Thursday, December 12, 2019

All Gods Dead: a Guest Post by Donis Casey

RHYS BOWEN:  Donis Casey is one of my Arizona pals so I was excited to find that she was branching out from her terrific Oklahoma series and creating an exciting new heroine--a star of the silent screen in 1920s Hollywood. I'm delighted to host her today and share her essay on MYSTERIES SET BETWEEN THE WARS  (a subject that is close to my own heart!)
DONIS CASEY:
Many times in my life I have encountered a strange phenomenon that occurs whenever I think I've had an original idea. Suddenly that idea will reproduce itself like bunnies in the minds of others. For instance, if I had named a son Jason in 1981, which at the time I thought no boy had been named since the Argonauts sailed, he'd have been one of ten Jasons in his kindergarten class.

I encountered this "group consciousness" phenomenon last year after I wrote the final novel of the Alafair Tucker series, which is set in the insular world of rural Oklahoma in the 1910s. Forty Dead Men deals with the effects of World War I, both on those who went to battle and those who served at home. Everything had changed in my characters' lives during the brief decade that the series covered. I had finally reached the time of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken." (This Side of Paradise, 1920)

I was energized and excited to plunge into an entirely new series that takes place during the roaring 1920s, The Adventures of Bianca Dangereuse, featuring a headstrong girl who runs away from home in 1920 and by sheer will and a lot of good fortune ends up a silent movie star. The first episode, The Wrong Girl (2019), came to be in the most organic way, but could it be that I've tuned in to the zeitgeist yet again? Over the past few years there has been a spate of wonderful series set in the period between the two world wars and featuring fabulous women who were strong enough to change themselves as radically as their circumstances had changed – Charles Todd's Bess Crawford, Rhys Bowen's Lady Georgie, Catriona McPherson's Dandy Gilver, and Kerry Greenwood's inimitable Phrynne Fisher, just to name a few great ones. We are about to enter the 2020s, one hundred years after the end of the Great War, and there are eerie parallels to the turn of the 20th century. There was a desperation to the years between the wars that reminds me of today. Nothing has been quite the same since 2001. We are cynical, foolhardy, afraid of "the other", and eager for distraction.I've read several excellent new books by authors who have joined me up here in the collective-consciousness-sphere and written impressive stories about those dark inter-war years and women who rose to the occasion. Anna Lee Huber's action filled mystery Penny for Your Secrets (2019) is a well-researched and engaging look at the lingering aftermath of war. It features former British Secret Service agent Verity Kent, who is trying to adjust to her post-WWI life and repair her marriage after a three year separation. When Verity's friend Ada, Lady Rockham, jokingly threatens to shoot her husband at a dinner party, her ill-advised attempt at humor makes her the prime suspect when Lord Rockham is shot to death that very night. In the meantime, one of Verity's ex-colleagues at MI5 asks her to investigate the death of her half-sister. The police believe the woman's murder was a botched robbery, but nothing is missing from her room except letters her French cousins wrote to her during the war. Verity stumbles upon a clue that links the two seemingly unrelated deaths together by an unlikely event - a wartime shipwreck on the French coast in which the entire crew disappeared. In Maisie Dobbs (2003), Jacqueline Winspear's working-class Englishwoman Maisie Dobbs manages to lift herself out of servitude through brains and hard work. But when WWI breaks out and Maisie volunteers as a nurse, her tragic experiences change her. After the war, she decides that the best way to help herself and others is to utilize her own extraordinary intuition as a private investigator. Winspear's beautiful use of period detail, as well as the quiet, driven, character of Maisie herself are irresistible. The Maisie Dobbs series has grown to fifteen books, taking the reader through the entire inter-war period. Her most recent Maisie Dobbs mystery,The American Agent (2019), is set in London during the Blitz of 1940. Maisie is still dealing with her own traumas, but she has grown and learned even if the world never does. In much of the United States, the only thing that changed for some after the first war was that many women were left to pick up the pieces when their men either did not return or returned irreparably damaged. The Hollows (Jan. 2020), set in the fall of 1926, is Jess Montgomery's evocative sequel to The Widows (2019) and continues the story of Bronwyn County, Ohio, Sheriff Lily Ross and her friends. Lily is called to investigate the death of an elderly woman who has fallen from the top of Moonvale Hollow tunnel into the path of an oncoming train. Lily learns that the woman, Thea Kincaide, has escaped from the Hollows Asylum for the Insane. In retracing Thea's path from the asylum to the site of her death, Lily finds disturbing evidence that the war did not lay all the evils of the past to rest. Beautifully written, poetic, and full of fascinating historical detail, Montgomery portrays the strength of the brave women who became the pillars and support of their families in the face of their own grief after losing their husbands. 


The Pearl Dagger (2019), L.A. Chandlar's third Art Deco Mystery, set in 1937, is a love letter to Depression-era New York City, filled with eccentric, colorful characters both real and fictional. After a cop friend is killed in an ambush, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's personal aide Lane Sanders and Detective Finn Brodie learn that a nefarious international crime syndicate called the Red Scroll may be behind a plot to bring down the crime-busting mayor. But Red Scroll was believed to have gone out of business years earlier when its mastermind Rex Ruby died. Could someone be trying to resurrect his criminal empire? LaGuardia sends Lane and Finn to England to investigate, where they find that the past is never past, and it's also very personal.

The atmospheric and intricately plotted Gallows Court (2019) is the first in a new series by Martin Edwards. Set in London in 1930, it features rich, reclusive, mysterious Rachel Savernake, and a callow young reporter for the Clarion named Jacob Flint. When the Clarion's chief crime reporter is critically injured by a hit and run driver, Jacob takes over the job of investigating a series of horrific deaths that all have a connection to a cryptic secret society. The elusive Rachel keeps turning up with leads for Jacob to follow, but is she really helping him or leading him down the garden party? In fact, is Rachel at all who she seems to be? Is anyone involved with this dark, twisted case what they appear? Edwards has evoked a grim, sooty, inter-war world, shrouded in fog and evil intentions.The era between World War I and World War II is one of my favorite periods of history. It's a world reeling from the shock of a global bloodbath, a devastating pandemic, and unchecked growth and greed. By 1920, everything had changed. Women had done their bit and finally knew their own worth, and all the rules of pre-war society were changing. People were disillusioned with politics and religion had failed them. Then the decade of the 1920s roared itself right off a cliff, and the early thirties began a long, slow, slide into chaos. But hard times create tough people. It was a time for everyone, especially women, to reinvent themselves.____________Donis Casey is the author of The Wrong Girl, the first episode of a fresh new series starring Bianca LaBelle, star of the silent screen action serial, The Adventures of Bianca Dangereuse. In addition to this coming-of-age tale of a girl in the glamorous 1920s, Casey is also the author of the Alafair Tucker Mysteries, an award-winning series featuring the sleuthing mother of ten children, set in Oklahoma during the booming 1910s. Donis is a former teacher, academic librarian, and entrepreneur. She lives in Tempe, Arizona.

40 comments:

  1. Indeed, war does change everything, Donis, and life often forces women to reinvent themselves. The roaring twenties are an interesting time; I’m looking forward to meeting Bianca in the pages of your new book . . . .

    ReplyDelete
  2. Just a little further in the future, you've got Renee Patrick's fun 1930's Hollywood set Edith Head mysteries as well.

    I do love Hollywood set mysteries. I'll be on the look out for yours.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for reminding me, Mark. Those are fun books. I'll have to re-read.

      Delete
  3. It's a long way from rural Oklahoma to the wilds of Hollywood in any era. Congratulations on making the leap with your new book. I have read Anna Lee Huber's Verity Kent books, and I can highly recommend them. I look forward to reading yours,

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oklahoma to Hollywood was quite a jump indeed, Gigi. Talk about a shift in research!

      Delete
  4. Thanks for that compendium, Donis. I didn't know Jess Montgomery had a sequel coming out - I'm looking forward to that one, and to yours.

    I know about that zeitgeist thing - I'm currently working on something set in 1920, too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Also, thanks to whichever Red enlarged the font. I could barely read it earlier! Blessings.

      Delete
    2. There's something in the air, Edith.

      Delete
  5. It is an interesting time, those years between the wars. I look forward to reading your book.

    And now I have a question: Your name, Donis. I had an Aunt Donis although everyone called her Donie. You are the only other person I know with that name. Do you have any idea of the origin?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And is it pronounced like Don or like Doan? Thanks!

      Delete
    2. What Ann said. I've always enjoyed the Adonis comparison. My husband's name is Don. We're Don and Donis. Couldn't plan it if we tried.

      Delete
    3. My apologies! I misread Donis as Doris. That is what happens when I am sleepy in the morning!

      Delete
  6. Donis, sometimes it seems to me that the 1920s are caricatured as a time of fun, fun, fun! Progress! Moving into the modern world! And we forget what came before and after. When I first began to delve into genealogical research, it was like feeling a shadow creep across my heart--seeing the dates of death pop up across a family and realizing the Spanish flu epidemic or WWI was responsible. Seeing families shattered and separated. I'm familiar with many of the authors you mention, but will be getting acquainted with others--and will be searching out Bianca's first outing as well!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Flora. I know what you mean about the genealogical research. One of my Alafair books is set during the pandemic of 1918 and I used a lot of family stories.

      Delete
    2. You are fortunate they would talk about it, Donis. None of my relatives who survived the Spanish Flu would talk about it.

      Delete
  7. I would imagine any time after a cataclysmic even is ripe for stories, and the 1920s seem no different. What a great compendium - including yours!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. disasters are good for literature, especially mysteries, if nothing else.

      Delete
  8. Donis- I love the Alafair series and I know I will love this new venture equally as well! I love that you’re taking on this time period and old Hollywood - Yay!!! Plus, your book cover is FABULOUS!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think it's the best cover ever, dear Jenn, so evocative of the time and place, even if I had nothing to do with the design - except make sure that they had that Hollywood sign say "Hollywoodland", which it did in 1926.

      Delete
  9. Looking forward to meeting Bianca.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She's a bit of a brat, but I love her. Hope you do too, Kait

      Delete
  10. Yes,yes,yes, Donis, on all you wrote. The 1920's was a reaction to the way the world fell apart, and there is room for lots of stories. Includng yours which Iknow will be excellent. You could add the tc series Downton Abbey to your list. It starts right after the sinking of the Titanic, 1912. Here are these people , not actually so happy in a lot of ways but at the height of physical comfort, status and power in their world. And they don't know - but we do! - that it is all about to be brought smashing down by a gunshot in a place they barely knew about. I think that is part of what made it so gripping. (Aside from the costumes, romances and witty dialogue of course!)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I loved how the family and servants at Downton slowly changed with the times, besides the fact that the production is so visually gorgeous. My Alafair series started in 1912, coincidentally, and moved forward year by year until I just reached an unalterably changed world and decided to go for it.

      Delete
    2. p.s. your new Brooklyn book is wonderful.

      Delete
    3. Awww. Thank you. Made my day

      Delete
  11. Doris, welcome to Jungle Reds! You mentioned many of my favorite heroines. Look forward to meeting Bianca!

    Did you know that the Silent Films era before the talkies was the only time Deaf people had equal access? Since there was no sound in films, deaf actors and deaf actresses could act in movies. I grew up watching silent films at Art museums and that was my definition of acting. Charlie Chaplin hired Deaf actors and Deaf actresses for his silent films. And Charlie Chaplin learned sign language too?

    The Joker from the Batman tv series - Cesar Romero - his aunt and uncle were Deaf actors in the Silent films.

    Unfortunately, the talkies changed all that!

    Diana

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What an interesting bit of information! But of course it makes perfect sense. This series takes place right at the end of the silent era, 1926, thought there were silents made for a few years more. I used silent movie title cards in place of chapter headings in this book, and I LOVED doing that research. The title cards in old movies could be really clever.

      Delete
  12. Hi Donis! Thanks for the wonderful compendium! I've read many of the books you've mentioned and will be checking out those I haven't--including yours. I just saw Martin Edwards when I was in Liverpool recently, so am especially looking forward to Gallows Court.

    I've always found the shared consciousness thing fascinating, too. My favorite case in point is the books by British authors Reginald Hill and Peter Robinson, On Beulah Height and In a Dry Season, both about the reemergence of a Yorkshire village that had been drowned by a reservoir, and written almost simultaneously without either having knowledge of the other.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I loved Martin's book, Deborah. Talk about atmosphere!

      Delete
  13. I've long loved Donis's Alafair Tucker series (in fact, I gave a very enthusiastic quote for one of the early ones) so I'm thrilled to see this new spin off to a new series. The between-wars era remains endlessly fascinating to me, so I appreciate the introduction to several books I hadn't already heard of!

    And Donis - will we be seeing cameos of the Tucker family in the Bianca Dangereuse Hollywood Mysteries?

    ReplyDelete
  14. You bet, Julia. Not too often, but some of the siblings show up from time to time. As for the parents, I'm trying to figure out how to do a cross-over, but that'll be in the future. I loved your new book, btw.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Some of my favorite book series, plus ones I don't know.
    Fantastic.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are so many more, too, Libby, and so little time!

      Delete
  16. I’ve read many of the books you mentioned. That period of history fascinates me. I would add Amanda Quick’s Burning Cove series to the list. I hope to make Bianca’s acquaintance soon!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I haven't read Amanda's series, Pat. I'll have to add that to my TBR pile.

      Delete
  17. Donis, I love your statement, " Suddenly that idea will reproduce itself like bunnies in the minds of others." That has happened to me so many times, and, yes, when I named my daughter Ashley, there was only one other Ashley I knew, and, of course, I soon discovered that there were Ashleys popping up everywhere. I loved your post about all the great series, a few I've read and others I want to. Your The Wrong Girl sounds wonderful, and I am adding it to my TBR list.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope you like it, Kathy. And as for the group consciousness thing, it happens to me whenever I decide to try anything new, like buy a Subaru. Suddenly there are a thousand Subarus on the road. I don't know what it is!

      Delete