and he’d better get away. He escaped just in time with pockets full of money. He left the rest of the loot in safety deposit boxes in Chicago, which he managed to recover after about a year in Hillville.

He planned a quiet retirement somewhere near Omaha – Hillville is about twenty miles south – and settled in for the duration of a long and peaceful life. That was only a dream, of course. When he helped Caleb (with a little of the stolen loot) get the detective agency going, he also set himself up for a life of renewed danger and the possibility of being discovered and hauled back to New York for another prison term. He faces that all the time, and that’s one of the reasons he acts and reacts as he does.

Q: What originally inspired you to start writing the Starfire Mysteries? 

A: When we retired in 2004, my wife and I moved to Eugene, Oregon. One of my sisters lives in a nearby town, and we soon developed a close relationship. She read my earliest books (some memoirs and novels about Egypt which I had written a few years before) and asked me why I didn’t write about Iowa memories. She repeated the questions several times over about two years, so I set out a plan and started writing. A mystery series set in Iowa isn’t exactly what she had in mind, but it has served me well. I managed to get a lot of Iowa flavor into the stories as well as some of the characters and I have (mostly) fun creating them. It helps that I still have a good memory!

Q: In writing about midcentury Iowa, do you rely on your memory alone, or do you supplement it with research?

A: I study Hillville – its actual name is Glenwood – on the internet and look at current videos of people and places on You Tube. I take tours of the town with Google maps, and move up and down the familiar streets, looking at the houses and other buildings as I go. I walk along the routes I took to school, recalling lots of things by sight, and study the names of people – there are family names that are still prominent in town – and find any connections I can relate to.

Q: Have you found any differences between what you remember, and what you’re finding in your current research? 

A: Of course, things have changed! The town hasn’t grown a lot in population, but there are new schools and churches and business buildings. Some of the old places have disappeared, although the seriously old buildings – which were built about the same time as the courthouse – around the ‘Square’ seem much the same. The house where I lived for most of my Hillville years has fallen into terrible decay, but was recently sold and I am hoping it will be restored. Everything changes, but a lot of it is, at present, much the same as it was in 1955.

Q: Tell us about the kinds of reader reactions you’ve had to the Starfire Mysteries. Any surprises?

A: I am surprised at the reactions I have gotten from writing about food! I didn’t know much about food in any other place when I was growing up in Iowa, but I don’t believe cooking and eating was a lot different there than in most places in the U.S. During the 1950’s we experienced some changes in the way we ate, but the entire nation, with the possible exception of the Southeast, experienced the same things. (The Southeast was more traditional and had lots more delicious regional foods than most other areas of the country at that time.)

Q: How would you describe the Iowan culinary culture that you grew up with?

Iowa Cuisine

A: Food was plentiful in those days, and we tended to eat well. Meat was a mainstay, as it was across the country, and the kinds of things we usually ate were from popular southern and mid-western style recipes. Cooking and eating was important, but probably no more so than anywhere else.

The idea that Iowa’s food is or was second rate is a strange one to me. As time moved forward, Iowans moved along with it, and although it wasn’t (and still isn’t) a foodie haven, it was good and solid and tasty. I recall all the good food with pleasure.

Q: Is there a character you identify with most? Guy? Caleb? Someone else? 

A: As I said before, I am Guy, and Guy is me. Simply put. We are far from the same (criminal past and all that) but we look exactly alike now, and behave in much the same way toward most if not all situations we encounter. I am now just a bit older than he is, but the time warp works well, so I can still project myself into 1955 or 56 and be in my sixties there and then, as Guy is.

I wanted to develop an accidental ‘hero’ when I set Guy up. He isn’t slick, not good looking, and doesn’t have a lot of the skills he needs for smooth social interaction, but he has a good mind and is able to work through the tangles of criminal activity to find a culprit. (I have never solved crimes, but I do enjoy setting them up and letting Guy have at it.)
Guy and I are both overweight, older, silver haired, and bearded. We tend to wear slouchy clothes, and both of us are pianists. That’s for starters. There are lots of other, much more subtle, ways in which we are alike, and probably even more in which we are not. He isn’t my clone, but he is what I want him to be; a smart, capable, considerate man who can help other people solve their problems, murder notwithstanding. Guy is compassionate. He helps in (sometimes) subtle ways to get people to look at themselves more positively, and to advance and enhance their lives. And that enhances and advances his life as well.

But to some extent I am all the characters. As I write, I inject myself into all of them to some degree, and I decide what they will finally say and do, unless they wrest the story from me and go off on their own. Then I become merely a recorder of events. (At times I feel that I am.)

Q: Is the Hog Ranch a product of literary license, or is it based on a real place? 

Hog Ranch
The Hog Ranch

A: The Hog Ranch is a real place. It’s a two-and-a-half-story log structure which sits on the edge of the Missouri River far to the north and west of town, and was subjected to all the floods that inundated the ‘river bottom’ for many years. It’s still there, and is still vulnerable to the whims of the River.

The ranch, built sometime around the turn of the 20th century, was originally designed as a gambling, drinking, and bordello establishment. There was illegal horse racing there, too, and that attracted people from far away. I’m not sure if it was ever raided, but for some reason it closed and was sold in 1922 to a farmer who set it up as a pork emporium. He called it the Hog Ranch, and it operated as such for a short time. Since then, the place has been owned by a large number of different farmers, and currently (2015), it is once again on the market.

An interesting touch to add to its history: my father and mother lived and worked on the Hog Ranch for about a year, starting when they were married in 1929. They left because my mother was frightened by the ‘creepy’ place. I juggled the years of operation as a gambling den a bit, but the basics, as described in Hurricane Kingdom, are historic.

Q: Where can readers find out more about you and your writing?

A: Visit my website at http://www.herbertlsmith.com/

Also in the Starfire Mysteries series:

The Eggstone Murders

Liquor is Quicker

 


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GUEST POST: Writing from the What-If by John Carenen

John Carenen is an author and a professor of English. He holds an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from the prestigious University of Iowa Writers Workshop.  Signs of Struggle, his first Thomas O’Shea mystery novel, was published in 2012. In the sequel, A Far Gone Night, a late night stroll by the river propels O’Shea into the middle of a baffling murder.  Here John talks about how Signs of Struggle took shape and then evolved into a series.

Author John Carenen
Author John Carenen

I did not plan to write a series. I figured my debut novel, Signs of Struggle, for a stand-alone story about a man and how he dealt with tremendous adversity and his own personal demons springing forth from that adversity. I thought it would make a good story, I would write it, and then I would hope it would be publishable.

The genesis from the story came from an approach Steven King uses. That is, the “What if?” question to propel a story forward. What if the protagonist wakes up in his small Montana town and everyone else has vanished, or is dead. Except him. What happens next? Why did it happen? How will this craziness turn out?

Adopting that approach, in part, I once asked myself a few years ago, what would be the worst thing that could possibly happen to me? Well, at the time I had a wonderful family – wife and two teenage daughters. The worst thing that could happen to me, it seemed, would be to lose them all somehow – car crash, airplane crash, Ebola virus – you name it.

Okay, once I got to thinking about that, as abhorrent as the thought was, what would I do about it? We were living in the South then, and still are, and I decided I would sell everything and head back to my home state – Iowa – and try to heal by withdrawing and very, very gradually try to create some kind of a productive life, if that were possible. Get away from so much that would remind me of what I had lost. Take a few pictures and our Bulldog and go back north.

So, that’s what I did; or rather, that’s what my protagonist did. His name is Thomas O’Shea. He sold his half of a successful business, sold his house, his beach house, his cars, and cashed in everything. He gave away his furniture and all the clothes that belonged to his family. He bought an enormous pickup truck and headed home with just a few things and Gotcha, his Bulldog.

He tries to avoid people, but one day he stumbles onto what looks like a farm accident, but he has questions, and the more questions he asks (he has nothing but time on his hands), the more people try to discourage him. Unpleasant people. Killers. What happens next is in the novel.

Thankfully, the folks at Neverland Publishing decided to publish Signs of Struggle. But then some of my readers, and the people at NP, decided that they wanted to know more about Thomas – his history; his relationship with the comely high school English teacher, Olivia Olson; and where did he learn to be such a tough guy?

A Far Gone Night, the sequel, was born. Thomas O’Shea, suffering from insomnia, goes for a late-night stroll through the peaceful streets of his adopted town, Rockbluff, Iowa, and finds himself pausing downtown on the bridge that spans the Whitetail River, which flows through the village. When he glances downstream, he sees a dead girl’s naked body, rushes down and pulls her from the water, and discovers two bullet holes in the back of her head. When the law shows up, Thomas does not divulge what he discovered because he is distrustful of all governmental agencies. Then, when the coroner declares the girl’s death a suicide, he begins to ask questions again. And people try to discourage him from asking those questions.

This time he’s in deep against powerful forces, but that does not deter him from enlisting help from a couple of friends – Lunatic Mooning, Ojibwa owner of the Grain o’ Truth Bar & Grill; and Clancy Dominguez, an old buddy from Navy SEAL training days. Mix in the rest of the quirky characters populating Rockbluff, and the reader will find themselves in what I hope to be an enjoyable read – with a few surprises.

Thomas O’Shea has begun to take over my creative juices, and so now I am working on the third novel in the series – The Face on the Other Side. There’s just something about this character that won’t let me go. I hope you, as readers, have the same response.

John and his wife live in a cozy cottage down a quiet lane in northern Greenville, South Carolina. He is a big fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes and Boston Red Sox.

Purchase A Far Gone Night at Amazon or B&N. 


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Can an author of police procedurals write cozies? COFFEE IS MURDER by Carolyn Arnold

Of course she can.

FOR SARA, COFFEE WAS ONE of life’s
greatest—and simplest—pleasures. Every time
she took a draw of freshly brewed java, her
eyelids automatically lowered in appreciation of
the robust flavor. Somehow, when drinking it,
life seemed less complicated, or maybe it was
just how it coated the palate and calmed her
nerves despite what some scientific studies
might say.

She was in her home office, seated behind her
desk, staring at the blinking cursor on her
monitor, but it wasn’t because she had writer’s
block. Her wrists needed a break. Better yet, she
needed to indulge in this cup.

Leaning back in her chair, she swiveled from
side to side and closed her eyes, savoring the
aroma ofthe dark beans. While they were ground
at the time she pressed the button, the only way
to get it any fresher was picking the beans off the
plants in Brazil. With their money, she supposed
it was an option

Carolyn Arnold writes three different series, under the same author name. As she describes them,

THE MADISON KNIGHT SERIES falls neatly into the police procedural genre with murder investigations and forensics. Think Law & Order meets CSI. There is some foul language and limited graphic violence.

THE BRANDON FISHER FBI SERIES toys with the edge between the police procedural genre and thriller genre. Due to this, you will find foul language and graphic violence in this series.

THE MCKINLEY MYSTERY SERIES ventures outside of the typical crime genre, lending itself to the cozy variety with no foul language or graphic violence. The series combines romance, mystery, humor, and adventure for a lighthearted, easy read.

So with the same author name, how can you tell what kind of book you’re getting? Good question.

Cozy.
Cozy.

Not Cozy.
Not Cozy.

 Coffee is Murder is #9 in Carolyn Arnold’s popular McKinley Mysteries.  If you prefer to start with the first book in the series, try The Day Job is Murder.

Coffee is Murder
Coffee is Murder
(McKinley Mysteries Book 9)

Cozy Mystery
File Size: 641 KB
Print Length: 155 pages
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
ASIN: B00U2HCG5S
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You might want to rethink your morning routine.
A cup a day won’t kill you, but a few might.

Author Links:

Website: https://carolynarnold.net

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Carolyn_Arnold

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorCarolynArnold

Purchase Link:
Amazon


 

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Today on College Misery: They’re final grades, not opening bids.

I’m blogging over at Higher Education’s Premier Online Publication today.

I posted final grades at 2pm.

Within minutes my inbox was brimming with pleas from prodigal students, some of whom had attendance records so irregular that the names were only vaguely familiar to me; I had to double check to make sure they were actually students of mine.

Some of this afternoon’s highlights:

“Dear Professor Bow,
I just received my final grade …and I was just wondering if there is any way possible that I could try to bring up my grade to pass the class.” 

SURE WHY NOT I’D LOVE TO SPEND MY UNPAID SUMMER DEVOTING MORE TIME TO YOUR GRADE THAN YOU DID THE ENTIRE SEMESTER AND THEN FIELDING GRIEVANCES FROM ALL OF THE OTHER STUDENTS WHO MANAGED TO TURN IN THEIR WORK ON TIME

Read the rest


 

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Author Interview: Amanda Flower, THE FINAL REVEILLE

Amanda Flower is an academic librarian and the Agatha Award-nominated author of Maid of Murder, the Appleseed Creek Mysteries, and the India Hayes Mysteries. She also writes the Amish Quilt Shop Mysteries under the name Isabella Alan. Her latest is The Final Reveille, the first book in the Living History Museum Mystery series.

Amanda Flower

Q: Amanda, thanks for stopping by! Can you tell us what The Final Reveille is about?

A: As the director of Barton Farm, a living history museum in Ohio, Kelsey Cambridge is underpaid and underappreciated, but she loves every minute of it. Determined to keep the struggling Farm open, she plans to impress the museum’s wealthy benefactress, Cynthia Cherry, with a four-day Civil War reenactment on the Farm’s grounds, complete with North and South encampments, full-scale battles, and an Abraham Lincoln lookalike spouting the Gettysburg Address to anyone who will listen.

Cover

 

Unfortunately, the first shot in the battle isn’t from a period rifle but from Cynthia’s greedy nephew, Maxwell, who plans to close the Farm when he inherits his ill aunt’s wealth. On the first day of the reenactment, Cynthia and Maxwell stop by, and Kelsey and Maxwell have a public argument over the Farm’s funding. The next morning, things go from bad to worse for Kelsey when she discovers Maxwell dead in the brickmaker’s pit. Now Kelsey is the police’s number one suspect, and she must start her own investigation to save the museum . . . and herself while the War Between the States rages on around her.

Q:  How does Kelsey’s job affect her sleuthing abilities? Does she have access to important information that even the police might not have?

A: Kelsey Cambridge, as the director of Barton Farm, knows the people and grounds better than anyone. She also knows the history of the area like the back of her hand, which helps her solve the crimes committed on Farm grounds.

Q: What inspired you to write this book?

A: One summer when I was in college I worked as an historical interpreter at a living history museum much like Barton Farm. The job was so much fun and one of my favorite memories from my college years. Even back then, I wanted to be a mystery author, and I recognized that a living history museum would be the perfect setting for a cozy mystery because interesting people choose to work and visit such a place. Many of them are quirky, which I love.

Q. What kind of research did you do for this book?

A: Since I worked at museum like this, I had a lot of first person experience that I drew upon to write the book, and I set the book in NE Ohio because I love the history of the Western Reserve. The Western Reserve is the northeast corner of Ohio and is called such because it once belonged to Connecticut before the American Revolution. After the Revolution when colonies became states, Connecticut gave up its claim. Because of this, there is a definite New England feel to this part of Ohio that is much different than the rest of the state. In addition to Western Reserve history, I researched Civil War reenactors and the Civil War in general. I’m a librarian as well as an author, so I watched a lot of documentaries and read a bunch of books.

Q: Is there one character with whom you particularly identify?

A: I think it would be Kelsey, the main character. She really cares about saving the Farm and preserving the past. As a librarian, I care about history too. Also, she and I have the same sense of humor.

Q: Are you a “plotter” or a “pantser?”

A: Panster 100%.

Q: For non-U.S. readers, can you explain the phenomenon of Civil War reenactments? Who participates in these, and what do they get out of it? Do the participants always follow history, or do the battles sometimes have different outcomes? Is there anything else like them elsewhere?

A: Civil War reenactment is a major and expensive hobby in the U.S. The American Civil War (1861-1865) was the costliest war for America in human life. The casualties from the war, including those who died from disease, were over 400,000. The American landscape is peppered with memorials and parks commemorating almost every battle fought. The war, which began over an argument debate of states’ rights, became an even bigger struggle when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all the slaves in the South. Ultimately, the war was about the issue of slavery. Even today, many Americans feel passionate about the Civil War and many honor it by recreating the battles. It’s their way of remembering. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the end of the war, and I’m excited The Final Reveille came out in this year to honor such an important anniversary.

I know other countries have reenactors for battles and historical events, but I’m not sure that any of them are as big as Civil War reenacting in the U.S. I would be interested in know if there were!

Q: Where can readers follow you? 

A: My main website is amandaflower.com, and you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter , Goodreads Pinterest, or  Instagram.


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New mystery stars Edgar Allen Poe’s cat: THE TELL-TAIL HEART

Edgar Allen Poe + cat. Perfect.

tell tail heart

The Tell-Tail Heart
by Monica Shaughnessy

tell tail heartThe Tell-Tail Heart: A Cattarina Mystery
(Cattarina Mysteries) (Volume 1)

Cozy Mystery
Publisher: Jumping Jackalope Press (June 17, 2014)
Paperback: 176 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0988562974
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The untold story behind Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

Philadelphia, 1842: Poe’s cat, Cattarina, becomes embroiled in a killer’s affairs when she finds a clue to the crime – a glass eye. But it’s only when her beloved “Eddy” takes an interest that she decides to hunt down the madman. Her dangerous expedition takes her from creepy Eastern State Penitentiary to Rittenhouse Square where she runs into a gang of feral cats intent on stopping her.

As the mystery pulls Cattarina deeper into trouble, even Eddy becomes the target of suspicion. Yet she cannot give up the chase. Both her reputation as a huntress and her friend’s happiness are at stake. For if she succeeds in catching the Glass Eye Killer, the missing pieces of Eddy’s unfinished story will fall into place, and the Poe household will once again experience peace.

monicaAbout This Author

Monica Shaughnessy has a flair for creating characters and plots larger than her home state of Texas. Most notably, she’s the author of the Cattarina Mysteries, a cozy mystery series starring Edgar Allan Poe’s real-life cat companion. Ms. Shaughnessy has nine books in print, including two young adult novels, a middle grade novel, a picture book, two cozy mystery novellas, and numerous short stories. Customers have praised her work time and again, calling it “unique and creative,” “fresh and original,” and “very well written.” If you’re looking for something outside the mainstream, you’ll find it in her prose. When she’s not slaying adverbs and tightening plots, she’s walking her rescue dogs, goofing around with her family, or going back to the grocery store for the hundredth time because she forgot milk.

 

Author Links:

www.monicashaughnessy.com
@bizarrebooks
monicashaughnessy.wordpress.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/MonicaShaughnessyBooks/203514746388736

Purchase Link:
Amazon


 

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My Mother’s Day Gift to Myself: Thus Was Adonis Murdered

Have you ever encountered writing that filled you with joy and envy at the same time?

If you haven’t, read Sarah Caudwell’s mannered mysteries, starting with Thus Was Adonis Murdered (1981). I read Caudwell years ago in paperback, and just today decided to treat myself to the first e-book in the series.

And yes, it’s as wonderful as I remember.  The genderless narrator, Oxford don Hilary Tamar, is a delightful combination of hyper-eloquence and hypo-self-awareness.

“On my first day in London I made an early start. Reaching the Public Record Office not much after ten, I soon secured the papers I needed for my research and settled in my place. I became, as is the way of the scholar, so deeply absorbed as to lose all consciousness of my surroundings or of the passage of time. When at last I came to myself, it was almost eleven and I was quite exhausted: I knew I could not prudently continue without refreshment.”

Sarah Caudwell passed away at age 60, having written only four full-length mysteries. Caudwell was a lawyer, the half-sister of Alexander Cockburn, and the daughter of Jean Ross, who reputedly served as Christopher Isherwood’s model for Sally Bowles in his Berlin stories  (later adapted into the Oscar-winning musical Cabaret).


 

Frankie Bow’s first novel, THE MUSUBI MURDER , is available at Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes.

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Author Interview: Amy Korman, KILLER GETAWAY

Amy Korman is a former senior editor and staff writer for Philadelphia Magazine, and author of Frommer’s Philadelphia and the Amish Country. She has written for Town & Country, House Beautiful, Men’s Health, and Cosmopolitan. She lives in Pennsylvania with her family and their basset hound. Killer WASPs is her first novel. Killer Getaway, the second book in the Killer WASPs series, was just released on March 10th, 2015.

Amy Korman, Author
Amy Korman, Author

Q: Can you tell us what the book is about? And for our non-U.S. readers, what is a WASP?

A: Killer Getaway sees the Killer WASPs characters head south to Magnolia Beach, Florida. The book is a mystery, and a fun escape to a warm, sunny town that’s hiding a few criminals among the palm trees and chic restaurants.

Kristin Clark, who runs a small (and not-too-successful!) antiques store outside Philly, and her basset hound, Waffles, are ready to escape the doldrums of winter to bask in the warm Florida sun and dine at her friends’ new restaurant, Vicino. But when a rival restaurant undergoes an HGTV makeover and attempts to steal Vicino’s spotlight and its patrons, the town is abuzz with gossip, and Kristin and her friends—Bootsie, a nosy reporter; Holly, a chicken nugget heiress; and Sophie, the soon-to-be ex-wife of a mobster—have parties to attend.

Everything is going swimmingly in the glitz and glamour of Magnolia Beach until a bad batch of clams threatens to shut down Vicino and their vacation for good. When it becomes clear that the clams may be more than an innocent mishap, the gang must unravel the mystery before there are deadly consequences.

WASP is a term coined by a writer named Digby Baltzell and signifies an old-school, usually East-Coast American who plays a lot of golf, drives an old car, drinks vodka tonics, and is probably an Anglophile! It’s more of a state of mind than an actual type of person in 2015, but the WASPs I interviewed over the years as a journalist generally had a great sense of humor about their preppy roots.

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Q: What does Kristin Clark do for a living? Or does she have the means to sleuth full-time?

A: Kristin runs a small antique store outside of Philly, where she barely makes ends meet. She’s not a great businesswoman, but she loves the antique business. She sleuths in her spare time, and is usually dragged along by her energetic friends Bootsie and Sophie. Her other friends are lucky enough to have the means to go on great trips such as the one in Killer Getaway, so Kristin is able to go as well!

Q: What inspired you to write the Killer WASPs mysteries?

A: I’m such a fan of Agatha Christie-style “village” mysteries, and Kristin and her friends all have known each other and their neighbors since they were in high school together, which is a modern take on a village mystery. In Killer Getaway, they adopt a new small town (one with palm trees and margaritas), but the same principle applies—everyone knows each other, and has their own motives and agendas…which might make them try to shut down Vicino, murder restaurant manager Jessica, and run down Kristin’s friends with a “Death Chevy.”

Q: What kind of research did you do for this book?

A: I’ve read Agatha Christie, Carl Hiassen, Sue Grafton and other favorite authors for years, so I like to think anything we read influences us, and I wrote for magazines for many years, which is a great way to learn to meet deadlines and tell chapter length stories. There isn’t a real Magnolia Beach, Florida, but if there was, I wish I could have done research there for a few weeks!

Q: Are you a “plotter” or a “pantser?”

A: I like an outline! It’s always good to have a map, even if you wander off a bit.

Q: Is there one character with whom you particularly identify?

A: Kristin loves Basset hounds, is something of a klutz, and isn’t a great cook, but she’s optimistic and always thinks that her antique store might suddenly start doing a great business. I can identify with a lot of her characteristics, especially the Basset hound obsession, since I share that 100 percent.

Q: Why do we love basset hounds so? Can you explain this?

A: It’s got to be the droopy ears and soulful eyes! Plus, now that I’ve lived with our Basset hound Murphy for 8 years, I can honestly say he’s never in a bad mood, is super loyal, and is always up for a road trip, a walk, or a party. He’ll watch chick flicks with me and doesn’t mind being dressed up in reindeer antlers at the holidays. Plus, I’ve never met anyone who loves food as much as a Basset!

Q: Where can readers find you?

Amy’s Website

Amy’s Facebook

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