Last fall’s entry in the Face Down Mystery Series, Face Down O’er the Border (Perseverance Press, trade paperback, $14.95, ISBN 987-1-8802849-1-9) is the last Face Down for awhile, although I do plan to write more Face Down mysteries and I am currently working on a short story featuring Rosamond Appleton and Rob (aka Mole) Jaffrey, Jennet and Mark’s son. I write very slowly in the shorter format, however, so don’t expect to see anything right away.

What is preventing me from writing more about sixteenth-century England? The answer is: writing more about sixteenth-century England! I am currently under contract to write two single title, non- mystery novels set at the court of King Henry VIII. The idea for one of them goes back to the very beginning of my writing career, so I am delighted to finally have the opportunity to write that book. Unfortunately, especially given the amount of research required, all my writing time for the next couple of years will be tied up with those two projects and the next book in my contemporary mystery series. I’m not certain when I’ll be able to get back to Lady Appleton, only that I do intend to at some point. Please be patient. In the meantime, the large print editions will continue to come out at a rate of one a year, and I hope you’ll be willing to sample the Diana Spaulding Mysteries, the Liss MacCrimmon series (w/a Kaitlyn Dunnett) and the historicals, which will be written using the pseudonym Kate Emerson.

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TWO NEW BOOKS FOR SPRING

LETHAL LEGEND is the fourth and last book in the Diana Spaulding Series, in which Ben and Diana plan their wedding, solve a murder, and try to keep their mothers from killing each other. For more information, see the articles later in this newsletter. It is set entirely in Maine.

My non-fiction look at historical mystery writing, HOW TO WRITE KILLER HISTORICAL MYSTERIES: THE ART AND ADVENTURE OF SLEUTHING THROUGH THE PAST, will be available in April, published in trade paperback by Perseverance Press. For those who need a Face Down fix, this may be the answer. To give examples—especially when it comes to things writers should not do—I delve into my own novels and short stories. There is also an entire chapter devoted to the production of the second book in the series. Overall, this book is my take on how to write historical mysteries, augmented by comments, anecdotes, and helpful hints from over forty other historical mystery writers. There are also comments and suggestions from booksellers, reviewers, and readers.

“You can’t get there from here” is the tag line of an old joke here in Maine, but in writing Lethal Legend I discovered there was even more truth to the saying back in the 1880s than there is today. For reasons relating to the plot of the mystery, I had to move Ben Northcote and Diana Spaulding from Bangor to various nearby locations—Belfast, Bucksport, Ellsworth, Islesboro (spelled Islesborough in those days) and a fictional island in Penobscot Bay. You’d think this would be easy. The distances aren’t great—all in the twenty mile range. But disputes over railroad right of ways and the geographical intricacies of the Maine coast meant that things were seldom as simple as they appeared on paper.

I pride myself on being as accurate as possible when I write my historical mysteries. That means I can’t change a county border just because it is in the wrong place. The county line between Waldo and Hancock Counties happens to run right down the middle of the Penobscot River and out into Penobscot Bay. Yes, I invented an island, but for a number of reasons it ended up being on the other side of the county line from Islesboro and Belfast. That meant that when I needed a county sheriff and coroner, my characters had to send to the Hancock County seat at Ellsworth. You wouldn’t think that would be too tricky . . . except that to sail out of Penobscot Bay and along the coast and then back inland to Ellsworth would take most of a day. To take a boat to Bucksport and a train from there to Ellsworth wasn’t in the cards either. There was no rail line between those two points. To reach Ellsworth, one had to go from Bucksport to Bangor, change lines, and then make the trip from Bangor back to Ellsworth. Naturally, train schedules were not set up to make this trip any easier.

Sometimes the quest for accuracy ends with the writer tearing her hair out in frustration. I consulted the Bangor Whig and Courier for the dates in question and found railroad timetables in all the detail I could possibly want. I also found steamship and ferry schedules. The problem came when I wanted to move my characters from place to place on MY schedule. In the end, I was able to put Ben and Diana on real trains and steamers most of the time, but for the frequent trips to the fictional Keep Island, I needed to invent a fictional mail boat, owned by the same wealthy gentleman who owns the island. It was really the only solution.

To give you an idea of what the real schedules were like, trains left Bangor for Bucksport, eighteen miles away, at 7:25 AM, 2 PM, and 6:55 PM and arrived there at 8:35 AM, 3:40 PM, and 8:08 PM. On a different line, trains left Bangor for Belfast at 8 AM and 3:30 PM and reached there at noon and at 7:55 PM. Rail travel to Ellsworth, connecting to the ferry to Bar Harbor “in pleasant weather only” one could leave Bangor at 5:50 AM, 1:35 PM, or 6:30 PM. The trip as far as Ellsworth took a little less than an hour and a half.

Travel by steamer, when the river wasn’t frozen over, was the other most popular option and the only way to reach islands such as Islesborough (unless you had your own boat). The steamer Rockland made daily trips (after May 17) from Bangor to Rockland, leaving Bangor at 6:30 AM, Bucksport at 8:15, and Belfast at 11:00. The return trip arrived in Bangor at 7 PM. The Steamer Cimbria left Bangor on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at 7:30 AM and made a number of stops, including Bucksport at 9:30, Islesborough at 11:30 and Bar Harbor at 5:30 PM. Return trips took place on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and offered connections to Belfast aboard the steamer Electra when the Cimbria stopped in Castine.

Of course, people also had the option of riding from place to place on horseback or in a buggy or wagon, but that generally took much longer. Bar Harbor, for example, was a one day trip by steamer but was said to take three days from Bangor by road. On the other hand, someone could ride the eighteen miles between Ellsworth and Bucksport more quickly than they could sail along the coast or make the trip to Bangor and back.

Okay. I admit it. I hate to let a good story go unused. When I wrote the seventh book in the Face Down series, Face Down Across the Western Sea, the action began on an unnamed shore on this side of the Atlantic. Although the book as a whole was set in sixteenth century England, events that happened earlier, on explorations of the New World, played a role in the murder mystery.

I’ve always enjoyed hearing the legends about pre-Columbian visits to these shores, and there is no reason why some of them couldn’t be real. Fishermen from western Europe were always looking for new fishing grounds and when they found them the last thing they’d do was tell anyone where they were. The stories about Henry Sinclair, Jarl of Orkney, are certainly not all true, but the idea of finding a land rich in timber when England’s and Scotland’s forests were sadly depleted rings true, and if Sinclair made a voyage to Nova Scotia at the very end of the fourteenth century, then he certainly could have considered sending colonists there. His death fighting against the English is a reasonable explanation for the lack of information about such a venture.

Anyone who would like to read more about the Henry Sinclair legends and other stories associated with “Norombega,” the early name for New England and the Maritimes, can find my complete bibliography on this subject in a list under Face Down Across the Western Sea in the bibliography-by-book section of my website, reached by clicking here:

For a general bibliography of the sources I used in writing the Diana Spaulding Mysteries, click here:

When I’m planning a book, I usually start by thinking of all the things I’d like to include in the story and then decide which ones will work. In the case of Lethal Legend, archaeology fit very naturally into the plot, and that I would use a female archaeologist wasn’t much of a stretch, either. After all, one of my favorite historical mystery series features that intrepid archaeology team Amelia Peabody and Radcliffe Emerson (sadly, no relation).

Deep sea diving also fit into what I wanted to do. This required researching the diving suits used in the late nineteenth century. You could not get me in the water in one of those for love or money! In addition, I took a look at various sports gentlemen engaged in for recreation. I considered boxing, which at the time was still likely to be the bare-knuckle sort, and decided that wasn’t really my thing. I settled on fencing instead, as you can see on the cover of the book. There is a fist fight in the book, but not a boxing match.

What else? Once again, Dr. Ben Northcote is interested in humane treatment of the insane, so I had to take a close look at the Maine Insane Hospital as it existed in 1888. And Diana, because she has now discovered she has a family, is developing an interest in genealogy, so I explored a bit of what people were doing in that field in 1888. Will Diana succeed in tracing her descent from Rosamond Appleton? Could be.

Following the publication of HOW TO WRITE KILLER HISTORICAL MYSTERIES: THE ART AND ADVENTURE OF SLEUTHING THROUGH THE PAST, I’ll be offering a series of workshops based on the book. They work best in groups of fifteen or more but can be adapted to suit a variety of groups, conferences, and conventions. Here are the topics I’ve come up with, although they can all be adapted to suit a particular group.

1. CHOOSING THE WHEN, WHERE, WHO, AND HOW

A one hour workshop designed to help writers who are contemplating writing historical mystery fiction make intelligent decisions about time period, setting, the character of the sleuth, and the method of murder. Information on the current market for historical mysteries is included. Most of the content of this workshop is also applicable to historical romantic suspense, present/past mysteries, and historical mysteries for young people.

2. PAINLESS RESEARCH

A one hour workshop on how to find those elusive details that make historical novels come alive. Among other topics included are the importance of historical accuracy in fiction, reader expectations about historical accuracy in mystery fiction, on-site research vs. research in books, pitfalls of doing research online, tips on using library resources, and how to evaluate a source.

3. WRITING HISTORICAL MYSTERIES

A half day (2 hours with break plus question &answer session) workshop combining material from the two workshops described above together with other information on how to write historical mysteries.

4. SLEUTHING THROUGH THE PAST

A forty-minute workshop geared toward fans of the historical mystery genre. The blurb for the version to be presented at Mayhem in the Midlands 2008 is as follows: Did you ever wonder what prompts historical mystery writers to choose a particular when, where, who, or how? Find out through hands-on experience. This workshop will take you through the steps—and the pitfalls. Whether you've ever thought about writing a historical mystery or just really enjoy reading them, the process will be illuminating . . . and so will the accompanying anecdotes about some of your favorite historical mystery writers.

The next book in the Liss MacCrimmon series, Scone Cold Dead, will be out in August in hardcover with a wonderful bright yellow book jacket. The paperback reprint of Kilt Dead will be in stores in July. Check things out here for the most recent information:

In other news, I’ve been given a unique opportunity to take an idea from the very beginning of my writing career (back in the 1970s) and turn it into a non-mystery historicals set in the reign of Henry VIII. I’m under contract to write two stand-alone novels as Kate Emerson. I don’t have either final titles or publication dates yet (I’m writing this in mid-February) but as soon as there is something to report, I’ll have a new website up at KateEmersonHistoricals.com. Stay tuned.

The story of Untitled Book One centers around a real historical figure, Jane Popyncourt, who arrived in England as a child during the reign of Henry VII to teach French, through daily conversation, to King Henry’s two daughters, Margaret and Mary (Henry VIII’s sisters). She later became somewhat notorious for having an affair with a French nobleman who was a prisoner of war in England and she eventually left England for France. A fair amount is known about Jane, but the mysteries surrounding her life were what intrigued me. I can’t quite get away from solving mysteries! I’ve written her story as fiction to fill in the gaps with what might be the explanation for what happened to her. I think of it as a “quest” novel.

The book is written in first person and is set for the most part at the Tudor court. Almost every character is a real person. Where information has survived about what they were really doing, I haven’t changed history. It was more fun to work around it. The few fictional characters were created to fill in the blanks. The one big difference from my Face Down mysteries is that this time I really do “translate” into modern English. I avoid jarring anachronistic language, but I decided not to drive myself crazy trying to be 100% true to the times, especially when much of the dialogue would actually be in French!

click here for updates and additions:

April 24-26

Malice Domestic

May 22-25

Mayhem in the Midlands

August 14-17

Killer Nashville

October 9-12

Bouchercon

October 31-November 2

Great Manhattan Mystery Conclave

November 14-16

New England Crime Bake

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