One of the criticisms often leveled at historical mystery fiction writers is that we emphasize the history rather than the mystery in our books. Not so, in my less than humble opinion. Several historical mystery writers do very well with both, a conclusion that is probably shared by most of… Read More »The Proud Sinner or How I Tried to Channel Agatha Christie by Priscilla Royal
Primary Research When the Raven Mocker returns to Boynton, Oklahoma, in the fall of 1918, he brings with him the great worldwide influenza pandemic that claimed fifty million lives. World War I is still raging in Europe, but Alafair Tucker is fighting her own war as the epidemic sweeps through… Read More »Research and The Return of the Raven Mocker by Donis Casey
Southerners didn’t write the book on eccentricity, but we’ve certainly supplied literature with more than our share of audacious characters and plots. From the Lesters of Tobacco Road and Boo Radley, to Ignatius J. Reilly and the denizens of Yoknapatawpha County, Dixie has produced a bumper crop of picaresque folk.… Read More »The Wild Man, The Goat Woman & the Mississippi Miser by Michael Llewellyn
The Normans were conquerors. Even more, they conquered. It was what they did. It was only natural, then, that eventually one of them would set his sights on Ireland. That someone, in this case, was Richard de Clare, otherwise known as Strongbow. Now, Strongbow wasn’t entirely at fault for what came… Read More »The Normans in Ireland by Sarah Woodbury
One of the many things that drew me to set a historical mystery series in Leadville, Colorado, was the avalanche of crime that descended upon the hapless community during the big silver rush that started in the late 1870s. Footpads, claim- and lot-jumpers, garrotters, bunko steerers, confidence tricksters: to them,… Read More »Law and order (or not) in the Colorado “silver rush” by Ann Parker