Molly Murphy's New York

RHYS BOWEN: My daughter Clare and I are getting ready to release a new Molly Murphy book. We're having our launch party at the Poisoned Pen bookstore in Scotsdale on Saturday March 11 (where we'll be serving Irish goodies and will probably have a touch of the Blarney) and the official release date is March 14. So I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite pix from Molly's New York.

When I first started writing the series I used to go to New York and walk every yard that Molly walked so I could get a feel for the place. What could she see? Smell? Experience? Did the wind blow straight off the Hudson here? Could you hear tugs on the East River from here? I've sat in Pete's Tavern, although Molly would not have been allowed in. Now I know my way around well and could give you a lovely guided tour of Molly's New York. (My publisher jumped at this idea, but no thank you!)

Every time I go to New York I visit Molly's neck of the woods--Greenwich Village--just to remind myself of where she lives.  It's nice to imagine coming out of Molly's front door and going across the street to visit Sid and Gus. Or to push Liam in his stroller to Washington Square.I am lucky that it is pretty much unchanged. Her little backwater of Patchin Place is exactly as it was, although it's now quite upscale and I'm sure the houses cost a fortune! 

Sid and Gus's house is just across the street:

And here is Molly's house. I got an email from the man who lives there now. He sent me pictures of the interior and the garden. 

This is the Jefferson Market, across the street from Patchin Place. It was once the market building, as well as the police station and jail. Now it has housed a library until recently (it's closed at the moment or was when I was there last.)

And this is the last existing gas lamp in New York City and it's in Patchin Place.

This is Molly's pharmacy, just around the corner. Still going since eighteen eighties!

And Washington Square where Molly takes her little son to play.

And lastly, here is the house on Fifth Avenue where Molly finds herself moving in the new book, ALL THAT IS HIDDEN. It's a lovely house, a step up in the world, but at what price? How can Daniel have become involved in Tammany Hall politics? No good can come of it!

Aren't I lucky to be writing historical novels about a place I can still visit and experience? Tomorrow I'll share what I love most about New York.

But it's nice to imagine coming out of Molly's front door and going across the street to visit Sid and Gus. Or to push Liam in his stroller to Washington Square.

Who Am I? Rhys wrestles with new characters.

 RHYS BOWEN:

I am just taking the first tentative steps in writing a new book: a new stand-alone that takes place in France and England and Australia in various time periods. So a lot of work ahead of me.

When I start a new Spyness or Molly Murphy book it’s like visiting old friends. I know how my characters speak and react to each other. I know their environment. But with each stand alone it’s a new set of characters and a new setting to be meticulously researched. (Asks self why do I write stand-alones?)

When one starts any book the first question to ask is “whose story is it?” followed up with “what do they want and what is going to stop them from getting it?”

This is a big leap of faith when starting a new book, because obviously I don’t know my characters yet. I haven’t met them. They haven’t said things that surprised me and revealed aspects of themselves I didn’t know about. I’ve toyed with them in my head while I’m driving to the supermarket and come up with their basic traits and situation, but I’m having trouble starting to write this book because of the main character’s relationship with her father.

She doesn’t want to go home to him in England when war breaks out because:

1.They’ve had a contentious relationship

2.He never approved of her marriage. Or

3. He’s an unpleasant man Or

4.He’s a drunk

But I find that I want to like him. So…. I’m thinking he’s the true academic, not at all wordly and lost in the research of a book he’s writing. He’s also much older. An old father when she was born. But we need more…

I know her mother died in the Spanish flu epidemic when she was eight.

So…

So he married again. He wanted someone to take care of him and his daughter. And the woman he married was a war widow who wanted someone to provide for her. But she’s objectionable and doesn’t like my heroine and the father is either so caught up in his books or will do anything for a quiet life that he doesn’t notice how unhappy his daughter is and allows the wife to send her off to boarding school.

So far so good. But is the new wife pushy? Jealous of the daughter? Uneducated? A social climber?  I can’t quite visualize her yet. It will have to come out in dialog. It usually does. I find a character opens her mouth and starts talking and I see who they are.

And the interesting thing is that almost none of this will appear on the page of the story I’m writing. It’s what formed my character and makes her into who she is. Perhaps the step-mother isn’t horrible at all. Perhaps my heroine was so devastated by the loss of her mother that she never forgave her father for marrying again? Perhaps they will reconcile by the end of the story?

So many things to work out before I even type the words chapter 1.

How about the other writers here: do you get to know your characters before you start to write or do they reveal themselves to you as the story goes along? Who plunges ahead blindly with a leap of faith and who works like Elizabeth George and writes long character sketches of every character first?

RHYS on Getting it Right

 RHYS BOWEN:  I have just finished teaching an online class on writing historical mysteries to the Sisters in Crime Guppy group. One of the things I've stressed is the need to GET IT RIGHT. Gone are the days when your train could arrive at London Station and your characters could claim to be British by saying "Pip pip, cheerio" to each other. Everybody is savvy these days. The internet is there to check everything and if you get one small thing wrong you will know it.

Sometimes the writer feels like shouting "IT'S FICTION, DAMMIT!" but the point is that if you choose a real place and time for your story, the everything has to be right about that place or you have jerked some readers out of the story.  I read a book by a well-known author (who shall remain nameless) in which she got several things howlingly wrong...incorrect procedure and form of address at the English court, the wrong island, and I was so angry I couldn't finish the book.

I was asked to blurb another book in which a train from Yorkshire came into Victoria Station in London. That one got thrown across the room.  How can authors get such basic things wrong?

It should be easy to do the big research--when I wrote the Molly Murphy book, For the Love of Mike, I read the senate depositions after the Triangle Fire so that every abuse that happened to a girl in my book had happened to a real girl. Not necessary but really satisfying for the author and a way of making the reader feel that everything you are telling her is real and valid.

It's not always easy to avoid anachronisms, however. (Isn't that a lovely word. Anachronism. Say it out loud. Most satisfying). When I was writing my first Molly book my copy editor queried the use of Streetlight. And she was right. Not in use at that time. They were still lamps--lit by lamp lighters in many places, and even when electricity had been introduced they were still referred to as street lamps.

A very small thing and one that wouldn't upset anybody but it's satisfying to get it right.  I remember researching once with a friendly librarian when elastic came into use in women's undergarments. I wanted t know how easily my hero could rip them off? Such are the small things that obsess a historical writer.

Also in the Molly books I found that the word Car park was not in usage before 1920. Also Freud was just in the process of formulating his theories so none of the characters could be stressed, need to relax, be obsessed... such concepts didn't exist.

I am very conscious of anachronisms recently because I have watched Bridgerton and The Crown.

Bridgerton--OMG, anachronism laden, and I don't mean the choice of actors of various ethnicity. I was unable to recognize one thing about what is supposed to be London. It's the Georgian period. When I lived on Queen Anne Street when I worked for the BBC my house was Georgian. Plenty of Georgian buildings to use, but I had no idea where we were in any of the scenes. Was this perhaps because it was meant to be a fantasy world? Maybe.

But small things annoyed me too: court etiquette. Three daughters are presented at once to Queen Charlotte. The mother remarks she can try again next year. I'm sorry but unless things have changed significantly you are presented once, at eighteen. I rather think that court etiquette is written in stone.

And then there is the Crown: You should see the buzz it created in UK with all the little things they got wrong: the scenes at Balmoral when they go out stalking the stag. Those who know about these things say you'd never shoot at an animal without a backdrop (ie, a hillside behind it) so that there is no risk of the bullet going through the animal and striking someone beyond.  You'd never shoot without wearing ear muffs to deaden the sound.  I can't believe they didn't offer Mrs. Thatcher a pair of boots, not let her tramp through the heather in high heels. Nor can I believe she was clueless enough not to find out in advance what the dress code might be with her hosts! If I were going to spend some time in the wilds of Scotland I'd definitely take warm trousers and a rain jacket and stout shoes, wouldn't you?  It's easy enough to find pictures of the royals and see what they wear--of course, they wear kilts and she couldn't...

When Prince Charles is fly fishing apparently he's using the wrong type of rod for the stream. Again something that wouldn't matter to you or me but would matter to a fisherman.

I also find when I am writing that sometimes my problem is the opposite. I know something is true for the period but I can't include it because my readers would never accept it. It might be a form of slang that just sounds wrong or it might be a photo that I have of Macy's food counter in 1900. The center of the display is a stack of cans of chili con carne.  If I wrote that Molly went home and opened a can of chili I would be besieged with letters telling me how stupid I was.

So I'm interested to know how much it bothers you if you find a mistake in a book you are reading?

Do you continue to read or do you, like me, throw it across the room? And writers--have you ever made an error you came to regret? (confession time--I put Claridges Hotel on the wrong street in a Royal Spyness book. Unforgivable as our next door neighbor was the night manager of Claridges!)

Rhys on slaving away

RHYS BOWEN: part of my traveling this summer was research for next year's book. It will be set in Venice so of course I had to go there. Research, you know. Making sure I get everything right. Suffering for my craft.

Actually I work quite hard when I am researching. I know in advance what I need to find out. In this case I was very familiar with Venice having spent time there as a teenager. My parents used to rent a little villa in Treviso, on the mainland, drive across the causeway, park and give my brother and me some money,  "See you at five o'clock," they say and we had the day to explore.

How perfect that Venice never really changes. Some of the old shops are still there...the marbled paper shop, the fountain pen shop, the old tea rooms. 
I needed to find out about Venice in the 1930s so I headed for the famous library, part of the museum in St Mark's Square. Saying you are an author opens magical doors. I found myself in a small room with 2 friendly librarians bringing me books... And books.  And more books. All in Italian , of course.
I Understand quite well but a few hours of concentration made me go goggle eyed. So I started taking pictures of all the relevant pages.

Next I needed to choose a building that would overlook the shipping channel and had a top floor terrace. Riding around on the #2 vaporetto route helped with that.
And as for an old palazzo interior: our hotel was just what I required.

Of course there was the necessary viewing of art, the Bienale art exhibit, gelato tasting, Frito Misto on a dockside cafe and just having a coffee where life ( non tourist life) is going on. And lots of pictures. There are some things you can only get from being there. Venice is a city of birds, swallow making tiny Maltese crosses in the sky, seagulls shriek and swoop, pigeons flap. And a city of bells, tolling at odd hours on odd days so the air is often ringing with sound. And so many fascinating buildings. Did you know that this stairway was built so that a man could ride his horse up to the top floor?

One of my favorite places on Earth. And now I get to write about it.  How lucky is that?

So how do you do your research, especially if the story is set in the past? Is it important that you visit in person before you write about a place?

Why I Heart New York

RHYS BOWEN:

Until I started writing a mystery series set in New York in the year 1901, I never really noticed the city around me. I visited, took taxis, ate, had meetings, saw shows, shopped and left again.

Now that New York is the place I write about, my senses are fine-tuned. In an apparently modern city of skyscrapers and speed, so much of that turn-of-the-century New York still exists. It is exciting to walk along Canal Street into the Lower East Side, and see streets still cobbled with the old granite blocks, tenements that would have housed immigrant families, corners on which gangs would have lurked.

 I don’t even need to recreate the past in my mind. It is always recreating itself. Take the Feast of San Genaro, held in mid September on Mulberry Street in Little Italy. San Genaro, you may remember is the patron saint of Naples—the one whose blood liquefies on his feast day every year. Booths line the already narrow street, selling food and trinkets and clothing. There is even a freak show—fifty cents to see the world’s smallest woman or the snake lady! Good smells compete—huge sizzling curled snakes of sausage, frying onions, clam chowder, spaghetti and meatballs. The noise level is overwhelming as a tide of pedestrians shuffles forward, talking in all the tongues of the globe while brass bands and singers court the diners at the sidewalk cafes.

This is exactly how it would have been in 1901. My heroine, Molly Murphy, would have fought her way along this street, shopping at the pushcarts and booths, hearing a polyglot of languages spoken around her, watching out for pick pockets and feeling the life of the city energizing her. Perhaps it is a little cleaner underfoot these days. Litter is confined to fast food wrappers--no horse droppings or slops tossed down from tenements.

Recreating the past, taking the reader on a trip through time and space, is what I set out to do when I write the Molly Murphy books. In the upcoming AWAY IN A MANGER I’ve tried to take the reader back to the quintessential New York Christmas.

And since I’ve been an observer of New York, I’ve had a chance to detail what I like about it. Here are my top ten reasons for liking the city:

1.      It is a true city where living, working, eating, shopping all take place on the same block. In other cities the commercial areas are dead after working hours. Not so New York. It lives twenty four hours a day.

2.      Life is not confined to buildings. It spills out onto sidewalks and into parks. At the first sign of spring, tables and umbrellas come out onto sidewalks, people take their food into parks. They sit outside the public library playing chess. There are impromptu jazz bands and barbershop quartets in the subway at Grand Central and outdoor concerts in Central Park.

3.      It is a city of artwork. There are mosaics in the subway stations—my favorite is the Alice in Wonderland motif at 50^th Street. Look up and you’ll see Egyptian temples, art deco medallions, Greek columns and marble frescos, sometimes eight or ten floors above ground level. For whom were the art deco goddesses and marble pediments intended? Certainly not the pedestrians who walk below and never look up as they hurry to the nearest subway. Not always the inhabitants of buildings opposite as some of them face blank walls. I like to think of them as a little offering to the gods above.

4.      It is a city of good smells. Every block has at least one good aroma wafting out of a café, or from a sidewalk cart—roasting coffee, frying onions, curry, sesame oil, baking bread. Luckily New Yorkers have to walk so much or they’d all be fat.

5.      New York is a city of dogs. They are not much in evidence during the day, unless one encounters a dog walker, being dragged down Fifth Avenue by six or seven of her charges. But early evening, the dogs come out, each with his accompanying human, whom he often resembles in stature and walk. Interestingly enough, there are more big dogs than small. You would have thought that dachshunds and yorkies would have been ideal for city life, but I see more golden retrievers and labs and standard poodles, even Afghan hounds. New Yorkers are well trained too. Not a speck of poop in sight on the sidewalks.

6.      It is a city of cheap eats and cheap shops. There are coffee shops all over where two dollars will buy an egg roll and coffee for breakfast. Even sushi bars offer two for one on weeknights. And T shirts with the famous I love NY slogan on them are now six for ten dollars. Of course I also saw a T shirt for three hundred dollars in Bloomies, so I have to say also that New York is…

7.      …a city of contrasts. On the bus old ladies from the upper East Side wearing tired looking furs and smelling of face powder and moth balls sit next to young men in baggy pants, gang colors and caps worn backward. Sometimes they look at each other and smile.

The hot dog cart on the street is only a few steps away from the most pretentious tea salon in the universe. Their tea menu is twelve pages long. When I ask for a Darjeeling, I am directed to a page full of Darjeelings and a First Flush, Robertson Estate is recommended. I am so tempted to take a sip, look indignant and exclaim, “You’ve brought me a second flush, you imposter!”

8.      It is a city of haste. Everything in New York is done quickly. People leap from sidewalks to snare cabs. They run down subway steps. They inch out into traffic and anticipate the Walk sign by a good two seconds. In  Bryant Park outside the library men play chess at breakneck speed. Knight to bishop two-ding, and the timer bell is slapped, Queen to rook four-ding. The whole game is over in five minutes. A crowd of men stands around, watching.

9.      It is also a city of quiet corners in which time stands still. There is a fair being held in a churchyard with home baked cookies and crocheted potholders. I once got locked, by mistake, in Gramercy park, which is the only private square in the city when I had stayed at the Gramercy Park hotel and gone there to regroup in the calm of nature. In Central Park proud moms and dark skinned nannies watch light skinned children play in the sand or climb the rocks. It is easy to get lost in Central Park, easy to forget that you are in a city at all.

10.  And most surprisingly for one who has visited New York for the past thirty years--since 9/11 it has become a city of friendly people. These days people chat as they wait for buses. They see tourists puzzling over maps and ask if they need help. Bus drivers actually call out the name of streets intelligibly and answer questions when asked. A minor miracle has occurred—the one good by-product of a horror beyond imagining that touched every New York life and forged and strengthened it with fire.

Who loves to go to New York? What is your favorite city to visit?

And the winner of a copy of Beat, Slay, Love is Mark Baker. Mark contact Lise McClendon at lise@lisemcclendon.com

Somewhere in Time

Book Giveaway winners! - Tuesday's winner of Dana Cameron's Seven Kinds of Hell is Grapeshot/Odette. Wednesday we had a three way tie, winners are Mar, Vickie and Gram/Dee. (Winners will each get a vintage gardening book) Please send your snail mail addresses to me at rovideo@aol.com. Congrats all! (BTW all the gardening ideas were clever..look for my garden pix in late April.)

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Some of us are in the 21st Century...and then again some of us aren't. I spent most of Tuesday with the fabulous Lyndsay Faye, the author of the Edgar nominated The Gods of Gotham. TGOG is set in the mid-19th century. And Lyndsay was my guest speaker at Norwalk Community College because in addition to being a terrific writer, she's an expert on Sherlock Holmes.

The woman is amazing. Total recall of 4 novels, 56 short stories and countless rehashes, copycats, pastiches, movies, television shows, radio programs - you name it - anything related to The Great Detective. It's as if the woman hasn't moved into the 20th century yet, much less the 21st. (In a good way.)

I'm feeling a bit of that myself lately.

MY WIP is historical. I haven't gotten the lingo down yet, I'm sure there are 87 sub-genres, but the point is, it's not contemporary. For the past month I've been living in 1899, with the occasional dip 20 years earlier and 20 years later. I haven't quite decided what the time frame of the story is just yet but it's considerably longer than the 5 days it took the corpse flower to bloom in my second book. (ala High Noon if anyone remembers that movie.)

I'm not too worried that I'll slip up and have someone use a cell phone or watch videos in 1899. Or say "Awesome!" - but I can't seem to stop doing research. Just when I think I have as much background info as I need, I stumble upon something else and think Wow maybe I should include that. And I go off down another road. Last weekend at a tag sale I bought a stash of magazines from 1912. It was as if I'd hit the motherlode. Other people were looking for the Picassso under the kids painting and I was going gaga over some moldy mags.

I don't think for a minute that all my research is going to wind up in the book. For my first 5 books I don't think 10 per cent of it actually found its way to the page. Lyndsay said that about 20-30 percent of her research wound up in her book, which I thought had an amazingly seamless integration of historical detail and storytelling.

Like anything, it's all in the doing. I've read some books where the research hit me over the head  - "we get it...you're in Africa, now shut up and tell me a story..." and others where I thought "What a delightful story - and it's set in Africa. I love that!" I guess the trick is to write the latter and not the former.

But I'm enjoying the reading (research) so much there are times when I think I may never get to actually write my story...

How much detail is - as Hallie might say - TMI??

Intrigue in Old Vienna

Rhys Bowen: I was a fan of historical novels long before I started to write them and I'm always thrilled when I stumble upon a series set in my favorite time period--the turn of the Twentieth century.  

When most writers decide to write a historical novel they have to turn to books and the internet for their research. J. Sydney Jones, author of The Silence, has personally experienced the historical setting for his novels: the city of Vienna, whose old center remains little changed since the early 1900s when his books take place.

So

Welcome to Jungle Red, Syd, and thank you for writing such an intriguing book. I spent a lot of time in Vienna as a teenager and I love the way you have brought those old streets and buildings to life. So first of all, how did a farm boy from South Dakota wind up in Vienna?

J. Sydney Jones: We left South Dakota and farming when I was five. I grew up on the coast of Oregon and pure serendipity took me to Vienna. I studied there on a junior-year-abroad program in college and fell in love with the Austrian capital--the first big city I had ever lived in. This was 1968, when, as a dear friend of mine liked to say, Vienna was still in the Moose Lodge stage of development. My landlady rationed my baths to once weekly; there were roughly torn squares of the daily Kurier newspaper dangling on a string from a bent nail in the clo to be used as toilet paper; beer, of a delicious species I had never known existed, was fifteen cents the pint; a good schnitzel cost less than a buck; ten p.m. was considered late; Bill Haley and His Comets still had pride of place in juke boxes. It was love at first sight.

I stayed on for a couple of decades--with diversions to Paris, Florence, Greece, and Ireland. But I always returned to Vienna. It was where I became a writer. Vienna served as my Paris for the next decades: it was cheap, friendly, accommodating, full of music, and bristling with spies.

Rhys: Give us a quick summary of The Silence

Syd: The central idea of the series is that my fictional protagonist, Karl Werthen, a lawyer and private inquiries agent, is involved in numerous high profile cases involving the luminaries of Vienna 1900. They have included thus far the artist, Gustav Klimt, who is accused of being a serial killer (The Empty Mirror), the composer Gustav Mahler, who is being threatened by an assassin (Requiem in Vienna), and in the third, The Silence, which involves somewhat lesser known historical figures such as Mayor Karl Lueger (inspiration for Adolf Hitler, among other demagogues), the modernist architect, Otto Wagner, and the illustrious Wittgenstein family, whose famous philosopher son, Ludwig, is ten at the time of the novel. Werthen is ably assisted in his investigations by his wife, Berthe, and real-life father of criminology, Dr. Hanns Gross

In The Silence,  Werthen is puzzling over the suicide of a city councilman--a former client, next in line to Vienna’s powerful Mayor Karl Lueger, and the last man Werthen would think capable of suicide. Werthen, however, has little time to ponder, as he is summoned by wealthy industrialist Karl Wittgenstein to find his oldest son, Hans, who has gone missing.

Werthen soon discovers the whereabouts of the musically-minded Hans, and the case appears to be solved. But appearances are deceiving, and a simple missing person’s case soon leads back to the councilman's suicide. Werthen journeys into a sinister web of deceit and violence that threatens not only his life, but also the very heart of the city and the empire.

Rhys: Did you always know you wanted to write mysteries?

Syd: I always liked reading mysteries--a guilty pleasure. I started out with travel books and walking guides, moved to narrative history with my Hitler in Vienna, and then to thrillers. Those were my bread and butter before the Viennese Mysteries.

I feel as if I have finally come to my true writing home with these books. They allow me a happy blend of research and fiction. As the series progresses, I have become more familiar with Werthen, his family, and friends. It is an association I hope to cultivate for many years.

Rhys: One thing I find fascinating about your books is the number of real people who walk across your pages. Did you have any ambivalence about using real people in a fictional setting?

Syd:

I used to be very concerned about the use of actual historical figures in my fiction. With the second novel in the series especially, Requiem in Vienna, I feature Gustav Mahler and Werthen's attempts to protect the composer and conductor from attempts to kill him. While writing, I was very aware that Mahler's descendants were still alive and here I was portraying him as not always the most likable person. In fact, there were quite a few in Vienna at the time who might have wanted him dead for one reason or another. Long story short, my fears were unfounded. In fact, a major biographer of Mahler, Henry Louis del la Grange, liked the book and saw to it that Mahler's granddaughter, Marina, was presented with a copy. I guess the one bit of advice I can give to other writers working in historicals is to take the research seriously, but always remember the publisher's disclaimer at the front of the book: "This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either  products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously."

Rhys: Why do you think historical novels are suddenly so popular?

Syd: I don't know that it is so sudden. After all, Regency romances have been the comfort zone for many readers and writers for decades. And some of the earliest works we think of as novels, such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, brought historical fiction to a wide readership. Then think of the novels of Sir Walter Scott or Victor Hugo--even Tolstoy's War and Peace is at heart a historical novel.

But you're right, currently there does seem to be increased interest in historicals, and I take it as a positive sign of increased literacy--in the broadest sense--and inherent human curiosity coming to the fore. Mainstream literature as well as genre fiction, such as mysteries, employ the form. In part the popularity of historical fiction is about painless education. I love reading historicals myself just for the insight into another age.

Rhys: What is next for your lawyer-sleuth, Werthen?

Werthen and company are up to their eyeballs in several cases in my next work, Keeper of the Hands, including the murder of a prostitute, the beating of a prominent author, Arthur Schnitzler, and the domestic difficulties of peace activist--and first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize--Bertha von Suttner. Not to give too much away, but these cases morph into an espionage thriller à la 1900. This fourth series installment will be out early next year.

Rhys: You’ve now settled in central California—are you done with Europe for good? Which do you prefer, Europe or US?

I would love to spend some time in Europe now and introduce our eight-year-old son to it. But I doubt there will be a major move now. We love the coast of California.

Each of the places has its own advantages and disadvantages. I love the feeling of space and connection to nature in the U.S., but I also enjoy the sense of history and culture in European cities. I used to think a little villa in the Vienna Woods would be the perfect compromise. Maybe when the television series appears…

RHYS: Thank you for visiting us and let me recommend these exciting and fascinating novels. 

Fusion Food and Dialog

RHYS BOWEN: It's Sunday and we usually reserve today for writing tips or blogs about food. I'm going to combine both today. My son recently went to a restaurant called, if I remember correctly, Chopsticks and Chapattis. He thought that Chinese/Indian fusion food might be an interesting experiment.  He looked at the menu and decided on the Cumin Lamb. His dialog with the waitress went like this:
Son: This cumin lamb sounds good. Tell me about it.
Waitress: Well. It is lamb.  With cumin.
Son: So how exactly is it prepared?
Waitress: You take the lamb... and put some cumin on it.
Son: And?
Waitress: And then you cook it.

That would make a terrific scene in a funny movie, wouldn 't it?
But I'm trying to prove a point here. I want to show what real life dialog is like. We don't speak in long, expressive sentences. One of the mistakes that new writers make (and some old writers too) is making the dialog unrealistically eloquent. In the real world we break apart sentences, interrupt, stop to think. Of course we can't make speech exactly true to life... or it would be full of fillers like "like" and "y-know", but it should give the impression of real life.

Another pointer that this dialog illustrates is: make sure we know who is talking. Too often, especially in opening chapters, we have characters chatting away madly and we really don't know who we are listening to. (or should that be to whom we are listening?)

In this dialog the waitress has a distinctive voice and also an Indian accent, but I can only hint at that by the way she breaks up her sentences, but you get a good impression of her from these few lines of speech. So close your eyes. Have someone read dialog out loud and see if you get a feel for each person speaking. Also notice from that small speech how conversation flows back and forth, like a tennis match. One person does not hold the stage for long speeches.

I set my mysteries in the past and dialog is a great tool to take us back to a place and time. My characters really do express themselves in long, eloquent sentences. People in those days had more time and much bigger vocabularies. I base Molly Murphy's speech on that of my great aunts who read extensively and didn't hesitate to use big words in their every day speech (they were, after all, from a generation who gave us words like Perambulator for a baby buggy and Omnibus for that big red thing.) Also they considered words like damn and hell swearing. A man would apologize if he used such words in a lady's presence.

I don't know how we got from Asian fusion to Edwardian novels If anyone has tried good Chinese/Indian fusion, do let me know.
But a last word of warning... if a restaurant is called anything like Chopsticks and Chapattis, run away as fast as you can.

MOLLY MURPHY'S BACK!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: What could be a bigger treat for the week before St. Patrick's Day than to have a new Molly Murphy book from Jungle Red's own Rhys Bowen!

HUSH NOW, DON'T YOU CRY is the eleventh novel featuring Molly, who arrived at Ellis Island as a poor and desperate Irish immigrant in 1900. It is now 1904 and Molly has come a long way, giving up the private detection business she's built for herself in order to marry New York Police Captain Daniel Sullivan. She's promised to leave the detecting to her husband, but interesting cases have a way of falling at Molly's feet. An invitation to spend a belated honeymoon at the Newport, Rhode Island estate of a powerful alderman comes with murder included.

Not only is HUSH NOW, DON'T YOU CRY a cracking good mystery, it is also a fascinating portrait of an era, as Molly gets an intimate look at how the other half lives.

Now, Rhys is going to tell us why she writes about the past, but first I have to say, Rhys, I LOVED this book! Your research shows in all the best ways--the atmosphere is so vivid, and Molly is such an appealing character, strong, curious, and independent while still remaining true to her own place and time. And the cover is absolutely stunning--I can't imagine seeing this novel and not wanting to pick it up and read it! (And Rhys will give a copy to a lucky--how very Irish!--commenter! )

Congratulations on a super job from me and all your Jungle Red chums!

RHYS BOWEN: I read an interesting fact over the weekend: half the books nominated for the Orange Prize in UK this year are some form of historical novel, be it literary, romance, mystery or any other genre. One only had to see the buzz surrounding Downton Abbey on TV to know that history is hot. As one who has been writing historical mysteries for over ten years now, this is great news but it makes me wonder why this sudden fixation for the past.

In my own case I didn't set out to write a historical novel. All I knew was that I had to write about Ellis Island. I had taken a sightseeing tour there and was unprepared for the overwhelming emotion I felt. This was strange as I had no immigrant ancestors in my family. But I could hear those walls crying out to me, telling me tales of great joy and great sorrow and I knew that I had to put the Ellis Island experience into a book. So Molly became an Irishwoman who has to flee for her life and makes it as far as Ellis Island only to be implicated in a murder there. When she stepped ashore in Manhattan it hit me that I knew very little about New York in 1900. I realize I had committed myself to research on every page for the rest of my life.

Actually the research has become part of the fun. I've always loved visiting other places and now I've added the time travel element to my visits. I'm lucky because much of Molly's New York is still there. I can walk her streets, even eat at some of her taverns. Setting a murder mystery in the past presents a female sleuth with extra challenges: how can she chase a villain, climb a wall in those ridiculously cumbersome garments and little pointy shoes? When she wants to take notes in the field what does she write with? She surely can't carry an ink well around with her. And then there is transportation. In New York it's easy to get around, but outside the city public transportation is limited to railway lines and a lot of walking is involved.

Another reason I've come to love the past is all the delicious motives for murder that no longer exist. I love another but I am not free. I am the rightful heir to the fortune. I must do anything to hide the fact that I was an illegitimate child.

But as to why everyone else is suddenly hooked on history?I think it has a lot to do with the uncertainty of our own times. We want to escape from Wall Street and Afghanistan and the primary elections. We long for a simpler time when society was governed by rules, when everyone knew his or her place, when ladies wore big hats and had tea on the lawn. Of course that pre-supposes that one is one of the ladies and not the drudge in the scullery. It is interesting to me because I write two very different series,one among those ladies taking tea and the other among those struggling to survive at the bottom of the heap. And in a way both my heroines transcend their worlds to experience how the other half lives.

So are you fascinated by the past? Why do you think we suddenly want to go there?