A Word From Elizabeth Logan
Location, Location, Location
My fifth
and newest series is set in Alaska. The first order of business was: where in
Alaska? It’s a big state, the largest by area of the fifty states, at more than
650,000 square miles.
Do I choose
a known city like Anchorage or Fairbanks, or make one up?
Not a tough
decision. I’d learned my lesson with my first series, which I set in my
hometown of Revere, Massachusetts.
Since
then, I’ve created towns in northern California, near Mountain View; in northwestern
Massachusetts, near North Adams; in southern Massachusetts, on the way to Cape
Cod; and now on the George Parks Highway, part of which runs through Denali
National Park in Alaska. For a standalone mystery, I also created a fake
university in the Bronx, but I knew they could handle it.
Why the
switch to fictitious towns?
Because
here’s what happened when I used a real city.
My first eight
novels and four short stories are set in the real Revere, with one small
addition: I had to put a nuclear research laboratory on a street that in
reality houses the city dump. I needed the lab to house all the scientists,
tech support, and administrators who'd kill or be killed over the course of the
series.
I was lucky enough to be able to visit Revere often
for research. I took a pile of photos, talked to many citizens. I also had old
and new friends who did heroic duty on a daily basis as I called from 3000 miles
away to ask how many trees lined the 200 block of Malden Street, or how many
shops there were between the city hall and the fire station.
Maybe you're
one of the many mystery readers who really care about that kind of accuracy!
In spite
of all the support I had, I was worried that since I hadn't lived in Revere for
decades, I'd gotten something wrong, if not the vegetation, then the citizenry
or the spirit of the town. I waited with trepidation for a review of the first
in the series,"The Hydrogen Murder," in the local paper, the Revere Journal.
What a
relief. I got it right, the reporter said. Except for one key mistake. Uh-oh.
What was my
error? An incorrect one way street? A new post office building? I read through
the Journal paragraph again.
"The
author put a Starbucks on School Street," the reporter wrote. "There
is no Starbucks in Revere."
My bad.
However, there
was no word in the article about the nuclear lab I'd placed within the city
limits.
Apparently,
nuclear waste and the chance of a radiation leak were more acceptable than
Starbucks in some quarters.
I checked
recently, and Revere now has three Starbucks.
Too bad I
didn’t wait a few years.
But I still
will never set another novel in a real town.
Also
attached: Photo of Revere Public Library, where they strung police tape in
honor of my first reading there.
I’ve
always wanted to visit Alaska, well, by way of an Alaskan cruise, so I was
happy to see another cozy in this state. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to
read, MOUSSE AND MURDER. The other reason is because of the author. Elizabeth
Logan is the pen name for author Camille Minichino. I have loved every cozy mystery she has
written. I now add this book to that list.
Right
off, on the first page, I clicked with protagonist, Chef Charlie Cooke. We
share a quirkiness. Lying to her mother makes her feel she’ll do jail time (although
for me it was h**l). She talks to her cat, and imagines his answers. I hold
full conversations like this with my dog. I like her more and more as the book progressed.
As
for the story itself, MOUSSE AND MURDER is a smart, well plotted mystery that
has everything I look for when starting not only a new book, but a new series.
The speed in which author Logan let the mystery play out was simply perfect.
She didn’t rush it, nor did she drag it out. It truly was dead on.
If the second installment is anything like
MOUSSE AND MURDER, we can all look forward to reading this series for a long
time to come.
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