Please Welcome Historical Mystery Author Susanna Calkins

We are delighted to welcome author Susanna Calkins to Omnimystery News.

Susanna's third mystery featuring Lucy Campion and set in 17th century England is The Masque of a Murderer (Minotaur Books; April 2015 hardcover and ebook formats) and we asked her where she gets the ideas for her plotlines. Her guest post for us today is titled, "The Questions That Inspire My Novels".

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Photo provided courtesy of
Susanna Calkins;
Photo credit Lisa Bagadia

When I write my historical mysteries, I find that I am first inspired by evocative questions, around which I will form the entire novel. For example, in my first novel, A Murder at Rosamund's Gate, I had come across a number of 17th century murder ballads that repeated the same tale again and again: a young woman, found stabbed or strangled in a secluded field with a signed note in her pocket, purported to be from her murderer. I had so many questions — who was this woman? Did she truly know the person who killed her? Was the man arrested for the crime the real killer, or had he been framed for the crime? So in my book, a servant is murdered, and the brother of my heroine Lucy Campion is accused of killing her and faces hanging for the crime.

In From the Charred Remains, another set of questions emerged. What if, at the moment that the Great Fire of 1666 rages through London, a man is murdered? But instead of the corpse being consumed by the flames, it is spared, allowing the murder to be discovered? So in this novel, Lucy is tasked with helping clear away the rubble after the Fire, and is on hand when a body is discovered in the barrel outside an old tavern. The only clue about who the man is comes from a pouch full of odd items — the winnings of the last card game ever played at the tavern — that ultimately will determine both the identify of the victim and his murderer.

And in my current novel, The Masque of a Murderer, I wondered about the problem of 17th century identify theft. After the plague and Great Fire, the social ties and physical evidence associated with people's identities (wills, titles, leases, guild records) were largely destroyed, and it was not so hard for individuals to assume the identity and property of someone else. In my novel, a man is deliberately pushed in front of a cart and horse, and consequently is dying a long drawn-out death (morbid, I know!). Lucy, now a printer's apprentice, has been called to the man's bedside to record his last dying words. The man tells her that he was murdered, and that he suspects his murderer is close by, and may wish to kill another person that Lucy loves.

So by trying to answer questions like these, I am able to write my stories.

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Susanna Calkins has been intrigued by murder ever since she first stumbled across murder ballads while working on her PhD in history. The idea that people used to sing about murder and other strange tales became the premise of her historical mysteries featuring Lucy Campion. Set in 17th century England, her novels have been short-listed for the Macavity, the Lovey, and the Bruce Alexander Historical Mystery Award.

For more information about the author, please visit her website at SusannaCalkins.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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The Masque of a Murderer by Susanna Calkins

A Lucy Campion Mystery

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Lucy Campion, formerly a ladies' maid in the local magistrate's household, has now found gainful employment as a printer's apprentice. On a freezing winter afternoon in 1667, she accompanies the magistrate's daughter, Sarah, to the home of a severely injured Quaker man to record his dying words, a common practice of the time. The man, having been trampled by a horse and cart the night before, only has a few hours left to live. Lucy scribbles down the Quaker man's last utterances, but she's unprepared for what he reveals to her — that someone deliberately pushed him into the path of the horse, because of a secret he had recently uncovered.

Fearful that Sarah might be traveling in the company of a murderer, Lucy feels compelled to seek the truth, with the help of the magistrate's son, Adam, and the local constable. But delving into the dead man's background might prove more dangerous than any of them had imagined.

— The Masque of a Murderer by Susanna Calkins