The Femmes Fatales welcome Katherine Hall Page!

posted by Dana

A Broken Heart Can Be Murder

I'm delighted to welcome the amazing Katherine Hall Page back to the Femmes Fatales blog!  A multiple-award-winning and much honored writer, Katherine has always been a champion of crime fiction, and especially the traditional mystery.  On a personal note, she's been an adviser and dear friend to me, which was why I was so thrilled to have the winning bid for a character naming in her latest book, The Body in the Birches.  Here, she describes the inspiration behind that book, set on Sanpere Island, Maine--perfect for summer reading.  Katherine, take it away!

Photographer: Jean Fogelberg

In the latest book, The Body in the Birches, I introduce a new character, Sophie Maxwell, and since this is Femmes Fatales, I thought I’d write about her —although she is virtually the opposite. She’s in her late twenties and on the fast track to making partner at a prestigious New York City law firm when Sophie—always such a sensible girl—falls head over heels in love with a charming Brit who is in town representing his company in a complicated merger that is being handled by Sophie’s firm. Ian reciprocates, bemoaning the ocean that will soon separate them and pledges his troth, presenting her with a ring—a family Victorian flower ring, one perfect pearl surrounded by turquoise and garnet “petals”. Sophie’s much married mother Babs is not impressed and suggests Sophie walk him by Tiffany’s windows if not for a replacement “at least, darling, for something to sparkle around your neck or your wrist.” Babs is even less impressed by, in fact opposed to, Sophie’s decision to quit her job—and worse, give up her rent controlled apartment—to follow Ian to London.

It’s Christmas and Sophie is ecstatically happy, settled into Ian’s tony Kensington flat. She meets his stiff upper lip parents and all is lovely in the garden. The wedding will be a June one. And then suddenly time flies and it’s spring. No date set. Returning to the flat clutching a bouquet of fragrant lilacs from the little man selling flowers by the tube, Sophie finds Ian in bed with a gorgeous redhead—and it’s natural. He smirks, “Sorry you had to find out this way, darling.” But he isn’t sorry at all. Gillian the downstairs neighbor takes her off to the pub and lets Sophie crash on her couch after the drowning of sorrows. As Sophie closes her eyes, she wails “But he gave me a ring! His great-grandmother’s!” “Oh luv,” Gillian says, “He has a drawer full of them.”

And so little Sophie returns to the US jobless and at her mother’s bidding takes off for Sanpere Island, Maine to represent Babs in a bizarre “audition”. The Birches, a treasured family cottage—as in Newport or Bar Harbor ones—is up for grabs. Priscilla Proctor McAllister had no children and unwilling to select among her nieces and nephews has asked her devoted husband to do so after her death. All who wish to inherit are invited for July. One and only one will be selected—too difficult trying to share (and I can tell you many stories about this sort of nightmare). That’s the set up and we’re off with a sufficiently nefarious cast of characters so when the bodies start appearing, there are a goodly number of plausible suspects. Enter Faith Fairchild, who is conveniently staying at The Pines next door, owned by octogenarian Ursula Rowe—familiar to readers of the other 21 books in the series. The Fairchild’s cottage, which really is a cottage, is having work done on it. I send Tom back to Massachusetts, giving his poor mom heart surgery, leaving Faith free to sleuth, although the Fairchild offspring, Ben and Amy, are teens now and we all know what that means. Sophie and Faith team up (spoiler alert-they will be together again in the next book, The Body in the Wardrobe).

Who knows what mystery lies beneath the sea?

 Over the years I have been asked by readers (and my publisher) why I didn’t add another series to the “Body” ones. Aside from the fact that the mere thought was so daunting I could barely reply, the real reason was that I didn’t want to write about anyone else. Occasional books have had her friend and neighbor, Pix Miller, play a somewhat central role, but Faith Fairchild was the person in my head and there simply wasn’t room until Sophie Maxwell came along. It has been fun, and freeing, to write about a younger—and very different—woman. No, there will not be a Sophie series in any form, but for now I quite enjoy having her along for the ride.

This book is about the ramifications of inheritances and has already struck a chord with readers. We all know too many stories. And I’ve been hearing about them, to my delight—everything from quarrels over grandmother’s cameo set to a five-acre island off Boothbay Harbor. My favorite is a news clipping from the Boston Globe sent to me by wonderful bookseller, library person Dottie MacKeen. Here in it’s entirety:

"WOMAN JAILED FOR DIGGING UP DAD’S GRAVE
"A New Hampshire woman who told police she dug up her father’s grave in search of his “real will” but found only vodka and cigarettes has been sentenced to 1 1/2 to 3 years in prison.  Melanie Nash did not speak during her sentencing Tuesday.  She told police last year she dug up the grave “with respect” and her father “would be OK with it.”  Police said Nash, 53, felt she was shorted in her share of the inheritance."

As my friend Harlan Coben says, “You cannot make this stuff up.

Thanks for letting me drop by, Femmes Fatales and this is the book in which that mistress of the short story and other literary forms, Dana Cameron, makes an appearance in a very different form!!

(Dana: VERY different indeed!)

Katherine Hall Page's books feature amateur sleuth/caterer, Faith Fairchild. The Body in the Belfry (1991) won an Agatha for Best First; "The Would-Be Widower" (2001) won Best SS; and The Body in the Snowdrift (2005) won Best Novel when Katherine was Malice XVIII’s Guest of Honor. Have Faith in Your Kitchen Cookbook was an Agatha nonfiction nominee. She will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at Malice XXVIII in 2016 and had been nominated for an Edgar, Macavity the Mary Higgins Clark, and Maine Literary Award. Katherine lives in Massachusetts and Maine. She is on Facebook and www.katherine-hall-page.org  The Body in the Birches is her 28th book overall.  

Comments

[Blanche Day Manos]

This sounds fascinating, Katherine.

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

So terrific, Katherine! I am in awe of your skills..and your very clever imagination! This sounds wonderful. (He has a drawerful of them"--hilarious.)
And inheritance battles? Oh, yes. My favorite real-life quote: "Oh, we didn't' think you;d be interested in the silver."

[Katherine Hall Page]

Thank you, my friends, for inviting me here today!

Katherine

[Dana]

Our pleasure, Katherine! Thanks for sharing your inspiration behind your latest. That newspaper clipping is the best!

[Elaine Viets]

Welcome, Katherine. "Birches" sounds like another intruiguing mystery for those of us who take our crime traditionally. Congratulations on Malice Domestic's Lifetime Achievement Awward in 2016, but I hope you'll keep producing a substantial "body" of work.

[Marcia Talley]

Oh, Katherine! As a person with first-hand experience at being cheated out of an inheritance, this rang so many bells! It was therapeutic for me to bump the @*%&^ off in a novel -- and I can't wait to read this one.

[Chris Aldrich]

Can't wait to read this one, Katherine!