HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Does anyone remember Laughter is the Best Medicine? Was it—Reader’s Digest? My grandmother had Reader’s Digest, and I learned to type by copying those jokes and stories so I could have something to type.
Now, so many years later, I was in an airport ten days ago, and at one point, I realized—no one was laughing. It was profound.
One thing that happened, from all this, is that so many authors with new books had the career rug pulled out from under them. And I am so attached to the dear Guppy chapter of Sisters in Crime, and all the wonderful and talented authors who have been so determined and so persistent—only to be hit by reality. So we will highlight some of them over the next few weeks! Yay, Guppies! (And contact me if you want to know more.)
So meet my dear sister Guppy Lesley Diehl. She calls her books “cozy mysteries featuring snoopy country gals with attitude.” Which is exactly—exactly—what we need today.
Writing from the Swamps
When I moved my winter home from the Florida Keys to rural Florida, I didn’t expect to fall in love with the place, and I certainly never intended to set a cozy mystery here on the edge of the swamps, but the cows won me over.
These weren’t the cows I grew up with on the farm in Illinois.
The cows here are bred from Brahmans and sport the biggest, droopiest ears in the bovine world. The accompanying wattle on their necks is distinctive to the breed. Purebreds are usually gray in color, sometimes light enough that they can look almost white. We used to see a few them walking across the field in the late afternoon, and because of the early evening shadows behind them, we referred to them as “ghost cattle.” There is nothing so majestic as a full-grown gray Brahman bull, powerful and beautiful.
Drive one of the highways out of town and you may be lucky to see cowboys on horses herding cattle through the sabal pines, live oaks and palmetto dotted prairies, or stop into one of the local bars and run into them in their boots and spurs stopping for a beer after a long day of tending cattle.
This is the place for wildlife, not just alligators, but also birds, turtles, raccoons, ducks and coyotes. This is old Florida where people trace their families back four generations. Native Americans like the Seminole and the Miccosukee have built casinos, but most continue ranching as did their ancestors before the Seminole Wars in the 1830s.
Once I settled into the area, I found a small-town atmosphere prevailed. Upon arrival, I talked to the head librarian about a writer’s group. She hooked me up with another writer, Jan Day, and she and I founded OWL, the Okeechobee Writer’s League. Jan introduced me to the Women’s Business Group and to the talented people who put together the Top of the Lake Art Festival and the Speckled Perch Art Festival.
There are several rodeos here each year and a cattle drive as well as a community theater group. Surprisingly, the local movie theater remains independent and open when other communities’ small theaters have closed their doors. Like me, folks from the North come in the winter for the sunshine, warm temperatures and to fish the Big Lake. Around here we are not called “snowbirds”, but rather “winter visitors.” The center of town sports small businesses that struggle to compete with the chain stores, but they manage by virtue of their friendly and efficient service.
So, I thought to myself, why not set a cozy mystery here? I wanted a place that actually existed, where I could experience the community myself and write authentically about it.
Like the unusual setting for a cozy, so too is Eve an odd protagonist. I created a bold, sassy gal, a woman who was outspoken, a fashionista from the North. Eve would find the fit in this cow town uncomfortable at first.
I paired her with her best friend from grade school, a woman who could have grown up in the South, ladylike in every way. What Eve lacked in social skills, her friend, Madeleine, made up for. The two friends started a consignment shop together, and on opening day discovered the body of a woman stabbed to death on their dressing room floor. Murder was just the beginning. Humor dictates the tone of the series.
I sometimes wonder if I have gone too far afield in the cozy mystery subgenre: is the humor too over the edge, is Eve too brash, is a cozy set on the edge of the Florida swamps too much of a reach for my readers? And Eve is still evolving. She’s apprenticing to be a private detective.
Do you like bold protagonists, a little humor and unusual settings with your murder?
HANK: What a great question for today. Reds and Readers--and Guppies!--How far can a “cozy” go?
Tired of sitting surveillance on insurance fraud, apprentice PI Eve Apple Egret gets her first big case, one where the outcome is important and personal. Eve’s best friend Madeleine has few relatives, so her Uncle Shamus is special, but someone is determined to kill him and has tried several times. Eve is certain she can identify who is after him, but this time she may have taken on more than even our self-confident Eve can handle. Coping with a growing toddler and a teenager, devoting time to the consignment shop and finding someone who can go undercover in a sexual harassment case all vie for Eve’s attention. Eve knows she cannot fail Madeleine. This is more than her favorite uncle’s life. His death would mean devastating loss for Madeleine and call into question Eve’s commitment as a friend and her ability as a PI.
Cows, Lesley learned as a child growing up on a farm, have a twisted sense of humor. They chased her when she went to the field to herd them in for milking, and one ate the lovely red mitten her grandmother knitted for her. Determining that agriculture wasn’t her career path, she took a job as a stripper, book cover stripper for a publishing company, that is. Now after many years as a college professor and university administrator, she has returned to the world of books and uses her country roots and her training to concoct stories designed to make people laugh in the face of murder. “A good chuckle,” says Lesley,” keeps us emotionally well-oiled long into our old age.”
