Father's Day Murder (28 page)

Q
.
Who or what was the inspiration for Chris? And when you introduced her in
The Good Friday Murder,
did you envision a series? Or was
The Good Friday Murder
intended as a stand-alone novel?

A
. Chris is completely fictional, inspired by no single person. I wanted a female amateur sleuth, about thirty, a type of person who hadn’t been done. Nuns have been done. Nurses have been done. Teachers have been done. An ex-nun seemed to give me a lot of opportunities for character development. I knew from the start that I was doing a series. In fact, as soon as I finished
Good Friday
, I started
The Yom Kippur Murder
.

Q
.
We know that you are not a former Catholic nun, but that aside, how much of the Chris Bennett series is based on your own experience? What about background research—how vital is that for you?

A
. Only a little of my experience, like my education, the kinds of work I’ve done, and where I’ve lived, goes into my books. However, I’ve had to incorporate some of Chris’s experiences into my own life. For
The Father’s Day Murder
, besides picking the brains of my cousins who grew up in the Bronx, I drove over to where the Morris Avenue Boys came from and went through the streets taking notes. And for
The Labor Day Murder
, I spent a weekend on Fire Island. What sacrifices we writers endure!

I can’t do a book without research. I have an expert on Catholicism and nuns who helps me in that area, and a retired NYPD detective who gives me hours of his expertise. They’re the first two people I acknowledge in every book.

Q
.
When did you settle on the title “hook”—the notion of holiday-themed mysteries?

A
. Okay, here’s the truth. I was sitting at my typewriter in 1989, thinking about a murder that happened in 1950. I decided (quite by accident) that it happened on April 7. So I opened my trusty World Almanac and checked the calendar for 1950. April 7 was a Friday. It then occurred to me that Easter might have occurred around that time so I checked for movable feasts. Sure enough, Easter was on April 9 that year. And it hit me. The murder had taken place on Good Friday! The Good Friday Murder! Wow! And that, as I like to say, is how careful planning gave me a theme in my series.

Q
. The Good Friday Murder
was nominated for an Edgar Award as Best Paperback Original. Did that have any impact, immediate and/or long-term, on you?

A
. The immediate impact was incredible. When I hung up from getting the news from my editor, I started to wonder if she had really called or if I had imagined it. I couldn’t believe it had happened. I didn’t even know that Edgars were given for that category. The longer-term effect was mixed. My next advance was no more than my last one. But suddenly, bookstores all over the country were aware of my books, were putting
Good Friday
on tables of nominated books, and my sales were up. So long-term it was all good.

Q
.
Of all your novels—mystery and mainstream—which was the most fun to write? The most difficult?

A
. I can tell you this is the hardest question to answer. Maybe the answer to both parts is the same: My very first book back in the seventies. I wrote it in number 2 pencil on lined pads. I started in the middle, wrote an episode here, an episode there, then went to the beginning and started from scratch, incorporating—or tossing—the pieces I’d written before. But I loved the work; I loved seeing the characters and story grow. It took twenty-two months from day one to the end, months during which I wrote while my little child was napping, while my husband was teaching at night. And when it was sold ten days after my then-brand-new agent sent it off, it was pure bliss.

Q
.
We have four words for you: “Nuns, Mothers, and Others.” Please tell us about that phenomenon
.

A
. Am I glad you asked! Valerie Wolzien, a well-known Fawcett author, turned out to be a neighbor of mine when
Good Friday
was published. We got to know each other through a mutual acquaintance and started promoting our books together, doing signings and even overnight trips. Then, at the Malice Domestic convention in 1994, we met Lora Roberts, another great Fawcett mystery writer, from California. Lora had a mystery writer friend, Jonnie Jacobs,
whose short story is now part of a Ballantine collection, and they planned a trip that Valerie and I joined to visit bookstores throughout the Midwest in July 1995. While trying to decide what to call ourselves for that trip, something snappy and memorable, Jonnie, in a late-night silly mood, came up with “Nuns, Mothers, and Others”—after our sleuths. And that’s who we are now. We put out an irregular newsletter, we have special T-shirts we wear when we’re together, and we even have a Web site (
http://www.NMOMysteries.com
) with all our pictures on it and lots of other good stuff. Also, we have attended mystery conventions all over the country, visited bookstores from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to San Diego, California, and are planning more for the future. We even found we like each other more the more we see each other!

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