by Lynne | Nov 3, 2015 | Uncategorized
Occasionally, it’s nice to toot your own horn. Here is a review I received for Pure Lies, from the Mystery People of the UK, a group that thrives on, well, mysteries. Thanks very much to Marsali 
Taylor, for the review. I particularly love the comparison with The Crucible.
“Maggie Thornhill, digital photographer, has taken on a project to digitise the archive of documents relating to the Salem witch trials. She notices discrepancies in the sig-natures … and then there’s a burglary, and those documents go missing. What could be so important in these old trials that it’s worth killing for today?
Like Kennedy’s other prize-winning novels, this has a present day protagonist caught up in a historical mystery. In this case, the focus of the narration moves between Maggie, making discoveries in the present, and sixteen-year-old Felicity Dale, who watches in disbelief as her town of Salem is caught up in witch-fever. Both are sympathetic characters. Maggie’s kindness to Doris, the dead historian’s widow, her cheerful relationship with her dog, Rosie, and her more delicate friendship with officer Frank Mead and attraction to her work colleague, Philip Ambrose, make her likeable, and her work is interestingly unusual. Felicity gains our sympathy straight away in her shuddering horror at the first Salem hangings, and we feel for her dilemma as she gradually learns more about her friends’ fraud. The historical sections were particularly well done, taking the reader straight into the period, and showing its strangeness without making its people too distant for us to grasp: lust, cruelty and greed don’t change.
The long final section was particularly gripping. References to the well-known play The Crucible helped give recognition of the historical characters, although Kennedy was more accurate than Miller, for example, keeping Abigail at her true age of twelve. The modern storyline was equally fast-moving, with Maggie becoming increasingly threatened by the people determined to make sure an old wrong stayed in the past, and the plot and motivation were convincing.
A gripping modern crime novel with its roots in history. If that sounds your kind of book, this is Kennedy’s fourth novel, and there are a few spoilers linked to Maggie’s past, so you might like to begin with her first, The Triangle Murders. Highly recommended.”
——
Reviewer: Marsali Taylor
by Lynne | Oct 27, 2015 | Uncategorized
A dear friend and colleague passed away this past week. To honor her memory, I wrote this short free-verse poem. I know very little of poetry, so please forgive the amateur effort. Most of my writing is from the mind. This piece is from the heart.
When darkness comes
It slips in on padded feet
Silently, stealthily, unknown
It comes to us all
Young, old, in-between
And no matter how prepared
We may be
We’re not
Never are
Still we must accept it
The best we can
And move forward
But it leaves a tiny hole
In our heart
A hole that never heals
But that same hole
Lets in light and life
And so we go on
With the memories
We hold precious
Until darkness comes
Once again
by Lynne | Oct 20, 2015 | Uncategorized
Writing historical mysteries is a juggling act. Writers must create a fictional plot with fictional characters around a historical time period with real people. . . and somehow suspend the readers’ disbelief.
Many writers of historical fiction choose a particular time period and stay with it. I’m thinking Anne Perry, Phillipa Gregory, Charles Todd. I, on the other hand, am intrigued by so many time periods, I skip around. Each of my mysteries takes place in a different place and time, which enables me to do the thing I love most: research. The risk, of course, is that I will know only a little about each time period as opposed to Anne Perry who knows a great deal about Victorian England.
Once I settle on a time period, I read and read and read about it. I visit the places in question, interview experts, historians, and read and read and read some more. By this time, I usually have a kernel of an idea for the plot and maybe even a character sketch or two.
Building fictional characters around authentic ones is key. Unless your character is transported from modern times to the past, he/she must act, speak, dress like the time period. In using real people from the time period, they must be as genuine to history as I can make them.
As the story develops and takes twists and turns on its own, I find I am bending the truth a bit–creating an “alternate history.” This is fiction, after all. The book I am working on now, Time Lapse, will be a totally new take on the Jack the Ripper murders. Some will think it’s an outlandish scenario, completely out of the realm of possibility, but since there have been hundreds of theories and books written on this serial killer, why not one more? The backdrop and many characters are authentic, but the storyline meanders considerably from what we know to be historically accurate. Still, Jack has never been caught. What if my resolution is. . . never mind.
In fact, the questions I ask take the form of “what if” and I let my imagination run free. It’s a rare writer that can devise a plotline that hasn’t already been done. But even a clichéd plot can be made new and fresh with unusual twists, powerful characters and exceptional prose.
As I put the final touches on this fifth novel, I realize I am bending history to fit the story. That’s the advantage of fiction. And its strength.
by Lynne | Oct 13, 2015 | Uncategorized
I had a question recently from a reader who asked how I came to write Deadly Provenance. Here’s my story.
Since I write historical mysteries but solve them with modern technology, I first needed a time period for a backdrop. I was always fascinated by the Holocaust and the horrors of WWII. As a museum professional, I happened upon a book called The Lost Museum by Hector Feliciano. It’s the story about the systematic plundering of Jewish-owned artwork by the Nazis. I was hooked. I read many books to follow, one of which you may be familiar with: The Rape of Europa by Lynn Nicholas. (Since then there have been popular books and movies on the subject: The Monuments Men, The Woman in Gold.)
I pondered a storyline. What about a particular piece of art that was stolen from its Jewish owners, but to this day, has never been seen again? Add to that a 1940s photograph of the said painting that comes to light 70 years later. Can the painting be authenticated by analyzing a photograph?
How did I begin research on this book? I needed a missing painting, the mystery for the historic story, and state-of-the-art digital photography techniques to resolve the crime years later. I started with the backdrop: France during the German occupation and discovered this incredible true story.
The Bernheim-Jeunes, a French Jewish family, were collectors. They owned a painting by Vincent van Gogh, one of my favorite artists, called Still Life: Vase With Oleanders. When the family learned they were about to be raided by the Nazis, they hid their collection with friends at the Chateau de Rastignac, outside of Bordeaux. However, in 1944, the Chateau was invaded, plundered, and razed to the ground. No one knows whether the Van Gogh survived. Was it stolen by a Nazi soldier? A local citizen? Did it burn with the Chateau?
Add to the back story several real-life characters like Rose Valland, an art curator who secretly catalogued all the Nazi loot, villains like Hermann Goering and Alfred Rosenberg, plus a master art
Confiscated degenerate art stored at Jeu de Paume. Photo: Archives des Musees Nationaux
forger: Han van Meegeren, and my back story was developing.
Research into the modern story was helped along by my museum associates. My modern protagonist, a digital photographer, had to figure out a way to authenticate the painting from an old photograph. Could it be done? Yes, no, maybe. Research is currently being done at Dartmouth and it looks like the answer is within reach. Since this is fiction, I can take a few liberties.
Thoughts welcome.
by Lynne | Sep 29, 2015 | Uncategorized
Years ago I saw a terrific IMAX film called To the Limit. In it was a scene I never forgot. A champion downhill skier was sitting on top of a mountain, skis and poles by her side. Her eyes were closed and she was moving her arms and upper body as if she were skiing downhill. She was picturing the course with its turns and moguls as she traveled down the mountain in her mind. She was teaching her brain to prepare for those bumps and curves by visualizing the course over and over. Something similar to muscle memory ie: when you play an instrument and your fingers seem to move on their own, almost apart from your brain.
This visualization technique is crucial in writing. Close your eyes. Picture the scene you’re about to compose. Perhaps it’s a cop getting ready to interview a suspect. From Val McDermid’s The Torment of Others, visualize Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan:
“Carol stared through the two-way mirror at the man in the interview room. Ronald Edmund Alexander looked nothing like the popular image of a pedophile. He wasn’t shifty or sweaty. He wasn’t dirty or sleazy. He looked exactly like a middle manager who lived in the suburbs with a wife and two children. There was no dirty raincoat, just an off-the-peg suit, an unassuming charcoal grey. Pale blue shirt, burgundy tie with a thin grey stripe. Neat haircut, no vain attempt to hide the way he was thinning on top.”
Picture the room and a man seated there through the glass. Visualize the suspect, very possibly a child molester, and feel Carol’s frustration at his very ordinariness, the exact antithesis of what she expects a monster to look like. Could she be wrong? Are we being misled by his description?
Follow Harry Bosch in Michael Connelly’s Reversal, when he makes a trip to Fryman Canyon Park, an unexpected natural enclave above the madness of LA.
“Fryman was a rugged, inclined park with steep trails and flat-surface parking and observation area on top and just off Mulholland. Bosch had been there before on cases and was familiar with its expanse. He pulled to a stop with his car pointing north and the view of the San Fernando Valley spread before him. The air was pretty clear and the vista stretched all the way across the valley to the San Gabriel Mountains. The brutal week of storms that had ended January had cleared the skies out and the smog was only now climbing back into the valley’s bowl.”
Harry has been here before and is familiar with the area, its quirky smog patterns and unpredictable weather. Now, so are you.
Visualization is more than “description.” It’s about engaging the senses (see an earlier blog I wrote about this) to get a visceral feel for the scene. Picture a brown leather couch sitting atop a Persian rug in front of a teak coffee table. Now give the couch history–every crack in the leather represents a different house it has lived in or a different person who curled up on its soft hide. It was loved, it was beaten, it was ruined. Even a couch can have personality. What does it say about its owners?
Visualize a woman. She’s not just a blond in a blue dress, wearing high heels and red lipstick. She’s a woman, teetering outside a motel room, black roots showing through the teased mass, blue dress torn at her hem, lipstick smeared like a clown. Picture her. There . . . there she is. You can see her clearly. You know her.
Write your scenes as if they were movies. Let us see what’s happening through your words. You’re the director.
Direct.
by Lynne | Sep 22, 2015 | Uncategorized
Whether you’re a self-published or traditionally-published author, you are no doubt engaging in marketing your books. One effective way to accomplish this is by blogging regularly on social media sites. However, recently, a number of writer “groups” within those sites have put a kibosh on posting a blog with links that take the reader back to your website, ergo, your books. In other words, no self-promotion.
I can understand this . . . to some extent. But what if you’re trying to make a point about the craft of writing? Can you not use your own writing to emphasize the point? After all, whose writing do you know best?
What about the research you’ve done? Why did you choose a particular location, or a particular time period in history? Can you not reference your own writing to enhance the reader’s understanding? If I discuss how I researched the forensics of fire in 1911 for one of my books, wouldn’t it be helpful to use a bit of background from it to clarify?
There are many self-promo groups on Facebook and Google + and you can post links directly to your books without feeling guilty. But what about sharing your own experiences or knowledge about writing? How you created your characters, developed your plot, built in tension and conflict. Why you choose to write in the past or the future. Who your target audience might be. How do you write a blog like this and never mention examples from your books?
A second concern regarding posting blogs: When a site administrator asks you not to post a link to your blog, the alternative is to cut and paste the blog directly onto the site. Frankly, I think this looks tacky and much less professional than sending someone to the blog page on your website.
Let’s give the readers some credit. If they choose to read your blog, they can click on the link and read it. No one is forcing them to browse the website any further. Certainly no one is forcing them to purchase a book.
I would love to hear what you think. Please share your thoughts.
Taylor, for the review. I particularly love the comparison with The Crucible.
