Her debut novel, DEADLY SOLUTION, was just nominated for a Lefty (the awards given by the Left Coast Crime conference) for Best Debut Novel. So huge congrats from all of your cheerleaders here!!
And we are also celebrating the release of Keenan's second Maeve Malloy novel, HEMLOCK NEEDLE! Here's Keenan to tell you more about it.
HEMLOCK NEEDLE and a Nagging Inspiration
Thanks
so much, Reds, for having me on your blog today. I don’t always comment, but I
follow Jungle Reds. You are a bright spot.
I’m
super excited about the release of my second Maeve Malloy Mystery, HEMLOCK
NEEDLE. It was born from a nagging
inspiration: a newspaper photograph of a little Yup’ik boy sitting on his
haunches behind a forest of adult legs during a Starring ceremony. Although
they were indoors, he was wearing his winter coat and he looked uncomfortably
warm and I thought to myself, I bet someone told him not to take the coat off
because he might lose it.
 |
| Keenan's grandson, Brady, as Evan |
The
Starring ceremony is a Russian Orthodox Christmas celebration. In the villages,
people go from house to house spinning huge tinsel stars and singing Christmas
carols in Russian, English, and their Native language. Then there is food and
drink and then the party moves on to the next house.
In
Anchorage, the party takes place at the Alaska Native Medical Center where a
large room is set aside for gatherings. That is where the picture was taken.
What
intrigued me about this little Yup’ik boy was how he was caught in the middle
of a cultural tsunami: hundreds of miles
away from his ancestral home, celebrating Christmas with friends and relatives
but also Alaska Natives who had been traditional enemies, altogether in in an
essentially foreign city, and he would grow up during an era when his people
were fighting to preserve their culture and way of life.
That
image was front and center in my mind and I felt like I was never going to get
past it unless I gave it a story.
So here’s
the story that evolved: In
Anchorage, Alaska, Yup’ik Eskimo chief financial officer and single mother,
Esther Fancyboy, walks out of a party and into a blizzard.
She is never seen
again, leaving behind a seven-year-old son, Evan.
The local cops say she’ll come home when she’s
done partying, but family friend Maeve Malloy doesn’t think it’s that simple.
She goes looking for Esther just as she’s getting bad news of her own, a career-ending accusation. When Esther’s
body turns up in a snow berm and a witness is shot to death in front of Maeve,
she suspects Evan might be in danger. Maeve must race against time to save the
boy – along with her career, and maybe her life.
Since I have practiced law in Alaska for
over thirty-five years, I was able to draw on my experience working with Yup’ik
people. One time, I watched a white politician give a speech to a roomful of
villagers on the topic of subsistence lifestyle (politician against). On
another occasion, I visited fish camp near the village of Kwethluk when I was
working on a fishing right case and I was struck by how joyous the folks were
as they worked by the riverside. In particular I remember one man who walked
gracefully across a rocking boat onto the beach, his body reacting
instinctively to the gentle movement of the river beneath his feet, having
spent his life on that river.
And for what I didn’t know, I lucked out.
My grandchildren’s other grandmother is Yup’ik from Eek, Alaska. She advised in
particular on a birthday gift that my character Esther had been making for her
own grandmother when she disappeared. It was her opinion that my Esther was a
good Yup’ik girl.
In celebration of my release, I’d like to
give away a copy of HEMLOCK NEEDLE to a commenter. Is there an image in your
head that refused to go away? Did you do something with it? Paint, draw, music,
wrote, made up a little story, told your best friend about it over coffee? Or,
tell us about your grandmother or your grandkids.
You can
order HEMLOCK NEEDLE here.
DEBS: Don't tempt me on the granddaughter or my grandmother! But I am so curious about Alaska, and the culture you've portrayed so vividly for us here, Keenan. AND I want to know what happened to Esther, and to Evan.
***
Keenan’s first publication was illustrations in Dungeons and Dragons, 1st
edition, drawn the summer before finishing high school. Art seemed to be an impractical pursuit – she
wasn’t an heiress, didn’t have the disposition to marry well, and hated
teaching – so she went to law school instead. The day after graduation, she
moved to Alaska.
She practiced criminal defense for many years, taking on a
wide-range of cases all the way from murder to Alaska Native fishing and
hunting rights. She continues to practice law in Anchorage, Alaska.
She was one of the 2015 recipients of William F. Deeck-Malice
Domestic grant, currently writes a legal column, Ipso Facto, for the Guppies’ newsletter, First Draft, and blogs with Mysteristas.
Her
first Maeve Malloy Mystery, DEADLY SOLUTION, has been nominated by Left Coast
Crime for best debut.
Visit
her at www.keenanpowellauthor.com
where you can learn more about her writing, about Alaska, and sign up for her
newsletter.
Keenan Powell
Hemlock Needle (Level Best Books, 2019)
Deadly Solution (Level Best Books, 2018)
“The Velvet Slippers”- Malice
Domestic 12 – Mystery Most Historical (Wildside Press, 2017)
“The Cattle Raid of Adams” – Busted!
Arresting Stories from the Beat (Level Best Books, 2017)
“The Banshee of Adams,
Massachusetts” – Snowbound (Level Best Books, 2017)
“Muskeg Man” – Mystery Most
Geographical (Wildside Press, 2018)
