HANK: Today we welcome a newbie to Jungle Red. Well, hardly a
newbie author, but a newbie visitor! Victoria Thompson is the Agatha and Edgar®
nominated author of the Gaslight Mystery Series. And we do mean SERIES. There are seventeen
Gaslight books now! And, TA DAH! She’s just been named the Guest of Honor for
next year’s Malice Domestic!
Her latest is Murder on Amsterdam Avenue, and she
wants your opinion on a very important topic. (And she’s giving away her newest
to one lucky commenter!)
HANK: For those just joining
Gaslight--tell us about it a bit! Where'd the initial idea come from?
VICTORIA: Oddly enough,
the idea was generated by Berkley. They
did that a lot in the early days at Berkley Prime Crime. My agent called me one day to tell me she’d
just had lunch with a Prime Crime editor who was looking for someone to write a
series set in turn-of-the-century New York
City where the heroine was a midwife.
My agent thought of me, since I’d recently written a book set in that
time period and I had been putting mystery subplots in my historical romances
for a while.
They sent me their ideas
for the series. I liked some of them and
threw out a few others. Then I realized
that my midwife, Sarah, would need a male cohort, preferably someone who would
logically be solving murder mysteries, so I created Police Detective Frank
Malloy. Berkley had suggested that Sarah be a poor relation of a rich family,
but I made her the rebellious daughter of a rich family, which would give her
entre into all levels of society.
HANK: So-- does it feel
as if you're spending much of your time in the past? You
must have to think about reality in such a different way...
VICTORIA: It’s funny, I’ve tried writing contemporary
fiction. I’ve had several really cool
ideas and even started the books and finished one, but I just couldn’t love
writing them the way I do my historicals.
Last night I was watching Call the Midwife,
a series set in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Afterwards, one of the cast members said in an interview that she’d been
in many historical shows, but she’d grown up in the 1950’s and it was weird
acting in a “historical” era she knew all about first-hand, so she guessed she
was historical! I also grew up in that
era, so maybe I’m a historical person, too.
I know I feel more
comfortable with the language and the manners of the past. I also love discovering over and over that
people are still the same after a hundred years. Our technology is different, but we’re still
concerned with the same things: finding
Mr. Right, spirituality, assimilating immigrants, the media’s role in criminal
prosecution, stalking, the proper way to help the poor, and the theme I return
to again and again, women’s role in society. I really enjoy reminding readers
that we really haven’t made much progress in any of these areas, in spite of
the efforts of many well-meaning people.
HANK: Before you started writing the Gaslight Series, you
published 20 historical romances.
Whoa. Was it hard making the transition
from romance to mystery?
VICTORIA: Not as hard as I thought it would be, except
for one thing. I had created two wonderful protagonists for the Gaslight
series, Frank Malloy and Sarah Brandt. They
were about as opposite as two people living in New York City in that time
period could be, so naturally they were the perfect protagonists for a romance
novel. They should have spent the entire
first book overcoming everything that kept then apart, fallen in love, and
lived happily ever after.
HANK : And why didn’t
they?
VICTORIA: Because everyone told me (and told me!) that
mystery readers don’t like romance in their mysteries. My editor and my agent and other mystery
writers all warned me. This is why I put
so many barriers between Frank and Sarah. They could never get together, so I
made it impossible for them to get together.
Then a strange thing happened. I started getting fan
letters. They would say something nice
about the book and oh, by the way, when are Frank and Sarah going to get
together?” Everyone wanted to know about
a romance between Frank and Sarah. So
obviously, mystery readers don’t mind a little romance in their mysteries at
all! And after fifteen years of keeping
them apart, the fans were getting angry!
So I knew something had to happen. The problem was that I’d put up so
many barriers between them, I couldn’t figure out how to get them married
without ruining the series. Fortunately,
one of my writer friends, who had never read a single one of the books, came up
with the perfect solution, which I won’t mention in case somebody hasn’t read
that book yet.
HANK: Is it a spoiler to ask if they finally get married in
this book?
VICTORIA: I don’t think so. They’ve been engaged for
two books now, so it’s certainly time!
Of course they solve a mystery first and it’s a dandy, but then they
finally do tie the knot.
HANK: Uh-oh. Is this the end of the series?
VICTORIA: Not at all!
In fact, the next book is already written, and I’m contracted for at
least two more after that (that’s me signing the contract in the picture!).
Frank and Sarah will keep solving mysteries as along as readers keep buying the
books.
HANK: What's the secret
to your series longevity?
VICTORIA: An excellent question!
I actually teach mystery writing in the Seton
Hill University’s MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction, and I cover this very
topic. I always tell my students that readers
will pick up your book because they want a good mystery, but they’ll keep
coming back to your series time and again because they care about your
protagonists.
I learned this secret from
fans themselves.
They write me letters, saying how much they loved this or that
about a particular book, but they always ended by asking when Frank and Sarah
would get together. That was when I
realized they really cared about Frank and Sarah as people, so I have tried to
make their personal journeys as interesting as the mysteries they solve. So far
so good! I just hope they’ll be equally
as interesting now that they’re married.
HANK: My books
don't have to be read in order, even though they star the same two
main characters. Do you have to read the Gaslight books
in order?
VICTORIA: Not at all, and
many readers who have discovered the series recently tell me they read them out
of order. I was very careful not to give anything away about past cases, so you
don’t have to worry about spoilers.
Frank and Sarah’s relationship does grow and change through the course
of the series, of course. They don’t
like each other much in the first book, and in the new one, they get
married! I’d call that progress.
You can read the Gaslight Series in order or
not, depending on how important it is for you to see the growth and character
development of the protagonists.
HANK: So Reds, some people feel as if they MUST
read a series in order, no matter what the author says. How about
you? And a copy of Victoria’s new
mystery to one lucky commenter!
***********************************************
Victoria Thompson writes the Agatha and Edgar® Nominated
Gaslight Mystery Series, set in turn-of-the-century New York City featuring
midwife Sarah Brandt. The 17th
book in the series is MURDER ON AMSTERDAM AVENUE. She also contributed to the award winning
MANY GENRES/ONE CRAFT. Victoria teaches in the Seton Hill University MFA
program in writing popular fiction. She lives in Central PA with her husband
and a very spoiled little dog. She is a member of Sisters in Crime. You can find her at www.victoriathompson.com.
Murder on Amsterdam
Avenue
Frank and Sarah put their family business on hold to
investigate the death of an old family friend.
As they unravel secrets that reach back to the War Between the States,
they also discover that they are in the company of a very present danger…”
