How Ideas Spark, a guest post by Maddie Day/ Edith Maxwell

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Edith Maxwell, who writes as Maddie Day, is such a fixture in our community, it's hard to think of anything new to say when I have the pleasure of hosting her. Except that I know you'll all be thrilled to hear she has a new cozy mystery out - MURDER AT CAPE COSTUMERS - and that the story behind the story is very interesting indeed. (BTW, who else absolutely wants that iconic lobster costume for next Hallowe'en?!?)

How Ideas Spark

Thanks so much, Julia, for inviting me to share my new release with one of my favorite blogging communities.

 My most recent Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery, Murder at Cape Costumers, is out today! It’s the seventh in the series of stories that take place in fictional Westham on upper Cape Cod. Bike shop owner Mac Almeida and her Cozy Capers book group sometimes never get to the cozy mystery of the week because they’re too busy investigating murder.

 

Here on Jungle Reds, I know you’ve had many posts among yourselves and with guests about what sparks the idea for a work of crime fiction. It’s a question authors are asked frequently.

 

A story might come to us from an experience we had, an interaction with a difficult person, learning about a great new murder weapon (poison, anyone?), the way someone saunters or quirks a single eyebrow. Or, perhaps, it might come from a short notice in the news.

 

In fact, a news tidbit is where the inciting incident (in other words, the crazy thing that kicks off the whole murder investigation) in my new book originated.

 Yes, that’s a short squib cut out and saved from a real daily newspaper I subscribe to, the Boston Globe. The notice describes a bad thing that happened in Ohio, not in Boston.

 

Clearly, real-life protagonists Karen Casbohm and Loreen Bea Feralo didn’t quite think through their greed and actions. If you can’t make out the fine print, here’s the gist of it: the two staged a dead eighty year-old man – the boyfriend of one of them - in the front passenger seat of their car, motored up to the drive-through window of his bank, and withdrew money from his account. Only THEN did they deposit (evil snicker) him at the hospital.

 

Can you even imagine doing that? Who would think they could get away with a corpse propped up in the front seat or with the financial withdrawal, followed by leaving the dude at the ER? It boggles the mind – but also tantalizes the mystery writer’s creative brain.

 

I was sucked in even further when my editor asked if I’d like to write a Halloween book. I’ve done Thanksgiving, Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter season holiday stories, plus one involving summer fireworks. I’d never written a mystery set at Halloween. Darkness and costumes and mischief? Readers, I said yes.

 

Given the timing of the publishing industry, I was still writing Murder at Cape Costumers when my editor sent along the finished cover art. I had given him my ideas for it earlier, but when the cover included a big, slightly scary lobster, you can bet that costume went straight into the story.

 

The news event in the clipping took place in beautiful downtown Ashtubula*, Ohio, not in Massachusetts. But hey, I make things up for a living. Why shouldn’t a version of the crime take place in my fictional town of Westham on Cape Cod?

 

Mind you, the IRL story didn’t involve murder. Does the one in my book? You’ll have to read the book to find out. Wait, who am I kidding? Of course it does!

 

I’ve just finished polishing book eight in the Cozy Capers series, Murder at the Toy Soldier. It’s my fortieth novel, so yay, me! And just because I love you all, here’s a first peek at the cover – isn’t it fun?

 

I have no idea what’ll happen in book nine, but I’ll figure it out. I always do.

 

*A note about Ashtabula: it’s a place name I have loved for fifty years, ever since Bob Dylan mentioned it in “You’re Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Blood on the Tracks, 1975): “I’ll look for you in old Honolula, San Francisco, or Ashtabula….” As an impressionistic young-adult Californian, I listened to that song repeatedly in an era when my travels hadn’t yet included Ohio.

 

Readers: What’s the wildest news tidbit you have read? I’ll happily send three commenters a copy of the new book.

 

Just in time for Halloween, a new costume shop has opened on Main Street in Westham, Massachusetts. Cape Costumers is a cut above the usual seasonal pop-up stores with their flimsy mass-produced outfits and cheap plastic masks, mostly due to co-owner Shelly, a former Broadway costume designer. But when Shelly discovers her elderly boyfriend Enzo—a Broadway star who retired to Westham—dead of unnatural causes, Halloween suddenly gets a lot scarier.

 

Sleuthing, Mac has found, is a lot like riding a bicycle: once you learn how, you never forget. Far from being spooked, Mac and the members of the Cozy Capers Book Group put down their weekly book selection and put their heads together to see past a bag of tricks and find a malice-making murderer who’s hiding in plain sight . . .

 

Maddie Day writes the Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, the Cece Barton Mysteries, and the historical Dot and Amelia Mysteries. As Edith Maxwell, she writes the Agatha-Award winning historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries and short crime fiction. She’s a member of Mystery Writers of America and a proud lifetime member of Sisters in Crime. Maxwell/Day lives north of Boston with her beau and their cat Martin, where she writes, cooks, gardens, and wastes time on Facebook. Find her at her web site and at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen.