At the Night Market by Jennifer Chow

Jenn McKinlay: One of my very favorite reads last year was an advance copy of DEATH BY BUBBLE TEA. A glorious new mystery series set in Los Angeles. Before I slip with a spoiler, here's Jennifer J. Chow to tell us more about her latest fabulous mystery!

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Jennifer J. Chow: The inspiration for my new series, L.A. Night Market Mysteries, is clearly night markets. These fun nighttime festivals happen around the world—I’ve been to several, located in Asia, Canada, and the U.S. I’m going to focus on three factors that help create their festive atmosphere. Some night markets will lean into one aspect more than another, but I find that the events typically have three common elements. 

Food Number one on my list is food. There are all sorts of treats to be had at a night market. Whether you’re a fan of savory pork chops…

or sweet bubble waffles...

there's something for everyone. 

 Of course, don’t forget the bubble tea! (Book One in my upcoming series is called Death By Bubble Tea and comes out on July 5.) The classic boba drink is milk bubble tea, which features creamy black tea combined with chewy al dente tapioca balls. At my local 626 Night Market, I once saw a competition for the largest bubble tea drink (oh my!):

Fun An electric atmosphere is key to a night market. To create an exciting feel, there are sometimes entertainers on stage. These performers are amazing and can sing, dance, and more!

Fun can also be found in the form of games. Some night markets will have actual arcades, complete with claw machines and pachinko pinball. Others have a section with carnival-like games. Imagine trying your hand at Whack A Water Balloon:

Other intriguing activities involve arts and crafts, particularly culturally relevant ones. Honestly, I’ve only seen these offered in the States, maybe as a way to pass on heritage and history.

Finds Who doesn’t love shopping? Night market attendees can find all sorts of trinkets for sale. In Asia, you can even bargain down the prices. (I wouldn’t recommend doing this in other places.) I’ve gone to night markets where there are actual store buildings (usually selling souvenirs and clothing). Sometimes, though, the booths of merchandise are nestled next to the food stalls. I particularly like sellers who customize their wares, like this artist offering hand-painted shoes:

Hope you enjoyed my quick tour of a night market! What festive activity do you enjoy? 

Bio Jennifer J. Chow writes cozies with heart, humor, and heritage. She is the twice-nominated Lefty Award author of the Sassy Cat Mysteries. The first in the Sassy Cat series, Mimi Lee Gets A Clue, was selected as an OverDrive Recommended Read, a PopSugar Best Summer Beach Read, and one of BuzzFeed’s Top 5 Books by AAPI authors. Her upcoming series is the L.A. Night Market Mysteries, and the first book, Death by Bubble Tea, comes out on July 5. She currently serves as Vice President on the national board of Sisters in Crime and is an active member of Crime Writers of Color and Mystery Writers of America. Connect with her online at JenniferJChow.com.

About the Book Two cousins who start a food stall at their local night market get a serving of murder in this first novel of a delicious new cozy mystery series by Jennifer J. Chow, author of Mimi Lee Gets a Clue.

When Yale Yee discovers her cousin Celine is visiting from Hong Kong, she is obliged to play tour guide to a relative she hasn’t seen in twenty years. Not only that, but her father thinks it’s a wonderful idea for them to bond by running a food stall together at the Eastwood Village Night Market. Yale hasn’t cooked in years, and she hardly considers Celine’s career as a social media influencer as adequate experience, but because she’s just lost her job at her local bookstore, she feels she has no choice.
 
Yale and Celine serve small dishes and refreshing drinks, and while business is slow, it eventually picks up thanks to Celine’s surprisingly useful marketing ideas. They’re quite shocked that their bubble tea, in particular, is a hit—literally—when one of their customers turns up dead. Yale and Celine are prime suspects due to the gold flakes that Celine added to the sweet drink as a garnish. Though the two cousins are polar opposites in every way, they must work together to find out what really happened to the victim or the only thing they’ll be serving is time. 

 Giveaway One lucky reader (U.S. only) who leaves a comment will get a signed copy of Mimi Lee Cracks the Code (Book 3 in the Sassy Cat Mystery series)!

Delectably Disgusting: Why I Love 1900s Cuisine

RHYS BOWEN: Jennifer Kincheloe and I met for the first time when we were both nominees for the historical award at Left Coast Crime and I was delighted to meet her heroine, Anna Blanc, who is a West Coast version of my own Molly Murphy. I was happy to blurb her second book,, The Woman in the Camphor Trunk and equally pleased to host her here today.

JENNIFER KINCHELOE: Thank you, Rhys!

I adore putting historic, horrid-sounding food in my books and making my characters slurp it down. In THE SECRET LIFE OF ANNA BLANC, the characters enjoyed “pink soup with marrow balls,” “wine and tapioca soup,” and “pork cake.” It sounds weird, but this California cuisine is as LA as Anna Blanc. It came straight from the 1905 Los Angeles Times Cookbook, right next to the enchiladas.

Here’s a dinner menu I got from a California 1909 newspaper—something the Blanc’s cook would have prepared for Anna before her wealthy father disowned her:

Oysters on the Half Shell

(Nice)

Cream of Potato Soup

(Yum)

Cod Steaks with White Sauce

(Yes please)

Lamb Chops, Broiled

(I’m full now, but I’ll take a doggy bag)

Stewed Celery and Fried Potatoes

(Mixed together, or . . .?)

Mayonnaise of Lettuce and Grape Fruit

(WTF)

Wine Jelly with Whipped Cream

(Maybe, if it’s alcoholic)

Don’t ask me what “mayonnaise of lettuce” is. I think history has mercifully forgotten.

In my new novel, THE WOMAN IN THE CAMPHOR TRUNK, Anna Blanc returns to solve a murder in Chinatown while facing severe nutritional challenges. Her rich father has tossed her out on her ear, and the girl can’t boil water. Mind you, this was before YouTube videos and, back then, cookbooks were for people who could already cook.

No more mayonnaise of lettuce for Anna. She lives off canned kippers and Cracker Jacks. And while she’s fighting crime in Chinatown, she gazes longingly through the windows of the local chop suey joint.

Chop suey (pronounced "shap sui," in Cantonese) came to the US with Chinese immigrants seeking their fortune in gold country in the 1870s. It was a peasant stew made of chopped bean sprouts, cabbage, gizzards, liver, lungs, pig’s tripe, dragon fish, shrimp, pork, chicken, or whatever else they had on hand. Reportedly, it was good. By the 1900s non-Chinese customers were eating chop suey in Chinese restaurants, which adapted the dish to their new customers’ tastes. Chop suey made its way into the home kitchens of white America and morphed into something unrecognizable.

In celebration of the new book, I thought I’d share a 1909 recipe for chop suey from The San Francisco Call newspaper. It’s not exactly authentic, but it’s better than most I’ve encountered. My white great grandmother would have made “chop suey” from tomato sauce and pasta. (Don’t be smug. Yours probably would have too, unless you’re Chinese American)

The real recipe awaits you below. Note: Anna could not actually cook this.

Here’s more about THE WOMAN IN THE CAMPHOR TRUNK, coming to bookstores November 14^th:

Los Angeles, 1908. In Chinatown, the most dangerous beat in Los Angeles, police matron Anna Blanc and her former sweetheart, Detective Joe Singer, discover the body of a white missionary woman, stuffed in a trunk in the apartment of her Chinese lover. Her lover has fled. If news gets out that a white woman was murdered in Chinatown, there will be a violent backlash against the Chinese. Joe and Anna plan to solve the crime quietly and keep the death a secret. So does good-looking Mr. Jones, a prominent Chinese leader who has mixed feelings about helping the LAPD and about Anna. 
     
Meanwhile, the Hop Sing tong has kidnapped two slave girls from the Bing Kong tong, fueling existing tensions. They are poised on the verge of a bloody tong war that would put all Chinatown residents in danger. 
     
Joe orders Anna out of Chinatown to keep her safe, but to atone for her own family's sins, Anna must stay to solve the crime before news of the murder is leaked and Chinatown explodes.

White People Chop Suey Circa 1909

For guy chop suey to serve six persons, you will need one young chicken, cut in pieces utilizing all the giblets, a pound of water chestnuts, two pounds of bean sprouts (if you can't get these you may use French peas, tender string beans or, asparagus tips), a little sliced celery, sliced onions. The water chestnuts should be shaved thin. Have a kettle with olive oil or peanut oil; about six tablespoonfuls, and sauté in this the chicken, onion, celery, and chestnuts. When almost tender, add the bean sprouts, which, must not cook too long. If you use string beans instead, chop very fine and sauté with the other vegetables. Stir frequently to prevent burning, adding if necessary a half cup of boiling water. When tender I drain of any liquor remaining. Add a little flour to thicken and salt to taste. At the very last, add a teaspoonful of the Chinese condiment, brown and piquant, known as “see yu,” which corresponds to our Worcestershire sauce, and pour over the chop suey. Stir together and serve with rice.

Message me on Facebook and let me know me how yours turned out! If you’d like your very own copy of The 1905 Los Angeles Times Cookbook, just sign up for my mailing list at www.jenniferkincheloe.com.

Read this. Because Rachel Howzell Hall!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: One of MY favorite writerly things?  I could list them, and will. But topping my list? Rachel Howzell Hall. (Although she’s less a “thing” and more a “force of nature.”) (And see below--you could win her book!)

A Few of My Favorite (Writerly) Things

By Rachel Howzell Hall

It’s so easy to be negative. And really, I like negative—I’m a crime writer living in Los Angeles Can’t get more ‘abandon hope all ye enter’ than that. And also, 2016 will go down as a year that has sucked in so many ways. From politics (talk about abandoning hope) to untimely deaths (Prince and Bowie? Take your drunk behind home, 2016, cuz we’re done with you running over our heroes), from cataclysmic storms to the helium shortage, there’s so many opportunities to be an Eeyore.

Books, though? Books remain bright spots for me. And so, I shall switch things up and look for the positive.  Herewith are a few of my favorite writing things:

Someone to Root For

The world loves a square-jawed hero and a beautiful heroine who knows the Pythagorean Theorem, rescues poodles and orphans while saving the world from fascist sea-otter killers. But if you’re like me and have more than 27 pages of book titles on your Kindle alone, do you want to read about their perfection every day? I don’t. Nor do I want to always read about the lone detective who always goes off the grid, always gets the girl, always drinks whiskey and always listens to jazz.

When I developed LAPD Detective Elouise ‘Lou’ Norton, I wanted her to win and to lose, to be adept and clumsy, to follow the rules and still get in trouble. I wanted to see me in the story, and I wanted to wonder what I would do in that situation?

Right now, I’m reading Road Out of Hell by Anthony Flacco about serial killer Gordon Stewart Northcott murdering people at his chicken ranch outside of Los Angeles while also holding his nephew Sanford Clark captive. It is one of the most horrific… Every page, I hold my breath and will Sanford to run away, I want him, need him to survive. I want the happy ending—and I normally hate happy endings. That’s because the Flacco makes me care so much about Sanford.

In TRAIL OF ECHOES, I want you to root for Lou, to root for the girls, in such hopeless conditions. During Chanita Lords’ investigation, Lou visits her old middle school:

Tori had been missing during my time at this school, and now, standing here, my hands cramped from remembering the journaling, the crying and the not crying, the numbness . . . I didn’t want to be at Madison. And as Colin and I walked those corridors, grief crushed my heart like it had so many years ago.

New Places within the Old

New York is a great city. But Manhattan can’t be the only place in the world for mystery, can it? Los Angeles is a great city—more than Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Almost four million people populate the city alone. That means almost four million different stories spread out over 503 square miles. Attica Locke gave me Houston in Pleasantville and Black Water Rising. M.P. Cooley took me to upstate New York in her June Lyons series.

In the Lou Norton series, I offer you Los Angeles south of the 10 freeway, south of Hollywood. A world of never-ending fish-fry and barbecue joints, churches and barber shops, beauty supply and liquor stores. Black wealth and black poverty within a mile of each other. In TRAIL OF ECHOES, a Second Line jazz funeral takes place in the middle of this part of this city.  

After five minutes of weaving in and out for nearly three blocks, and with Angeles Funeral Home now in sight, I worked my way to the sidewalk. Almost every face was partially hidden by hats, umbrellas, and handkerchiefs. People crowding the street. Brass band playing. Mourners singing and shouting. Brass bells tinkling from push- cart ice- cream vendors.

This random thing really happened in Los Angeles. Seriously: You can’t pin this city down.

Great Language

Style: not everyone has it. Some writers consider style to be lists—descriptions of clothes that go on and on and your eyes blur and you start skipping around the page because you just don’t care and then, you die.

And then some writers use words that make you want to read over and over again, and you wish that you had written that. You say, “She had fun performing that trick. Sat back and nodded, said, yeah, that’s it.’” In TRAIL OF ECHOES, one of my favorite passages to write was:

Optimism. For cutters like Brooks and murder police like me, optimism was a condition as rare as hens’ teeth. Happy endings? What were those? If I was standing anywhere near you that meant shit had just gone left, your life had changed forever, and there’d be no happy ending.

I loved writing (then re-writing) that passage. See, there’s a contract between me (the reader) and the author. You, Author, will tell me a story. It will be a good story. It will make me laugh. It will make me cry. I will shout, ‘Amen’ and ‘Gurl, don’t open that door cuz HE’S IN THE HOUSE!’ At the end, I will sigh and say, “That was good for me, was that good for you?” And then, I will buy your next book. I want to buy your next book. Help me buy your next book. Talk pretty to me.

A Mission

I’m not saying that good books must preach. In my opinion, good books present a problem and enlist me [the reader] to journey beside the heroine to solve the problem. In Gone Girl, we considered domestic abuse and false reporting. In All the Light We Cannot See, we had to reconcile the goodness of a young boy on the wrong side of World War II. Tell me what you believe, what’s bothering you, what you want me to reconsider. Everyone’s a hero in her own story. Everyone’s a villain in someone else’s story. Make me pick the side I thought I hated.

In TRAIL OF ECHOES, Lou deals with the sexualization of girls, missing fathers, bullies, gentrification and much more. At the start of the investigation, her partner Colin Taggert mentions that a girl had been found murdered in the park. Lou’s response:

Just last week, over in Inglewood, a teen girl had been abducted from her driveway; and in Gardena, another teen had been kidnapped by her stepfather. And then there was Trina Porter, the fourteen- year- old stolen earlier this month from a bookstore near my old neighborhood. We had no clue where Trina was or if she was even alive. So again: which girl?

Her mission: winnow down the list of possible dead teenaged Jane Does. And wonder why so many dead teenaged Jane Does. Throw in race and class, and she now has a problem bigger than this one case.

I like caring about the people in books. I enjoy language that makes me forget that I’m reading. I appreciate new settings and reasons to care. These are a few of my favorite things.

What are yours? (Rachel will award TRAIL OF ECHOES to one lucky commenter!)

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:   I have to go back and read this again. It's SUCH a treat. Okay, yeah. All this. And when something isn't what it seems. When you find exactly the right word. When the metaphor creates itself. (Oh--that's META!)  When you have the bad guy there all the time--and even you, the author, doesn't see him. (or her.) When you read something and think--oh, I NEVER would have thought of that. Or--when you think of it first.

How about you, Reds?

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Trail of Echoes is the third novel in the acclaimed Detective Elouise ‘Lou’ Norton series by Rachel Howzell Hall

RACHEL HOWZELL HALL is the author of the Detective Elouise Norton series. The third novel in the series, Trail of Echoes, will be published this May.  Land of Shadows and Skies of Ash (Forge) were included on the Los Angeles Times’ “Books to Read This Summer” for 2014 and 2015, and the New York Times called Lou Norton “a formidable fighter—someone you want on your side.” A featured writer on NPR’s acclaimed ‘Crime in the City’ series, Rachel also served as a mentor in AWP’s Writer to Writer Program and is currently a member of the Mystery Writers of America. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.