September 22, 2023 • 47 mins
Award-winning mystery writer Iona Whishaw drops by the podcast to discuss the latest book in her Lane Winslow mystery series. To Track a Traitor spans both world wars and is a tale of sibling rivalry, infidelity and espionage. Iona's backstory is just as compelling as her writing. Her books are inspired by the British Columbia town of her childhood and her mother's experience as a World War II spy. She talks about her journey to becoming a novelist and how the question "Why Not Me?" gave her the conviction to pursue her dreams in her 60s.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
I was reading a book, not not one of my own. And I
(00:03):
thought, you know, I write atleast as well as this, and
they're published. Yeah. Andthis question popped into my
mind, why not me? Oh, and thatquestion changed everything for
meOh, welcome back to the Red Fern
(00:36):
book review. I'm your host, AmyMair. And today I am very
excited and pleased to be joinedby mystery writer best selling
mystery writer, Iona wishaw fromher home in Vancouver, and we
had a great interview. And whatmakes her really unique is that
(01:00):
she has a family history ofespionage, her mom was a spy
during World War Two. And beforethat her grandfather was a spy.
And the other thing that's alsoreally interesting is that she
had a full career as a principaland a teacher, before she first
(01:20):
picked up her pen in her 60s. Sothat's really cool. And I hope
you enjoy this interview as muchas I do. And we're going to be
talking about her brand new bookto track a trader, and it's part
of the Lane Winslow mysteryseries and there's 10 in the
series, and that's what we'regonna talk about today. So we're
(01:45):
gonna move over and talk withIona right now. Hello, Iona. So
glad to have you on the podcasttoday.
Delighted to be here.
Okay, I'm just gonna dive rightinto the questions because I
have I have a lot of them. Andthe first question I have, you
(02:05):
know, you write, you've been onthe bestseller list, basically,
since you started writing yourmysteries almost a decade ago.
And you write best selling fastpaced historical mysteries of
the cozy variety. But yourpersonal background is just as
interesting, I think and reallyadds a richness to the series
(02:25):
and your heroine Elaine Winslowis a former World War Two spy
who also has something in commonwith your mom. So tell us a
little bit about your mom, andhow she inspired. Elaine.
I'd be delighted to my motherwas one in a million really for
(02:47):
lots and lots of reasons. Andshe and Elaine have some very
significant things in common andsome very significant things not
uncommon. Obviously, they bothcome from that generation.
Although my mother was born in1912. Elaine was born in sort of
1920. So I've set her a littlebit younger than my mum was at
the time. And they, my motherwas born in Riga into a British
(03:15):
community, and was Britishthrough and through she was
presented at court when she was17, because she came from a
fairly sort of upper classfamily. And, you know, she had
she had the father, the fatherthat Elaine has who's very kind
of cold and doesn't like hisdaughter very much and is a spy.
(03:39):
And I modeled him very much onwhat my grant my mother used to
tell me about her father. Andthe only thing is my mother did
do some espionage. I found outreally just before she died, she
was 87 When she died, that she'ddone some espionage in South
Africa where she lived with myfather. So she, you know, she
(04:01):
really made light of it, shebrushed it off, you know, it was
it just, we would just get intonice frocks and go to German
officers parties to try to getinformation like it was just the
easiest thing in the world. Butwhat was behind that was that my
mother was a perfect speaker ofGerman. Oh, and she spoke
(04:22):
perfectly Russian, French,German, and obviously English
and Latvia and because in Latviawas a very internationalist
community. You know, shebelonged to the the hub, the
center of the British community,where there was a huge community
of Germans there. They had many,many German friends. The place
was full of Russians. They alllearned to speak Russian. The
(04:43):
governor says she had throughthe house were German and French
and Russian. So that's the kindof background she had and
basically, you know, it was sointeresting that I didn't feel I
could. I couldn't do any betterthan to give Elaine this time.
Background right, especiallysince I knew something about it
from my mother's stories.
(05:05):
Now, you said she made light ofwhat she did. Do you think she
was doing that to uphold theSecrets Act? Or do you think
that she literally just thought,I speak these languages? I put
on pretty dresses? And I'm noyeah,
that's such a good question. AndI don't really know the answer.
I think that she would more doit because she probably the
(05:30):
Secrets Act was part of it. Butalso, that's how she was
blindingly courageous. You know,she went on these just crazy
adventures, I would never thinkshe hitchhiked to Alaska when I
was three on her own with truckdrivers while my dad was away,
just because she wanted to go toAlaska. And she couldn't think
of a better way to get there. Imean, just crazy stuff like
(05:52):
that, right. And she drove thePan American highway with me and
a dog before she before it waseven finished. So you know, that
kind of stuff. And I think shereally did make light of it. I
think she she was no doubt shewas recruited to do it. And I
think she sort of felt it washer bid for the war. I don't
(06:15):
think she had this idea that itwas some romantic thing about
espionage. I think she thoughtwell, I speak German. Yeah, I
can do this kind of thing.
Right. And beyond that, afterSouth Africa entered the war, I
did read up a lot about whatkind of espionage was going on.
My mum was a my, my little mybig brother, who's 10 years
(06:35):
older than me, was farmed out toan Afrikaner family, if you can
even imagine that. And mainlybecause they were very much
against the British in SouthAfrica, and my dad was away
flying a Lancaster bomber. SoI'm pretty sure she continued
that work right through untilthe end, when they moved to
(06:55):
Canada.
That's amazing. And you said youmade Elaine slightly different?
How is she different than yourmom?
I think she's much more. She'smuch more practical, and she's
much more grounded than my mom.
I think Elaine would have made agood mother. Right. My mother
(07:18):
was a fantastic person, but notalways very easy.
So not midterm, probably notmaternal.
I don't think she had very muchin the way of maternal illness.
You know, she was brought up bygovernesses in a rather
ferocious act. Because hermother died when she was only
(07:39):
four. And her father was quite ahard man. And I think she just
didn't have a lot of examples ofmaternal illness. But on the
other hand, you know, I, shebrought me up not to be too
girly. And, you know, to lovetravel and to, and to really,
really, really enjoy people,like my mother enjoyed people of
(08:03):
every class, and I'm sure it'sbecause she grew up in an
international community and inspite of her kind of upper class
origins, you know, she was justendlessly fascinated by people.
And she was very much loved bytons of people. And I think
Elaine has that. But she has amore grounded kind of
personality.
(08:25):
And your grandfather was also aspy as this shirt. Dad's mother.
Oh,my mother's father. Okay. Yeah.
That's a businessman and quitejolly. And you're responsible.
Yeah, she, he, he I learnedquite recently, a bit about him.
I didn't learn anything abouthim as a spy, except that my
(08:45):
mother told me he was a spy. Andeverything else she told me
about him was how really hard hewas on her in particular, not on
her sister. And, you know, ifyou read this book, you'll see a
lot of that story coming out.
You know, Elaine and her sisterand how the father favors
(09:07):
certain things like that. But Idid learn recently that as early
as just after the BolshevikRevolution, my grandfather was
making spying sorties into St.
Petersburg, he was nearly caughta couple of times, one of his
colleagues was caught and hemanaged to get him out all
through the rest of the time.
(09:28):
And during the Second World War,he spied in a in a sort of thing
between Sweden and Finland. Andin and out of Russia, like that
was the thing. He worked for theBritish. He worked for MI six,
and I learned recently that hehad three brothers and two of
them also worked for MI six. Soit was a tradition and they had
(09:49):
a very you know, they were verydevoted to military matters. As
the family I think on his sideOh, Another thing about this
book you have kind of a specialsetting for the book. And if you
read people who are familiarwith Louise Penny, she has Three
Pines where there's this like,small town where everything
(10:10):
happens. And you have a smalltown and BC that's the setting
for your book. But I understandit's partially based on where
you grew up. So tell us abouthow you came up with this
setting, and how it's conducivefor mystery.
Ah, you know, I lived off and onin that little community. And it
(10:34):
was by the lake, but not rightby the lake along the lake
shore, there were summercottages, and none of us had
anything to do with that. But upthe hill from there was a lot of
very, very fertile land. Andthat's where all the English
people who came to grow fruithad settled. And, you know, when
I came there, it was the early50s, I was a little tiny child.
(10:58):
It was really the place that Iwould say, my heart live, you
know, I mean, we moved to Mexicowhen I was eight or five, excuse
me. And so I really includedthat too, in places that I
really loved. But you know, thefirst place was this place by
Kootenay Lake, and it wasn'teven a town you couldn't even
(11:20):
have called it a hamlet. Youknow, it had a post office
because most rural communitiesdid. But if you wanted to buy
anything, you had to drive threemiles down to another little
slightly larger Hamlet calledBelfer. And if you wanted to
really buy something you had todrive, you know, in those days,
almost an hour into Nelson,because the roads weren't paved
(11:41):
then. And you know, when thatcommunity first grew up, there
weren't roads, everything wasdone by paddle wheeler up and
down the lake. So if you wantedto go to this community, it
hadn't had a wharf. And thepaddle wheeler would pull up to
the wharf and would collect allthe apples and everybody had
grown and take them out. And itwas shipped out all over the,
you know, the country and off toEngland, and so on, it was quite
(12:03):
a big concern. And, you know,when I lived there, as a child,
almost everyone that you readabout in the books has been
taken in whole, or in part,parts from the people that that
lived there, the very, very oldpeople, I mean, they were all
ancient in the 1950s when I wasa small child. So you know, that
(12:26):
part of it has been really fun,you know, you can recreate a
place that you lived. And youcan spend time with those people
that you really loved when youwere a child. And the
Armstrong's who ran the postoffice, were there almost fully
as I remember them in the book,everybody else's sort of I've
sort of toyed with them, butwith them, I've kept them
exactly as I remember them.
(12:48):
And why. Explain why a smalltown is a good setting for
mystery, do you think?
Well, I think because it's,it's, it's kind of a closed
system, right? Everybody knowseverybody else. Obviously, if I
were through 10 books to killoff only people who lived in
(13:09):
that community, there would notbe not only no one left, but a
negative deficit. All right. Butyou know, even up and down the
lake, the nice thing about thatcommunity in Lane's world, is
that, you know, she becomesquite involved in her husband's
work, especially in thebeginning, much to his
(13:31):
annoyance, because she turnedout to be quite useful. And so
everybody in the community getsinvolved, you know, they all
want to know, they've all gotideas, you know, they may know
somebody who knows somebody whoknew that person, you know, that
kind of thing. And so, it's agreat way to, like weave those
(13:52):
people into it. Right. And, youknow, there's, there's isolated
when I was growing up,certainly, there were three or
four very isolated cabins thathad long since been abandoned.
You know, I would find a boxfull of newspapers from the
early 1900s, you know, all moldyand all of that kind of thing in
(14:15):
an old cabin up in the woods.
So, you know, there's lots ofscope for hiding people for
killing them and moving themsomeplace, you know, all that
kind of thing.
Okay, so this is not youroriginal career. This is maybe
your third act, and I thinkthat's really inspiring. And so
(14:36):
you worked as a social worker, ateacher, award winning
principal, but you didn't startwriting until your 60s. Is this
correct, is thatit's sort of correct. I actually
always wanted to write Yeah, andyou know, when I was still
teaching, or maybe even beforethat, I started to write I had a
(14:58):
book that I had just loved theidea of that would have been
aimed at sort of the gradeeights. You know, I had, the
year I sent it out to someone tolook at was the same year, the
first Harry Potter waspublished. And, you know, I
realized I wouldn't stand achance with it. So I just
(15:19):
shelved it. And I ended upgetting into the creative
writing master's program at UBCwith that book. So ended up
being very useful anyway. So Iwas in my four, I think it was
40 or 44. When I was in themaster's program at UBC, and
graduated from there, Ipublished poetry short fiction,
(15:41):
I did poetry and translation,because I'm bilingual in
Spanish. And you know, this,this series of books, I never
believed I could write a wholeentire book, like, yeah, maybe
for eighth graders, but not forlike, grownups. Right. And I
sort of realized when I was 64,that I was going to be retiring
(16:04):
in a couple of years. And if Ididn't start writing, I wouldn't
have a writing habit to go into.
I would retire and say, Oh, I'mgoing to write and it might
never start. So I get up at 530.
Before I go to school, and I hada job of just writing 400 words,
I had no idea at the beginning,was that 400 words is going to
(16:25):
be poetry, was it going to be ashort story was it going to be a
memoir, like I had no idea. Butevery day, I'd go to my 400
words, and I'd read yesterday's400 words, or 800 words, or 1200
words. And it's sort of putitself together. For me, I had
this image of my mother, thevery first sentence, she bought
this amazing house that sheloved until she died. And was
(16:46):
always the one that got away,not a man for her house. And so,
that was kind of where Istarted, and I just went from
there. So, you know, when I whenI first wrote the first book,
you know, I had a degree fromUBC, a master's degree. So I
(17:07):
went through their program,which I took in my 40s. And I,
when I first started, when Ifirst finished the first book, I
thought, no one's going to wantto publish an old person like
me, like that was my thought,right? So I thought, well, I'll
just, I'll pay for it. I'll selfpublish it, right. So I went
(17:28):
through an outfit in, inVictoria cost, really a lot of
money. And I couldn't see doingit a second time. That was for
sure. And I drove around like anAmway salesperson, you know,
with books in the back of mycar, and my friends would would
buy them and say, whoa, whoa,this is really good.
(17:50):
And your first book was selfpublished? Is that what your
self published? Yeah, I have totrack. The first one, you have
their killer in Kings COVID,some called something totally
else, and is much cleaned upfrom that first book. But
there's a wonderful bookstore uphere in Kerrisdale. Called
Hagar, you may know it, I'm, Ilive near there. Okay. So they
were huge supporters of it. Andthey would call me every week
(18:14):
and say, you've got to bring me10 More books, you got to bring
me 10 More books, but I wasmaking like 50 cents a book,
right? But she said to me, it'sthe most popular book, you know,
self published book in ourstore, it flies off the shelf.
So that's when I began to thinkmaybe it's not bad. And my son
actually phoned me and said, Oh,my God, this is really good. You
(18:34):
know, everybody seems sosurprised.
But you know, those, it thatbookstore that you're talking
about, they love their world wartwo stuff. And I bet part of it
they, sometimes when I go,that's the nice thing about a
good independent bookseller islike, I'll ask for a suggestion.
And sometimes I'm like, Okay,that's good. That's good. Like,
they keep going. They're so intotheir books. So yeah.
(18:57):
booksellers helped sell books,they're fantastic. They're
absolutely out of this world.
Anyway, you know, so then Ithought, well, I can't do this,
I'm going to I'm going to startwriting a sequel, just cause you
know, it fairly screens for one,so I'm going to just start doing
it. But I don't know how I'mgoing to be published. And you
know, what happened? Something Iwas reading a book, not not one
of my own. And I thought, youknow, I write at least as well
(19:20):
as this, and they're published.
Yeah. And this question poppedinto my mind, why not me? Oh,
and that question changedeverything for me. You know, I
feel like even though I didn'tdo anything different. Yeah. I
knew I'd written a good book orgood enough. Yeah. You know,
(19:42):
eventually, somebody actuallyfound me, a publisher said you
shouldn't be doing this drivingaround. Let's get you a real
publisher. And the realpublisher was very excited about
the book. So you know, it wasthat I don't think I would have
persisted unless I had thatthing. Well, why not me all the
sudden He will get published.
What's what's different aboutme? Why should I? Well, it made
all the difference, you know.
(20:06):
And now I don't even thinkreally about my age, in terms of
that at all, you know?
Well, I think it's a sellingpoint I do. But I can see why
you wouldn't think that becauseI probably wouldn't have either,
but it is.
I'll tell you one reason it's aselling point is because I grew
up listening to the language,the way it's spoken in my books.
(20:28):
Oh, yeah, parents are members ofthat generation. Yeah, they're
dead now, of course. But theywere, that's what I heard around
me. And my friend who is a betareader is even a little bit
older than me. And she's alwaysthe first one at my book, she's
a college, university champ ofmine. And she can pick up
(20:50):
sayings that are modern, in aflash, and we take them out, and
we look for something that wouldhave been said in the 1940s. For
the same thing, like you can'tsay in the 1940s, I couldn't
wrap my head around it, youknow, or I need you to do
research. These are all very,very modern ways of using the
language. So you take them out.
And I think it's much easier forme to do than it would be for
(21:13):
someone significantly youngerthan me, just because I heard it
growing up. So that's a bigadvantage, I think.
Okay, so tell everybody aboutthe latest book. So to track a
trader is the latest and telleverybody the kind of the
premise of this one and how itokay, the
premise of to track a trader, acopy of what you see here is
(21:37):
that, and this often happens,where you've got the police and
Nelson and you've got everythingelse going on, somewhere else,
wherever Elaine is. So she getsa call from her grandparents
that her sister had come homefrom South Africa, and where she
was a spy. So I assigned mymother's role to lane Sister, if
(21:57):
you see what I'm saying, Yeah,and again, hasn't seen her
sister since she was like anannoying 16 year old who came to
visit her in Oxford. And she'scome back to England and she's
gone missing and Elaine is hashurried over to see if she can
help to find out what's goingon. And why because your
grandparents are verydistraught. her grandfather's
had a bit of a heart attack. Andso she's worried about him. And
(22:20):
at the same time, in Nelson,darling, there's a man who's
been killed and found in a cabinand darlings been called to the
home of the very wealthy man.
Because his disgraced sister inlaw has been found in a bombed
out building in a village inKent. And
(22:43):
darling, is Mrs. Inspectordarling inspector, darling,
sorry, yes, I'm just referred tomiss darling, her husband,
Inspector darling. And you canread from Book One through book
10 To find out how thathappened. Yeah, it's a nice
little romance. And so he has togo to England to so now the two
of them are over there too, intwo different things. And
(23:05):
there's the case going on. Thatwill link up to the case that
darling is working on that his Icall them underlings his
sergeant and his, his constableare working on. So it kind of
goes, you know, acrosscontinents, across times. And
across families. And, you know,somehow it all comes together.
(23:29):
And it's just the sort of book Ilike to read. And, you know, and
it turns out that lane sister isin trouble. Because she's seen
something terrible. And now theperson who she's seen is after
her.
Amy Mair (23:47):
Um, I was gonna say.
So another question I had foryou was Elaine, and as we
mentioned earlier, and theinspector are now a couple, and
that you might maybe, maybe not,you might see that maybe at the
end of the series, but you'renot at the end. So one thing I
was wondering, and I kind ofknow partially the answer, but
(24:09):
they're now a couple of whichcould be kind of boring, because
it's probably kind of excitingwhen they were dating or you
didn't know where it was gonnago. So how do you keep it
interesting between them and howpeople still want wanting to
root for them now that they're aboring married couple?
Unknown (24:27):
Well, what I hope is that they're not boring. Yeah.
And, you know, they're both theyhave some similarities. They're
both kind of reserved in inwardpeople. Right? And they are,
they have found each other andare able to be very open with
each other, but they're alsoboth extremely smart. And, as
(24:49):
often happens with very smartpeople, they have great senses
of humor. And so I think thatreally works a lot in their
favor. You know, they reallylike each other, and, you know,
they're negotiating an equalrelationship in a period when
that wasn't common in the night,you know? And so that really
(25:14):
interests me. And I think itprobably interests my readers as
well. Because you think well, in1940, wouldn't he be really the
man of the house? Wouldn't he beinsisting on this and that, and
so, you know, I think theirrespect for each other is what
really comes through and theirhumor. And I was just thinking,
(25:37):
I'm reading a series right nowby Craig Johnson, about sheriff
in Montana, called in Wyomingcalled Walt Longmeyer. And he
has a very, very close friendthat appears all the time in the
books. A guy called StandingBear who's his best friend since
they were children. And I waslistening to and thinking how
much I love this relationship.
And so I think that what I wantfrom my readers to do is to not
(26:02):
worry about the married part,because that always sounds like,
you know, I mean, we're used forthat, and Jane Austen, the
heroine immediately becomesuninteresting when she's
married, and you are about her,right. But in real life, people
do get married, they continue tobe interesting and engaged. And
(26:22):
so that's really what I wantpeople to do is to go, Oh, I
love that relationship they havewell, and further to that you do
a lot of things in your books, Iwant to ask you about, you
tackle social issues,relationships, racism, women's
rights, things that weren'tnecessarily talked about in the
(26:46):
1940s, where the books are set.
But you do that in a modern way,but yet, it still fits with the
time period. And I've read thatpeople really liked that you do
that? But how do you balancethat and remain true to the time
period of the 1940s?
That's an excellent question.
Well, for one thing, and and weought to be disheartened by
(27:12):
this, all of the same kinds ofthings, the marital abuse, the
child abuse, the, you know, therape, the racism, all of the
things that plagues society, thealcoholism, were there, then as
they are now, and people thenhad to cope with it, you know,
and a lot of the coping wasburying it under being ashamed,
(27:33):
all of that. And so, you know,we live in the 2020s, where
there's a lot of very specificlanguage to deal with these
kinds of things, right. And so,you know, the whole, for
example, the whole idea ofsomething triggering an anxiety
(27:56):
would just be so foreign backthen, because they didn't have
that kind of language. But evenso, in the 1940s, there were any
period really in history, therewere people who believed in
justice and women's rights,after all, you know, the right
for women to vote, and and themilitant feminism had been going
(28:20):
on for, you know, 50 years, bythe time the 1940s, come along.
So, you know, there already waslots of movement about that kind
of thing, and lots of struggle.
And, you know, I think there's atie, I know, some younger women
(28:41):
say, Oh, well, you know, Elainecould never have done what she
did, because she wouldn't havehad the freedom. And I think,
Boy, you didn't know my mother.
You know, who did whatever theyfelt like, even then. And so,
you know, you had strong peoplewho had a sense of justice, and
who wanted to highlight and markthat things were wrong, and that
(29:02):
people ought to be helped whenthose things were happening. And
there's a couple of books whereI deal with children and the
mistreatment of children. And italways makes me kind of laugh
that people will say to me, Oh,I find this book, so comforting.
And I'd love to read it atnight, and it won't keep me up
and going, you know, there'srape and racism in it. Right.
(29:24):
And they're going to have, butit's not. It's not dealt with in
a way that that necessarilykeeps people awake. But it's
there. And I think it'simportant because those were the
issues. I mean, the things thatwe're dealing with, you know,
the position of women in the1940s was just so interesting.
You know, they were washed outof jobs that they'd taken. And
(29:48):
at the same time, they werestarting to make some inroads,
you know, so it's just a veryinteresting period for me.
I think people can and read thatbook at night because I think
one of the reasons why peoplelike mysteries is there's an
order to it if it gets solved atthe end, I think people love
that. And if you've got thosecharacters that kind of continue
(30:11):
on
Amy Mair (30:13):
through the series.
The other thing I was going tomention that I liked was I've
read your first book, which wasa killer and kings Cove and then
I read this book. And while Ithink it would be better if you
read all of them, I found that Icould read to track a trader and
enjoy it. Which is great,because sometimes you can't you
have to go in order. I don'tknow if you did that
intentionally. But I liked that.
Unknown (30:36):
Well, I like to I mean, you know, just because of the
kind of reader I am, you know, Idefinitely love Series. I love
them, because I love being withthe same people all the way
through. Yeah. But at the sametime, you know, you if you're
going to your library, you neverknow what episode of of the
story you're gonna get, youknow, so they have a standalone
(30:57):
quality. And my hope is thatpeople will read it and want to
read the others. And that's tobe proving true that they go
well. How did we get here? I'dlike to see what happened at the
beginningto go back. Okay, so this is
interesting. Tell everyone aboutyou get plotline suggestions
from your fans to tell tellpeople maybe a plotline or two
(31:17):
that you've gotten from someoneand how you incorporate that.
I'm not so sure so much thatit's plot lines, but really,
really interesting ideas. Ithink the biggest one was I had
a letter from a retiredhistorian who really liked the
true tone of the books in termsof the 1940s Yeah, and
(31:39):
corresponded back and forth. Andshe said, Have you ever thought
of doing something with one roomschoolhouses, and you know, one
room schoolhouses are a hugeelement of the history of
Canadian education, right,because many of us were rural,
until relatively recently. And,you know, my, my brother
(32:02):
attended a one room schoolhousein that community, I was too
young. And my mother in lawtaught in a one room schoolhouse
in Saskatchewan. And I was so Ibecame very interested in it and
the lives of people who go andteach in those places. So that
was one of the biggest and shesent me quite a lot of kind of
academic papers and studies, oneroom schoolhouses in Canada that
(32:25):
were super interesting andreally made me want to write the
book that I wrote, which iscalled a lethal lesson. And also
because I was an educator, I washappy to be back in a school
Oh, right. That'sas the supply teacher you know,
as a as a substitute teacher andand that was kind of fun. And
another one, I got a lovelyletter from a gentleman who's an
(32:48):
expert on vintage motorcycles.
And he said, I should put one ofmy characters on a 1935 or so.
Triumph. And so I said, Well,yes, I'm gonna put darling on
it. But I can put my boy Terrellon it. Because he's just arrived
(33:11):
there, and he loves hismotorcycle, and he was a
motorcycle cop in the war withhis unit. So you know, that man
has continued to help meunderstand the parts of the
machinery and understand whatkind of tires he'd need in the
winter or the rain. And youknow, what the current adverts
(33:31):
were during the 1940s It's beenfascinating. A wonderful
printer, hear here, who's runsthe old fashion, you know, hand
presses, and a lot of the oldfashion presses he does.
Fantastic, you know, art booksand things like that. He sent me
a note and said, you know, inNelson at that time, they would
have such and such a kind ofpress. And so I went out to
(33:54):
visit them, and saw what he doesin great detail, and was happy
to incorporate it into one ofthe books. And now that presses
in Nelson for me, and I can goback there all the time. And you
know, all these people aresources for me, right, you know,
that I can write to and say,Well, how does how would this
(34:15):
have worked kind of thing,right? So it's been really that
part of it. It's been reallyfun. I love the fact that people
are interested and they alwaysask, they asked me, you know,
what about the indigenous peopleof the area? You haven't said
anything I wrote I had alreadywas in the middle of writing,
framed in fire, which is aboutthe local snakes, people who
(34:36):
used to live there, and andstill, to some degree do still
not as much as before the turnof the 20th century. And you
know, people have been asking meabout the Japanese a lot of whom
were in turned up there in thatkuten area and SLoCaT area. So
you know, these people arewanting to see these things
(34:58):
reflected in the books. Youbecause a lot of the things that
I write about are real, a lot oftime make up. Like all those
Russian spies, I thought I wasmaking them up. But it turned
out Canada was absolutely fullof Russian spies. So that was
quite fun to discover.
Another thing I want to ask youabout was the cover art, which I
(35:18):
just love. And it's very much ofthe era, it's got a super
graphic quality, kind of moodylanes, usually on the front and
some with a fabulous hat andcoat. Tell Tell tell us about
the art, I'm assuming? Because Iknow a little bit. When you
write a book, you don'tnecessarily choose the artist
the publisher does, correct?
Yes, that's correct. And so butyou must be so thrilled. And
(35:40):
what do you know about thisartist?
Ah, well, she's wonderful,obviously. And we're so thrilled
and delighted that she continueswith us. Because the books have
such a strong sense of Yes. Youknow, you look at one of these
(36:01):
covers, and you go, Oh, thatmust be Elaine Winslow book. And
people have told me quite often,that they've actually gone in
and seen them and bought themwithout knowing anything because
of the cover. That's whatI was wanting. That's how I feel
because of that. I would pickthat up based on it. The cover
alone?
Yeah, no, exactly. And the the,at the very beginning, the
(36:28):
publisher said to me, what, howdo you envision this? And I
said, Well, you know, those oldposters from the 1930s, you
know, come to Canada, and therewere the you know, there would
always be somebody standing on abeautiful hill with mountains
and a lake and, you know,Canada, the new frontier,
whatever. And these were liketravel posters or posters to
attract people. And so we workedback and forth with a couple of
(36:52):
those, and she found an artistshe thought would be good for
that, which was Margaret. And,you know, there's a real
collaborative thing of it, youknow, the publisher will say, to
me, I think this or this scenemight be really fun to
illustrate on the cover. And Imight say, you know, what, I
(37:12):
really had it in mind that thisscene would be illustrated on
the cover. And so we get variousmockups in pencil, and then we
look at them and choose and talkabout them and talk about how
things are aligned. Andsometimes if I'm not, I'm never
not happy. But if I want to seesomething a little different in
(37:34):
the sky, I will send aphotograph of the area like for
example, this is this is abeautiful walk called the Seven
Sisters. And I really wanted tocapture this evening sky on it.
And so, you know, we sentpictures and then Margaret
(37:59):
beautifully, gave us that kindof moody evening sky. So you
know, we're just on the point ofnighttime there. And still those
beautiful chalk cliffs. So, youknow, it's been really fun. It's
collaborative. But not tonobody. I don't push anyone
around. But sometimes they canthat trucks it a little
(38:22):
differently or something likethat. And you know, it'll come
back all sitting differently. Sothat's great. Anyway, they're,
they're beautiful. And telleveryone what are you working on
now? What's what's the what'sElaine Winslow up to next?
Well, Lane Winslow is stickingaround at home in the next book.
And it opens this is really allI'll say. Okay. opens with a big
(38:49):
explosion in the mountains highabove. Kings Cove.
Okay, when will that be comingout?
That'll be a should be out.
April of 24.
Great. We cannot leave thisinterview without talking about
Nancy Drew.
I understand your favorite ofyours as well.
(39:11):
She was and you know, becausefor my generation I so I have
older sisters like 10 and 12years older. And so I had all
the original because originalones because my sisters
Amy Mair (39:25):
read them. And then the new series kind of came out
there was a new Nancy Drew moremodern that came out and must
have come out in the 80s I don'tknow. And then of course, I
don't know if you remember butthere was a fabulous TV show.
Just like the Nancy Drew mysteryseries and the Hardy Boys and
(39:46):
those were so much fun. And Iremember watching those in the I
think late 70s, early 80s. So Ido know about it, but I remember
thinking I love the covers ofand that's funny now that I'm
thinking about your But I cansee a maybe a bit of an
inspiration for the covers. But,you know, there was she was
(40:07):
pretty fabulous. But she, shealways was really put together.
That's what I remember as well.
Unknown (40:12):
Oh my god, so much so.
And I did read somewhere becauseI did read books from the 30s
and 40s. I mean, I was born in48. So those books would have
been around. And you know what,what impressed me about her for
one thing on the covers, she wasalways in action. It was she was
(40:33):
going up the secret staircase,she was climbing a ladder while
someone was trying to push theladder over. And as you say,
beautiful gown, you know,beautiful dress, lovely shoes,
you know, really always fabuloushair. And I did read that in the
late 50s. They wanted to makeher less independent. Oh, yeah.
(40:59):
And so they wanted ned to bemore involved. Remember Ned?
Yes, the boyfriend boyfriend,vaguely, a little bit like a Ken
doll really is I remember him.
And also they wanted her to getmore permission from her father
(41:22):
to do things, you know, theywant to be a little more
compliant because she was veryindependent in the 30s and 40s.
You know, and she would dothings absolutely on her own or
with her girlfriends. You know,in that little car with the with
the convertible, convertibleconvertible with the rumble seat
(41:42):
in the back, you know, where youcould stick a couple of people.
And, you know, so I was verylucky to have as my first Nancy
Joe influenced those very earlybooks.
And they were so Carolyn king,was that a man or a woman? And
was it always the same on anumber
of people I have read that itwas a man. And I have read that
(42:06):
it was a whole series of women.
It was a whole series ofsomebody that's for sure. With a
name Carolyn Keene. And Iremember that after Mindy Nancy
Drew books, I read some HardyBoys books. And I always thought
that the Hardy Boys books werewritten after Nancy Drew,
because boys must be hurting notto have a great heroine or hero
(42:27):
like Nancy Drew. It turned outthe Hardy Boys were written
first. And then someone began towrite the books for the girls.
Oh, that's very clever. And arethere any other mystery writers
that were an inspiration foryou?
Ah, you know, when I was quiteyoung, and I'm in my 20s. So you
(42:48):
know, 50 years ago? I rememberlike it was yesterday. I really
liked I always sort of likedAgatha Christie. Oh, yeah, sure,
you know, because she wasreliably entertaining. And in
some ways, the television showswith our role. Were almost
(43:08):
better than her books, you know,in terms of the of the content
and the kind of people that werethere. But I also really loved a
New Zealand writer called NileMarsh. And I love Dorothy L
Sayers. Dorothy L. Sayers isprobably my favorite. And, you
(43:30):
know, latterly I really lovedElizabeth George. And you know,
as long as there are mysteries,you know, the Hillerman
mysteries I really loved becausethey took place in the desert,
and I spent much of my life inMexico, and then all of my high
school in Arizona, so I couldreally relate to that. You know,
(43:51):
and there's a lot of justincredibly good mysteries being
written right now by fabulouswriters, you know, Donna Leone
and Ann Cleeves. And, you know,there's just, it's, you know,
you can never be bored.
Have you read the silentpatient? It's different than
what you do. But have you readthat one? It's, it's, it was, it
(44:13):
wasn't a debut. And it wasamazing, but it's a few like,
psychological. Right? Very,super terrifying. But well, not
super terrifying. You might beable to tell from whatever
right? Yeah,
Amy Mair (44:27):
no, you're I think you're Posey. I had a, a author
on and she told me that for, forsomething to be a cozy
mysteries, they're actualcomponents and people will argue
about them. And one of thethings I read is you have to
have or she told me, you have tohave a cat somewhere in the
book.
Unknown (44:47):
In fact, I remember at about book three or four. My
publisher said there's this cozybook club in Philadelphia that
wants to have you at theirmeeting. And they'd read
Killoran King's code, the firstbook, and it was before the
wonderful technology of zoom.
And so it was kind of an awkwardthing. And it was blurry. And
(45:10):
there were all these peoplesitting in the dark looking
obviously at their television,to see me. And they were quite
crossed with me because theysaid, you know, they asked me
questions, and some of themreally liked the book. But one
of them said, you know, this isnot a cozy you do not qualify as
a cozy writer. Yes, yes. Becausethey were reading the very, I
(45:31):
mean, lots of cozies are quiteformate. formulaic, they're let
you write they have specialcomponents. They're like
Harlequin, romances do have tohave certain things in them. And
I'm sure what they loved was theblueberry pancake recipe at the
end, and, you know, all of thatkind of thing. So I think I fit
(45:51):
somewhere closer to novels andcozy, so it's my books feel
cozy, is that you feel safe.
Okay, yeah, that's a good,that's a good way to put that.
Well, thank you so much forbeing on the podcast. That was
really fun, and pleasure. And Ireally enjoyed that. And I think
(46:14):
the your backstory just reallyadds to, I think people's
enjoyment that there's sometruth to what you're writing
about. So thank you so much.
Thank you.
Okay, bye. So that was reallyfun. I really enjoyed that
interview. And actually, as amatter of fact, I remember I
(46:36):
know, I own a son, Biscay andour kids play soccer together.
And I remember, I was on theside of the soccer pitch. And at
the time, I was writing for amagazine working for a magazine.
And he came in also doing afreelance writing, and he's
(46:57):
like, you've got to meet my mom.
She's written a mystery book.
And so she was just as she istoday, like, very excited and
talking about her book. And Ihad no idea that we'd be talking
10 years later, and that shewould be topping the bestseller
charts. So anyway, and I loveher phrase, why not me? So I
(47:21):
think we all need to adopt that.
Thanks so much for listening,and I will talk to you bye
I was reading a book, not not one of my own. And I
(00:03):
thought, you know, I write atleast as well as this, and
they're published. Yeah. Andthis question popped into my
mind, why not me? Oh, and thatquestion changed everything for
meOh, welcome back to the Red Fern
(00:36):
book review. I'm your host, AmyMair. And today I am very
excited and pleased to be joinedby mystery writer best selling
mystery writer, Iona wishaw fromher home in Vancouver, and we
had a great interview. And whatmakes her really unique is that
(01:00):
she has a family history ofespionage, her mom was a spy
during World War Two. And beforethat her grandfather was a spy.
And the other thing that's alsoreally interesting is that she
had a full career as a principaland a teacher, before she first
(01:20):
picked up her pen in her 60s. Sothat's really cool. And I hope
you enjoy this interview as muchas I do. And we're going to be
talking about her brand new bookto track a trader, and it's part
of the Lane Winslow mysteryseries and there's 10 in the
series, and that's what we'regonna talk about today. So we're
(01:45):
gonna move over and talk withIona right now. Hello, Iona. So
glad to have you on the podcasttoday.
Delighted to be here.
Okay, I'm just gonna dive rightinto the questions because I
have I have a lot of them. Andthe first question I have, you
(02:05):
know, you write, you've been onthe bestseller list, basically,
since you started writing yourmysteries almost a decade ago.
And you write best selling fastpaced historical mysteries of
the cozy variety. But yourpersonal background is just as
interesting, I think and reallyadds a richness to the series
(02:25):
and your heroine Elaine Winslowis a former World War Two spy
who also has something in commonwith your mom. So tell us a
little bit about your mom, andhow she inspired. Elaine.
I'd be delighted to my motherwas one in a million really for
(02:47):
lots and lots of reasons. Andshe and Elaine have some very
significant things in common andsome very significant things not
uncommon. Obviously, they bothcome from that generation.
Although my mother was born in1912. Elaine was born in sort of
1920. So I've set her a littlebit younger than my mum was at
the time. And they, my motherwas born in Riga into a British
(03:15):
community, and was Britishthrough and through she was
presented at court when she was17, because she came from a
fairly sort of upper classfamily. And, you know, she had
she had the father, the fatherthat Elaine has who's very kind
of cold and doesn't like hisdaughter very much and is a spy.
(03:39):
And I modeled him very much onwhat my grant my mother used to
tell me about her father. Andthe only thing is my mother did
do some espionage. I found outreally just before she died, she
was 87 When she died, that she'ddone some espionage in South
Africa where she lived with myfather. So she, you know, she
(04:01):
really made light of it, shebrushed it off, you know, it was
it just, we would just get intonice frocks and go to German
officers parties to try to getinformation like it was just the
easiest thing in the world. Butwhat was behind that was that my
mother was a perfect speaker ofGerman. Oh, and she spoke
(04:22):
perfectly Russian, French,German, and obviously English
and Latvia and because in Latviawas a very internationalist
community. You know, shebelonged to the the hub, the
center of the British community,where there was a huge community
of Germans there. They had many,many German friends. The place
was full of Russians. They alllearned to speak Russian. The
(04:43):
governor says she had throughthe house were German and French
and Russian. So that's the kindof background she had and
basically, you know, it was sointeresting that I didn't feel I
could. I couldn't do any betterthan to give Elaine this time.
Background right, especiallysince I knew something about it
from my mother's stories.
(05:05):
Now, you said she made light ofwhat she did. Do you think she
was doing that to uphold theSecrets Act? Or do you think
that she literally just thought,I speak these languages? I put
on pretty dresses? And I'm noyeah,
that's such a good question. AndI don't really know the answer.
I think that she would more doit because she probably the
(05:30):
Secrets Act was part of it. Butalso, that's how she was
blindingly courageous. You know,she went on these just crazy
adventures, I would never thinkshe hitchhiked to Alaska when I
was three on her own with truckdrivers while my dad was away,
just because she wanted to go toAlaska. And she couldn't think
of a better way to get there. Imean, just crazy stuff like
(05:52):
that, right. And she drove thePan American highway with me and
a dog before she before it waseven finished. So you know, that
kind of stuff. And I think shereally did make light of it. I
think she she was no doubt shewas recruited to do it. And I
think she sort of felt it washer bid for the war. I don't
(06:15):
think she had this idea that itwas some romantic thing about
espionage. I think she thoughtwell, I speak German. Yeah, I
can do this kind of thing.
Right. And beyond that, afterSouth Africa entered the war, I
did read up a lot about whatkind of espionage was going on.
My mum was a my, my little mybig brother, who's 10 years
(06:35):
older than me, was farmed out toan Afrikaner family, if you can
even imagine that. And mainlybecause they were very much
against the British in SouthAfrica, and my dad was away
flying a Lancaster bomber. SoI'm pretty sure she continued
that work right through untilthe end, when they moved to
(06:55):
Canada.
That's amazing. And you said youmade Elaine slightly different?
How is she different than yourmom?
I think she's much more. She'smuch more practical, and she's
much more grounded than my mom.
I think Elaine would have made agood mother. Right. My mother
(07:18):
was a fantastic person, but notalways very easy.
So not midterm, probably notmaternal.
I don't think she had very muchin the way of maternal illness.
You know, she was brought up bygovernesses in a rather
ferocious act. Because hermother died when she was only
(07:39):
four. And her father was quite ahard man. And I think she just
didn't have a lot of examples ofmaternal illness. But on the
other hand, you know, I, shebrought me up not to be too
girly. And, you know, to lovetravel and to, and to really,
really, really enjoy people,like my mother enjoyed people of
(08:03):
every class, and I'm sure it'sbecause she grew up in an
international community and inspite of her kind of upper class
origins, you know, she was justendlessly fascinated by people.
And she was very much loved bytons of people. And I think
Elaine has that. But she has amore grounded kind of
personality.
(08:25):
And your grandfather was also aspy as this shirt. Dad's mother.
Oh,my mother's father. Okay. Yeah.
That's a businessman and quitejolly. And you're responsible.
Yeah, she, he, he I learnedquite recently, a bit about him.
I didn't learn anything abouthim as a spy, except that my
(08:45):
mother told me he was a spy. Andeverything else she told me
about him was how really hard hewas on her in particular, not on
her sister. And, you know, ifyou read this book, you'll see a
lot of that story coming out.
You know, Elaine and her sisterand how the father favors
(09:07):
certain things like that. But Idid learn recently that as early
as just after the BolshevikRevolution, my grandfather was
making spying sorties into St.
Petersburg, he was nearly caughta couple of times, one of his
colleagues was caught and hemanaged to get him out all
through the rest of the time.
(09:28):
And during the Second World War,he spied in a in a sort of thing
between Sweden and Finland. Andin and out of Russia, like that
was the thing. He worked for theBritish. He worked for MI six,
and I learned recently that hehad three brothers and two of
them also worked for MI six. Soit was a tradition and they had
(09:49):
a very you know, they were verydevoted to military matters. As
the family I think on his sideOh, Another thing about this
book you have kind of a specialsetting for the book. And if you
read people who are familiarwith Louise Penny, she has Three
Pines where there's this like,small town where everything
(10:10):
happens. And you have a smalltown and BC that's the setting
for your book. But I understandit's partially based on where
you grew up. So tell us abouthow you came up with this
setting, and how it's conducivefor mystery.
Ah, you know, I lived off and onin that little community. And it
(10:34):
was by the lake, but not rightby the lake along the lake
shore, there were summercottages, and none of us had
anything to do with that. But upthe hill from there was a lot of
very, very fertile land. Andthat's where all the English
people who came to grow fruithad settled. And, you know, when
I came there, it was the early50s, I was a little tiny child.
(10:58):
It was really the place that Iwould say, my heart live, you
know, I mean, we moved to Mexicowhen I was eight or five, excuse
me. And so I really includedthat too, in places that I
really loved. But you know, thefirst place was this place by
Kootenay Lake, and it wasn'teven a town you couldn't even
(11:20):
have called it a hamlet. Youknow, it had a post office
because most rural communitiesdid. But if you wanted to buy
anything, you had to drive threemiles down to another little
slightly larger Hamlet calledBelfer. And if you wanted to
really buy something you had todrive, you know, in those days,
almost an hour into Nelson,because the roads weren't paved
(11:41):
then. And you know, when thatcommunity first grew up, there
weren't roads, everything wasdone by paddle wheeler up and
down the lake. So if you wantedto go to this community, it
hadn't had a wharf. And thepaddle wheeler would pull up to
the wharf and would collect allthe apples and everybody had
grown and take them out. And itwas shipped out all over the,
you know, the country and off toEngland, and so on, it was quite
(12:03):
a big concern. And, you know,when I lived there, as a child,
almost everyone that you readabout in the books has been
taken in whole, or in part,parts from the people that that
lived there, the very, very oldpeople, I mean, they were all
ancient in the 1950s when I wasa small child. So you know, that
(12:26):
part of it has been really fun,you know, you can recreate a
place that you lived. And youcan spend time with those people
that you really loved when youwere a child. And the
Armstrong's who ran the postoffice, were there almost fully
as I remember them in the book,everybody else's sort of I've
sort of toyed with them, butwith them, I've kept them
exactly as I remember them.
(12:48):
And why. Explain why a smalltown is a good setting for
mystery, do you think?
Well, I think because it's,it's, it's kind of a closed
system, right? Everybody knowseverybody else. Obviously, if I
were through 10 books to killoff only people who lived in
(13:09):
that community, there would notbe not only no one left, but a
negative deficit. All right. Butyou know, even up and down the
lake, the nice thing about thatcommunity in Lane's world, is
that, you know, she becomesquite involved in her husband's
work, especially in thebeginning, much to his
(13:31):
annoyance, because she turnedout to be quite useful. And so
everybody in the community getsinvolved, you know, they all
want to know, they've all gotideas, you know, they may know
somebody who knows somebody whoknew that person, you know, that
kind of thing. And so, it's agreat way to, like weave those
(13:52):
people into it. Right. And, youknow, there's, there's isolated
when I was growing up,certainly, there were three or
four very isolated cabins thathad long since been abandoned.
You know, I would find a boxfull of newspapers from the
early 1900s, you know, all moldyand all of that kind of thing in
(14:15):
an old cabin up in the woods.
So, you know, there's lots ofscope for hiding people for
killing them and moving themsomeplace, you know, all that
kind of thing.
Okay, so this is not youroriginal career. This is maybe
your third act, and I thinkthat's really inspiring. And so
(14:36):
you worked as a social worker, ateacher, award winning
principal, but you didn't startwriting until your 60s. Is this
correct, is thatit's sort of correct. I actually
always wanted to write Yeah, andyou know, when I was still
teaching, or maybe even beforethat, I started to write I had a
(14:58):
book that I had just loved theidea of that would have been
aimed at sort of the gradeeights. You know, I had, the
year I sent it out to someone tolook at was the same year, the
first Harry Potter waspublished. And, you know, I
realized I wouldn't stand achance with it. So I just
(15:19):
shelved it. And I ended upgetting into the creative
writing master's program at UBCwith that book. So ended up
being very useful anyway. So Iwas in my four, I think it was
40 or 44. When I was in themaster's program at UBC, and
graduated from there, Ipublished poetry short fiction,
(15:41):
I did poetry and translation,because I'm bilingual in
Spanish. And you know, this,this series of books, I never
believed I could write a wholeentire book, like, yeah, maybe
for eighth graders, but not forlike, grownups. Right. And I
sort of realized when I was 64,that I was going to be retiring
(16:04):
in a couple of years. And if Ididn't start writing, I wouldn't
have a writing habit to go into.
I would retire and say, Oh, I'mgoing to write and it might
never start. So I get up at 530.
Before I go to school, and I hada job of just writing 400 words,
I had no idea at the beginning,was that 400 words is going to
(16:25):
be poetry, was it going to be ashort story was it going to be a
memoir, like I had no idea. Butevery day, I'd go to my 400
words, and I'd read yesterday's400 words, or 800 words, or 1200
words. And it's sort of putitself together. For me, I had
this image of my mother, thevery first sentence, she bought
this amazing house that sheloved until she died. And was
(16:46):
always the one that got away,not a man for her house. And so,
that was kind of where Istarted, and I just went from
there. So, you know, when I whenI first wrote the first book,
you know, I had a degree fromUBC, a master's degree. So I
(17:07):
went through their program,which I took in my 40s. And I,
when I first started, when Ifirst finished the first book, I
thought, no one's going to wantto publish an old person like
me, like that was my thought,right? So I thought, well, I'll
just, I'll pay for it. I'll selfpublish it, right. So I went
(17:28):
through an outfit in, inVictoria cost, really a lot of
money. And I couldn't see doingit a second time. That was for
sure. And I drove around like anAmway salesperson, you know,
with books in the back of mycar, and my friends would would
buy them and say, whoa, whoa,this is really good.
(17:50):
And your first book was selfpublished? Is that what your
self published? Yeah, I have totrack. The first one, you have
their killer in Kings COVID,some called something totally
else, and is much cleaned upfrom that first book. But
there's a wonderful bookstore uphere in Kerrisdale. Called
Hagar, you may know it, I'm, Ilive near there. Okay. So they
were huge supporters of it. Andthey would call me every week
(18:14):
and say, you've got to bring me10 More books, you got to bring
me 10 More books, but I wasmaking like 50 cents a book,
right? But she said to me, it'sthe most popular book, you know,
self published book in ourstore, it flies off the shelf.
So that's when I began to thinkmaybe it's not bad. And my son
actually phoned me and said, Oh,my God, this is really good. You
(18:34):
know, everybody seems sosurprised.
But you know, those, it thatbookstore that you're talking
about, they love their world wartwo stuff. And I bet part of it
they, sometimes when I go,that's the nice thing about a
good independent bookseller islike, I'll ask for a suggestion.
And sometimes I'm like, Okay,that's good. That's good. Like,
they keep going. They're so intotheir books. So yeah.
(18:57):
booksellers helped sell books,they're fantastic. They're
absolutely out of this world.
Anyway, you know, so then Ithought, well, I can't do this,
I'm going to I'm going to startwriting a sequel, just cause you
know, it fairly screens for one,so I'm going to just start doing
it. But I don't know how I'mgoing to be published. And you
know, what happened? Something Iwas reading a book, not not one
of my own. And I thought, youknow, I write at least as well
(19:20):
as this, and they're published.
Yeah. And this question poppedinto my mind, why not me? Oh,
and that question changedeverything for me. You know, I
feel like even though I didn'tdo anything different. Yeah. I
knew I'd written a good book orgood enough. Yeah. You know,
(19:42):
eventually, somebody actuallyfound me, a publisher said you
shouldn't be doing this drivingaround. Let's get you a real
publisher. And the realpublisher was very excited about
the book. So you know, it wasthat I don't think I would have
persisted unless I had thatthing. Well, why not me all the
sudden He will get published.
What's what's different aboutme? Why should I? Well, it made
all the difference, you know.
(20:06):
And now I don't even thinkreally about my age, in terms of
that at all, you know?
Well, I think it's a sellingpoint I do. But I can see why
you wouldn't think that becauseI probably wouldn't have either,
but it is.
I'll tell you one reason it's aselling point is because I grew
up listening to the language,the way it's spoken in my books.
(20:28):
Oh, yeah, parents are members ofthat generation. Yeah, they're
dead now, of course. But theywere, that's what I heard around
me. And my friend who is a betareader is even a little bit
older than me. And she's alwaysthe first one at my book, she's
a college, university champ ofmine. And she can pick up
(20:50):
sayings that are modern, in aflash, and we take them out, and
we look for something that wouldhave been said in the 1940s. For
the same thing, like you can'tsay in the 1940s, I couldn't
wrap my head around it, youknow, or I need you to do
research. These are all very,very modern ways of using the
language. So you take them out.
And I think it's much easier forme to do than it would be for
(21:13):
someone significantly youngerthan me, just because I heard it
growing up. So that's a bigadvantage, I think.
Okay, so tell everybody aboutthe latest book. So to track a
trader is the latest and telleverybody the kind of the
premise of this one and how itokay, the
premise of to track a trader, acopy of what you see here is
(21:37):
that, and this often happens,where you've got the police and
Nelson and you've got everythingelse going on, somewhere else,
wherever Elaine is. So she getsa call from her grandparents
that her sister had come homefrom South Africa, and where she
was a spy. So I assigned mymother's role to lane Sister, if
(21:57):
you see what I'm saying, Yeah,and again, hasn't seen her
sister since she was like anannoying 16 year old who came to
visit her in Oxford. And she'scome back to England and she's
gone missing and Elaine is hashurried over to see if she can
help to find out what's goingon. And why because your
grandparents are verydistraught. her grandfather's
had a bit of a heart attack. Andso she's worried about him. And
(22:20):
at the same time, in Nelson,darling, there's a man who's
been killed and found in a cabinand darlings been called to the
home of the very wealthy man.
Because his disgraced sister inlaw has been found in a bombed
out building in a village inKent. And
(22:43):
darling, is Mrs. Inspectordarling inspector, darling,
sorry, yes, I'm just referred tomiss darling, her husband,
Inspector darling. And you canread from Book One through book
10 To find out how thathappened. Yeah, it's a nice
little romance. And so he has togo to England to so now the two
of them are over there too, intwo different things. And
(23:05):
there's the case going on. Thatwill link up to the case that
darling is working on that his Icall them underlings his
sergeant and his, his constableare working on. So it kind of
goes, you know, acrosscontinents, across times. And
across families. And, you know,somehow it all comes together.
(23:29):
And it's just the sort of book Ilike to read. And, you know, and
it turns out that lane sister isin trouble. Because she's seen
something terrible. And now theperson who she's seen is after
her.
Amy Mair (23:47):
Um, I was gonna say.
So another question I had foryou was Elaine, and as we
mentioned earlier, and theinspector are now a couple, and
that you might maybe, maybe not,you might see that maybe at the
end of the series, but you'renot at the end. So one thing I
was wondering, and I kind ofknow partially the answer, but
(24:09):
they're now a couple of whichcould be kind of boring, because
it's probably kind of excitingwhen they were dating or you
didn't know where it was gonnago. So how do you keep it
interesting between them and howpeople still want wanting to
root for them now that they're aboring married couple?
Unknown (24:27):
Well, what I hope is that they're not boring. Yeah.
And, you know, they're both theyhave some similarities. They're
both kind of reserved in inwardpeople. Right? And they are,
they have found each other andare able to be very open with
each other, but they're alsoboth extremely smart. And, as
(24:49):
often happens with very smartpeople, they have great senses
of humor. And so I think thatreally works a lot in their
favor. You know, they reallylike each other, and, you know,
they're negotiating an equalrelationship in a period when
that wasn't common in the night,you know? And so that really
(25:14):
interests me. And I think itprobably interests my readers as
well. Because you think well, in1940, wouldn't he be really the
man of the house? Wouldn't he beinsisting on this and that, and
so, you know, I think theirrespect for each other is what
really comes through and theirhumor. And I was just thinking,
(25:37):
I'm reading a series right nowby Craig Johnson, about sheriff
in Montana, called in Wyomingcalled Walt Longmeyer. And he
has a very, very close friendthat appears all the time in the
books. A guy called StandingBear who's his best friend since
they were children. And I waslistening to and thinking how
much I love this relationship.
And so I think that what I wantfrom my readers to do is to not
(26:02):
worry about the married part,because that always sounds like,
you know, I mean, we're used forthat, and Jane Austen, the
heroine immediately becomesuninteresting when she's
married, and you are about her,right. But in real life, people
do get married, they continue tobe interesting and engaged. And
(26:22):
so that's really what I wantpeople to do is to go, Oh, I
love that relationship they havewell, and further to that you do
a lot of things in your books, Iwant to ask you about, you
tackle social issues,relationships, racism, women's
rights, things that weren'tnecessarily talked about in the
(26:46):
1940s, where the books are set.
But you do that in a modern way,but yet, it still fits with the
time period. And I've read thatpeople really liked that you do
that? But how do you balancethat and remain true to the time
period of the 1940s?
That's an excellent question.
Well, for one thing, and and weought to be disheartened by
(27:12):
this, all of the same kinds ofthings, the marital abuse, the
child abuse, the, you know, therape, the racism, all of the
things that plagues society, thealcoholism, were there, then as
they are now, and people thenhad to cope with it, you know,
and a lot of the coping wasburying it under being ashamed,
(27:33):
all of that. And so, you know,we live in the 2020s, where
there's a lot of very specificlanguage to deal with these
kinds of things, right. And so,you know, the whole, for
example, the whole idea ofsomething triggering an anxiety
(27:56):
would just be so foreign backthen, because they didn't have
that kind of language. But evenso, in the 1940s, there were any
period really in history, therewere people who believed in
justice and women's rights,after all, you know, the right
for women to vote, and and themilitant feminism had been going
(28:20):
on for, you know, 50 years, bythe time the 1940s, come along.
So, you know, there already waslots of movement about that kind
of thing, and lots of struggle.
And, you know, I think there's atie, I know, some younger women
(28:41):
say, Oh, well, you know, Elainecould never have done what she
did, because she wouldn't havehad the freedom. And I think,
Boy, you didn't know my mother.
You know, who did whatever theyfelt like, even then. And so,
you know, you had strong peoplewho had a sense of justice, and
who wanted to highlight and markthat things were wrong, and that
(29:02):
people ought to be helped whenthose things were happening. And
there's a couple of books whereI deal with children and the
mistreatment of children. And italways makes me kind of laugh
that people will say to me, Oh,I find this book, so comforting.
And I'd love to read it atnight, and it won't keep me up
and going, you know, there'srape and racism in it. Right.
(29:24):
And they're going to have, butit's not. It's not dealt with in
a way that that necessarilykeeps people awake. But it's
there. And I think it'simportant because those were the
issues. I mean, the things thatwe're dealing with, you know,
the position of women in the1940s was just so interesting.
You know, they were washed outof jobs that they'd taken. And
(29:48):
at the same time, they werestarting to make some inroads,
you know, so it's just a veryinteresting period for me.
I think people can and read thatbook at night because I think
one of the reasons why peoplelike mysteries is there's an
order to it if it gets solved atthe end, I think people love
that. And if you've got thosecharacters that kind of continue
(30:11):
on
Amy Mair (30:13):
through the series.
The other thing I was going tomention that I liked was I've
read your first book, which wasa killer and kings Cove and then
I read this book. And while Ithink it would be better if you
read all of them, I found that Icould read to track a trader and
enjoy it. Which is great,because sometimes you can't you
have to go in order. I don'tknow if you did that
intentionally. But I liked that.
Unknown (30:36):
Well, I like to I mean, you know, just because of the
kind of reader I am, you know, Idefinitely love Series. I love
them, because I love being withthe same people all the way
through. Yeah. But at the sametime, you know, you if you're
going to your library, you neverknow what episode of of the
story you're gonna get, youknow, so they have a standalone
(30:57):
quality. And my hope is thatpeople will read it and want to
read the others. And that's tobe proving true that they go
well. How did we get here? I'dlike to see what happened at the
beginningto go back. Okay, so this is
interesting. Tell everyone aboutyou get plotline suggestions
from your fans to tell tellpeople maybe a plotline or two
(31:17):
that you've gotten from someoneand how you incorporate that.
I'm not so sure so much thatit's plot lines, but really,
really interesting ideas. Ithink the biggest one was I had
a letter from a retiredhistorian who really liked the
true tone of the books in termsof the 1940s Yeah, and
(31:39):
corresponded back and forth. Andshe said, Have you ever thought
of doing something with one roomschoolhouses, and you know, one
room schoolhouses are a hugeelement of the history of
Canadian education, right,because many of us were rural,
until relatively recently. And,you know, my, my brother
(32:02):
attended a one room schoolhousein that community, I was too
young. And my mother in lawtaught in a one room schoolhouse
in Saskatchewan. And I was so Ibecame very interested in it and
the lives of people who go andteach in those places. So that
was one of the biggest and shesent me quite a lot of kind of
academic papers and studies, oneroom schoolhouses in Canada that
(32:25):
were super interesting andreally made me want to write the
book that I wrote, which iscalled a lethal lesson. And also
because I was an educator, I washappy to be back in a school
Oh, right. That'sas the supply teacher you know,
as a as a substitute teacher andand that was kind of fun. And
another one, I got a lovelyletter from a gentleman who's an
(32:48):
expert on vintage motorcycles.
And he said, I should put one ofmy characters on a 1935 or so.
Triumph. And so I said, Well,yes, I'm gonna put darling on
it. But I can put my boy Terrellon it. Because he's just arrived
(33:11):
there, and he loves hismotorcycle, and he was a
motorcycle cop in the war withhis unit. So you know, that man
has continued to help meunderstand the parts of the
machinery and understand whatkind of tires he'd need in the
winter or the rain. And youknow, what the current adverts
(33:31):
were during the 1940s It's beenfascinating. A wonderful
printer, hear here, who's runsthe old fashion, you know, hand
presses, and a lot of the oldfashion presses he does.
Fantastic, you know, art booksand things like that. He sent me
a note and said, you know, inNelson at that time, they would
have such and such a kind ofpress. And so I went out to
(33:54):
visit them, and saw what he doesin great detail, and was happy
to incorporate it into one ofthe books. And now that presses
in Nelson for me, and I can goback there all the time. And you
know, all these people aresources for me, right, you know,
that I can write to and say,Well, how does how would this
(34:15):
have worked kind of thing,right? So it's been really that
part of it. It's been reallyfun. I love the fact that people
are interested and they alwaysask, they asked me, you know,
what about the indigenous peopleof the area? You haven't said
anything I wrote I had alreadywas in the middle of writing,
framed in fire, which is aboutthe local snakes, people who
(34:36):
used to live there, and andstill, to some degree do still
not as much as before the turnof the 20th century. And you
know, people have been asking meabout the Japanese a lot of whom
were in turned up there in thatkuten area and SLoCaT area. So
you know, these people arewanting to see these things
(34:58):
reflected in the books. Youbecause a lot of the things that
I write about are real, a lot oftime make up. Like all those
Russian spies, I thought I wasmaking them up. But it turned
out Canada was absolutely fullof Russian spies. So that was
quite fun to discover.
Another thing I want to ask youabout was the cover art, which I
(35:18):
just love. And it's very much ofthe era, it's got a super
graphic quality, kind of moodylanes, usually on the front and
some with a fabulous hat andcoat. Tell Tell tell us about
the art, I'm assuming? Because Iknow a little bit. When you
write a book, you don'tnecessarily choose the artist
the publisher does, correct?
Yes, that's correct. And so butyou must be so thrilled. And
(35:40):
what do you know about thisartist?
Ah, well, she's wonderful,obviously. And we're so thrilled
and delighted that she continueswith us. Because the books have
such a strong sense of Yes. Youknow, you look at one of these
(36:01):
covers, and you go, Oh, thatmust be Elaine Winslow book. And
people have told me quite often,that they've actually gone in
and seen them and bought themwithout knowing anything because
of the cover. That's whatI was wanting. That's how I feel
because of that. I would pickthat up based on it. The cover
alone?
Yeah, no, exactly. And the the,at the very beginning, the
(36:28):
publisher said to me, what, howdo you envision this? And I
said, Well, you know, those oldposters from the 1930s, you
know, come to Canada, and therewere the you know, there would
always be somebody standing on abeautiful hill with mountains
and a lake and, you know,Canada, the new frontier,
whatever. And these were liketravel posters or posters to
attract people. And so we workedback and forth with a couple of
(36:52):
those, and she found an artistshe thought would be good for
that, which was Margaret. And,you know, there's a real
collaborative thing of it, youknow, the publisher will say, to
me, I think this or this scenemight be really fun to
illustrate on the cover. And Imight say, you know, what, I
(37:12):
really had it in mind that thisscene would be illustrated on
the cover. And so we get variousmockups in pencil, and then we
look at them and choose and talkabout them and talk about how
things are aligned. Andsometimes if I'm not, I'm never
not happy. But if I want to seesomething a little different in
(37:34):
the sky, I will send aphotograph of the area like for
example, this is this is abeautiful walk called the Seven
Sisters. And I really wanted tocapture this evening sky on it.
And so, you know, we sentpictures and then Margaret
(37:59):
beautifully, gave us that kindof moody evening sky. So you
know, we're just on the point ofnighttime there. And still those
beautiful chalk cliffs. So, youknow, it's been really fun. It's
collaborative. But not tonobody. I don't push anyone
around. But sometimes they canthat trucks it a little
(38:22):
differently or something likethat. And you know, it'll come
back all sitting differently. Sothat's great. Anyway, they're,
they're beautiful. And telleveryone what are you working on
now? What's what's the what'sElaine Winslow up to next?
Well, Lane Winslow is stickingaround at home in the next book.
And it opens this is really allI'll say. Okay. opens with a big
(38:49):
explosion in the mountains highabove. Kings Cove.
Okay, when will that be comingout?
That'll be a should be out.
April of 24.
Great. We cannot leave thisinterview without talking about
Nancy Drew.
I understand your favorite ofyours as well.
(39:11):
She was and you know, becausefor my generation I so I have
older sisters like 10 and 12years older. And so I had all
the original because originalones because my sisters
Amy Mair (39:25):
read them. And then the new series kind of came out
there was a new Nancy Drew moremodern that came out and must
have come out in the 80s I don'tknow. And then of course, I
don't know if you remember butthere was a fabulous TV show.
Just like the Nancy Drew mysteryseries and the Hardy Boys and
(39:46):
those were so much fun. And Iremember watching those in the I
think late 70s, early 80s. So Ido know about it, but I remember
thinking I love the covers ofand that's funny now that I'm
thinking about your But I cansee a maybe a bit of an
inspiration for the covers. But,you know, there was she was
(40:07):
pretty fabulous. But she, shealways was really put together.
That's what I remember as well.
Unknown (40:12):
Oh my god, so much so.
And I did read somewhere becauseI did read books from the 30s
and 40s. I mean, I was born in48. So those books would have
been around. And you know what,what impressed me about her for
one thing on the covers, she wasalways in action. It was she was
(40:33):
going up the secret staircase,she was climbing a ladder while
someone was trying to push theladder over. And as you say,
beautiful gown, you know,beautiful dress, lovely shoes,
you know, really always fabuloushair. And I did read that in the
late 50s. They wanted to makeher less independent. Oh, yeah.
(40:59):
And so they wanted ned to bemore involved. Remember Ned?
Yes, the boyfriend boyfriend,vaguely, a little bit like a Ken
doll really is I remember him.
And also they wanted her to getmore permission from her father
(41:22):
to do things, you know, theywant to be a little more
compliant because she was veryindependent in the 30s and 40s.
You know, and she would dothings absolutely on her own or
with her girlfriends. You know,in that little car with the with
the convertible, convertibleconvertible with the rumble seat
(41:42):
in the back, you know, where youcould stick a couple of people.
And, you know, so I was verylucky to have as my first Nancy
Joe influenced those very earlybooks.
And they were so Carolyn king,was that a man or a woman? And
was it always the same on anumber
of people I have read that itwas a man. And I have read that
(42:06):
it was a whole series of women.
It was a whole series ofsomebody that's for sure. With a
name Carolyn Keene. And Iremember that after Mindy Nancy
Drew books, I read some HardyBoys books. And I always thought
that the Hardy Boys books werewritten after Nancy Drew,
because boys must be hurting notto have a great heroine or hero
(42:27):
like Nancy Drew. It turned outthe Hardy Boys were written
first. And then someone began towrite the books for the girls.
Oh, that's very clever. And arethere any other mystery writers
that were an inspiration foryou?
Ah, you know, when I was quiteyoung, and I'm in my 20s. So you
(42:48):
know, 50 years ago? I rememberlike it was yesterday. I really
liked I always sort of likedAgatha Christie. Oh, yeah, sure,
you know, because she wasreliably entertaining. And in
some ways, the television showswith our role. Were almost
(43:08):
better than her books, you know,in terms of the of the content
and the kind of people that werethere. But I also really loved a
New Zealand writer called NileMarsh. And I love Dorothy L
Sayers. Dorothy L. Sayers isprobably my favorite. And, you
(43:30):
know, latterly I really lovedElizabeth George. And you know,
as long as there are mysteries,you know, the Hillerman
mysteries I really loved becausethey took place in the desert,
and I spent much of my life inMexico, and then all of my high
school in Arizona, so I couldreally relate to that. You know,
(43:51):
and there's a lot of justincredibly good mysteries being
written right now by fabulouswriters, you know, Donna Leone
and Ann Cleeves. And, you know,there's just, it's, you know,
you can never be bored.
Have you read the silentpatient? It's different than
what you do. But have you readthat one? It's, it's, it was, it
(44:13):
wasn't a debut. And it wasamazing, but it's a few like,
psychological. Right? Very,super terrifying. But well, not
super terrifying. You might beable to tell from whatever
right? Yeah,
Amy Mair (44:27):
no, you're I think you're Posey. I had a, a author
on and she told me that for, forsomething to be a cozy
mysteries, they're actualcomponents and people will argue
about them. And one of thethings I read is you have to
have or she told me, you have tohave a cat somewhere in the
book.
Unknown (44:47):
In fact, I remember at about book three or four. My
publisher said there's this cozybook club in Philadelphia that
wants to have you at theirmeeting. And they'd read
Killoran King's code, the firstbook, and it was before the
wonderful technology of zoom.
And so it was kind of an awkwardthing. And it was blurry. And
(45:10):
there were all these peoplesitting in the dark looking
obviously at their television,to see me. And they were quite
crossed with me because theysaid, you know, they asked me
questions, and some of themreally liked the book. But one
of them said, you know, this isnot a cozy you do not qualify as
a cozy writer. Yes, yes. Becausethey were reading the very, I
(45:31):
mean, lots of cozies are quiteformate. formulaic, they're let
you write they have specialcomponents. They're like
Harlequin, romances do have tohave certain things in them. And
I'm sure what they loved was theblueberry pancake recipe at the
end, and, you know, all of thatkind of thing. So I think I fit
(45:51):
somewhere closer to novels andcozy, so it's my books feel
cozy, is that you feel safe.
Okay, yeah, that's a good,that's a good way to put that.
Well, thank you so much forbeing on the podcast. That was
really fun, and pleasure. And Ireally enjoyed that. And I think
(46:14):
the your backstory just reallyadds to, I think people's
enjoyment that there's sometruth to what you're writing
about. So thank you so much.
Thank you.
Okay, bye. So that was reallyfun. I really enjoyed that
interview. And actually, as amatter of fact, I remember I
(46:36):
know, I own a son, Biscay andour kids play soccer together.
And I remember, I was on theside of the soccer pitch. And at
the time, I was writing for amagazine working for a magazine.
And he came in also doing afreelance writing, and he's
(46:57):
like, you've got to meet my mom.
She's written a mystery book.
And so she was just as she istoday, like, very excited and
talking about her book. And Ihad no idea that we'd be talking
10 years later, and that shewould be topping the bestseller
charts. So anyway, and I loveher phrase, why not me? So I
(47:21):
think we all need to adopt that.
Thanks so much for listening,and I will talk to you bye
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.