The Bitter and the Sweet
Writing international thrillers is a challenge. It not only requires an exciting plot and intriguing characters but also descriptions of different cities and countries: their cultures, customs, and of course, their food. I don't visit every place I write about - it would be prohibitively expensive and given that I'm not a New York Timesbestseller (yet), I can't really afford it. But the researching is fun, and with every book I've written, I've explored the local food.
To write Bloody Soil (available for preorder now and releasing Nov. 9th) required detailed plotting and crafting new characters who would be involved in helping (or hindering) my returning protagonist and friends in their attempt to stop a neo-Nazi plot in present day Germany. But in between moments of high tension, a character's got to eat.
I read through travel books, online recipes, and cultural comparisons. I learned that Germans eat huge breakfasts with different kinds of bread, cheeses, sausage, jams. To compensate, they eat smaller dinners. Something called currywurst - sausage with curry on a crispy bread roll- is a favorite street food in Berlin.
Germans also eat a lot of potatoes, which appear in many forms: potato pancakes, potato dumplings, bratkartoffein - potatoes flavored with herbs and bacon, potato noodles, and of course, potato salad and mashed potatoes. I also researched recipes that contain something besides potatoes for my characters' meals. Zurich ragout - veal, white sauce, and mushrooms, and kaesespaetzle, small pasta layered with cheese and topped with fried onions - also sounded damn good.
Much of my first novel, Trojan Horse, takes place in Romania. Like Bram Stoker, who wrote about Dracula in Transylvania, without ever leaving England, I traveled to Romania from my office, using travel books and the Internet. (Pointing out the obvious, Bram Stoker, writing in the 19th century, used travelogs but not the Internet.) I not only had to describe the area where the action took place, but what the characters would be eating - although my poor hero was imprisoned and starved for most of the book. But bad guys also have to eat. I researched traditional Romanian meals: rasol moldovresca (boiled chicken with horseradish and sour cream) and muschi poianna (beef stuffed with mushrooms, bacon, pepper, and paprika, served with a vegetable puree). The team rescuing my hero chowed down on a type of cream donut called papanasi.
For the second book in my series, Nerve Attack, I didn't need to research the location where my hero stops a plot to kill Americans with a nerve poison because I set it in the beautiful state of Vermont - where I currently live. And I also know the local food. Ben & Jerry's, the famous Vermont ice cream with the factory in Waterbury, Vermont (only 45 minutes from my house, so in Vermont terms, practically in my neighborhood) gets applause (and a gangster's cooperation) for its innovative flavors. My personal favorite from Vermont - maple syrup - is only mentioned in passing, when a character describes eating pancakes with the real stuff. But maple syrup deserves so much more than the few words that it gets in my novel.
My love of maple syrup is not only because I love the flavor. I combine my love for the flavor with my love for Vermont. Maple syrup is an item of cultural pride here in Vermont. You can buy maple syrup at general stores, sugar shacks, clothes stores, or even sports stores.
Along with writing about local food in every novel, as a proud Vermonter, I try to sneak in at least one mention of Vermont.
Which is why I'm celebrating the release of my latest novel, Bloody Soil, with two giveaways of maple syrup - to honor the inclusion of local foods in my novels and to honor my home state. Everyone who signs up for my newsletter is entered into a lottery for a half-gallon in November, and the first two hundred people to answer two questions about Bloody Soil will be entered into a drawing for a gallon in January. If you're interested, check out my website, where I describe the contest in more detail. I also write more about the history and culture of maple syrup in my October blog.
And with my work-in-progress set in Paris, I'm eager to get back to work on the descriptions of food - although maybe this time, I'll manage some in-person research.
Bloody Soil
A Kolya Petrov Thriller, Book 3
In BLOODY SOIL, pub. date November 9, 2022, a mysterious American calling himself “Michael Hall" arrives in Berlin to join Germany Now, a far-right group and must prove himself by shooting a prominent Jewish anti-Nazi activist or face certain death. Afterwards, Germany Now welcomes him into its ranks, planning to use his weapons expertise to create a dictatorship dedicated to the Nazi ideals of blood and soil.
Michael, though, has attracted the deadly attention of an unexpected enemy. Lisette who infiltrated the group to avenge the assassination of her father years earlier, is eliminating the killers among them one by one and has targeted Michael as her next victim. But is Michael the murderer she believes him to be, and by killing him, could Lisette unknowingly destroy the chance to save German democracy?
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