Lucy Burdette Muses About a Long Mystery Series

 

LUCY BURDETTE: Today is the day that the paperback copy of A POISONOUS PALATE, Key West mystery #14, hits bookshelves. The ebook is also on sale through July 11. (And of course, THE MANGO MURDERS is coming on August 12.) Who knew the series would go this long? Not me!

To celebrate this milestone, I decided to share some thoughts about a topic I wrestle with every time I begin a new book: How to keep this long series fresh. I know that series readers (including me!) like to read about familiar characters and places. This can be a comfortable place to retreat when the world feels so scary and unpredictable. But I don’t want to be bored and I sure don’t want to bore you. I have some ideas about what keeps me reading--the sleuth's stake in the mystery, the characters growing and changing, interesting layers in a familiar setting. Here are some examples...

When beginning a book, I start by thinking about Hayley’s stake in getting mixed up in murder. Since she’s a food critic, not a cop, she has no legitimate reason for crime solving—being nosy isn’t enough. So how do I make sure readers find her believable? In the first book, AN APPETITE FOR MURDER, Hayley was the suspect in a death involving a poisoned key lime pie. She had to poke around or end up in jail. (Obviously, she can't be a suspect in every installment.) In the second book, DEATH IN FOUR COURSES, Hayley finds the victim at an important foodie reception and a dear friend of hers is implicated in the murder. She’s very motivated to help clear his name. Ditto with book four, MURDER WITH GANACHE. Her parents are visiting the island for the first time, along with her stepbrother, who disappears into the spring break crowd. They can’t leave him in trouble, so the chase is on. Each book tackles her involvement in a different way.

I also like to watch my characters grow and change, and I love introducing new facets of Key West in each book. For example, THE KEY LIME CRIME, #10 in the series, takes place at Christmas, a magical time in Key West. I had the most fun introducing Hayley’s new mother-in-law Helen to Key West and Hayley, and having the two of them find a body hidden in a Santa suit. (This idea came from an actual decoration that we spotted on someone’s porch.) 

I found inspiration for #12, A DISH TO DIE FOR, when I took a tour of the real Key West Woman’s Club. While there, I was gifted a copy of the second edition of their cookbook. Inside that book, I discovered so many nuggets of history that fired up my imagination. But how would I use this? I decided that Hayley’s mother, Janet, would be hired to cater a murder victim’s memorial service reception at the Woman’s Club, using recipes from their vintage Key West cookbook. Hayley and her octogenarian neighbor, Miss Gloria, sign on to work with her, hoping to cook up some clues by observing the mourners. 

With A POISONOUS PALATE, I experimented with several new things—moving the action north on the Keys to Big Pine Key and flashing back to an old murder from the 1970’s that had never been solved. 

By the way, can you guess which book in the series is less popular than others? 

If you picked A SCONE OF CONTENTION, you're right. Seems that readers who love a certain setting object to the characters going somewhere else.

Red Readers: What keeps you reading a long series, and maybe more important, what makes you stop reading? Do you dislike a series book that moves to a new setting? Leave a comment to be entered in the drawing for a paperback copy of A POISONOUS PALATE.

How Sentimental Are You?

 JENN McKINLAY: Anyone who has read my input over the past eight and a half years that I’ve been a Red, knows that one of my favorite things in life is to throw things out. Old clothes? Good will. Old art? Same. Old jewelry? Give it away. Anything broken beyond repair (I am a big repurpose and recycle person) goes to the dump. Thanks for your service and Adios!

I just don’t like stuff and I don’t keep things…unless they have sentimental value and then I slam into the brick wall of nostalgia and I just can’t. Photographs of old boyfriends? Still have them (in an album in a closet somewhere but I still have them). A granny square sweater my grandmother made for me in 1972 when I was a wee tot? Yup, I still have it on a shelf in the top of my closet. Why? It doesn’t even fit anymore! Obviously. Why can’t I unravel it and repurpose the yarn? I just can’t.

I thought I was a stoic/sentimental sort. I keep some things but not all. So imagine my surprise when I observed a recent breakup between a Hooligan and his Plus One and he deleted everything that was digital – texts, pictures, videos, and any connections through social media gone. Physical gifts, tchotchkes, cards, and print photos in an album were all tossed in the dumpster. 

He had me stand witness to the purge and I’m not exaggerating when I say I started to sweat and felt a little queasy. I asked “Don’t you want to keep anything to remember the good times?” His answer: “No.” I thought it was because he was a dude so I asked the other Hooligan’s Plus One (who was also an observer of the purge) if she’d tossed everything from former relationships and she said, “Yes, absolutely. That stuff just makes you sad.”

Y’all, I was so surprised I’m still processing. 

So, tell me, do you purge everything from relationships - romantic or otherwise - when they end badly? Or do you hang onto the mug you bought on the road trip, the baseball cap at the ballgame, and such to remember the moment shared with a little nostalgia? Like, seriously, do I really have to throw out the skull earring that belonged to my punk rock boyfriend in 1989? Because, yes, I still have it. 

RHYS BOWEN: My romances were back in the days when we wrote letters to each other so I had kept all the letters my boyfriend had written to me. When I had finally moved on I ceremonially burned them. Now I wished I’d kept them as it wasn’t an acrimonious break up and I would have enjoyed remembering good times together.  I don’t think I’ve kept anything sentimental from any former romances, but remember I moved to Australia and only took the minimum with me!

LUCY BURDETTE: Not so much on the old romances, but I do have boxes of letters I can’t throw out. Lots of them were sent to my grandparents from my dad when he was in the army. I have tons of old photos too that I keep meaning to organize when I have the time. HA! And letters and cards from many people over the years. It’s sad to me that people send greetings and notes by email or text–they’re too easy to lose or delete. What about our future memoirists? Where will they find their material?

HALLIE EPHRON: No old letters from ex-Xes here, either. I have a wonderful book of photographs of me and my high school, sweetheart. He was the nicest guy, a lot older than me, but not “the one.” My high school home life was a disaster and he kept me sane.

The bad exes weren’t writers, and maybe that should’ve been the tip-off that they weren’t for me. Jerry, of course, wooed me with cartoons and I saved all of them.

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  I’ve never been particularly sentimental about saving mementos from relationships, but I’ve never done a slash-and-burn, either. I think, maybe, somewhere, I still have the airmail letters my ex wrote me when he was in Scotland and I was still in Texas. If I ever turn them up, I will definitely save them. (I don’t even want to contemplate the boxes of photos in my office closet…”)

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Such a great question. I have too many mugs and t-shirts, those are the irresistible things for me at conventional and bookstores. (Mugs can be difficult, because they are impossible to pack.) For the past 20 years, I have kept my name badge from every event I’ve attended, and it’s kinda wonderful to see the descriptions under my name go from “debut author” and “first time” to “Keynote speaker” and “Guest of honor.” (The backs of TWO office chairs are filled with them–I cannot even imagine counting them.) And I have a bottle of wine that Sue Grafton gave me. Keeping forever. 

Love letters, no, I have maybe…two. And some various other pivotal paperwork. And photos, sure. But I rarely look at any of it.  And as for digital, my computer is full of stuff I have no idea is there.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: You know, this makes me realize I’m not one to collect or keep mementos in the first place (unlike Ross, who saved every piece of paper from every Bouchercon we ever attended…) I do have love letters, somewhere, from both Ross and prior beaus. I figured I’d add a codicil to my will stating they can be only be read by my grandchildren after they’ve turned twenty-five. They’ll think my flaming youth is interesting and historical, not horrifying.

Otherwise, the only sentimental items I can’t get rid of are some personal things Ross cherished and a few - few! - pieces related to my children. I grew up in the military, and of necessity my mother purged whenever we moved, and I suspect I got her practicality.

How about you, Readers? Are you a sentimental sort or not so much?

Gluten-Free Challah: a guest recipe from Charlotte Whatley

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Today's a double treat, with our own Celia Wakefield introducing us to her long-time friend Charlotte Whatley, who recently made a truly delicious gluten-free challah bread for a festival celebration at her church. If you're like me, you're always on the lookout for tasty gluten-free recipes, because even if you don't need to be careful yourself, we all know someone who does!

 

 

 

 

Good morning to everyone in our Reds community and another grateful thanks to Julia who encourages me in so many ways, not least of which are our Sunday stories and the food we enjoy sharing. 

 

I am living in Sudbury right now owing to a more complex narrative than I need to share, but I am well and hope to return to Maine soon. But for the current situation I am also in lockdown in my assisted living apartment as there are folks in this building with COVID. Yes, just when we thought it was all over - well - did you think it was all over, because it’s not, and as this is a community of the over 50’s+ there is a need for concern. So, I have tested -clean and do mask up when I Ieave my apartment. Not to mention all the other precautions.

 

But even with all of this I do have a recipe and a story for us today from my dear friend of so many years, Charlotte Whatley. But now it's just fun to reminisce with Charlotte about times past and enjoy her great cooking. We were chatting recently, and she told me she had had a great success baking gluten free bread for a special occasion at her church. There was quite a lot of research as you will see from the directions below which Charlotte met but as you can see from the basket photo, the result of the gluten free Challah challenge had spectacular results.

 

How did Charlotte and I meet? We are reaching way back to the start of the birth of the British Butler. A time of high inflations and financial woes rather like now! our accountant, a dear friend named Bob advised us that starting a small business could offer helpful tax breaks and that is how the BB was born. However, every small business needs an income source and mine was obviously cooking. This led to gigs for dinners, for parties providing food for all the best ways of helping people celebrate. But to survive all this and grow I needed some staff and Bob’s young teen daughter, Charlotte, was not only interested in helping me, but her mother was also a great cook, so Charlotte was my dream assistant. Nothing phased her. Charlotte remembers driving those French fruit tarts you see in Parisian bakery windows; fruit arranged in artistic patterns and carefully glazed to protect the careful layering, and suddenly something darts across the road causing her to brake quickly and hearing ominous sloshing sounds behind. However, on arrival it was all found to be in perfect order.

 

We cooked in the rain, in garages, in kitchens where the ovens didn't heat up, or worse there was only hot water piped through both taps and other experiences which honed my skills for crisis management. You might wonder why crisis management would play a role with our catering escapades. Thinking back, I can recall a few key moments of crisis.

 

There was an annual holiday party which we catered for several years. One year stands out quite clearly. I was in the kitchen plating the next offering when I heard a resounding crash. A tray of glasses lay smashed on the tiled hall floor, luckily they were rented glasses and not some family heirloom. Cleaning it all up quickly and moving on to the next offering became the quick order of business. 

 

On another occasion we arrived for a select birthday party where the dessert was a hazelnut dacquoise layered with chocolate mousse and served with a fresh raspberry sauce. I carefully handed the sauce container to one of my wait staff to transport to the kitchen. To my horror, she tripped, the lid flew off and I arrived to see a raspberry rainbow of sauce across the kitchen floor and the horrified face of my host. Yes, we even survived that as it was not all spilled and cleaned up quick and easy.

 

Now on to the current cooking aspect of this blog post with our guest, Charlotte Whatley:

 

Thank you, Celia and thank you Julia, for offering me a little space here to recount my recent foray into gluten-free baking. I’d like to think I come by my writing skills honestly. 

 

Both of my grandparents were fiction writers. My grandmother, Alice Ormond Campbell, was a mystery writer in England in the early part of the 20^th century in the style of Agatha Christie. In fact, some of her books are seeing a resurgence of interest as e-books, published by Dean Street Press in recent years. She also published a series of short stories in the Chicago Tribune, maybe those articles were forerunners to today’s modern day blogging.

 

I was telling Celia that I had enjoyed researching and learning how to bake gluten-free this spring. She thought the story might interest the Reds community.  At my church we welcomed a new rector, the Rev. Mia Kano, this year and as is customary in the Episcopal faith, there was a special Celebration of New Ministry where the bishop comes to the parish and everyone celebrates the new ministry together. 

 

I am the head of our Altar Guild and I wanted to do something special to mark the occasion. These days we offer two kinds of communion bread, both wheat and gluten-free, and I wanted to bring us all together into one celebration. I went into my research project with the concept stuck in my head of, "One Bread, One Body, One Congregation." To do that, we'd need to all be gluten-free together for the evening. 

 

I had no idea when I started what an interesting and fun project this would become. I had no idea the paths it would take me down while learning about baking bread specifically to be used for communion. Now, setting aside that there may be strong beliefs, opinions, and feelings about religion, this project turned out to provide me with both religious education as well as baking education. What an extra treat! 

 

 

I started with learning the ideas surrounding communion "Eucharistic" bread - should it be leavened or unleavened? Must it contain wheat? Must it contain oats? With each new thing the internet unveiled to me, I scrambled off to our new rector to ask for her opinion and expertise, and together we settled on the recipe for the celebration. For this occasion, we chose a leavened recipe, and we included oat flour. 

 

Of course, I over baked; we couldn’t fall short so the leftovers were served with dinner. This recipe, originally published by The Loopy Whisk, is intended to be a challah bread, braided in great fashion, but we discovered it makes for the most wonderfully shaped “boule” for slicing and toasting. My GF friend is even baking and storing it regularly in her freezer! I offer many many thanks to the recipe author, The Loopy Whisk, who has made gluten free bread taste scrumptious again! My version includes which flours I chose for this specific project. Happy baking everyone!