The Interview

LUCY BURDETTE: Last week was a little bit nerve-racking, because the Friends of the Key West Library held their second annual fundraising gala featuring Carl Hiaasen. As the president, I had the honor of interviewing him. I’ve interviewed plenty of people over the past 15 years, and have also been interviewed–you would think this would be a cake walk! But I spent the weeks ahead of time worrying about developing clever questions, and making sure I showed him off in the very best light as well as entertaining the 130 folks in the audience. He’s a very funny man so I wanted to give him the chance to tell stories to his fans, and really just stay out of his way.

In my work both as a psychologist, and as an author, I know that one of the best tips for interviewing is to pay attention to what the person is saying, rather than what you are going to say next. A second idea is to focus on knowing enough about the speaker that you can ask questions that are thoughtful, maybe even somewhat new. It all went super smoothly and I had a lot of good feedback about the night.

We have some amazing interviewers in this group. I’d love to hear your tips about how to conduct a great interview, and either a horror story or a big success!

HALLIE EPHRON: I love doing interviews. A highlight was interviewing Elizabeth George when she was a guest of honor at Bouchercon. The thing I appreciate MOST when I’m the one being itnerviewed is when I’m asked, “How do you pronounce your name?” It’s not Holly or Haylee or Nora… Grrr.

As an interviewer it’s: come prepared. Research what the author has said about themselves. Read some of their books. Read their published interviews. I once interviewed Scott Turow and I was so excited to be able to ask how on earth he came up with the plot twist (the howdunnit) of Presumed Innocent. (Turns out his dad was a gynecologist. Who knew?!?)

And, oh yeah, do not interrupt. This is the hardest part for me.

JENN McKINLAY: Ha! That’s the hardest part for me, too, Hallie. Lucy, Hub and I got to see Hiaasen years ago (we're both big fans) when he came to AZ. He is a fabulous speaker! I'm sure you were amazing. As an audience member, I love a good interview. I remember being dazzled by our Hank interviewing James Patterson - soooo good!!! As for me, I haven’t done many interviews on either side of the mic. But I am interviewing GOH Kate Carlisle at Bouchercon in San Diego this year! It should go smoothly because we’ve been friends forever - we’re the “I know where she’s buried all the bodies” type of friends. So, yeah…it should be good. Bwa ha ha.

I will say I find television interviews much more stressful. The idea of it living in perpetuity makes me certain I’ll drop an “F” bomb - Eek! Jenn with Brahm Resnik on KPNX Channel 12's Sunday Square Off - Author Edition

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Lucy, that must have been such fun. And I'm sure you were fabulous! All good advice–be prepared, listen, let them talk. My biggest interview success has been interviewing Louise Penny last November for the Dallas Museum of Art Arts and Letter Series. It was a sold out ticketed event and I was really nervous, much more so than if I'd been the one being interviewed. But Louise is an old friend, I'd done a lot of prep, and Louise has no trouble taking off with a question! I'm still hearing from people about how much they enjoyed it.


RHYS BOWEN: I’ve been on both sides of the mike for plenty of interviews. The worst ones are radio and TV shows on book tour when the host has clearly not read my book and has no idea who I am. So.. uh.. Miss Bowden, Miss Brown… Especially at Good Morning Denver at six am this is not amusing.



Like Debs, my favorites recently have been interviewing Louise Penny when she was guest of honor at Malice and then she returned the favor last year and interviewed me. I like interviews that turn into a relaxed chat, but last year when I threw a question back at Louise she said, “This is all about you!” which is a good point to remember. I’ve been interviewed too many times by an interviewer who wants to put their own stamp on the interview, has an agenda or wants to score points. When I interview, my job is making the person feel relaxed and turn it into a chat between friends. Of course the interviewer should have done her homework and know some funny/different things to ask. Louise and I are good friends and have both talked about when we both believed we were royalty as children. Audiences love that sort of thing. Our own Hank is the example of the perfect interviewer. She wants to make the person shine!


HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Aw, thank you, Rhys. Awww. xooxo And yes, my entire goal with an interview is to make the interviewee absolutely irresistible. To allow them to be the most fabulous they can be, and to shepherd them into having a wonderful time. I love when they laugh, then I know I’ve succeeded. I deeply read their books, and think about them, and research like mad, and plan plan plan. I do have a list of questions, but do NOT ask them in MY order, but in the natural flow of the chat. I try very hard not to ask long questions, and not to have the interview be about me AT ALL.

I honestly want to know the answers to the questions, and I LISTEN to them, and respond by asking the follow-ups that the audience would want to know.

 Three of my recent (and probably forever) favorites: Lisa Jewell, James Patterson, and Ruth Ware. SO fabulous. And such pros. (Oh, yes, and Anthony Horowitz. I had to try not to swoon the whole time.)

(And did you see that James Patterson mentioned me in his autobiography as an interviewer he loved? Awwww. I think it’s on page 178, if you want to look.)


JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Hank, I remember asking you for tips on interviewing ages ago when we were getting to know one another. So here’s my first tip: if you have the chance, ask an excerpt. One thing you told me that holds true for live or online appearances? Pick your outfit carefully. Avoid patterns, flashy jewelry, lots of accessories. Readers, if you look at the pictures of Debs and Jenn interviewing, you can see they also took Hank’s advice! The goal is to look neat and professional but not draw attention to yourself.

Photo courtesy of Edith Maxwell @ The Wickeds

When Sarah Stewart Taylor interviewed me at Malice Domestic last year, I was impressed with her skills. We’ve known each other for many years, which always helps, but she had done her prep - she asked questions I had never been asked before, which is so much more exciting than “Where do you get your ideas,” etc. By the way, Rhys, I’ve had that same experience with drive time radio hosts - “So, your book. It’s fiction?”

When Brian Andrews and Jeffrey Wilson started a new series - an action thriller with a religious bent - I was asked to interview them. This was a time when I didn’t have a long relationship with the subject; aside from a Zoom meeting to go over some points, we all went in cold. I think we had a great rapport, however, and I’m happy with the way everything turned out. Looking at this recording reminds me I need to do something about my background, however. My office is just too busy from that angle. I need to set up an interviewing station with a wall o’ books behind me.

Red readers, what was the best interview you've seen? any suggestions about how to be the best guest or interviewer?

And PS, Debs had some very big news this week: #8 on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list!!! We are so thrilled for her!

Dinner with (imaginary) Friends

INGRID THOFT

There’s a standard list of questions that writers get asked. One of the favorites (it’s in the New York Times’ “By the Book” section every week) is: Which writers would you like to have dinner with—living or deceased? This question elicits interesting responses, but I think an even more interesting question is, which fictional characters would you invite to dinner?

So, who would I like to see around my dinner table? Whose brain would I like to pick? The personalities I’ve chosen are strong, so no doubt, it would be a lively evening!

James Bond (and yes, I expect him to look like Daniel Craig.)

Ian Fleming's super spy is licensed to kill, and he knows how to do everything.  Fly a helicopter?  Check. Disarm a nuclear weapon? Check.  Choose beautiful dresses for his female companions?  Check.  I’d want to hear about his adventures and near-death experiences, and I’d like to breathe in his confidence i.e. arrogance.
  

Quinn Colson

Full disclosure: I have a crush on the sheriff of Tibbehah County in Mississippi.  I know, I know, he doesn't really exist, but Ace Atkins' creation feels real to me.  The head of law enforcement in an area full of underhanded deals, backstabbing, and tangled family trees, Quinn navigates it all with a quiet strength. And biscuits. I'd like him to bring some biscuits.

Barbara Havers

Yes, she’d turn up looking unkempt, but Elizabeth George’s detective sergeant is whip smart and not afraid to speak her mind.  Often in the shadow of her handsome, nattily dressed boss, Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley, Havers holds her own. Time and again, she  proves a critical member of the Met’s investigative team.

What about your dinner party?  Which fictional characters would get an invitation from you?

Spin-offs: Characters Who Leave Us Wanting More

Ingrid Thoft

In Tuesday’s post celebrating the publication of Deborah Crombie’s newest book, THE GARDEN OF LAMENTATIONS, I asked her if she had ever considered spinning off one of her supporting characters into a separate book.  It doesn’t sound like that’s on the horizon for Debs’ London cast of characters, but it got me thinking:  Are there characters who deserve their own spin-off?  In books and on the smaller screen?

I did a little digging to refresh my memory about successful spin-offs, both on TV and in literature.  Some were obvious including “Frasier” from “Cheers” and the many iterations of “Law and Order” that were spawned from the original series, which first aired in 1990.  But did you know that “Mork and Mindy” was a spin-off from “Happy Days”?  Or that “Torchwood” came from “Dr. Who?”

In literature, I found examples of authors being inspired by earlier works, as opposed to spin-offs created by the original writers.  WIDE SARGASSO SEA, a wonderful book by Jean Rhys, was inspired by Charlotte Brontë’s JANE EYRE.  It tells the tale of the first Mrs. Rochester, the one who went mad in the attic.  AHAB’S WIFE gets her due in the book of the same name by Sena Jeter Naslund.

   

These riffs on earlier works are compelling, but there are some supporting characters who deserve to star in their own stories.  The first who comes to mind is Winston Nkata, the detective sergeant who works alongside DI Thomas Lynley and DS Barbara Havers in Elizabeth George’s English detective series.  DS Nkata’s Caribbean roots are mentioned in some of the books, but never explored in depth.  Nor is much information given about the knife scar that traces a jagged line across his cheek.  There is always the sense that a deep chasm separates Winston’s youth from his current role as a police officer.  As a reader, I’d like to know more.

Aren’t all readers of Sue Grafton’s alphabet series just a little bit in love with octogenarian Henry Pitts?  A retired commercial baker, Henry provides Kinsey Millhone with advice and cinnamon rolls, but it’s his roster of elderly siblings that piques my curiosity.  Now fit and well into their nineties, what must it have been like in the Pitts’ household during Henry’s youth?  And what of Henry’s romantic history?  I’d love to peek into his life when he was a younger man, say 70-years-old.

George Fayne.  Bonus points if you know who this character is without the context of her two BFFs.  Nancy, George, and Bess solve crimes and find themselves knee-deep in trouble on a regular basis.  Of course, I love Nancy Drew, but I’d really like to know more about George.  How did she get that name?  Is it short for Georgina or Georgia?  Always described as a “tomboy,” what exactly warrants that description?  Does she skydive when not teaming up with the girls?  Does she join the guys for pick-up football games?  At a time when Nancy Drew was breaking the mold, I wonder how much George might have pushed the boundaries even further.
  

What are your favorite spin-offs, and which ones have been utter failures?  “The Love Boat: The Next Wave,” perhaps?  Any spin-offs you’re dying to see on the page or the screen?  Any die hard “The Love Boat: The New Wave” fans out there?

Will North--Too Clever By Half

DEBORAH CROMBIE: There is not much that gives me more pleasure than discovering a new British police mystery series. Add scenic Cornwall to the mix along with  strong, quirky, female detective sergeant Morgan Davies, an appealing partner in Scenes of Crime specialist Calum West, stir in great procedural details and a great supporting cast, and you have one happy camper! 

Author Will North has had a long, award-winning career in writing (more about that in a minute) just not in fiction. I say it's a good thing he got bitten by the fiction bug.  

Here's what Elizabeth George says about his first Davies and West book, HARM NONE:

“For lovers of English mysteries with authentic settings and spot-on police procedures, North’s Harm None is just the ticket.”

I agree wholeheartedly! Here's Will to tell you more.

DEBS: Will, we have an obvious kinship here, both Americans writing British police novels. But, oh, my, what different paths we've taken to get there! (And yours is so much more interesting, I must say.) You are a native New Yorker, and from early on a very gifted writer who has had a distinguished career writing non-fiction, some of which is "ghostwriting", or more accurately, collaborating, with some very famous people. Can you tell us a little about that?

WILL NORTH: I’ve actually had several writing careers, which may be indicative of a short attention

span if nothing else… I started my career as an environmental policy analyst, which culminated in a fairly senior appointed positon in the Carter Administration in Washington DC. I hadn’t even turned thirty. Then I branched out writing about broader economic policy issues which were the subjects of my first four nonfiction books. Eventually, Vice President Al Gore wanted me to write a book for him which came to be called Common Sense Government. Next thing I knew Bill Clinton was on the line. I met with him once a week in the Oval Office for three months and the result was Between Hope and History. I found him to be whip smart and a delight to work with. So, suddenly I was a ghostwriter. I’ve since ghosted books, some of them international best-sellers, for several famous mountaineers, a team of dinosaur hunters, and many others. This annoyed my mother: “When do I see your name on the cover?!” My response: “You’re still getting checks from me, right?” Mothers are so hard to please…

DC: From non-fiction it seems that you plunged into fiction. Did you always want to write fiction? Was there a particular event in your life that catapulted you into novels?

WN: I never thought I had novels in me. I’m not kidding. Not a clue. Then one day fiction showed up uninvited and beat me into submission. Ninety days later, my first novel, The Long Walk Home, was done. Three big New York publishers started a bidding war for the rights. A division of Random House won with a six-figure advance. I thought they were nuts. I still do, despite its success. But yes, something happened to me personally that produced that first novel: my ex-wife but absolute best friend died of cancer. I moved back East and took care of her for the final months of her life. Just before she died, she grinned and said: “I have a surprise for you.” (She was mischievous to the end.) I was to take her ashes to the top of a mountain in North Wales called Cadair Idris and scatter them at the summit. She was part Welsh. It took me a year to let her go but I finally did so. A couple of months after I returned home, it was like her spirit gave me a big dope slap and told me to get to work. That’s how it started. I blame it all on her. Before that, I’d never (knowingly) written fiction, had never even taken a creative writing class.

DC: Your first books were in the romantic suspense tradition. (I can't wait to read these, especially the two set in Britain.) Were there particular books and authors that inspired these?

WN: Honestly, no. The stories just showed up. The next two novels were Water, Stone, Heart and  Seasons’ End (the latter set on the small island in Puget Sound where I now live). I think of them as love stories for grownups about second chances in life, although, yes, there is suspense.  I usually have only three things in my head when I start a novel:  a sense of place, a couple of quirky characters, and a larger theme I want to explore. Sometimes I don’t understand the theme until I’ve written a good bit of the book.  I don’t outline; my characters boss me around and I do what they tell me to. I tell people this at readings and they think I’m joking. I’m not. Every writing day, and I write seven days a week, is a complete surprise. To me, that’s the fun.

DC: And then came the crime novels, starting with Harm None, set in Cornwall, featuring police detective Morgan Davies, and crime scene manager Calum West. The question we're always asked, as Yanks writing Brit: What drew you to Britain? And in your case, to Cornwall especially, with your wonderfully rendered settings? And what drew you to start a life of crime? Any writers in particular?

WN: For most of my life (until I found my island near Seattle and its deep sense of community), the only place I ever felt “at home” was Britain. It hit me the moment I stepped off a plane at Heathrow in the late 1960s. Eventually, I wrote a three-book series of off-the-beaten-track guidebooks called The Best of Britain’s Countryside. But Cornwall, that far southwestern tip of Britain, captured me. It is a weather-thrashed, magical place studded with Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age monuments and sites. You can walk from the English Channel side to the Atlantic coast side in less than a day and you just keep tripping over them. They’re everywhere. Cornwall has always been a place of mystery. On the way to nowhere, it kept its culture intact despite England’s best efforts to tame it. Also, there is a very strong pagan tradition there which I have used in my mysteries on occasion. As for other writers, I decided to write British murder mysteries because I always loved reading them. I started long ago with the great Dorothy Sayers, followed by Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham, and later P.D. James, Ian Rankin, Ruth Rendell, Reginald Hill, my neighbor and friend a couple of islands north of me, Elizabeth George, and Martha Grimes whose beautifully crafted mysteries are also just plain hilarious. (Someday I’ll have to tell you a funny story about the pub she features in The Lamorna Wink...)

DC: Now, the twenty-four dollar (or pound) question: How do you research the Davies and West books? How much time do you spend in England? (And can I poach your police contacts???)

WN: Having written those three guidebooks, which involved many long visits over three years with my late wife, I know Britain well, especially the countryside. I am blessed with a photographic memory of “place.” Ten years ago, for example, I spent three and a half months walking through most of southern England, pack on my back. To this day, it is a vivid movie in my head. It was traversing the whole of the Southwest Coast Path that made me realize Cornwall was where my heart was. I am blessed by having a whole team of “advisers” in Cornwall: a recently retired (and somewhat notorious) female CID detective sergeant, a former chief crime scene manager, one of the two forensic pathologists serving there, the head archaeologist for Cornwall, the staff of the Royal Cornwall Museum, the mortuary manager in Truro, several leading pagans and witches, and many others I’ve recruited as needed for each book.  I reckon it’s my years as a nonfiction writer that I am so obsessed about accuracy, especially in procedure. I can’t even finish a sentence unless I know the facts are right. I get answers from these folks overnight and am so grateful that they have become my friends.

DC: Morgan Davies is a very strong, very real character; prickly, funny, and driven. How did she come about?

WN: She won’t mind my saying this, but Morgan is a (very) fictionalized version of my CID detective friend. The character is irascible, sharp-tongued, a rule breaker, but a passionate seeker of justice, in part because of a tragedy during her childhood. In short, she’s a bulldog. Sometimes also a loose cannon. My SOCO crime scene manager, Calum West, is her near opposite: calm, a gentleman, but equally driven when it comes to investigating scenes. He is fashioned, lightly, after my SOCO advisor. They’re both quite concerned about what quagmire I’ll drop them into next…

DC: What's next for Davies and West? I can't wait to read more.

WN: Harm None is followed by Too Clever By Half. In that story Davies & West struggle to sort out how a body comes to be discovered floating, naked, five miles off the English Channel coast.  It’s tricky. Pretty soon you think you know what’s happened. But you don’t. I have just finished the third in the series, Trevega House. In this story, a series of increasingly dangerous and malicious events is visited upon a couple and their recently adopted, clairsentient young girl. All three are characters who return from my second romantic novel, Water, Stone, Heart. Readers kept demanding to know what happened to the girl. The answer is: a lot.

DEBS: Here's a little more about Too Clever By Half.  

Naked, anonymous, the body found bobbing in the English Channel five miles off the coast of Cornwall is a baffling puzzle for Major Crimes Unit Detective Inspector Morgan Davies and her Scene of Crimes Manager, Calum West. Davies has no victim to name. West has no scene to investigate. The post-mortem confirms that the shallow wounds marking the corpse are due to torture.
Two days later, a woman reports her partner, Archie Hansen, missing. A farmer and Druid, Archie has a secret: while plowing one of his fields he’s discovered an underground chamber holding a fortune in Iron Age gold and silver artifacts. Barely a month later he’s the “floater” found in the Channel.

Unraveling this mystery of treasure, deep secrets, adultery, betrayal, and revenge will test the investigative skills, intuition, and tenacity of Davies and West as never before. The killer is wickedly clever, but ultimately, as the Brits say, “too clever by half.”

READERS, will be dropping in to answer questions and comments throughout the day, and has a copy of Too Clever By Half (paperback or e-book) for one lucky commenter. So be sure and say "hi."

"Will North" is the fiction-writing pseudonym for an internationally best-selling author and ghostwriter of more than a dozen nonfiction books. His new novels include ,"The Long Walk Home, "Water, Stone,Heart," "Seasons' End," and the first two books in the Davies & West murder mystery series, set in Cornwall, England: "Harm None" and "Too Clever By Half." The third in the series, "Trevega House," will be released very soon. He lives with his wife and various animals on an island in Puget Sound, Washington. You can find him at www.willnorthonline.com and on Facebook at Will North, Author.

REDS ALERT! Stephanie Stevens has won the signed copy of Away in a Manger and can email Rhys at authorrhysbowen@gmail.com

And JHolden was the winner of Sadie Hartwell's book, if you can email Lucy with your address.

DEBS: And, Will, another question from me: Tell us about your gorgeous dogs!

And one more. I want to hear the story about The Lamorna Wink:-)

Memories of Crime Bake

LUCY BURDETTE: I always mean to do a better job of documenting the New England Crime Bake mystery conference, but it goes by so fast...I get home and my pictures are skimpy and I'm exhausted! But still, I wanted to mark the occasion with a few moments and high points.

First, I always enjoy the extra time riding up and back to the conference (in Dedham, MA) with my writers group pals, Angelo Pompano and Chris Falcone. We've been reading each others' stuff for at least 15 years. I can't wait to see their wonderful books in print.

Hallie, Lucy, and Hank

Next, I love seeing any Jungle Reds who are there--in this case Hank and Hallie, who always contribute so much to the conversations.

Ray Saleme, Elizabeth George, Hallie Ephron

Elizabeth George was a fabulous guest of honor--gracious, talented and game for anything. I love hearing how other people write, what they know and don't know when they plunge into a story.

Lucy, Julianne, Lisa

Speaking of community, the conference has become a huge community for New England writers and readers. On Friday night, 22 debut authors were honored. Isn't that an amazing number? Here's a picture of one of them, Julie Hennrikus aka Julianne Holmes, who also happened to be a co-chair this year. I'm reading her book now--JUST KILLING TIME--and it's wonderful! On the Wicked Cozy "stick" is one of our back bloggers, Mark Baker.

This was also the date for the launch of the Level Best Books anthology, RED DAWN. (I mentioned a few weeks ago that my new Key West story "Last Mango in Paradise" made it into this edition.) It's a blast to autograph the books in a big line with all the other writers. (Thanks to Susan Oleksiw for the photo.)

Two Miss Marples and one Poirot with the Queen

And Saturday night, the costume banquet is always a ball! This year with an English pub theme, we came dressed as our favorite English characters or writers. And then we ate dinner and danced and fell into bed exhausted! The DJ was heard saying this is the strangest group he's ever worked for--we come in costume, eat, dance like madpeople for an hour and then totter out...work hard, party hard!

There's too much more to mention like a critique I did whose authors went on to have 5 agents ask to see the book! And a wonderful discussion about the writers' life with Peter Abrahams, Kate Flora, and Gerry Boyle. 

If you attended the conference, what was your favorite moment? If you didn't, how about a memory from another writers conference? (And ps, next year's guest of honor will be the fabulous William Kent Krueger--not to be missed!)

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!


Read Laura's blog here.
Follow Laura on Twitter here.