(photo: author)
No doubt about it, setting a mystery in a faraway locale adds a touch of romance. Fans of the Venice-based detective stories of Donna Leon, Edinburgh’s Inspector Rebus series by Ian Rankin, or Tarquin Hall’s Delhi-based private eye stories, see their cities as practically another character. But these authors live or have lived in the places they write about. Can authors pull that off from afar? A panel of American mystery writers at last weekend’s Deadly Ink conference discussed where, why—and most important, how—they do it. This is of intense interest to me, because my mystery series character, Eugenia Clarke, is a travel writer, and stories about her take place where she’s on assignment—Alaska, Morocco, Rome.
For the most part, Annamaria Alfieri (writing about South America and colonial East Africa), Albert Tucher (beginning a series about Hawai`i—a great excuse for a tax-deductible research trip, he said), and Cathi Stoler (Tuscany and that foreign country, Las Vegas) have spent time in the places they write about, supplementing their own experiences with research. They talked about how the challenge is far greater than pasting on a few superficial references. Street names, landmarks.
When they’re really cooking, their research—on the ground, through interviews, background reading, online—will lead to a plot and characters uniquely of that place. They’ll end up with a story that could not have happened in Columbus, Ohio. Readers recognize that legitimate sense of place. For example, an estimated 500 English-language books—mostly mystery or suspense—are set in Italy, and this website rates them as to whether they really capture “the essence” or merely use Italy as a lure.
On the Murder is Everywhere blog, which features a group of far-flug writers, Alfieri recently quoted from John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman, in which he describes the fundamental reason writers write: “We wish to create worlds as real as, but other than the world that is.” Setting a story in a far-off place puts the writer’s head—every bit as much as the reader’s—in a place where that can happen.