When History Rhymes

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Wow, we have such a treat for you today! Introducing, or re-introducing, the fabulous duo of Deb Well and Gabriel Valjan. Deb is a wonderful author, and an editor at Level Best Books. And Gabriel is a multi-award-winning and much acclaimed author. They are a duo and a team on every level.

And today, grab your own cup of coffee or tea and join them at the breakfast table. They have the most interesting conversations!

When History Rhymes

By Deb Well and Gabriel Valjan

When the CIA targeted Tehran in 1953, it changed the world. In Eyes to Deceit, Gabriel Valjan brings that tense, shadowy moment to life, following writer/agent Walker from Malibu to Rome, while a Holocaust survivor navigates the Catskills in pursuit of a crucial key to success. Today, Valjan talks with Level Best Books editor of Celluloid Crimes Deb Well, about the motivation behind his recent fiction, the women in his novel, and the history we often overlook—but should not forget.

DW: You have a new book out this month in your Company Files series, taking your reticent Walker from Malibu to Rome, while Holocaust survivor Sheldon visits the Catskills to work an asset in exchange for the names of Nazis who escaped justice. Tell us about Eyes to Deceit and why you chose the 1953 Iranian coup as your focus.

GV: Mark Twain said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” History is stranger than fiction—but poorly taught. The Coup of ’53 fascinated me because its consequences still ripple today. Allen W. Dulles emerged as the master architect of realpolitik, shaping moves that echoed for decades.

The novel shows more than strategy—it shows people. Betrayals, moral compromises, personal tensions—these made Operation AJAX more than a footnote, and they didn’t stay in Tehran; they shaped CIA policy in other foreign interferences and led, eventually, to the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1979.

DW: Your books feature strong women navigating a male-dominated world. How did you make that feel authentic without losing edge?

GV: Three women stand out in Eyes. Leslie, formerly MI6, now CIA, was blocked after the war—she refuses to settle into domestic life. Tania mirrors her: brilliant, multilingual, but scarred by trauma, awkward socially. Then there’s Clare Boothe Luce, the first U.S. ambassador to Italy—outspoken, audacious, brilliant.

They’re true to their era but fully alive, capable, uncompromising. They bend but don’t break. In a world built to sideline them, their choices carry consequences.

DW: You clearly did extensive research. Were there any unexpected discoveries and challenges?

GV: Writing the Catskills required delicacy. I worried readers would think of Dirty Dancing, but these resorts were a refuge, an oasis of culture—an escape from antisemitism in the cities. That history deserved respect.

Allen Dulles was trickier. Immense power, almost mythic. After Bay of Pigs, JFK fired him—but he showed up at work the next day as if nothing had happened. He later helped staff the Warren Commission. Capturing the chess master at play and that authority without caricature were monumental challenges.

DW: Both your Company Files and Shane Cleary series are historical. What draws you to the past as a setting?

GV: The past frees me from technology and lets me focus on human behavior. Nuance mattered then. A woman could be judged for her gloves, a curse word, or a public misstep. A Black maid might keep two sets of shoes—one for work, one for home. These small details shape stakes, reveal character, heighten tension.

Since we’re talking nuance, let’s pivot to Celluloid Crimes. You edited this anthology. When arranging the stories, how did you think about pacing readers or sequencing authors? Did you aim for rising tension, tonal variation, or something else?

DW: In choosing the stories for this anthology, the two things they all had in common were a strong voice and a tonal aspect of what I call “Hollywood Noir. When I reviewed all the stories I had chosen, I was surprised that they were almost evenly split between male and female narrators/protagonists. So I immediately thought it would be great to alternate the stories between male and female voices. Additionally, when I first read Colin Campbell’s story, Picture Palace Blues, I knew I wanted it to be the anchor – or last story of the collection. Since it was the only one set in contemporary times, ordering the stories in a loose chronology from the 20s till today made sense.

GV: I love that your anthology captures something from each decade. For you, what makes a story irresistible—compelling characters, a twisty plot, or a unique use of language?

DW: As I mention in the Afterword, I look for strong voice and a story – no “sketch” or “vignette”. And the ending must be satisfying. So a twisty plot is nice – but only if it makes sense. Compelling characters are important to me. But it’s that unique voice – that’s what makes a story – or a novel, for that matter – something I can’t put down – and that I will recommend to everyone I know that they have to read.

Back to Eyes to Deceit: what’s next for both your series?

GV: The fifth Company Files novel, The Nameless Lie, dives into the Suez Canal Crisis. Shane Cleary six, Four on the Floor, draws on Boston’s Blackfriars Massacre. Both explore the human cost of history—the ways small choices cascade into global consequences.

DW: One last question. If a reader takes only one thing from Eyes to Deceit, what would you want it to be?

GV: That history isn’t abstract. It’s felt, lived, sometimes hidden in plain sight. Fiction can’t fix it—but it can remind us what it felt like—and why those choices still matter today.

Reds and Readers! In both history and fiction, secrets drive the story. Which secret from history would you most want to uncover?


HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: OH, what a great question. What happened to the lost colony of Roanoke? What’s the real deal about Amelia Earhart? (Cannot wait to read that new book.) What really happened in the Cuban Missile crisis? I know you all will have many more…

Deborah Well is an editor, marketing consultant, and digital strategist. After working for several decades in the finance realm, she has been happy to see her English degree get put to good use in her “retirement career” in the publishing world. Deb lives in Boston’s South End with her partner, author Gabriel Valjan.

Gabriel Valjan is the author of The Company Files, and the Shane Cleary Mysteries with Level Best Books. He has been nominated for the Agatha, Anthony, Derringer, and Silver Falchion awards. He received the 2021 Macavity Award for Best Short Story, and the Shamus Award for Best PI in 2023. Gabriel is a member of the Historical Novel Society, ITW, MWA, and Sisters in Crime. He lives in Boston with his partner, Deb Well.

And both answer to a their much-memed tuxedo cat, Munchkin.

Catriona Confesses

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Woohoo, and ruffles and flourishes! Today we welcome, with great fanfare, one of the dearest and best friends of the Reds, the brilliant and incomparable Catriona McPherson. A blazingly good writer, and infinitely hilarious, her books are consistently terrific--thoughtful and funny and twisty.

I don't know how she does it. Some of her books are so deeply dark and literary and thought provoking that they will break your heart (and your brain, too), and others are laugh-out-loud funny.

Today, she offers a confession.

 

Confessions of a Philistine

   By Catriona McPherson

 

In Scot’s Eggs, the eighth Last Ditch Motel mystery, the fluffy-soft, pastel-shaded innocence of an Easter holiday in Cuento, CA, is somewhat spoiled by the murder of two tourists and especially by the crime scene, which is a vintage Mustang full – like seriously full – of their blood. It’s been left in the hot sun for a week until the arrival of the turkey vultures makes someone take a closer look.

Why’d it take a week? Because the killers parked it outside the brand new art museum on the UCC campus, where the curators mistook it for the early arrival of the promised work by a young creator from an Oakland collective, who’s long been interested in decay.

I can’t lie; I had a lot of fun writing the employees of the Patsy Denoni Cultural Center and their combination of aching earnestness and corporate lock-step. Here’s just a flavour.

Fern had arrived at our side. ‘These resources are free and there is no entry charge,” she said. ‘But we encourage you to make a small donation to support our work in celebrating, promoting and protecting the diverse practices of artistic expression by the families of peoples who comprise our communities.’

 

Before any of us could answer, another woman came our way, stalking across the polished marble in spike heels. It took some kind of confidence to walk that fast in those shoes on this surface, but she was being powered by irritation.

 

‘Diverse expressions of artistic practice, Fern,’ she said. ‘The communities of peoples who comprise our family. Wait.’ She coloured slightly. ‘Diverse communities of expressive practice, to protect the arts of-’ She sniffed. ‘We suggest fifty dollars.’

 

I had even more fun describing the art itself, but it’s too gross for this blog. (Yes, I know I described a Mustang full of blood. The actual art is worse.) As ever, I need to say that the opinions expressed – here regarding the collection – are those of the fictional Lexy Campbell, nothing to do with me.

Ahem.

Honestly?

Every so often an exhibition of conceptual art blows me away completely. I saw a dozen pieces at the Serpentine in London a few years back that still haunt me – hyper-realistic and disturbing – and there’s a sliced-apart full-size house at Tate Modern with a film of 1950s DIY leaflets playing in the slices that . . . maybe you have to be there but it’s amazing. Also, I think Shedboatshed – the wee huttie dismantled, turned into a boat, sailed to the museum and reassembled into a shed again thoroughly deserved its Turner Prize. And I’ve got a lot of time for Tracy Emin. Even her Bed.

But.

The pile of wrapped sweeties (US hard candy?) in the all-white room in the National Gallery that the museum-goers are supposed to help themselves from? (And presumably suck as they walk round the rest of the exhibition? Dropping the wrappers?) It doesn’t work. There’s a security guard on duty. Who’s going to eat the art when there’s a guy in a uniform watching?

And in another room of that same exhibition, we read the card and peered about looking for the art for ages, wondering if someone had stolen it, before we realised it was the light fixture plugged in low down on one wall and tacked up and across the ceiling.

“Okay,” I remember Neil saying. “So we’re in one of those ‘But what is Art?’ exhibitions.” He cleared his throat. “So. What is Art?” There was a long silence then someone behind us whispered “You forgot to say Hey, Siri.” So we weren’t the only Philistines in there that day.

Look, I’m not saying it’s not an interesting question. (Seriously, what is Art?) only that you can’t necessarily stand in front of a pile of sweeties, ask yourself what art is for a while, then move on, ask it again underneath a light fixture, and on again and on and on, in front of, under, on top of, or sucking on another fifteen or twenty works. At some point you start wondering if the café’s any good. I do.

How about you, Jungle Red readers? Are you big fans of conceptual art? If so, have you lost any respect you ever had for me? I might as well put the cherry on top and tell you that my favourite artist is Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn then. Mostly because he painted women with love and tenderness, not as if he’d simply scoured the Bible for any page where someone’s dress fell off. And his unflinching gaze at his aging self makes me want to give him a cuddle.

 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  See, Reds and readers, easy question today: what is Art? 

(This always reminds me of when my editor and I were discussing one of my book covers.

She said: I’ll tell Art what you said.

 I said: Great, tell him I appreciate it.

And she said, no, there’s no Art, I meant the art department.

I mean, how’m I supposed to know that?  But that’s a question of WHO is Art. Not today’s question, which is: WHAT is art. See?  Weigh in, Reds and readers!

 

 

Serial awards-botherer, Catriona McPherson (she/her) was born in Scotland and immigrated to the US in 2010. A former linguistics professor, she is now a full-time fiction writer and has published: preposterous 1930s private-detective stories about a toff; realistic 1940s amateur-sleuth stories about an oik; and contemporary psychothriller standalones. These are all set in Scotland with a lot of Scottish weather. She also writes modern comic crime capers about a Scot-out-of-water in a “fictional” college town in Northern California sneezedavissneeze.

Catriona is a proud lifetime member and former national president of Sisters in Crime.  www.catrionamcpherson.com

finally, Finally, FINALLY: At Midnight Comes the Cry is here!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: To understand how excited I am today, you need to realize my last published book was released on April 4, 2020. In the 5 years, 7 months and two weeks since then, most of my writer friends have released 5-6 books. Rhys (and her co-writer Clare Broyles) have put out 14 novels, and Jenn, I assume, has published 57.

 

By the way, today is also the book birthday for FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE, the latest, much-anticipated Royal Spyness mystery, and the reason you're not reading about that book is because Rhys was gracious enough to insist I take the spotlight instead. Thank you, Rhys!

 

The prospect of the publication of AT MIDNIGHT COMES THE CRY kicked off a lot of positive changes in my life. I finally got a new website, courtesy of Xuni.com. I figured out how to post to both Instagram and Facebook at the same time, and my daughter Virginia taught me how to do Insta stories. (Reels are still to come.) I restarted my newsletter, News From the Kill - with many thanks to Jenn, who inspired me to try Substack, where she hosts her own newsletter. 

 

 And I just feel, well, more on top of things. More organized, more able to take one the myriad of tasks popping up every day. Part if that is undoubtedly because Karma and Janey have returned to Victoria's house (dogsitting those two was the LONGEST three weeks of my life.) Part of it is due to my friend Celia Wakefield's suggestions, tips, techniques and plain old kicking me in the butt. Which is why this book is dedicated to her.

 

 Surprise, Celia!

 

Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me during the long, long, LONG journey to seeing the 10th Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery in bookstores. I love you, and even more importantly, appreciate you all. I hope to see some of you while I'm on tour, or, next spring, at Malice Domestic. When we meet up, rest assured, the drinks are on me!