To Track a Traitor

Award-winning mystery writer Iona Whishaw drops by the podcast to discuss the latest book in her Lane Winslow mystery series. To Track a Traitor spans both world wars and is a tale of sibling rivalry, infidelity and espionage. Iona's backstory is just as compelling as her writing. Her books are inspired by the British Columbia town of her childhood and her mother's experience as a World War II spy.  She talks about her journey to becoming a novelist and how the question "Why Not Me?" gave her the conviction to pursue her dreams in her 60s.

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

I was reading a book, not not one of my own. And I thought, you know, I write at least as well as this, and they're published. Yeah. And this question popped into my mind, why not me? Oh, and that question changed everything for me Oh, welcome back to the Red Fern book review. I'm your host, Amy Mair. And today I am very excited and pleased to be joined by mystery writer best selling mystery writer, Iona wishaw from her home in Vancouver, and we had a great interview. And what makes her really unique is that she has a family history of espionage, her mom was a spy during World War Two. And before that her grandfather was a spy. And the other thing that's also really interesting is that she had a full career as a principal and a teacher, before she first picked up her pen in her 60s. So that's really cool. And I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I do. And we're going to be talking about her brand new book to track a trader, and it's part of the Lane Winslow mystery series and there's 10 in the series, and that's what we're gonna talk about today. So we're gonna move over and talk with Iona right now. Hello, Iona. So glad to have you on the podcast today. Delighted to be here. Okay, I'm just gonna dive right into the questions because I have I have a lot of them. And the first question I have, you know, you write, you've been on the bestseller list, basically, since you started writing your mysteries almost a decade ago. And you write best selling fast paced historical mysteries of the cozy variety. But your personal background is just as interesting, I think and really adds a richness to the series and your heroine Elaine Winslow is a former World War Two spy who also has something in common with your mom. So tell us a little bit about your mom, and how she inspired. Elaine. I'd be delighted to my mother was one in a million really for lots and lots of reasons. And she and Elaine have some very significant things in common and some very significant things not uncommon. Obviously, they both come from that generation. Although my mother was born in 1912. Elaine was born in sort of 1920. So I've set her a little bit younger than my mum was at the time. And they, my mother was born in Riga into a British community, and was British through and through she was presented at court when she was 17, because she came from a fairly sort of upper class family. And, you know, she had she had the father, the father that Elaine has who's very kind of cold and doesn't like his daughter very much and is a spy. And I modeled him very much on what my grant my mother used to tell me about her father. And the only thing is my mother did do some espionage. I found out really just before she died, she was 87 When she died, that she'd done some espionage in South Africa where she lived with my father. So she, you know, she really made light of it, she brushed it off, you know, it was it just, we would just get into nice frocks and go to German officers parties to try to get information like it was just the easiest thing in the world. But what was behind that was that my mother was a perfect speaker of German. Oh, and she spoke perfectly Russian, French, German, and obviously English and Latvia and because in Latvia was a very internationalist community. You know, she belonged to the the hub, the center of the British community, where there was a huge community of Germans there. They had many, many German friends. The place was full of Russians. They all learned to speak Russian. The governor says she had through the house were German and French and Russian. So that's the kind of background she had and basically, you know, it was so interesting that I didn't feel I could. I couldn't do any better than to give Elaine this time. Background right, especially since I knew something about it from my mother's stories. Now, you said she made light of what she did. Do you think she was doing that to uphold the Secrets Act? Or do you think that she literally just thought, I speak these languages? I put on pretty dresses? And I'm no yeah, that's such a good question. And I don't really know the answer. I think that she would more do it because she probably the Secrets Act was part of it. But also, that's how she was blindingly courageous. You know, she went on these just crazy adventures, I would never think she hitchhiked to Alaska when I was three on her own with truck drivers while my dad was away, just because she wanted to go to Alaska. And she couldn't think of a better way to get there. I mean, just crazy stuff like that, right. And she drove the Pan American highway with me and a dog before she before it was even finished. So you know, that kind of stuff. And I think she really did make light of it. I think she she was no doubt she was recruited to do it. And I think she sort of felt it was her bid for the war. I don't think she had this idea that it was some romantic thing about espionage. I think she thought well, I speak German. Yeah, I can do this kind of thing. Right. And beyond that, after South Africa entered the war, I did read up a lot about what kind of espionage was going on. My mum was a my, my little my big brother, who's 10 years older than me, was farmed out to an Afrikaner family, if you can even imagine that. And mainly because they were very much against the British in South Africa, and my dad was away flying a Lancaster bomber. So I'm pretty sure she continued that work right through until the end, when they moved to Canada. That's amazing. And you said you made Elaine slightly different? How is she different than your mom? I think she's much more. She's much more practical, and she's much more grounded than my mom. I think Elaine would have made a good mother. Right. My mother was a fantastic person, but not always very easy. So not midterm, probably not maternal. I don't think she had very much in the way of maternal illness. You know, she was brought up by governesses in a rather ferocious act. Because her mother died when she was only four. And her father was quite a hard man. And I think she just didn't have a lot of examples of maternal illness. But on the other hand, you know, I, she brought me up not to be too girly. And, you know, to love travel and to, and to really, really, really enjoy people, like my mother enjoyed people of every class, and I'm sure it's because she grew up in an international community and in spite of her kind of upper class origins, you know, she was just endlessly fascinated by people. And she was very much loved by tons of people. And I think Elaine has that. But she has a more grounded kind of personality. And your grandfather was also a spy as this shirt. Dad's mother. Oh, my mother's father. Okay. Yeah. That's a businessman and quite jolly. And you're responsible. Yeah, she, he, he I learned quite recently, a bit about him. I didn't learn anything about him as a spy, except that my mother told me he was a spy. And everything else she told me about him was how really hard he was on her in particular, not on her sister. And, you know, if you read this book, you'll see a lot of that story coming out. You know, Elaine and her sister and how the father favors certain things like that. But I did learn recently that as early as just after the Bolshevik Revolution, my grandfather was making spying sorties into St. Petersburg, he was nearly caught a couple of times, one of his colleagues was caught and he managed to get him out all through the rest of the time. And during the Second World War, he spied in a in a sort of thing between Sweden and Finland. And in and out of Russia, like that was the thing. He worked for the British. He worked for MI six, and I learned recently that he had three brothers and two of them also worked for MI six. So it was a tradition and they had a very you know, they were very devoted to military matters. As the family I think on his side Oh, Another thing about this book you have kind of a special setting for the book. And if you read people who are familiar with Louise Penny, she has Three Pines where there's this like, small town where everything happens. And you have a small town and BC that's the setting for your book. But I understand it's partially based on where you grew up. So tell us about how you came up with this setting, and how it's conducive for mystery. Ah, you know, I lived off and on in that little community. And it was by the lake, but not right by the lake along the lake shore, there were summer cottages, and none of us had anything to do with that. But up the hill from there was a lot of very, very fertile land. And that's where all the English people who came to grow fruit had settled. And, you know, when I came there, it was the early 50s, I was a little tiny child. It was really the place that I would say, my heart live, you know, I mean, we moved to Mexico when I was eight or five, excuse me. And so I really included that too, in places that I really loved. But you know, the first place was this place by Kootenay Lake, and it wasn't even a town you couldn't even have called it a hamlet. You know, it had a post office because most rural communities did. But if you wanted to buy anything, you had to drive three miles down to another little slightly larger Hamlet called Belfer. And if you wanted to really buy something you had to drive, you know, in those days, almost an hour into Nelson, because the roads weren't paved then. And you know, when that community first grew up, there weren't roads, everything was done by paddle wheeler up and down the lake. So if you wanted to go to this community, it hadn't had a wharf. And the paddle wheeler would pull up to the wharf and would collect all the apples and everybody had grown and take them out. And it was shipped out all over the, you know, the country and off to England, and so on, it was quite a big concern. And, you know, when I lived there, as a child, almost everyone that you read about in the books has been taken in whole, or in part, parts from the people that that lived there, the very, very old people, I mean, they were all ancient in the 1950s when I was a small child. So you know, that part of it has been really fun, you know, you can recreate a place that you lived. And you can spend time with those people that you really loved when you were a child. And the Armstrong's who ran the post office, were there almost fully as I remember them in the book, everybody else's sort of I've sort of toyed with them, but with them, I've kept them exactly as I remember them. And why. Explain why a small town is a good setting for mystery, do you think? Well, I think because it's, it's, it's kind of a closed system, right? Everybody knows everybody else. Obviously, if I were through 10 books to kill off only people who lived in that community, there would not be not only no one left, but a negative deficit. All right. But you know, even up and down the lake, the nice thing about that community in Lane's world, is that, you know, she becomes quite involved in her husband's work, especially in the beginning, much to his annoyance, because she turned out to be quite useful. And so everybody in the community gets involved, you know, they all want to know, they've all got ideas, you know, they may know somebody who knows somebody who knew that person, you know, that kind of thing. And so, it's a great way to, like weave those people into it. Right. And, you know, there's, there's isolated when I was growing up, certainly, there were three or four very isolated cabins that had long since been abandoned. You know, I would find a box full of newspapers from the early 1900s, you know, all moldy and all of that kind of thing in an old cabin up in the woods. So, you know, there's lots of scope for hiding people for killing them and moving them someplace, you know, all that kind of thing. Okay, so this is not your original career. This is maybe your third act, and I think that's really inspiring. And so you worked as a social worker, a teacher, award winning principal, but you didn't start writing until your 60s. Is this correct, is that it's sort of correct. I actually always wanted to write Yeah, and you know, when I was still teaching, or maybe even before that, I started to write I had a book that I had just loved the idea of that would have been aimed at sort of the grade eights. You know, I had, the year I sent it out to someone to look at was the same year, the first Harry Potter was published. And, you know, I realized I wouldn't stand a chance with it. So I just shelved it. And I ended up getting into the creative writing master's program at UBC with that book. So ended up being very useful anyway. So I was in my four, I think it was 40 or 44. When I was in the master's program at UBC, and graduated from there, I published poetry short fiction, I did poetry and translation, because I'm bilingual in Spanish. And you know, this, this series of books, I never believed I could write a whole entire book, like, yeah, maybe for eighth graders, but not for like, grownups. Right. And I sort of realized when I was 64, that I was going to be retiring in a couple of years. And if I didn't start writing, I wouldn't have a writing habit to go into. I would retire and say, Oh, I'm going to write and it might never start. So I get up at 530. Before I go to school, and I had a job of just writing 400 words, I had no idea at the beginning, was that 400 words is going to be poetry, was it going to be a short story was it going to be a memoir, like I had no idea. But every day, I'd go to my 400 words, and I'd read yesterday's 400 words, or 800 words, or 1200 words. And it's sort of put itself together. For me, I had this image of my mother, the very first sentence, she bought this amazing house that she loved until she died. And was always the one that got away, not a man for her house. And so, that was kind of where I started, and I just went from there. So, you know, when I when I first wrote the first book, you know, I had a degree from UBC, a master's degree. So I went through their program, which I took in my 40s. And I, when I first started, when I first finished the first book, I thought, no one's going to want to publish an old person like me, like that was my thought, right? So I thought, well, I'll just, I'll pay for it. I'll self publish it, right. So I went through an outfit in, in Victoria cost, really a lot of money. And I couldn't see doing it a second time. That was for sure. And I drove around like an Amway salesperson, you know, with books in the back of my car, and my friends would would buy them and say, whoa, whoa, this is really good. And your first book was self published? Is that what your self published? Yeah, I have to track. The first one, you have their killer in Kings COVID, some called something totally else, and is much cleaned up from that first book. But there's a wonderful bookstore up here in Kerrisdale. Called Hagar, you may know it, I'm, I live near there. Okay. So they were huge supporters of it. And they would call me every week and say, you've got to bring me 10 More books, you got to bring me 10 More books, but I was making like 50 cents a book, right? But she said to me, it's the most popular book, you know, self published book in our store, it flies off the shelf. So that's when I began to think maybe it's not bad. And my son actually phoned me and said, Oh, my God, this is really good. You know, everybody seems so surprised. But you know, those, it that bookstore that you're talking about, they love their world war two stuff. And I bet part of it they, sometimes when I go, that's the nice thing about a good independent bookseller is like, I'll ask for a suggestion. And sometimes I'm like, Okay, that's good. That's good. Like, they keep going. They're so into their books. So yeah. booksellers helped sell books, they're fantastic. They're absolutely out of this world. Anyway, you know, so then I thought, well, I can't do this, I'm going to I'm going to start writing a sequel, just cause you know, it fairly screens for one, so I'm going to just start doing it. But I don't know how I'm going to be published. And you know, what happened? Something I was reading a book, not not one of my own. And I thought, you know, I write at least as well as this, and they're published. Yeah. And this question popped into my mind, why not me? Oh, and that question changed everything for me. You know, I feel like even though I didn't do anything different. Yeah. I knew I'd written a good book or good enough. Yeah. You know, eventually, somebody actually found me, a publisher said you shouldn't be doing this driving around. Let's get you a real publisher. And the real publisher was very excited about the book. So you know, it was that I don't think I would have persisted unless I had that thing. Well, why not me all the sudden He will get published. What's what's different about me? Why should I? Well, it made all the difference, you know. And now I don't even think really about my age, in terms of that at all, you know? Well, I think it's a selling point I do. But I can see why you wouldn't think that because I probably wouldn't have either, but it is. I'll tell you one reason it's a selling point is because I grew up listening to the language, the way it's spoken in my books. Oh, yeah, parents are members of that generation. Yeah, they're dead now, of course. But they were, that's what I heard around me. And my friend who is a beta reader is even a little bit older than me. And she's always the first one at my book, she's a college, university champ of mine. And she can pick up sayings that are modern, in a flash, and we take them out, and we look for something that would have been said in the 1940s. For the same thing, like you can't say in the 1940s, I couldn't wrap my head around it, you know, or I need you to do research. These are all very, very modern ways of using the language. So you take them out. And I think it's much easier for me to do than it would be for someone significantly younger than me, just because I heard it growing up. So that's a big advantage, I think. Okay, so tell everybody about the latest book. So to track a trader is the latest and tell everybody the kind of the premise of this one and how it okay, the premise of to track a trader, a copy of what you see here is that, and this often happens, where you've got the police and Nelson and you've got everything else going on, somewhere else, wherever Elaine is. So she gets a call from her grandparents that her sister had come home from South Africa, and where she was a spy. So I assigned my mother's role to lane Sister, if you see what I'm saying, Yeah, and again, hasn't seen her sister since she was like an annoying 16 year old who came to visit her in Oxford. And she's come back to England and she's gone missing and Elaine is has hurried over to see if she can help to find out what's going on. And why because your grandparents are very distraught. her grandfather's had a bit of a heart attack. And so she's worried about him. And at the same time, in Nelson, darling, there's a man who's been killed and found in a cabin and darlings been called to the home of the very wealthy man. Because his disgraced sister in law has been found in a bombed out building in a village in Kent. And darling, is Mrs. Inspector darling inspector, darling, sorry, yes, I'm just referred to miss darling, her husband, Inspector darling. And you can read from Book One through book 10 To find out how that happened. Yeah, it's a nice little romance. And so he has to go to England to so now the two of them are over there too, in two different things. And there's the case going on. That will link up to the case that darling is working on that his I call them underlings his sergeant and his, his constable are working on. So it kind of goes, you know, across continents, across times. And across families. And, you know, somehow it all comes together. And it's just the sort of book I like to read. And, you know, and it turns out that lane sister is in trouble. Because she's seen something terrible. And now the person who she's seen is after her.

Amy Mair: 23:47

Um, I was gonna say. So another question I had for you was Elaine, and as we mentioned earlier, and the inspector are now a couple, and that you might maybe, maybe not, you might see that maybe at the end of the series, but you're not at the end. So one thing I was wondering, and I kind of know partially the answer, but they're now a couple of which could be kind of boring, because it's probably kind of exciting when they were dating or you didn't know where it was gonna go. So how do you keep it interesting between them and how people still want wanting to root for them now that they're a boring married couple?

Unknown: 24:27

Well, what I hope is that they're not boring. Yeah. And, you know, they're both they have some similarities. They're both kind of reserved in inward people. Right? And they are, they have found each other and are able to be very open with each other, but they're also both extremely smart. And, as often happens with very smart people, they have great senses of humor. And so I think that really works a lot in their favor. You know, they really like each other, and, you know, they're negotiating an equal relationship in a period when that wasn't common in the night, you know? And so that really interests me. And I think it probably interests my readers as well. Because you think well, in 1940, wouldn't he be really the man of the house? Wouldn't he be insisting on this and that, and so, you know, I think their respect for each other is what really comes through and their humor. And I was just thinking, I'm reading a series right now by Craig Johnson, about sheriff in Montana, called in Wyoming called Walt Longmeyer. And he has a very, very close friend that appears all the time in the books. A guy called Standing Bear who's his best friend since they were children. And I was listening to and thinking how much I love this relationship. And so I think that what I want from my readers to do is to not worry about the married part, because that always sounds like, you know, I mean, we're used for that, and Jane Austen, the heroine immediately becomes uninteresting when she's married, and you are about her, right. But in real life, people do get married, they continue to be interesting and engaged. And so that's really what I want people to do is to go, Oh, I love that relationship they have well, and further to that you do a lot of things in your books, I want to ask you about, you tackle social issues, relationships, racism, women's rights, things that weren't necessarily talked about in the 1940s, where the books are set. But you do that in a modern way, but yet, it still fits with the time period. And I've read that people really liked that you do that? But how do you balance that and remain true to the time period of the 1940s? That's an excellent question. Well, for one thing, and and we ought to be disheartened by this, all of the same kinds of things, the marital abuse, the child abuse, the, you know, the rape, the racism, all of the things that plagues society, the alcoholism, were there, then as they are now, and people then had to cope with it, you know, and a lot of the coping was burying it under being ashamed, all of that. And so, you know, we live in the 2020s, where there's a lot of very specific language to deal with these kinds of things, right. And so, you know, the whole, for example, the whole idea of something triggering an anxiety would just be so foreign back then, because they didn't have that kind of language. But even so, in the 1940s, there were any period really in history, there were people who believed in justice and women's rights, after all, you know, the right for women to vote, and and the militant feminism had been going on for, you know, 50 years, by the time the 1940s, come along. So, you know, there already was lots of movement about that kind of thing, and lots of struggle. And, you know, I think there's a tie, I know, some younger women say, Oh, well, you know, Elaine could never have done what she did, because she wouldn't have had the freedom. And I think, Boy, you didn't know my mother. You know, who did whatever they felt like, even then. And so, you know, you had strong people who had a sense of justice, and who wanted to highlight and mark that things were wrong, and that people ought to be helped when those things were happening. And there's a couple of books where I deal with children and the mistreatment of children. And it always makes me kind of laugh that people will say to me, Oh, I find this book, so comforting. And I'd love to read it at night, and it won't keep me up and going, you know, there's rape and racism in it. Right. And they're going to have, but it's not. It's not dealt with in a way that that necessarily keeps people awake. But it's there. And I think it's important because those were the issues. I mean, the things that we're dealing with, you know, the position of women in the 1940s was just so interesting. You know, they were washed out of jobs that they'd taken. And at the same time, they were starting to make some inroads, you know, so it's just a very interesting period for me. I think people can and read that book at night because I think one of the reasons why people like mysteries is there's an order to it if it gets solved at the end, I think people love that. And if you've got those characters that kind of continue on

Amy Mair: 30:13

through the series. The other thing I was going to mention that I liked was I've read your first book, which was a killer and kings Cove and then I read this book. And while I think it would be better if you read all of them, I found that I could read to track a trader and enjoy it. Which is great, because sometimes you can't you have to go in order. I don't know if you did that intentionally. But I liked that.

Unknown: 30:36

Well, I like to I mean, you know, just because of the kind of reader I am, you know, I definitely love Series. I love them, because I love being with the same people all the way through. Yeah. But at the same time, you know, you if you're going to your library, you never know what episode of of the story you're gonna get, you know, so they have a standalone quality. And my hope is that people will read it and want to read the others. And that's to be proving true that they go well. How did we get here? I'd like to see what happened at the beginning to go back. Okay, so this is interesting. Tell everyone about you get plotline suggestions from your fans to tell tell people maybe a plotline or two that you've gotten from someone and how you incorporate that. I'm not so sure so much that it's plot lines, but really, really interesting ideas. I think the biggest one was I had a letter from a retired historian who really liked the true tone of the books in terms of the 1940s Yeah, and corresponded back and forth. And she said, Have you ever thought of doing something with one room schoolhouses, and you know, one room schoolhouses are a huge element of the history of Canadian education, right, because many of us were rural, until relatively recently. And, you know, my, my brother attended a one room schoolhouse in that community, I was too young. And my mother in law taught in a one room schoolhouse in Saskatchewan. And I was so I became very interested in it and the lives of people who go and teach in those places. So that was one of the biggest and she sent me quite a lot of kind of academic papers and studies, one room schoolhouses in Canada that were super interesting and really made me want to write the book that I wrote, which is called a lethal lesson. And also because I was an educator, I was happy to be back in a school Oh, right. That's as the supply teacher you know, as a as a substitute teacher and and that was kind of fun. And another one, I got a lovely letter from a gentleman who's an expert on vintage motorcycles. And he said, I should put one of my characters on a 1935 or so. Triumph. And so I said, Well, yes, I'm gonna put darling on it. But I can put my boy Terrell on it. Because he's just arrived there, and he loves his motorcycle, and he was a motorcycle cop in the war with his unit. So you know, that man has continued to help me understand the parts of the machinery and understand what kind of tires he'd need in the winter or the rain. And you know, what the current adverts were during the 1940s It's been fascinating. A wonderful printer, hear here, who's runs the old fashion, you know, hand presses, and a lot of the old fashion presses he does. Fantastic, you know, art books and things like that. He sent me a note and said, you know, in Nelson at that time, they would have such and such a kind of press. And so I went out to visit them, and saw what he does in great detail, and was happy to incorporate it into one of the books. And now that presses in Nelson for me, and I can go back there all the time. And you know, all these people are sources for me, right, you know, that I can write to and say, Well, how does how would this have worked kind of thing, right? So it's been really that part of it. It's been really fun. I love the fact that people are interested and they always ask, they asked me, you know, what about the indigenous people of the area? You haven't said anything I wrote I had already was in the middle of writing, framed in fire, which is about the local snakes, people who used to live there, and and still, to some degree do still not as much as before the turn of the 20th century. And you know, people have been asking me about the Japanese a lot of whom were in turned up there in that kuten area and SLoCaT area. So you know, these people are wanting to see these things reflected in the books. You because a lot of the things that I write about are real, a lot of time make up. Like all those Russian spies, I thought I was making them up. But it turned out Canada was absolutely full of Russian spies. So that was quite fun to discover. Another thing I want to ask you about was the cover art, which I just love. And it's very much of the era, it's got a super graphic quality, kind of moody lanes, usually on the front and some with a fabulous hat and coat. Tell Tell tell us about the art, I'm assuming? Because I know a little bit. When you write a book, you don't necessarily choose the artist the publisher does, correct? Yes, that's correct. And so but you must be so thrilled. And what do you know about this artist? Ah, well, she's wonderful, obviously. And we're so thrilled and delighted that she continues with us. Because the books have such a strong sense of Yes. You know, you look at one of these covers, and you go, Oh, that must be Elaine Winslow book. And people have told me quite often, that they've actually gone in and seen them and bought them without knowing anything because of the cover. That's what I was wanting. That's how I feel because of that. I would pick that up based on it. The cover alone? Yeah, no, exactly. And the the, at the very beginning, the publisher said to me, what, how do you envision this? And I said, Well, you know, those old posters from the 1930s, you know, come to Canada, and there were the you know, there would always be somebody standing on a beautiful hill with mountains and a lake and, you know, Canada, the new frontier, whatever. And these were like travel posters or posters to attract people. And so we worked back and forth with a couple of those, and she found an artist she thought would be good for that, which was Margaret. And, you know, there's a real collaborative thing of it, you know, the publisher will say, to me, I think this or this scene might be really fun to illustrate on the cover. And I might say, you know, what, I really had it in mind that this scene would be illustrated on the cover. And so we get various mockups in pencil, and then we look at them and choose and talk about them and talk about how things are aligned. And sometimes if I'm not, I'm never not happy. But if I want to see something a little different in the sky, I will send a photograph of the area like for example, this is this is a beautiful walk called the Seven Sisters. And I really wanted to capture this evening sky on it. And so, you know, we sent pictures and then Margaret beautifully, gave us that kind of moody evening sky. So you know, we're just on the point of nighttime there. And still those beautiful chalk cliffs. So, you know, it's been really fun. It's collaborative. But not to nobody. I don't push anyone around. But sometimes they can that trucks it a little differently or something like that. And you know, it'll come back all sitting differently. So that's great. Anyway, they're, they're beautiful. And tell everyone what are you working on now? What's what's the what's Elaine Winslow up to next? Well, Lane Winslow is sticking around at home in the next book. And it opens this is really all I'll say. Okay. opens with a big explosion in the mountains high above. Kings Cove. Okay, when will that be coming out? That'll be a should be out. April of 24. Great. We cannot leave this interview without talking about Nancy Drew. I understand your favorite of yours as well. She was and you know, because for my generation I so I have older sisters like 10 and 12 years older. And so I had all the original because original ones because my sisters

Amy Mair: 39:25

read them. And then the new series kind of came out there was a new Nancy Drew more modern that came out and must have come out in the 80s I don't know. And then of course, I don't know if you remember but there was a fabulous TV show. Just like the Nancy Drew mystery series and the Hardy Boys and those were so much fun. And I remember watching those in the I think late 70s, early 80s. So I do know about it, but I remember thinking I love the covers of and that's funny now that I'm thinking about your But I can see a maybe a bit of an inspiration for the covers. But, you know, there was she was pretty fabulous. But she, she always was really put together. That's what I remember as well.

Unknown: 40:12

Oh my god, so much so. And I did read somewhere because I did read books from the 30s and 40s. I mean, I was born in 48. So those books would have been around. And you know what, what impressed me about her for one thing on the covers, she was always in action. It was she was going up the secret staircase, she was climbing a ladder while someone was trying to push the ladder over. And as you say, beautiful gown, you know, beautiful dress, lovely shoes, you know, really always fabulous hair. And I did read that in the late 50s. They wanted to make her less independent. Oh, yeah. And so they wanted ned to be more involved. Remember Ned? Yes, the boyfriend boyfriend, vaguely, a little bit like a Ken doll really is I remember him. And also they wanted her to get more permission from her father to do things, you know, they want to be a little more compliant because she was very independent in the 30s and 40s. You know, and she would do things absolutely on her own or with her girlfriends. You know, in that little car with the with the convertible, convertible convertible with the rumble seat in the back, you know, where you could stick a couple of people. And, you know, so I was very lucky to have as my first Nancy Joe influenced those very early books. And they were so Carolyn king, was that a man or a woman? And was it always the same on a number of people I have read that it was a man. And I have read that it was a whole series of women. It was a whole series of somebody that's for sure. With a name Carolyn Keene. And I remember that after Mindy Nancy Drew books, I read some Hardy Boys books. And I always thought that the Hardy Boys books were written after Nancy Drew, because boys must be hurting not to have a great heroine or hero like Nancy Drew. It turned out the Hardy Boys were written first. And then someone began to write the books for the girls. Oh, that's very clever. And are there any other mystery writers that were an inspiration for you? Ah, you know, when I was quite young, and I'm in my 20s. So you know, 50 years ago? I remember like it was yesterday. I really liked I always sort of liked Agatha Christie. Oh, yeah, sure, you know, because she was reliably entertaining. And in some ways, the television shows with our role. Were almost better than her books, you know, in terms of the of the content and the kind of people that were there. But I also really loved a New Zealand writer called Nile Marsh. And I love Dorothy L Sayers. Dorothy L. Sayers is probably my favorite. And, you know, latterly I really loved Elizabeth George. And you know, as long as there are mysteries, you know, the Hillerman mysteries I really loved because they took place in the desert, and I spent much of my life in Mexico, and then all of my high school in Arizona, so I could really relate to that. You know, and there's a lot of just incredibly good mysteries being written right now by fabulous writers, you know, Donna Leone and Ann Cleeves. And, you know, there's just, it's, you know, you can never be bored. Have you read the silent patient? It's different than what you do. But have you read that one? It's, it's, it was, it wasn't a debut. And it was amazing, but it's a few like, psychological. Right? Very, super terrifying. But well, not super terrifying. You might be able to tell from whatever right? Yeah,

Amy Mair: 44:27

no, you're I think you're Posey. I had a, a author on and she told me that for, for something to be a cozy mysteries, they're actual components and people will argue about them. And one of the things I read is you have to have or she told me, you have to have a cat somewhere in the book.

Unknown: 44:47

In fact, I remember at about book three or four. My publisher said there's this cozy book club in Philadelphia that wants to have you at their meeting. And they'd read Killoran King's code, the first book, and it was before the wonderful technology of zoom. And so it was kind of an awkward thing. And it was blurry. And there were all these people sitting in the dark looking obviously at their television, to see me. And they were quite crossed with me because they said, you know, they asked me questions, and some of them really liked the book. But one of them said, you know, this is not a cozy you do not qualify as a cozy writer. Yes, yes. Because they were reading the very, I mean, lots of cozies are quite formate. formulaic, they're let you write they have special components. They're like Harlequin, romances do have to have certain things in them. And I'm sure what they loved was the blueberry pancake recipe at the end, and, you know, all of that kind of thing. So I think I fit somewhere closer to novels and cozy, so it's my books feel cozy, is that you feel safe. Okay, yeah, that's a good, that's a good way to put that. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast. That was really fun, and pleasure. And I really enjoyed that. And I think the your backstory just really adds to, I think people's enjoyment that there's some truth to what you're writing about. So thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, bye. So that was really fun. I really enjoyed that interview. And actually, as a matter of fact, I remember I know, I own a son, Biscay and our kids play soccer together. And I remember, I was on the side of the soccer pitch. And at the time, I was writing for a magazine working for a magazine. And he came in also doing a freelance writing, and he's like, you've got to meet my mom. She's written a mystery book. And so she was just as she is today, like, very excited and talking about her book. And I had no idea that we'd be talking 10 years later, and that she would be topping the bestseller charts. So anyway, and I love her phrase, why not me? So I think we all need to adopt that. Thanks so much for listening, and I will talk to you bye