Today we welcome back historical amateur sleuth author Kay Kendall who lives in Texas with her Canadian husband, three house rabbits, and a spaniel. Learn more about Kay and her books at her website.
By writing historical mysteries about female amateur sleuths, I’ve combined my passions for history and for women’s empowerment. I set my first two mysteries in the late 1960s with Austin Starr as a young woman trying to exonerate relatives and friends accused as murderers, all set against the backdrop of the anti-war movement and women’s liberation. The books are Desolation Row and Rainy Day Women, and both derive their names from Bob Dylan songs that evoke the era.
Then I decided to go further back into American history—back to the Roaring Twenties and the excitement of the Jazz Age and Prohibition, when gangsters ran amuck and women had just won the right to vote. I would trace my protagonist Austin Starr’s lineage back to her Texas grandmother, Wallie MacGregor. Now, clearly I couldn’t use another Dylan tune for inspiration. Luckily my research uncovered the perfect song and title, “After You’ve Gone.” Written in 1918, it was hot during the 1920s and stayed popular throughout many decades. Even in the last thirty years singers covered it, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Fiona Apple. In truth, the song is fantastic and still holds up.
Read my newest mystery, After You’ve Gone, and you’ll see many characters struggle through their lives after someone has gone—people near and dear to them. Survivors are left bereft and must learn to carry on alone. The biggest loss of all kicks off the mystery, of course.
The story opens in 1923 and unfolds as a town’s secrets are uncovered by a sheltered, yet enterprising, young woman. Puzzling disappearances, deaths, and lethal grudges—twenty-three-year-old Wallie finds it all.
Walter MacGregor (aka Wallie) lives in Gunmetal, Texas, during Prohibition. Her calm existence shatters when her father's rum-running brother returns after a long absence. Rory is fleeing from enraged bootleggers. His tales of adventure and his natural charisma fascinate Wallie. Yet, these same traits appall her father, a respected judge.
Wallie’s mother died when she was young, and her father (after whom she was named) raised her, helped by her strict maternal aunt and the family housekeeper, Athalia. Allowed to hunt, fish, and ride "like a boy," Wallie still feels her life lacks adventure.
Poppa's tales of courthouse shenanigans and her own avid reading of Sherlock Holmes tales only whet her appetite. After getting to know her Uncle Rory, Wallie tells her ever-present beagle puppy Holler that she's eager to learn about her uncle's daring life. She’s never known brothers so dissimilar.
When a freak accident rocks the town, Wallie sees a crime scene showing foul play, but the local sheriff says she’s being a silly female. Annoyed, she sets out to prove her theory. Snooping into her family's past, she finds clues pointing to the sinful port city of Galveston on the Gulf Coast. When dour Aunt Ida insists she accompany her to visit relatives in Houston, Wallie convinces her aunt to turn her Model T toward Galveston. They soon tangle with dangerous and immoral people—gangsters who rule the town, thugs sent down from Chicago to muscle in on shady businesses, and two flamboyant flappers. "These women are floozies," sniffs Aunt Ida, but they’re also useful, divulging secrets from Gunmetal that are decades old.
Wallie's curiosity pushes her into sinister situations in Galveston, while even worse danger awaits back home again in Gunmetal—more death, her warring suitors, a missing puppy, plus an advancing "blue norther," extreme autumn weather famous in Texas. Wallie wonders if she’s really not meant to be Sherleen Holmes, Texas style. Then again, she knows she must persist.
Words from the chorus of “After You’ve Gone” fit the storyline of my new mystery. Because the lyrics are no longer under copyright, they can open my book. You may also listen to Fiona Apple sing “After You’ve Gone” here.
After you’ve gone and left me crying
After you’ve gone there’s no denying,
You’ll feel blue, you’ll feel sad,
You’ll miss the bestest pal you’ve ever had.
There’ll come a time, now don’t forget it,
There’ll come a time, when you’ll regret it.
Oh! Babe, think what you’re doing.
You know my love for you will drive me to ruin,
After you’ve gone,
After you’ve gone away, away.
Music by Turner Layton and lyrics by Henry Creamer (1918)
After You’ve Gone
An Austin Starr Mystery Prequel
It’s hard to imagine anything could go wrong in a quiet Texas town in the 1920s. However, when a fatal accident looks more like murder to Wallie MacGregor, she begins to investigate. Aided by her dog and her prim aunt, she soon discovers long-buried secrets in her search for the truth.
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