#COOKING WITH CLORIS--MYSTERY AUTHOR DONALEE MOULTON DELVES INTO THE FOODS OF 1734 NEW FRANCE

Author donalee Moulton writes both contemporary (Hung out to Die) and historical mystery (Conflagration.)She is also the author of “Swan Song,” one of twenty-one short stories appearing in the 2023 Award of Excellence-nominated Cold Canadian Crime. Her nonfiction credits include The Thong Principle: Saying What You Mean and Meaning What You Say and the co-author of Celebrity Court Cases. Learn more about donalee and her books at her website. 

It’s 1734. What’s for Dinner? 

 

Conflagration! is my second mystery novel – and my first historical mystery. The prospect of writing an historical mystery was both exhilarating and intimidating. 

 

While authors always have some wiggle room when it comes to reality, the reality of the modern world is one we are familiar with. We’re living it. I had no idea what life in 1734 Montréal was like. Fortunately, the online resources available via Google and books from the local library helped to transport me back in time.

 

Marie-Joseph Angélique is at the heart of Conflagration! An enslaved Black woman, Angélique is accused of burning down the lower town and forty-six buildings in the process. Court clerk Philippe Archambeau is assigned the daunting task of following the judicial process as it unfolds from incarceration to trial to appeal.

 

As I delved into life in 1734 and the arson case on the docket, I was thinking about court transcripts and depositions and judgments. I wasn’t thinking about food. That lack of focus didn’t last long. I remember writing one scene where Philippe gets up early in the morning and makes himself a cup of coffee. I remember thinking, “Did they drink coffee in 1734?”

 

That question led me to explore the food people ate in eighteenth century New France. What was standard fare? A celebratory meal? Where did the food come from? How was it prepared?

 

Some of these questions (including the coffee one) are answered in Conflagration! as Philippe and his wife Madeleine go about their daily lives. Tea is a common beverage, and at one point, the couple brew a Bohea blend infused with orange peel. Bohea, pronounced bow-hee, is a black tea from China (some say of a low grade) that was so popular at one time the word became synonymous with “tea.” 

 

Philippe also has lunch with a local jailer, Henri Geôlier. More accurately, he shares his lunch with Geôlier. That lunch is cold: ham or boiled eggs; fruit, often dried; and bread. According to the Canadian Museum of History, bread represented from 60 to 85% of the total daily food intake in New France.

 

One thing that was not a staple in Montréal as the seventeen hundreds unfolded: posset. This is primarily a British drink, yet it found its way into Conflagration! Philippe is originally from Acadia, where the British-French relationship was less acrimonious, at least until the British began expelling the Acadians in 1755. Posset, for Philippe, is a reminder of how different his Acadie is from Montréal.

 

The once-popular drink resembled egg nog. Interestingly, the name made its way back into the English lexicon in the 1800s, although by then posset had been transformed into a rich, cold lemony dessert that you can easily find recipes for today.

 

I’ve come across numerous recipes for the original drink. They invariably have a common foundation but differ in the nuances. Here’s my version.

 

Posset à la 1734

 

Ingredients:

235 ml (1 cup) light cream
1 cinnamon stick or a sprinkle of ground cinnamon
A sprinkle of nutmeg 

3 egg yolks
235 ml (1 cup) sherry or brandy 

30 g (2 tablespoons) sugar

Bring the cream slowly to a simmer. Add the spices. Stir regularly. Gently beat the egg yolks and add slowly to the mixture. Continue stirring to avoid curdling. Pour in the alcohol and add the sugar. Simmer the mixture but avoid bringing it to a boil. 

 

Pour into cups, sit back, inhale the delicious aroma, and savour the moment.

 

Conflagration!

On a warm spring day in April 1734, a fire raged through the merchants’ quarter in Montréal. When the flames finally died, 46 buildings – including the Hôtel-Dieu convent and hospital – had been destroyed. Within hours, rumors ran rampant that Marie-Joseph Angélique, an enslaved Black woman fighting for her freedom, had started the fire with her white lover. Less than a day later, Angélique sat in prison, her lover nowhere to be found. Though she denied the charges, witnesses claimed Angélique was the arsonist even though no one saw her set the fire.

 

In an era when lawyers are banned from practicing in New France, Angélique is on her own. Philippe Archambeau, a court clerk assigned specifically to document her case, believes Angelique might just be telling the truth. Or not. A reticent servant, a boisterous jailer, and three fire-scorched shingles prove indispensable in his quest to uncover what really happened. 

 

Angélique’s time is running out as Archambeau searches for answers. Will the determined court clerk discover what really happened the night Montreal burned to the ground before it’s too late?

 

Buy Links

paperback

ebook

AUTHOR DONALEE MOULTON ON SETTING A MYSTERY IN HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Donalee Moulton is a writer and freelance journalist. Her mystery short stories have appeared in Cold Canadian Crime and Black Cat Weekly. Hung out to Die is her first full-length mystery. She’s also the author of The Thong Principle: Saying What You Mean and Meaning What You Say and the co-authored of Celebrity Court Cases. Learn more about Donalee and her books at her website. 

In the right place

Locating your characters where they belong

 

Céad míle fáilte. This Gaelic expression means “a hundred thousand welcomes.” If you live in Nova Scotia, as I do, this is an expression you will have seen for much of your life. (Pronouncing it is a different issue altogether.) A hundred thousand welcomes in any language speaks to the type of people you are likely to encounter when you come here and the values they place on such encounters.

 

Riel Brava – attractive, razor-sharp, ambitious, and something much more –

is the lead character in my new mystery, Hung Out to Die. He lives in Elmsdale, Nova Scotia, about a 40-minute drive from Halifax, the province’s capital. In East Coast parlance, Riel is a come from away. 

 

Fact is, I could have placed Riel in the middle of anywhere. The murder is not location specific. The victim does not fall from the Brooklyn Bridge or mysteriously appear atop Old Faithful, places that are singular. Nova Scotia made sense for me as a writer, and it made sense for Riel as a character. I live here; I know this province better than any other place. I can write about it with ease, and with a personal perspective.

 

For Riel, who lives uncomfortably in a world where people hug each other because they care and share the pain of others because their brain is wired that way, being in a place where he does not have roots, where he is an outsider, mirrors what goes on within Riel. It’s the right place for him.

 

Because I am from Nova Scotia, I can also authentically and naturally insert elements of life here. Take the language, for instance. You may discover some new words such as bejesus and tinchlet. There will be expressions common to the area. “Bless your heart” is one you’ll hear a lot in Nova Scotia, and Riel hears it as well. 

 

There is also food that has Nova Scotia marinated into it, as Riel discovers when he has a donair for the first time Donairs are a Halifax specialty and considered by some to be Nova Scotia’s official food. Aficionados spend a great deal of time discussing the nuances of the dish, thin slices of spiced beef on a warm pita, sprinkled with diced onion and tomato, and swimming in a sweet, garlicky sauce. 

 

One of the things I have learned as a writer is that I am in control, and I am not in control. I can decide to situate a character in a particular place, and the character will let me know if that is the right place as the writing unfolds. In the case of Riel, he ends up in the dark of winter at a deserted row of cottages called, what else, Céad míle fáilte.

 

I did not see that coming. I have a feeling Riel did.

 

Hung Out to Die

 

Meet Riel Brava. Attractive. Razor-sharp. Ambitious. And something much more. 

 

Riel, raised in Santa Barbara, California, has been transplanted to Nova Scotia where he is CEO of the Canadian Cannabis Corporation. It’s business as usual until Riel finds his world hanging by a thread. Actually, several threads. It doesn’t take the police long to determine all is not as it appears – and that includes Riel himself.

 

Pulled into a world not of his making, Riel resists the hunt to catch a killer. Resistance is futile. Detective Lin Raynes draws the reluctant CEO into the investigation, and the seeds of an unexpected and unusual friendship are sown. Raynes and Riel concoct a scheme to draw a confession out of the killer, but that plan is never put into place. Instead, Riel finds himself on the butt end of a rifle in the ribs and a long drive to the middle of Nowhere, Nova Scotia.

 

Why would someone want Norm dead, innocuous Norman Bedwell? A motive for murder is buried somewhere, and self-professed psychopath and cannabis production manager, Riel Brava, works with Detective Lin Raynes, aided by endless exotic coffee blends, to find it. As the noose tightens on an increasingly smaller number of suspects, who knew finding a murderer would be so simple? 

 

In the end, of course, it isn’t.

 

Buy Links

paperback

ebook

THE INSPIRATION BEHIND AUTHOR KAREN L. ABRAHAMSON'S NEWEST MYSTERY

The remains of the Bella Coola cannery

Karen L. Abrahamson writes fantasy, romance, and mystery novels and award-nominated short stories. When not writing, she can be found with a camera and backpack in fabulous locations around the world. Learn more about Karen and her books and her website.

The Inspiration Behind the Story

I tend to set my stories in unusual locations that inspire me. The Phoebe Clay Mysteries take place on the stormy waters of Johnstone Strait on the east coast of Vancouver Island, in the sweltering Arabian Sea heat of Kochi, India, and the also sweltering heat of Angkor, Cambodia. I’ve been fortunate to visit all of them. The latest book, Trapped on Cedar Trails, (releasing September 30, 2022), returns Phoebe Clay to British Columbia, Canada, this time to the rainy Great Bear Rainforest of the B.C. Central Coast.

 

The novel centers on Bella Vista, a fictional town that is a poor relation to the real-life Bella Coola. Like Bella Coola, Bella Vista has its own derelict fish cannery. These places are left over from the days when the Pacific Northwest ran thick with salmon and the fishing boats couldn’t possibly get their catch back to Vancouver for canning before the fish spoiled. As a result, in remote locations along the central coast you’ll find these huge old L-shaped buildings built over the water where the boats could pull in and transfer their haul. Inside these remote canneries, men and women, often First Nations or Chinese, would can the fish that would then be transported to the cities.

 

At the time, people could live in dormitories, or claim a bit of land and build a cabin. Typical of the day, the communities were segregated into sub-communities of First Nations, Chinese and European. The canneries had stores that catered to the fishermen and the cannery staff. All this changed early in the 20^th century with the advent of the huge cannery ships. As a result, the canneries and this iconic west coast life faded away. 

 

Today, the old fishing fleets are gone and few of the canneries remain. Fires and west coast rains have largely destroyed the huge old buildings. I stayed at the Tallheo Cannery Guesthouse across the water from Bella Coola. Here, half of the old structure remains standing stately on its pilings along the shore. The other half collapsed long ago and now the owner of the cannery works long hours trying to preserve this bit of west coast history. We stayed in the old (supposedly haunted) dormitory house that was once reserved for the European employees. The old store and the communications buildings still stand as well, though the First Nations and Chinese communities have been consumed by time and the dense vegetation of the rainforest. 

 

Standing on the pebbled shore in the shadow of the west coast mountains, with the wind off the ocean tugging at your hair and the sun disappearing behind the peaks, I could imagine the trials of living in those very isolated communities. As the shadows lengthened, I could conjure the ghosts who probably inhabit the area. Of course, while ghosts might seem dangerous, more realistically the danger to visitors is the chance encounter with one of the rainforest’s huge grizzly bears.

From these thoughts and this beautiful place came the inspiration for the story which grew into Trapped on Cedar Trails.

 

Trapped on Cedar Trails

Phoebe Clay Mystery, Book 4

 

The discovery of a woman’s body trapped in driftwood off a small, west coast town turns a five-day photography class into a nightmare for Phoebe Clay, her sister Becca, and Phoebe’s niece Alice. Did the woman fall off a boat or has something worse happened? Either way, Becca wants to return home immediately, but Alice, a student in the class, won’t hear of it. Phoebe just wants to stay out of the mother-daughter drama.

 

The specter of murder hangs over the family as they join the other students at an isolated fish cannery guesthouse on the coast of British Columbia. Then on their first night, Alice spots ghostly figures outside and on the first morning, Phoebe finds a dead grizzly bear on the cannery’s shore. She doesn’t want to get involved, but there’s something wrong at the Bella Vista Cannery Guesthouse, and someone is not who they say they are.

 

Against her better judgment, she begins quiet enquiries while trying to keep her sister and Alice safely uninvolved. But not knowing who to trust means answers come at a price. When Alice decides to pursue her own risky investigation, events take a sharp turn, revealing an insidious plot that threatens the lives of everyone Phoebe holds dear. 

 

On the run on the cannery’s treacherous, rain-soaked, night-shrouded cedar trails, Phoebe and her family will face the greatest danger they’ve ever met—brutal foes determined to ensure the family doesn’t survive to reveal the cannery’s secrets.

 

Buy Link 

EXPLORING OTTAWA WITH CRIME FICTION AUTHOR BRENDA CHAPMAN

Multi-award nominee Brenda Chapman is a Canadian crime fiction author with more than twenty published novels. In addition to short stories and standalones, she has written the lauded Stonechild and Rouleau police procedural series, the Anna Sweet mystery novellas, and the Jennifer Bannon mysteries for middle grade. Blind Date is the first in a new thriller/mystery series set in Ottawa, Ontario. Learn more about Brenda and her books at her website.

Exploring Ottawa — the Spectacular Setting in Blind Date

Blind Date: A Hunter and Tate Mystery is set in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, a city flanked by the Ottawa River to the north and bisected by the Rideau River and the Rideau Canal. These three distinct waterways run through neighbourhoods, sustain forests and wild life, and bring green space to our back doors. Bike paths, parks, gardens and beaches are lovingly maintained throughout the metropolis, offering outdoor experiences year-round. This is a city of distinct neighbourhoods: Chinatown, Little Italy, Westboro, Hintonburg to name but a few, each with its own culture and vibe in this town of a million people. Sprinkled throughout the communities are old limestone and brick buildings that have been converted into restaurants and shops with modern high rises and condominiums increasingly dotting the horizon. 

 

This is my fictional, true crime podcaster Ella Tate’s world.

 

Ella lives in a trendy, well-to-do neighbourhood called the Glebe in the same apartment I lived in before I got married. In my day, the three-storey, red brick house was owned by a rough but kind-hearted Polish man who, like the landlord in Blind Date, rented out the second and third floors for low rates to the chagrin of his neighbours. The third floor is a cramped space in the eaves, the place where I lived for the first year before moving to the larger apartment a floor below. 

 

Ella gets around the city on a bicycle as I did back then, often cutting across the Glebe to the bike path that parallels the canal and leads into the downtown — the heart of the city with the majestic Parliament Buildings, the vibrant Byward Market, and stunning views of the Ottawa River and the Quebec shoreline. Taking the bike path in the opposite direction leads past Dow’s Lake where boats can be rented in the summer and people gather in the winter to skate the length of the this longest frozen waterway in the world. Going up the hill, takes one into the Experimental Farm, an actual working farm in the middle of the city, but one with gardens and trees and bushes from all over the world. The spring is a time of particular beauty with magnolia, lilac, and apple trees in full bloom.

 

This is a bilingual (French and English) government city, but growing increasingly multicultural. The cuisine and shops offer fare from first- and second- generation immigrants from around the world, making for varied and rich cultural and dining experiences. Farmers’ markets and festivals of every variety, including the world-famous tulip festival, occupy the warmer months. The city is growing, but many who live here still comment on the small-town feel. People get to know their neighbours and community spirit runs strongly through neighbourhoods. Countryside, towns and villages are within easy driving distance. Only minutes away across the border into Quebec, the Gatineau Hills are a mecca for viewing autumn colours and winter skiing. Ottawa is a bucket-list city, providing an ever-changing, fascinating, and diverse setting for the Hunter and Tate mysteries that I hope readers will experience vicariously and grow to love through these books.

 

Blind Date

A Hunter and Tate Mystery, Book 1

 

True crime podcaster Ella Tate is shaken to her core by the horrific assault and murder of Josie Wheatly, a teacher she has never met … because not only had Josie moved into Ella’s vacated apartment three months earlier, but her Facebook photos reveal a striking resemblance between the two women.

 

Within days, two people close to Ella are harmed, and she fears that she’s become the target of twisted revenge from her crime-reporting days. Reluctantly teaming up with her neighbour Tony, a hairdresser who loves the finer things in life, and Liam Hunter, the persistent detective assigned to the cases, Ella struggles to stay one step ahead before she becomes the target of the final kill.

 

Buy Links

paperback 

ebook 

#COOKING WITH CLORIS--MYSTERY AUTHOR J.E. BARNARD HOLDS A CHRISTMAS COOKIE BOOK LAUNCH

After decades of writing for anthologies and magazines, award-winning author J.E. (Jayne) Barnard saw her first novel published at age fifty-five and has now published six novels. Her writing year is split between Calgary with her cat and Vancouver Island with a resident owl. Both creatures ignore her office hours. Learn more about Jayne and her books at her website.  

The Sweetest Launch Party for my Saddest Novel

Getting a book published is a huge deal in every new author’s life, and a launch party provides a focus for that excitement. Friends show up, you read an excerpt and answer some questions, sign books and accept congratulations. 

 

I launched four books in a row like that at my great indie bookstore, Owls Nest Books in Calgary, Canada. We had decorations, snacks, and music to match some element of each book. We sold enough books each time to get onto the local bestseller list. But I was looking to change it up. To surprise the guests while still keeping to the new book’s theme.

 

Where the Ice Falls takes place from early December through to Orthodox Christmas Eve on January 6^th. In it, Lacey and Dee and their two Irish setters, are spending a last Christmas with Dee’s dying mother. Together they decorate Christmas cookies amid their grieving and their murder investigation. Those cookies spread out to friends and soften up suspects.

 

So, for the launch, I made (gluten-free) Christmas cookies. I didn’t decorate them all, though. Instead, guests gathered around festive holiday tables in the bookstore with tubs of sprinkles and tubes of icing. Everyone decorated cookies while I read that scene to them, then we all talked about favourite Christmases and best friendships.

 

It was my sweetest launch not only for those sugar cookies, but for the fun shared around those tables filled with icing and sprinkles.

 

Gluten-free Sugar Cookies for decorating

 

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 large egg

1 tablespoon water or milk

1 teaspoon vanilla or peppermint extract

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon or ginger

2 cups gluten-free all purpose flour (reserving 2 Tbsp for rolling out with)

1/2 tsp xanthan gum (if your flour blend doesn’t have it)

 

Cream together butter and sugar, add egg, water/milk, and your chosen extract and blend well.

 

Mix together dry ingredients and add gradually to wet, blending thoroughly. Dough should be slightly sticky.

 

Wrap dough with wax paper and chill in fridge at least 1 hour. Keeps well in fridge for a week.

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

 

Let dough sit on counter 15 minutes ahead. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and assemble your cookie cutters. 

 

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/4-inch thick and cut out 18-24 cookies. As this dough is a bit more fragile than gluten dough, lift cookies carefully to the lined pans so they don’t break apart.

 

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Let cool on pan for at least 5 minutes (10 is better) before moving to a cooling rack.

 

When completely cool, decorate as you choose. Store in an airtight container for up to a week (although they may become a bit crumbly in a humid climate.)

 

Where the Ice Falls 

The Falls Mysteries, Book 2

Found by a psychic who wasn’t looking for him, the dead intern disrupts a ski chalet’s sale and everybody’s Christmas plans. Can ex-Mountie Lacey cope with a murder investigation and the reluctant psychic on top of her best friend’s absence, her roommate’s visiting mother, and her car getting stolen?

Buy Links

paperback 

ebook 

audiobook 

MYSTERY AUTHOR DIANNE ASCROFT ON HOW A DRY CANADIAN TOWN INSPIRED A COZY MYSTERY SERIES

Annette Public Library in Toronto where amateur sleuth Lois Stone works

Dianne Ascroft, author of the Century Cottage Cozy Mystery series and the World War II series The Yankee Years, is a Canadian who has settled in rural Northern Ireland, with her husband and an assortment of strong-willed animals. She is fascinated by the history of the places where she has lived, and when she’s not writing, she enjoys walks in the countryside and evenings in front of a roaring fire. Learn more about Dianne and her books at her website. 

Didn’t Prohibition End Almost a Century Ago?

I’m Dianne Ascroft and I write the Century Cottage Cozy Mysteries. In the books middle-aged widow Lois Stone has moved from the big city of Toronto to Fenwater, a small Canadian town, and is trying to adjust to life on her own. Out of Options is the prequel novella to the series. 

In A Timeless Celebration, the first book in the series, I referred to events in Lois’s life in the city that prompted her to move to a small town. After I released the novel, I decided I needed to write the prequel so readers could see what exactly happened in Toronto to upend Lois’s life, causing her to move to the town where the rest of the series is set. 

In Out of Options it’s 1983 and in West Toronto Junction, a unique district in Toronto where the story is set, the law that prohibits the sale of alcohol has been fiercely upheld most of the twentieth century. In fact, this law wouldn’t be revoked until the beginning of the twenty-first century. I grew up and spent my early adult years in another Toronto neighbourhood not far from this district and I’ve always been fascinated by the profound effect prohibition had on West Toronto Junction. 

Since the unusual history of West Toronto Junction intrigues me, I wanted to set the story there so I could explore the tensions that might arise in a community divided over whether to continue to uphold their ‘dry’ status or not. Although you might think that prohibition would just be a non-issue toward the end of the twentieth century, it was anything but in West Toronto Junction, and that made for an interesting platform to build a story on.

In many places throughout North America laws banning alcohol were strictly enforced during the 1920s and the decade was known as the prohibition era. In the province of Ontario, where Out of Options is set, the provincial prohibition law was revoked in 1927. So why was West Toronto Junction still dry in 1983? That’s because Canadian law allows each municipality in the country the right to ban the sale of alcohol if the majority of the residents of the area vote to do so. West Toronto Junction voted to go dry in 1904 and it still was in 1983.  

So what’s life like in a dry area in 1983? Well, there is no gazing into your loved one’s eyes over the rim of a glass of wine during an intimate restaurant dinner, men aren’t standing in front of the television screen in their neighbourhood bar cheering on their favourite sports team, and you don’t stop at the shop on your way home from work to pick up a few beers for your backyard barbecue. Meanwhile a few bus or subway stops away, in the next neighbourhood, there’s no ban on the sale of alcohol. West Toronto Junction is a tiny time warp in the midst of a modern metropolis.

The ban on the sale of alcohol doesn’t concern Lois Stone though. She’s busy at her job in the local library each day and goes home each night to her bungalow and her two calico cats. But there’s lots of other people in the neighbourhood who have very strong views on the subject. Restaurant owners want to be able to sell alcohol on their premises to increase business. And other business owners believe that trade will improve for everyone if the ban is lifted. On the opposing side, the temperance movement, which continually fights to uphold the ban, fears that without prohibition the community might sink back into the type of society that existed before the ban on alcohol was enacted in 1904: streets rife with violent crime, poverty, domestic abuse, general drunkenness and disorder. 

While Lois is aware of the struggle between the two opposing camps in the area and their fierce antagonism toward each other, the issue doesn’t really impact on her until one weekend everything changes and she has to face the issue head on. What happens next will change her life forever.

Before joining Lois in Fenwater for the rest of the series, I hope readers will enjoy discovering Lois’s life in Toronto in the pages of Out of Options as much as I enjoyed writing about it.  

Out of Option

A Century Cottage Cozy Mystery Prequel 

Middle-aged widow Lois is settling into life on her own in her neighbourhood and in the library where she works, and she is just about coping with her fear of strangers after her husband was mugged and died in the park at the end of their street. But her quiet existence is rocked when her friend and fellow local historical society researcher, Beth, arranges to meet her to reveal an exciting and shocking discovery she has made about the history of prohibition in West Toronto Junction, the last dry area in Toronto, and then goes missing before she can share her secret with Lois. There isn’t any proof that Beth is missing so the police won’t actively search for her. Only Lois and Beth’s niece Amy are convinced that Beth’s disappearance is very out of character, and they are worried about her. Where has Beth gone? Is she in danger? And, if she is, who might want to harm her and why? Lois knows she must find the answers to these questions fast if she wants to help and protect her friend. 

Out of Option

A Century Cottage Cozy Mystery Prequel

Middle-aged widow Lois is settling into life on her own in her neighbourhood and in the library where she works, and she is just about coping with her fear of strangers after her husband was mugged and died in the park at the end of their street. But her quiet existence is rocked when her friend and fellow local historical society researcher, Beth, arranges to meet her to reveal an exciting and shocking discovery she has made about the history of prohibition in West Toronto Junction, the last dry area in Toronto, and then goes missing before she can share her secret with Lois. There isn’t any proof that Beth is missing so the police won’t actively search for her. Only Lois and Beth’s niece Amy are convinced that Beth’s disappearance is very out of character, and they are worried about her. Where has Beth gone? Is she in danger? And, if she is, who might want to harm her and why? Lois knows she must find the answers to these questions fast if she wants to help and protect her friend. 

Buy Links

paperback

ebook 

A DYING CANADIAN TOWN BECOMES THE BACKDROP FOR KEN OGILVIE'S DETECTIVE MYSTERY

Ken Ogilvie worked in a variety of roles in the environmental field, including holding positions with three governments in Canada and serving as the Executive Director of Pollution Probe, one of Canada’s longest standing environmental groups. He’s active as an environmental policy consultant and has served on the Boards of Directors of several non-profit organizations. Learn more about Ken and his books at his website.

Rebecca Bradley is a 24-year-old constable with the Ontario Provincial Police. Her goal is to become a homicide detective and learn how to catch killers. Psychologically damaged by the unsolved murder of her mother when she was eight years old, Rebecca is driven by her mission to catch the perp. She’s obsessed with justice and retribution, and haunted by dreams of revenge.

In Her Dark Path Rebecca gets her first chance as an acting detective – to investigate the cold case of Abigail McBride, who vanished for 16 days and then was found dead in her own home. The brutal crime shocked the small Canadian town of Conroy.

Conroy is a neglected and dying Canadian town with a population of less than four hundred. It’s isolated from the main tourist destinations of Georgian Bay to the west, Lake Simcoe to the east, and the sparkling lakes of the Canadian Shield to the north. Only the McBride murder has put it on the map. The last decent jobs disappeared twenty-five years ago when Conroy’s sawmill closed. Young people flee town as fast as they can.

Although formally part of Lake Huron, one of the five Great Lakes, Georgian Bay is a massive body of water in its own right (about 80% of the surface area of Lake Ontario). The eastern side of the Bay is known as the 30,000 lakes and forms the largest fresh water archipelago on the planet. Revered for its stunningly gorgeous rocky and wind-swept landscapes, the eastern shore has been described as “a pink necklace of islands scattered on a turquoise sea.” In 2004, the area was designated as a world biosphere reserve by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Her Dark Path

The Rebecca Bradley Detective Novel, Book 1

16 years ago, Rebecca Bradley’s mother was murdered. Rebecca was only eight years old. The killer has never been caught. Growing up, Rebecca vowed that one day she would track him down and make him pay.

Now Rebecca is a young policewoman in Ontario. She wants to become a homicide detective. Her first investigation is the cold case of a woman who vanished for 16 days and then was found dead in her own home. The brutal crime shocks the remote Canadian town of Conroy.

The puzzling case has uncanny similarities to the murder of Rebecca’s mother. Both victims were found strangled in their own kitchens.

Can Rebecca keep her emotions together as she closes in on a killer with connections to her family and tragic past? And will she finally get justice for her mother?

Buy Links

paperback

ebook 

AUTHOR MERRILEE ROBSON TAPS INTO FAMILY HISTORY FOR MYSTERY NOVEL INSPIRATION

Merrilee Robson is the author of Murder is Uncooperative, a traditional mystery set it a housing co-op, as well as numerous short stories. Today she joins us to discuss where she gets her ideas. Learn more about Merrilee and her writing at her website. 

Where I get my ideas and what if….

It was the picture that first struck me.  I’d heard some of my grandmother’s stories. I’d always thought her life, coming from England to teach in a one-room school in Canada and meeting the local Mountie, was very romantic. I smiled when she described how dashing my grandfather looked as he rode up in his red coat.

I was familiar enough with the pictures in the family photo album and the stories behind them. But it wasn’t until I really looked at the photograph of the school – standing alone the middle of nowhere – that I finally understood what my grandmother had done.

That young woman had left the village where she had lived all her life to travel thousands of miles by steamship and rail to reach that very unprepossessing building in the middle of the Canadian prairies. What must she have thought when she first saw it?

That led to the opening chapter of the historical novel I’ve just finished writing, set in Saskatchewan in the month before the start of the first World War.

And then, because I write mysteries, she finds a body.

For me, as for many writers, I think ideas come from finding an interesting situation and then trying to picture what it would be like for the people in that situation.

Writing fiction involves answering the same questions journalism students are taught – who, what, why, when, where and how – although we might describe them differently, talking about characters, setting, plot etc.

But we also address another question - What if…?

That question can come from anywhere – a newspaper article about a brass clock that turned out to be gold, a conversation about a relative with dementia who was convinced people were stealing from her. Caregivers soon learn that dementia can also involve paranoia. But I tried to imagine what if the thefts were real and no one believed you? That idea turned into a short story that will be published soon.

My first mystery, Murder is Uncooperative, is set in a non-profit housing co-op. The protagonist, Rebecca, is a single mom desperate to find an affordable home for her family. It’s a situation I was quite familiar with, having lived in a co-op when I was younger, and working for a national housing organization for over a decade.

But the question that started me off on that book was, “What if her new home isn’t as perfect as she thought it would be?”

I’m at work on a sequel to that book. Vancouver’s insanely expensive housing market has settled a little, but recent reports have revealed that organized crime members are using real estate to launder money. And I’m off, wondering what if….

Murder is Uncooperative

All Rebecca Butler wants is a good home for her young son and disabled father. At first, Waterview Housing Co-op seems perfect. But then she finds the body of the building’s manager.

When Rebecca learns that another murder took place in the building 20 years earlier, she suspects that the two deaths might be related. And that one of her new neighbors is hiding a secret that will put Rebecca and her family in danger.

Buy Links

paperback

ebook 

#TRAVEL TO FERGUS, ONTARIO WITH GUEST AUTHOR DIANNE ASCROFT

St. Andrew Street East, Fergus, Ontario, Canada

Dianne Ascroft, author of the Century Cottage Cozy Mystery series and the World War II series The Yankee Years, is a Canadian who has settled in rural Northern Ireland, with her husband and an assortment of strong-willed animals. She is fascinated by the history of the places where she has lived, and when she’s not writing, she enjoys walks in the countryside and evenings in front of a roaring fire. Learn more about Dianne and her books at her website. 

A Street That Beckons To You

Sometimes you find a place that captivates you and it just lingers in your mind. For me that spot is Fergus, Ontario, Canada, a small town one hundred kilometres northwest of Toronto. In fact, it has made such an impression on me that it inspired Fenwater, the town in my Century Cottage Cozy Mysteries series.

Carnegie Library

One of the best things about Fergus is St Andrew Street East, the main street. The downtown section is only three blocks long but it has a diverse collection of shops and restaurants where you feel welcome as soon as you walk through the door. The last time I visited the town, I wandered along the street and stopped to admire the historic architecture of the squat, granite Carnegie Library, then walked a few doors farther to pop into an eclectic bookshop where I leisurely browsed without interruption. When I reached the end of the street, I rummaged in an old-fashioned market housed in a rustic, barnlike building. I also stopped at several craft and artisan shops. In one of them, I watched a craftswoman thread a beaded necklace together and another artisan paint stained glass decorations, and in another shop I sampled homemade chocolates.

Some of the other things you’ll find on the street are hot tubs, carpets and flooring, jewellery, health food products and fresh produce. There’s a wealth of unique items on sale that you won’t get in a chain store.

When you’ve had enough of browsing in the shops, you can indulge your taste buds at a tearoom, a public house, a tandoori restaurant or eat Italian cuisine in a 150 year old stone inn. There’s also a family-style diner where you can order something as simple as a grilled cheese sandwich.

Entertainment is provided by the Grand Theatre, which stages a variety of shows and concerts throughout the year. You won’t find wild nightlife on St Andrew Street East, but there are lots of reasons to be there day or night.

Fergus Grand River

And as you wander along the street, the soothing sound of the Grand River’s flowing water winding its parallel path behind the street accompanies you.

Many of the buildings were built from granite quarried locally more than a century ago, giving the architecture a distinctive, charming character. Life on the street moves at a slower pace than on busy city streets and it’s not surprising to meet someone you know and stop for a chat. It’s just the sort of place where my protagonist, Lois Stone, feels at home. She left the big city for a slower pace of life and that’s what she’s found in Fenwater, the fictional version of Fergus.

On the flipside of the coin and the town are the huge supermarkets and chain stores in shopping malls, surrounded by acres of parking spaces, which have sprung up outside the downtown area. While they provide necessary products and services, they are impersonal and boringly predictable. The same brand name shops can be found in any mall on the North American continent. I think these cloned shopping complexes leach away the individual character of a town.

Given a choice between the two, I would rather meander along Fergus’s main street, not race my shopping trolley down unending aisles piled high with no-name brand goods. Since neighbours and community, and getting away from the rat race, are important to my protagonist I won’t be sending Lois to a mall to shop. That’s the world she was desperate to leave behind when she moved to Fenwater. So she’ll stick to the peaceful, welcoming main street of her town where there will always be friends to meet, something unique to discover and an intriguing mystery or two.

A Timeless Celebration

A Century Cottage Cozy Mystery

Book 1

A small town, a big party, a stolen gift.

When an artefact from the Titanic is stolen before her town's 150th anniversary celebration, it's up to Lois Stone to catch the thief.


Middle-aged widow Lois has moved from bustling Toronto to tranquil Fenwater and is settling into her new life away from the dangers of the city. Then two events happen that shatter her serenity: her house is burgled and an antique watch belonging to a Titanic survivor is stolen from the local museum. Her best friend, Marge, was responsible for the watch's safekeeping until its official presentation to the museum at the town's 150th anniversary party, and its disappearance will jeopardize her job and the museum's future. Lois won't let her friend take the blame and the consequences for the theft. She's determined to find the watch in time to save her best friend's job, the museum's future, and the town's 150th anniversary celebration.
And so begins a week of new friends, apple and cinnamon muffins, calico cats, midnight intruders, shadowy caprine companions and more than one person with a reason to steal the watch, set against the backdrop of century houses on leafy residential streets, the swirling melodies of bagpipes, a shimmering heat haze and the burble of cool water.

Buy Links

paperback

ebook