Donald Bain the author of the great Murder She Wrote series was kind enough to answer a few questions for my blog series! Thank you so much for taking the time! -Amber
1. How does it feel to be celebrating the Silver Anniversary for the Murder She Wrote series?
If someone had told me back in 1989 that I would be still writing “Murder, She Wrote” books 2014, I would have questioned their sanity. But that’s how it has ended up, 25 years and 43 novels later, all still in print. I couldn’t be more pleased. It was 10 years ago that I stopped by the Seattle Mystery Bookshop to sign copies of Destination: Murder, the 21st book in the series, and was introduced to a remarkable gentleman named Bill Farley. His love of the mystery genre was palpable and I fell in love with the shop. I still have a direct link to it on my website for those who wish to buy from a prized independent book shop.
While the TV show, still in syndication and celebrating its 30th year, has introduced millions of people to “Murder, She Wrote,” I take great pride in the books having a distinct life of their own, generating an entire new world of fans. I especially enjoy receiving e-mails from young people who have gotten into the reading habit through the novels, and from parents who use the books to kick-start their kids into reading fiction. Because the books don’t contain any gory violence, four-letter words, or sex scenes, they’re a perfect jumping off point for young readers and their parents.
2. You have written many, many books, (115 at last count) do you have a favorite out of the lot? And Why?
I’ve always been especially fond of a dramatization I wrote based on a true story set in Southern Illinois during the Prohibition era. Its working title was War in Illinois. I tried to get the publisher, Prentice-Hall, to change it but they refused. The result was considered a “regional book” which limited its sales potential. I eventually got the rights back and arranged for my alma mater, Purdue University, to publish a new edition with the title Charlie and the Shawneetown Dame. It’s a wonderful tale that involves the first bombing of a target from an aircraft in the United States. Charlie Birger was a Jewish guy from New York who settled in Southern Illinois with aspirations to become the Al Capone of the area. A rival gang, the Shelton Brothers, hired an open-cockpit bi-wing plane, made bombs out of sticks of dynamite taped together, and dropped them on Charlie’s beloved Shady Rest headquarters. The book is a combination of The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight and Goodfellas, and I smile whenever I think of spending many weeks in Southern Illinois researching the book. By the way, the Shawneetown Dame was a beautiful society babe from Shawneetown who had affairs with both Charlie and his rival, Bernie Shelton. Her perfidy led to Charlie’s demise, a public hanging. His final words were, “Bury me in a Catholic cemetery. The Devil will never look for a Jew there.”
I’m also extremely proud of the 20-plus Washington-based mysteries/thrillers in the Margaret Truman Capital Crimes series. My name is now on them. The most recent, Undiplomatic Murder, will be released this summer by TOR/Forge.
And in May my own novel (as opposed to writing with, or for others), will be published by Severn House. It’s called Lights Out! and involves a mild-mannered, ordinary guy who goes through a monumental male mid-life crisis once he meets and falls in love with a South American bombshell, Gina Ellanado. He concocts a bizarre money-making scheme to have enough money to leave his loveless marriage and spend the rest of his days in carnal bliss with Gina. Naturally, things unravel for him. I started the novel in 2003 and, unashamedly, love it.
3. Do you try and follow the Rules Of Fair play when writing your mysteries?
There isn’t a quicker way to lose murder mystery readers than to not play fair with them. My wife, Renée Paley-Bain, with whom I’ve been collaborating on the series for a number of years, and I constantly go back over what’s been written to ensure that nothing we’ve written will unfairly mislead the reader. Still, we miss something now and then, and our loyal readers are quick to point it out to us. We have a basic rule: If something in the manuscript strikes one of us as being unfair or unlikely, there must be something wrong; it should be rethought and probably rewritten.
The novels in “Margaret Truman’s Capital Crimes” series are not so much murder mysteries as Washington-based thrillers that take the reader inside a government agency, or an institution like Ford’s Theatre or The National Gallery. Because the stories are more straightforward than the “Murder, She Wrote” novels, there’s less chance of leading the reader astray. My operative philosophy is that anything you make up about Washington, no matter how outlandish, is plausible.
4. Is Jessica Fletcher considered some what of a black cat (by those who don‘t know her well) since she ends up stumbling & solving so many murders? It is said Cabot Cove has a 50% higher murder rate than Honduras, which is the world’s murder capitol.
We sometimes wonder how the Cabot Cove Chamber of Commerce feels about Jessica tripping over so many bodies in what is an otherwise tranquil, peaceful Maine seaside town. Of course we also have Jessica traveling to other places where the homocides with which she becomes involved aren’t so homegrown. I suppose it’s all in the way you view it, glass half-full or half-empty. On the one hand Ms. Fletcher seems to attract the murderous kind no matter where she goes. On the other hand having her ready, willing and able to bring the killers to justice might provide a modicum of comfort to her neighbors.
5. How do you feel about Mrs. Fletcher being likened to Miss Marple so often?
I can’t think of a more flattering comparison than this. Jessica and Miss Marple are both genteel, refined ladies who solve murders without having to resort to physical mayhem, the sort of women whom we admire and look up to. With so much abject violence in the world, both real and imagined on TV, in movies, and in books, having sleuths who use their deductive powers rather than brute strength to bring about justice is refreshing.
6. Christie was fond of bumping people off with poisons, do you have a favorite method of murder you like to use in your books? And why?
In one of our MSW books a snakebite, arranged of course, caused the death of the victim. The choice of how to kill someone depends upon a variety of considerations, including whether the murderer is a man or a woman. Female characters tend to lean towards less gruesome means of murder, although not always. Too, whether the murder is carefully planned in advance, or results from a moment of extreme anger or a jealous rage, plays a role in choosing the weapon that takes someone’s life. When considering poison, does the killer have reasonable access to the potion, and knowledge of how to use it? Is it the killer’s intention to make the death appear to be accidental, or a suicide? Or, to turn the question on its head, was what appeared to be a murder actually accidental, leading to an innocent man or woman being falsely accused?
7. Have any of your mysteries (MSW or one of the others) been inspired or influenced by one of Christie’s works?
Perhaps not in a direct, specific sense, but the Christie aura always hangs over every murder mystery writer. There were two Christie books, Murder on the Orient Express and 4:50 From Paddington that I especially enjoyed and might have played with my subconscious while writing Destination: Murder in the MSW series, in which much of the action takes place on a train in British Columbia. I happen to enjoy trains; they’re such an appealing setting for murder to occur among a group of people.
8. Is there any book in the Christie cannon you wish you had thought of first? And Why?
All of them.
9. Any Final Words?
In this age of technology run amok, digital publishing and electronic reading gadgets, independent book stores like the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, with its love for the genre, and staffed by knowledgeable book lovers, are to be treasured and preserved.
Thanks for having me on your blog. It’s been nothing but fun.
Donald Bain