The Edinburgh Murders--Catriona McPherson

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Here at JRW we all adore Catriona McPherson for her wonderful Scottish historical mysteries and her clever contempory California mysteries, not to mention her wit, kindness, and charm. But I'll add something else to the list--I think Catriona is a secret time traveler and that she's really lived in post-war Edinburgh, because when I read her new series featuring welfare officer Helen Crowther, I would swear Catriona has a direct line to the past. If you missed the first book, In Place of Fear, rectify that immediately! And now Helen Crowther is back with a new adventure, (and more wonderful Edinburgh dialect that I wish Catriona could demonstrate for us.)

Catriona says:

My working title for The Edinburgh Murders was Next to Godliness. I’m really bad at titles, I know, but it did make some kind of sense because it opens with Helen Crowther, a welfare officer attached to a doctor’s surgery in one of the poorest bits of Edinburgh, squashed into a cubicle at the public baths, helping Mrs Hogg – a lady of some stature – to wash.

“I like a guid hard scrub, Nelly,” Mrs Hogg says. “Dinnae be tickling me.”

(I should say here that there’s a glossary in the book, although guid and dinnae aren’t too hard to interpret, right? Also, the glossary is at the front this time. In Book 1 – In Place of Fear – the glossary was tucked away at the back and a lot of people did a lot of googling before they found it. Oops.)

PIC 1 - jacket

The building where this scene takes place is still there, as are lots of the public baths in Edinburgh, but only the swimming pool is now in use. Even by the time I was getting on the bus with my rolled-up towel, the private bathing cubicles on the gallery level of these establishments had been swept away or repurposed as changing rooms.

PIC 2 – ceiling of baths.

This explains me always wondering why swimming pools were even called “baths” in the first place. But I was a wee girl. Improvements in domestic plumbing don’t explain why one book group I talked to last year were enchanted to  “discover” that Scotland, like Japan, has communal ablutions. “No,” I explained. “It’s just that poor people didn’t have bathrooms at home in the late 40s.”  Stunned silence from them. Stunned silence from me. I mean, it was in a very swanky Sacramento neighbourhood this book club, but surely some of the women had grandparents who boiled kettles and filled tin baths in front of the fire? I clearly remember Oprah Winfrey recounting how horrified she was the first time she was shown an indoor loo. “I can’t do that inside someone’s house!” tiny Oprah whispered. D’awww.

I didn’t wondered why the public baths had such soaring ceilings, though, or if I did I probably thought it was for the acoustics – there’s nothing like the earsplitting sound of fifty children shrieking repeatedly in a glass cathedral. If I hadn’t come across this next photograph, I would never have worked it out:

PIC 3 – acrobats

Yep, it was an aerial gym, with water landing laid on for the over-confident. Water or shrieking wee kid landing, I suppose. They were very different times. In any case, it was a feature of all Victorian baths to be over the top; the Turkish baths in Harrogate are like something from the Arabian Nights. I haven’t got any photos of the inside because the steam would wreck my phone, but check it out here.

I spent the happiest hours of my otherwise miserable academic career in those Turkish baths, stark naked, with my head of dept, Prof. Katie Wales (renowned James Joyce expert who also wrote a Mickey Mouse joke book), and our other women colleagues, a long way from the stuffy School of English where tweedier co-scholars sipped sherry during classes (I’m not kidding) and never wrote any joke books at all. Coincidentally, Harrogate is the setting for England’s best known crime-writing jamboree – Theakston’s Old Peculier Festival – and Val McDermid once overheard something in the steam room that would make your eyebrows curl. (I couldn’t possibly repeat it here. (But DM me.))

PIC 4 – At Harrogate with Ali Karim

This is my favourite of many Theakston’s Festival pictures, because I can never decide if I’m looking at Ali Karim thinking “Come live with me and be my love” or “I’m going to kill you with my shoe”. 

All of which is to say, if you like the sound of a boiled man in a bathtub and a return trip to the scene of the crime with three grubby wee kids and a nit comb, then The Edinburgh Murders might be for you, and please comment to be entered into a giveaway for a signed hardback. If you can’t think of anything you’d like to read about less . . . I get it. I started life in a family of six with one bathroom, shared bathwater and no shower. Now, after fifteen years in America with a master bath off my bedroom, and two basins in it so I don’t even see the toothpaste spills of my own husband . . . I’m ruined forever. 

Cx

Edinburgh, 1948: Welfare Officer Helen Crowther has enough on her plate between her hectic job, her complicated love life, and her growing reputation as a troublemaker. Last year’s  scandal did nothing to help with the disapproval she already gets as a woman in her line of work.

All she wants now is to focus on doing what she loves: helping the poor of the Fountainbridge ward in the city of Edinburgh. The last thing she needs is another string of murders to distract her . . .

But when a gentleman dressed in working-man’s clothing winds up dead right under Helen’s nose, and she catches her own father in a very risky lie, Helen is propelled back into the dark world where class rules, justice is hard to come by and gruesome death is everywhere.

Helen has already learned some hard truths about her city, but this investigation is about to reveal just how deep corruption can go . . .

Serial awards-botherer, Catriona McPherson (she/her) was born in Scotland and immigrated to the US in 2010. She writes: 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 comedies about a Scot-out-of-water in a “fictional” college town in Northern California. Catriona is a proud lifetime member and former national president of Sisters in Crime.  www.catrionamcpherson.com

DEBS:  Can I just say that I loved "Next to Godliness?" :-)

And that somehow when I lived in Edinburgh my ex neglected to introduce me to the public baths, which I now think was a grave ommision.

Stop in to say "hi" to Catriona and comment to be eligible for a signed copy of  THE EDINBURGH MURDERS!

  

Kim Hays--Life in a Tower

DEBORAH CROMBIE: There is nothing I love more than a good police procedural, especially one with an appealing detective duo. Add a fascinating place--in this case the city of Bern, Switzerland-- and I am way over in the fan camp! I've read Kim Hays' Linder and Donatelli books from the very first and I await each new installment eagerly. I think you'll be as intrigued as I was by this newest addition to the series--and by Bern's Munster!

Life in a Tower

Kim Hays

 

When Peter and I arrived in Bern one week after our wedding in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, we moved into a recently renovated attic apartment. We were in our early thirties, so we didn’t mind climbing the stairs to our place on the fourth floor. Eventually, when I was 38 and carrying our six-month-old son and his baby paraphernalia up and down those stairs (and his laundry to and from the washing machine in the basement), we moved to a second-floor apartment not far away, and we’re still there. Today, we only have 28 steps to climb from the street to the door of our apartment. Those stairs keep us fit.

Now, imagine living in an apartment that requires a climb of 254 steps from street level to your apartment door.

Not one family, but many, did this for almost two hundred years, which is how long there were couples and their children living in the 330-foot tower of Bern’s largest Gothic church, the Münster. The first family moved there in 1826, when the tower apartment had no running water. The last family, a couple without children, moved out in 2007. By then, the apartment had a living room, bedroom, tiny kitchen, even tinier office, and a full bathroom with a washing machine. A corridor ran down the middle of the living space, and its ceiling was open to the room above, which was the size of the whole apartment and had a sixteenth-century vaulted ceiling. A spiral staircase in one corner of the apartment led to the beautiful room upstairs, where generations of apartment families hung their laundry to dry.

Who lived there all those years? Watchers—who had nothing to do with Swiss watches.

I’ll explain.

Bern was founded in 1191 by the Duke of Zähringen, who built a castle on a hill above the Aare River that encircles the city. The duke’s guards were Bern’s security force. When the Duke's family line died out in 1218, his castle was destroyed, and a church was built in its place. I don’t know that guards were set in the church’s bell tower to keep watch over the city and the boats on the river, but I feel sure they were.

Bern’s tradition of watchers from on high assumed special importance after 1405, the year of the Great Fire, when most of the city’s buildings, almost all made of wood, burned to the ground. Bern was slowly rebuilt of stone in the traditional half-timbered, medieval style, but fire remained a tremendous danger. The building of the Münster began in 1421, and by 1519, there is a record of Hochwächter or “high watchmen” working in shifts in the church’s tower, looking out over the town for any sign of trouble. There was a fire bell they could ring if they saw flames, and other Münster bells sent out different messages, warning the city of floods or attacks or calling the people to assemble.

In the nineteenth century, the men paid to watch the city day and night were allowed to move their families into the tower. By the twentieth century, women could also be guards; the most famous was Frau Kormann. As wife, mother, and widow from 1909 to 1966, she sold tickets to tourists who wanted to see the view from the tower and kept an eye on the city.

The high place from which the earliest watchmen observed was not the 330-foot tower of today, with its elegant stone filagree tip. Bern built its Münster slowly, with numerous pauses after 1421 to raise building funds or deal with crises like the Reformation and the Plague. It wasn’t until the late fifteen hundreds that the city finally hired someone to finish the tower. The builder and his workers were preparing the blocks of stone that would become the rest of the late Gothic church when the builder died, and the additional 178 feet of tower, which included a second, much smaller viewing balcony 90 stairs above the first, were not added until 1893, following the old plans.

Pursuing a plot for my fourth Linder and Donatelli mystery, I started researching the Berner Münster. I didn’t know then what I would write about; I just followed my interest in the church, which had been undergoing renovations during the three decades I’d lived in Bern (and back to the 1950s, I later learned). I read about the history of the tower apartment and talked to the last woman to live there. I spoke with current and former tower ticket sellers, volunteers in the church shop, the sexton, and a former pastor. I learned more about what had been done to replace or preserve the building’s 600-year-old vaulted ceilings and sandstone walls, and I spent time with the glass artist responsible for repairing the fifteenth-century stained glass windows.

Out of this research came Splintered Justice, which features not only Linder and Donatelli, my two police detectives, and many new people but also Bern’s magnificent Münster. I hope what I’ve told you about the church has made you eager to read more about it.

Or maybe you'll come and see it someday!

Do any of you have a favorite church, castle, park, town square, or other landmark in your hometown or elsewhere else?

DEBS: Isn't that all just fascinating? I had to look up photos of the Munster as I was reading. Golly, those tower dwellers must have been fit!!

Here's more about SPLINTERED JUSTICE:

How does a victim get justice when there’s no obvious crime?

Swiss homicide detective Giuliana Linder of the Bern Police and her junior colleague Renzo Donatelli are facing cases that may not be what they appear. Renzo is near the Bern cathedral when a young man repairing a medieval window is hurt falling from a scaffold—a fall deliberately caused by a teenage boy.

 

Finding evidence that the boy’s attack is linked to his mother’s suicide fifteen years earlier, Renzo decides to reexamine the woman’s death, hoping the investigation will help him get promoted.

 

Although she’s busy researching a woman who has poisoned her elderly husband, Giuliana can’t help getting involved in Renzo’s case. Their investigations prove more disruptive than they expected—and so do their feelings for each other.

   

Kim Hays, a citizen of both Switzerland and the United States, has written four books in the Polizei Bern series featuring Swiss homicide detectives Linder and Donatelli. Hays grew up in San Juan and Vancouver and studied at Harvard and UC Berkeley. Thirty-six years ago, she moved to Bern, her Swiss husband’s hometown, where she worked as a cross-cultural coach for expats at multinational companies before becoming a mystery writer. The first Linder and Donatelli book, Pesticide (2022), was a finalist for the Crime Writers’ Association’s Debut Dagger Award and the Silver Falchion Award for Best Mystery. Pesticide was followed by Sons and Brothers (2023), and A Fondness for Truth (2024), which was a BookLife Editor’s Pick. The fourth in the series, Splintered Justice, will be out in April 2025.

DEBS: Kim is on holiday in Romania so will be 7 hours later than EST. She will reply to comments but begs your patience!

Desk Tour(s)

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I think we've talked about our desks before, but recently I ran across somewhere (a Substack suggestion? Ah, Substack, another post…) Olivia Muenter's Desk Tour substack, She regularly interviews creative people about their desks, real and ideal, and it's such fun to see how people's personalities are expressed in their work spaces. I especially like the ones that show both the tidied version and the regular working day version.

I actually have two desks, one upstairs in my "proper" office, and one downstairs in our sunporch, which is where I prefer to write if it's not too hot or too cold. The porch desk does not get points for practicality. It's an old library table I picked up at a yard sale, and because our porch floor slopes, we had to cut the front legs down to make it level. But! I love looking out into the garden, being able to let the dog and the indoor/outdoor cat out, and being close to the kitchen for easy cups of tea. The upstairs desk faces the wall (only configuration the room allows) so I tend to feel a bit claustrophobic there. It's very cozy, however, for things like our JRW LIVE events, and that's where all the video set up lives. Here's what I'm looking at when we're zooming. There are lots of reference books and London photos!

Viewers only see the little bookcase next to the stained glass bathroom door.

Here's my porch desk, with the Boston ferns that shed all over it. You can see that every surface is pretty much covered. That's a big art supply box under the scanner, and my vintage portable Smith-Corona beneath the stack of manuscript pages. (Yes, I print my chapters, as much for the feeling of accomplishment it gives me as for the ease in editing.)

And a close up of some of my favorite things: the leather journals, my sparkly pens in the glasses I found at an art fair, and my mug warmer. Oh, and my sheep coaster, a souvenir from Lower Slaughter in the Cotswolds.

Tell us about your desks, fellow REDs, including the three favorite things on yours!

RHYS BOWEN: My desk in Arizona which I have just left for the summer is a simple glass and steel structure with a couple of shelves at one end, a white board with my notes and reminders on it, and Eliot, my wooden elephant who gives me advice when I am stuck with my plots (he usually suggests the body is in the trunk)  

The best thing about my office in Arizona is the view. I can gaze and feel content as I work. Also it’s upstairs and far away from the rest of the house. A big benefit.

In California I work in a small room with all my research materials around me–shelves of books on New York history, European history, drawers of maps and tourist brochures, all within easy reach. I have various things like Edgar nominations and other achievements on the walls to encourage me. I also have a bigger room that is my media room since Covid, set up like a proper studio. However I choose to work upstairs on the sofa from time to time, which I know is bad for my neck, but it’s also comforting.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’m showing you all the raw, unfiltered work space, complete with dust on top of my printer and dead leaves I need to pinch off my plant!

I’ve had this desk forever - it started out as a smaller surface, but Celia’s dear Victor cut me a new top that goes exactly from one side of the rectangular bay window to the other. Plenty of room for me and for my cat Neko, whose lashing tail is covering up my keyboard as I’m typing this! I tend to keep stacks on either end; the left is for Adj. Professor Hugo-Vidal and the right for novelist Julia Spencer-Fleming. 

My favorite thing about my workspace is the view - I look out through a lush rhododendron to my front yard. Lots of greenery and daffodils this time of year, but it’s also beautiful in winter, with snow blowing across the road. And of course, so much natural light! I also Zoom from here, so if you come to the next Reds and Readers event, you can see the rest of my office!

HALLIE EPHRON: I love my tiny office. It’s maybe 12’x6’, with windows on 3 sides. 

View?? My desk looks out over my neighbors’ driveway, within spitting distance of their living room windows. Squirrels dart across the top of the fence that separates the properties, and forsythia is blooming under the sill. 

Inside it is, of course, jam packed with books. On the shelves is a stuffed WILD THING, a “Newswriting” award that I won writing for my high school newspaper, and the horseback riding trophy I won when I was 14 at Camp Tocaloma. 

JENN McKINLAY: I have an office with a window that looks out on my birdfeeders–so fun, especially when the wild lovebirds show up–but I work everywhere, which is a habit I developed when I was chauffeuring Hooligans hither and yon. 

The backseat of the minivan was my office when they were at karate, rock band, or whatever. I’m very good at working in busy places like coffee shops or airports. I work standing up at the kitchen counter a lot so I can plot and pace. Speaking of which, a friend recently gave me a treadmill that fits under a standing desk so I can walk and write at the same time. I haven’t tried it yet but I’ll report back! I think ultimately I’m a nomadic writer, if that’s a thing. LOL.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: My office is cluttered, yikes.  This is about as cleaned up as it gets. 🙂 The desk itself is  semi-circular, what they call a “hunt table.” It’s very old, and is  supposed to face the other way, and has a cut out for the person using it so the desk wraps around them. But that configuration does work with a computer. 

The bay window looks out over sugar maples, with birds and squirrels constantly at play.

On the desk is a bottle of congratulatory wine from Sue Grafton, and the back of the chair has name tags from all my events for the past 20 years. 

The easel used to have a photograph, but now it has signing posters. And underneath are lots of notes.

You can see some of my Emmys on the shelves, and my Agatha teapots. This is very reassuring on bad writing days, seriously. The parts of the room you can't see--are stacks of books. The wall color is called "rhino tusk," which I know is bizarre, but I call it "lion."

LUCY BURDETTE: I'm showing you two desk shots, the first what it really looks like when I'm in the middle of a project, and the second, when straightened up for Zoom:). Tbone will pose on either version. 

DEBS: Rhys, we are all envious of your view.

Hank, I find it very interesting that you are probably the most organized and efficient person I know and yet you manage that from a work space that would make me pull my hair out. Hallie's work space, on the other hand, is remarkably clutter free.

Also, Julia and Lucy, I love my cats and I love having them in the room with me when I'm working, but they are absolutely NOT allowed on either desk!

Readers, does your work space reflect your personality? 

And do you think our work spaces reflect our personalities--or our books?

How to Draw a Great Editorial Cartoon @DCCartoonist

LUCY BURDETTE: John and I are very proud of one of our relatives who draws editorial cartoons in his spare time. It's been to watch him evolve and I thought you'd be interested in his advice about cartooning! 

DC Cartoonist: Cartooning, at its best, is the art of saying a lot with very little. The most powerful editorial cartoons don’t just make us laugh—they make us think. They simplify complex issues, expose absurdities, and strike at the heart of a topic with a single, unforgettable image. But how do you actually create a good cartoon? Here’s what I’ve learned over the years, through trial, error, and a lot of drawing (and redrawing).

You don’t need formal art training to be a cartoonist. In fact, some of the funniest cartoons come from crude, simple drawings—sometimes the lack of polish is part of the charm. Like anything else, your drawing skills will improve with practice. So don’t let perfectionism stop you. Just start. It’s okay if you suck at first.

The hardest part of cartooning isn’t the art—it’s coming up with good ideas.

A lot of people get into cartooning because they’ve had one great idea they want to draw. But keeping up a cartooning habit takes more than a single flash of inspiration. The key is developing a cartoonist’s mindset: train your brain to look for humor in everyday life. When something makes you laugh, ask yourself, Could this be a cartoon? I keep a running list of ideas in my phone’s Notes app. Capture the concept first—drawing comes later.

If an idea makes you laugh, chances are someone else will find it funny too. Personally, I find the most effective cartoons shine a light on hypocrisy—especially when it comes from people in power. That’s where cartooning does its most important work: holding up a mirror to society, with a smirk.

Next, know what kind of cartoon you’re creating. There are two main types of editorial cartoons: gag cartoons and political cartoons.

Gag cartoons are timeless, self-contained jokes that don’t rely on current events. They’re silly, absurd, or clever—and they can still be funny years after being drawn. Political cartoons, on the other hand, are satirical takes on the news. They have a shorter shelf life and require you to stay on top of current events. If you're tackling politics or pop culture, you need to be a relentless consumer of the news. Timeliness is everything.

Before putting pen to paper, start with a concept—and think visually. What message are you trying to convey? Can it be distilled into a single strong image or a short series of panels? If not, it might not be right for a cartoon. People often pitch me great stories that just don’t translate into a visual gag. Cartoons are snapshots—not novels.

In a single-panel cartoon, you typically have three tools to communicate: the image, a caption, and dialogue. A lot can be said with a picture—and sometimes no words are needed at all.

When you do use words, keep them short and sharp. Economy of language is everything. Trim the fat. Cut any word that doesn’t absolutely need to be there. A concise, well-constructed joke will always hit harder than a bloated one. Double entendres can be great, but clarity should always win.

Know your audience. That obscure reference might make you laugh—but will anyone else get it? A cartoon is a conversation. Your message needs to land. At the same time, know your own artistic limits. If you’ve got a killer joke that requires drawing a detailed airplane cabin but you can’t quite pull it off, it might be worth simplifying—or shelving the idea for now.

Now it’s time to draw. There are countless online classes and tutorials that can help you improve your technique. Don’t be surprised if it takes several attempts to get your image right. Give yourself time and don’t be afraid to start over. While I respect traditionalists who work on paper, tablets and digital tools can be a cartoonist’s best friend. Apps like Procreate help correct mistakes, smooth out lines, and polish your work—without doing the creative heavy lifting for you. Think of them as enhancers, not replacements.

More recently, some people have started using artificial intelligence to generate images that resemble hand-drawn cartoons. That’s fine if that’s your thing—but if you’re relying on A.I., don’t call yourself a cartoonist.

Just like in writing, cartooning takes revision. It can be a solitary pursuit, but it doesn’t have to be. Share drafts with someone you trust before publishing. I often post rough versions on Reddit—there’s nothing like anonymous feedback to tell you what’s working (and what isn’t). You won’t know if something’s funny until you put it out into the world. Take the feedback seriously. It can help you polish a cartoon—or, just as often, convince you to toss it entirely.

Don’t let originality stress you out. Someone else might have already drawn a version of your punchline—and that’s okay. It happens to all of us. What matters isn’t always being the first—it’s how you execute the idea in your own voice and style.

Drawing a good cartoon isn’t about being the funniest person in the room or the most talented artist. It’s about combining a sharp idea with a clear, effective visual. It takes practice, humility, and the willingness to let go of weak jokes and chase better ones. But when you land a great cartoon, it’s magic.

And remember: everyone needs an editor—even cartoonists.

@DCcartoonist edits the Marginalia Magazine and cartoons under the pen name Heywood Reynolds. Follow him on Instagram. 

Are You Brave?

 

LUCY BURDETTE: : it seems like there are a lot of ways we need to have courage these days. But maybe it’s always been so? When it comes to physical bravery, I’m not so great. I suppose I would try to rescue someone if I saw they were drowning in a rough sea, though I think they could do better than me. As far as running into a burning house? It’s not going to happen.

But there are other kinds of bravery, including standing up to bullies. Earlier this winter, I went to an event featuring Amanda Jones in conversation with Judy Blume. Amanda is a librarian in Louisiana who decided it was not OK to ban books in her library. She has become an outspoken critic of book banning, as has Judy. And both of them have suffered from death threats for speaking up about their opinions. In politics, we are watching many people who are afraid to speak up about what’s going on in our country, and I can understand the fear of retaliation. I would like to think I would not fold in these conditions.

So that is the question of the day, Reds. Are you brave? Physically? Mentally?

HALLIE EPHRON: It’s a great question… but I don’t think any of us know what we’re capable of until we’re *in* the situation. I remember when my daughter Molly was maybe two years old and we were at an outdoor party and I wasn’t paying attention and she fell into a hot tub. Believe you me, I raced over there, jumped in, pulled her right out. Scraped my legs in the process and my clothes were soaked, but she was fine. For the rest of the party she kept insisting that she wanted to “Jump in Cuzzi.”

As far as standing up to bullies, that’s a truly scary prospect, and scarier still the more powerful the bully.

JENN McKINLAY: I think I am. I have an intolerance of injustice and a big mouth so I’ve gotten myself into a pickle a time or two. I’m also six feet tall and very active so not much scares me on a physical level. Thankfully, my older brother taught me how to fight. I have no problem facing down a person behaving badly because I dealt with all sorts of folks at the central library in Phoenix for twenty years. Hub has told me repeatedly that he fell in love with me when we were working together at the library and a male patron was having a mantrum, so I marched right over to the guy, got in his face, and said, “Get your sh*t together. Right now.” Honestly, I don’t remember it, but yeah, it tracks.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I am a physically small person, and I’m a pleaser. (Isn’t it interesting how children of the same family can be so different? I can’t imagine that my super type A brother ever worried about people being unhappy with him!) I hate arguing, and will avoid confrontation whenever possible. So no, not brave in that respect. I have, however, done things that completely surprised me. Twice I’ve jumped, fully clothed, into swimming pools after toddlers who’d fallen in, while even the kids' parents stood frozen. I’ve dealt with emergencies on the street when other bystanders wouldn’t. I’ve driven my husband to the hospital when he cut off the end of his finger (including putting the severed finger joint on ice in a plastic bag.) And, after twenty-five years of having German shepherds, I have a surprisingly impressive command voice. So I guess you never know how you’ll react until you do. But I wish I was better at standing up to bullies.

RHYS BOWEN: This is something I have often debated with myself. In high school my daughter was Anne in the Diary of Anne Frank and I used to wonder would I have to courage to hide my Jewish friends in my attic? I certainly would have the courage to speak out, to challenge ICE if I saw them dragging someone off the street. I’ve always had a strong sense of justice (hence Molly Murphy) But if it got to a stage, like Nazi Germany, when normal citizens could disappear for speaking out, would I still be brave? I really don’t know. I’d hope so. I have done a few brave things in my life: when I was up at drama school in London there was a horrible train crash in an awful smog. No buses, no transport, nothing. Of course now I’d check into a hotel for the night but I walked home, 14 miles in dense fog. Got home at 3 am. My parents must have been frantic. (no cellphones in those days)

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Brave. Huh. That’s such a question that’s impossible to answer. I have done brave things–audacious, like asking really hard and unpleasant questions, and risky, out of responsibility as a reporter–carrying hidden cameras into cult churches, going undercover and in disguise  to get to the truth of a story. But is that actually brave?

 

I’ve raced toward tear gas in a hostage situation, but we missed the good video because my photographer had stopped to put a mask over his face. Was I brave or stupid?

 

 I’ve jumped fully clothed into our swimming pool to save little baby Eli, who had, in a flash, decided to leap  in. It never crossed my mind what to do, I don't even remember “deciding.”

 

I’ve handled truly scary  medical emergencies for my husband, but is that brave?

 

These days I think there’s a different definition of brave, and I think we are tested every day.  How valuable is the principle compared to our personal “safety” or risk?

 

Would I run to the ocean to save a person who is in trouble? who would know until the time comes.  

 

Would you put a sign in front of your house declaring your position on anything? 

Is THAT brave?

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Wow, what a thought-provoking question, Lucy. On the one hand, like Debs, I hate confrontation and I almost compulsively try to see everyone's side in a disagreement. On the other hand, one of the great joys of aging is that my GAF index has gone way, way down, so I'm just not bothered if people disapprove of me.

 

I think real bravery can only be revealed in the moment, and I think it requires acting in spite of fear, not because one is actually fearless. The famous picture of the Chinese citizen blocking the row of tanks at Tiananmen Square is an icon of bravery for a reason - that man must have been so scared, but he stood up anyway.

The Magic of Putting Pen to Paper: How Writing Opened My World @JaneBertch

LUCY BURDETTE: Today I’m so pleased to welcome my friend Jane Bertch back to the blog. You may remember that she moved to Paris from Chicago via London and founded the very popular La Cuisine Paris. Then she wrote a wonderful memoir about the project, The French Ingredient, and now she has a new adventure beginning— a podcast, a newsletter, and a series of retreats in Paris focused on creativity. 

JANE BERTCH: There’s something magical about putting pen to paper. And what I’ve found, through my writing journey, is that the simple act of writing can open you to versions of yourself you never even knew existed. 

When I first began writing, it wasn’t with grand ambition—it was during a difficult time when I needed a distraction. I needed to reconnect and speak with myself. To listen to what I needed to say, I started writing, not for anyone else, but for myself. To explore my thoughts. To give shape to feelings that were difficult to name. To test my voice. It was clumsy and frustrating, but at the same time exhilarating. 

That quiet practice of self-connection blossomed into something bigger. I wrote a book. It felt like the boldest thing I’d ever done—exposing my thoughts, my voice, and my vulnerability to the world. But something magical happened: people responded. They didn’t just read—they reached out. They shared their stories. I soon realized that the beauty of human connection is that when I dared to share my story, I quickly recognized it is a shared story—it soon became ‘our’ story. 

Writing gave me more than clarity—it gave me connection and community.

Through the book, I found my community: women, creators, and thinkers who needed to be reminded that at any age, no matter the circumstances, anything is possible. Sharing my voice, as imperfect as it may be, allowed others to share theirs. That connection became so meaningful that I wanted to keep it going. So, I launched a personal newsletter—separate from my business—to continue testing and refining my voice and, most importantly, to nurture and build connections. I found freedom in writing more personally and now relish a space where my vulnerability and curiosity can exist openly, basking in the light of day rather than remaining in the recesses of my mind.

But it didn’t stop there. Writing not only helped me find others—it made me realize I wanted to build a community with them. To create a deeper space for authenticity, which then led me to dream of an entirely new business. One that would be a new chapter of my life – or as I like to say, another petal on my flower.  The idea of GenerateHER retreats was born— a dream to focus on cultivating real community. A place where women can come together and remind themselves of the wonderfully creative and courageous beings they are.

All of this—just from daring to put pen to paper.

So, writing is more than a tool – it’s a key to a new door waiting to be opened. It’s how we meet ourselves, and often, how we meet each other.

So the next time you pick up that pen, just imagine what new, beautiful community you might meet along the way. You might just uncover someone very special amongst them….a new version of you!

You can learn more about Jane here.

About La Cuisine Paris:  

La Cuisine Paris is a French culinary school in the heart of Paris. With a team of classically trained French chefs, we offer cooking classes and food tours in English. We welcome visitors from all over the world with the focus of sharing food and culture.

 

Imagining Wonder: What if…the best things happen? by Barbara O'Neal

LUCY BURDETTE: you’ve heard me say that one of my favorite writers is Barbara O’Neal. I’m reading her latest, Memories of the Lost, and trying to make it last longer so I don’t feel the sadness of it ending. I follow her sub stack and really loved a recent post, which she agreed to share with us. Welcome Barbara!

BARBARA O'NEAL: My sister, a lifelong nurse, visited me last week. We were talking about aging in general, and our mother in particular.  I made an off-hand comment that I supposed everyone gets frail in their 90s. 

My sister said, most emphatically, that that wasn’t true at all. She sees lots of very aged people in her work, and sees a lot of 90-somethings who are quite vigorous, who live their lives the same way they always have, doing things, traveling, having adventures. 

I blinked. A huge sense of…potential bloomed in my body.  Expansion. 

In that instant, I realized that the idea of looming frailty has weighing on me in the weirdest ways.  My mother is in her early 80s, but she’s suddenly facing frailty from a dozen directions. I guess my mind was casting me into that 80-year-old frail role, too.  My cats are getting older and I think about what it would be like to get new kittens, and then my brain says, but you’re getting up there, and who will take care of the cats if something happens to you? 

I worry about how long we’ll get to stay in this beautiful home by the beach, and if the medical care will chase us back to a city. I wonder how long I’ll be able to do the vigorous travel I love so much. 

All of this has very much in the back of my mind, not anywhere in view, but until we had this conversation, I had not realized how much I’ve been imagining myself frail at 80. While it’s fine to be practical and make arrangements for alternative outcomes (and I think it’s smart to do that), I don’t want to live in that space of vague dread. 

None of us know when something might befall us—an accident or a random disease or whatever—but in our 30s and 40s, we don’t keep looking up at the scythe hanging over our heads. We just go about our lives, make plans, looking forward to things we anticipate doing. 

I want to return to that sense of spaciousness, claim it, as my sister-in-law used to say. I claim a vigorous old age. I am visualizing lots more time to raise kittens, travel, explore long walks on my beach and around the world.  

My sister said that people who stay active stay strong. Which we already know, but it was a great reminder. I can focus on more exercise, less extra weight, more activity, tons of great nutrition. I’m going to start looking for examples of vigorous older people and focus on them. There are many in my community. My neighbor is almost 78 and she’s planning a hike on the Coast to Coast walk in England. 

I’m just going to live without looking up at that scythe and imagine a great future. What if I’m still writing a book every (other) year, traveling with my husband, enjoying my many grandchildren on active vacations in my 90s? What if, like Esther Hicks says, I thrive, thrive, thrive, croak?

Does aging weigh on you? If you allowed yourself a sense of wonder, what might you see? 

Barbara O’Neal is the author of many titles of women’s fiction, including When We Believed in Mermaids and the forthcoming The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth. She writes regularly on Substack and lurks heavily on TikTok.

How to Do Historical Research @SKGoldenwrites

 LUCY BURDETTE: I met Sarah (SK) Golden in Key West this winter and realized we are both published by Crooked Lane Books. Of course I wanted her to meet you—Welcome to the blog SK!

S.K GOLDEN: It’s taken me three books to do it, but I think I’ve finally got a good grip on how to do historical research. Not a great grip, mind you. Not very firm. But I’m hanging on, and I’m doing my best.

I’m fortunate that my cozy mysteries are set in the late 1950s – there’s lots of information available about that time, from movies and tv shows, to friends I’ve made that lived through the era. The bigger events have, of course, been easier to include because they left such a big impression. 1958 is right between the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Russia has launched a satellite into space. Eisenhower throws the first Halloween party at the White House. That last one might only have been a big deal to me, but, whatever. These things have been easy to research for my work. I have a newspapers.com subscription, and it has paid for itself many times over now. 

What has been a bit of a struggle has been the small details.

I found out what rent in Yonkers for a small apartment would’ve cost by reading a memoir. That wasn’t even why I read the memoir. I read it to help me get the feel of the time beyond what I was seeing in Marilyn Monroe movies. The memoir gave me lots of other details about the late fifties: like handheld cameras were becoming a thing thanks to Zunow and Bolex, so photographers had more options than the flashbulb-heavy styles used by the press; what types of alcohol were popular; and which automat had the best coffee. But the biggest help was the small sentence about rent.

The answer is $29 a month, by the way.

Fashion is a big focus in my books. My main character, a twenty-one-year-old agoraphobe who lost her mother at a young age, uses her appearance as a way to manage her anxiety. She can’t control the things that happen around her, but darn it, she can make sure her shoes and her belt are a perfect match, and her nail polish isn’t chipped.

One of the best things I’ve found to help me write about 1950s fashion so my sleuth can stop her freakouts comes in the form a Sears catalogue. Actually, it’s multiple Sears catalogues from the ‘50s combined into one edited volume by Joanne Olian. I love that thing. It has saved me so much time. Instead of searching Pinterest for hours trying to make sure the outfit I’ve found is era-accurate, I can flip a few pages and pick. It even gives item descriptions! It’s been great not only for my main character, but for my side characters, too.

This should come as a great relief to the – now two – readers who have emailed to let me know that my use of the word ‘pantyhose’ is anachronistic by several months.

As I said at the beginning, my grip on historical research is getting stronger all the time.

 Is there a small detail from the past that you find fascinating? Like, the price of rent in 1958, or the first White House Halloween party? Or maybe the scandal of pantyhose arriving before their time?

S.K. Golden is the author of the Pinnacle Hotel cozy mystery series. Born and raised in the Florida Keys, she married a commercial fisherman. The two of them still live on the islands with their five kids (one boy, four girls — including identical twins!), two cats, and a corgi named Goku. Sarah graduated from Saint Leo University with a bachelor’s degree in Human Services and Administration and has put it to good use approximately zero times. She’s worked as a bank teller, a pharmacy technician, and an executive assistant at her father’s church. Sarah is delighted to be doing none of those things now. Follow her across all platforms @skgoldenwrites.