Another Interview with Pliny the Younger!

What do a senator and a smutty poet have in common?

They’re tracking a murderer through the streets and bedrooms of Rome.

Rome: 96 AD. When the body of Sextus Verpa, a notorious senatorial informer and libertine, is found stabbed to death in his bedroom, suspicion falls on his household slaves—a potential death sentence for them all. The emperor Domitian orders Vice-Prefect Pliny to investigate. However, the Roman Games have just begun and for the next fifteen days the law courts are in recess. If Pliny can’t identify the murderer in that time, Verpa’s entire slave household will be burned alive in the arena. Plinius teams up with Martial, a starving author of bawdy verses and hanger-on to the city’s glitterati. Pooling their talents, they unravel a plot that involves Christian “atheists,” worshipers of Isis, sleek courtiers, a vengeful concubine, a child bride, and a paranoid emperor.

Susanne Alleyn: Good day, citizen. Please tell us a bit about yourself! What year is it now for you, and where are you located?

Pliny: As I write this, it’s late October of the year 863 From the Founding of the City, as we Romans count the years. I believe you would call it AD 110. I am sitting in the Governor’s palace in Nicomedia, the capital of the province of Bithynia. And frankly I would rather be almost anywhere else! My chief tax collector has been found with his neck broken, buried in a shallow grave out in the woods. Several people, including his wife, might have liked to see him dead, but it now seems that he was also mixed up with a mysterious secret cult of the barbarian god, Mithras. Meanwhile, corruption is running rampant and the whole province is about to explode if I don’t do something soon. And I am running out of ideas!

SA: What about your early life?

Pliny: I was born 50 years ago at Comum in the north of Italy. My father died when I was young and I was adopted by my uncle. You may have heard of him—Pliny the Elder, the great encyclopedist. Ours was a studious household (he was an indefatigable scholar) and I suppose I’ve inherited my literary interests from him. (I’ve composed hundreds of letters to my friends—quite polished little essays, really, which you might enjoy reading.) But certainly the most dramatic and formative event of my young life was the destruction of Pompeii. We were living on the Bay of Naples when Vesuvius exploded. I was just seventeen. My mother and I barely escaped with our lives. Sadly, my uncle perished. I’ve written all about this in two long letters to my friend, Tacitus.

SA: Tell us something about your family life.

Pliny: I am blessed with a wonderful wife, Calpurnia. She was just fourteen when I married her (less than half my age) and she is devoted to me. As a young bride, she would sleep with copies of my speeches under her pillow whenever I had to be away, and she set my poems to music, which she sang to the lyre—quite untaught except by Love itself. (Lately, though, ever since we’ve come to this wretched province, something is troubling her; she seems distant, preoccupied. I don’t know why. I fear I’m neglecting her.)

SA: How is law and order maintained in Rome?

Pliny: We have no such thing as a police force as you understand  it. In Rome, we have the Praetorian Guard and the City Cohorts to maintain order. Most other cities have nothing at all. But the whole notion of detecting crime by looking for clues is really quite an alien notion. That’s why it strikes me as odd how many fictitious Roman detectives you in the 21st century have, considering how few (if any) really existed!

SA: Presumably you are somewhat familiar with our early 21st century, after conversations with Mr. Macbain. What aspects of your world do you think would seem most alien to those readers from the 21st century?

Pliny: Well, that would have to be slavery. Of course, it’s an evil—the Stoic philosophers teach that—but, alas, a necessary one. For us, slavery has nothing to do with race, we’re happy to enslave anyone. But Roman slavery law is very harsh. In my first case, I was motivated by trying to save a whole household of slaves from being executed because it seemed that one of them might have murdered their master (who was a cruel man and deserved it). But that’s how it is. We can’t live without them and, at the same time, we fear them. I must say, I treat mine a lot better than most people do.

SA: What about the history of your era do you think is most relevant to those of us who live in the early 21st century?

Pliny: We are an imperial nation, quite persuaded of our god-given destiny to tell everyone else how to live, and we spend a huge percentage of our budget on the military. Sound familiar?

SA: Alas, yes! So what would you say to 21st-century people who moan and groan and complain about how bad things are in our current economic and political climate. Would you be itching to say “Learn some history and take a look at what’s going on in my world—you’d probably want to stay in yours!” ?

Pliny: Oh, no. On the contrary, we Romans now live under an excellent emperor who shoulders the burdens of government and ensures peace and prosperity for all. No sane person would want to go back to the bad old days of the Republic. Democracy is a nice philosophical ideal but quite impractical and we’re much better off without it! This is the happiest age mankind has ever known, as I believe your historian Edward Gibbon wisely observed.

SA: What was your most fascinating, confounding, or horrifying case over the course of your career so far, and why?

Pliny:  If not the one I’m faced with now, then certainly my first case, described in Roman Games, which I alluded to above. Without giving too much away, I was badly taken in by a very clever murderer and it nearly cost me my life. I am embarrassed to recall it. I shall say no more.

SA: In the course of your investigations, have you encountered important personages (whom we in the 21st century would recognize) who played supporting roles in your cases?

Pliny: In my first case, I was assisted (if that’s the word) by the poet Martial. Of course, the man’s a rascal and composes the most filthy verses, but he does know his way around the seamier parts of Rome, which an upstanding senator like myself wouldn’t dream of frequenting. In my current case, my staff officer, Suetonius, is a great help to me. And, then, there is my beloved freedman, Zosimus, without whom I’d be quite lost.

SA: Does the thought of assisting the authorities to send a guilty person to execution, particularly a lingering, gruesome death such as the methods you Romans frequently use, affect your personal feelings about investigating a crime?

Pliny: Oh, we’re quite convinced that the threat of punishment is key for crime prevention. I myself have tortured and crucified a few malefactors. Deplorable, of course, but what else can one do? At least we don’t lock them up in prison for years on end. Barbarous.

SA: How would you describe yourself?

Pliny: I like to think I have the virtues of my nation. Not brilliant, perhaps, not clever like these insufferable Greeklings I  have to deal with. But steady and determined and painstaking. By Jove, the virtues that made us great! (Pardon me if I sound a bit stuffy. I do unbend every now and then and I’m really quite a decent fellow.)

SA: I’m sure you are, citizen. And may the gods be with you in solving your current quandary!

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Roman Games, by Bruce Macbain, is available in print and as an eBook.

Bruce Macbain holds degrees in Classics and Ancient History and was formerly an Assistant Professor of Classics at Boston University. He decided to stop writing scholarly articles (which almost no one read) and turn his expertise to fiction—a much more congenial medium. Roman Games (Poisoned Pen Press, 2010) is his first published novel. He is currently at work on its sequel, The Bull Slayer. He lives with his wife in Brookline, MA.

Historical Sleuth Interviews will appear around the middle and end of each month. Authors, if you’d like your historical sleuth to be interviewed here, please send Susanne a note with a little information about your books.

Susanne Alleyn is the author of the Aristide Ravel French Revolution Mysteries (The Cavalier of the Apocalypse, Palace of Justice, Game of Patience, and A Treasury of Regrets) and of A Far Better Rest, the reimagining of A Tale of Two Cities, all available in paper and eBook via Amazon.com and other major retailers.

Meet Hetty Henry, 17th-century Bostonian Sleuth

Today we meet a sleuth from the Massachusetts Bay Colony of the 1690s:

Mehitable (“Hetty”) Henry and her friend Increase (“Creasy”) Cotton are two nosy Puritans in Boston who are sent—usually by a young Cotton Mather on the verge of a nervous breakdown—to settle community problems like murder. Hetty, a wealthy 25-ish widow and shipowner, has connections to high and low society; Creasy is a young minister trained to ferret out the guilty secrets of the human soul. Between them, they are a Puritan evildoer’s worst nightmare.

Susanne Alleyn: Greetings, Mistress Henry! Please tell me a little about your world. Would you prefer to live elsewhere?

Hetty Henry: It’s the Year 1695 in Boston, chief Town of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. I am a successful Woman of Commerce in the City, which every One knows is the Center of the Universe. Live some where else? Surely, you jest. Unless it’s my Farm in Rumney Marsh, just outside of the City, of course. There’s a young Lad I’m keeping my Eye on there.

SA: What do you love so much about a society which many of us in the 21st century view (perhaps mistakenly) as bleak, fanatical, and joyless? Wouldn’t you like to change it?

Hetty: Nonsense! I enjoy the Lust for Life our People have—we eat fresh Foods and in great Quantities, drink heartily, and love . . . Well, you’ll find out in my next Adventure. Change any Thing? I think not.

SA: Tell me about yourself, then.

Hetty: I was born in 1665 in a Time when Massachusetts Bay had been left to govern itself for many Years. We are an independent People, with our own democratick Form of Elections, where Education for all is mandated, and with Commerce where Women often run the Business while the Men are at Sea. As a Widow I can own Property and have many other Freedoms, so I have vow’d to remain a Widow. As a Puritan I am expected to keep an Eye on my Neighbour to see that he keeps to the Godly Path; “nosy” is good for a Detector.

SA: What sort of law and order does Boston have?

Hetty: Our Constable, John Phillymort, is a complete Bible-quoting Prig, so he is of little Help in solving Crimes. We do have Magistrates and follow British Law Books. Creasy and I are good at asking Questions and making Deductions, and occasionally I try playing a Trick that usually backfires like a faulty Blunderbuss. We became Detectors when young Cotton Mather, suppos’d to be a Community Leader besides his ministerial Duties, had (as you would say in your Century) a nervous Break-down and was in no Condition to find out who had murder’d a Boston Minister. (His Father, my Uncle Increase Mather, was away in London negotiating a new Charter for the Colony, otherwise he would have overseen it.) Creasy had no choice but to investigate. I chose to butt in, being what you, in your time, might call “a pushy Broad.” It was a success and we were ask’d to do other Investigations.

SA: Such as?

Hetty: Our latest Case took us to Cape Cod, to a small Seaport called Billingsgate (you would call it Wellfleet), famous for its Oysters. I was going there to buy Casks of Oysters for Boston Fanciers but really I intended to investigate at the Request of my Friends, Marge and Tom Tiley—for their great Friend and a very popular Person, Charlie Pierce, was found floating in the Bay with a Knife in his Back. Creasy accompanied me, ostensibly to preach to the Natives. Since everyone lik’d Charlie, who was generous with his Money and with his Labour to the local Fishermen, the Tileys could not imagine who would harm him. This, I confess, was one of the Times when a Prank I pull’d to catch the Killer backfired and nearly got Tiley’s Friend Cody kill’d. Cody did thank me in very imaginative ways—the “hottest s—x” yet, you would say, in my Adventures . . . I think I must say no more. My report is call’d: Death of a Cape Cod Cavalier; and ’twill be publish’d late in your year 2012.

All my Adventures have a certain historical Background in my present Time—the mysterious Deaths of Ministers (Murder, Mather, and Mayhem); the Land Fraud by the founding Father of what will become your State of New York (Death of a Dutch Uncle); the Witch Trials in Salem (Death of a Bawdy Belle); the Harassment by Magistrates and Ministers of a Dancing Master (Death of a Dancing Master); and the Importance of Oysters for Wellfleet (Death of a Cape Cod Cavalier).

SA: What would you say to spoiled (or religiously deluded) 21st-century people—particularly in the United States—who declare that things are so bad right now that surely “this is the worst time ever to be alive” or “all this is a sign that God must have decided that the end of the world is due any day”?

Hetty: I would say to your Troubles, in your Parlance: SUCK IT UP!

Tho’ my Cousin Cotton Mather would fit right in your Times: he whines, thinks he is the Sun and the Moon together, is what you call a Hypochondriack, and always feels as if he is in the Shadow of his Father—and he is. Increase Mather is the great One in the Family. (Cotton is also—to use your most entertaining Expression—a Chick-Magnet, because of his Position and because he does like Women.)

Cousin Cotton Mather, indeed, would be a fascinating Study for a “Psychologist” of your Era. Cotton has written over four hundred Publications, is a Member of the Royal Academy in London for his scientific Interests, speaks with Angels (truly!)—and was NOT responsible for the Salem Witch Trials, which your modern Writers claim. The Judges were all Colleagues of his Father, whom he hesitated to criticise from Boston, but he did urge them not to use the Testimony of Ghosts. Too bad they did not listen to him. His real-Life “nervous Break-downs” do, however, serve as an Excuse for us to investigate Murders in the Community.

SA: What was your most exciting or dangerous investigation, so far?

Hetty: I would say our most dangerous Case—for me, at any rate—was that call’d Death of a Bawdy Belle. It takes Place during the Salem Witch Trials and Mistress Kemp and I, in chronicling it, us’d actual Dialogue from the Trial Transcripts. When an extra Body was found on the Gallows, Creasy and I were ask’d to investigate, to my Peril. Because I was getting close to the Killer, I was tied to a Wharf Support and left to drown by the incoming Tide. That was most horrific.

SA: I know the Puritans use capital punishment as part of their system of justice. How do you feel about that? And if there were one person whom you’d secretly like to kill (though you wouldn’t, of course), who would it be?

Hetty: We do have capital Punishment in the Bay Colony. The Means of Execution in New England are usually by Hanging. We never burn’d Witches—that was Europe into the 18th Century, not New England. At Salem one Man was press’d to Death with Boulders—because he refused to plead, and that meant his Heirs could inherit. Hanging, done properly, is an instant Death. I have no Problems with that. Perhaps you People do not know that after Salem, the Victims’ Families were compensated; and the Victims were exonerated. Justice is always a Priority with us—I am told that we Puritans were probably the only Americans in your early History to hang a white Man for killing an Indian.

The only Person I should like to kill is that Prig Constable Phillymort, who is constantly interfering and arresting the wrong Man.

SA: So tell me a little more about your relationship with Creasy. Or is that a secret?

Hetty: Do Creasy and I have, as you would say, a romantick Relationship? Not really. Oh, on one Case we nearly—“got it on”—whilst reading a Pile of steamy Love Letters written to the dancing Master, but that d—ned Constable pounded upon the Door at the crucial Moment . . . Mainly Creasy thinks I am too bossy and I think he’s too easily impressed by a pretty Face. Handsome Women can’t kill People, he thinks? I know better.

Though, as a Widow, I don’t hesitate to go to Bed with a Man I like. I’ve got this Mohawk “hunk” that I hope to see again. (All the Women like Billy Blue Bear.) I admit that sleeping with my Friend’s Fiancé in Wellfleet wasn’t right, though. Oh well, no Harm done, and I had sav’d his Life, so that was his Way of thanking me. Again and again and again . . .

SA: And to conclude, what do you think your 21st-century readers would find most alien about New England in the 1690s? And what else can you tell us about your Puritan community that we probably aren’t familiar with?

Hetty: I think your Century would find most foreign two Things: firstly, the Freshness of our Food—right from the Sea or off the Hoof, our Vegetables grown locally, as they are at my own Farm—many of our Citizens own Farms near Boston; and secondly, the strong Place Religion has in our Society, even in secular Affairs. Ministers are Community and political Leaders as well as Clergymen.

There was a little-known Event in my Day that probably affected your Revolution nearly one hundred Years later: the Arrest of Royal Governor Edmund Andros on Charges of Corruption. We sent him back to London in Chains. Cotton Mather was ask’d to write out our Reasons for doing this—we could have been charged with Treason—’twas a first Declaration of Independence, of a sort. We had been independent for many Years and Andros threatened to make us Slaves. This we could not stomach. We managed a Revolution without Bloodshed in 1689. May all such Revolutions be equally bloodless.

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Death of a Cape Cod Cavalier, by M.E. Kemp, will appear in print in autumn 2012.

M. E. Kemp‘s roots go back to Salem in 1636 so she has an affinity for New England history. Her ancestors settled the town of Oxford, MA in 1713 and continue to live there to this day. Kemp herself, being more adventurous, lives in Saratoga Springs, NY, home of the famous race track where she hawks tip sheets to bettors and ogles the shirtless jockeys.

Historical Sleuth Interviews will appear around the middle and end of each month. Authors, if you’d like your historical sleuth to be interviewed here, please send Susanne a note with a little information about your books.

Susanne Alleyn is the author of the Aristide Ravel French Revolution Mysteries (The Cavalier of the Apocalypse, Palace of Justice, Game of Patience, and A Treasury of Regrets) and of A Far Better Rest, the reimagining of A Tale of Two Cities, all available in paper and eBook via Amazon.com and other major retailers.

An Interview with Mrs. Annie Fuller, Boarding House Keeper and Clairvoyant

It is October 1879 in San Francisco, in the weeks leading up to Halloween, and Annie Fuller, a young widowed boarding house owner, has been asked by one of her boarders, Miss Pinehurst, to expose Arabella Frampton, a local trance medium, as a fraud. Mrs. Fuller is being aided in this endeavor by Nate Dawson, a local lawyer, and her maid-of-all-work, Kathleen Hennessey, and she will soon find there are as many secrets as there are spirits swirling around the Frampton séance table. Some of those secrets will threaten the future of her relationship with Mr. Dawson, and, in time, they will threaten her very life itself.

 

Susanne Alleyn: What year is it now, Mrs. Fuller, and where are you located? Why do you live where you do?

Mrs. Annie E. Fuller: It is the fall of 1879, and I live in San Francisco, California, my birthplace. However, I returned to the city only two years ago, when I inherited a lovely old home on O’Farrell Street from my maternal aunt. She and my uncle, along with my parents, moved to San Francisco in 1850, as part of the first Gold Rush migration. The house was a wonderful gift because I had been living off the charity of my in-laws in the four years since my husband’s death. Needing a means of support, I turned the home into a boarding house, and one of my aunt’s former servants, Mrs. Beatrice O’Rourke, is my cook. I also employ one full-time maid, Kathleen Hennessey. Together, these two excellent women serve my nine boarders.

SA: Would you rather live anywhere else?

Mrs. Fuller: No! San Francisco, with its hills and sweeping vistas of the great bay, is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Even though the city is just recovering from the effects of the terrible national depression, I believe the economic future of the city is very bright. With the completion of the transcontinental railroad ten years ago, the city’s population has grown to well over 200,000 people, and there is a kind of youthful energy here that you don’t find in the older cities back east. I hope I never have to leave here again.

SA: How did your life before you returned to San Francisco influence you?

Mrs. Fuller: My childhood was rather unusual. I was born May 14, 1853, in San Francisco, however, my parents and I moved south to a cattle ranch outside of the small village of Los Angeles when I six. My mother was in ill health, and my father thought that the warmer, drier climate to the south would be better for her. The ranch was very isolated, and I seldom saw anyone besides the Mexican ranch hands. I realize now that ranch life permitted an extraordinary degree of physical freedom for a girl. But my mother died when I was twelve, and my father and I left California, making the six month long trip around Cape Horn to return to his birthplace, New York City.

The isolation of my childhood, my mother’s death, and this trip cemented the unusually close bonds I had with my father. My father, Edward Stewart, was a well-respected businessman and stockbroker before he took up ranching, and he resumed this profession when we moved back east. While I attended an exclusive female academy, it was the lessons in finances with my father each evening that I loved most. I found I had inherited my father’s business aptitude, and he was so proud of me, letting me make my own investments by the time I was sixteen.

I am sorry to say, my husband, Mr. John Fuller (I married at nineteen), didn’t have the same respect for my expertise, and, after my father died, John made a series of terrible business decisions that wiped out my inheritance. I was left penniless when he died in 1874, which is why I was so grateful when my inheritance from my aunt provided me a home of my own. I have sworn I will never be financially dependent on anyone, ever again.

Unfortunately, I found that the income from the boarding house barely covers the expenses, which is why I decided to supplement my income as Madam Sibyl, a clairvoyant. Oh dear, you will keep your promise not to reveal that I am Madam Sibyl, won’t you? It would never do for the connection between Mrs. Annie Fuller and Madam Sibyl become public knowledge.

SA: Yes, certainly, Mrs. Fuller, but does this mean you are not entirely happy with the constraints put on women by society in 1879?

Mrs. Fuller: Women may have made some gains in the last fifty years; for example, two San Francisco women, Clara Foltz and Laura deForce Gordon, were recently successful in winning the right to take the California bar exam. In other ways, nothing has changed. If I were Edward Stewart’s son, instead of his daughter, I would have been able to get a job with a brokerage firm as soon as I arrived in San Francisco, and I could have dispensed with the fiction that I get my business advice from reading palms or casting horoscopes. A woman’s options in life are still so limited. They can marry and be dependent on the whims of their husband, stay single and remain under the authority of their fathers, or they can get a badly paying job in occupations that provide little beyond a future of hard work and poverty.

SA: Is this why you became a private investigator, as a blow for women’s rights?

Mrs. Fuller: Oh dear, I am afraid you have gotten a mistaken impression. I have no intention of making a living solving crimes. My involvement with crime has been limited to two cases, and I am strictly an amateur. This past summer I helped uncover the truth behind the death of Mr. Matthew Voss, one of Madam Sibyl’s clients. At first the police ruled his death as suicide because of financial reverses. I knew this couldn’t possibly be true. Mr. Voss would never shame his family in that way. Besides, I knew that under Madam Sibyl’s (that is to say, my) guidance he had been making a good deal of money from his financial investments. I only got involved in investigating his death to clear his good name and make sure his family wasn’t left destitute, the way I had been at my husband’s death.

SA: What investigative techniques did you use?

Mrs. Fuller: Well, I suppose I simply use my powers of observation and my knowledge of human behavior. These are two skills that have been central to my success as Madam Sibyl, and they helped me discover the truth about the death of Mr. Voss. I secured a temporary position in Mr. Voss’s household as a domestic servant, which permitted me to search the premises and witness the interactions of the members of the household. This was something that a male police officer or investigator would never have been able to do. I also gained profound appreciation of the difficult life of domestic servants. When I hear a man of my class speak of how women must be protected because of their innate frailty, I want to laugh. Not one of the self-satisfied merchants living in their fine homes atop the San Francisco hills would last a day in the life of one of their young Irish servant girls.

SA: Please tell me about your most recent investigation?

Mrs. Fuller: One of the residents in my boarding house, Miss Pinehurst, asked me to look into the activities of a local trance medium. She was concerned because her sister had been attending séances held by Arabella and Simon Frampton, believing that they had contacted her recently deceased young son, Charlie. Miss Pinehurst believes the Framptons are frauds and that her sister is endangering her health by her obsession with the spirit world. I must say, from my attendance at several of these séances, that I quite agree with Miss Pinehurst’s assessment. I know that Spiritualism is a belief system that has given any number of very intelligent men and women a good deal of comfort, but I find the activities of people like the Framptons quite repugnant. They prey on a person’s grief for monetary gain. At least as Madam Sibyl I know the advice I am giving is based on a solid foundation of fact and that the lives of my clients are improved by that advice.

SA: Do you work alone on your investigations, or have you cooperated with the police?

Mrs. Fuller: I have tried to steer clear of any formal contact with the police because I don’t welcome any sort of notoriety that might tarnish the respectability of my boarding house. That is one of the reasons it is so important to keep the real identity of Madam Sibyl a secret, something that might be very difficult if I actively cooperated with the police. However, I have had help in my investigations from Mr. Nathaniel Dawson, the Voss family lawyer. He was initially quite dismissive of my investigations into his client’s death. He eventually came round and was quite helpful in breaking the case, and he has just offered to help gather information about the Framptons, which I do appreciate. In addition, my servant, Kathleen Hennessey, has been coming with me when I attend the Frampton séances. While I am locked in a dark room listening to strange spirits moan, she has been finding out about the other members of the Frampton household.

SA: Finally, what about the history of your era do you think is most relevant to those of us who live in the early 21^st century?

Mrs. Fuller: Mark Twain, one of San Francisco’s most famous former citizens, has called our era “The Gilded Age,” and from what I know of your time, there are numerous parallels. After a decade of unprecedented economic growth after the Civil War, the United States has become a nation of staggering inequality. The millionaires, who made their wealth by paying their workers low wages to work in unsafe conditions and stripping away the nation’s timber and mineral resources without paying a dime in fees, plunged the nation into a terrible depression when their reckless speculation in railroad stocks caused the “Panic of 1873.” Banks failed, businesses went bankrupt, real estate values plummeted, and it is estimated unemployment reached 14%, causing people to actually starve to death. I experienced firsthand the devastation of this economic downturn, as did many of Madam Sibyl’s clients.

My father taught me that America will never see steady economic growth until the working people make enough in wages to afford the manufactured goods their labor produces. Otherwise, we will be dependent on foreign trade and at the mercy of the ups and downs of the stock market and the reckless decisions of greedy bankers. From what I know of your era, not much has changed.

Even more distressing is the way that people turn against each other in economic bad times. Rather than blaming the wealthy capitalists of our nation and the politicians they have corrupted, the poor Irish workers in San Francisco, like Dennis Kearney, vented their anger against the city’s Chinese immigrants, men like themselves who were just trying to make a living. I have had numerous arguments with Mrs. O’Rourke, my friend and cook, over this issue, and I understand that in your era there has been a similar tendency to blame immigrants. Such a shame.

Yes, I fear the crimes against groups like immigrants and poor working women and underpaid miners far outweigh the crimes that I have investigated. But I try to do what I can to right the wrongs that I see, even if it upsets a man like Nate Dawson’s belief in what is appropriate behavior for a gently reared woman.

SA: Thank you, Mrs. Fuller, for your insights!

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Leave a comment here at the blog to be entered into a drawing for a paper or e-copy of Maids of Misfortune or Uneasy Spirits!

M. Louisa Locke, a retired U.S history professor, has recently published the first two books in a planned series about Victorian San Francisco, Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits, both best-selling historical mysteries on Kindle. Locke blogs frequently on self-publishing, is a featured contributor to Publetariat, and is on the Board of Directors of the Historical Fiction Authors Cooperative. She is currently working on the third book in her series, Bloody Lessons.

Historical Sleuth Interviews will appear around the middle and end of each month. Authors, if you’d like your historical sleuth to be interviewed here, please send Susanne a note with a little information about your books.

Susanne Alleyn is the author of the Aristide Ravel French Revolution Mysteries (The Cavalier of the Apocalypse, Palace of Justice, Game of Patience, and A Treasury of Regrets) and of A Far Better Rest, the reimagining of A Tale of Two Cities, all available in paper and eBook via Amazon.com and other major retailers.

Susanne Interviews Mary Wollstonecraft, 18th-century Feminist (and Sleuth)

 

Susanne Alleyn: What year is it now for you, Miss Wollstonecraft, and where are you located?

Mary Wollstonecraft: It is the year 1792 and I am here in my small house on Store Street, London, which my benevolent, sine qua non bookseller-publisher rents for me. I live here because I can afford no other, and though I prefer to be dependent on no man, I must accept Mr. Johnson’s kindness. It is a small house, and as occasional helpmeet I have a sassy young maidservant, Dulcie, the bookseller’s relative, who calls herself a non-servant and that goes well with me. Why should another female serve me?

SA: I understand you are an indefatigable reformer. What of your world pleases you, and which particular aspect of your world do you wish most to change?

Mary: Alas, “The world is too much with us / Getting and spending we lay waste our powers./ Little we see in Nature that is ours . . .” I wholly agree with the words of the young poet, William Wordsworth, who is a member of my bookseller’s Dissenting literary circle, along with William Blake, Tom Paine,William Godwin, and the rogue, Henry Fuseli (my obsession, my unrequited love. My nemesis.).

I love my friends and my siblings, although they are always asking for money and I earn little of that. I love my generous bookseller-publisher, but oh I would change all the unfair laws and customs for women. Most eighteenth-century males consider females “children of a larger growth,” did you know that? Indeed! When I wrote my Vindication for the Rights of Woman, calling for political, legal and economic equality, they labelled me a hyena in petticoats. How it hurts, how it damages my nerves! But I persevere. I want to transform the entire world.

SA: Where and when were you born? What were the strongest influences upon you before you solved your first mystery?

Mary: I was born April 27, 1759 in London. As a boy my father was apprenticed to his father, a silk weaver. But after receiving an inheritance as eldest son, he abandoned the craft to become a gentleman farmer—and failed. The failures turned him into a drunkard and wife-beater. I would lie on the landing in front of my parents’ chamber to keep him away from my mother. And now my elder brother Ned has become his greedy father. How I loathe the law of primogeniture where the eldest son gets everything, and will not give a farthing to his siblings!

I left home at nineteen to be caregiver for a tyrannical woman and then became a governess at Mitchelstown Castle in Ireland, home of the notorious Kingsboroughs, who were arrogant and niggardly. I got my revenge by putting them in my first (autobiographical) novel, Mary, A Fiction. They dismissed me after ten months and inspired me to live independent or not at all!

SA: As a woman in eighteenth-century England, obviously you would have no opportunity to join a police force (had one existed) or become any kind of professional investigator. How and why, then, did you become a sleuth?

Mary: Police force? Professional investigator? Heavens no! I am an educator and writer. I slipped into the role of sleuth through the peculiar bent of my nature. I cannot tolerate sham or oppression of any sort. In my twenties, I kidnapped my postpartum sister from an abusive husband. We raced through town, changing carriages to dupe the hotheaded spouse, while Bess, poor girl, bit her wedding ring into pieces!

Later, on my way back from Portugal where my beloved Fanny died in my arms (I’ll never get over it), I compelled the biased English captain to turn the ship about to rescue a sinking boatload of French sailors. Soon I am to journey to Paris as a war correspondent for the French Revolution. How could I not respond to Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité! How could I not try to help the poor, the innocent, the victimized?

SA: Tell me about your most recent investigation, if you please.

Mary: My Vindication of the Rights of Woman was published with praise from the liberal thinkers and disparaging remarks from conservatives—I was called a “philosophical wanton”! But it was not the criticism that held me back this year of 1792, it was “writer’s block.” And all because of Henry Fuseli. I was obsessed. I knew it was foolish: He was vain, deceitful, a womanizer. But he was a genius. His conversation glittered, each word a shooting star; his paintings hung everywhere in the known world.

His masterpiece “The Nightmare” both fascinated and horrified me. That naked, sleeping woman with the little goblin on her chest. But the painting was stolen! And a young critic of Henry’s put in prison and then a madhouse for the theft. It was that devil Fuseli had him put there. And then my bluestocking friend was strangled and arranged to resemble that erotic painting. I could not stand by and watch events unfold. My quest for truth sent me into dungeons and dramhouses, into confrontations with a dozen abhorrent rogues. I tell you I never want to see that misogynist Fuseli again. They say he even destroyed my letters without reading them! Another heinous crime, was it not?

SA: What’s going on in the world around you during your investigation? Are the mysteries tied to contemporary historical events?

Mary: In Midnight Fires, the mystery is tied to the tumultuous events in Ireland where I was governess: in particular to the plight of the poor peasants, exploited by their Anglo-Irish landlords; I found myself involved with a radical group called the Defenders.

Back in London, I was part of my Unitarian publisher’s radical circle. Unitarians, who had their own chapels but did not observe the Anglican creed, could not hold office or attend Oxford or Cambridge. Unfair! So they started their own schools—for boys, that is—I am trying to change that. Females must educate themselves and not be pawns of their fathers and husbands! Some Unitarians like my dear friend Joseph Priestley had their homes and labs burned by the King’s mob. Unconscionable!

Of course in 1792 we are all thrilled by the promise of full equality offered by the French Revolution. In Paris I might even take a husband for the time being, ha! and then obtain a divorce—for divorce has recently become legal in that nation.

SA: What about the last decades of the eighteenth century do you think is most relevant to those of us who live in the early twenty-first century?

Mary: As I suggested above, it is the advent of freedoms (religion, press, et al.) and of women’s rights. I expect you twenty-first^-century women take for granted the rights I struggle for, but there are still men and women in your era, I wager, trying to take them away! I believe in the perfectibility of mankind, but doubt I will live to see it. So many intolerant religious groups in every land and era, trying to tell one how to live. Were I alive in your century, I would still be shouting the wrongs of woman to the world. Equal pay for equal labor! A woman’s right to her own body! The right to have an education! But are there not women in your era who receive only the most minimal schooling?

SA: What would you say to twenty-first-century people who complain that surely “this is the worst time ever to be alive?

Mary: I would remind them of Cicero’s statement in 43 BC: “Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.” Or send them to a certain author, somewhat after my time, Mr. Dickens, who will write: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

SA: What was your most fascinating, confounding or horrifying case over the course of your career so far, and why?

Mary: In The Nightmare, a chase through a madhouse, a descent into a dark wine cellar, a race down the Thames River to rescue my young ward who had been captured by—well, I mustn’t be a spoiler for my own book, must I? But the madhouse, that was the most terrifying. Black dogs on the threshold straining for my throat, and a raving, raven of a matron to keep the wretched inmates in line—my own brother Henry, for example. My parents swore us to secrecy when he went slowly, inexorably mad, committed a horrendous crime (I cannot divulge the nature of this crime or my mother’s ghost will forever haunt me) and was put into an institution. “Don’t tell. Don’t tell. Don’t tell,” my parents pleaded, wringing their hands. And I am not telling. Do you wonder why I place my protagonist Maria, in my manuscript, The Wrongs of Woman, in a madhouse?

SA: A culprit whom you unmask might very well be executed for his or her crime. What is your view of capital punishment?

Mary: I do not believe in it—even though the punishments have become more “humane” than in earlier times, when a person might be drawn and quartered or put on the rack or hanged slowly until dead. There are still horrendous deaths that the fickle populace regards as entertainment. The new French guillotine, for example, is termed “merciful.” You lie face down on a plank which is then tipped under the cutting knife and swish! Your head falls into a basket. You are no longer you. God have mercy! Have you ever walked in puddles of blood? No? Well, I have. The blood clings to the soles of one’s shoes. It sullies the soul. Would I could annihilate the guillotine and all capital punishment with it!

SA: Have you ever made an error during an investigation? Has anyone been wrongly punished because of your actions? If so, how do you live with that?

Mary: I have not made an error as such, but I have struggled with my conscience. In Midnight Fires a character commits a crime in a moment of passion to save a child. It was not premeditated. Should he/she die for that? No, I say. One must see the black and white of it. The larger picture. One must examine one’s own conscience and say, ‘What would I have done were my own child or sibling at fault?  Is there no second chance for me? Must I die for this moment of mania?’

And yes, I have had to live with my sister’s kidnapping. We left the child behind, a girl named Mary, after myself. And the bully husband would not give her back, for the babe was his, he said, by law (another law I must overturn). Could I not have rescued the child? But I did not and the poor thing died within a year from lack of care. I live with that guilt daily. Each time I send some conflicted soul to Newgate prison, I find myself shrinking, my heart too heavy to bear. What could I have done to prevent that criminal act? We human beings are all so frail, so imperfect (so much for perfectibility). Who are we to judge what is right and what is wrong?

SA: And to conclude, is there, perhaps, some infuriating person whom you would like to murder—though of course you would not?

Mary: Henry Fuseli. Henry Fuseli. Henry Fuseli!

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The Nightmare is available in trade paperback and as an eBook from Perseverance Press.

Nancy Means Wright has published sixteen books, including five mysteries from St Martin’s Press, and most recently two historicals featuring real-life English feminist Mary Wollstonecraft: The Nightmare (Perseverance, 2011) and Midnight Fires (2010). Her children’s mysteries received an Agatha Award and Agatha nomination. Short stories have appeared in American Literary Review, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and elsewhere. Longtime teacher, actress-director, and Bread Loaf Scholar for a first novel, Nancy lives with her spouse and two Maine Coon cats in Middlebury, Vermont. Visit her author website at www.nancymeanswright.com.

Historical Sleuth Interviews will appear around the middle and end of each month. Authors, if you’d like your historical sleuth to be interviewed here, please send Susanne a note with a little information about your books.

Susanne Alleyn is the author of the Aristide Ravel French Revolution Mysteries (The Cavalier of the Apocalypse, Palace of Justice, Game of Patience, and A Treasury of Regrets, all from St. Martin’s Press) and of A Far Better Rest, the reimagining of A Tale of Two Cities, all available in eBook form and in hardcover and/or trade paperback via Amazon.com and other major retailers.

 

An Interview with Lt. Michael Stoddard, Officer in King George III’s Army

For ten years, an execution hid murder. Then Michael Stoddard came to town.

Bearing a dispatch from his commander in coastal Wilmington, North Carolina, redcoat Lieutenant Michael Stoddard arrives in Hillsborough in February 1781 in civilian garb. He expects to hand a letter to a courier working for Lord Cornwallis, then ride back to Wilmington the next day. Instead, Michael is greeted by the courier’s freshly murdered corpse, a chilling trail of clues leading back to an execution ten years earlier, and a sheriff with a fondness for framing innocents—and plans to deliver Michael up to his nemesis, a psychopathic British officer.

Susanne Alleyn: What year is it now for you, Mr. Stoddard?

Michael Stoddard: It is March of the year 1781, almost five years after fifty-six representatives from His Majesty’s thirteen North American colonies declared independence from the rule of Britain. Wishful thinking on their part, perhaps. For here I am stationed in the port town of Wilmington, North Carolina, with nearly three hundred infantrymen and artillerymen: the King’s finest.

SA: Why are you in Wilmington, may I ask?

Stoddard: My unit, the Eighty-Second Infantry Regiment, occupied Wilmington in late January, madam. Unfavorable winds delayed our landing for three days, thus only the gods know why so many of Wilmington’s rebels were caught by surprise when we finally marched on the town. Many took little with them when they fled in advance of our approach. They left behind their unoccupied homes. As a result, good officers have had little difficulty finding decent lodging. I admit to having grown weary, moving hither and yon during my nine years in the Army. Thus my billet on Second Street, and the comfortable bed in which I sleep, come as quite a pleasant change.

SA: Would you rather be somewhere else?

Stoddard: Almost anywhere else. I’ve been stationed in Georgia and South Carolina for a year and haven’t yet acquired a fondness for hailstorms or tropical heat. Mosquitoes and ticks appear ubiquitous in America but seem larger and more aggressive in the South. I anticipate summer on the coast of North Carolina to deliver a similar experience. But of course, I dutifully serve His Majesty wherever I’m sent.

SA: What do you like most about the time and place in which you live?

Stoddard: I find it stimulating that a man of common birth like myself can become a military officer—thus the presumption among all but the jaded that such a man is a gentleman. You see, in times past, an officer’s commission was only open to a man gently born. Yet in my time, the son of a merchant—Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton being a prime example—may purchase a commission. And during wartime, further advancement is even possible without additional purchase of commissions. For a man who claims the military as his career, the prospects are excellent.

I’m undecided as to whether my future lies in the military. Far more fascinating to me are the strides merchants and artisans have made to attain financial security and even prosperity. It’s no myth that a poor man in America with just a few pennies to his name, a man with talent and intelligence, may through perseverance and years of hard work find himself living comfortably in a home of his own, well before the end of his days. But I suspect that you don’t comprehend what a rare and admirable quality this is in a land, in its people. In pursuit of this comfortable place where men are neither very wealthy nor very poor, merchants and artisans in America have stridden farther and more quickly than their counterparts in Britain. Cherish and protect this financial oasis of the middle ground.

SA: What particular aspect of your world would you change, if you could?

Stoddard: Perhaps this will come as a surprise to you, but I sympathize to a degree with those in America who have desired independence from Britain. Many who wear the King’s scarlet do so, too—including Charles, Lord Cornwallis. At home in England, in the coffee shops and teahouses and taverns, men label this military action by its true name: a war brought down upon us by wealthy, powerful statesmen who purport to listen to the people but are deafened by the siren song of their own greed. Britain, now all-but-bankrupt, has hemorrhaged two generations of sons in America. My mother’s only brother died on the Plains of Abraham fighting for the great General Wolfe. Now that this insurrection has dragged out six years into apparent stalemate, a number of us would rather be on a front where we might be of use.

Thus if I could change matters, I would have the peace commission headed by the Earl of Carlisle reach agreement with the Continental Congress back in 1778. Had the Congress not been so bloody insistent on being gratified with immediate and full independence, you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation today, madam.

SA: I quite agree, sir. So what about your background?

Stoddard: I was born in the year 1754, in Yorkshire, England, and am approaching my twenty-seventh birthday. My father, Abraham, is a poor stonemason. It was his blacksmith brother, my uncle Solomon, who arranged for me to work in Lord Crump’s mews and tend his falcons when I was eleven years of age. Three years later, while still working for Lord Crump, I discovered that his gamekeeper and steward were stealing from him.

By stealing, I don’t mean shooting a buck on the peer’s estate to feed hungry mouths in a poor man’s family. (I presume you appreciate such tactics from Robin Hood.) You see, the gamekeeper and steward weren’t poor men, and their families had plenty to eat. When they stole from Lord Crump, it was to feed their own greed. Full of themselves they became, and they played Lord Crump for an old fool. I brought my observations to his lordship. He and the butler devised a way to track the criminals’ thefts and entrap them. In short order, they were dismissed from his service, none the wiser who had tipped their hand.

Three years later, Uncle Solomon approached Lord Crump about assisting in the purchase of an ensign’s commission. His lordship had no son of his own. Ever grateful for my keen observation skills where the gamekeeper and steward were involved, he responded in a generous manner and bade me make something of myself in the Army as an officer.

SA: Most interesting! So how and why, after your first successful bit of sleuthing at fourteen, did you become an official investigator?

Stoddard: Several commanding officers have assigned me to investigate criminal activity. Upon the Eighty-Second Regiment’s arrival in Wilmington, Major James Henry Craig assigned me the position of lead investigator. I promptly selected Private Nick Spry as my assistant, one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

SA: Describe some contemporary techniques that you use, if any.

Stoddard: “Contemporary” investigative techniques, madam? I wager that basic techniques of investigation have changed little in 230 years and that, if asked, twenty-first century investigators will tell you that the skill of talking with people and extracting details is the most valuable technique an investigator possesses. I’ve been assured that I’ve a face without guile, an “honest face,” and I admit to using that to my advantage. My second most valuable skill would be that of observation, whether it’s to catalogue details at the scene of a crime or upon a murder victim, follow a suspect, or perform surveillance upon his place of business. I’ve also compared handwriting samples and firearm balls, assessed the spattering of bloodstains, and performed an analysis of fibers using a magnifying lens.

For my most recent investigation, circumstances necessitated that I dress in civilian clothing. Out of desperation, I tried something new. I used a witness’s description and the talent of a skilled local artist to produce a likeness in charcoal sketch of a suspect. Surprisingly, it advanced the investigation.

SA: Tell me about your most recent case, which is, I believe, recounted in Regulated for Murder by one Suzanne Adair.

Stoddard: Scarcely a week after the Eighty-Second Regiment’s occupation of Wilmington, Major Craig assigned me to ride five days northwest and meet a loyalist in Hillsborough, North Carolina who knew the location of Lord Cornwallis. The dispatch I carried with me would apprise Lord Cornwallis that his strategy to use the town of Cross Creek as a supply depot could not be implemented, due to interference from the rebels. I traveled through territory unfriendly to the Crown, and the people of Hillsborough had no great love of His Majesty. Thus I traveled in civilian clothing and concealed my identity.

Alas, I found my loyalist contact in Hillsborough brutally slain. The town sheriff’s inclination was to accuse me of the deed and prove that I was not who I said I was. A quirk of Fate initially spared me incarceration, and the sheriff instead deputized me to find the murderer. At first, I went along with the game to save my own hide, perhaps find a way to sneak out of town so I could complete my original mission. But as evidence unfolded, I realized that the sheriff and his men were monsters who hoped to manipulate me into producing evidence that would implicate several innocent people in town.

And I was shocked to uncover a link between the loyalist’s murderer and executions ten years earlier of leaders of a failed rebellion—and nefarious deeds performed beneath the cover of those executions. Never before had I solved a crime so far in the past, one for which a rebellion and executions had scattered most of the witnesses.

Yes, I saw justice served. Did I complete my original mission? I fervently hope so.

SA: What’s going on in the world around you?

Stoddard: The military might of His Majesty is stretched thin, occupied on a number of fronts against the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch. In particular, the North American engagement has proven a challenge.
Truthfully, after six very expensive years of war, His Majesty doesn’t appear to be making much headway at subduing the colonial insurrection. Valiant actions and imbecilic decisions have been made aplenty on both sides. But the King’s finest men battle on rebel soil. The hands of the attrition clock speed forward for us, while rebels have merely to await the exhaustion of our resources. I do wonder whether Parliament realizes that.

SA: What about your world do you think is most relevant to those of us who live in the early 21st century?

Stoddard: Insurrections and revolutions are commonplace throughout history. Few evolve into a stable, intact system of government, sustainable for generations. Those that do are worthy of study by statesmen and citizens alike.

SA: And what would you say to 21st-century people who complain about hard times (and what seems like more than our usual share of natural disasters) and declare that “God must have decided that the end of the world is due any day”?

Stoddard: Could you transport yourself to my time, you’d find many who believe the end of the world was soon forthcoming. Both the Congress and Parliament are ineffective, full of more hot air than the deserts of Arabia. Unemployment rages throughout Britain. The land of America is populated with religious fanatics, themselves descendants of the fanatics who left Britain more than a century earlier.

Natural disasters? Nearly every year that I’ve been stationed in North America, at least one hurricane has affected the colonies; last year, 1780, the greatest of all storms killed more than 20,000 people in the Caribbean and sank British and French ships. This you call the end of the world.

Do pay attention to the goodness in your own world. For example, amazing feats of the sciences allow you to visit other worlds, more than double the lifespan of adults and reduce deaths among infants, and enjoy instant communication with people thousands of miles away.

You of the 21st century believe that times past were somehow different, simpler, more idyllic. I tell you the rigors of the world don’t change and have been with us always, taking the same forms. I’ve been a soldier nine years. I’ve seen that we carry the portmanteau of human nature with us wherever we go. Even were we to transport ourselves to another world, one with pink skies and twenty-mile-high mountains, the end of the world would follow us because we carry it with us.

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Regulated for Murder is available as an eBook from Amazon.com.

Award-winning novelist Suzanne Adair is a Florida native who lives in a two hundred-year-old city at the edge of the North Carolina Piedmont, named for an English explorer who was beheaded. Her suspense and thrillers transport readers to the Southern theater of the Revolutionary War, where she brings historic towns, battles, and people to life. She fuels her creativity with Revolutionary War reenacting and visits to historic sites. Visit her at her author website, www.suzanneadair.com/.

Historical Sleuth Interviews will appear around the middle and end of each month. Authors, if you’d like your historical sleuth to be interviewed here, please send Susanne a note with a little information about your books.

Susanne Alleyn is the author of the Aristide Ravel French Revolution Mysteries and of A Far Better Rest, the reimagining of A Tale of Two Cities, all available in eBook form and in hardcover and/or trade paperback via Amazon.com and other major retailers.

Susanne Interviews Fiona MacGillivray, Fresh from the Klondike Gold Rush

It’s the spring of 1898 and Dawson, Yukon Territory, is the most exciting town in North America. The great Klondike Gold Rush is in full swing and Fiona MacGillivray has crawled over the Chilkoot Pass determined to make her fortune as the owner of the Savoy dance hall. Provided, that is, if her 12-year-old son, growing up much too fast for her liking; the former Glasgow street fighter who’s now her business partner; a stern, handsome NWMP constable; an ageing, love-struck, ex-boxing champion; a wild assortment of headstrong dancers, croupiers, gamblers, madams without hearts of gold, bar hangers-on, cheechakos and sourdoughs; and Fiona’s own nimble-fingered past, don’t get in her way. And then there’s a dead body on centre stage.

Susanne Alleyn: How do you do, ma’am? What year is it now for you, where are you located, and why?

Fiona MacGillivray: It is July of 1898 in Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada. The Great Klondike Gold Rush is in full swing and I am here for one reason only—to make money.

SA: What do you love most about the time and place in which you live, and what particular aspect of your world would you change, if you could?

Fiona: I can think of nowhere else on earth at this time that I, a woman on her own, can make as much money—and legally too. And that is what I would change. Why should a woman be faced with two choices in life: to marry or to prostitute herself?

SA: It looks as if everyone present at the Klondike Gold Rush came from somewhere else, all over the world. Where were you born, Fiona?

Fiona: I was born in Western Skye, Scotland, in 1865. My father was a gamekeeper on a great estate. I was sent to the big house to be educated alongside the earl’s only daughter, a weak-willed whiny thing named Euila. Thus, I speak with a cut-glass English accent, although but a crofter’s daughter. My parents were murdered when I was eleven by the Earl’s second son, and I have lived by my wits ever since.

SA: Is that why you began solving mysteries?

Fiona: I do not solve mysteries—I happen to be unfortunate enough to occasionally be caught up in events beyond my control.

SA: Well then, how is law and order maintained in your part of the world?

Fiona: Law and order is firmly maintained in the Yukon Territory by the North-West Mounted Police. Sometimes too firmly maintained. As the owner of a dance hall and saloon I have to constantly ensure that everything we do is completely aboveboard. Or we run the risk of being shut down. We close on Sunday for the Lord’s Day and dare not utter a profanity. I complain, sometimes, but it’s a lot better than things are in Skagway, where I briefly considered setting up business. There the town is run by a gangster by the name of Soapy Smith, and instead of the law telling him what to do, he tells them.

SA: And you investigate—

Fiona: Pardon me, but I am hardly a police officer. Although if they would allow women among their ranks I suspect I could teach them a thing or two. Sometimes I might come to a conclusion slightly before the police do—because I can go places they can not (the ladies’ dressing room comes to mind) and because I pay attention to people. A woman on her own in this world has to be constantly aware of everything going on around her, don’t you agree? As for Inspector McKnight and Corporal Sterling of the NWMP—they enforce the law and crime is almost nonexistent. But when something does happen, they are on their own—they don’t even have a telegraph and news travels no faster than by horse or boat.

SA: How and why did you become an amateur sleuth?

Fiona: Why do you keep implying I am a sleuth? Hardly. I have a business to run—this gold rush isn’t going to last forever, and I intend to make as much money as I can, as fast as I can. However, there was that time when the odious Mr. Ireland was killed on the stage of the Savoy, and I had to do what I could to save my business. And the time Mary, an Indian girl my son Angus befriended, was accused of murder, and I had to do something to keep Angus’s faith in me, didn’t I.

SA: Tell me about your most recent investigation, then.

Fiona: Sadly, my most recent ‘investigation,’ as you insist on calling it, involved me quite directly. When I was briefly in Skagway, Alaska, one of Soapy Smith’s henchmen, an unpleasant fellow by the name of Paul Sheridan, became overly-enamoured of me. A year later, Mr. Sheridan became obsessed with finding the legendary Gold Mountain—a valley as warm as California and a mountain of pure gold—and decided I wanted to accompany him. I did not, and it was up to the handsome Corporal Richard Sterling, my son Angus, and an assorted collection of dancers and musicians, croupiers and bartenders, prostitutes and madams without hearts of gold, miners and shopkeepers, gentleman and layabouts to head off into the wilderness to rescue me. How I came to find myself in such a preposterous situation, and my subsequent adventures, are outlined in Gold Mountain, coming in April from Dundurn Press.

SA: What’s going on in the world around you?

Fiona: Right now, I am at the centre of the world. Really. The Klondike Gold Rush has totally captured the attention of the world. They call it Klondikeitus: People are streaming into the territory from the four corners of the earth. Most of them with absolutely no idea of where they are going, what they are going to encounter when they get there, and what they hope to accomplish. Dreamers most of them, desperate to escape from the great recession in the south. I suppose considering that none of us would be here, in what was nothing but wilderness a year ago, everything we do is connected with this great historical event.

SA: What aspects of Victorian frontier life do you think would seem most alien to those of us who live in the 21st century?

Fiona: I think your women would faint if they had to wear my clothes for more than a day. They’d also be quite shocked if told they weren’t permitted in the bars or to join the police or most other professions. Or even to vote. I’d love to vote some day. I’d also love to wear trousers in public.

SA: So what would you say to 21st-century people who complain that, with economic and political dysfunction, natural disasters, and so on, the world is in such a bad state that surely “this is the worst time ever to be alive”?

Fiona: If anyone in your world wants to complain, I’d tell them to try climbing the Chilkoot trail dressed in a full length gown with hat and petticoat, over-corset, corset, stockings and undergarments. Try climbing it thirty or forty times with fifty to seventy-five pounds of goods on your back as many of the men did (I myself hired porters to take our possessions over the Pass). In winter! And then make a boat out of a virgin forest at the bottom. Try living in the sub-arctic with nothing but a wood stove in a log cabin for heat and nothing to eat but what you carried in six months ago.

SA: What was your most fascinating or horrifying case over the course of your career so far, and why?

Fiona: In Gold Fever, my son Angus, who is twelve years old, saved the life of an Indian woman sold into prostitution. Her name was Mary and her uncle sold her to a trapper for payment of a debt and the trapper then sold her on to a prostitution ring. I’d say the trafficking of women, and children, into prostitution is one of the most horrifying situations I know of. You can be sure it’s happening in your world and your country. Maybe even your community. Today.

SA: In the course of your investigations, have you encountered important historical figures who played supporting roles in your cases? What about fascinating real “footnote” people that most 21st-century readers have never heard of?

Fiona: As I am one of the most prominent citizens of Dawson City, Yukon, I naturally have come into contact with other prominent citizens. Big Alex McDonald, whom they call King of the Klondike, has come to my aid on occasion. I consider Belinda Mulrooney, a businesswoman far ahead of our time, to be a friend. Inspector Cortlandt Starnes, temporary head of the NWMP in Dawson, was kind enough to pay his respects after that unfortunate hostage-taking and shooting at the Savoy. In England I briefly moved in the same circles as the Prince of Wales—odious man—but a lady mustn’t gossip. And then, of course, there was Soapy Smith. Enough said of Soapy the better.

SA: In the 21st century, we have either abolished the death penalty or have developed methods of execution that provide a quick and (we hope) painless death. Is capital punishment more prevalent in the Yukon? Does the thought of assisting the authorities to send a guilty person to execution affect your personal feelings about investigating a crime?

Fiona: In real life (not that my life isn’t real!) there wasn’t a single murder in Dawson City in 1898. Not one. A result, largely, of the presence and authority of the NWMP and the fact that they banned firearms in town. Hanging was the preferred method of dispatching such miscreants as did get convicted of murder. In Tagish, four quite young Indian boys were convicted of murdering a man (and attempting to kill another) who left a tin of baking power that actually contained arsenic in their camp, and when it was innocently used in baking, two men died. Two of the boys died in jail over the winter and two were hanged in the summer of 1899. A sad story; the ending leaving no chance of forgiveness or redemption. As someone who has lived on the edge of the law myself, I will not rush to judge anyone. I hear Canada has abolished the death penalty in your time, and I am pleased to hear it. Barbarous custom.

SA: And with that, we’ll have to conclude. Many thanks!

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Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers. She writes everything from standalone novels of gothic suspense to the Constable Molly Smith books, a traditional village/police procedural series set in the British Columbia Interior, to the light-hearted Klondike Gold Rush Series, the first of which were Gold Digger and Gold Fever. Vicki lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario. Visit her at her author website, www.vickidelany.com.

Historical Sleuth Interviews will appear around the middle and end of each month. Authors, if you’d like your historical sleuth to be interviewed here, please send Susanne a note with a little information about your books.

Susanne Alleyn is the author of the Aristide Ravel French Revolution Mysteries and of A Far Better Rest, the reimagining of A Tale of Two Cities, all available in eBook form and in hardcover and/or trade paperback via Amazon.com and other major retailers.

An Interview with Theo Bryght, Bow Street Runner

When Viscount Percy Ainsford Foster Ashe is found murdered in a shabby boarding house in Brighton, he leaves behind a beautiful and now penniless young widow. But her squandered fortune may be the least of Lady Ashe’s problems. For if the brilliant but unconventional Bow Street Runner Theo Bryght is correct, the untimely demise of Lord Ashe is just the first canto in a deadly ode to revenge.

Susanne Alleyn: Good day, Mr. Bryght! What year is it, and where are you located?

Theo Bryght: The year is 1812. I am writing this from my rooms in London. Given the state of the world right now—the antics of Napoleon on the Continent and the new trouble in the former Colonies—London is one of the best places to be this fall; that is, if you can avoid being invited to a supper party where some female insists upon declaiming from that new opus by Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.

While I admire good poetry as much as any person of reasonable taste and sensibility, I must say that I am surprised that this incessant twittering about Byron and his “Childe” has not resulted in at least a few incidents of domestic murder! And should you harbour a suspicion that I say this only because I would relish another murder or two or twenty, due to my profession as a Bow Street Runner, you have sadly misjudged my nature—or the nature of the darker side of English society in this superficially glittering era.

SA: Speaking of your era, what do you like best about your world? What would you change, if you could?

Bryght: If you have a taste for pleasure, or a scientific, inquiring turn of mind—and plenty of the ready in your pocket to indulge your whims—

SA: To clarify for those of us in the 21st century, that means “money,” I assume?

Bryght: To be sure, madam. As I was saying, this is as exciting a time to be alive as any in history. Without the banknotes, my world is still exciting; it just has to be enjoyed on a smaller scale.

Having been in both of these pecuniary states, I know. Although my present situation is that of a Bow Street Runner—and I have recently noticed a few troublesome flecks of grey in my hair—I am actually one of those bothersome “younger sons” you may have heard about. I was born into a big house with a gaggle of servants to look after my every need. But later I had a falling out with my father, who fell off a horse and broke his neck before the reconciliation between us could take place. My elder brother, now the sixth Earl of Warrington, was perfectly content to inherit the entire estate—including the house and allowance that was to have been mine, had I become a clergyman as my father wished—which is why I have been forced to make my own way in the world.

And that brings me round to your other question. I do think it is a waste that there are not more opportunities open to the ton’s younger sons, as well as what we call the gentry. Not everyone has the stomach to be a soldier or a clergyman—both rather deadly professions, in my opinion—yet no other respectable profession is open to us. Therefore, many younger sons squander whatever talents they might possess in fortune-hunting, card-sharking, and other such pursuits.

I will also mention the deplorable state of education in this country, especially concerning the lower classes. In my last investigation, which was recently written up in the book Ode to a Dead Lord, the mystery of Lord Ashe’s death might have been solved much sooner if that young serving girl, Rosemary, had received a decent education. She had so many opportunities to snoop around and take a look at Lord Ashe’s private correspondence, while she was ostensibly tidying up his rooms, and they were all wasted. Why? Because the girl does not know how to read! If helping a Runner solve a crime of murder is not a convincing argument for universal education, I do not know what is.

SA: Tell me more about that recent investigation. Did it have something to do with Lord Byron?

Bryght: Lord Byron figures only indirectly in Ode to a Dead Lord, which is actually about a different lord—Viscount Percy Ainsford Foster Ashe—who was discovered dead in a shabby boarding house in Brighton this past summer.

The local constable, an incompetent fellow by the name of Brickwell, relied entirely upon the report of the attending physician and declared it was a suicide. I suppose the possibility of suicide was not totally out of the question, since Lord Ashe had gambled away the considerable fortune of his young widow, Lady Charlotte Ashe—who, by the way, is a most charming person and a woman of rare intelligence. (And before you start your sniggering, know that those rumours that I have fallen in love with Lady Ashe are highly exaggerated!)

Anyone who bothered to think over the facts of the case would have realized at once that Lord Ashe had been murdered. Therefore, it was fortunate that I happened to be in Brighton at the time, for a holiday. I was most happy to relieve Constable Brickwell of his duties and take on the investigation myself.

By the way, here is where I would like to add a word or two about my profession and my fellow Runners. It has become common for certain men of letters to portray us as bumbling, uncouth, dishonest figures who would not or could not capture a criminal if our lives depended upon it. In reality, nothing could be farther from the truth. In addition to our involvement in common crimes such as murder, sheep-stealing, and burglary, we have been called in to investigate instances of fraud involving the State and the elopement of high-born young ladies who should have known better. These latter investigations require not only intelligence but also a high degree of reticence and tact—hardly the qualities you would expect to find in a Thomas Rowlandson caricature.

But I digress, and I believe you wished to know where Lord Byron comes in. Well, even though Lord Byron would have felt quite at home at either Hopewell or Lundsmoor Park—two magnificent country houses located in the Yorkshire Moors that also figured in the investigation—his presence is more felt than seen in this particular story. Since poetry seems to be all the rage these days, even among murderers, thanks to this lord-turned-poet, today even a Bow Street Runner has to be familiar with the schemes—rhyming and otherwise—of the poetic art and its practitioners.

SA: Presumably, you are familiar with some aspects of the 21st century, through talks with the chronicler of your exploits, Jolie Beaumont. For instance, in many areas of North America and Western Europe we have either abolished the death penalty or developed methods of execution that are, we hope, relatively quick and painless. How do you feel about the brutality of your age—where executions are often painful and viewed as a public entertainment? Does that affect your personal feelings about catching culprits, or do you feel that catching the criminal is your duty?

Bryght: First, I must say that I am as horrified as you are by our spectacles of public hangings, though I can say for my era that at least we have done away with drawing and quartering for most criminal offenses. I also find a sentence of transport and forced labor to be an extraordinarily harsh one for young children convicted of crimes such as pick-pocketing and the like. However, I have little pity for murderers, whether they are the brutal fellows who prey upon the poorest of London’s poor or are members of a more genteel class who ensnare unfortunate gentlemen like Lord Ashe in their cruel traps. I therefore concentrate on what I must do, and leave the moral burden of sentencing the criminal to the Magistrate.

SA: What would you say to people living in the 21st century who complain about how terrible times are—the dysfunctional government, the economic turmoil, the wars and terrorism, the natural disasters, et cetera? Is this really the worst time to be alive, or were things just as bad during the Regency period?

Bryght: To coin a phrase, laughing out loud! If you think your times are troubled, consider this:

Our king, George III, is most definitely queer in the attic. His son, the Prince Regent, may not be mad, but he does seem to have more hair than wit. He is emptying the state coffers at record speed for his building projects and lavish entertainments—and please do not get me started on the subject of politics and mistresses!

The war with Napoleon has been dragging on for what seems like forever, with no end in sight. In addition to the deplorable loss of life, the war has played havoc with the economy and the markets. Vast fortunes are won and lost on the Stock Exchange overnight, and I know of several members of the lesser gentry who are in a very difficult financial position due to an injudicious investing of their limited capital.

I will not comment on the topic of natural disasters—in your age news travels much faster and covers a much broader expanse of the world than in mine—but I believe that we can challenge you to a metaphorical duel in just about any area of sickness and disease and win!

I would therefore say about my age the same that I would say about any age: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, et cetera. And you can quote me on that.

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Jolie Beaumont is the pen name of the author of Ode to a Dead Lord, the first volume in a new Regency mystery series. When she’s not recording the exploits of her Bow Street Runner, Theo Bryght, she works as a journalist. Visit her at her author website.

Leave a comment here at the blog by September 25th to be entered in a drawing for a free paperback or eBook (Kindle) copy of Ode to a Dead Lord! (You may also enter a drawing at Goodreads—ends September 27th.)

Historical Sleuth Interviews will appear around the middle and end of each month. Authors, if you’d like your historical sleuth to be interviewed here, please send Susanne a note with a little information about your books.

Susanne Alleyn is the author of the Aristide Ravel French Revolution Mysteries and of A Far Better Rest, the reimagining of A Tale of Two Cities, all available in eBook form and in hardcover and/or trade paperback via Amazon.com and other major retailers.

Susanne Interviews Pliny the Younger, First-Century Sleuth

The Cases from the Notebooks of Pliny the Younger bring to life an historical figure from Rome in the late first century AD. With his skeptical, inquisitive mind and information gleaned from unpublished scrolls left to him by his scholarly uncle, Pliny solves crimes in small towns or in the shadows of the imperial palace.

Susanne Alleyn: Ave, citizen! What year is it now for you, and where are you located?

Pliny: It is the third year of the reign of the emperor Domitian, five years since the eruption of Vesuvius which buried Pompeii and Herculaneum. By your calculations the year is 84 AD. I am in Italy, where I have several homes, most of them inherited from my uncle.

SA: Why do you live where you do? Would you rather be somewhere else?

Pliny: I live here because Rome is the center of my world. When we say ‘the City,’ we mean Rome. I don’t enjoy living in Rome, but a person of my class cannot afford to be away from it for too long. I also don’t want to get too far away from Marcus Aquilius Regulus, a nefarious man who has the emperor’s ear and has been an enemy of my family for years. I cannot trust him behind my back.

SA: What do you love most about the time and place in which you live? What do you like least about it?

Pliny: I realize that my wealth allows me to enjoy life in Rome in a way that poorer people cannot, so I’m not sure I can answer this question fairly. I am most fond of my houses, especially the one on the coast at Laurentum. The absolute power of the emperors is what I like least about my world. My friend Tacitus would like to restore the Republic of Cicero’s day. I don’t want to go back to such chaotic times, but I would like to have some way to hold our ruler accountable for his deeds, just as everyone else is accountable for theirs.

SA: Where and when were you born, and how did the historical milieu and events of the first 20 to 30 years of your life influence you?

Pliny: I was born in the town of Comum, in northern Italy, twenty-three years ago. My father, Lucius Caecilius, died when I was still a child. My mother and I were taken in by her brother, Gaius Plinius Secundus. When he died he adopted me in his will, so I am now Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus. The greatest change in my culture during my lifetime has been the end of the dynasty of emperors established by Augustus and its replacement by Vespasian and his sons, first Titus and now Domitian. Vespasian and Titus were no-nonsense, military men and competent rulers. Domitian shows many signs of becoming a tyrant. Some of my investigations have brought me into conflict with him and his cronies.

SA: How is law and order maintained in your era and part of the world? Is there an established constabulary or police force?

Pliny: Maintaining law and order in Rome requires that individual citizens take action when they see something amiss. No major city in the Roman world is safe after dark, and hardly even in daylight. Our only police force is the vigiles, the night-watchmen. Their primary function is to watch for fires, not to prevent or solve crimes. The Praetorian Guard investigates matters that might threaten the safety of the emperor, but individuals must handle their own legal affairs.

SA: What investigative techniques do you use, in these cases?

Pliny: In my investigations I have an invaluable resource—a collection of 160 scrolls left to me by my uncle. Among other things, he made observations about what happens to people’s bodies when they die, depending on how they died. I have applied his observations to my own investigations. Tacitus says I’m a necromancer who listens to the dead speak.

SA: So how and why did you become a sleuth?

Pliny: In Rome anyone affected by a crime must become an investigator or find someone to investigate for them. I began investigating because I was asked to or, in some cases, because there was no one else to do it. The education I received from my uncle pointed me in this direction. He stressed science and history, the fields in which he did most of his writing. Both require the asking of questions and the gathering of evidence, and that’s what an investigation into a crime is. As a boy I was intrigued by the notion of understanding what people were doing, even when they tried to hide it, and discovering their motives. One of our household slaves, a girl named Aurora, joined me in those childhood investigations. I hope to write up some of those stories, or perhaps encourage her to do so.

As an adult, my first investigation took place in Smyrna, when I was returning from provincial service in Syria, where Tacitus and I met. A man in our traveling party, a Roman citizen, was murdered, and there was no Roman magistrate to handle the matter. With Tacitus’ help I identified the killer and his connections with people back in Rome. Word of my success made the rounds in Rome—thanks largely to Tacitus’ love of story-telling—and others have come to expect me to be able to help them.

SA: Tell me about your most recent investigation.

Pliny: Just a few months ago I was faced with a conundrum—

SA: Ah, I suspect this is the story of The Corpus Conundrum, the latest account of your exploits, is it not?

Pliny: Yes, indeed. While out hunting I found a man’s body on my estate at Laurentum. To all appearances he was dead, but—even using what I had learned from my uncle’s scrolls—I could not determine how he died or that he actually was dead. I put his body in my stable, under guard, so I could examine him more fully, but the next morning he was gone. As Tacitus and I tried to unravel the mystery, we met a woman who claimed to be an empusa—a blood-sucking monster—and a man who claimed that the original “victim” was actually a 700-year-old immortal. By the time the case was solved, we had also solved a murder that took place in Laurentum fifteen years earlier, and I learned something about my old enemy Regulus’ past that could give me leverage against him.

SA: You’ve mentioned Tacitus. Tell us how the two of you work together.

Pliny: My friendship with Cornelius Tacitus is the only true friendship I’ve ever experienced. Men of my class have a number of “friends,” people who are obligated to us for favors and to whom we are obligated in return. But Tacitus and I are friends simply because we like one another. We definitely do not view the world in the same way. He is deeply cynical, while I hold to some degree of optimism. His view of an investigation from a different perspective often makes me rethink my conclusions. Tacitus’ position in Rome is insecure because he is the son-in-law of Agricola, one of Rome’s greatest generals, and the emperor despises and mistrusts Agricola. Being a friend of Tacitus isn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but I will stand with him, regardless.

SA: Presumably you are somewhat familiar with our early 21st century, after conversations with Mr. Bell, your author. What aspects of your world do you think would seem most alien to those of us who live in the 21st century, especially in Western democracies?

Pliny: Your world abolished slavery some time ago, so the presence of that practice in Rome would probably make you uncomfortable. But most of our slaves are treated humanely and many are emancipated and become citizens as a reward for their service. Many customs and beliefs in our society differ from yours more in degree than in character. The greatest excitement and tension at your sporting events is aroused when a participant is injured, even if that is not the primary purpose of the sport. One thing you would find incomprehensible, I suppose, is that people of my social class kill themselves rather than be put to death on command of the emperor. We do that so the emperor will leave our families and our property undisturbed.

SA: What about the history of your era do you think is most relevant to those of us who live in the early 21st century?

Pliny: One problem we face is the rise of an eastern religion that is completely at odds with the values of our society. The number of Christians is gradually increasing and they are spreading from one end of the empire to the other. Some of my slaves, I’ve learned, are Christians. Nothing the government does seems to stop the spread of this pernicious cult, any more than it could stop the cult of Bacchus. The Christians may eventually overrun us.

SA: That is, indeed, an alarming prospect. So, in conclusion, what would you say to 21st-century people—particularly in the United States—who moan and complain (about bad economic times, political dysfunction, and a spate of natural disasters) and declare that things are so bad right now that surely “this is the worst time ever to be alive” or “God must have decided that the end of the world is due any day”? Would you be itching to say “Learn some history and take a look at what’s going on in my world!”?

Pliny:  In my time a handful of the population—myself and my friends—hold vast wealth, while the rest of the people live in poverty. There is no middle class, only the very rich and the poor. The distribution of wealth in your century is still uneven—there will always be poor people, I suppose—but more people have sufficient money to live on than at any time in history. You’re free to live and travel where you wish, to work at a job you choose. You have medical care that boggles the mind of a person of my time. Half the children born in Rome die before they’re five. Because of my wealth I may live to be sixty. Most of the people around me will die in their forties. Recognize your advantages and opportunities. The problems will always be there, but you have resources to solve them.

SA: Thank you, citizen, for your insights!

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Albert Bell writes contemporary mysteries and middle-grade mysteries. Western Kentucky University Libraries awarded The Secret of the Lonely Grave the Evelyn Thurman Young Readers prize in 2008. Bell’s Roman historical series features Pliny the Younger, an historical person. Barbara D’Amato called All Roads Lead to Murder “wonderful.” Library Journal named The Blood of Caesar, one of the 5 Best Mysteries of 2008, “a masterpiece of the historical mystery genre.” Steven Saylor called The Corpus Conundrum (2011), the latest novel in the series, “inspired . . . . ingenious.”

The Corpus Conundrum is now available in paperback from Ingalls Publishing. Read more about the series at the Pliny Mysteries website.

Historical Interviews will run every 14th and 29th of the month (OK, OK, February 28th, most years). Authors, if you’d like your historical sleuth to be interviewed here, please send me a note with a little information about your books.

Susanne Alleyn is the author of the Aristide Ravel French Revolution Mysteries and of A Far Better Rest, the reimagining of A Tale of Two Cities, all available in eBook form and in hardcover and/or trade paperback via Amazon.com and other major retailers.

A whole new venture!

Welcome to my historical interview blog! This is a whole new adventure for me. My goal is to interview a wide variety of fictional sleuths featured in historical mystery novels (particularly series novels) being published today, whether in print or in the decidedly futuristic eBook medium. I hope that we’ll all have fun meeting sleuths from across the globe and across world history. Check back every week or so to see what’s going on.

This blog will also post on the Blog page of my author website, www.susannealleyn.com .

Authors: If you’d like your sleuth to be interviewed here, please visit the “About” page (link at the upper left of your screen) for more information.

Feel free to spread the word to other readers and authors via tweet, Facebook, discussion groups, carrier pigeon, etc.

En avant!