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!
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 14th 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.
