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Jeannette de Beauvoir is a novelist specializing in mystery and historical fiction, and a published poet, who lives and works at the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Learn more about her and her books at her website.
Food and the Mystery Protagonist
I love to eat. I love great food, unusual food, comfort food. I’ve rarely met a mushroom or a cheese I didn’t immediately take to, and cooking is almost always a delight. (And when it’s not, it’s an adventure!)
So when I read a novel that refers to food, my ears perk up.
As mystery readers, we’ve all had moments of disappointment with certain stories. For some, it’s when a clue doesn’t pan out. For others, when a character isn’t fully defined. For me, disappointment comes when characters have lunch, or go out to dinner, or even fix a snack… and the author doesn’t tell us what they had to eat. Wait, come back! I want to know every juicy culinary detail!
As a mystery writer who loves food, I never leave any of those out, to the point where my editor once reminded me that the story wasn’t just about fine dining. (Though to be fair, that’s a story I’d love to write.) Since I situate my books in real places, I almost always use real establishments and their menus for my characters’ meals—which has, of course, an obvious advantage for the writer, who must naturally sample said meals for verisimilitude’s sake!
There’s a wonderful story, possibly apocryphal, about the romantic thriller writer Phyllis Whitney. It was said that she would decide where she next wanted to go on vacation… and then set her upcoming novel there. I personally think that’s a terrific idea; and I certainly employ it in terms of food. What Provincetown restaurant would I like to try next? Time to send my protagonist Sydney there to check it out!
And I do share every detail… from pan bagnat at the Race Point Inn to pastries at the Portuguese bakery; from sips of her favorite Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine to her boyfriend Ali’s usual fruit juices. (He’s Muslim and doesn’t drink alcohol.) Sydney exults in finding the best food around and sharing it with friends and visitors—and readers—alike, and I get to remember the taste of all the meals I describe. It’s a win for both of us.
One of Provincetown’s great restaurants, a true institution in town since 1979, and a Sydney favorite is The Lobster Pot. The restaurant published a cookbook back in the 1990s (which I still use today), and on one of the pages I found this: “What makes The Lobster Pot work? Perhaps it can be summed up in the two words that pretty much describe the whole Provincetown experience for so many people every summer: magic and love.”
Mystery novels by their very nature take us to dark places, where the context of our stories include envy, greed, and hatred. It’s the nature of the genre, and it performs an important function, that of giving us a space where justice really does exist, where the world can actually be a fair place. But we still need balance to that darkness, and I think those words sum up the extras that mystery novelists add to the darkness. Magic and love.
And for me, both of those have always involved… food!
Sydney Riley Series, Book 10
Sydney Riley and her longtime boyfriend Ali have finally tied the knot—but an uninvited corpse crashes the reception. Undaunted, she and her brand-new husband leave for their honeymoon in the dunes of Cape Cod’s National Seashore. But even in this deserted location, Sydney uncovers clues that might have a bearing on the wedding fiasco—and put Ali’s life in danger. Can she find the murderer(s) before Ali is harmed, or will a week in the dunes be her only memory of their married life?
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And what about you? Do you look for stories that include eating?
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