WHAT WE'RE WRITING: RHYS CELEBRATES CHRISTMAS

 RHYS BOWEN: I wonder if there is anybody in America who is not feeling tense and nervous right now. We have had our nerves frayed with the pandemic (not to mention murder hornets, deadly caterpillars, fires and hurricanes) and now with the election looming the tension has risen to unbearable levels.

So I'm grateful at the moment to be writing about Christmas. And not only that, Christmas suitably long ago and far away with Lady Georgie. After THE TWELVE CLUES OF CHRISTMAS did very well my publisher asked me to write another Christmas book. And I readily agreed. After all, who doesn't like to spend time vicariously in the holiday spirit?

Writing about Christmas allows me to relive my childhood memories: mince pies, carol singers, hot punch, holly and ivy, crackers (the type that explode, not dry biscuits) and silly party games. All part of the Christmases I remember from childhood and have tried to recreate with my family.

So writing about this at this moment is in many ways bitter-sweet. Because it's unlikely that we'll be able to have any kind of family Christmas this year. Or Thanksgiving. The oldest grandchildren will be coming home from college. The younger two are back in school full time. We have three teachers in the family and a son-in-law who works at the veteran's home. So the only contact we could have would be outside, at distance. And Christmas is likely to be cold and rainy in Northern California.

That's why I'm enjoying escaping to a country house in England every day and watching the cook bring in the flaming Christmas pudding!  Of course it's not all fun and games and happy days in my books. They are mysteries, after all. There is bound to be a body or two. Of the most tasteful sort, naturally!

But here is a snippet from the beginning of the book, and the first days of preparation for the big event.

And the title? GOD REST YE ROYAL GENTLEMEN. (Which might hint that a few famous characters are going to be part of this story)

I addressed the envelopes, put on stamps and had just deposited them on the tray in the front hall for the postman to collect when Mrs. Hollbrook appeared.

     “Oh, there you are, my lady,” she said. “I wonder if you’d come down to the kitchen for a moment.” Alarm bells sounded in my head.

     “Oh dear. Nothing’s wrong, is it?” 

     “Not at all, my lady. It’s just that it’s pudding day.” 

    “Pudding day?”     

    “Yes, November twenty-fifth. A month before Christmas. Always been pudding day in this house. The day the Christmas puddings are made. And it’s always traditional for the lord or lady of the house to come and give a stir for good luck.”

     “Oh, right. “ I gave a sigh of relief. Not a disaster at all. “I’ll get Mr. O’Mara. Perhaps he’d like to be part of this.” 

     I hurried back to the study. Darcy looked up, a trifle impatiently this time. “What is it, Georgie?” 

     “Mrs. Holbrook has invited us to come and stir the pudding.” “What?” 

     “It’s pudding day, apparently and the lord and lady of the house are supposed to give the puddings a stir for good luck.”

     “I really need to get this stuff off to the post,” he said. “Do I have to be present to ensure good luck?”     “I suppose not…” He saw my face and pushed back his chair. 

    “Of course I can spare a few minutes. We have to make sure we have good luck next year, don’t we?” And he put his arm around my shoulders, steering me out of the room. He really is a nice man, I thought with a little glow of happiness.

     Down the hallway we walked, past the dining room, through the baize door that led to the servant’s part of the house and down a flight of steps to the cavernous kitchen. On rainy days I expect it could be rather gloomy unless the electric lights were shining. Today the windows, high in the south wall, sent shafts of sunlight onto the scrubbed tables. Queenie was standing at one of them, her hands in a huge mixing bowl. She looked up, giving us a look of pure terror as we came in.

     “Hello Queenie, we’ve come to stir the pudding,” I said. 

     “Oh yeah. Bobs yer uncle, missus.” She sounded distracted. I noted she now called me ‘missus’ instead of ‘miss’. I suppose it was a small step forward. After several years she had never learned to call me ‘my lady’. Or perhaps she knew very well and was just being bolshie about it. I sometimes suspected Queenie wasn’t quite as clueless as we imagined. 

     “Is something wrong?” I asked.

     “Wrong?” Her voice sounded higher than usual. I walked toward the pudding bowl, with Darcy a step behind me. Inside was a big sticky mass of dough and fruit. It looked the way puddings were supposed to look, from my limited experience. 

     “It’s just that you had both hands in the bowl when we came in. Doesn’t one usually stir with a spoon?”     “What? Oh yes, right.” Her face had now gone red. “It’s just I was looking for something.” 

    “Looking for something?” Darcy sounded puzzled but then he hadn’t had close contact with Queenie for as long as I had.

     Her face was now beet-red. “It’s like this, you see. A button was loose on my uniform again. I meant to sew it on but I forgot and I I was giving the pudding a bloody great stir when all of a sudden—ping—it popped clean off and went flying into the pudding mixture and I can’t for the life of me find it again.”             “Queenie!” I exclaimed. I knew I should be firm with her and scold her for not keeping her uniform up to snuff, but it really was rather funny. 

    “What exactly is this button made of?” Darcy asked. “It’s not celluloid or something that might melt when it’s cooked, is it?”

     “Oh no, sir. It’s like these others.” She pointed at the front of her uniform dress, where there was now a gaping hole revealing a ratty red flannel vest. “I think it’s bone.” 

    “Well in that case nothing to worry about,” Darcy said breezily. “If someone finds it—well people are supposed to find charms in puddings, aren’t they?”

     “Silver charms,” I pointed out. 

     “We’ll tell them it’s a tradition of the house, going back to the middle ages,” Darcy said. “It’s a button made from the bone of a stag that was shot on Christmas Day.” 

    “Darcy, you’re brilliant.” I had to laugh. “Just as long as someone doesn’t swallow it or break a tooth. Please keep trying to find it, Queenie, only use a fork and not your fingers.” 

    “Would you ladyship like to stir now?” Mrs. Holbrook asked, handing me the big spoon. I took it and stirred.

     “You’re supposed to wish, my lady,” Mrs. Holbrook reminded. “Oh, of course.” I stirred and you can probably guess what I wished for.

     Then Darcy stirred and I wondered if he was wishing for the same thing. Mrs. Holbrook opened a little leather box and handed us the silver charms. “You’ll want to drop these into the pudding,” she said.

     “Oh yes. What fun.” We dropped them in, one by one: the boot, the pig, the ring and silver threepences.     

    “And the bachelor button,” Darcy said, dropping in a silver button and giving me a grin. 

    “Thank you, sir. Thank you, my lady,” Mrs. Holbrook said. “I’ll help Queenie look for the unfortunate button, don’t you worry. We’ll find it between us.” 

    

As we came up the stairs from the kitchen Darcy put a hand on my shoulder. “Now do you agree that we need to get a proper cook before Christmas?”  

And because we all need a good chuckle right now. This is the sort of family photos we sometimes take!
 

What We're writing: RHYS CAN:T REVEAL....

RHYS BOWEN: I was about to post a snippet from the new Royal Spyness book I have just finished, but I realized that I couldn't do it without giving away major spoilers. We left Georgie and Darcy with a cliffhanger at the end of Malice at the Palace, and I really want the next book to be a complete surprise. A punch-in-the-gut surprise. No doubt some reviewers will give away the whole story, and the major plot points will be there on the book jacket, but I'd like to keep readers in the dark for as long as possible.

But I do have a cover to share with you. It's still in progress but this is the latest version. I think it's perfect and you'll see how well it fits the story. (Am I giving you some clues?)

And as to what I'm working on next.... I can't tell you that either. It's a big secret.
So....
I'm going to share a seasonally appropriate excerpt from AWAY IN A MANGER, my new Molly Murphy book.

Macy’s windows lived up to Bridies’s expectations. She stared at each one, wide-eyed, her nose pressed against the glass until her breath steamed it over, hiding the scene inside. In have to confess if I hadn’t experienced the shop windows in Paris earlier in the year I might have been equally impressed. There were mechanical rabbits eating carrots, figures skating on a frozen pond, an old toymaker sitting at his bench making toys. They were wonderful automatons with the toymaker’s eyes moving and his toys coming to life as he finished them.

            Bridie would have stood there all day, I suspect. “Come on, my dear. We still have the toy shop to visit,” I said.

            She had just torn herself away reluctantly to join us when a strange thing happened. Daniel gave a shout. A skinny youth looked up and took off at great speed with Daniel hot on his heels.  It was a mercy that Liam had just started fussing in Daniel’s arms and he’d handed him over to me or I don’t know what he would have done. If it had been an out and out running race I suspect that the boy would have gotten away, but he was hampered by the crowd dawdling along the sidewalk as they examined the windows, then a trolley, coming to a halt made him change direction and slow enough for Daniel to grab him.

            ‘Got ya, my boy,” Daniel said, twisting his arm up behind his back.

            “Let go of me,” the boy shouted. “I ain’t done nothing.”                                                     

“If you haven’t done anything, why were you running away?” Daniel demanded as the boy squirmed and fought.

“Wouldn’t you run if a crazy lunatic started chasing you? Get your hands off me.  I’ll call the police.”

            “Oh, that’s a good one. I am the police.” Daniel almost looked as if he was enjoying himself. “Captain Sullivan. So I’m not only the police, I’m one of the most important policemen you’re likely to meet.”

            “I ain’t done nothing,” the boy insisted. “Let go of me. You’re hurting.”

            “I saw your hand going into that lady’s bag,” Daniel said.

            “Go on then, search me!” the boy said belligerently. “You won’t find nothing.”

            “Of course I won’t. I stopped you in time. One more second and you’d have slipped her wallet under your jacket and been off through the crowd with her none the wiser.”

            “You can’t prove that,” the boy said. “And you’d better be careful, going around and accusing people of things they didn’t do. There’s such a thing as wrongful arrest, you know.”

            “Constable Macarthy!” Daniel boomed and a stout man in uniform forced his way through the crowd toward them.

            “A spot of trouble, Captain Sullivan, sir?”

            “Do you recognize this young ‘un?” Daniel asked.

            “Never seen him before, sir. What’s he been doing?”

            “Helping himself to people’s wallets,” Daniel said. “No, there’s no point in searching him. I spotted him in the act of lifting a purse, but I suspect he’s smart enough to have tucked others into hiding places to be retrieved later—just in case he was ever caught. Is that right, young fellow?”

            “I said to get your hands off me,” the boy snarled. “You’re going to be sorry, you know. I got friends.”

            “Oh no, I think it’s you whose going to be sorry,” Daniel said. “I never forget a face and my men will be on the lookout for you now, all over the city. If you’re smart you’ll stay indoors until after Christmas.  Handcuff him, Constable.”

            “What do you want me to do with him, Captain?” the constable asked as the pair of them wrestled handcuffs onto the struggling and cursing youth.

            “Take him to the nearest station house and get his name, address and finger prints,” Daniel said. “If he gives you any sauce you have my permission to lock him up for the night until he can learn some manners.”

            “You can’t do that. I told ya, I ain’t done nothing,” the boy said, looking slightly more worried now.

            “If you cooperate like a good boy, then you’ve got nothing to worry about and you’ll be free as a bird in a little while,” Daniel said. “But if any of my men catches you picking pockets again, remember we’ll have your finger prints on file and you’ll be heading straight to jail. Understand me?”

            A crowd had gathered, standing not too close but watching with interest.

“What’s the boy done?” a thin clergyman in a black suit asked.

“Pick pocket,” Daniel said. “There are too many of them around this year. You should all make sure you keep a watchful eye on your cash.”

“But he’s only a boy,” the clergyman said. “Surely handcuffs aren’t necessary. If you’d let me have a word with him, I know I could make him—“

His speech was cut off by a scream from somewhere in the crowd and a woman cried out, “My money is missing. Someone’s taken my purse.”

AND TWO NEWS FLASHES TO SHARE:

THE TWELVE CLUES OF CHRISTMAS is currently on sale for $1:99 on Amazon. If you want something to get you into the holiday mood download, make some hot chocolate and enjoy.

AND if you are feeling cold and sun-deprived....

There are only two slots left on my workshop in Tuscany next summer. If you know someone who is a fledgling mystery writer or you'd like to know details, please check it out at: www.Minervaeducation.net 

I'm Dreaming of.....

RHYS BOWEN: This week as well as celebrating Red Julia’s new book, I am also celebrating the release of the paperback edition of my last year’s hardcover, The Twelve Clues of Christmas ( New York Times bestseller).  If you bought this book, you’ll know that it took place at a country house in England and I tried to create exactly the kind of Christmas I longed for—uncommercial , simple, good food, good friends, good fun..

I suppose like many of us,  I have a deep yearning for the old-fashioned Christmas of long ago. I want the yule log burning merrily while the family sits around the fire. I want the carol singers at the front door. Crackers. Mince pies. The holly and the ivy. God rest ye merry gentlemen.  I've tried to recreate it from time to time, but it never quite works. Maybe that is because we have so much year round these days that it's hard to make magic at the holidays. When I was growing up Christmas at my grandmother's house was simple in the extreme. My own kids and grandkids would probably find it boring. 

We would drive to my grandmother’s house on Christmas Eve, bringing with us the Christmas tree (trees were smaller in those days). We’d decorate it while my grandmother served hot punch and mince pies. We’d string paper chains around the house.  After supper we children would be put to bed, but of course we stayed awake, hoping for a glimpse of Father Christmas.  At midnight the grown-ups went to midnight mass at the local church. I couldn’t wait to be old enough to join them. It was magic sitting in the old church, listening to the choir singing those wonderful hymns and then walking home through the frosty night, our breath coming out like dragon-fire.  At home we were greeted with more hot mince pies and sausage rolls.

                Our presents appeared in pillow cases at the foot of our beds. We opened them at first light, sitting up in bed surrounded by wrapping paper. I suspect we ate the sugar mice right then.  The day itself was simple—highlighted by the turkey at lunch. Snooze afterward then the magnificent Christmas cake, frosted to look like a snow scene with little porcelain figures on it. And small presents had miraculously appeared on the tree and were handed out after tea. We children were required to put on some kind of entertainment—a pantomime or charades. Then a cold turkey supper and bed.
 
I suppose it was so special because it was the only time in the year we ate turkey, or dates or saw tangerines in the stores. We rarely had presents apart from birthday and Christmas. Today when everything is available all the time and we have so much more, it’s hard to create the thrill of treats. We try hard—that’s why stores start blaring Christmas music at us in October.  We up the ante by requiring bigger and better presents—remember the ad to “put a Lexus under the tree?”  Right. We want that feeling of a special occasion but we don’t know where to find it.

                I’ve gone looking for it myself on several occasions—one year we rented a cabin in the snow with friends. We arrived to a picture perfect Christmas card scene. We awoke next morning to rain. It rained non-stop all week. No snow, no skiing, just bored children imprisoned in a cabin with no TV.

                One year we took a Christmas market cruise down the Danube, going around the markets in each small town. It was quite magical with the booths and the lights and the smell of sausage and cinnamon and hand carved toys. I loved it. John complained “How many more carved angels do you need to see?”

And one year we decided to do away with commercialism and make handmade gifts.  I made dolls and quilts and others made candles and pillows and scarves. When we exchanged gifts on Christmas morning we tried to be thrilled and excited, realizing the supreme effort each one of us had made. But it’s really hard to get excited about a fleece pillow or a painted bottle. I was the first to crack. “Okay,” I said. “I did go to the store and bought these little extras.”

                “So did I,” one daughter said. “I did too,” said another. And laughing we handed out real, store-bought gifts. I guess we’re not Little house on the Prairie after all.

                So how about you? Do you still have nostalgia for long-ago holidays? Do you seek to recreate them?

And if I'm allowed a sliver of BSP for once, may I point out that the paperback of Twelve Clues is at a special price right now and makes a terrific stocking stuffer! You can find it at your favorite indie store, or at Barnes and Noble or online at Barnes and Noble or Amazon
But wait==there's more. I'll give away a copy of the book to the best comment of the day!

 

Have You Got a Clue?

RHYS BOWEN: One of the fun things about writing The Twelve Clues of Christmas was that I had to include some real and fair clues for each day of my story. And as I wrote I realized that the whole concept of clues in mystery novels has almost vanished from the genre.

In the early days of mystery novels the clue was everything--Sherlock Holmes would pick up a spent match and declare that it had been used an hour ago by a one armed sailor from Malta who had a black beard. He'd work out how the speckled band came through the keyhole. But in today's crime novel the focus has shifted from the whodunit to the whydunit--to the psychological aspect of crime.

I suppose we still have our clues but they are more of a forensic nature--more CSI evidence than spent matches. I don't know about you but I miss clever clues. I liked the aspect of mystery reading that pitted my wits against the writer. I liked to figure out whodunit, didn't you?

So what do you think, Reds? Have clues really vanished from our current writing? Do you wish writers would use them more?

LUCY BURDETTE: Writing your book sounds like so much fun Rhys! I love clues too, and I don't think they've gone out of style. Maybe changed a little to suit the times. I don't do much with forensics since all of my books involve amateur detectives--they have to make clever observations and connect the dots rather than study scientific evidence. And for me, it's challenging and fun to layer in details early in the book that will become important later. Also fun to mention details that SEEM important at the time, but turn out to be unrelated to the solution of the mystery. And what's especially rewarding is to realize I put something in that I will need later but didn't "know" it at the time.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys, your clever clues were one reason I enjoyed your Twelve Clues of Christmas so much! I love clues. Reading an old young adult mystery from the early sixties that I found in my bookcase has been a good reminder as well. For most of us, wasn't it the clues that hooked us on the genre?

Although I write contemporary police novels, I try to write around forensics. Forensic evidence can be used as backup, but I want my detectives to solve the crimes using observation and their skill at reading people.


HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, I'm all about clues. Since I work without an outline, I have no idea what will become a clue, so it's always a surprise to me to see how the puzzle pieces come together. Especially pieces I didn't know were the puzzle!

So I think...and just contemplating this now..."clues," for me at least, come not from knowing a result and then putting in clues to get me there, but a result of creating the story as I go, like real life. And in real life clues appear--but at the time, you don't know they're clues.

So in writing a mystery, you take what you have, and make those the clues.

Because they ARE, you know? Because what happened is what happened. And that's
what you can use to solve the crime.

And as a result of THAT--it doesn't feel like heavy-handed
foreshadowing--because it can't be foreshadowing if you don't know what's going
to happen!

Ah. See what I mean?


HALLIE EPHRON: Oh, this is bringing back one of my favorite quotes from all of crime fiction. “Another clue!  And this time a swell one!" (Joe to Frank in The Tower Treasure, the first Hardy Boys mystery)

I don't think about clues as I write but they're there. I think of them as "the thing that's there that shouldn't be" and "the thing that's not there that should." Of course some of clues turn out to be red herrings, outsmarting even me.

My favorite clue from "Come and Find Me" is the cardinal that's on the fence every time Diana looks out through her security cameras.

JAN BROGAN -  I tend to read mysteries for character and less for the puzzle. And while I don't tend to read for clues, I appreciate that they are there where they should be when I look back after the resolution.

RHYS: Jan, I think some of my favorite clues are in the behavior of a character. I sometimes wonder whether I would be able to detect a real-life murderer. I'm usually quite accurate when I watch someone on TV and they are pleading with someone to return a kidnapped child--and I absolutely know that they are responsible and the child is dead. Or a husband lamenting that his wife has run away/been kidnapped. And I knew OJ was guilty--didn't you?

I do enjoy the new Sherlock and the way the internet and smart phones have been introduced into his detection methods. But I'm glad that my mysteries take place in the past so that I don't have to worry about updating CSI and know about blood spatters.

So all you mystery readers out there--what do feel about clues in our novels? Do you miss the clues of Sherlock Holmes and Dame Agatha? Do you get annoyed when authors don't play fair?

The Makings of an Audio Book, with Katherine Kellgren

RHYS: When I heard that the first Royal Spyness book was going to come out in audio I was apprehensive.  American actors have not always been successful with British accents (think Dick Van Dyke and “Oye say, Mary Poppins”) But then I got an email from Katherine Kellgren, telling me that she was going to be reading the book and asking me how I wanted various things pronounced. Then I heard the first recording and I was thrilled.  She got it absolutely right. Other people obviously thought she did too, as the audio got nominated for an Audie award that year.

Since then Katy has been the reader for each book in the series, receiving another Audie nomination for Naughty in Nice. Not only does she get Georgie’s upper class English voice right but is deliciously accurate with all the other characters—Georgie’s waspish sister-in-law Fig, Queen Mary, and the cockney grandfather.

As I celebrate the audio release of the latest book I wanted to introduce our readers to Katy and to show another side to the book publishing industry and one that is growing by leaps and bounds.

So welcome Katy, I’m so pleased to have you as our guest today. Let’s start off with your background. You have to be English to get all those accents so right.

KATY: Well, I was actually born in New York City, but spent a hefty chunk of my life living in London. I was there for 12 years and did quite a bit of my schooling there, including 3 years spent training at The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Hence I record books in both English and American dialects, though I would say the majority of them are still English. I even did a book all in Welsh dialect last year, which was utterly terrifying!

RHYS: Did you always want to be an actress? 

KATY: I would have to say yes. When I was three years old I remember lobbying to play the Big Bad Wolf in a school production of the Three Little Pigs because I thought that part would present the greatest opportunity to display dramatic range, not to mention have the most stage time!

RHYS: What brought you back to America? 

KATY: An important factor in my final decision to move back to the States was that my father was ill back in New York. In the year before I left the UK though, I recorded my very first audiobook because of him. He was a great fan of the mystery author Freeman Wills Crofts, and at his request I got Crofts' 1929 novel The Box Office Murders out of the library and recorded it for him myself using a hand-held tape recorder. Although I had been working in audio doing numerous radio plays, it wasn't until I moved back to New York that I recorded my first professional audiobook. The idea of really pursuing that line of work was largely spurred by reading to him, both in person and on tape!

RHYS: So how did you move on from reading for your dad to becoming the star book-reader that you are today? 

KATY: You are really being too kind saying "star" reader (though my actor-ly ego thanks you a thousand times)! It's fair to say that I spent a large part of my teenage years (and ever since then, come to think of it) listening to truly huge stars on audio. I was quite obsessed with old Caedmon recordings of John Gielgud, Edith Evans, Ralph Richardson et al reading plays, poetry and prose, and would spend hours at a time closeted in my room listening to them. When I was older and started reading to my father because he will ill, I began thinking about my ongoing love for those recordings and how important they had been to me growing up, and I determined to try to find work doing audiobooks, - which slowly but surely (with luck) I managed to do. Incidentally, one of my absolute favorite recordings as a child was The Importance of Being Earnest featuring Edith Evans giving her legendary Lady Bracknell, so when you wrote in The Twelve Clues of Christmas that Fig's mother, the formidable Lady Wormwood, utters certain words "in the same tones Lady Bracknell used regarding a handbag in the Oscar Wilde play" the thundering syllables of Evans instantly leapt to mind. Such bliss!

RHYS: What preparations do you make before you read an audio book? What is the hardest thing about doing it? (I was once asked if I'd like to do one of my books. I've read a short story for a pod-cast and that was quite enough for me. It's hard not to let my attention wander, then feel that I want to cough, swallow or choke).  

KATY: After carefully reading through the book at home (during which time I make elaborate notes about any descriptions the author has given concerning the characters' voices / dialects, flag words whose pronunciations I must look up & etc.) I go back through the text and highlight the dialogue of each character in a different color of pen. My recording script for The Twelve Clues of Christmas ended up quite rainbow-hued indeed, what with all the various guests at the house party chatting with each other! Then I think about the character voices, trying to get as close to how I imagine the author envisioned them as I possibly can. I draw on all sorts of sources for help and inspiration. For The Twelve Clues I kept up a pretty constant listening diet of Noel Coward recordings since he is a character in the book (luckily I already had lot of them, as he is an old favorite of mine) but of course came to the immediate conclusion that his diction is a thousand times more exquisite than mine could ever hope to be in that regard, so I would just have to make do and hope the listener will be forgiving. I often work with a dialect coach if I feel I need to brush up on anything (I'm working with a brilliant man right now who held my hand through the German and Romanian in A Royal Pain and Royal Blood). Then I'll go through and find the tunes to any songs the characters sing. This happens more than you might think - I do one series that always involves at least a dozen sea shanties per installment! In the case of The Twelve Clues it was easy, as I already knew the Christmas carols in question! I generally do as much specialized research as I can, and each book is different - a while ago I had a single book in which I had to speak in Urdu, French and Italian and sing in Spanish, this year opened with a book in which I had to reproduce the warning cry of an ostrich (actually that was quite fun). The hardest thing about doing audiobooks is also part of what makes working on them so exciting, you don't get to rehearse, and when you go into the studio if you're not ready or you let your concentration waver for a moment it will show in the finished product. I try to do everything I can to prepare, then when I go in to record, I know I have to take a leap of faith and let go and allow the author's words carry me along.

RHYS: Being so much in demand for your audio readings, do you still find time to do acting work? 

KATY: Well I consider reading a book aloud sort of like being in a play in which I get to do all the parts - a tremendous amount of fun for any actor! Though I did do theatre, some film & etc. after I left drama school, once I started doing audiobooks I became more and more focussed on them alone. As I said before, recordings have always been hugely important in my life, - I think there is an experience you get from being read to that you can get nowhere else. I know I still listen to audiobooks read by great narrators all the time and draw inspiration from them. I'm totally focused on audiobook work now, and I'm so proud and grateful to be in the profession that I'm in!

RHYS: What do you miss about England? And since this is a Christmas book, can you share a favorite English Christmas memory with us?

KATY: Principally I miss all my friends there. I try to keep in close touch with many of the dearest ones, but there's so much you miss in daily life by simply not being there. I miss my old neighborhood in Primrose Hill in North London, where I lived for a good many years. The thought of the grilled halloumi cheese at Lemonia Restaurant there often fills me with a nameless longing... The London Library, Pleasures of Past Times bookshop in Cecil Court, - oh, really too many things to mention! My most distinct memory of Christmas in England is the lazy afternoon sensation of lying on the carpet playing dominoes and eating Quality Street in front of holiday TV after a glorious lunch. Not very picturesque but very comforting.

RHYS: Thank you so much, Katy. Now we are all more aware of all the hard work and background preparation that goes into an audio book. Anything else you’d like to add? 

KATY: Only that it is a true pleasure for me to be able to record your deliciously written books - wonderful writing makes my job as a narrator not only much easier, but also an absolute joy! 

RHYS: I look forward to hearing you read the rest of the series, until Georgie and Darcy are collecting their old age pension one day! 

And dear Reds and friends—Katherine Kellgren doesn’t just read my books. I believe she received seven Audie nominations last year. So if you see her name on an audio recording you know you’ll be in for a treat.

Here’s a link to Katy’s wonderful audio version of The Twelve Clues of Christmas.

http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=pd_rhf_p_1?asin=B00A9VCE4U

Rhys Bowen Serves up "The Twelve Clues of Christmas"

HALLIE EPHRON: I know we've just cleared Halloween but at Jungle Red, it's lookin' a lot like Christmas with Rhys Bowen's newest A Royal Spyness mystery, "The Twelve Clues of Christmas," launching this week! The series featuring impoverished minor royal Georgina has the fun of a 1930's English manor house with the challenge of an intricately plotted mystery, all wrapped up with a good old fashioned love story, and served with a side of roasted chestnuts.

Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, daughter to the Duke of Atholt and Rannoch, flat broke and getting by on charm an sheer guts, is such a fun character. What fresh hell is she facing in The Twelve Clues of Christmas? (And PS, congratulations on your **starred** review in Publisher's Weekly!)

RHYS BOWEN: Actually Georgie feels that she has fallen on her feet this time. She has managed to escape from her beastly sister-in-law and the drafty Scottish castle to assist the hostess of a posh Christmas house party in a pretty village in Devonshire. Plenty to eat and drink and those she loves best in the neighborhood too (including a certain dark and dashing Irishman).

What she hadn't counted on was a prison break from bleak Dartmoor prison and a series of mysterious accidents that may not be accidents at all. And the village has more than its fair share of folk law, including the Lovey Curse and the local witch. Georgie will need all her detecting skills to sort out this complicated puzzle (and stay alive).

HALLIE: I love the name of the village where the book's manor house takes place: Tiddleton-Under-Lovey. Tell us you made that up. And what other names did you consider?

RHYS: Of course the name Tiddleton-Under-Lovey is a made up name. But England is full of weird and wonderful place names, even funnier than this. How about Giggleswick or Fudgepack-Upon-Humber, or Steeple Bumpstead and next door Helion's Bumpstead. Then there's Aindersby Quernhow and Burton-le-Coggles. Chipping Sodbury is not far from Upton Snodbury. I also like Nether Wallop and Bishop's Itchington. Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter are close to Stow-on-the-Wold and Burton-on-the-Water. Do any British readers have a favorite place name they'd like to share?

HALLIE: Chipping Sodbury sounds like something you could get for lunch at a pub. When we were training about near York I loved the names New Earswick which is near Nether Poppleton. 

Rhys, what are the requirements of a traditional British Christmas, and what are we Americans missing?

RHYS: Christmas pudding for starters, traditionally with silver charms inside, and each charm with a meaning. If you find a boot in your slice you are going to travel, a pig and you're a glutton, a button and you'll remain a bachelor for life.

Then there are crackers (not the dry kind you eat with cheese but paper tubes you pull). They snap with a small explosion and contain a paper hat, a small prize and a riddle (usually bad although we liked last year's Where do you find the Andies? Answer: On the end of the Wristies.)

HALLIE: (Which reminds me of my favorite ever joke -- as in the only one I can remember: Where does the king keep his army? Answer: Up his sleevie.)

RHYS: Christmas of my childhood included going around the village singing carols door to door, being invited in for mince pies and hot sausage rolls, playing silly family games like charades. As a child I really enjoyed getting a snow-house--a cardboard house decorated with cotton wool snow and containing little presents that one pulled out through the windows.

I guess I could sum up the traditional Christmas with one word NON-COMMERCIAL. Nobody expected a Lexus under the tree.

HALLIE: Sounds perfectly lovely.

Okay, shopping list please. If I want to recreate a traditional English Christmas, what should I go about procuring?

RHYS: You can buy good Christmas puddings, although the traditional kind were made on pudding Sunday, first sunday of November then laced with brandy or rum to help them mature. Jars of mince meat for little mince pies. Sausage meat for the sausage rolls. You can find crackers in places like Cost Plus. Then get a CD of the choir boys from Kings College Cambridge singing all those old traditional carols, have a big yule log roaring in the fireplace and heat up a good wassail punch.

Actually this book comes with a compendium of recipes, games, traditions in the back. All you'd need to recreate the Olde English Christmas.

HALLIE: Any clues on where your book tour will be taking you, and will you be home in time for Christmas?

RHYS: All in place and ready to go, Hallie. You can find the schedule on my website, www.rhysbowen.com.

I start off with a launch party at Book Passage in Corte Madera (which you know very well!), then on to Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, Murder by the Book in Houston, two stores and a TV show in Seattle (where I have to demonstrate sausage rolls and silly games on camera!) Then Powells in Portland and several more stores in the greater Bay Area. And yes, I'll be home for Christmas, and making those mince pies and other goodies while I sing along with my favorite carols.

HALLIE: Thanks, Rhys! Hoping everyone's perfect Christmas includes a copy of "The Twelve Clues of Christmas" under their tree.

So, Reds, what do you miss most about the Christmas memories of your childhood? Rhys is giving away a copy of the new book to the best commenter of the day.

Sunday Sneak Peek

Well it looks as though Jungle Reds and friends go for the quiet considerate type of man: I'd say that Deborah's Duncan , Julia's Russ, won our poll along with Inspector Morse and other well-behaved Englishmen (although some of us did confess a secret hunkering after Jack Reacher).

For today something different. We had talked about giving readers a sneak peek at something we were working on. My snippet today is from The Twelve Clues of Christmas that comes out on November 6th. Georgie goes to Devonshire to help out with a Christmas house party and this is her arrival:

On one side a staircase ascended to a gallery and I spied a pair of legs in old trousers up on a ladder. He was a stocky chap with shaggy gray hair, wearing a fisherman’s jersey and old flannels and he was wrestling with a long garland of holly and ivy.

            “Excuse me,” I called out.

            He spun around in surprise and I saw that it wasn’t a man at all but a big boned woman with cropped hair. “Who are you?” she demanded, peering down at me.

            My arrival wasn’t exactly going as I had expected. “I’m Georgiana Rannoch,” I said. “If you could please go and tell Lady Hawse-Gorzley that I have arrived. She is expecting me.”

            “I am Lady Hawse-Gorzley,” she said. “Been so dashed busy that I completely forgot you were coming today. Come up and grab the other end of this, will you? Damned thing won’t stay put. It looked so simple in Country Life.”

            I put down my train case and did as she requested. Together we secured the garland and she came down the ladder. “Sorry about that,” she said, wiping her hands on her old slacks. “I don’t want you to think we’re always this disorganized. Had a hell of a day here. Police tramping all over the place, not letting the servants get on with their work. That’s why we’re so behind. Must have the decorations up, y’know. First guests arriving day after tomorrow. ”

            I came back down the stairs to meet her. She stuck out a big hand. “Well here’s a pretty first introduction to Gorzley Hall, what? Camilla Hawes-Gorzley. How do you do? Dashed good of you to muck in like this. Nearly had a fit when I saw my little advertisement answered by the daughter of a duke. You should have seen the other applications I got—their idea of impeccable background and mine weren’t at all the same, I can tell you. Parents in trade I shouldn’t wonder. So you were an answer to our prayers and here you are.”

She beamed at me making me realize she wasn’t as old as I had first thought. “Well don’t just stand there. Take off your coat. Come on through and have a sherry, then I’ll give you a quick tour of the house. Brought a maid with you, I expect?”

“Yes, I brought my maid.” I realized it was going to be hard to get a word in edgewise.

“Jolly good. If I can round up Martha, she can show the girl where you’re sleeping and take up your things.”

She rang a bell furiously. “Damned girl is probably entertaining the policemen in the kitchen. Got too much of an eye for the other sex, that one. Going to come a cropper, you mark my words.”

While she was talking she had led me through to a comfortable looking drawing room with arm chairs and sofas set around a blazing fire in a hearth almost the size of our one at home. Leaded paned bay windows looked out across an expanse of lawn. The walls were wood paneled and the ceiling had great beams running across it. What’s more, it was delightfully warm. Lady Hawse-Gorzley motioned me to sit in one of the arm chairs then went over to a table in the corner and picked up a decanter. “Sherry all right for you? Or would you prefer something stronger? A brandy maybe after your travels?”

“No, sherry would be lovely, thank you.”

“Always have one myself before dinner. I suppose the sun has to be over the yard arm, wouldn’t you say? What time is it, by the way? Damned grandfather clock has given up the ghost again. It’s been in the family since seventeen hundred so I suppose one can allow it the odd temper tantrum, but dashed awkward time to do it.”

“It’s about five thirty,” I said, consulting my wrist watch.

“Is it, by George. A little early for sherry, but in the circumstances, I suppose we can bend the rules, what?” She poured two generous glasses and handed me one. “God, how the time has flown today. I don’t know how we’re going to get everything ready for the guests in time. Those damned police tramping around all day.” She perched on the arm of a nearby chair and knocked back her sherry in one gulp. “Like another?” she asked and looked in surprise that I hadn’t yet started mine. “Come on. Drink up. Do you good.”

I knew that good breeding did not allow one to ask too many questions, but I was dying of curiosity. “Lady Hawse-Gorzley, you mentioned that the police had been here all day. What exactly have they been doing?”

“Tramping all over the place and upsetting my servants, that’s what. Damned impertinence. All because our stupid neighbor had to go and kill himself in our orchard. Of all the inconsiderate things to do, especially when he knew I had people coming. Still that was par for the course with him. Didn’t care a hoot about anybody but himself.”

I tried to digest this while she knocked back a second sherry. “Your neighbor killed himself? Committed suicide, you mean?”

“I hardly think so. If you wanted to kill yourself you probably wouldn’t bother to climb a tree first, would you? Not unless you wanted to fall and break your neck and our fruit trees aren’t that big. No, the police think it was an accident. Carrying a loaded rook rifle with him, somehow slipped or knocked the gun and it went off in his face.”

“Had he come onto your property to shoot rooks then, do you think?”

“Wouldn’t have thought so. The big elm by the church is where the rooks go to roost for the night. He could have stood in the church yard, fired with his eyes closed and not been able to miss at dusk. No, my husband agrees with me—it was probably designed to be another of his practical jokes. Going to rig up the rifle so that it went off when someone walked past, or maybe aiming it to shoot at one of our windows—that’s what the inspector suggested. “

“He was aiming to kill one of you?”

“No, just give us a nasty scare. That was young Freddie’s stock in trade. M’husband reckons that he wanted to pay us back because Oswald found him shooting grouse on the moor the other day. I mean to say--everyone knows the grouse shooting season ends on the tenth of December. And there he was, bold as brass on the eighteenth. Gave him a damned good talking to. Obviously didn’t like that and decided to get back at us.”

She took another swig of sherry. “Inherited the property behind ours from his father a few years ago. Still hasn’t married and amuses himself by being absolutely bloody to his neighbors. In his thirties now but still acts like a ten year old boy.” She paused and sighed. “Still, I wouldn’t have wished an end like that for the poor chap. He might have turned out all right if he’d married and had to settle down.”

She broke off as there was the sound of footsteps outside and several blue uniforms passed the window.

“Ah, they are finally off home,” she said. “I told them they were wasting their time tramping all over my property. Quite clear the fellow shot himself while trying to rig up some kind of trap. Had the wire with him. Fool. Well, let’s hope that’s the end of it. The last thing I want is to have my guests greeted by policemen all over the place.  I was worried they’d all cancel when they read about the break-out last week.”

“Break-out?”

She looked up in surprise. “Don’t tell me you didn’t hear about it? I thought it was in all the newspapers. There have certainly been enough pressmen hanging around here.”

I shook my head. “Sorry. It takes a long time for news to reach us in the wilds of Scotland.”

She leaned closer. “Three convicts escaped from Dartmoor prison, only a few days ago. Supposed to be model prisoners and they were part of a gang working in the quarry. It was all very well planned. They lingered behind on some pretext, hit the guard over the head with a rock and made off over the moor. They were shackled, of course, but apparently one of them made his living as an escape artist. Two of them were entertainers of some sort, but they were all nasty pieces of work. History of violent crimes.”

“And they haven’t caught them yet?” I glanced up nervously at the window. It was now completely black outside with no lights showing anywhere.

“Not seen hide nor hair of them. We’ve had men with dogs up on the moor, police check points along all the roads and not a sign of them. We think they must have had a vehicle waiting on the nearest road and have been whisked away before anyone could sound the alarm. Which means they are well away from here, thank God.” She stood up. “I tell you, it’s been a hell of a business. Quite upset m’husband. He’s a quiet man, is Sir Oswald, doesn’t say much. But I could tell it upset him, especially as he was the one who found the blighter slumped in our apple tree today.”

The Other Oymmpics

RHYS BOWEN :In a month's time I'm going to the Olympics. A giant feast celebrating the best in English sports.. or is it? One of the sports that won't be appearing is Bog Snorkelling. Neither will Toe Wrestling, nor cheese rolling. I'm not making these up. They are real British sports. They have just held the World Bog Snorkelling Championship in Wales. The contestants swim through thick filthy water of a flooded peak bog breathing through a snorkel. It attracts over 200 competitors each year.

Actually sports like this will have a chance to shine on the world stage. They will be featured at the World Alternative Games, taking place at the same time as the Olympics in Llanwrtyd Wells in Wales. I bet it's easier to get tickets there.

Britain must have more silly sports than any other country I know. Where else would you find a pancake race, or a race carrying barrels of molten tar that would fry you to a crisp if they spilled over you?  Or the famous Gloucestershire cheese roll, where contestants roll an 8 lb wheel of Double Gloucester Cheese down a hill and attempt to catch it. This event has been going on for 200 years.

In fact most regions of Britain can claim their own "alternative" (and for alternative read silly) sports and games. Hedge jumping is one of my favorites. People find a wicked looking hedge and then attempt to throw themselves over it in a sort of Fosbury Flop. One contestant claimed he did better in "your basic crucifixion position."  Keen hedge jumpers have been known to skid to a halt, leap out of cars and hurls themselves over a nearby hedge. My friend Hannah Dennison wrote about this in one of her Vicky Hill novels. Great fun.

In the flatter parts of the East Coast there is dyke vaulting. Do not comment. Contestants run at the waterway with a pole, plant it and attempt to jump across, like a pole vault but horizontal. Most end up stuck in the mud with no dry way of escape.

My next Lady Georgie novel, The Twelve Clues of Christmas (due out in November) features a made up event called "The Lovey Chase." What is it? You'll have to read the book to find out.