Vicki Delany: For the Love of Our Fictional Pets

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Today we're thrilled to welcome back Vicki Delany who, with a wink, calls herself a "one woman crime wave." And she truly is, having written more than forty books, including her latest, the new Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery, THE DEVIL IN THE DETAILS.

Today she brings us some observations about that extra dimension NON-human characters can bring to a mystery novel. (No, we're not talking about robots.)

VICKI DELANY: If you live in the northern part of our planet, it’s cold and dark these days. The news of the world is glum, and people are recovering from their post-holiday highs, many not too happy when they check their credit card balance.

So, let’s talk about something fun: pets in mystery novels.

I believe animals add a lot to any fiction. It’s often said you can tell a great deal about a person by how they react to friendly dogs or cats. I don’t necessarily know if that’s true, but it does provide much used fodder in books.

 Certainly, anyone who snarls at a dog who just wants to be friendly, is unlikely to be a nice person. Unless they have a reason to be afraid of dogs, no matter how tail-wagging or small they might be. And that person would be unlikely to ‘snarl’ rather than cower in fear.

We know animals, cats and dogs in particular, have far more powerful senses that we mere humans do. Does that mean they can sense a ‘bad’ person versus a ‘good’ person? Probably not, particularly considering bad and good sometimes depend on your point of view. But again, logically or not, characters in fiction often rely on signals from their pets and this helps the plot move forward, Sometimes in the wrong direction.

Pets also provide much needed action to a scene. Imagine people sitting around a kitchen table talking over the case. That can get rather boring, but put a dog sniffing around looking for dropped crumbs, or a cat where it isn’t supposed to be, and you have some movement and action to accompany the dialogue.

And, again, a good opportunity to show how the characters interact with animals. Maybe that’s a clue!

A pet can add some humor, particular to lighter mysteries. In the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the shop cat, Moriarty, strongly dislikes our protagonist (and the ‘Sherlock’ character) Gemma Doyle.

Why is he antagonistic to her, who after all houses and feeds him, but friendly to everyone else? I see him as a master criminal trapped in an eight-pound body. She is the Sherlock Holmes to his Moriarty.

Unfortunately, being a cat there’s not much he can do about that other than occasionally try to trip her as she comes up the stairs.

Another way of using animals is to show a softer, perhaps kinder side of a character who might try to present a stern face to the world.

As Gemma is my interpretation of Sherlock Holmes as a modern young woman, she is sometimes blunt to the point of rudeness, scornful of others’ opinions at times, and inclined to interfere where she is not wanted. Too sure of herself, perhaps. I’ve tried to lighten Gemma’s character, soften her in the minds of my readers, with her loving interaction with her two dogs, Violet and Peony. Peony only came onto the scene, and into Gemma’s home, when his owner died and he was abandoned, and Gemma took pity on the little guy.

What’s not to love about that?

No matter the type of book, pets help move plots forward. In an earlier Sherlock Holmes Bookshop book, A Curious Incident, Gemma is walking the dog late at night when she sees a historical building on fire. And thus, the plot begins. Don’t forget what the curious incident was!

Walking her dogs gives Gemma time to think. She calls those late night dog walks ‘a two dog problem’ – comparable to Sherlock Holmes’ ‘three pipe problems.’

Of course, in cases where the pet has strong instincts about people, the writer has to use that very carefully. Otherwise, the moment the killer walks into the room, and the cat starts hissing, the reader knows who the killer is.

Violet, Peony, and Moriarty, don’t react like that, but the cat in the Lighthouse Library books I write under the pen name of Eva Gates, Charles (named for Mr. Dickens) does. Lucy Richardson is aware that Charles has strong instincts about people.

Sometimes she misjudges his reaction and sometimes she can be fooled. Did the bad guy slip treats to Charles and therefore gain his approval? You never know.

I love writing the animals in my books. Matterhorn, the Saint Bernard owned by Merry Wilkinson in the Year-Round Christmas books is a deliberate and amusing contrast to Ranger, her boyfriend’s Jack Russell terrier. If you’ve ever known a Jack Russell, you’ll know what I mean. Éclair, the labradoodle in the Tea by the Sea mysteries gives Lily plenty of opportunity to walk the BandB property at night, and her grandmother’s cat, Robert the Bruce, keeps a keen eye over goings on.

I love writing pets and I know many people can become very attached to the animal characters in books.

Do you have a favourite animal in fiction?

 HALLIE: I can't wait to see the animals our readers call out as their favorites.

Adventures in Book Research by Vicki Delany

Jenn McKinlay: I'm absolutely chuffed to have our friend Vicki Delany visit us today to talk about her upcoming travels and plots and tea!  

Vicki Delany: I’ve been reading this marvelous blog for a long time, and I’ve noticed something: If there’s one thing the Reds love it’s Britain and Ireland, and food. 

What a coincidence, because I love those things too.

As it happens, I’m traveling to England next month to do location research for not one, but two, of my books. 

First stop will be Halifax in Yorkshire. I’ve been to the UK many times, but never to Halifax. 

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In the Tea by the Sea series from Kensington Books, the point is made (many times) that the grandmother character, Rose, once was a kitchen maid in a stately home near Halifax. She collided with a visiting American by the name of Eric Campbell coming out of a shop in that city, and visited him in hospital. When he was released, the relationship blossomed, they married, and Rose moved to Iowa where they raised their family. 

For book six in the series, I have the brilliant idea of Rose returning to Thornecroft Castle, for Lady Frockmorton’s 100th birthday celebrations. Of course, being an elderly lady, Rose can’t travel on her own so her granddaughter, Lily Roberts, the series protagonist, comes with her. What do you know: by total coincidence Lily’s neighbour, Matt, a true crime writer, is doing research in Yorkshire at the same time and Lily’s friend Bernie has gone with him. By even more of a coincidence, Lily’s love interest, the English gardener, Simon, has returned to England at the end of his contract at Victoria-On-Sea, Rose’s Cape Cod B&B, and has a job at a stately home near Halifax. 

Thus, off goes Vicki, to Halifax to check it all out. I’m throwing monetary caution to the wind and staying at a hotel I’m hoping to use as the inspiration for Thornecroft Castle (not a castle but an 18th century house built on the remains of a castle).  I chose Holdsworth house (Luxury Hotel West Yorkshire - Holdsworth House Hotel & Restaurant). If you’ve seen the TV show Last Tango in Halifax (which is great, with a fabulous cast including Sarah Lancaster, Nicola Walker, Anne Reid, Derick Jacobi), some scenes were filmed at that very hotel.  

For you British TV lovers (that includes me) Happy Valley and Gentleman Jack, among many others, were also filmed in near Halifax. I’m hoping to get to Shibden House, Anne Lister’s home, when there.  (Shibden Hall | Calderdale Museums). I’m excited about seeing the exact location for Thorncliffe Castle as well as the areas my characters will see and visit.

And, of course, because the Tea by the Sea series is about afternoon tea, they will be having tea. Meaning, I have to find the best places to go. 

A future book in the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series from Crooked Lane Books will also be set in England as the gang travel to London for Pippa and Grant’s wedding. 

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I have been to London a few times, and went in 2017 for an earlier Sherlock Holmes book, A Murder is  Game is Afoot. That time I found the house where Gemma’s parents live and a nice hotel for my characters to stay in. 

London research is more about tube time-tables and stations, and the time it takes to from X to Y by foot or taxi than the scenery or castle ruins. I’m going to give Pippa and Grant a flat in Greenwich, for the precise reason that I’ve never been to Greenwich. So I’ll have to check it out.

Gemma will be in London for her sister’s wedding and to solve a mystery, but Jayne Wilson, her ever loyal and always confused best friend, will be hoping to sample the delights of that city. And for Jayne, that includes afternoon tea.

My daughter Alex, who’s coming with me, and I are already searching out the perfect locations for afternoon tea in London.

Book research: It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it. 

Reds and Readers, I bet you know all the best places for tea and other English delights. Any suggestions? 

Alex and I are heavy into tradition when it comes to afternoon tea, but we’re always open to new and interesting things. Anyone have a must-see destination in or near Halifax? A favourite restaurant in London? Remember, it’s all in the cause of research. 😊

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than forty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Year Round Christmas books for Crooked Lane, the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane Books, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates) for Crooked Lane.

Vicki is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards.

Vicki is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

You can find out more about her many wonderful series at: www.vickidelany.com

I Have An Idea! by Vicki Delany

Jenn McKinlay: As a huge fan of the Sherlock Homes Bookshop mysteries, I am just thrilled to welcome Jungle Reds friend and fellow author Vicki Delany. And today, she is letting us glimpse behind the curtain. 

Vicki Delany: “Where do you get your ideas?”

As writers we’re often asked that.  I’d love to get my ideas from the Idea Factory, or maybe Ideas-R-Us. But so far I haven’t found such a convenient place.

What is an idea anyway when it comes to a novel? What does that even mean?

The idea is the spark from which all else flows. Coming up with an idea is pretty easy.  I can give you the ‘idea’ behind one of my books in one sentence. That’s idea is the spark, the germ of the story.

The task now is to turn that one sentence, even one word, into 80,000 words. And that is not so easy.

What has me pondering the origin of an idea at the moment, is my current work-in-progress. I’m writing the fifth in the Tea by the Sea cozy mystery series.  I was in Italy in October with my good friend, the Canadian writer Barbara Fradkin. We were, as one is in Italy, overwhelmed with great art. We’d been to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and were walking through the streets heading for either more art or more food when I told Barbara I was having some trouble coming up with an idea for the next Tea by the Sea book.  One of the paintings we’d most admired at the Uffizi was Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 – 1656).  

(Incidentally, the story behind the famous painting is a mystery writers’ idea in itself.) Barbara laughed and said, “How about a beheading? The main character finds a headless body in a bed at the B&B.”

As I write cozy novels, that wouldn’t quite suit.  Barbara thought some more and said, “a headless doll then. A gift, given anonymously at a bridal shower.”

Bingo! I had my idea. A headless doll is rather creepy, but not out and out gory or repulsive.

What the idea does, in this case the decapitated Raggedy Ann doll given as a shower gift, is provide the inciting incident. The point from which all else that happens in the novel flows.  It also sets the scene for character revelations: obviously not all is well between the bride and her friends and family.

How not well?  Someone is murdered later on. Is the shower gift pertinent to the murder? It might not be, but it sets the scene, starts the action, and gives our amateur sleuth character a reason to ask questions.

And, most importantly, it gives me, the author, a jumping off point.

In the Sherlock Holmes bookshop series, the idea is even less than a sentence. It’s a word. In the latest book, The Game is a Footnote, the word is “haunted house”. Okay two words. In next years book, as yet untiled, the word is “séance.” In last year’s novel, A Three Book Problem it’s “country house weekend.”

The idea is the germ from which all else flows.

Another thing most writers can relate to is the experience of someone offering to tell them their great idea, and then suggesting the writer use that idea and they can split the profits from the subsequent bestselling book. Uh, sorry.  If someone provides one word or one sentence, and I provide the other 79,999 words I’m not sharing anything.

Because it’s not the idea, it’s all that flows from the idea.  And that’s the hard part.  Lay down the clues, build the plot, create the characters, put them in an attractive (or otherwise) setting, have a believable sub-climax when the protagonist is threatened or all seems lost. Build it all to a climax and the grand reveal.  Then wrap it all up. 

I have over fifty published books now, and I’ll admit, an idea for something vaguely original is getting harder to come by.  One of the things I’m most struggling with is a way of having the protagonist catch or trick the killer.  You can only have your character eavesdrop on conversations so many times and leap out from behind the curtains to say, “J’Accuse” with pointed finger.  She can only wrestle so much with a deranged killer at the edge of a cliff in a storm at night.

But I’ll get it, eventually, because I started with ‘an idea’.

I’d love to know how the Reds (who have so many fabulous ideas!) generate their own ideas for such amazing and original plots. And readers, any ideas you’d like to share with us?

Gemma Doyle and Jayne Wilson are back on the case when a body is discovered in a haunted museum in bestselling author Vicki Delany's eighth Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery.

Scarlet House, now a historical re-enactment museum, is the oldest building in West London, Massachusetts. When things start moving around on their own, board members suggest that Gemma Doyle, owner of the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium, might be able to get to the bottom of it.  Gemma doesn’t believe in ghosts, but she agrees to ‘eliminate the impossible’. But when Gemma and Jayne stumble across a dead body on the property, they’re forced to consider an all too physical threat.  
 
Gemma and Jayne suspect foul play as they start to uncover more secrets about the museum. With the museum being a revolving door for potential killers, they have plenty of options for who might be the actual culprit.
 
Despite Gemma's determination not to get further involved, it would appear that once again, and much to the displeasure of Detective Ryan Ashburton, the game is afoot.
 
Will Gemma and Jayne be able to solve the mystery behind the haunted museum, or will they be the next to haunt it?

 

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than fifty: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy.  She is currently writing the Tea by the Sea mysteries, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year-Round Christmas mysteries, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates).

 

Vicki is a past chair of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival.  Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. Vicki is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario. 

Making It Your Own by Vicki Delany

Jenn McKinlay: Confession time. I am a Sherlockian or a Holmesian, depending upon your preference. Either way, I'm a huge fan of all things Sherlock Holmes so it's unsurprising that I'm delighted to see Vicki Delany's latest Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery is hitting the shelves on Jan 11th!!! Just look at that cover! Fabulous!

 

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 Vicki Delany: There’s no such thing as an original idea. It’s all been done before. Some people say there are 32 basic plots. Some say there are two – a person goes on a journey; a stranger comes to town. 

I say it doesn’t matter. You might not be able to come up with a truly original idea, but the trick to writing is to take what’s been done before, and make it your own. 

Say you have an idea for a great tale: A fatherless boy is secretly watched over by a wise older man of unspecified power, and the boy eventually takes his rightful position as a person of great importance. 

Harry Potter, King Arthur, Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins. They all follow the same basic outline, but each story is individualized when the teller makes it their own. (Why the standard trope always features a boy and a man, is an article for another day). 

Think of Sherlock Holmes. It would probably be impossible to count the number of Sherlock Holmes pastiche characters out there. Sherlock first appeared in 1887 and over the years since he not only continues to be relevant but has grown and spread immeasurably. 

What is it about Sherlock Holmes that has captured the popular imagination arguably more than any other figure in fiction? Is it his incredible intellect that has us all enthralled? Is it the gaslight streets, the long dresses, frock coats and top hats? Maybe it’s the sometimes-stiff, formal language. Is it Dr. John Watson himself, ever confused but always loyal, or the simple friendship between two such different men? 

Regardless of the reason, there’s no doubting the continuing popularity of the Great Detective and the attempts to imitate or recreate him. 

As I have done, with Gemma Doyle and the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium. Gemma owns the shop, but she is also the Sherlock character. She’s my attempt to reimagine the Great Detective as a modern young woman. At her side is Jayne Wilson, ever confused but always loyal. 

Running a bookstore, keeping up with friends, and trying to have a love life doesn’t make it easy to be a consulting detective. But, as Gemma constantly says, she isn’t actually a consulting detective. In true cozy fashion however, she seems to just fall into situations. 

I took an old idea, a non-original character, and changed and adapted it to make it my own. 

The situations Gemma and Jayne find themselves in don’t have to be original ideas either. In the latest in the series, A Three Book Problem, they’re hired to feed and entertain guests at a recreation of a Victorian English Country House Weekend. 

In the manner of Agatha Christie or Naigo Marsh, the guests gather at the secretive mansion, the servants move silently and efficiently around the house, guests tour the expansive grounds, tensions explode, secrets are revealed. And someone is murdered! There is a limited circle of suspects – the killer can only be a guest or servant who was in the house for the special weekend. The detective searches for clues and studies the suspects. She reaches the conclusion through an intense study of personalities and actions. No need for forensic analyses, record checks, tracing cell phone signals here. 

Once I had the bones of the story (the unoriginal idea, if you will) I made it my own. I created the characters and set the plot in motion. I gave them all secrets and reasons to be in that house. It is certainly my intention that no one will be able to figure out the killer or the motive because they’re read it someplace else! 

The stories we love the most, whether of the fatherless boy or the Great Detective, continue to inspire writers to adapt, to improvise, to create new and more modern versions for new generations of readers to enjoy. 

Make it your own. 

I’d love to know -- what recreated plots or characters you love? Or hate. Because yes, some don’t deserve to be resurrected!

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than forty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Catskill Summer Resort mysteries for Penguin Random House, the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane Books,  and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates) for Crooked Lane. 

Vicki is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. Vicki is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.  

The latest in Vicki’s Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series is A Three Book Problem(Crooked Lane Books, January 2022) 

The Social Importance of the Tea Room by Vicki Delany

Jenn McKinlay: Lately, I've been on a sun tea bender (because Arizona!) and naturally I had to try the two favorite brands of the Brits - P.G. Tips and Yorkshire Gold. While I've enjoyed them both, I've discovered P.G. Tips does edge out the Yorkshire Gold for boldness of flavor, but that's neither here nor there. My point, and I do have one, is that today we have the fabulous Vicki Delany here to talk about her wonderful Tea by the Sea mystery series and the history of the tea room. Enjoy!

Vicki Delany: If I mention a tea room, I bet that puts you in mind of a small restaurant located in a grand hotel or a charming village. It will be decorated in either a flower pattern or pastel shades (or both), with comfortable chairs arranged around a low table, and fresh flowers on the table. Well-dressed guests, women mostly, but some men, pour loose leaf tea from fine China teapots into matching cups and nibble on crustless sandwiches, delicate pastries, and freshly baked scones served with jam and clotted cream. The conversation is light, friendly, and always polite.

Your image would be correct, in most cases, in modern times. But the history of the ‘tea room’ is more complex and meaningful than first meets the eye.

Lily Roberts, the protagonist of my Tea by the Sea series from Kensington, loves the history and traditions of afternoon tea and she was eager to explore the origins of tea rooms such as hers before she opened her traditional afternoon tea room located on Cape Cod Bay.

Book One

In order to keep up with Lily I had to do research for myself, and I was surprised to find to find a far deeper and more significant history than I was expecting.  Tea rooms, in both England and the United States, were of critical importance in the development of women’s emancipation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  This is the history that is often overlooked, particularly in the sort of high school or university courses us of a ‘certain age’ experienced, as regards groups such as women, long considered by the writers of history books as not particularly interesting or worth paying much attention to.

 

The origin of afternoon, as today can be experienced almost anywhere in the world, were anything but radical. It all began in 1840 when Anna, Duchess of Bedford, a friend and lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria, felt a mite peckish late in the afternoon.  Her dinner, the main meal of the day, would usually have been served around eight o’clock, and she needed something to see her through.  I think we all can relate to that.

The hungry Anna instructed her butler to bring tea and some bread and butter, perhaps a slice of cake or pastry, to her around four o’clock.

Hardly an earth-shaking act, you would think. But it was. 

Anna decided she enjoyed this so much, she began inviting friends to join her over this afternoon tea. The friends liked the idea, fashionable hostesses leapt on the bandwagon, and the concept spread rapidly through the upper classes of British society.  As well as a ‘snack’, afternoon tea provided an opportunity for women to meet their friends in the middle of the day for company and conversation, something previously lacking in the restricted lives of aristocratic women. So popular did ‘taking tea’ become, some wealthier women created separate rooms or spaces in their gardens specifically for that purpose.  By the end of the century, middle class women were inviting friends to join them for afternoon tea in their homes.  I say ‘in their homes’ because in almost all places, restaurants and pubs and taverns were either closed to women or only allowed women in the company of a man. 

We think of the British as a nation of tea drinkers, and they are, but it wasn’t always so.  For a long time coffee reigned supreme, not just as a drink but as a center of business and political life for men of all income levels and classes who gathered in the coffeehouses. (Women were not allowed). The first coffeehouse was opened in England in 1652 and by 1739 there were over 550 coffeehouses in London alone. 

But the reign of coffee was coming to an end as tea became increasingly popular, beginning in 1662 when the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza arrived in England to marry Charles II. A lover of tea, Catherine popularized it in her new country. For a long time, however, tea was a luxury only the wealthy could afford due to the high taxes on the imported beverage. Smuggling was rife and eventually the tax was slashed in 1783, destroying the smuggling trade and making tea an important part of everyday life.

Women were banned from the aforementioned coffee houses, and thus from the business being conducted there, but they made their mark on the new ‘tea rooms’.  The tea room began to be popular in the late nineteenth century as women who couldn’t afford to have a separate room in their house or a private garden area to entertain their friends looked for a socially acceptable place to enjoy a light meal and conversation in the company of only other women. 

By the beginning of the 20^thcentury, women were moving more freely through the streets of the city, out shopping and the like, but still they lacked a place to sit down and have a tea break or something to eat or to meet with their friends. The tea room provided that.  Thus the tea room quickly became a welcoming place for women. As well as having tea in such a place, owning and working in a tea room was an ‘acceptable’ occupation for a woman, at a time when there weren’t many of such.  

But even more, these tea rooms were public places for women to gather and, in many cases, talk about more than gossip and family.  They began to talk politics and specifically to organize their campaigns for the right to vote. 

The tea rooms run by the Aerated Bread Company were described as “an enormous move to freedom.”  Many tea rooms played a central part in the suffrage movement, providing meeting space where activists could meet outside their homes (and disapproving male relatives), and offer fund-raising venues.  

In the United States, the first tea rooms also provided employment for women, often in their own homes as women would open a room in their house to serve meals to travellers.  Late in the nineteenth century, these tea rooms were moved outside the private home and into the sort of separate business we’re familiar with today.  But they still provided an acceptable opportunity for business-minded single women to earn their own living or married women trying to earn some extra income. 

As in England, in the U.S., women on their own or in the company of other women were welcome in a way they still were not in restaurants. In the early Nancy Drew books, Nancy and her friends often stopped at a tea room for refreshment. This indicates that the girls were independent minded, not needing the company of a man to escort them to a restaurant. 

These days, of course, women can go pretty much anywhere we want, either alone or with women friends, and we don’t need tea rooms to preserve our reputations.  When we gather for afternoon tea it’s usually on vacation or for a special occasion.  

Next time you’re sipping your Darjeeling or Lapsang Souchong, and spreading clotted cream on a buttery scone, raise your fine China cup not only to Anna, Duchess of Bedford, but to the legions of women who had the idea of setting aside a room in their house, or opening a small space on the main street, and thus opening the door to allow women to march through. 

Readers, I’d love to know where you’ve had a memorable afternoon tea? Not your thing? What is your thing?

Book Two

National bestselling author Vicki Delany’s delightful Tea by the Sea mystery series continues, as Cape Cod tearoom proprietress and part-time sleuth, Lily Roberts, stirs up trouble when she unwittingly serves one of her grandmother’s B&B guests a deadly cup of tea . . .

 
Lily has her work cut out for her when a visit from her grandmother Rose’s dear friend, Sandra McHenry, turns into an unexpected—and unpleasant—McHenry family reunion. The squabbling boils over and soon Tea by the Sea’s serene afternoon service resembles the proverbial tempest in a teapot. Somehow, Lily and her tearoom survive the storm, and Sandra’s bickering brethren finally retreat to Rose’s B&B. But later that evening, a member of their party—curmudgeonly Ed French—dies from an apparent poisoning and suddenly Tea by the Sea is both scene and suspect in a murder investigation!
 
Mercifully, none of the other guests fall ill. They all ate the same food, but Ed always insisted on bringing his own special blend of herbal teas. So it seems, amid the whining and dining, someone snuck up to one of Lily’s cherished teapots and fatally spiked Ed’s bespoke brew, but who? Was it Ed’s long-estranged sister-in-law? Did teenage troublemaker Tyler take a prank too far? Or perhaps the family’s feuds have been steeping for longer than anyone realizes? It’s up to Lily, Rose, and their friends to get to the bottom of the poisoned pot and bag the real culprit behind the kettle murder plot.

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than forty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane Books, the Catskill Resort mysteries for Penguin Random House, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates) for Crooked Lane. Vicki is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.  

The Game is Once Again Afoot and We’re Off to London by Vicki Delany

 Jenn McKinlay: Look who is visiting us from the chilly north! Canadian Vicki Delany! One of my fave mystery authors of both traditional and police procedural, she's here to tell us all about her latest release THERE'S A MURDER AFOOT, which is out today! 

Vicki Delany: The protagonist of the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series is Gemma Doyle, an Englishwoman who has come to the town of West London Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, to help her great uncle Arthur Doyle run the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium.

For the fifth book in the series, I thought it would be fun to take Gemma and the gang to London, to tread the streets as walked by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and, fictionally speaking, The Great Detective himself. 

London is Gemma’s natural environment.  Hailing black cabs, leaping on and off tube trains, dodging CCTV cameras and Scotland Yard detectives, slipping out the back door of Harrods.   Eating steak and kidney pies and prawn sandwiches and drinking copious cups of properly-prepared tea.

London might be Gemma’s environment, but it isn’t mine. 

So off I had to go to London.

In that, I seem to have a lot in common with the Jungle Reds gang. I know Deborah has learned the city intimately, it’s close to where Rhys is from, and Jenn has set a series there.

I don’t know it well at all.  But I had enormous fun finding out and I hope that’s reflected in There’s a Murder Afoot, the fifth in the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series from Crooked Lane Books

I took five days one November to travel to London with one of my daughters, and used so much of what I learned in the book. 

Cocktails at the Bentley Hotel.

Gemma and friends stay in the hotel we stayed at (Bentley’s in South Kensington) they eat at the restaurants we ate at (the Hereford Arms, where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a regular when he was president of the College of Psychic Studies, located nearby;

Sign at the Hereford Arms

 Garfunkel’s at South Kensington station, The Crutched Friar near Tower Hill) and pick up croissants from Paul’s Boulangerie (to die for). I tracked Gemma’s progress on the tube as she travelled across the city, although I didn’t need to leap on and off trains as the doors closed, time my progress, or watch for people showing too much interest in me.   I scouted out the streets of South Kensington and located the street Gemma’s parents live on (Stanhope Gardens, but I don’t actually specify the house). 

The street where Gemma's parents live.

I studied the courtyard outside of the Tate Modern and the Millennium footbridge over the Thames trying to estimate how one would escape pursuit (by running faster than your pursuers, I concluded).  I went to the sculpture hall in the Victoria and Albert and decided that would be Gemma’s favourite place in the city, the one place in particular she wants to show Ryan Ashburton, if they ever manage to have some time alone together.  

I even had afternoon tea at the restaurant in the National Portrait Gallery, so Gemma could recommend it to Jayne.

Afternoon tea at the National Portrait Gallery

Yes, my dedication to research is impressive, if I do say so myself. 

You might be surprised to hear where I didn’t go: Baker Street, the Sherlock Holmes Museum, the Sherlock Holmes Pub, on a Sherlock Holmes walking tour. 

Because Gemma isn’t interested in those things. Instead she sends Jayne, Ryan, Grant Thompson, and Donald Morris around the tourist traps of London, to keep them (Ryan in particular) from finding out what’s she’s up to, and wanting to “help”. As her sister Pippa (a minor functionary in the British government) tells her, “Ditch the entourage.” 

The big problem with doing this sort of research, I’ve found, is trying to decide what to keep OUT of the book. I’m not writing a tour guide to London here, but I do want to bring the city alive to my readers. 

London on a winter's night

I hope I found a happy medium. Tell me, dear Jungle Reds reader, do you enjoy real-life settings in your books, or do you prefer the truly fictional?

Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than thirty-five books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane Books, the Year Round Christmas mysteries for Penguin Random House, the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates) for Crooked Lane, and the forthcoming Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington.

Vicki is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It crime writing festival. She is the 2019 recipient of the Derrick Murdoch award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. Vicki lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.