Touring the Isle of Man with Marcia Talley, Kate Charles, and Alan Bradley

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Ever wished you could pack yourself into someone's suitcase for a visit to a fascinating place? Well, here's your chance! Mystery writers (and two of my very best friends and writing buddies) Marcia Talley and Kate Charles take us along on their visit to the Isle of Man with Alan Bradley, author of the wonderful Flavia de Luce books, which I adore. As do Kate and Marcia!

KATE and MARCIA: When we first met Alan Bradley, best-selling author of the Flavia de Luce series, he and his wife, Shirley, were moving from Malta to the Isle of Man where they’d bought a house, a “fixer-upper” overlooking the harbor at Peel. They’d fallen in love with the island – situated in the Irish Sea halfway between England and Ireland – and after listening to their descriptions, we became enchanted, too. “You must come and visit some time,” Alan said.

Douglas Harbour

Three years later, to our surprise and delight, Alan made it happen. 

MARCIA: On Monday, August 14, after an all-night flight from the US, I landed at Manchester Airport where Kate and her husband, Rory, met my plane and whisked me off to Liverpool for the twenty-minute flight to the Isle of Man. We landed at the airport just south of Douglas, the capital, where I picked up the rental car and managed to drive everyone and their luggage to the self-catering flat we’d reserved on Hutchinson Square. 

Hutchinson Square

 

KATE: Marcia’s been visiting me in the UK every year for nearly 25 years, so driving on the “wrong” side of the road with a standard transmission on the “wrong” side of the car isn’t (theoretically) a problem. All went well until she nosed halfway into a parking space on a downhill street and realized it wasn’t at all apparent how to shift into reverse. Time to consult the book in the glove compartment! Nothing in the index under “gears” or “shift” or “transmission”, thank you very much.  By the time Rory located the information under “manual transmission” Marcia had already stumbled over the magic button and managed to park the car.

(DEBS:) That happened to me once with a hired car in England. Terrifying! I finally discovered that you had to pull up on the rubber ring on the gear shift. Who knew?

MARCIA: We later learned that Hutchinson Square – now a quiet enclave of terraced gardens and public art – had been used as an internment camp during World War II. 

KATE: By then we were starving, so after checking in with Alan by phone – we’re here! – we strolled down to the Esplanade for a fine pasta dinner at The Italian Job in the Villa Marina Arcade.

MARCIA: Early the following morning, after warding off the attempts of a persistent seagull to share my breakfast pastry, I got behind the wheel again and braved the narrow lanes and twisty, country roads – famed for the annual fast and extremely dangerous TTmotorcycle races – as we headed off across the island to Peel to meet Alan and Shirley for coffee at their delightful seafront house. We were joined there by radio personality Bob Harrison. Bob – a local institution, it soon became clear – would be our escort, tour guide and interviewer for the next several days.  

Bob Harrison

KATE: At lunch time, we were craving some of the seafood that the Isle of Man is famous for. Bob recommended the Little Fish Café on the quayside in Douglas, where Marcia got to compare the local oysters to those from the Chesapeake Bay, while I feasted on a scrumptious lobster roll and Rory went for the catch of the day.  

Marcia, Kate, and Rory Chase, Kate's lovely husband.

 After lunch, Bob accompanied us to RadioManx, a former radar tracking station high on a hill overlooking the harbour. We were featured on “Women Today”

in a lively hour-long interview with hosts Beth Espey and Michelle Jamieson.

MARCIA: That evening, in spite of a relentless drizzle, Alan, Kate and I drew a standing-room-only crowd at Waterstone’s bookshop in Douglas. Bob is an experienced interviewer who’d read our books, asked thought-provoking questions and managed a lively Q&A with an enthusiastic audience. The bookshop staff couldn’t have been more supportive! They kept the shop – and the coffee bar! – open late for the event.

The following day, Alan and Bob had arranged a surprise. Researching my book Dark Passage, I’d done a lot of reading on the history of magic and illusion.  Magic shows were big in 19^th century England, and theaters had been designed to facilitate them, including the Gaiety in Douglas. 

We were given a VIP private tour of the theatre, which has recently been fully restored to its 1899 splendor.  Of special interest were the intricate mechanisms under the stage – the coffin trap, the Corsican Brothers trap – and the ropes, lifts and pulleys that made the stage magic happen.

KATE: The theatre’s manager told us that sailors stuck in the harbour for the winter were often hired as builders, so a lot of what we saw looked like we were aboard a ship.

Wednesday evening, another standing-room-only crowd – and a fire in the fireplace! – greeted us at DalbyChurch, on the wet and wild west side of the Isle of Man. The church is famous on the island for offering hospitality, including wonderful home-made cakes, and they did us proud. For the price of admission (£5, benefiting the Dalby Restoration Fund and the Family and Mobile Library), another enthusiastic audience was treated to three authors in conversation, sandwiches, tea, and all the cake they could eat!  Once again, Bob MC’d the event. The BridgeBookshop from Port Erin provided the books.

MARCIA: You’re probably wondering by now if we had any time to play tourist. On Thursday Alan had planned a little down time. We met him for lunch in Peel, prowled around the shops (two second-hand book shops!) and spent some time touring the Cathedral.

KATE: A former parish church, the Cathedral at Peel is the seat of the Diocese of Sodor and Man. We took advantage of its most recent addition with a contemplative stroll around the new labyrinth, a replica of the medieval labyrinth at the Chartres Cathedral in France carved by Balinese stone mason Ongky Wijana. 

 

Later that afternoon, back at Alan and Shirley’s home, we were privileged to ‘ride’ (or at least pose for photos with) Gladys, Flavia de Luce’s intrepid bicycle.

Marcia and Gladys!

 MARCIA: Dinner that night was a special treat for all of us, especially me. I spent a good part of my growing up years in China and in Taiwan – and dinner at Mrs. Yang’s in Douglas was the best Chinese food I’ve had since Taipei. 

Yum!

It was worth the whole price of my airline ticket!

KATE: On Friday, we were back on the road, dodging speeding motorbikes as we crossed the extinct volcano at the heart of the island to catch up with the Mobile Library on its route north to Andreas/Jurby. The librarian in charge, Sandra Henderson, made us feel welcome as we greeted patrons (and their dogs!). 

Kate and Rory in the mobile library.

MARCIA: We’d planned to have lunch at a nearby pub, but around noon, just as we were getting hungry, we smelled smoke. James, the mobile van driver, ran down the road and around the corner and came back to report that, “Lunch is off the menu.”

KATE: The pub was on fire! Sandra recommended a diversion to the canteen at the RAF airbase near Jurby, where they were hosting a 1940s-style weekend. This was an added bonus for me – if I’d known it was happening, I would have packed my vintage 1940s dress and joined in with the fun. 

That said, the War itself wasn’t much fun for the many airmen stationed there. Following lunch, we paid a sobering visit to Jurbychurchyard, where a number of US and Canadian pilots were buried after their planes crashed short of the runway.

MARCIA: I could have spent several weeks exploring the wonderful Isle of Man, but we had to rush off to catch our plane.

KATE:  I know! So many things yet to explore. The three steam railways, for example. The castle! The Great Laxey Wheel! We visited two churches – including one at Maughold where there’s an ancient collection of Celtic Crosses – but there’s so much more we missed.

MARCIA:  We’ll have to go back some day. In the meantime, thanks to Alan, Shirley, Bob, Sandra and all the wonderful citizens of the Isle of Man who made our visit so special.

KATE: I’ll second that.

DEBS: I'll third that!! Seriously, next time I'm coming along. Thank you, thank you, Kate and Marcia, for the whirlwind tour. I almost feel I've been to the Isle of Man, and now I certainly want to visit! You two are the best ever tour guides (and Marcia is much better at driving on the "wrong" side of the road than I am...) and I am green with envy. 

Kate and Marcia will be dropping in to chat, so here's your chance to find out more about their fabulous visit!

Alan Bradley is the NYTimes best-selling author of the Flavia de Luce mystery series.  Look for The Grave's a Fine and Silent Place in January 2018.

http://alanbradleyauthor.com

Acclaimed as the Queen of Clerical Crime, Kate Charles is the author of more than a dozen crime novels. The latest, False Tongues, is fourth in the Callie Anson series.

http://www.katecharles.com

Marcia Talley is the Anthony and Agatha-award winning author of Footprints to Murder and fourteen previous novels featuring survivor and sleuth, Hannah Ives.

www.marciatalley.com

REDS ALERT! Kait is the winner of Laura DiSilverio's THAT LAST WEEKEND. You can contact her at ldisilverio AT gmail DOT com

Marcia Talley--St. Hilda's Crime and Mystery Weekend

DEBORAH CROMBIE: St. Hilda's Crime and Mystery Weekend is the hidden gem of mystery conferences. If Marcia Talley weren't my friend, I'd be very tempted to commit some heinous crime born of jealousy, because she got to attend this year, and I, having been in England in May, couldn't manage another trip as soon as August. To make it up to me, Marcia is going to give us some highlights along with photos from this year and previous conferences.

(I am so cross. I found a fabulous photo the other day when was straightening my office. St. Hilda's, 1996, with Kate Charles and Marcia Talley being punted on the Cherwell by Laurie King. I meant to put it in this post but now can't find it. Apologies!!! But Marcia has plenty to share.)

MARCIA TALLEY: In the late summer of 1994, a new mystery conference made its quiet debut at St Hilda's College in Oxford, England. The brainchild of mystery author Kate Charles and the college's alumni officer, Eileen Roberts, the St. Hilda's Crime and Mystery Weekend has for over twenty years, drawn mystery lovers from all over the world to the tranquil banks of the River Cherwell.

The inaugural conference, “Queens of Crime,” focused on women mystery authors with Oxford connections, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham and Agatha Christie, an entirely appropriate topic for St. Hilda's which was, until recently, the only remaining all women's college in England. Indeed, Val McDermid is an “old girl” of the college and Margaret York was its librarian and a speaker at first conference. At the end of that first weekend, response was so overwhelming that Charles and Roberts decided to continue the conference the following year with “The Golden Age, Then and Now.” Topics in subsequent years have included “Murder in Academia,” “Men and Women in Blue,” “Partners in Crime,” “ Scene of the Crime,” and “Mind Games, Psychology, Crime and Mystery,” to name but a few.  This year, as England commemorates the centennial of the beginning of World War I, St Hilda’s remembered, too, with “Crimes of the Past: War and Other Evils.”

It is this themed approach which sets St. Hilda's apart from other mystery conferences. There's none of the usual panels of writers sitting around making thinly disguised sales pitches for their books. Speakers come by invitation only and deliver thought-provoking papers on aspects of the mystery genre relevant to the topic that year. It is the skilled moderator/chair (Edward Marsden, Andrew Taylor, the late Robert Barnard and Natasha Cooper have been tapped for this several times) who ties the papers together and ably guides the question and answer session.

Papers are delivered in the acoustically perfect surroundings of the Jacqueline duPre Music Building, and there's no overlap between sessions so no one has to miss anything. It's this aspect of learning, I think, that keeps bringing people back to St. Hilda's: We hear Julia Wallace Martin talk about the relationship between manic depression and the creative process; Val McDermid's historical overview of gays and lesbians in crime fiction; or Alan Bradley’s poignant tale about the day his father ran away from home – for good. And who could resist a talk entitled “Lord Roberts Has a Full Crate of Whisky: Stories of the Anglo-Boer War” with which Frances Brody closed out this year’s session.

It's a tribute to the quality of the conference that authors who have attended St. Hilda's as participants continue to do so even if they haven't been invited to give a paper.

The conference opens Friday night with a champagne party on the college lawn which slopes gently down to the river. Just beyond are the playing fields of Magdalen College and beyond that, the towering spires of Oxford. Andrew Taylor marvels that there is no distinction between authors and non-authors at St. Hilda’s, none of the 'them and us' quality that distinguishes many conferences—fans on one side, and performing authors on the other. Perhaps because of its size—roughly 125 attendees —newcomers are made to feel welcome and find it a good place for conversation. Nowhere is this more evident than on Saturday night when attendees gather after dinner for a wine party in the Senior Common Room. Some have been known to stay up until the wee hours, chatting away about crime fiction or anything else that strikes their fancy.

Programs are punctuated by breaks for tea, coffee and cookies, and a civilized sherry hour invariably precedes the Saturday night dinner which has featured speakers like P.D. James, Colin Dexter, and Val McDermid. I'm still laughing over the evening Simon Brett performed all twelve roles for the world premier of Lines of Enquiry, a radio play “starring Osbert Mint, Betti Morns and Bren O'Smitt.” (You work it out!) I should mention that the food is excellent, served in the elegant, wood-paneled dining room and, as a vegetarian, I appreciate the tasty vegetarian options.

Everyone lodges at the college in clean comfortable rooms where “scouts” make up your bed each morning and electric kettles and the wherewithal for making tea sit on your desk.

The return rate is high. Anne Perry said it best: “The atmosphere is civilized, physically beautiful … a gathering of old friends to discuss the things we are all interested in. It is effortlessly 'academic', one leaves feeling entertained, enriched, educated, and renewed to begin again on the art and the career we all love.”

DEBS: Here are some of Marcia's photos, captioned as best I can (while I take a break to dig through more boxes looking for my own...)

The beautiful view of the River Cherwell from the college lawns.

Marcia, Alan Bradley, and Kate Charles, 2014

Kate Charles presides over dinner at the college high table, 2011

PD James chats with an attendee as a former college principle looks on, 2011

Kate Charles and Keith Miles, 2011

Val McDermid and Ayo Onatade share a joke, 2011

 Sigh. As you can see, the weather, the setting, the company, and the crime are divine. I'm setting my sights on next year.

One more snippet--Marcia has failed to mention that she has a brand new Hannah Ives novel, TOMORROW'S VENGANCE, so I'm going to do it for her.  I got to read it early, when I was in London, and it's wonderful.

Hannah Ives is introduced to Calvert Colony, a continuing care retirement community in Maryland, by her friend, Naddie Gray, and soon meets a colourful cast of characters: Colonel Greene, the spritely war veteran, Safa Abaza, an over-zealous religious convert, Ysabelle Milanesi, who fled the Nazis when she was a girl, handsome chef Raniero and his sister, Filomena.

When Hannah signs on as a volunteer in the Memory Unit, she becomes more even more involved in the lives of the Calvert Colony residents. But events take a dark turn when one of them is found murdered. Hannah is drawn into the investigation, and soon finds herself uncovering old crimes and reigniting quarrels that know no boundaries of place or time.

Publisher's Weekly says, "Talley deals sensitively with such aging issues as consensual sex among residents, vulnerability to scam artists, declining cognitive abilities, autocratic relatives, and the importance of touch and music in providing comfort."

Reading a Hannah novel is, as always, like spending time with one of your best friends, and getting a cracking good mystery to boot.

So who's up for Oxford and St. Hilda's next year?  I'm sure Marcia will be there.

You Can Take the Writer Out of Mysteries…. Laura S. Anderson

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Picture it — Anne Bolelyn gives King Henry VIII the son he so desperately wants, who grows up to be England's king — instead of Queen Elizabeth. This intriguing "what if" is the basis of novelist Laura S. Anderson's alternative historical fiction trilogy about Anne Boleyn's son.

I remember tossing The Boleyn King, the first in the series, in my bag for an eighteen-hour flight from New York City to Honolulu. Well, in all that time, I barely looked up from the page — finishing just before we started our descent to Hawaii. Yes, it was that enthralling.

Here's the official description of the The Boleyn King:

Just seventeen years old, Henry IX, known as William, is a king bound by the restraints of the regency yet anxious to prove himself. With the French threatening battle and the Catholics sowing the seeds of rebellion at home, William trusts only three people: his older sister Elizabeth; his best friend and loyal counselor, Dominic; and Minuette, a young orphan raised as a royal ward by William’s mother, Anne Boleyn.
 
Against a tide of secrets, betrayal, and murder, William finds himself fighting for the very soul of his kingdom. Then, when he and Dominic both fall in love with Minuette, romantic obsession looms over a new generation of Tudors. One among them will pay the price for a king’s desire, as a shocking twist of fate changes England’s fortunes forever.

And I'm going to let Laura describe herself, since she does it so winningly:

Laura Andersen has one husband, four children, and a

college degree in English that she puts to non-profitable use by reading everything she can lay her hands on. Books, shoes, and travel are her fiscal downfalls, which she justifies because all three ‘take you places.’ She loves the ocean (but not sand), forests (but not camping), good food (but not cooking), and shopping (there is no downside.) Historical fiction offers her all the pleasure of visiting the past without the inconvenience of no electricity or indoor plumbing. After more than thirty years spent west of the Rocky Mountains, she now lives in Massachusetts with her family.

And now, I'm honored to introduce novelist Laura S. Anderson on mysteries, secrets, dead bodies, and more….

LAURA S. ANDERSON: Once upon a time there was a woman whose secret dream was to write. After years of writing silently in the background, rarely speaking of her dream, her friends dared her to do it. Finish a novel, they said, and when it’s finished we’ll read it in book club. She took the dare, and ten months later her first novel was complete.

      Clearly I work well under the threat of public humiliation.

     That first novel (and the second) was a historical mystery. From the time I could read by myself, I devoured the Bobbsey Twins and Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. When I was eleven, I discovered Agatha Christie. And in my best college class ever, I took a senior seminar on The Mystery Novel. Everything from Ellery Queen to Dostoyevsky, as well as an introduction to several of my enduringly favorite authors: Ellis Peters and Dorothy L. Sayers. I distinctly remember reading A Morbid Taste for Bones, featuring Peters’ medieval Brother Cadfael and thinking, “I didn’t know you could do this!” Mix history and mystery . . . who knew?

    

Passion, however, doesn’t always equal skill. Those first novels—like most first novels—were not received to rapturous acclaim in the publishing world. I wrote other books, ones without an overt mystery, and finally landed on the publishing path. While receiving a long string of rejections for a YA time travel novel, I sent my agent the third manuscript I’d written, an alternate history featuring the imaginary son of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. “I love it!” she said. “Make it a trilogy.”

     With no idea how to do it, I tore apart that long novel and set about creating a new coherent plot on which to center the first book. And that’s where my love of mysteries came to my rescue.

     I love every aspect of mystery novels: characters under pressure, communities fracturing from the weight of wickedness, the search for truth, the guiding principle that every single life matters and murder destroys more than just that single life.

     Then there’s structure. Mystery novels center on the answering of questions—who, what, why. I adore questions. Present me with a blank page and no structure and my mind revolts. Give my mind a starting place and it begins to spin a web of hurts, pains, desires, fears, possibilities.

     So what happens when a mystery lover is writing a non-mystery novel?

     Secrets. Lots and lots of secrets. Of which, thank goodness, the Tudors possess plenty.

     Also bodies.

     In my case, in need of a new plot structure on which to build the first book in a trilogy, I began with a body: a young woman at the bottom of a staircase with a broken neck. Did she fall or was she pushed? Why did she seek an audience with the king just before her death? Why is she carrying a scandalous broadsheet directed at Queen Anne Boleyn’s past sins? And who fathered the inconvenient child she is carrying?

     While working on the second book for Ballantine (The Boleyn

Deceit), I got a new editor: Kate Miciak. It was a name I knew, as the past or present editor of such mystery writers as Laurie R. King, Elizabeth George, Alan Bradley, Charles Todd (and now Susan Elia MacNeal.) In our first conversation, I told her that my fondest writing dream is to be able to write a good mystery novel.

     She told me I have it in me. So I continue to practice. I imagine my detective and my setting. I force my mind to construct twisty plots and wonder when I’ll be able to keep them from collapsing under their own weight. I use elements of mysteries in my alternate historicals (the first novel in my new trilogy features Queen Elizabeth I’s intelligencer, Francis Walsingham, and the young woman he persuades to spy for England.)

     And I continue to devour my favorite novels: mysteries of every sort. Cozy and procedural. Contemporary and historical. Devastated communities and committed investigators and—the final, essential ingredient for the best mysteries—hope. Hope that evil is an aberration and goodness a state to be continuously sought.

  
What do you think of the idea of alternative histories? Novelists switching genres? Defining genres?

Leave a comment and be automatically entered to win a copy of The Boleyn King!


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