A Conversation with Mystery Author Steven Rigolosi

with Steven Rigolosi

We are thrilled to welcome mystery author Steven Rigolosi to Omnimystery News today.

Steven introduces the delightful Miss Felicity Prim in The Outsmarting of Criminals (Ransom Note Press; March 2014 hardcover and ebook formats) and we recently had the chance to catch up with him to talk about his new book.

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Omnimystery News: Before The Outsmarting of Criminals you wrote several stand-alone books. Why did you decide to make your new book the first in a series?

Photo provided courtesy of
Steven Rigolosi

Steven Rigolosi: My first three books were stand-alones but part of a series that my publisher calls the "Tales from the Back Page" series. The idea is that each book is based on an advertisement placed on the back page of an edgy New York City newspaper similar to the Village Voice. I have started moving away from that idea because, sadly, it seems as though newspapers are no longer the force in society that they once were, and I wanted to make sure my fiction felt fresh and modern. So it's ironic that my first series character, Miss Felicity Prim in The Outsmarting of Criminals, is a mixture of quaintly old-fashioned and contemporary. Because Miss Prim is just beginning her career as an amateur sleuth, she has a lot to learn, so I think there's ample room for her to continue growing as the series progresses.

OMN: In terms of mystery genres, how do you categorize your books?

SR: I would describe my first three books as "quirky." I tried to do something different and unexpected in each of them. For example, in Androgynous Murder House Party, all of the characters have androgynous names, and the reader has to decide who is male and who is female. (I had to write that book without using pronouns!) In contrast, The Outsmarting of Criminals is truly, undoubtedly a traditional cozy featuring an amateur sleuth who gets more than she bargained for when she starts asking questions.

OMN: Tell us something about The Outsmarting of Criminals that isn't mentioned in the publisher's synopsis.

SR: Many of the characters in the book have names that are tributes to great writers or books. For example, Miss Prim is very fond of adding "Mrs. Mallowan's Lemon Sugar" to her tea. Mrs. Mallowan is, of course, Agatha Christie. I'm a big fan of the mystery writer Celia Fremlin, so I used her name twice in the book: Miss Prim's sister's name is Celia, and a member of the Greenfield Police Department is Spike Fremlin. Another cop, Martin Reed, is named after the hero of one of my favorite books, Norah Lofts' The Town House. Oh, and the character of Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg shares the same name as the Queen of England!

OMN: Give us a summary of the book in a tweet.

SR: A voracious reader, Miss Felicity Prim thinks that her experiences with reading mystery fiction have prepared her to become a real-life detective.

OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in the book?

SR: I wouldn't say that there's much of me in Miss Prim, although we do share certain perceptions about modern technology. Miss Prim favors face-to-face human communication over Internet friendships; that's one thing we have in common. Miss Prim also thinks the police rely way too much on forensic evidence, and that they often focus on such matters to the exclusion of the psychological underpinning of the case. While forensic advances are undoubtedly the best way to nab the criminals in real life, in my fiction I prefer the Golden Age "application of gray cells" method of outsmarting the crooks, so I wrote that into The Outsmarting of Criminals, too.

OMN: Describe your writing process for us.

SR: I plot the entire book, chapter by chapter, before I begin writing. The three elements that I have settled before I put pen to paper (actually, fingers to keyboard) are: the title, the first sentence, and the last sentence.

OMN: Where do you usually find yourself writing?

SR: I work in my home office, which doubles as my library. To my right is my bookcase of classic fiction, first editions that I've acquired over the years. Then, behind me are bookshelves with all my other books: fiction on the left, nonfiction on the right. When I talk on FaceTime, the background makes me look truly scholarly! I do a bit of business travel but I'm incapable of writing on planes and in hotel rooms. I need a comfortable space to do that. So I use planes, trains, and hotels for reading, which is just as important.

OMN: How do you go about researching the plot points of your stories?

SR: Oh, this is my dirty little secret. I don't do research. I wouldn't write a book that required me to do a lot of research. I did enough of that kind of stuff in college and grad school, and it's not something that I particularly enjoy. What I do enjoy is the plotting, the writing, and the revising. So I choose settings with which I'm quite familiar, and I don't get deeply into history. I do know a few police professionals whom I'll consult about procedures and so forth, but for the most part, I stay away from devoting hours to research. I was at a convention, Deadly Ink, and I asked one of the panelists, Anna Maria Alfieri (who writes historical mysteries), how much time she spends researching versus writing. She said she spent much more time in research. The other panelists had similar responses. I thought, "More reason for me never to write an historical mystery."

OMN: You mentioned that you always have the title of your book set before you start writing. How did you come up with The Outsmarting of Criminals? And were you involved with coming up with the really quite charming cover of the book?

SR: The title of The Outsmarting of Criminals came to me early because I wanted the title to reflect the heroine's way of thinking. Miss Prim believes that fictional detectives succeed not through violence but rather because they use their superior intelligence to outsmart the criminal. I wanted a title that conveyed a cozy feeling but did not make use of a pun. My editor liked the title, which he thought was distinctive enough to make an impression.

As for the cover, I had nothing to do with it but I think it is absolutely beautiful and amazing. The cover artist is a man named J.E. Larson, and when my publisher showed me the cover art, I gasped with pleasure. I feel that it so perfectly conveys who Miss Prim is and what the book is all about. It has been compared to an Edward Gorey-type cover, and I think that's a perfect analogy; it conveys not only a bit of humor but also some creeping menace.

OMN: The Outsmarting of Criminals is set in the village of Greenfield, Connecticut. Is this town based on a real place?

SR: The town itself is fictional, but it is part of a real county (Litchfield). I had visited there a few years ago and was charmed by the quiet appeal of the Litchfield County towns. Miss Prim very much wants to live in a New England village, so I had to make sure that Greenfield has a town square as well as all of the other things that readers expect a New England village to have. I should note that Greenfield's neighboring town is Two Oaks — a tribute to Louise Penny's Three Pines.

OMN: If you could travel anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, to research a setting for a book, where would it be?

SR: I've always been fascinated by Egypt, but so many others (Elizabeth Peters, Michael Pearce, Agatha Christie) have already written better Egypt-based books than I ever could. Still, for all expenses paid, I'm sure I could have the protagonist have a passing interest in Egyptology (as long as it's not the key to solving the case) …

OMN: What are some of your outside interests?

SR: Sad to say, I'm rather boring. My day job (I work for a scientific publisher) consumes much of my life, as does the commute into and out of New York each day. I take part in a friendly poker game each month that is always a lot of fun, and when the weather is pleasant (which seems to be never) I enjoy riding my bike and going for hikes. I love, love, love all kinds of music, particularly the 80s New Wave and what is today called "alternative" or "trance" music.

OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author? And what might you say to aspiring writers?

SR: The best advice I ever received came from my editor. He said, "Steve, you're good at writing about relationships. Unfortunately, in your books, your characters tend to hate each other. I'd like to see you write a book where the characters like one another." And so my first cozy was born. And I must say, it was much more pleasant to write than some of my other twisted, noir-ish tales (like Circle of Assassins). As for advice to aspiring writers, I'd say, "Have a very, very thick skin and don't give up."

OMN: Complete this sentence for us: "I am a mystery author and thus I am also …".

SR: … someone who loves to read mysteries and get outsmarted by a writer who is smarter than I am.

OMN: As someone with a job in another field, did you consider using a pen name when you started writing?

SR: I had thought about using a pen name. An agent once told me, "You shouldn't use Steven Rigolosi unless you're writing about the Mafia or pasta cookbooks." But it's my name, and there's only one of me, so I guess I don't have to worry about any confused branding issues …

OMN: What kind of feedback have you received from readers?

SR: People are almost always kind and wonderful, especially at conventions. Of course, there are those who are the opposite of that. The mature side of me tries to learn from criticism. (We won't discuss what the immature side of me thinks.) For example, when Who Gets the Apartment? was published, I got a review complaining there was no character development. My thought was, "The book is supposed to be a pleasant romp, not a character study." So, that review partially motivated Circle of Assassins, which is deeply psychological and probably my most intense character study.

OMN: Suppose The Outsmarting of Criminals were to be adapted for television or film. Who do you see playing the key roles?

SR: That's easy. I see Helen Mirren playing Miss Prim, and Shirley MacLaine playing Miss Prim's sister Celia. I'd like Nathan Fillion to play Detective Ezra Dawes.

OMN: What kinds of books did you read when you were young?

SR: My parents' bookshelves were outside my bedroom in the house in which I grew up. I couldn't resist looking at all of those intriguing covers. Believe it or not, the first adult novel I read was Victoria Holt's Lord of the Far Island! There were other books on the shelf by Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Dorothy L. Sayers, John D. McDonald, Mary Higgins Clark, Robert Ludlum, Norah Lofts … so, basically, I just took what looked appealing off the shelf and started reading. Around that time, I discovered the Mystery Guild book club, and that introduced me to many wonderful mystery writers.

OMN: What do you read now for pleasure?

SR: Not a surprise here, but mostly mysteries. Sometimes I like a good thriller. I've discovered steampunk and I enjoy that occasionally. I like a good literary book as long as it's not too long or self-impressed. Sometimes I need a break from fiction and find myself picking up nonfiction. For example, I loved Love Goes to Buildings on Fire, about the New York music scene in the 1970s.

OMN: Who are some of your favorite literary or series characters?

SR: I love Wallace Stroby's Crissa Stone, and I'm very fond of the people who populate the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency: Mma Ramotswe, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and Mma Makutsi. I've enjoyed a lot of Bill Pronzini's Nameless books over the years. I always look forward to the next Jack Taylor by Ken Bruen. I like Vachss' Burke although I'm not sure I'd want to be in the same room with him.

OMN: What about films? Do you enjoy watching movies?

SR: I am the only person I know who is not a film buff. I really feel left out of the conversation when movies come up, which is often. It's not a matter of concentration, because I can read or write for hours at a time. But when it comes to staring at a screen … I don't know, it's just not my thing. Maybe a tiny (or larger) part of me is tired of hearing actors and actresses talked about as if they are demigods. I mean, they wouldn't be anything without the writers, would they?

OMN: Create a Top 5 list for us on any subject.

SR: My Top 5 favorite books:

1. Bellefleur, by Joyce Carol Oates;
2. Perfume, by Patrick Susskind;
3. The Town House, by Norah Lofts;
4. Rose's Last Summer, by Margaret Millar; and
5. And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie.

OMN: What's next for you?

SR: I'm working on a stand-alone mystery/thriller (almost done!) and then I'll begin writing the second of Miss Prim's adventures.

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Steven Rigolosi is the director of market research and development for a scientific publisher. He lives in northern New Jersey, where he tries to keep the wildlife at bay. Currently his backyard is home to a flock of wild turkeys, two foxes, a couple of egrets in season, and a small deer family (whom he has named John Deere, Jane Doe, Buck Rogers, and Didoe). He maintains a blog on which he posts occasional short fiction.

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The Outsmarting of Criminals
Steven Rigolosi
A Miss Felicity Prim Mystery

After being mugged, Miss Prim decides to leave New York City and purchase a home in the country, where she will be safe from dangerous criminals. A devoted reader of crime fiction, Miss Prim believes that her reading of detective novels has given her all the skills she needs to become an amateur sleuth in her new home base of Greenfield, Connecticut. Miss Prim gets the chance to prove her mettle when she finds a corpse in her basement.

As she investigates (with her trusty Boxer, Bruno, at her side), Miss Prim begins to suspect that someone in Greenfield is watching her every move, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Will Miss Prim, with her insights into human behavior and her steadfast refusal to rely on forensic techniques (which she considers the crutches of lazy investigators), be able to choose between two devoted suitors, save herself, and bring everything to a satisfactory resolution?