SUSAN SHEA AT A CROSSROADS.

 RHYS BOWEN:  I've just released book Twenty in my Molly Murphy series and I've found myself wondering when it might be time to walk away. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying her, and Lady Georgie, but there must come a time when a series comes to a logical end, mustn't there?

Anyway, this is what my guest today is pondering at the moment. Susan Shea is a dear friend and neighbor, allowing me to share plenty of cups of coffee or fish and chips while we mull over books and the publishing world. So I'll let you tell her about it...

SUSAN SHEA: Hi Reds, It’s such a treat to be back visiting some of my absolute favorite authors! My newest book, MURDER AND THE MISSING DOG, has just launched. It’s the fourth one set in the rural towns of the Yonne region of Burgundy, largely off the tourist path, but brimming with small pleasures, great food – and mysteries, of course!

 

I’m right now deciding if I’ll continue to write about my cast of ex-pats and their neighbors or veer in a new direction. I already had to say goodbye to Dani O’Rourke, the smart professional woman at the heart of that three-book series, and it made me sad. Now, it could be au revoir to Ariel Shepard and her friends as well as their quirky French hosts. It’s a big decision.

 Some of the Reds write stand-alones. Others write series. Have you ever contemplated giving your series characters a grand send-off, or letting them drift into the fog? And if you’re a wizard with stand-alones, do you ever think that staying with your characters as they move past one crisis might be intriguing? What do readers want?

 Info about the book:

 MURDER AND THE MISSING DOG is the second book in a series set in and around a modest, dilapidated château in Burgundy. American Ariel Shepard inherited it from her romantic husband, who secretly bought it after they visited the grounds on their honeymoon. He died suddenly before he could have it restored. She has moved to the rural town and taken on the challenge, making friends and finding a collection of off-beat local workers. She’s also found trouble, in this case the body of an eccentric old woman from the town crumpled on the doorstep of her friend Katherine’s little shop. The gendarmes are on the scene almost immediately and she and her two friends, who became entangled in a former homicide investigation, are warned not to get involved. But the police aren’t interested in the missing dog, which was Madame Toussaint’s constant companion. Ariel, Katherine, and their young English friend Pippa see no harm in looking for the dog, but of course that leads them right into the heart of the bigger mystery.

 Bio:

 Susan says she’s been writing since she was old enough to read. She left a career in non-profits to write crime fiction because it looked like more fun. She’s written three highly praised murder mystery series all of which are available in one or more formats: The Dani O’Rourke Mysteries; two Burgundy novels; and the French Château series that takes place in the same neighborhood as the first Burgundy novels. The newest château novel was published March 5. They’re all traditional-cozy style, laced with humor. Susan is past president of the Norcal Sisters in Crime chapter, and served five years on the SinC national board. She lives with two cats, blogs with some dynamite authors at 7CriminalMinds, and has an author page on Facebook. www.susancshea.com .

RHYS: Who could resist a book with a dog on the cover AND lovely French houses AND sunshine!

Susan will be giving away a signed copy to one of today's commenters!

Susan Shea--Murder Visits a French Village

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!

Welcome, Susan!

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 14^th 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.

Susan C. Shea is a member of Norcal’s Sisters in Crime, a former member of the SinC national board, and a member of MWA. She’s the author of two series, the French village mysteries, and the Dani O’Rourke Mysteries. She’s on the faculty of the Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference and blogs on 7 Criminal Minds. Visit Susan at susancshea.com. 

DEBS: I'll answer Susan's question. London, obviously, even with queues, but I would really like to get back to Paris, and I'd love to go to Burgundy, which I've never visited! READERS, what place tops your list?

Dressing Up with Susan Shea

INGRID THOFT

Wouldn't you love to take a trip to the French countryside?  Visit with the locals.  Dine on cheese and wine while admiring the landscape.  You can with the added bonus of a cracking mystery if you read "Dressed for Death in Burgundy," the latest from Susan Shea.  Her main character, Katherine Goff, is an expat living in the small town of Reigny-sur-Canne in this second installment of her French countryside series.

Susan is here to give you the scoop on her new book!

SS: I don’t know about you, dear JRWs, but I rarely have an opportunity these days to dress up: long dress, serious jewelry, high heels. I miss it. Used to be, my sweetie and I would dress (he rocked a tux) at least a few times a year and I loved those evenings. These days “dressing up” means leaving the jeans and trainers at home.

But what I miss most is the over-the-top parties where we were invited – no, instructed – to come in costume, and I don’t mean Hallowe’en vampire teeth or Stars Wars outfits. I’m talking about full Elizabethan lady-in-waiting attire with swishing satin skirts and pearl headdresses, or flimsy 1920’s Flapper chemises, page boy bobs, and long cigarette holders.
Have you had the fun of going to a costume shop (do they still exist, I am just wondering?) to browse through Marie Antoinette’s bustiers or try on a Russian Empress’s furs? Practice using a fan with the flirtatiousness of a geisha, or look in the mirror at Paul Revere’s wife with her mobcap? The last time I went full costume was at a party that must have been 15 years ago and, yes, I went as an Elizabethan Lady, my sweetie as a rough character who might have been her stable boy.

All this was on my mind when I visited the Musee du Costume in Avallon, France for the first time and had the inspiration for the murder at the heart of my second French village mystery, "Dressed for Death in Burgundy." The proprietor, whom I fictionalized in the story, has spent decades scouring French flea markets and antique stores to gather thousands of articles of clothing, accessories, and costume-focused art.

The Museum occupies a multi-storied town house on a quiet side street in the town, and Madame has so many costumes that she and her two grown daughters rotate the entire house’s exhibits at least once a year.  She’s getting older, she apologizes, and since she turned 90, it’s a bit harder to showcase a different era. As I explored the salons and display cases, I longed for an excuse to wear a slimming Edwardian dress (think Downton Abbey), or the sheer black stockings with the spiders traveling neatly up the back of the leg, or the elbow length, pale blue kidskin gloves…I mean, really! Too gorgeous, so evocative of a more glamorous time.

Maybe we should plan a full-out costume party, a chance to be anyone from a masked Venetian countess to a woman pirate. We could rent a ballroom, hire a small orchestra, and dance with equally attired gentlemen ‘til dawn. Who would you choose to be for that evening? I have dibs on Veronica Lake in the shimmering, silvery gown.

Do tell, Reds and Readers:  Do you have occasion to dress up?  Have a favorite fancy outfit in the depths of your closet?

Susan is giving away a copy of her latest to one lucky reader!  Just comment to enter.

"Dressed for Death in Burgundy"
After finding herself mixed up in a murder investigation the previous summer, Katherine Goff’s life simply has not been the same. Her husband has been in the U.S. recording a new album, the Burgundy region locals are finally starting to see her as a real neighbor, and Katherine has even started helping out with “tourist” excursions. It seems she’s finally found her place in the small community of Reigny-sur-Canne.

But when Katherine stumbles across a body in the local museum during a tour, she finds herself caught up once again in a whirlwind of gossip and speculation. When the police zero in on her friend Pippa as a suspect, Pippa and Katherine team up to find the real killer and clear her name.

However, the more clues they discover, the more the real killer wants them off the trail. When Katherine and Pippa start receiving threats, they must decide what they are more afraid of―the police getting it wrong, or possibly becoming the killer’s next targets.

Find out what happens next in the second installment in the French countryside murder mystery series the New York Times calls “a pleasant getaway.”

DRESSED FOR DEATH IN BURGUNDY is Susan Shea's fifth mystery and the second in her French village mysteries. Her first series featured a San Francisco professional woman drawn into art-related misdeeds. Susan is on the national board of Sisters in Crime and is a member of Mystery Writers of America. She spent twenty-five years in the not-for-profit world before beginning to write full time. She lives in Novato.

Parley Vous Murder? A guest post from Susan Shea

RHYS: Have you ever had any horrible language mix-ups when you are abroad? I've had my share. I think the funniest was when John had a bout of tourist tummy in France once. We were staying with his cousin and the doctor was called to the house. John prepared for this visit by checking with the dictionary and announced to the doctor that something was wrong with his stool. ONLY... the word he used meant the wooden, three-legged kind of stool, not the other one. The doctor was quite amused.

 My guest today is my good friend Susan Shea who is launching a new series set it Burgandy, France. Think wine, food, old chateaux and a body or two. Perfect combination, right? So welcome, Susan. 

SUSAN SHEA : Hi Jungle Reds…although that conjures up some of my favorite writers decked out in leopard skins and red wigs, so maybe it’s not the best way for a guest to greet you all.

Rhys and I were having lunch and laughing about the trouble you can get in when you know just a little bit of another language. She told me about going into an Italian butcher shop and proudly ordering “pollo.” When she unwrapped it at her vacation house, it was, indeed, a dead chicken, complete with head and feet! She found out later, if you want it dressed, you must say something different. My first foray to France a few decades ago was delightful as long as we wanted to eat “cent grams” of pâté every day. I had no idea how to order less. One hundred grams worth is nice for one full meal, but it doesn’t leave much room for any of the hundred cheeses at the shop next door, never mind the confections at the patisserie.

You might infer that since I’ve just written two novels about an American couple who have moved to a tiny French town and are learning to cope, my French is much better now. Don’t. After more years than I care to remember of school French, after six trips, after language tapes and short immersions, I am still struggling to communicate beyond ordering food, begging people’s pardon, and explaining in halting French that I am not at the Gendarmerie to report a murder, I am there to ask a question for my fictional story about murder. “J’ecris meutres et mysteres.” Of course I say this so s-l-o-w-l-y that the bright eyed woman at the desk shoots me looks that suggest I have already overstayed my welcome.

Language is such a tricky thing. That theme runs through Love & Death in Burgundy and the follow-up book that will come out next year. In real life, two things trip me up all the time. The French speak quickly, well, actually at warp speed. Even if I figure out the first part of the sentence, I’m playing catch-up for the rest and frequently miss the point. The French also, like everyone in every language, use idioms, so even if by some lucky chance I’m doing really well, I go off the rails when someone says she makes “les doights dans le nez.” I understand these simple words: fingers in the nose. Why would someone brag about that? Ah, because it’s one of several idioms that means whatever she was talking about was easy to do.

I was thinking about American English idioms that probably make as much sense as the nose reference does…

Easy as pie

Knock on wood

Twisting my arm

Fat chance

RHYS: You'll notice Susan used the expression "Off the rails!"

What language mix-ups and triumphs have you had? What languages have you mastered? There’s comfort in not being alone, so share, please!

And Susan has let me know that she has a signed copy of Love and Death in Burgundy to give away to one lucky commenter!

Susan Shea is Mixed up with Murder

RHYS BOWEN: I always particularly enjoy a mystery written by a writer who is an expert in the subject. My good friend Susan Shea has spent many years in the exciting and dangerous world of fine art collections. Here she confesses to her secret fantasy, which I'm sure many of us share.

SUSAN SHEA:  In my Dani O’Rourke mysteries, I write about some of the ways individuals approach visual art and how their desire to possess it can lead to terrible crimes. In the third book, Mixed Up with Murder, just out, the lust isn’t for the beauty of the art but for its financial value in today’s overheated market.

I’m passionate about paintings, sculpture, drawings, decorative objects, photography – all of it. To me, it’s like being in the world’s largest candy store. Did you ever have the experience of having to choose one piece of candy at the store, and finding yourself paralyzed between a Baby Ruth and a Milky Way? I do that with art, although I will never actually own the treat in question. But my challenge is that if I could have one piece from a room or museum filled with them, what would it be? I go to museums and galleries every year, so I get to play the game a lot and would have the most exciting and eclectic collection in the world if my fantasies came true!

At the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan, I struggle. Is it the Rembrandt self-portrait in middle age with the eyes that have been following me around “his” gallery since I was a small child? Or the serene, life-sized Buddha statue in the room ringed by the most astonishing Buddhas from many countries? On some visits, I head for the American Wing with its breathtakingly beautiful silver services, although the idea of having to polish them to keep that warm gleam in tiptop condition does give me pause.

At the Oakland Museum, it’s simple: any Diebenkorn painting but preferably one from the Ocean Park series. I can’t figure out how he kept the same planes and selection of colors and yet managed to keep the large abstracts fresh and compelling time after time. I could stand in front of one for a year and never get tired.

Ditto Jackson Pollack’s splatter paintings at MOMA in New York. Oh, but wait, there are the tiny, charming pre-Columbian gold figures in the Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington, D.C. and Matisse at the d’Orsay in Paris and the glass flowers at Harvard’s Museum of Natural History and … Uh oh, this is getting out of hand!

What about the rest of you? Do you play a similar game when you see art, or is Cartier’s or Chanel your game board of choice?

RHYS: For me it would be all Impressionists, a room full of Monets, Renoirs, Mary Cassatts. 

Susan will be giving away a copy of MIXED UP WITH MURDER to one lucky commenter today. And she'll be stopping by to answer your comments.

SUSAN C. SHEA spent more than two decades as a non-profit executive before beginning her best-selling, “wickedly funny” mystery series featuring a professional fundraiser for a fictional museum in San Francisco. MIXED UP WITH MURDER (February 2016) is the latest. Susan is past-president of the northern California chapter of Sisters in Crime and secretary of the national SinC board, a member of MWA, and blogs on CriminalMinds. She lives in Marin County, California. www.susancshea.com

Debs Reporting from the Tucson Festival of Books

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  I arrived in Tucson, Arizona, yesterday for my first visit to the Tucson Festival of Books. The festival is only six years old, but already has 120,000 attendees, 1800 volunteers, and more authors than you can shake a stick at. I can't begin to name all the wonderful writers here in all genres, so have a look at the festival website. I think every author who comes wants to come back, so I can imagine the riches growing and growing.

As I can't begin to describe all the activities, I'm going to throw out a few of my pictorial highlights.

Here's the view from my hotel room before last night's event, a literary fundraising author's reception and dinner.

The Girls' Fab Four at the pre-dinner reception: Cara Black, yours truly, Libby Fischer Hellman, and our RED Rhys Bowen.

Wonderful writers Bryan Gruley and Steve Hamilton.

A fuzzy shot of Rebecca Eaton, producer of PBS's Masterpiece Theater, who was the keynote speaker. She was fabulous.

Today's Bloody Murder panel with me, moderator Patti O'Brien, G.M. Malliet, and Jenn McKinlay.

Our best audience, Kendall, our friend Reine Carter's assistance dog. You know we were fascinating!

Kendall giving me a kiss!

Loaning my festival cap to author Brandon Sanderson during our afternoon signing. The sun was fierce!

A little more evening fun--a festival sponsored reception for the authors. With William Kent Krueger, G.M. Malliet, Susan Shea, and Terry Shames.

Kent and I sport our festival caps!

Another panel and more signings tomorrow, and then I'll be sorry to say goodbye to Tucson. 

I hope everyone had as great a weekend, and it was great to be warm!

A last but not least bit of JRW business--here are the 5 winners of Peter Swanson's The Girl with a Clock for a Heart. Winners, please email me your mailing addresses at deb at deborahcrombie dot com and I'll forward them to Peter.

And here I quote Peter:

Joan Emerson, for being first
James Montgomery Jackson, because he gets up at five AM
Kathy Reel, because she's posing with a statue
Denise Ann, because she was up front about wanting to win the book
Beverly Fontaine, because she says there is no such thing as reading too much

Sister, Can You Spare a Dime?

Rhys Bowen: Today our guest on Jungle Red is a good friend and neighbor of mine from the Bay Area, Susan Shea. I have been following Susan's career with delight since I was her mentor at a Book Passage Mystery Writers conference a few years ago. I was intrigued then with her world of million dollar fund raising and so pleased that THE KING'S JAR, the new book in her series, is getting good reviews now. So take it away, Susan.

SUSAN SHEA :Sister, Can You Spare a Dime?

Well, actually, a lot of dimes. Say a million dimes, which is only $100,000, which is enough to get you dinner with the head of the computer science department but not with the president of the university. If you have ten million dimes just sitting around, I’ve got a place at the head table with Sarah Jessica Parker and a newly-minted Nobel Prize winner, plus the president, who intends to attach himself to Ms. Parker for the evening.

See? This is the life of a fundraiser, always asking, always promising, always sucking up – I didn’t say that! – making nice with people who have many more dimes than she does. These people, called millionaires and billionaires, are different from you and me in large and small ways. They do not shop for their own toilet paper, for one thing.

The first time I asked someone for a million dollars, I rehearsed the excellent case I was making for the college’s project, spent time beforehand preparing a mental script that would keep the Big Question on the table (you never pose the question in a form that can be answered with a straight no), and reminded myself not to order any food at the lunch meeting that might stick to my teeth and distract me, or her. But the biggest prep was standing in front of my bathroom mirror and saying “We would like you to consider a gift of a million dollars.” I made sure my eyes didn't go into a frantic blinking spasm and that I could get the words out without going, “a mi-mi-mi-mi…”

In my previous life as a fundraiser, which, by the way, is what my protagonist, Dani O’Rourke is, because they say you should always write what you know, I have had the pleasure and pain of meeting a handful of billionaires. I found them all to be fascinating, and half of them to be quite nice. The most delightful of them is a self-made man, once a scholarship student at a prestigious university, who developed an idea into an exceptionally robust, international service business. When he allowed another Big B Billionaire to buy him out, he was like a kid in a candy store. He told me gleefully he planned to give it all away before he died, after giving his kids a million each. “They should have the joy of making something themselves,” he told me. He’s established too many scholarships to count, schools within universities, libraries, you name it. And always with a big grin on his face. I adore him.

Then there’s the fellow who inherited massive wealth at an early age. He plays at one career after another and really believes the world revolves around his wants and opinions. (No, not the current ruler of North Korea although minus nuclear warheads, not all that different, and about the same age emotionally.) My hypothesis is that no one has ever – since he was a toddler and his nannies saw dollar signs when they looked at him – told him his behavior is not acceptable.

Jungle Red writers, a question: Do you ever wonder if someone you know will recognize their annoying tic that you built into your villain’s character, or see a distant echo of something that happened to her or him in your story? While it is the absolute truth that the characters in my books are purely fictional, bits and pieces of the people I have met pop up in my stories, mashed into new forms and suitably disguised, I hope. The work of fundraising, which lends itself to high comedy and deep despair on occasion, is pretty much for real, however, in The King’s Jar and its predecessor, Murder in the Abstract.

SUSAN C. SHEA spent more than two decades as a non-profit executive before beginning her best-selling mystery series featuring a professional fundraiser for a fictional museum. Susan is on the board of the northern California chapter of Sisters in Crime and is a past board member of Norcal’s chapter of Mystery Writers of America. She lives in Marin County, California. www.susancshea.com

Susan will be giving away a copy of THE KING'S JAR to the best comment of the day.