Allison Montclair--Murder at the White Palace

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Such a treat today to have Allison Gordon, whose Sparks and Bainbridge series is one of my absolute favorites of the last few years! In the novels, Iris Sparks, a former intelligence operative, and Gwendolyn Bainbridge, a widow with a six-year-old son, open a marriage bureau in 1946 London, and it turns out that they have a talent for solving crimes as well as making matches. Allison, who you may know from previous posts is actually the always entertaining Alan Gordon, is here to tell us what they are up to in their latest adventure, MURDER AT THE WHITE PALACE.

"When The Underlying Story Meets The Standalone"

Allison Montclair 

 

  When I began writing the Sparks and Bainbridge series, I had the benefit of learning from writing another historical series, my Fools' Guild mysteries. I now had a veteran writer's perspective on creating backstories and needs for the characters to drive the books beyond the immediate needs of the body on their doorstep.

  So I made sure that I had enough to complicate the lives of Gwen Bainbridge and Iris Sparks to hopefully make the reader care about their lives. I was interested in writing about the traumatic impact of WWII on two British women in different economic and social situations. Gwen, the daughter of the aristocracy whose perfect marriage and life were shattered with the death of her husband, leading to her suicide attempt and commitment to a sanatarium and Iris, whose intellect and abilities propelled her from Cambridge into British Intelligence operations, where she was forced to do things that destroyed much of her life and her sense of self.

  The Right Sort Marriage Bureau, the setting for the series, was meant to reflect the healing process that was needed, both by the two women, but also symbolizing the recovery of London after the war.

  And I may have done too good a job, because once they were living full time inside my head, I needed to know what was going to happen with their lives as much as anyone.  But this is a mystery series, which meant that in order for me to write the underlying stories and progress for the two, I would have to keep having them jump into murder investigations. So the bodies started piling up. The first book starts in June, 1946, and it's been virtually Murder By The Month ever since.

  I like to call this Jessica Fletcher Syndrome, where you have to keep inventing plausible scenarios for your protagonist to be investigating. Yet I am trying to avoid repetition and cliches. It ain't easy. I learned this lesson early as a kid watching "Mannix," and realizing that reunions of old school chums is a situation fraught with danger.

  With the latest book, MURDER AT THE WHITE PALACE, I am tying up some storylines set up from the beginning. Gwen is finally free of the restrictions of the Court of Lunacy and her controlling in-laws, while Iris is ready to move forward with her relationship with her gangster boyfriend, Archie, planning on finally introducing him to her MP mother while going public with him at his nephew's wedding. The Right Sort is organizing a New Year's dance for their unmatched clients, and Archie has a night club undergoing renovation that may do the trick.

In the immediate post-war days of London, two unlikely partners have undertaken an even more unlikely, if necessary, business venture—The Right Sort Marriage Bureau. The two partners are Miss Iris Sparks, a woman with a dangerous—and never discussed—past in British intelligence and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge, a genteel war widow with a young son entangled in a complicated aristocratic family. Looking to throw a New Year’s Eve soiree for their clients, Sparks and Bainbridge scout an empty building—only to find a body contained in the walls. What they initially assume is a victim of the recent Blitz is uncovered instead to be a murder victim—stabbed several times.

To make matters worse, the owner of the building is Sparks’ beau, Archie Spelling, who has ties to a variety of enterprises on the right and wrong sides of the law, and the main investigator for the police is her ex-fiancée. Gwen, too, is dealing with her own complicated love life, as she tentatively steps back into the dating pool for the first time since her husband’s death. Murder is not something they want to add to their plates, but the murderer may be closer to home than is comfortable, and they must do all they can to protect their clients, their business and themselves. 

Allison Montclair is the pseudonym of Alan Gordon. As Allison, she writes the Sparks and Bainbridge mysteries, beginning with THE RIGHT SORT OF MAN (The ALA Reading List Council’s Best Mystery of 2019). Set in 1946 London, the books detail the adventures and struggles of two women trying to run a licensed marriage bureau. The fifth book, THE LADY FROM BURMA, was released this past July. 

DEBS: Readers, does the Jessica Fletcher syndrome worry you when you read novels with amateur detectives?

Are You Ready for the Olympics?

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  How is it time for the Olympics again? 

Even though the Olympics switched to alternating the Winter and Summer Games in 1994 with the Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway (although the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France were held only two years before Lillehammer) I had too many years of expecting the Olympics to roll around every four years, and my brain still hasn't managed to reset itself. (Moving the 2020 Summer Games to 2021 didn't help!) I do like the two-year system, however. Winter and Summer Games in the same year were a bit of an overload--two years seems just long enough to get excited again. 

But, yes, it is time for the (testing your Roman numeral skills here) XXXIII Olympic Games, and in Paris to boot!

 

Although I live in a non-sports-watching household (I have to force my husband to watch the Superbowl) I love watching the Olympics. Favorite sports are (of course) gymnastics, rowing, equestrian, track, swimming, and diving, but I find I will watch just about anything once I am into the Olympic groove. (Rugby yesterday, although I really have no idea what's going on.) (Oops, maybe I shouldn't admit my ignorance since I write British novels...)

This will be the 3rd time in the history of the Games that Paris has hosted the Olympics.

But I suspect things are considerably more complicated now than they were in 1900 or 1924. The logistics of these games are amazing! Did you know there are over 10,000 athletes?? There will be 329 events across 39 sports. (Breakdancing, anyone? I'm up for it!)

There is a 3,500 seat restuarant. How will that even work? Where did they put all the visitors?

And, of course, there are the Opening Ceremonies, which will for the first time in the history of Games be held outside of a stadium. Instead, the Parade of Nations will take place on the River Seine. (Not talking about sewage, not talking about sewage...If the mayor can swim in it...)

Tomorrow night I'll be settled in front of the big screen TV with my popcorn, ready for the spectacle. How about you?

Bonus question: Who has been to the Games? I'd love to have made the 2012 Olympics in London, but couldn't swing it. But here are the 23 rowers from Leander Club chosen as part of this year's team GB rowing contingent. (Sorry, team USA, but you know who I'm rooting for on this one.)

Bonus question 2: Pay attention to the uniforms. Julia will have a pop quiz for you next week!

Bonus question 3: Favorite Olympic moment? Mine might have to be the from the 2012 Opening Ceremonies in London (although it makes me a little teary now.)

Marcy McCreary--The Summer of Love and Death

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Woodstock. One word. That's all most of us have to hear to immediately envision one of the defining cultural events of a generation. I was too young to go to Woodstock, but old enough to think it was all incredibly cool and romantic. How I would have loved to have had a bird's eye view of the festival.

Author Marcy McCreary has given us better than that, however, in her new novel THE SUMMER OF LOVE AND DEATH, a dual timeline story set in 1969 and in 2019. Here's Marcy to explain!

MARCY McCREARY: On Friday August 15, 1969, my mom took me and my twin sister to the (now-defunct) Catskills Game Farm. If you know anything about that location and that date, you’ll pretty much guess what happened next. Yup, we got stranded on the road along with hundreds of thousands of hippies on their way to the Woodstock Music & Art Fair. I was six years old at the time and being stuck in that traffic jam pretty much sums up my personal experience with Woodstock.

But that memory stuck with me, and even inspired scenes in my latest novel, The Summer of Love and Death. But my stuck-in-traffic experience was not going to cut it for truly understanding what went down during those three days of peace and love. And so my research journey began.

As you can well imagine, there is plenty of information about the Woodstock festival on the Internet (the bands, the crowds, the ticketing fiasco), but there is next to nothing about how security was handled and the role of law enforcement at Yasgur’s Farm in Bethel, New York, where the festival took place. What was there felt incomplete, and I suspected, not 100% accurate. To authentically render the novel’s flashback scenes, what I really needed was a firsthand account of policing at Woodstock and the surrounding area.

For my earlier novels, I had no trouble finding and interviewing detectives, lawyers, doctors, and forensics specialists who could answer my questions or provide background on a particular subject matter. What were the chances of tracking down one of the three hundred NYPD police officers who worked at the festival? Felt like I was in slim-to-none territory.

And then luck stepped in.

In the fall of 2022, while at a writer’s conference, I chatted up fellow writer Gregory Renz about my manuscript and he thought he might know someone who could provide some insight. A few weeks later, Greg put me in touch with Nick Chiarkas, an ex-NYPD cop (and crime writer!) who was one of the 300 “Peace Force” cops at Woodstock. 

Nick and I talked for hours about the security apparatus and his personal experiences at the event. In addition to describing how law enforcement handled the crowds, kept the peace, assisted in medical emergencies, Nick regaled me with personal anecdotes that I have woven into the story (with his blessing). Meeting Nick felt fateful, and I’m grateful for his contribution to the novel.

The Summer of Love and Death is a dual timeline murder mystery—2019 and 1969—set in the Catskills featuring a father-daughter detective team. Detective Susan Ford is investigating a murder that is eerily similar to her dad’s first case as a detective. Detective Will Ford’s chapters are set in 1969, with the historical events of that year unfolding around him—the Apollo moon landing, the Miracle Mets, the Vietnam War protests. It was fun to incorporate these events within the context of his scenes, get his take on them, and see how they influenced his worldview. And although his chapters are dark (he’s investigating a serial murder!), Will’s optimism and idealism mirror the sentiment of that era’s generation.

If you could go back in time and attend Woodstock, would you? Which band(s) would you want to see? Would you skinny dip?

DEBS: Oh, oh, can I just cheat here?? I love Marcy's questions! 

Even as a romantic teenager, I was a little creeped out by the idea of the crowds, so not sure I would want to be magically there. But I would love to experience it vicariously! The bands! I would love to have seen (and did see some in concert):

Hendrix. The Who. Joplin. Jefferson Airplane. Crosby, Stills, and Nash! But you know which one really jumped out at me? Country Joe and the Fish. Who grew up in the late sixties who couldn't sing Joe McDonald's "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die?"

Oh, and skinny dipping. Yeah, sure, if I could look like I did when I was seventeen:-)

Here's a list of the bands for your perusal.

Marcy McCreary is the author of The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon, a Silver Falchion finalist for Best Investigator Mystery and The Murder of Madison Garcia, a Society of Voice Arts and Sciences winner for Best Audiobook—Mystery. The Summer of Love and Death is the third book in her Ford Family Mystery Series, released in August 2024. She graduated from The George Washington University with a B.A. in American literature and political science and pursued a career in marketing and communications. She lives in Hull, MA with her husband Lew. She is an active fundraiser for the Alzheimer’s Association. 

The Summer of Love and Death

Detective Susan Ford and her new partner, Detective Jack Tomelli, are called to a crime scene at the local summer stock theater where they find the director of Murder on the Orient Express gruesomely murdered—naked, face caked in makeup, pillow at his feet, wrists and ankles bound by rope. When Susan describes the murder to her dad, retired detective Will Ford, he recognizes the MO of a 1969 serial killer . . . a case he worked fifty years ago.

Will remembers a lot of things about that summer—the Woodstock Festival, the Apollo 11 moon landing, the Miracle Mets, the Vietnam War protests—yet he is fuzzy on the details of the decades-old case. But when Susan and Jack discover the old case files, his memories start trickling back. And with each old and new clue, Susan, Jack, and Will must narrow down the pool of suspects before the killer strikes again.

Miranda James on Finding the Right Title

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Miranda James is here today to talk about how writers come up with titles for their books, but first I have to say I was absolutely captivated by the cover of the new Cat in the Stacks novel, REQUIEM FOR A MOUSE, featuring librarian Charlie Harris and his Maine Coon cat, Diesel. So captivated, in fact, that when I saw it I immediated emailed Miranda (which is, as you may know, the pen name of my longtime friend Dean James) and said, "Come do a blog for us!

I'm not sure which I love more, Diesel, or that strawberry cheese cake, but the title is wonderful, too. Here's Dean to tell us how it came about!

Finding a Title That Works

By Miranda James

All writers have their own particular, not to say peculiar, quirks. One of mine is that I don’t start writing a book until I know what the title is. Sometimes the publisher likes the titles I come up with, sometimes my editor comes up with a good title, or my agent does. For my latest book, I came up with the title, Requiem for a Mouse. The phrase popped into my head, and fortunately everyone loved it.

I had the title, but then I had to figure out the story. I usually want the plot of the book to have some connection to the title. I had no plans to have murdered, four-legged mice in this book. I’m not sure that Diesel or Ramses actually cares for the taste of mice. They’re more interested in bacon and chicken and roast beef, frankly.

Thus I had to figure out the character of a “human” mouse for this story. Everyone is probably familiar with the mousy person character. In this book, Tara Martin is the mouse. She’s a part-time student at Athena College, and she has a work-study job with Charlie in the archive and rare book room. He finds no fault with her work, but she has no social skills whatsoever. She blurts out things and insults people without realizing what she’s done. She also has a part-time job working at the bistro, where she mostly works behind the scenes and doesn’t deal directly with the customers.

Her appearance is non-descript. Shabby clothes, no sense of style, and so on. When something happens to Tara, Charlie begins to wonder whether Tara was deliberately trying to keep anyone from getting to know her. What was she protecting herself from?

That was the idea behind the title. As usual, I had to let the characters tell me the story as I wrote. I don’t do much advance plotting, but somehow it seems to work for me. I can’t outline. I can sometimes see scenes that will happen at some point in the book, but mostly it’s just me sitting at the keyboard and staring at the screen waiting for the characters to tell me what’s going on.

I know that must sound crazy to people who don’t write fiction. I used to think it was crazy, too, when I would hear writers at conferences say that their characters talked to them. Mine don’t actually talk to me, but somehow they let me know what’s going on. I’m no longer a skeptic. I know it’s my subconscious working things out, and that’s fine with me.

DEBS: It's so interesting how we all have different processes. I like to have a title while I'm writing, too, but while in some way they make sense to me, a connection may not be obvious to the reader. 

Readers, I'm curious--do you try to figure out how books' titles fit with the story?

Miranda James is the pen name of retired medical librarian Dean James, who lives in the Jackson, MS, area with four cats and thousands of books. He grew up on a farm in Mississippi, and, after degrees in history, he moved to Houston, TX, to pursue a Ph.D. He also eventually earned a master's degree in library science. Along the way, he worked for thirty years at Murder by the Book, one of the oldest and largest independent mystery bookstores in the country. His first novel was published in 2000, and since then he has published thirty-one more. Requiem for a Mouse is the latest.

And here's more about Requiem for a Mouse!

At last, Charlie and Helen Louise’s wedding is only a month away. They’re busy preparing for the big day, and the last thing Charlie needs is a new mystery to solve. Enter Tara Martin, a shy, peculiar woman who has recently started working part-time at Helen Louise’s bistro and helping Charlie in the archive. Tara isn’t exactly friendly, and she has an angry outburst at the library that leaves Charlie baffled. And then she abruptly leaves a catered housewarming party Charlie’s son Sean is throwing to celebrate his new home in the middle of her work shift. Before ducking out of the party, Tara looked terrified and Charlie wonders if she’s deliberately trying to escape notice. Is she hiding from someone?

When Tara is viciously attacked and lands in the hospital, Charlie knows his instincts were correct: Tara was in trouble, and someone was after her. With the help of his much beloved cat, Diesel, Charlie digs deeper, and discovers shocking glimpses into Tara’s past that they could never have predicted. Will they catch the villain before Charlie’s own happily ever after with Helen Louise is ruined?

Give Yourself a Bouquet

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Finally, I have some justification for a decades long addiction to cut flowers! The Home Ecology of Flowers study conducted at Harvard concluded that:

–Participants who lived with flowers for less than a week felt an increase in feelings of kindness and compassion toward others.

–Participants felt a decrease in anxiety and depression after only a few days.

–People felt a burst of energy and enthusiasm at work when they had flowers in their HOME environment. (I find that one particularly interesting!)

The researcher, Dr. Nancy Etcoff, concludes, "As a psychologist, I'm particularly intrigued to find that people who live with flowers report fewer episodes of anxiety and depressed feelings. Our results suggest that flowers have a positive impact on our well being."

This isn't a new study–I think it was conducted in 2006, but is lately making the rounds in the news and on social media. A boon to florists, as you can imagine!!

But I could have told you those things, except maybe the third result, that having flowers at home carries the positive feelings over into outside work.

For years, one of the reasons I most looked forward to trips to London was the availability of fresh flowers. One of the first things I would do, along with picking up the most essential groceries, was (and still is) to buy a big bouquet of fresh flowers from the nearest street vendor. Most neighborhoods in central London have a flower stall, and of course all the markets have flower sellers as well. I would buy flowers for a long stay in a hotel, too, even if it meant acquiring a vase somewhere!

Flowers were a luxury I couldn't usually afford at home–they were either very expensive from a florist or sad (and also expensive) long-stemmed roses from the supermarket or the drugstore. Then Trader Joe's came to my neighborhood and fresh flowers became a regular weekly fix at home as well as in London. (For those of you who don't have Trader Joe's, every store has a huge daily selection of fresh–and reasonably priced–flowers.) I also cut flowers from my garden, although I've never attempted a real cutting garden, and I buy cheerful bouquets from the farmer's market when they're available. Locally grown flowers are becoming a popular thing here, too.

I know I always feel better when there are flowers in the house. Convalescing from surgery recently, I've kept a bouquet from the farmer's market on my living room table where I can see it all the time, and I always keep a little home-picked posey on my kitchen windowsill. (I've discovered that Swedish ivy, begonia, basil, and rosemary will easily root in a glass and will last for weeks!)

One thing I did notice about the Harvard study is that all the participants were female–would the same results hold true for men, I wonder? What do you think, Reds? Do you keep flowers in the house, and do they boost your mood? (And your productivity!)

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, what a wonderful post. Yes, in fact, I always have flowers. Always. I have a summer flower subscription from the farmers market, so I get what they provide every week, and extend with flowers from our own garden, (and sometimes our rosemary) and sometimes buy at the grocery, whatever looks nice. You know how much I love our home-grown tulips every year, and now we have hydrangeas, and dahlias on the way. Crossing fingers.

And oh, when the peonies arrive, and their fragrance is so lovely!

(And I’m obsessive about changing the water.)

So–yes yes yes, it’s important to me,and I genuinely appreciate them each time I see them.

RHYS BOWEN:  I do love flowers but it’s always iffy about what can be brought into the house and not trigger allergies. Every fancy arrangement from publishers contains lilies which are my absolute nemesis. I do fine with roses, which John brings me occasionally but most flowers that are scented bring on the sneezes. 

HALLIE EPHRON: I love flowers and all summer I bring some in from the garden. This year loads of hydrangea. And I have some orchid plants and a Christmas cactus that reliably bloom. 

Flowers are like birds — a lovely reminder of the spectacular world we’re trying not to irreparably damage. A reason to pick my head up out of the weeds and pay attention.

JENN McKINLAY: Love flowers in the house. I go through phases of buying flowers. Depending upon whether I am in a Hooligan tuition paying cycle or not. LOL. If my rose bush, zinnias, or sunflowers are in bloom  I cut my own, which brings me extra joy because I grew them myself. 

LUCY BURDETTE: I love flowers but mostly keep them outside. I think this has to do with the way the water smells if I don’t change it often, and unlike Hank, I’m bad at this. (Hate to make the comparison, but it’s kind of like kitty litter.)

If we are having dinner guests, I do bring flowers in from John’s garden and the yard and enjoy making funky arrangements including herbs!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I mean, who doesn’t love flowers inside? In the spring and summer, I’m able to cut from throughout the property; from forsythia branches in March to sunflowers and asters in September. I’m also a huge fan of faux! I started collecting good-quality fabric flowers back when we didn’t even have a Hanneford nearby to pick up a bouquet, and now I have all sorts of seasonal arrangements. I keep them enclosed in plastic bags so they remain dust-free and rotate them on the same schedule I would live flowers. Lucy, you should consider this - no water to change!

DEBS: Lucy, I especially love your little arrangements! Are those blue iris REAL??

How about, dear readers? Do you love flowers in the house?

 

Lucy Burdette's Kitchen Publishes This Week!

LUCY BURDETTE: Long before I imagined I’d write a foodie mystery, I fell in love with Diane Mott Davidson’s series featuring caterer Goldie Schultz. Davidson didn't just dump descriptions onto her pages, food and cooking were woven into the pages to become part of her story. I always finished a book wishing I could have been friends with caterer Goldy, sitting in her kitchen, tasting her food. She and her detective husband Tom believed that serving good food demonstrated comfort and love. Plus, a lot of good detective work occurred while they cooked and ate.

 With fourteen books so far in my Key West series, each with recipes at the back of the book, I've had to do a lot of cooking to keep up with Hayley. I loved the idea of pulling them all together along with snippets from each book. Luckily for me, Crooked Lane Books agreed and LUCY BURDETTE'S KITCHEN will be out this week! To celebrate, I thought I would share the first recipe with you today: Key lime pie.

Key lime pie is the official dessert of the City of Key West, so naturally it makes frequent appearances in these mysteries. In the first book in the series, An Appetite for Murder, food critic Hayley Snow doesn’t actually make this pie but she becomes a suspect when her boss is murdered by key lime pie. She attempts to prove she couldn’t be the culprit. There are traces of pie found on the knife near the murder victim: She would never bake a bilious green colored confection like that.

The celebrated pie also looms large in the 10th book, The Key Lime Crime, when murder strikes down a pastry chef in a pie-baking contest. The trouble begins at the contest:

Off to the left of the stage, I saw a flash of movement. Before my brain could fully register what was coming, Claudette Parker marched to the display table and picked up the pie from the Key Lime Pie Company, the one that had been touted as extra-creamy, with whipped cream piped joyfully around the edges. She slammed it into David Sloan’s face. The pie tin slid off his nose and chin and clattered on the floor in a puddle of filling. Sloan’s eyes blinked like windshield wipers in heavy snow, working holes in the whipped cream. 

The pie pictured above came from the Old Town Bakery, made with whipped cream rather than meringue. Below is my recipe using meringue, but you can switch that out!

Ingredients for the crust

10 sheets of graham crackers, should measure 1 1/4 cups

5 tablespoons butter, melted

1/4 cup sugar

Whir the graham crackers in a food processor until they make fine crumbs. Mix in the sugar and the butter. Press the mixture using the back of a spoon into your nine or 10 inch pie plate. Nine is probably better as my pie was a little low. Bake the crust at 350 for 10 minutes until it starts to brown. Remove it from the oven and reduce the heat to 325.

Ingredients for the filling

1/2 cup key lime or lime juice, freshly squeezed

Four egg yolks

1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

2 teaspoons grated lime zest

Squeeze the limes until you have 1/2 cup of juice. (4-5 regular limes, more key limes.) Make sure to strain out the seeds. 

Whisk the egg yolks, then whisk in the sweetened condensed milk, lime juice, and lime zest.  

Add the filling to the pie crust and bake for six minutes. Remove from the oven and set this aside while you make your meringue.

Ingredients for the meringue

Four egg whites

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 cup sugar

One half teaspoon vanilla

Using a clean bowl and mixer, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until they hold soft peaks. Gradually beat in the sugar until the egg whites hold stiff peaks and appear shiny but not dry. Beat in the vanilla. 

Attach the meringue to the hot pie, beginning by adding globs all around the edge of the crust and smoothing them into a circle. (That's the  technical culinary term--add globs.) 

Then add remaining meringue to the center and smooth or shape into peaks as desired. Bake the pie for another 20 minutes. Cool on a rack. Refrigerate until serving.

And now serve yourself a nice piece of pie and start reading...

Lucy Burdette's Kitchen will be out in ebook format on Tuesday (July 23), and December in large print hardcover. I'm still working on convincing them we need the paperback! To celebrate, I'm giving away a dish towel printed with Lucy Burdette's roasted shrimp recipe. Leave a comment to be entered in the drawing!

Reds, have you ever made a recipe from the back of a novel? Which one?

My First Love by VM Burns

LUCY BURDETTE: I’m really excited to introduce my pal VM (aka Valerie) Burns to the Jungle Red family today! If you follow Mystery Lovers Kitchen, you will recognize her name. She cooks amazing southern food, and loves dogs, and has been getting all kinds of recognition for her multiple mystery series. You will love her blog today about what got her started in the world of mysteries. Welcome Valerie!

VM BURNS: I can trace my obsession with mysteries back to one author and one book. I grew up three blocks from my branch library and it became my home away from home. My best friend and I visited that small library at least twice every week. It’s there that I discovered my first Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Akroyd. That book blew my mind. When I got to the end, I can honestly say, “I didn’t see that coming.” The next day, I rushed back to the library and looked for another book by the same author. My librarian gave me, And, Then There Were None. I read the back cover, and I wasn’t sure this book would be as thrilling. I mean, ten people are on an island and they are each murdered. Obviously, the last one left standing would be the killer, right? Oh well, I had the book and decided to give it a try. HOLY COW! SPOILER ALERT, she kills them all!!! I should have known from the title, “And, Then There Were None,” but that little detail escaped me. Who was this woman with the diabolical mind who had twisted my twelve-year-old brain? The next day I went back to the library and grabbed every Agatha Christie book I could find. Thus, started my love of mysteries and my obsession/fascination with the Queen of Crime Fiction.

Agatha Christie is the bestselling author of sixty-six crime fiction books and 14 short stories. Her play, The Mousetrap, set a record for the longest-running play in London, running from November 25, 1952, until the theatre was closed due to the pandemic on March 16, 2020.

Christie’s style of manor house mysteries featuring nosy old spinsters or finicky Belgian private detectives may not be everyone’s cup of tea. Twenty-first-century readers may struggle not only with her sleuths but also with her prose. However, her plots are IMO brilliant. I re-read these books regularly. Each time, I see a clue or a red herring I missed previously. A Cup of Flour, A Pinch of Death is my twenty-first mystery. They say you never forget your first love, and that’s especially true in my case.

Do you remember the book/author that got you hooked on mysteries?

Valerie (V. M.) Burns is an Agatha, Anthony, and Edgar Award-nominated author. She is the author of the Mystery Bookshop, Dog Club, RJ Franklin, and Baker Street Mystery series. As Kallie E. Benjamin, Valerie writes the Bailey the Bloodhound Mystery series. She is an adjunct professor in the Writing Popular Fiction Program at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA. Born and raised in northwestern Indiana, Valerie now lives in Northern Georgia. Connect with Valerie at vmburns.com.

The Most Unusual Meal

LUCY BURDETTE:  Years ago when a friend heard that John and I were going to France, she insisted we dine in Vezelay, a town outside Paris, famous for its Benedictine Abbey. The meal was eye-poppingly expensive with many courses. Our waiter spoke with a strong Italian accent that we had trouble understanding. He brought us an amuse-bouche a.k.a. appetizer and offered an explanation. The only thing we caught was “close your mouth“ aka “fermez la bouche.“ John bit into his square and learned why: it was full of piping hot liquid fois gras that squirted out over his tie, his dress shirt, and his jacket. This has always been our favorite bizarre restaurant story.

But in Stockholm recently, we may have eaten a meal that was equally memorable. The waitress told us “we work from themes, sometimes literature, sometimes music, space,  and so on. Tonight’s menu theme is based on E4, the highway that runs from the north to the south of Sweden.” A menu based on a highway? With each tiny course, the waiter recited an elaborate story related to this road. I should have written the descriptions down, but we were busy tasting. (The only thing we didn’t try was Reindeer Danger, aka reindeer tartar.)

How about you Reds? What is your most odd or memorable meal? (Can be from a restaurant or home-cooked.)

RHYS BOWEN: I’ve had my share of odd and memorable meals. I’ve dined at Michelin starred places where one course was one oyster with some kind of foam on top and truffle (?) shavings on top of that and caviar pearls on top etc. into a tower.  all I could think of was whether I’d get in trouble if I tipped the stuff off and just ate the oyster which I adore.

But home cooked? When I was a student in Germany my landlady invited me for a meal. It was a vol au vent. Absolutely delicious. “This is wonderful,” I said. “What’s in it?”

“Calf brains,” she replied

Suddenly it didn’t taste so good but I had to finish it. 

John will tell you his strangest was pig’s colon in Hong Kong. No. sorry . Never!

JENN McKINLAY: When I first moved to Arizona, I went on a road trip up to Sedona. My friend and I stopped at a roadside diner where they served rattlesnake. Tastes like chicken!

JULIA: Jenn, my favorite part of THE MATRIX is when they explain the AI didn’t bother to flavor less-popular meats, which is why everything “tastes like chicken.”

HALLIE EPHRON: I once ordered “cervelle de veau” … veal, right? Turned out to be calve’s brains. Jerry finished his main course AND mine. (We went to Vezelay… there’s a church there that dates back to 1100 that has fantastic relief carvings. That overshadowed whatever we ate.)

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: The most unusual meal I ever had was at The Three Chimneys on the Isle of Skye. Ross and I went to the Highlands for our honeymoon in August ‘87, and mostly stayed at B&Bs These were the days when you’d drive to your location, check the local accommodations office, ring up your potential hosts and strike the deal. Travel was a lot more seat-of-the-pants back then!

We wound up staying with a local sheep farmer, who suggested the new restaurant that had just opened two summers ago. It was close enough to walk, so we strolled over around seven - I don’t recall if Ross used the farmer’s phone to make a reservation - and were treated to one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Salmon (Ross) and lamb (me) to die for, exquisite gourmet versions of neep and tatties, something exotic with edible seaweed, and, since we had to try it, haggis as a starter. (Pro tip: if you like sausage, you’ll like haggis.)

We stayed late enough that the sun had set by the time we walked back to the farm, pleasantly buzzed on wonderful wine and a whiskey nightcap. No lights along the narrow road, just the farmhouse a half mile ahead and the stars in the sky. It remains the most cherished memories of our honeymoon, and I was delighted to discover, decades later, that The Three Chimneys, noticeably larger than it was in 1987, has become one of the world’s top destination restaurants.   

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Oh, what a great question! I’ll never forget a meal we had in Florence, at Enoteca Pinchiorri.  It’s a MIchelin three-star restaurant (!) and  supposedly it is one of the most expensive restaurants on the planet, I forgot how much it cost, but let’s say hundreds of dollars a person each. For lunch. And we went for dinner. 

Anyway, that’s not the point. So the place is actually absolutely gorgeous, as elegant as you can imagine – – all pale yellow walls and crisp white linens,  bright red plates, and glittering crystal,  and subtle burnished brass, and I don’t even know what. Incredible.

The menu, which I actually have somewhere that I could never find, was authentically, gorgeously, Italian gourmet. I don’t even remember. I do have a memory of a tiny appetizer of  lemon  infused pasta with caviar, so there you have it.  

But here’s the point. (I know, finally)

So we are sitting at  our table with our two friends, basking. And then walked  a family: father, mother, and two sullen teenage girls. SO “American.”  Very blonde, very ponytailed. Very petulant.  

The waiter comes to take their order, and the girls proceed to instruct the waiter about how they want their turbot.. I remember one of them, asking for it with no bones, with the sauce on the side, and no herbs, and no potatoes,  only green beans, and extra shrimp. You get the picture. Very very  demandingly specific. The other was the same. Except differently specific. 

The waiter nodded, listening, incredibly polite, and wrote everything down. 

Five minutes later, he came back to the table and said in perfect English with an Italian accent “My apologies, but the chef says he cannot cook for you, his food will arrive the way his food will arrive. But he says, not for you. And he asks you to please leave.“ (Can you imagine?) And they left. They were kicked out! Everyone in the restaurant (quietly) cheered.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I have eaten frog’s legs and snails in France, haggis in Scotland, calf brains and sweetbreads made by my mom–all memorable, some I liked better than others. (I actually love sweetbreads, but no one else will eat them and I don’t even know where I would get them these days.) But for the most memorable meal I’ll go all veggie: the set dinner at Bubala in Soho in London. This little restaurant was my daughter’s top pick of places to eat on our first post-pandemic trip to London, and it was astounding. Who would think you would drool over hummus with burnt butter or grilled cauliflower or skewered oyster mushrooms? I still think about that dinner longingly on a regular basis.

Reds, tell us about your most unusual meal ever!

If you're interested in reading more about the Scandinavian adventure, my hub John Brady wrote a wonderful post on his Topretirements blog.

https://www.topretirements.com/blog/bucket-list-trip-to-the-fjords-and-cities-of-scandinavia/

One Star Reviews by Laura Hankin

 LUCY BURDETTE:  Laura Hankin's books are perfect summer reading, so if you haven't read her yet, you're in for a treat! Welcome Laura!

LAURA HANKIN: I still remember the first one-star review I ever received. It happened almost a decade ago. Back then, I hadn’t yet learned that Goodreads isn’t a particularly healthy place for authors to hang out, so I spent far too much time lurking on the page for my debut novel. With each complimentary review that rolled in, I let myself believe that, despite the book’s small printing and the lack of media attention it had received, I was at the start of a long and healthy career, my talent undeniable!

And then a big, bright one-star review popped up, calling the book “stunningly boring and pedestrian,” plunging me into self-doubt and somehow making me forget every compliment I'd gotten.

It’s amazing how long criticism can stay with us, isn’t it? Why is it so easy to push aside the nice things that people have told you in favor of the mean ones? I’ve received countless five-star reviews in the years since, and yet this is still the only one I can recite word-for-word.

I even made a music video about it for the release of my new book, and some author friends joined in for cameos, because it turns out that we all have a… special attachment to our one-star reviews.

I think sometimes we assume that the people who criticize us are the only ones telling us the truth. Socially, it’s so much easier to make nice. So if someone bothers to criticize us, it must really mean something, right? But the thing is, a critique is only one person’s truth. A gushing compliment might be somebody else’s. Everyone has different taste, different things that bother them, different things they love. So if you try to please every single person, you’ll never do a thing.

Over the years, I’ve found people I trust to give me constructive feedback on my writing — friends, my editor, my agent — and I let their critiques push me to be better. Of course, sometimes it’s difficult to ignore the other critics, like the time I had to walk down the aisle at my friend’s wedding with a man who’d given my book a one-star rating on Goodreads. (We were the maid of honor and best man, so there was no avoiding each other.) But even that criticism turned out to be an unexpected gift. It provided me for the perfect setup for my new novel, ONE-STAR ROMANCE.

How do you deal with criticism? Do you tend to hold onto it, or are you able to let it go pretty easily? And have you ever found criticism to be a good thing?

About ONE-STAR ROMANCE: A struggling writer is forced to walk down the aisle at her best friend's wedding with a man who gave her novel a one-star review in this fresh, emotional romantic comedy. Though this maid of honor and best man would prefer to never see each other again after the reception ends, they're forced together over the course of a decade each time their best friends celebrate a new life milestone. Through housewarmings and christenings, triumphs and tragedies, these two grapple with their own life choices, their changing friendships, and whether your harshest critic can become your perfect match. 

Author bio: Laura Hankin is the author of Happy & You Know It, A Special Place for Women, and The Daydreams. Her musical comedy has been featured in publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post, and she is developing projects for film and TV. She lives in Washington DC, where she once fell off a treadmill twice in one day.