Susan Shea--Murder Visits a French Village

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Are you practicing your French? Because we have more of wonderful France for you today, as well as a lovely tribute to our own Rhys Bowen!

Susan Shea's French village novels are so charming they make me want to pack up my bags and move to France, or at least pour some red wine and make boeuf bourguignon. When I finished MURDER VISITS A FRENCH VILLAGE I hoped that I could at least book a room in the renovated French chateau!

Welcome, Susan!

SUSAN SHEA: Thank you, Debs and Jungle Red Writers for inviting me today. It’s a privilege to join you and your readers for conversation. Now that the new book is out, I can share what was a bit of a secret: MURDER VISITS A FRENCH VILLAGE is dedicated to a dear friend, and a JRW author – Rhys Bowen! Rhys is a gem, someone who pulls other writers along with encouragement and real help. In fact, Rhys is where the idea for a series based on restoring a château came from. Merci beaucoup!

 A lot of what I love about France comes from my travel experiences there. Traveling within France is an adventure in itself, though. I’ve been there six times since my reunion with the country in 2001. Yes, December 2001, with everyone still jittery. We spent two weeks in Paris, where my partner (who spoke street French) had to confront two Arab guards in the new Arab Institute art gallery who didn’t think any of the tourists waiting in line understood the dirty slang and insults they were lobbing. One Sunday, we visited the Porte de Vavnes flea market in the 14^th Arr., where he murmured to me, “Don’t turn around. There’s a woman with a machine gun standing right behind you.” Of course I turned around! It was a petite gendarme, armed to the teeth and ready for trouble, one of a score of cops with guns we could see. Why? That stupid man responsible for decades of the rest of us having to remove our shoes had just set off his shoe bomb in a plane at Charles de Gaulle airport.  That Sunday was also the last weekend French francs were accepted as currency and people had come out in droves to spend them. I still have some souvenir notes.

One year, my friends in different parts of the country all wanted me to stay, generous invitations that led me to leasing a car online in advance and picking it up in Marseille from a car dealership where no one spoke a word of English. My limited French, charades, and the papers, which were written in English, bien sûr, finally got me a huge SUV I hadn’t ordered. But, okay, it was wheels, and with them I traveled to St. Rémy and other must-see sites in Provence, to Burgundy, Avignon, the wild Camargue and culture-rich Arles, where the GPS voice in crisp British tones insisted over and over that I should drive into the Rhone River instead of to my friend’s house.

French fast trains are a marvel. I love them. Paris to Burgundy in about 80 minutes, clean, almost luxe seating if you go first class. Last time I visited my ex-pat friend in Burgundy, the inspiration for Katherine Goff in my first two French village mysteries and a presence in the brand new MURDER VISITS A FRENCH VILLAGE, it was quite a journey. After a 16-hour flight and a wait, I took the TGV (the fast train) from Charles de Gaulle to its first stop, which is in Burgundy. Waited on platform at 11 p.m. for the local train to a town sort of near Noyers-sur-Serein. Driver recruited by my friend picked me up at midnight and drove me the last 20 kilometers to her house in Noyers-sur-Serein, where I staggered in and was too tired to do more than exchange the traditional bis and fall into bed.

Not everything I experience traveling in France winds up in a novel, just as Debs’ books can’t include everything she drinks deeply of in her beloved London, but there is an attitude, an approach to everyday life, an energy we pick up that permeates our writing.  I’m headed back to Paris in September, taking classes now to improve my pitiful conversational ability, and eager to inhale some of that je ne sais quoi for the fourth French village mystery, due out in 2024.

Do you love international travel, even if long lines diminish the joy, and, if so, where do you like best to go?

Ariel Shepard is devastated by the sudden loss of her husband, but nothing could have prepared her for inheriting the rundown French château they’d visited on their honeymoon four years ago. Ariel hires an historian to help her uncover the legacy of her beautiful ruin. Christiane, the scholar, is found dead in the moat and Ariel is determined to find justice for the victim. With plenty of workmen – and errant tools – at the château, she realizes many people had the means, but who had the motive? Ariel begins to suspect that her French village life will be anything but peaceful.

Susan C. Shea is a member of Norcal’s Sisters in Crime, a former member of the SinC national board, and a member of MWA. She’s the author of two series, the French village mysteries, and the Dani O’Rourke Mysteries. She’s on the faculty of the Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference and blogs on 7 Criminal Minds. Visit Susan at susancshea.com. 

DEBS: I'll answer Susan's question. London, obviously, even with queues, but I would really like to get back to Paris, and I'd love to go to Burgundy, which I've never visited! READERS, what place tops your list?

Dressing Up with Susan Shea

INGRID THOFT

Wouldn't you love to take a trip to the French countryside?  Visit with the locals.  Dine on cheese and wine while admiring the landscape.  You can with the added bonus of a cracking mystery if you read "Dressed for Death in Burgundy," the latest from Susan Shea.  Her main character, Katherine Goff, is an expat living in the small town of Reigny-sur-Canne in this second installment of her French countryside series.

Susan is here to give you the scoop on her new book!

SS: I don’t know about you, dear JRWs, but I rarely have an opportunity these days to dress up: long dress, serious jewelry, high heels. I miss it. Used to be, my sweetie and I would dress (he rocked a tux) at least a few times a year and I loved those evenings. These days “dressing up” means leaving the jeans and trainers at home.

But what I miss most is the over-the-top parties where we were invited – no, instructed – to come in costume, and I don’t mean Hallowe’en vampire teeth or Stars Wars outfits. I’m talking about full Elizabethan lady-in-waiting attire with swishing satin skirts and pearl headdresses, or flimsy 1920’s Flapper chemises, page boy bobs, and long cigarette holders.
Have you had the fun of going to a costume shop (do they still exist, I am just wondering?) to browse through Marie Antoinette’s bustiers or try on a Russian Empress’s furs? Practice using a fan with the flirtatiousness of a geisha, or look in the mirror at Paul Revere’s wife with her mobcap? The last time I went full costume was at a party that must have been 15 years ago and, yes, I went as an Elizabethan Lady, my sweetie as a rough character who might have been her stable boy.

All this was on my mind when I visited the Musee du Costume in Avallon, France for the first time and had the inspiration for the murder at the heart of my second French village mystery, "Dressed for Death in Burgundy." The proprietor, whom I fictionalized in the story, has spent decades scouring French flea markets and antique stores to gather thousands of articles of clothing, accessories, and costume-focused art.

The Museum occupies a multi-storied town house on a quiet side street in the town, and Madame has so many costumes that she and her two grown daughters rotate the entire house’s exhibits at least once a year.  She’s getting older, she apologizes, and since she turned 90, it’s a bit harder to showcase a different era. As I explored the salons and display cases, I longed for an excuse to wear a slimming Edwardian dress (think Downton Abbey), or the sheer black stockings with the spiders traveling neatly up the back of the leg, or the elbow length, pale blue kidskin gloves…I mean, really! Too gorgeous, so evocative of a more glamorous time.

Maybe we should plan a full-out costume party, a chance to be anyone from a masked Venetian countess to a woman pirate. We could rent a ballroom, hire a small orchestra, and dance with equally attired gentlemen ‘til dawn. Who would you choose to be for that evening? I have dibs on Veronica Lake in the shimmering, silvery gown.

Do tell, Reds and Readers:  Do you have occasion to dress up?  Have a favorite fancy outfit in the depths of your closet?

Susan is giving away a copy of her latest to one lucky reader!  Just comment to enter.

"Dressed for Death in Burgundy"
After finding herself mixed up in a murder investigation the previous summer, Katherine Goff’s life simply has not been the same. Her husband has been in the U.S. recording a new album, the Burgundy region locals are finally starting to see her as a real neighbor, and Katherine has even started helping out with “tourist” excursions. It seems she’s finally found her place in the small community of Reigny-sur-Canne.

But when Katherine stumbles across a body in the local museum during a tour, she finds herself caught up once again in a whirlwind of gossip and speculation. When the police zero in on her friend Pippa as a suspect, Pippa and Katherine team up to find the real killer and clear her name.

However, the more clues they discover, the more the real killer wants them off the trail. When Katherine and Pippa start receiving threats, they must decide what they are more afraid of―the police getting it wrong, or possibly becoming the killer’s next targets.

Find out what happens next in the second installment in the French countryside murder mystery series the New York Times calls “a pleasant getaway.”

DRESSED FOR DEATH IN BURGUNDY is Susan Shea's fifth mystery and the second in her French village mysteries. Her first series featured a San Francisco professional woman drawn into art-related misdeeds. Susan is on the national board of Sisters in Crime and is a member of Mystery Writers of America. She spent twenty-five years in the not-for-profit world before beginning to write full time. She lives in Novato.