Tag Archives: Jessica Minton

Casting Shadows, Part Two

1940s mystery, character development, Claude Rains, Film Actors, Film Noir, Gothic, Horror films, Murder, mystery, Shadows of a Dark Past, Sharon Healy Yang, Sharon Yang, supernatural, suspense, Val Lewton, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Casting Shadows,  Part Two”

 

Philip Carlyle –  The master of the Carlyle Estate where the Wellstone Mystery Hour is making its remote broadcast, Philip Carlyle has opened his home and the secrets of its past to answer the mystery behind the disappearances of Felicia Blasko and his brother Bill Carlyle.  An engineer and businessman by profession, Philip still nurses the soul of a poet and musician, while holding secrets of his own concerning Felicia.  Embodying Philip requires a man of power, incisive wit and vision, as well as a sympathetic sense of artistry ‒ someone whose fascination with Jessica Minton rings more sad than creepy.  Claude Rains is my choice.  Think of the urbanity and authority of his Victor Grandison in The Unsuspected and the sly, mordant humor in Casablanca’s Inspector Renault.  Then there’s his incisive and forthright authority as Now Voyager’s Dr. Jaquith, tempered by his wry humor and genuine, though never soppy, compassion. Also think about the vulnerable passion of Paul Verin in The Man Who Reclaimed His Head, a quality that burns beneath the wall of authority in Job Skeffington of Mr. Skeffington. That’s the complexity of Philip Carlyle.

 

Jeanne Rivers and Madame Wanda are two ladies who may or may not be whom they seem.

 

Jeanne Rivers is the housekeeper for Philip Carlyle in the mansion that Felicia haunts.  She’s a top sergeant making the place run like clockwork, even managing to banish the indomitable Liz Minton from kitchen gossip fests with the help. Her wit can be acerbic, but she can show warmth and good humor when she’s helpful ‒ a woman of practical advice.  She also has ties to the mansion’s tragic past that could open up its secrets. ­A fine choice to inspire Jeanne is Jean Brooks, leading lady of the RKO B-division.  Brooks has demonstrated a dry and clever wit in such films as The Leopard Man, The Falcon in Hollywood, and The Falcon and the Co-eds. Falcon Tom Conway can’t get by without her popping up somewhere! Further our Ms. Brooks is no stranger to a cinematic world of shadows.  A veteran of Val Lewton’s dark tales, in addition to playing a smart-talking gal in The Leopard Man, Brooks also portrayed the haunted Jacqueline in The Seventh Victim.

 

Madame Wanda – Wanda Hendrix brings more than a first name to Shadows’ medium.  Apple-cheeked and merry-eyed, Hendrix played comedy deftly in films like Miss Tatlock’s Millions and The Admiral Was a Lady.  Thus, Madame Wanda shatters the stereotypes of film mediums as otherworldly, mysterious, and at times even sinister.  Our stylishly outfitted Madame Wanda is quick with a quip to challenge and defeat skepticism about her capabilities, especially from the suspicious Liz Minton and Gerry Davis.  Still, Wanda’s description of her powers and her conjuring of a voice from beyond the pale demonstrate her bona fides for connecting with the supernatural.  Preparing her for the darkness of Shadows, in My Own True Love and Ride the Pink Horse  Hendrix moves through a post-war world now darkened by bitterness, vengeance, and corruption.

Next entry, a look at more of Jessica’s colleagues from the Wellstone Mystery Hour.

Casting Shadows, Part One
Shadows of a Dark Past
Jessica Minton Mysteries
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Images

-Claude Rains  Photo from John Engstead. Star Shots: Fifty Years of  Pictures and Stories by One of Hollywood’s Greatest Photographers. New York:  EP Dutton, 1978. p. 185.

-Jean Brooks in white trenchcoat:  Wikipedia public domain, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Brooks#/media/File:Jean_Brooks_1940s_fan_photo.jpg

-Jean Brooks in plaid jacket public domain:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jean_Brooks_in_The_Falcon_in_Danger_1943.png?uselang=en#Licensing

-Wanda Hendrix photo, Author’s collection

 

October Thrills and Chills with Shadows of a Dark Past!

1940s mystery, book signings and readings, Jean Grant, Jessica Minton, New England, Shadows of a Dark Past, Sisters in crime New England, , , , , , , , , , , ,

October Thrills and Chills with Shadows of a Dark Past!

I had quite the busy Halloween month meeting people and getting the word out about my latest Jessica Minton novel, Shadows of a Dark Past.  October kicked off  when I joined authors Jean M. Grant and Janet Raye Stevens at the Horseshed Fair in Lancaster, MA.  Some friends showed up expressly to get their copy of Shadows hot off the press.  I also sold copies to new readers as well. It was a beautiful sunny and warm day, setting Jessica and Company’s ghostly adventures off to an exciting start.  Here I am with one of my friends from the Shakespeare Club of Worcester, Becky Spanagel.  It was great of Becky and her husband David to drop by to say hello.  By the way, Yang made that purple blouse with the stars and moons that I’m wearing!

Next on the agenda was a Sisters in Crime New England Mystery Making Night at the West Boylston Library, also in Mass.  I had the privilege of working with two good buddies, Janet Raye Stevens and Carol Goodman Kaufman.  I joked to them that with me (Sharon Healy Yang) joining them, it looked as if it was a requirement to have three names to be on the panel .  We had a ball weaving the suggestions of our audience into a tale of murder on a cruise ship involving an ice pick, secret identities, and ice cream.  You had to be there.  I decided to combine the holiday ambience with my 1940s fashions to wear a black and white pin-striped suit, autumn gold blouse, and peaked chapeau that is two-parts wicked witch and two parts 1943 fashion!

I traveled south of the (Mass,) border to Connecticut to do another Sisters in Crime Mystery Making event, this time with Kate Flora.  It ended up just the two of us; however, you can see from the picture that our audience inspired us to a complex and exciting tale.

Later in the month, I joined Janet Raye Stevens and three other writers of the supernatural for “Tales Told in Darkness” in a Lowell Library sponsored event.  We had a good audience, including two of my best buddies from as far back as grammar school, Mary Lou and Kathy.  We all did a reading and I had the thrill of seeing people put down their phones and listen when I read of Jessica’s night time peregrination to a haunted room in the Carlyle manse. Did she dream or did she wake?

 

 

Probably my favorite event was the Book Launch and Reading I did at TidePool Books in Worcester.  It was the night I’d been waiting for!  Would you believe that people from all aspects of my life came?  My teaching years, my writing colleagues, my church, the Shakespeare Club, my old friend from years back!  I was so happy.  And I got to talk about the  films and books from the first half of the 20th century that influenced me with  imagery and atmosphere that was dreamy, eerie, haunting and their tales of obsession, vengeance, and sometimes forgiveness.  People were really interested in the three readings I did:  Jessica’s meeting in a cemetery with the husband of the alleged ghost; the reading I also did in Lowell; and a séance gone horribly wrong. My audience also had great questions about writing, about my characters and research, my writing process.  It was a dream.  One of my former students said that it was like being back in the classroom – and she meant it in a good way!  And it did feel like the good parts of teaching:  sharing ideas, getting people to think,  hearing what they thought.  You can see that I definitely dressed for the occasion.

 

So, this positive note is where I will wrap up.  On to November and December are a little less harried.  If you haven’t already dropped by to say hello and catch Jessica, Liz, and James’s latest adventures, you can come see me at the Narragansett Craft Festival at Narragansett Middle School, Baldwinville, MA on 11/9; the Auburn Holiday Craft Fair at Auburn High School, Auburn, MA (12/14); or Tatnuck Bookseller, Westborough, MA (12/15),  Check my web site here for deatils.  See you then!

Click here for the Shadows web page to see more details on the book and some fun bonuses!

Casting Shadows, as It Were

1940s mystery, Bela Lugosi, Dracula, Film Noir, Gail Russell, Gothic, Halloween, Horror films, Jessica Minton, Murder, mystery, New England, radio, radio drama, radio dramas, Shadows of a Dark Past, supernatiral films, supernatural, suspense, The Black Cat (1934), The Uninivted, Vitus Werdegast, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Casting Shadows, as It Were”

In the past, I’ve posted on how “casting” characters as if they were played by (mostly) classic era actors in my earlier Jessica Minton mysteries helped me  flesh out their characters.  Now  that Shadows of a Dark Past is out, I thought you might enjoy reading about the inspirations for the folks Jessica, Liz, and James encounter on the mysterious Birdsong Island.  So, let’s begin!
When you’re writing a ghost story à la Val Lewton/Edgar Ulmer/ Joseph Lewis, it only makes sense that some of your characters be inspired by star players from those films.  So, with whom to start?  Why not the inspiration for the haunted scientist/widower of Shadows, Vitus Blasko?
Who is a prime prospect to play a man whose obsession with his work cost him his wife and child many years ago?  My choice was one of the premiere players of 1930s/40s horror, especially at Universal:  Bela Lugosi.    “What?!” you exclaim.  “The guy who played those Machiavellian vampires in Dracula (1931) and Return of the Vampire (1945), as well a plethora of sinister scientists?” “You bet!” I reply.  Lugosi also played the tortured and highly sympathetic Dr. Vitus Werdegast in 1934’s The Black Cat.  Here, he’s a doctor who had been sent to a death camp at the end of WWI, costing him his wife and daughter, through the betrayal of Boris Karloff’s Hjalmar  Poelzig.  (Now those are names!)  His intellectual battles with Poelzig may seem sinisterly to threaten a young married couple caught in the middle at Hjalmar’s Frank-Lloyd-Wright-on-LSD designed mansion.  However, Werdegast’s grief over what he has lost and his protection of the couple reveal a sympathetic tenderness in Lugosi’s acting.  In honor of the sensitivity of Lugosi’s performance, I opted to select Vitus for the first name of my haunted scientist from Lugosi’s character in The Black Cat and the last name from Lugosi’s actual family name.

Jamie Blasko:  Jamie, Vitus and the ghostly Felicia’s daughter, has terribly suffered through her mother’s murder (or abandonment?), a broken engagement, and living in a shadow-shrouded manse looking after a father broken by the mistakes of his past.  With a cast member of The Wellstone Mystery Hour offering her the life saver of romance, Jamie has a chance for happiness.  Dare she take it?  The radio program will broadcast shows focusing on that most terrible time: the mystery of her mother’s disappearance.  Can Jamie bear a revival of that scandal and pain?  Will the program provide the answers she needs?  Will she and her father be able to bear those answers?
Soulful-eyed Gail Russell is the natural inspiration of my creation, Jamie Blasko.  In such roles as the haunted daughter determined to embrace the ghostly touch of her mother in The Uninvited or the young woman struggling against the psychic prediction of her death at a fast approaching appointed hour in The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Russell’s gentle demeanor threaded with flashes of piercing anguish embodies the spirit of the Blasko girl.

 

Gerry Davis:  A WWII vet who lost a leg at Anzio, Gerry is a true radio trouper on The Wellstone Mystery Hour, not only playing most of their romantic leads but a host of other parts as the need arises.  Handsome with wavy blondish brown hair and a twinkle in his eye, Gerry’s kind heart and impish wit may be just the ticket to save Jaime Blasko from the darkness shadowing her life.  However, Gerry must overcome the antipathy between Vitus Blasko and the Carlyle family sponsoring these broadcasts of a past tearing apart both families.  For Gerry, I’ve turned to a more modern player for inspiration: Geraint Wyn Davies.  The humor, passion, and intelligence Davies has brought to roles ranging from Shakespeare to the conscience-stricken vampire detective of Forever Knight makes him an ideal choice to inspire Gerry’s good nature and passion  to protect Jamie Blasko.
If you haven’t already, check out my blogs on casting characters in the first three novels of the Jessica Minton Mysteries
Bait and Switch
Letter from a Dead Man
Always Play the Dark Horse

Image Credits
Bela Lugosi images screen shots from The Black Cat (1934), © Universal Pictures.
First Gail Russell Image:  Screen Shot from The Uninvited (1944) © Paramount Pictures.
Second Gail Russell Image Public Domain from Wikkipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gail_Russell_postcard_photo_circa_1950s.jpg
Geraint Wynn Davies image a portion of Lady Vamp’s Forever Knight Site, http://www.foreverknight.org/LadyVampKnight1228/home.html

If any violation of copyright has been inadvertently committed by my posting or re-posting these images, let me know and I will remove them.
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Live! And on the Air!: Shadows of a Dark Past!

1940s mystery, Always Play the Dark Horse, Autumn, Bait and Switch, Fall, Film Actors, Film Noir, Gothic, Halloween, Jessica Minton, Joan Bennett, Letter from a Dead Man, mystery, New Hampshire, radio, radio drama, Sharon Healy Yang, Sharon Yang, supernatural, suspense, The War of the Worlds, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
In my first novel, Bait and Switch, heroine Jessica Minton starts out as a moderately successful stage actress.  So why did I switch her from the stage to the radio as I continued the series with  Letter from a Dead Man?  Well, there are two reasons.  First of all, radio work gave Jessica more free time to join her sister Liz in unraveling mysteries.  However, the second reason is far more interesting.  I’ve always been fascinated by the imaginative entertainment radio provided Americans for almost five decades. The more I delved into how shows were written and produced; what made some actors excel and others bomb when playing to an audience over the airwaves; the way audiences were engaged, even enthralled, by the “theatre of the mind,” the more possibilities I could see this environment inspiring in a mystery.

My first awareness of radio entertainment of the classic 1920s-50s came from old movies of the ’30s through ’50s that I watched on TV as a child – a very young child.  I loved the excitement of actors and musicians, quiz contestants, and newscasters performing before live audiences.  I was so influenced by what I saw that I was close to six or seven before realizing that the music I heard on the radio was not being performed live at the local radio studio. Until that epiphany, I had been dearly puzzled by how the Beatles and Supremes could get from Lowell to Lawrence, MA in a matter if minutes! 

As I got older, read more, and watched movie and TV portrayals of radio with a deeper understanding, I learned more about the intricacies of production – including writing, directing, acting, and sound effects creation, which made me even more fascinated.  Books such as The Great American Radio Broadcast, Terror on the Air, Suspense, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, and The I Love a Mystery Companion  revealed to me the behind the scene creation of programs such as Inner Sanctum, Lux Radio Theatre, Suspense, and I Love a Mystery, to name a few – from initial inspiration and pitching of a show to sponsors, to the intense schedule for writing and rehearsing, to actors’ perspective on radio performing, to audience reactions.  I was especially intrigued by how special sound effects, combined with an audience’s willing imagination, were such a powerful force in creating reality:  coconut shells became pounding hooves, a stabbed melon was transformed into a fatally impaled human, a flushing toilet could be modified to become space invaders’ horrific weapons, or a heart beat might be created with a rubber sponge, a turn table, and a stylus (Maltin 108)!  Of course, there were also the ultra realists like Jack Webb whom Leonard Maltin reveals created the sounds of passing cars on Los Feliz Blvd. at 2:30 a.m. by having a sound man go out and record passing cars at 2:30 a.m. on Los Feliz Blvd. (Great American Radio Broadcast 100).

One source that especially galvanized my interest was Rupert Holmes’s Remember WENN (the real first original AMC series).  This delightful program traced the adventures of a Mid-West small-town girl who makes it to the big city (sort of), Pittsburgh, and starts as writer but soon finds the hectic demands of the station moving her swiftly into the roles of director; producer; business manager; and, occasionally, actress.  With humor that is sometimes whimsical, but always clever, Remember Wenn joyfully captures the seat-of-your-pants spirit at a radio station that characterized how this medium entertained and delighted audiences.

Whether in Remember Wenn or in the books I read, I especially loved learning how actors had the pleasure of playing an enormous catalogue of roles because we created their characters in our minds on the inspiration of their voices.  That’s how a short, chubby chap could become a strapping western marshal or a middle-aged man could mentally materialize as a kindly old grandmother in the theatre of our minds!  Or we got to “see” our favorite actors playing roles they never had a chance to have a crack at on the screen.  For example, as a Joan Bennett fan, I was delighted to catch her deftly cracking wise in Rosalind Russell’s part in Hired Wife or seductively manipulating Burt Lancaster in Barbara Stanwyck’s role in Double Indemnity. 

And short stories or novels were brought alive for us as well – especially Orson Welles’s infamous trick more that treat, War of the Worlds.  Both situations inspired me to think about what fun it would be to take some of my favorite horror or mystery stories or even movies and imagine them as venues for Jessica to strut her thespian stuff.  So, in Dead Man, Jess gets to talk about doing “A Rose for Emily” and “The Dunwich Horror”; in Dark Horse, we have reference to her playing in “The Horla.”

 

In Jessica’s most recent adventure, Shadows of a Dark Past, I’ve centered the story around her work on a remote broadcast in a haunted New Hampshire mansion (somewhat inspired by Charlie Chan in the Wax Museum). Attempting to drum up ratings, her director/producer Scott plans to reopen the tragedy of a woman’s tragic disappearance, and likely murder, in this mansion twenty years before.  The owner of the mansion, the husband of the woman reputed to be the ghost, her daughter, and others in the town who remember the event have dangerously mixed emotions about the broadcast.  And Jessica finds that she has a disturbing connection to the woman in question.  Then there’s the Hound of Hell. The topper is when things go horribly wrong in a séance recorded for later transmission.

In a book still in the outline stage, the plot revolves around Jessica’s work in the studio with some members of the writing team who are dangerously not what they seem. It’s Dusty who sets the plot in motion! So, don’t change that station!  I plan to bring you more exciting installments of the adventures of Jessica, Liz, James, and Dusty in and out of the studio!

 

If you’re looking for some films to give you a flavor of radio at its most exciting and mystery-inspiring, check out Charlie Chan in the Wax Museum (1940),  Abbott and Costello’s Who Done It? (1942), Danger on the Air (1938), The Hucksters (1949), That’s Right, You’re Wrong (1939), The Big Broadcast of 1938, Playmates (1941) The Frozen Ghost (1945), Radioland Murders (1994 – George Lucas directing, no less), and The Scarlet Clue (1945).  For a sardonic look at the effects of Orson Welles’s broadcast of War of the Worlds, have a chuckle at Hullabaloo (1940); and for a (mostly) more serious look, watch The Night That Panicked America (1975).

Image of Orson Welles directing:  Broadcasting play:  https://musingsofamiddleagedgeek.blog/2022/10/07/the-night-that-panicked-america-1975-is-a-little-seen-tv-movie-about-the-greatest-halloween-prank-ever-played/

Screen shot of  soundman and toilet from The dvd The Night That Panicked America,CBS Studios, (c) 2014

Image of Melinda Mullins from AMC Movie Magazine.

Image of Joan Bennett, Dusty, and Jessica Minton, author’s collection

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She Can Do It! And so Can Janet and I!

1940s mystery, A Moment After Dark, Always Play the Dark Horse, Bait and Switch, Bait and Switch, Dark Passage, Film Actors, Film Noir, Janet Raye Stevens, Jessica Minton, Joan Bennett, Letter from a Dead Man, Lisa Lieberman, Long Time, Lynn Bari, Lynnfield Library, massachusetts, My Sweet, mystery, Nocturne, Sharon Healy Yang, Sharon Yang, Smart-Talking Gals, suspense, Time Cop, World War II, writing, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I first met sister-author Janet Raye Stevens when my friend Lisa Lieberman (another mystery author) asked me to join her and Janet to do a ZOOM program on the importance of clothing and fashion in the development of our mid-century mysteries.  This was my initial chance to read Janet’s Beryl Blue time cop series and her stand alone, A Moment After Dark.  I was hooked.

Janet and I both love the 1940s, especially the era’s sharp and challenging mysteries, which inspire our own writing.  We are especially taken by the “smart-talking gals” populating 1930s-40s mysteries, neither femme fatale not babyish innocent:  a woman who has been around, learned the ropes, but has not lost her integrity.

We loved the sharp wit and clever cracks of the likes of Joan Bennett, Claire Trevor (when they were playing on the side of the angels), Lynn Bari, Lauren Bacall, Ella Raines and many others.  We especially loved how they were usually the ones who set the noir’s anti-heroes straight, pulled together and made sense of the disparate threads of clues, and weren’t above skirting conventions and the law to see fairness prevail.  So, it should come as no surprise to anyone who knows us and our smart talking heroines Jessica Minton (me) and Beryl Blue and A Moment After Dark’s Addie Brandt (Janet) that we put together our heads and came up with a presentation:  “She Can Do It!  Real/‘Reel’ Women and Mid-Century Mysteries.”

We did our initial run at the Lynnfield Library, thanks to the go-ahead from Assistant Library Director Marita Klements. Our space was a loft area in the former schoolhouse, now library, where we set up a multi-media show.  We started by introducing the fact that with the war, women now had opportunities to put their considerable talents to work in factories, in the air, in battlefield hospitals, etc.

However, you can’t talk about the influence of movie smart-talking gals without showing some clips, can you?  For fun, we showed a clip from a 1938 Nancy Drew movies, where a teenage Nancy not only recognizes a kidnapping and tracks kidnappers in her car, only thwarted when her car has a flat – which she changes herself without missing a beat. Sisters were doing it for themselves in 1938, and we talked about how the wave of independence continued through the 1940s, in real and reel life.

Janet and I broke down the presentation into three sections, first showing a clip (talking about it a little), then showing its influence on our development of our heroines by each doing a related reading from her own text that reflected what went on in the scene.  Murder suspect Lynn Bari’s snappy but cool exchange with detective George Raft in Nocturne illustrated a woman with substance, unintimidated by authority. Dark Passage’s Lauren Bacall revealed a gal resourcefully rescuing Humphrey Bogart from persecution by unjust law.  Finally, Anne Shirley, in Murder, My Sweet, showed our gal calling out both men and women who misjudge or threaten her. After reading related, short excerpts from our books, Janet and I explained how these smart-talking gals influenced our heroines

We had a lot of fun, watching our audience get into our writings as we read. (It’s always great when people laugh in the right places!)  It was just as neat to see them enjoy the smart-talking gals tell it like it is, be unflummoxed by adversity – on the screen or on our pages.  We also got thoughtful questions about our research, background on the films and the actresses, and the influence of these films on women’s changed roles during and after the war.

So, if you think this evening sounded like fun, get in touch with Janet (janetrayestevens@gmail.com) or me (syang@worcester.edu) and maybe we can make an appearance at a library, senior center, or other venue near you.

(P.S. Yang made my suit based on an actual 1940s suit that I own!)

 

 

 

 

Lee Library Author Event: A Walk on the Noir Side in Shades of Autumn

1940s mystery, All Through the Night, Always Play the Dark Horse, Autumn, Bait and Switch, Bait and Switch, book signings and readings, Ella Raines, Fall, Film Noir, Jessica Minton, Joan Bennett, Lee Library, massachusetts, mystery, New England, Sharon Healy Yang, Sharon Yang, Smart-Talking Gals, Starving, Starving Artist Cafe, suspense, The Uninivted, Val Lewton, writing, , , , , , , , , , , ,
Since some of the Covid issues have waned, I’ve started going back to doing in-person author readings.  Friday, October 14th, I had the good fortune to do an event at the Lee Library in Lee, Massachusetts.  What a wonderful day!  Lee is in the western part of Massachusetts, so my husband and I had an exciting drive through all the gorgeous fall foliage to arrive at our destination.  Lee is a neat little town with a main street of equally neat shops, and in an antique store I found a 1940s movie magazine with pictures of favorite stars.  The main street has lots of  tasty restaurants.  We had our lunch at The Starving Artist Cafe, where they craft the yummiest sandwiches and
crêpes. They made a pumpkin latte that was absolutely perfect – not all sugary and fake whipped cream, but good coffee, the flavor of pumpkin spice, and steamed milk.  We sat outside at the street seating on a warm October day and enjoyed the small-town scenery, great food, and trees dressed in their autumn flames and oranges.After a stroll amongst the shops and a peek at some of  the gorgeous Victorian houses in town, we went to the library for my talk.  You can see what a beautiful old building the library is.  When visiting the town earlier, I was taken with the building and thought, “I’d like to do a talk here.”  Well, I contacted Jodi Magner at the library, and she was tremendously welcoming and enthusiastic at the prospect of my doing an event.  She told me that they loved mysteries in that town!

That day, Jodi and her daughter Megan made me so welcome and helped my husband and I set up.  I was delighted that my friend, mystery writer, Leslie Wheeler could join us, as well as other women whom I’d never met before.  We were a small group, but we had a great time.  I got so many intelligent questions, and people seemed interested in my inspiration from film noir and haunting movies of the 1940s like Val Lewton’s films and The Uninvited.  They seemed to get a kick out of the excerpts that I read from Bait and Switch, Letter from a Dead Man, and Always Play the Dark Horse to illustrate how the dark, dreamy elements of noir and the smart talking gals of the 1940s influenced my writing!  One of the women even said that a friend, sometime earlier,  had been suggesting she read the Jessica Minton series.  I’m getting a fan base! And now you can read all three Jessica Minton novels through the Lee Library.

Say, how do you like the pin-stripe black suit and the black fedora?  I thought the gold blouse was just right to add fall color. Should I have brought along a gat?

I’m hoping to go back in the summer, after the fourth novel comes out:  Shadows of a Dark Past.  Maybe I’ll see you there!

“Back in the Saddle Again!”

1940s mystery, Always Play the Dark Horse, Bait and Switch, book signings and readings, Jessica Minton, Lala Books, Leslie Wheeler, Lowell, massachusetts, mystery, New England, Sharon Yang, suspense, writing, , , , , , , , , , ,
In June, I was finally  able to get back in the saddle concerning appearances.  After one fun reading in May at TidePool books in Worcester, I first did a joint author event with my friend and colleague, Leslie Wheeler, on Saturday, June 4th at the Booklovers’ Gourmet.  We had a responsive audience and a lot of fun.  Leslie suggested that we, ourselves, be more interactive.  So, instead of just reading and talking separately, after each  short reading, we asked each other questions about our methods of writing, our particular joys and pains in writing, future writing plans, etc.  Our questions and responses, in turn, drew questions and observations from the audience.  Totally interactive! I think we even made some new friends and readers, as well.  I’m especially excited because we talked about Leslie’s new book, Wolf Bog, which will be released July 6th, this year!
Next, I joined an even bigger group of writers from Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America at a corner of the Natick Farmers’ Market called Beach Reads, organized by Tilia Jacobs.  I shared my table with Janet Raye Stevens, who also writes mysteries set in the 1940s.  It was a gorgeous day, where we enjoyed chatting with people -and each other- of course, also selling some books.  Here’s a tip for writers:  have a QR code on your bookmarks, postcards, or advertising poster so that if people don’t have cash, they can use their smartphones to connect to a site where they can buy the book (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, your web site) there or later.  Anyway, it’s great to see people and enjoy a beautiful afternoon.

I already have some plans for August. On August 24th, from 7:00-7:30 p.m., I’ll be interviewed by Barry Eva on A Book and a Chat. I’ll provide more details when I have them. Next  is Lala Books in Lowell, MA on August 26th from 7:00-8:00 p.m., so come and hear all about the latest 1940s mystery adventures for Jessica Minton, James Crawford, and Dusty – as well as talk about writing and publishing! I may be able to give you a sneak peek at book #4, Shadows of a Dark Past.

 

How to Outfit the Well Dressed 1940s Mystery Heroine

1940s mystery, Always Play the Dark Horse, Bait and Switch, Bait and Switch, Barbara Stanwyck, fashion 1940s, Film Noir, Joan Bennett, Letter from a Dead Man, mystery, Smart-Talking Gals, writing, , , , , , , ,
Last December (2021) I did a ZOOM with fellow mystery writers Lisa Lieberman and Janet Raye Stevens on “Writing the War Years” – as in WWII.  One aspect of doing research to give our tales verisimilitude was looking into the kinds of clothes that people wore.  That topic and the fact that many of my readers and reviewers seem to get a kick out of my descriptions of the wardrobes of Jessica Minton and her fellow players set me thinking.   It would be fun for me and interesting for you, my readers, if I revealed the inspirations for the clothes that helped create a sense of “being there” in my novels.

To be honest, I can’t take credit for “designing” those 1940s outfits, not all of them, anyway.  True, some do come out a familiarity with fashion developed from perusing films, magazines, and Sears catalogues.  However, a large number of my creations are inspired by films that helped spark my tales.  The trigger for Bait and Switch might be traced to this image of Joan Bennett from The Woman on the Beach.    Studying this picture, I wondered, “If you just look at this out of context, what tale does it tell?  What is this woman’s conflict with the man she faces?  What could be in the package?”  The answers that I spun out from those questions led me to create Jessica’s exciting adventures with James Crawford and Nazi fifth columnists.  What I perceived of her garb in the picture inspired an outfit that not only re-appeared in at least one other novel in the series, but a fashion reflecting a major shift in women’s empowerment.

When I first looked at the picture, in a smaller version, I perceived the woman in question as wearing a light coat over a white blouse and dark slacks.  That white blouse with the flowing sleeves and dark slacks became a staple for women who were independent, free-moving, and downright comfortable.  Think of Barbara Stanwyck pounding away on her typewriter, casual but still determined, in her first scene in Christmas in Connecticut.  However, as she becomes imprisoned in playing the domestic roles imposed by men, we see her cinched up and confined in skirts and suits. So, Jessica’s taking off on an adventure that might save her country, while rejecting her boyfriend’s protective attempts to curb her independent agency, is best served by that same outfit.  Here you see her, from the cover of the novel, comfortably outfitted and ready for action, though a bit trepidatious of what the future holds.

The eponymous blouse and slacks prove the importance of ease of movement when Jessica dons them in Always Play the Dark Horse to explore a wrecked ship that reveals dangerous secrets, to ride out on a mysterious black horse to rescue a friend, and later to face off against a murderer and spy.

Of course, a smart talkin’ gal of the forties like a Joan Bennett, Lynn Bari, or Rosalind Russell could still assert herself and delve into danger even when back in a dress and heels, as Jessica proves with this number:  “this light dress, with its pale raspberry swirls on white” and “her white turban.”  Thusly garbed, in Bait and Switch, Jess finds herself confronted at the racetrack by her mystery man and spirited away from the crowd; however, a fitted dress in no way prevents her from letting him have it on the jaw when he oversteps bounds.

In Letter from a Dead Man, Jessica is back in this silky number of “raspberry swirls on creamy silk” on another  hot summer afternoon while helping her sister search the secret room of a murdered friend, then dive into a closet when their nemesis unexpectedly shows up with two torpedoes. The inspiration for this frock?  Joan Bennett’s white and color swirled dress in Trade Winds.  Now an interesting thing about describing this and some of the other outfits Jess wears is that I got to see the originals in black and white, either on the screen or in publicity shots.  So, it’s up to me to imagine what colors swirl through the white with this, and other outfits.  I saw a soft raspberry pink: perfect for a summer afternoon.  What color do you see?

In Dark Horse, I had to use my imagination when having Jessica model two of her dress-designing sister’s creations.  This is the outfit I adapted for Jessica’s visit to the tea sponsored by the college where her husband is teaching and where murder and espionage lurk in the shadows.  It’s a tea where Jess has to look great while trying to maintain her cool amongst dangerous suspects and startlingly unexpected revelations.

“Jessica sprang up, undoing her robe to reveal a gorgeous white silk dress, fitted in the bodice, with a graceful A-line skirt that swirled as she moved and flatteringly shaped itself to her when she stood still. The square neckline revealed its wearer’s collarbones without dipping too low. What Jess thought really gave it elegant flair was a pattern on the bodice of abstract shapes, almost like an archangel by Picasso, in unexpectedly complementary soft liquid blue, green, and pink, bordered by silver.”

I will tell you, it was not easy to try to give you an image that would evoke the patterns on this dress.  What do you think?

In Dead Man, Jessica’s fitted black linen dress with the white linen collar is inspired by this outfit from She Knew All the Answers.  As you can see from the picture, I didn’t have to use much imagination to come up with black and white for this one.  The colors do play an important role in the narrative, though.  For when Jessica tries to hide behind the refuge of one of the NYPL lions, she lives in terror that a flash of white from her collar will give her away to her deadly pursuers.

 

In Dark Horse, it’s the cut not the color of the dress that adds to the story.  Jess finds herself caught in an awkward position when the dress’s sweetheart neckline and flattering fit causes an old boyfriend’s wife to see red rather than the black of the dress, though that wasn’t Jessica’s intention. And that woman may have permanently eliminated a real rival for her husband.

 

Finally, as you may have noticed, I repeated several outfits from one book to another.  Why?  Well, part of it has to do with the images inspiring what I write.  However, another, and especially important, point is that most women throughout  decades past hung on to outfits over a period of years.  We find something we like and we keep wearing it .  I am writing in the era before fast fashion took hold, not that Jessica would ever be such a frivolous shopper.  So, it creates verisimilitude to show my characters wearing the same outfit more than once over a few years.  However, I’m not looking forward to hitting 1948/9 when the hemlines drop drastically.  Will Jessica have to get a whole new wardrobe?!  Well, I can at least promise you that our Jess will not be chopping off her hair, as was that late forties and early fifties fashion!

How about you?  Are there any outfits from the series that you’d like to ask me about?  I’m ready and waiting to answer.

 

The Dark Horses Inspiring Always Play the Dark Horse

1940s mystery, Always Play the Dark Horse, Amberoid, black horses, black thoroughbreds, Devil His Due, Equipoise, horse racing, Jessica Minton, Kelso, , , , , , , ,
I’ve been a horse-racing aficionado since 1966, when I started watching the Triple Crown races on TV.  My pick was Amberoid, who finished eleventh in the Derby, moved on up to third in the Preakness, then blasted home first by 2 1/2 lengths in the Belmont Stakes. ­ Sorry Kaui King on crimping your Triple Crown bid.  So it’s been lots of fun for me to bring my favorite sport into play in Always Play the Dark Horse.  For verisimilitude, I drew on some real race horses’ interesting quirks when creating the equine players of my story.

Equipoise, a handicap star of the 1930s, was known as “The Chocolate Soldier” for his dark brown coat and his warrior-like determination to win. A tough horse, he ran for five seasons and won an impressive 29 of 52 starts.  If he couldn’t outrun his competition, he wasn’t above taking a little chunk out of a horse who challenged him in a stretch drive – ­ hence his disqualification in the 1934 Metropolitan Handicap.  That loss actually was used for the final twist in the play and movie Three Men and a Horse. He brought such disqualifications on himself two other times as well, but he was also known as “the best assistant starter” for keeping fractious horses in line when he was set on the business of getting the race started clean.  An honest, hard-working, hard-knocking horse (literally), Equipoise was a leading stakes and money winner.

Another champion handicap horse, equally determined but far less free with his chompers, was Kelso.  For 4 years (1961-65) Kelso dominated handicap racing, knocking heads with such stars as Gun Bow, Mongo, Beau Purple, and Roman Brother.  He was horse of the year four consecutive years and won one handicap triple crown as well four consecutive Jockey Club Gold Cups, eventually became leading money winner, just missing being the first horse to win two million dollars.  Kelly may have been a tough nut to crack on the track, but he was a tenderhearted guy when it came to kids, letting them feed him ice cream sundaes.  After he retired, his owner, Mrs. Allaire Dupont even turned him into a saddle horse, but Kelso was not one to poke along trails. She noticed he had an affinity for jumping natural obstacles on their rides, so to keep her equine friend from getting bored, she successfully trained him as a jumper.  I can remember one of his exhibitions at a New York track where the old guy showed himself a master in yet another equine endeavor.  The racehorse to jumper story almost made it into Dark Horse; but, alas, necessary cuts sheared it from the story.  Maybe a sequel where this equine character makes a return engagement?

Devil His Due was a racer of the 1990s who looked as if he could have played the title role in Walter Farley’s Black Stallion series.  Unusual for a champion stallion, he was not retired early but ran into his sixth year. Also unusual, he was sound enough to never have run on Lasix.  I was even lucky enough to have seen him at Belmont Park when he ran in the 1994 Woodward Stakes.  Unfortunately, it was Holy Bull’s day of glory not Devil’s.   This black stallion still won more than his share of stakes: Pimlico Special, Brooklyn Handicap, Gulfstream Park Handicap, and back-to-back victories in the Suburban Handicap (with 1994 victories in the Brooklyn and Suburban, he copped two legs of the Handicap Triple Crown).  He was especially admired for his determined stretch battle with Lured in the Wood Memorial, finishing in a dead heat for first with the other horse.

Our black stallion was also famous for a little escapade with the IRS, a version of which makes it into Dark Horse.  Apparently, the IRS didn’t believe that the horse actually belonged to Edith Libutti, but thought the ownership was a tax dodge for her father.  They had a court order to take possession of him.  When trainer Allen Jerkins warned the IRS reps that race horses were temperamental and dangerous if not handled properly, the head agent snapped back that the government had a lien on Devil, could do whatever they wanted with him, going into the stall to seize him.  Devil was having none of this: laying back his ears and barring his teeth, he chased the agents out.  Apparently Devil was too tough even for the IRS.  He was back on the track and winning that same racing season.  Blackie in Dark Horse puts on a similar show, demonstrating that we should all use our horse sense – if not our flashing teeth and hooves.

 

Sources for information and Images on each of the thoroughbreds.  If you believe the posting of an image here violates your copyright, please contact me and I will remove it.  No violation of copyright intended.

Amberoid photo:  Turf and Sport Digest Cover, September 1966

Equipoise
1. History of Thoroughbred Racing in America, William H.P. Robertson
2. https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/214268/bh-100-equipoise
3. https://www.champsofthetrack.com/post/10-facts-about-equipoise
4.https://www.equibase.com/profiles/Results.cfm?type=Horse&refno=146348&registry=T&rbt=TB

Kelso
1. History of Thoroughbred Racing in America, William H.P. Robertson
2. A Horse Named Kelso, Pat Johnson and Walter D. Osborne
3. Richard Stone Reeves Paintings also from A Horse Named Kelso

Devil His Due
1. SuperPickle, Registered User Join Date: Nov 2014 Posts: 1,121 Rep Power: 7 SuperPickle is on a distinguished roadhttp://www.paceadvantage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=138591
2.https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/221713/grade-1-winner-sire-devil-his-due-dies-at-28
3. https://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/devil-his-due-dies-at-28/
4.Post Parade Image: Author’s collection
5.  https://twitter.com/drflivingston/status/578934814767751168
6.Confirmation Portrait: Thoroughbred Times 1997 Stallion Directory

Last Glimpses of Autumn

1940s mystery, architecture, Autumn, Colbrook Reservoir, Connecticut, CT, Fall, Gothic, Jessica Minton, New England, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , ,
Here we are with only two days left to November, closing out autumn. Though the season doesn’t officially end until December 21 or 22, depending on the year, the last day of November always feels like the turn of the page into winter with December 1st.  So, I’d like to present you with a blog or two taking a lingering, pleasing look back at the “season of mellow fruitfulness.”
Last year, Yang and I celebrated Halloween during the day with a hike at Colbrook Reservoir in western Mass.  Remember how we were in drought status that year?  Well, that’s why we not only were able to have a memorable walk along the waterway on an abandoned two-lane paved road, but also could discern parts of the town that had been submerged  by the flooding to create the reservoir.  We even caught sight of the phantom bridge!  This year we sought to repeat our adventure, with hopes of an even more pleasant outing since the weather was so much warmer than last year.  Unfortunately,  in 2021 we had so much more of something else than last year:  Rain!
Last year there was water, shoreline, road, rocks and trees.  This year, there was water, rocks, and trees.  We were flooded out in both directions of the road from the parking lot.  Yang mentioned that we also rode our bikes here the day after Thanksgiving last year; so, I commented that unless we had paddle boats, we weren’t doing any paddling here this year!  Disappointed, I still managed to get some nice shots of foliage and water, as you can see.  Yang had another idea, which also had been percolating in my head.  We hopped in the car and headed just across the nearby border for Heublein Tower on Talcott Mountain  in Connecticut! (If you want to get a look at what we saw  at Colbrook last year, click here for my earlier blog .)
A little on Heublein Tower.  Heublein was the third tower to stand on Talcott Mountain, built by German-born, American businessman from Hartford, Gilbert Heublein,  While hiking the mountain with his fiancee, he promised her “a castle on a mountain,” keeping his promise after their marriage by constructing this tower.  The edifice, which contained bedrooms on all but the pinnacle, a spacious ground-floor living  room and foyer, dining room; second floor sun room, an elevator, and a ballroom on the glassed-in top floor was completed by 1929.  Here, the Heubleins relaxed in their summer home, inviting guests and holding events that drew the cream of Hartford’s social crop. Heublein died in 1937, with his  building falling out of use until bought in 1943 by The Hartford Times.  Once again, it became the place to be for social events with celebrities of the era in attendance, including Tallulah Bankhead!  Eventually, it was let slide by the Times and nearly bought by developers, until saved by the group  Save Talcott Mountain.  Now the mountain and the Tower are open to the public for hiking and viewing, as the area has become a state park. It’s a wonderful place to enjoy nature and some unique architecture.  For more details on the Tower and the park, click here for the web site.
Hiking up the mountain isn’t too bad a hike at all.  There are several trails to get to the Tower.  The most popular one is a little steep at first, through autumn woods, but there are benches along the way if you’re out of shape and need a rest.  We were in good enough shape not to!  Then, you come out of the woods and onto a ridge overlooking the valley below.  The view along this ridge is wonderful, and you might even see a hawk as we did! Some great overlooks.
The Tower itself is quite a treat!  This old photo shows what the foyer and living room originally looked like.  My shot lets you see an updated in-color version.  The furnishings have been carefully assembled to approximate the style and taste of the original era.  Though I’m not sure I would have wanted a big deer head on my wall, I would have loved to relax before that fireplace in a comfy chair or to play card games with friends on a crisp fall evening, with coffee or tea and scones for sustenance.  And how about this nook by the window that looks out over a gorgeous mountain landscape, cascading fall colors into the valley below?  How’s that for having breakfast or an afternoon tea?  I wonder  what flavor that cake is on the table?
Or maybe I’d take tea, solo or with companions, on this wonderful sun porch, warm with solar emanations?  Could also be a great place to settle down and read or listen to the radio programs back in the day.  And the view from up here ain’t bad, either.

 

How about some of those bedrooms?  Not necessarily luxurious, but roomy enough.  Plenty of sunlight during the day, should you wish to retire here. Pleasant, if not elaborate, decor.  But you’re on a rustic  retreat, so who needs frills?  Though this set up is far from camping on the cold, hard New England bedrock.  And, oh, those views when you get up in the morning!  Imagine the rising sun setting aflame these fall colors!
One of the most interesting parts of the Tower is the observation deck.  Originally, this area was known as the ballroom, as you can see from this old image of the earlier set up.  Wouldn’t it be grand to dance away the evening on these hard wood floors?  It could be a real Stardust Ballroom, with the twinkling lights of the darkened heavens glittering through the tall windows of all four sides of the room.  Of course, you’d have to move away all that furniture.  Great place for a big party!
Yet there’s no need to wait for evening to fall in love with the observation deck.  During the day, you get views  for miles, across Connecticut and into Massachusetts – an especially fine sight in the autumn, when the hills burst with colors.  Feast your eyes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, returning to the first floor, towards the rear of the building, you find the formal dining room, gorgeous in wood paneling, dark wood furniture, marble fireplace, exquisite Persian rug, elegant china and cutlery, and painted medallion above the fireplace.  How about the gorgeous beamed ceilings? It’s fun to notice that the door to the butler’s pantry is hidden in the shape of the paneling on one side of the fireplace, while a closet is similarly hidden on the other.  Light pours in the windows.

Now, I ask you, would this not be the perfect setting for a mystery?  This is how the UConn campus at Avery Point inspired me for Always Play the Dark Horse.  So, how should we work this?  Jessica and James are invited for a weekend by the owner,  a mysterious sort who seems to know more about them than they about him or her?  Or maybe it is someone they know, or think they do.  Should guests start dropping like flies over a dinner in that elegant dining room?  Should Jessica settle down to a quiet read on the sun porch, only to be interrupted by a figure sailing past to his/her death below? Should Liz also be on hand?  What do you think?