No, I'm not back in Arizona, but a little of my heart will always be there. And, a piece of it will always be with the Authors @ The Teague program. Vicki Delany and Kate Carlisle recently appeared at the library. Thanks to Stephanie Rumsey for continuing the program, Anna Caggiano for writing the recap, and Judy Coon for the photos. I hope you enjoy the recap!
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| Vicki Delany and Kate Carlisle (courtesy Judy Coon) |
At 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 5, the Velma Teague
Library was pleased to welcome two mystery authors courtesy of the Poisoned Pen
Bookstore. Librarian Stephanie Rumsey introduced Vicki Delany, president of the
Canadian Crime Writers Association, and Kate Carlisle, a past winner of the
Golden Heart and Daphne du Maurier Awards and a member of Sisters in Crime,
Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers
of America.
The serendipitous convergence of lighthouses and wine is
largely responsible for Kate and Vicki’s joint book tour. Displaying their
respective book covers to the audience, Vicki pointed out a certain lighthouse-shaped
similarity. Meeting at the Malice Domestic conference last year, the two
authors shared dinner – and the aforementioned wine – and decided that, since
both of their upcoming mysteries involved lighthouses, it would be a great idea
to promote their books together. Unlike most decisions made under the influence
of wine, it actually did turn out to be a great idea in the sober light of
morning, and they’ve been enjoying themselves ever since. After all, as Vicki
dryly (pun intended) observed, where better to talk about coastal lighthouses
than the desert of Arizona?
By Book or by Crook,
Vicki’s 16
th published novel, is a bit of a departure for her. Her
15 other
novels, 10 of which have been published by Poisoned Pen press, include
the Constable Molly Smith series (a fairly traditional police procedural), the
more humorous Klondike Gold Rush mysteries, and various standalone
psychological suspense novels.
By Book or by Crook,
however, is a traditional cozy mystery. The break from human angst and tragedy
proved to be tremendous fun to write. Moreover, it’s the only book she’s
written under a pseudonym. This is actually a Penguin work-for-hire series, in
which the publisher provides a setting (a fictional library inside the real
Bodie Island Lighthouse, North Carolina) a vague idea of the main character
(librarian Lucy Richardson), and the bare-bones concept of the plot. Since they
own the copyright, the work is authored by “Eva Gates,” and Vicki’s name
doesn’t appear anywhere. When an audience member later asked if she or the
publisher came up with the pseudonym, she noted that it was a collaborative and
surprisingly difficult effort, since they wanted to come up with a name that
was easy to spell, but not already on Amazon (her first choice was taken by the
author of a child’s potty-training book). She ended up naming “Eva” after her
grandmother Eva – not the venerable
Eva Gates preserves company in Bigfork, Montana.
The talk then moved to Kate’s Fixer-Upper series,
This Old Homicide, which revisits
Shannon Hammer, a building contractor specializing in renovating Victorian
homes in Lighthouse Cove. While Bodie Island is a real lighthouse (sans a
library), Lighthouse Cove is a mashup of two towns on the Northern California
coast: the Victorian National Historic Site of Ferndale and the lovely coastal
city of Mendocino. Kate admitted that her choice of Mendocino might have been
influenced by the fact she likes to have an excuse to go there for research. Since
they’re set in a small town, the two books in this series have been a very
different writing experience from her Bibliophile Mysteries, set in San
Francisco.
Shannon’s father, Jack Hammer (insert audience groan here –
Kate swears she didn’t choose Shannon’s surname just to make that pun),
originally ran the company. When Shannon’s mother died, her father began taking
her and her sister to the construction sites. They were essentially adopted by
the workers, who gave them gifts like little pink tools and little pink
hardhats, culminating in her father’s gift of a very nice set of grown-up pink
Craftsman tools when she took over the company. On the plus side, the
distinctive color meant that none of the men would abscond with her tools. Unfortunately,
when they were used as murder weapons in the first book, it also made her a
prime suspect.
In her new book, Shannon’s very dear neighbor is found dead.
A teller of tall tales, he may or may not have found a necklace from the wreck
of a 150-year-old Spanish clipper ship that sank with a princess and a fortune
in jewels onboard. Could it be a motive for murder?
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| Vicki Delany (courtesy Judy Coon) |
Vicki then discussed
By
Book or by Crook’s protagonist, Lucy Richardson, a Harvard librarian from a
wealthy, influential Boston family. Following the collapse of her engagement to
her long-term boyfriend (Vicki noted rather gleefully that she left him
kneeling in a restaurant), she escaped to her aunt in the Outer Banks to laze
around in the summer sun and contemplate her future. This soul-searching ended
when her aunt introduced Lucy to the director of the Bodie Island Lighthouse
Library (pronounced “body,” leading me to hope that a future title will be “The
Bodie in the Lighthouse,” because why waste a good pun).
After Lucy is hired, the library board chair is found
murdered during a special evening reception in honor of their important summer
exhibition of Jane Austen first editions. Even worse (for book lovers, at
least), someone starts stealing the Austens one at a time in the order in which
they were written. Lucy is forced to turn amateur sleuth to discover why
someone is out to destroy the library. Lighthouses can turn a pretty profit by
charging admission (and even becoming a bed and breakfast, as an audience
member pointed out) – is there a financial motive to the crimes?
Vicki doesn’t believe in writing what you know, as the old
axiom says, but rather writing what you want
to know. So when she was offered this book set in the Outer Banks, she agreed
despite never having visited. She quickly changed that, driving down the first week
of October, 2012. In a textbook case of bad timing, she pulled up to the entrance
of Cape Hatteras National Park just as a brown-uniformed ranger was closing the
gates for the government sequester. All her pleading (“But I’m writing a book!
I drove all the way down here just to see this lighthouse!”) was in vain. Fortunately,
the trip itself wasn’t in vain, since she toured the similarly-designed
Currituck Beach Lighthouse, owned by the conservation society. Currituck is a
charming, tiny town with a bookstore, well-known for wild horses (which she
didn’t see). She was also able to tour the beaches and the nearby town of Nags
Head to get a firsthand feel for the setting. In the book, Lucy’s cousin owns a
bakery, while the cousin’s fiancé owns a restaurant overlooking the sound;
though both are fictional, they’re based on real places.
During her return trip last September, she climbed the 210
steps to the top of the Bodie Island Lighthouse (which isn’t nearly big enough
to contain a library, alas). In addition, she drove out to the marshy walking
trails at 7 p.m. to see what time the light turned on, taking lovely, spooky
pictures. On her drive back, she narrowly missed hitting a deer that jumped in
front of the car. This inspired a sequence where Lucy is being pursued on the
road leading to the lighthouse, only to be saved by a deer jumping out in front
of her pursuer. Vicki would never have expected deer to live in such a sandy,
sparsely vegetated area, so she never would have thought of that plot point if
it hadn’t happened to her. Even with all the online resources available today,
you just can’t beat the hands-on research of a site visit. If you plan to
follow in her footsteps, though, keep in mind that everything shuts down in the
winter months. Alternatively, Kate pointed out that you can tour one of several
lighthouses in California, instead.
Agreeing on the importance of this kind of research, Kate
marveled about how often she’ll stumble across something she had no idea existed. In the Bibliophile Mystery due to come out in June,
Ripped from the Pages, Brooklyn the
bookbinder returns to her parents’ Napa commune for the excavation of a trendy wine
cave tasting room. In an act of heroic self-sacrifice, Kate also went to Napa
to research (i.e, drink wine). Yet again, research (and wine) proved the
catalyst for great things, since Kate was amazed to see the original cave built
by Chinese railroad workers who’d traveled to California for the gold rush. The
winery had hired them to excavate a storage cave by hand – you can actually see
the pick marks, since they had no heavy machinery. It was entirely made by
manual labor. She wouldn’t have known that eerie cave was there, let alone put
it into the book, if she hadn’t traveled there herself.
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| Kate Carlisle (courtesy Judy Coon) |
Besides loving research (and wine) and writing about lighthouses,
Vicki and Kate both write books about books. In each of Kate’s Bibliophile Mysteries,
Brooklyn works on a rare book, whether taking it apart, putting it back
together, or authenticating it. Each of these books serves as a catalyst for
the mystery. Moreover, she tries to insert references from each book into her plot.
In
Ripped from the Pages, the cave excavation
work reveals a wealth of silver, furniture, artwork, and other hidden treasures
– plus a corpse with a suitcase containing a very rare copy of Jules Verne’s
Journey to the Center of the Earth, one
of Kate’s childhood favorites. In another book, Brooklyn is working on a copy
of
Oliver Twist (which famously
features a band of child thieves), while part of the larger plot features a
band of book thieves. Her first Bibliophile mystery ambitiously featured
Faust, which she had to reread since
Marguerite was an important character for her story. Another includes
A Secret Garden. However, in
A Cookbook Conspiracy and
If Books Could Kill, the cookbook and
the collection of unknown Robert Burns poems were entirely fictional. In the
case of the former, it’s a fortunate circumstance, since the home remedies in
the cookbook were truly horrendous.
Because Jane Austen is so prevalent in pop culture right
now, her writing is an important aspect of the plot of Vicki’s By Book or By Crook. To capitalize on
that, she made this fictional Austen exhibit so wildly, improbably successful
on a nationwide scale that the library decides to set up supplementary lectures
about Jane Austen, allowing Lucy’s preparatory Austen research to enhance the
novel. In future books, Vicki plans to have the plot very loosely reflect the
classic novel the library’s book club is currently reading. In one plot, when
Lucy’s mother tries to persuade her to return to Boston to marry her intended,
the son of her father’s law partner, the book club will be reading Pride and Prejudice. In another, they’ll
be reading Kidnapped when Lucy sees a
shipwreck on the shore. Vicki’s currently considering which book to feature in the
fourth installment of the series, so your suggestions are welcome!
Both Vicki and Kate agree that they never use so much of the
book-within-a-book technique that readers who are familiar with the source text
would be able to guess whodunit. It’s just small parallels, like the “Easter
eggs” hidden in video games. Kate feels like these are not only exciting for
the reader to catch, but a fun test for herself to see what sort of references
she can bring to the book.
The reason Kate chose bookbinding as Brooklyn’s profession
is that Kate loves books as physical objects. She says she was a lonely child
who went to the library all summer long, and haunted used bookstores for their
lovely smell. From the time she was about 5 years old, she would make her own
blank books as gifts for her mother by using the cardboard sheets the cleaners
sent back with her father’s shirts, bound up with paper and pretty ribbon. Most
authors say they began writing when they were very young, but Kate made blank
books instead! She only started writing 30 years later, inspired by a master
bookbinder friend who studied at UT Austin and took apart 12th
century books for a living. She realized that a bookbinder protagonist would be
ideal for her, and began taking classes in bookbinding once she sold the idea
to publishers.
Vicki pointed out that two of the major trends in cozy
mysteries right now are writing about books and food; she’s trying to combine
the two in her Lighthouse Library Mysteries. Although she has no recipes in
this series, she does mention a ton of food, thanks to Lucy’s bakery-owning cousin.
Although the series is a work-for-hire venture, she’s actually on her own in
terms of developing the books from here on out. Even with the first book, the
outline provided was so minimal that most of the book is her own creation. She
made up everything about Lucy’s character other than her occupation, name, and
age. Personality quirks like Lucy’s insecurity about her clothing in comparison
with her perfectly-put-together mother – who is the sort of person with the
perfect Ralph Lauren blouse and matching accessories for every occasion – help
make a character a well-rounded, flesh-and-blood person instead of a cardboard
sketch.
Vicki is currently taking a holiday from lighthouses to
write another series for Berkely Prime Crime, based on her own original idea of
year-round Christmas mysteries set in the fictional town of Rudolph, New York,
near Rochester. It’s the sort of classic Christmas-card setting that everyone
always pictures, regardless of where they live. Towns like Snowflake, Arizona
just can’t compete, as one of her characters declares when a reporter from a
famous international travel magazine comes to visit. Watch out for Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen and We Wish You a Murderous Christmas, soon
to be decking a bookshelf near you!
As far as their writing routines go, these two authors are
completely different. Vicki writes between 3-4 hours a day nonstop, on a tight
schedule. She doesn’t tend to write when she’s touring because interruptions
throw off her routine. Kate, on the other hand, writes for 8 hours per day, but
not straight through; she’ll wander back and forth between writing and other
things. They did agree on the need for self-imposed discipline in order to
succeed at writing. In Vicki’s former life as a systems analyst, although the
deadlines for projects could be a year or two in the future, smaller chunks of
the work had to be delivered periodically to keep people on target. With books,
however, you can easily find yourself having waited until the last minute. While
pumping out 20,000 words per day under pressure can actually be done, Kate
assured us that it can’t be done well.
Vicki shows her manuscripts to a few trusted friends for
feedback before submitting them to her editor, while Kate has a romance-writer
friend who exchanges chapters with her for mutual editing. Kate will generally
edit the last chapter while the new one is being reviewed, so her completed
first draft is really more along the lines of a second draft. If she has time,
she finds that reading her manuscript aloud to feel the rhythm of the words is
very helpful. Vicki also likes to leave what she’s written for a few days so
she can look at it with fresh eyes. Vicki emphasized that editing your own work
all by yourself just isn’t possible – your mind glosses over what you think you
already know, so you see what you expect to see rather than what’s actually
there. Both of them write on a computer, rather than by hand.
When an audience member mentioned seeing more books lately
with typos, errors, and continuity problems, Kate noted that sometimes editors
will ask authors to move around parts of the story at the last minute; edits
under pressure can lead to something that’s dependent on an event later in the
story happening out of sequence. Vicki recently had a minor character named
Frances who, as she discovered when reading the manuscript proof, had her name
spelled two different ways. A good copywriter is essential to help catch things
like that.
When asked how they started writing, Kate notes that she was
driven to it during law school by the desire to kill her contracts professor,
“the worst person in the world.” She’d take Fridays off to study, and would
instead write stories in which the despised teacher met a grisly end. Although
she was a legal secretary who came from a family of lawyers, she only lasted a
year in law school before she quit. She knew she was capable of doing it, but
hated “lawyer thinking” – her mind works in terms of right and wrong, not
arguing the other side. So, all her legal research went into writing three
books about lawyers which received very good rejections. Proving that
persistence pays off, this New York Times
bestselling author wrote for about 20 years before she finally sold a book. It
wasn’t until she figured out a series hook that she managed to get published. A
“hook” is the concept that sustains the series, like bookbinding or a library
in a lighthouse.
Vicki, meanwhile, began writing by emulating Kate’s
childhood bookbinding adventures. She wrote a story for her daughters one
Christmas, including their own names, and hand-bound it with red ribbon. She
enjoyed the experience so much that she took a course at community college,
which unfortunately taught her that she really didn’t want to write kids’ books
for a living. However, since she needed to turn in writing to complete the
course, and already liked mystery novels, she tried her hand at that.
Both also wrote for wish fulfillment, to a certain extent.
Vicki set her Constable Molly Smith Mysteries in a setting modeled after the
real town of Nelson (not named after Admiral Nelson, like she had initially assumed),
because she wanted to be there rather than in downtown Toronto working as a
systems analyst. This was also why Kate chose wine country as a setting; she
took so long to sell her books that she put everything in them that she wanted
to be near.
When asked why she didn’t write any mysteries incorporating
the show business experience she gained working behind the scenes on Solid Gold, The Gong Show, The Dating Game, and The Newlywed Game, Kate confessed that
she did actually try that in her first, unpublished book. When searching for a
hook for a series, she thought of using a wardrobe mistress, since she loved
the idea of featuring the costumes. It might have been viable if the character
worked for a small theater in more of a cozy-friendly environment, but
traditional mystery readers don’t find Hollywood and show business very
appealing. She’s decided to leave it to her ex-boss Chuck Barris to write the
show-biz mysteries. The writing experience she gained on the shows came in
handy, though -- as script supervisor, her first writing job was trying to drag
funny stories out of the couples on The
Newlywed Game. Once you’ve done that, you can do anything.
Vicki isn’t inclined to write books based on her own job
experience, either; readers will wait in vain for The Royal Analyst Bank
Mysteries to appear. She has a great deal of other life experience to draw on,
though. She’s traveled throughout the world, although there are still some
places she hasn’t been. She lived in South Africa for 7 years, and went on
safari with her daughter, a Canadian diplomat, stationed in Sudan. That setting
found its way into Juba Good, one of
her “Rapid Reads.” These are novellas written for adults with low literacy
skills, who are learning English as a second language, or even just commuters
who want a very fast read for the train. They contain adult language, themes,
and plots, but are written at about a second or third grade reading level. In
some ways, she is following in the footsteps of her mother, who taught first
and second grade. Vicki confessed that, contrary to what you might expect,
Rapid Reads are much harder to write than a regular novel, since you have to
carefully analyze each sentence to make sure it’s not too complex. At this point,
librarian Stephanie pointed out that the Velma Teague Library owned a copy of
one of her Rapid Reads, A Winter Kill,
in our special adult literacy collection.
An audience member immediately proceeded to check it out. The Velma Teague
Library: always at your service!
The library is grateful to both Vicki Delany and Kate
Carlisle for a very entertaining evening, despite the lack of actual wine (or
lighthouses) on site. Thanks also to The Poisoned Pen for selling books at this
event. For more information about Vicki and Kate’s books, see
www.vickidelany.com and
www.katecarlisle.com.
By Book or by Crook by Eva Gates. NAL. 2015.
978-0451470935, 352p.
This Old Homicide by Kate Carlisle. Penguin. 2015. 9780451469205. 336p.
Cynthia Barnett is an environmental and science journalist. Her book, Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, is the first book to tell the story of rain. The account begins four billion years ago, and builds to the storms of climate change. Along the way, Barnett shows rain as a unifying force, telling the history of rain, and using the book as a travelogue. (Release date is April 21.)
In Lori Benson's The Wood's Edge, cultures collide on the New York frontier of 1757. It's home to the Oneida tribe and British colonists. When Major Reginald Aubrey swaps his stillborn son for the white son of an Oneida mother, he makes a choice that will haunt the lives of everyone involved. (Release date is April 21.)
I don't have time to review every book I receive, but I will be reading and reviewing James O. Born's Scent of Murder. I'm looking forward to the novel that W.E.B. Griffin calls "A gritty, realistic look at the men, women, and dogs in police K-9 units." Deputy Tim Hallett was tossed from the detective bureau after using questionable tactics while catching a child molester. Now, assigned to a special K-9 unit with the best partner in the world, a Belgian Malinois named Rocky, he uncovers the scent of a predator, one who seems connected to the case that destroyed his career. (Release date is April 7.)
A June of Ordinary Murders is a mystery debut that brings 1880s Dublin to life. Conor Brady, the former editor of The Irish Times, introduces Detective Sergeant Joe Swallow, investigating an "ordinary" crime. The Dublin Metropolitan Police classified crime in two classes; political crimes were seen as "special", and theft, robbery, and murder were "ordinary". But, it isn't long before Swallow's murder investigation suggests high-level involvement, leading to the navigation of political waters. (Release date is April 21.)
Cold Trail is Janet Dawson's eleventh mystery featuring PI Jeri Howard. Her current missing persons' case is a personal one; her brother, Brian is missing. She thought his life was in great shape. But, she discovers there were problems in his marriage and with his job. And, two police detectives think Brian may have been involved in a homicide. It's time to find her brother. (Release date is April 7.)
Lisa Genova, author of Still Alice, now examines Huntington's disease in her latest novel, Inside the O'Briens. Joe O'Brien, a respected Boston police officer of only forty-four is also a devoted husband and father. But, his strange episodes of disorganized thinking and uncharacteristic temper outbursts lead to a diagnosis of Huntington's disease, a lethal disease with no treatment or cure. And, each of Joe's four adult children has a 50 percent chance of inheriting the disease. While Joe's symptoms worsen, and he struggles to maintain hope, his children have to decide to take the simple test that will reveal their future, or live their lives "at risk". (Release date is April 7.)
What You Left Behind is Samantha Hayes' latest thriller, a story that explores the devastating aftermath of suicide. The rural village of Radcote has just begun to heal two years after a terrifying rash of teenage suicides. Now, it appears that that nightmare once again threatens the community. When Detective Inspector Lorraine Fisher takes a vacation to Radcote to visit her sister, she becomes determined to discover the truth behind the deaths, and find answers that might help her own nephew. (Release date is April 14.)
Reykjavik Nights is a prequel to Arnaldur Indridason's series featuring Inspector Erlendur. The tenth volume in the series finds Erlendur a young, inexperienced detective walking beat on the streets in Reykjavik, encountering routine traffic accidents, theft, domestic violence, and an unexplained death. When Erlendur is the only one who cares about the death of a tramp, he's dragged into a strange, dark underworld. (Release date is April 21.)
