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| The author and her brother-in-law picking up pies at the Poorhouse Pies pie shed |
As a child, award-winning author Daisy
Pettles was fed a steady diet of books, pies, and Bible stories. Today she
stops by to answer a few questions. Learn more about Daisy and her books at her
website.
You set the Shady Hoosier Detective Agency
Series in a small town called Knobby Waters, in Pawpaw County, Indiana. Is
there such a place?
In
my head and heart there is such a place. It’s a tiny town full of nosy
neighbors, quirky characters, and kind-hearted souls. It’s the type of hometown
that many are nostalgic for these days.
The
series setting, Knobby Waters, is a fictional amalgam of several tiny towns
that are sprinkled along old US Highway 50, across rural Jackson and Lawrence
Counties, in the hills of southern Indiana. It’s the type of small town where
everybody knows your name—unfortunately. And of course there are an endless
supply of snoopy neighbors, crazy cousins, husbands with hanky-panky pants, and
home-baked pies.
Book 3 of the Shady Hoosier Detective
Agency, Chickenlandia Mystery, is
coming out this month. What and where is Chickenlandia?
Chickenlandia
is a free range chicken ranch run by an eccentric elderly farming couple. The
coops are fashioned out of scrap lumber to resemble the White House and the
Senate buildings. It’s more of a village---a Chickenlandia—than a simple row of
cages or coops. The name was inspired by the more urban, off-beat TV comedy,
Portlandia. In tone, the Shady Hoosier Detective series is quite quirky.
One reviewer thought the books reminded
her of the Golden Age of Hillbilly TV, the 60s sit-coms that reigned at that
period. Did you envision the books that way?
Yes.
I wanted to replicate the “feel good” tone of early TV comedies set in rural
America, series like The Andy Griffith
Show, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres. The tone of the Shady
Hoosier Detective Agency and the characters who populate Pawpaw County pay
homage to the Golden Age of Hillbilly TV.
Like
many children of rural America in the 60s I am growing nostalgic for an America
that never did exist, but that we all still hope for.
While
the books are cozy mysteries, their strongest element is humor. They are true
crime comedies. One critic called Daisy Pettles the “hillbilly Janet
Evanovich.” My senior crime fighting duo, Ruby Jane and Veenie, are very much a
Lucy-Ethel or Stephanie-Lula gal pal team.
Food plays a big role in your rural
setting. Your books mention a lot of peculiar foods. What are these foods and
where do they come from?
True.
I have a lot of fun with the food in Pawpaw County, which includes such country
delicacies as crockpot possum and deer chili slathered with thick skims of
Velveeta cheese. (Just yesterday my niece had to get off the phone with me
because she needed to prep some deer meat Sloppy Joes for dinner.)
One
of my favorite places is Pokey’s Tavern, famous for its cheesy mystery meat
sandwiches. My mom owned and operated a fast food restaurant when I was a kid
in the 60s. It was called the Dairy Bar, a little, DIY mom and pop Dairy Queen.
We used to joke about the local tavern up the road which offered “mystery meat”
sandwiches. The meat was usually whatever was in season—hunting season that is.
Is there a specific place in your books
that you would love to visit?
The
specific place in Knobby Waters that my readers would love to visit is Ma and
Peepaw Horton’s emergency Pie Shed. It’s an old tool shed run by the elderly
chicken farmers who operate Chickenlandia. The tool shed has been converted to
a 24-hour self-serve, pick-up station for Ma’s home-baked pies.
I
am fortunate because my neighbors in Underhill, Vermont, actually operate such
a Pie Shed in their backyard. Poorhouse Pies, has appeared in the PBS documentary
on the search for the Best American Pie.
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| Pie shed in winter |
Personally
I think every town would benefit from a 24-hour emergency pie shed. In the
series one of the leading lady sleuths, junior detective in-training, 71 year
old Veenie Goens, is addicted to pie (and other forms of junk food).
Our
crime fighting duo, Veenie and Ruby Jane, are constantly being sidetracked by
drives out to the pie shed in an attempt to relieve each case’s more stressful
moments.
One
of the theme songs of the comedy podcast that we are developing based on the
Shady Hoosier Detective Agency books is: “Remember when you’re feeling blue,
stop and eat a pie or two.”
The Chickenlandia Mystery
Shady Hoosier Detective Series,
Book 3
Pawpaw
County, Indiana, is all atwitter about Ma and Peepaw Horton’s annual
Chickenlandia Festival. The mood turns dark though when the Horton’s
prize-winning rooster, Dewey, and his best laying hen, Ginger, vanish, leaving
behind only a ragged trail of tail feathers. Also missing: Gertie Wineagar,
local sourpuss, and BBQ chicken cook-off queen. Senior sleuths, Ruby Jane (RJ)
Waskom and Veenie Goens, suspect Hiram Krupsky, Pawpaw County’s self-proclaimed
Chicken Wing King, of master-minding the crime spree in an attempt to sabotage
the Horton’s free-range chicken ranch. The sleuths get an unexpected “in” when
Hiram commences to court a reluctant RJ. Follow the Hoosier senior snoops as
they attempt to sort the good eggs from the bad in this hilarious, small-town
crime comedy.
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