Kim Hays--Switzerland's Secret Aristocrats

DEBORAH CROMBIE: First up today, a REDS ALERT! The winners of Ellen Crosby's BLOW UP are Karen in Ohio and Bibliophile. Email Ellen at ellen.crosby@gmail.com with your details!

And, now, on to today's guest, Kim N. Hays, the author of one of last year's break-out debuts, PESTICIDE, set in Bern and featuring Swiss detectives Giuliana Linder and Renzo Donatelli. The second installment in Kim's police procedural series, SONS AND BROTHERS is out now! I raved about the first book and am now in the midst of SONS AND BROTHERS and loving this one, too. The characters are complex and empathetic, and the Swiss cultural details like the one Kim is sharing today are fascinating. Welcome, Kim!

Switzerland’s Secret Aristocrats

It’s confession time: I have a weakness for aristocrats.

My politics lean left, and I grew up with Democrat-voting parents descended from struggling immigrants. I believe in equality and despise snobbery. But strange things happen to you when you read countless fairytales about princesses and have an anglophile librarian mother who tells you tales of English kings and queens and introduces you to Lord Peter Wimsey books. My teenage passion (never outgrown) for Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances only made matters worse.  

Now I live in Switzerland, home of the original castle of the Hapsburgs, a dynasty founded a thousand years ago that ruled great chunks of Europe for centuries. I’m finally surrounded by dukes, countesses, and barons, right?

Well, no. Back in the days of that eleventh-century Hapsburg castle, there were titled nobles galore, including Berthold, fifth Duke of Zähringen, who set off from his castle near the German city of Freiburg to conquer a good part of what was then Burgundy, including my home city of Bern in 1191. But you can’t have nobles without a king or queen to bestow titles on their favorites, and after the confederated cantons that became Switzerland liberated themselves from their Hapsburg overlords, they didn’t want a monarchy. So today there are no titled families pulling the strings in various Swiss cities and cantons.

Notice that word “titled.” In fact, the Swiss cities are home to an untitled elite who wield the influence of an aristocracy. These men and women, whose families were dominant for centuries in their regions of origin, carry names that are instantly recognizable today to anyone who lives where their ancestors once held authority. Members of the Escher family in Zürich, for example, or the Burkhardts in Basel, the Sulzers in Winterthur, Patrys in Geneva, or von Graffenrieds in Bern: many of these men and women are active in the government, economy, social welfare, and cultural life of their cities and cantons. And quite a few of them are very rich. Some even own castles. But none of them uses a title.

Perhaps because Bern was once the largest city-state north of the Alps, its collection of untitled aristocrats is the best known in Switzerland. The organization they’ve founded together is Bern’s Burgergemeinde, or community of burghers, which owns enormous quantities of land and hundreds of buildings in and around the city and spends a great deal of money keeping the city’s museums and symphony going. Newcomers to the city have been buying themselves into this elite circle for decades. Still, the original and most important burghers of Bern have ancestors who were running the city in the Middle Ages, during the years when the trade guilds were the most important institutions in all the Swiss cities.

Today’s Bernese aristocrats still belong to guilds, since most of their forefathers began as the city’s bakers, tanners, carpenters, and stoneworkers. These early tradesmen and merchants rose to become first guild masters and then members of the city council. Eventually, a core of them declared themselves patricians and became a ruling elite, until Napoleon conquered Switzerland and overthrew them. But their family names—and their influence—didn’t disappear.

Some of the sons of these great families made their living as mercenary captains.  Switzerland may be neutral today, but for over eight hundred years its young men sought their fortune as killers-for-hire. Starting in the sixteenth century, professional soldiers from wealthy Bernese families would recruit whole companies of poor peasants and laborers seeking wealth and adventure (or maybe just a job) and lead them off to fight for foreign rulers in European wars. The Pope’s Swiss Guard is a relic of the time when one in ten Swiss men was fighting for a foreign power. As a result of these services to European royalty, a few of the mercenary officers from patrician families were given aristocratic titles that could be passed on to their children. But these are never used in Switzerland.

I once got up my courage to ask my delightful OB/GYN, whose father was then the president of Bern’s community of burghers, if he had a title. He told me that when he went to a medical congress in, say, France, he could sign the hotel register as Baron. “But I’d never do that, of course,” he assured me earnestly.

How could I write mysteries set in Bern and not include these Bernese aristocrats in my stories? For Pesticide, the first book in the Polizei Bern series, I created Frau von Oberburg, a very old but lively member of the community of burghers who lives in an apartment on Junkergasse, a real street in Bern that by its very name (a Junker is a Prussian aristocrat) is a good place to house a member of the gentry.

Now, in my second Polizei Bern book, Sons and Brothers, I’ve actually killed a Bern burgher. My newest aristocrat is named Johann Karl Gurtner and is from the Emmental region of Canton Bern, where he grew up in a small castle that is the property of his mother’s family, the von Eichwils. He is a well-respected surgeon and works hard in his family’s traditional trade guild as a charitable volunteer. 

But if you want to know who killed him, you’ll have to read the book!

Am I the only one with a secret passion for lords and ladies? Does anyone else share this un-American fascination with aristocrats?

DEBS: I think question is so appropriate, with the coronation of King Charles III coming up this weekend!  I grew up loving Georgette Heyer, too, and of course my first detective love was Lord Peter Wimsey, so I guess I was indoctrinated early. What about you, REDs and readers?

Sons and Brothers, the second police procedural in Kim Hays’s Polizei Bern series, was published on April 18 by Seventh Street Books. In it, a cardiac surgeon in his seventies is attacked and drowned in Bern’s Aare River. The district attorney suspects the victim’s estranged son Markus, but Bern police detectives Linder and Donatelli have other ideas about the crime. In her endorsement of the book, Julia Spencer-Fleming says, “Giuliana Linder and Renzo Donatelli are compassionate, conflicted, and utterly compelling. Sons and Brothers is a must-read.”

Kim Hays is a dual Swiss/US citizen who lives in Bern with her Swiss husband. The first book in her Polizei Bern series, Pesticide, was shortlisted for a Debut Dagger Award by the Crime Writers Association. Deborah Crombie called it “a stand-out debut for 2022.” For more information about Kim and Switzerland, see www.kimhaysbern.com.

 

What We're Writing--Debs Finds Her Way

DEBORAH CROMBIE: The last time I was up on our What We're Writing week, I said that by the time my next turn rolled around, A KILLING OF INNOCENTS would be finished!

Oh, oops, well, maybe not quite finished... but almost! Only a few days and two chapters to go, the climax and the resolution.

Resolution, now there's a nice word, and for a while I wondered if I would get there. I'd be the first to admit that I wandered and wobbled through the middle of this book, horribly frustrated by not being able to spend time in London doing essential research, much of  which is just walking the city.  A first visit gives me a general feel for a location.  Subsequent trips let me imprint the specifics, moving the characters through their daily lives in the setting. That's when you find all the fun little tidbits; the best coffee shop, the park with the interesting history, the house where a favorite writer lived. It's where the book comes to life.

For this book, I had a couple of weeks in November of 2019. And THAT. WAS.  IT.

But, eventually, I figured things out, and the first thanks in my acknowledgements will go to--Google Street View! I couldn't have done it without you, Google!

Back in the day, before we were smart, I was wedded to my A-Z.

That's pronounced A to Zed, by the way, and it is the definitive London street map book. I even had this mini version that went with me everywhere. Armed with my AZ and my tattered London Bus Route map, I could pretty much conquer London.

But, thankfully for me, technology has moved on, and virtual reality turned out to be my new best friend. I walked my way around Bloomsbury and Soho with cursor and arrows and zoom. Some of the locations were already familiar, of course, but after a while the lines between what was real and what I'd only done or seen virtually started to blur. (Is that madness, or writing fiction?)

Take this little snippet here, where Duncan is following a clue in Soho:

When he reached Old Compton Street, he was glad to see that I Camisa and Son was just as he remembered it. The deli was busy, and as he waited he breathed in the distinctive aroma of the place. Old cheeses. Cured meats. Coffee, fresh bread. And always the undertone of spices, some familiar—basil, fennel, oregano—some elusive. The place had been here a long time, long enough for the scents to seep into the very fabric of it. He wondered if there was even a ‘son’ anymore.

But whoever was in charge, it was an efficient operation, and when his turn came at the counter, his order was filled quickly. With his ham, mortadella, mozzarella, and tomato on focaccia stowed safely in a paper bag and his coffee in a paper cup, he walked back into Old Compton Street. There he hesitated, his face tilted up to the sun. He’d meant to take his lunch back to Holborn, but the day was still fine and he had a better idea.

He rounded the corner into Wardour Street and was soon seated on a bench in St. Anne’s churchyard, watching the pigeons as he ate and trying not to drip roasted tomato on his best suit trousers.

It was only when he’d finished his sandwich and brushed the crumbs from his lap that he checked his messages. He’d missed a text from Gemma. 

I have actually sat on a bench in St. Anne's churchyard. And the deli, I Camisa and Son, is a real place, but I've never been there. It came up on a list of Best Sandwiches in London, it was in exactly the right spot, and Duncan needed lunch. I figured it looked like the wonderful Mr. Christian's deli in Notting Hill, and smelled like Valvona and Crolla, the famous Italian deli just around the corner from where I used to live in Edinburgh.

And now, just reading that, I'm starving. I Camisa and Son is definitely on my list next trip.

Dear REDS, when you are writing, do you sometimes lose track of which things are real and which things you've made up? 

Readers, I'm sure we've all done that with books we love. On my very first visit to London, walking down Piccadilly, I said, "Oh, look, there's Lord Peter's flat!" And I almost expected to hear the notes from the piano drifting from the building. 

What fictional setting has lived up to your expectations in real life?

A KILLING OF INNOCENTS will be released February 7th, 2023.

YAY!

You can preorder from Amazon here.

And from B&N here. 

Links to Indies will be coming soon!

The New Kincaid/James--A BITTER FEAST

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm so excited to get to talk about the new Kincaid/James book today! This is #18 in the series, and it's called A BITTER FEAST. 

We don't quite have a finished cover, but it's coming soon and it is going to be stunning! In the meantime, here's a look at the very picturesque village of Lower Slaughter, in Gloucestershire, where most of the book takes place.

I had long wanted to set a book in the beautiful Cotswolds, one of my favorite parts of England. And after the London setting of the last two books, I thought it would be fun for all four of my series detectives, Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Detective Inspector Gemma James (who are married, if you don't know) Detective Sergeant Doug Cullen, and Detective Sergeant Melody Talbot, to spend a weekend together in the country. They, and Duncan's and Gemma's three children, are invited to Melody Talbot's parents' home in the scenic Cotswold village of Lower Slaughter, where Melody's mother is hosting an autumn harvest charity luncheon catered by local chef Viv Holland. 

But of course from the very beginning, their relaxing weekend does not go as planned. 

Here's a snippet from the end of Chapter 1. Just to put you in the scene, Gemma and Melody have driven ahead with little Charlotte, and Doug is coming by train with the two boys the next morning, so Duncan is driving alone, and running late, as the September sun sets.

Kincaid’s predictions turned out to have been overly optimistic. The traffic had slowed again, and it was fully dark by the time he finally left the motorway. The car was too old to have built-in sat-nav, and not wanting to stop to check his mobile, he trusted to his memory of the map he’d looked at earlier. He decided not to ring Gemma as he didn’t know how long the remainder of the journey would take.

As he passed Cirencester, the land began to rise into the Cotswold Hills, as well as he could tell in the dark. Not far to go, then, but he had to laugh at the idea of the Talbots referring to their place as a “weekend” home. Perhaps they knew a way to circumvent the motorway traffic—or they simply took the train to the nearest station, where they had a retainer waiting to fetch them. Or maybe they just took a helicopter, he thought, grinning.

A signpost loomed in the headlamps. It was the turn off for Bourton-on-the-Water, the nearest small town to the Talbots’ village. Almost there, then. He was wondering if he should find a place to pull over and check the map on his mobile when headlamps blazed suddenly from his left, blinding him.

Before he could throw up a hand or hit the brake, there came a tearing impact, and all went dark. 

I hope you can't wait to find out what happens next. The book will be out in October 2019. You can pre-order the Kindle version here, and I'm sure the other e-book formats and hardcover pre-orders will go up soon, too.

This is a "busman's holiday" story--there are certainly suspicious deaths, but none of the series detectives are officially on the case. You can be sure that doesn't keep them from investigating, however!

Readers, do you have a favorite "busman's holiday" mystery? I've written several of them myself, but I think one of my faves would have to be Dorothy Sayer's "Busman's Honeymoon," with Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane.

James Benn and "Gateway Mysteries"

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: I've been honored to introduce

many wonderful authors, but must confess — I'm a huge fan of James Benn and his Billy Boyle series from way back. I remember reading the first novel, Billy Boyle: A World War II Mystery, in 2007 — and being absolutely bowled over. A World War II mystery — told in such a fresh and exciting way. (It was what I wanted to do — but with a female protagonist. Jim and I have joked that someday we should write a Billy Boyle/Maggie Hope crossover story.)

Jim is now on his ninth Billy Boyle mystery, and in my humble opinion, they just keep getting better and better. Here's a brief description of his newest, due out in September:

THE REST IS SILENCE (September 2014) is the ninth Billy

Boyle mystery. As preparations for D-Day continue, Billy and Kaz are sent to southwest England to investigate the discovery of a body washed up on a beach in a restricted training area. As the case proceeds, Billy comes face to face with the cost of war for the English people. After five long years with their nation on the front lines, the wounded and maimed in body and soul are returning home. In the midst of all this, an American training exercise goes horribly wrong as German E-boats intercept a convoy headed for the beach at Slapton Sands. Nearly a thousand men are killed in the Channel waters, but Billy and Kaz are tasked to find ten of them; BIGOTs, those who know the secrets of D-Day.

And here, without further ado, is Jim, talking about his "gateway mystery" — the one that sparked his interest in the genre.

JAMES BENN: How did we all end up here?

No, not here in the cosmos, but at a site dedicated to crime fiction. We all had to start somewhere, picking up a mystery novel for the first time, getting hooked, finding a cultural home base, and gathering online to celebrate our communal interests. 

Mysteries weren’t my first genre. In high school I was all about science fiction. Isaac Asimov and the Foundation Trilogy. After college the appeal of sci-fi faded, and I began to read mainly non-fiction.

                  

In 1974 I was working at the University of Denver Library, as a para-professional cataloger in the serials department, taking library science graduate courses at night. For some unknown reason, the university subscribed to a wide variety of British tabloid newspapers. Hardly research materials.

                  

Until the Lord Lucan murder case.

I don’t recall seeing the case reported in the American press, but when the tabloids came in to the library, the front pages were lit up with it. Dark-haired, tall, and good-looking, Lord Lucan was an aristocrat and a gambler. He gave up the banking profession in 1960 when he won 26,000 pounds gambling over the course of two days. That earned him the nickname “Lucky” Lucan and left him with the mistaken impression he could do it again and again.

He couldn't.

Separated from his wife—and with her in possession of the family

home in London—he evidently came up with a scheme to kill her and gain custody of the home and his children. His career as a murderer was about as rewarding as his gambling life. On Thursday, November 7, 1974, Lucan broke into his wife’s house and waited for her in the kitchen, armed with a length of pipe. He’d unscrewed the light bulb to better hide in the darkness when she came down for her evening cuppa.

Unfortunately for Sandra Rivett, the live-in nanny who usually

took Thursday nights off, she stayed home that night. A young girl, about the same height as Lady Lucan, offered to make tea for her that fateful night.

She died in the darkened kitchen, her head smashed in.

In the dark, Lucky Lucan worked feverishly to stuff her body into a mail sack (still thinking it was Lady Lucan), planning to dump it at sea and report his wife missing. He was interrupted by Veronica Lucan, who’d come down

stairs to check on Sandra. He attacked her, wounding her severely, but not before she grabbed his balls and rendered him hors de combat.

Of course, this all didn’t come out at first. The initial reports were short on details and full of the claims Lucan made—in letters written while on the run—about finding a strange man attacking his wife and sending him packing.

He claimed that the circumstantial evidence would be used to discredit him, and promptly disappeared.

There are a number of websites giving facts and touting different theories. For the basics, visit Wikipedia.

There is a pro-Lucan website, dedicated to his innocence here.

And Lady Lucan’s own site, striking a quite different tone here.

The Lucan family of aristocrats had at least one other infamous

Earl. Lord Lucan’s great-great-grandfather, the Third Earl of Lucan, earned his dubious place in history a hundred and twenty years earlier in the Crimea. He was the officer who ordered the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade, which resulted in the deaths of more than 600 men at Balaclava.

A decidedly unlucky Lucan.

Whatever the truth of Lucky Lucan’s guilt or innocence, this case and the British tabloid press whetted my appetite for more. As coincidence would have it, Masterpiece Theatre was showing the first Lord Peter Wimsey mystery, starring Ian Carmichael, at the same time. I watched it.

I was hooked. I devoured all the Dorothy L. Sayers mysteries and went looking for more. For me, it all started with Lucky Lucan.

So, Jungle Reds, how did you come to the world of crime fiction? 

Readers, what was your gateway mystery?