A Conversation with Mystery Author Wendy Delaney

with Wendy Delaney

We are delighted to welcome mystery author Wendy Delaney to Omnimystery News today, courtesy of Great Escapes Book Tours, which is coordinating her current book tour. We encourage you to visit all of the participating host sites; you can find her schedule here.

Wendy's second mystery in her working stiff series featuring deputy coroner Charmaine "Char" Digby is Sex, Lies, and Snickerdoodles (Corvallis Press; July 2014 ebook formats) and we recently had the opportunity to talk with the author about her books.

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Omnimystery News: Introduce us to Charmaine Digby, your working stiff series lead. What is it about her that appeals to you as a writer

Photo provided courtesy of
Wendy Delaney

Wendy Delaney: Charmaine Digby is my series sleuth. She's smart, savvy, and inquisitive — three qualities I feel are essential in a good sleuth. But I wanted to write about someone unique, someone who, as a former pastry chef, would not appear to be the greatest fit for her new job as the County Coroner's investigative assistant, at least at first glance. That's why I gave Char a special skill and made her one of those very rare people who are extraordinarily attuned to detecting non-verbal cues. In short, she's a human lie detector. As a writer of humorous cozy mysteries, I use Char's ability to set her on the right path to determine whodunit, but also to lead her astray and create red herrings for the reader. Let's face it — we're all less than truthful at times. For a human lie detector who is questioning several people about a suspicious death, that can easily put more than one person on Char's suspect list.

Char's childhood buddy, Steve Sixkiller, is the only police detective in the small town of Port Merritt, Washington, the county seat. Because they've been friends for most of their lives, they can easily anticipate what the other person is up to — a most inconvenient situation for Char when she doesn't want Steve to know that she's been poking her nose where he's told her it doesn't belong!

There's chemistry between these two characters that I love. They've been best friends forever, but now that they are both single and are tangling on the occasional homicide, it's fun to see their relationship evolve.

OMN: How do you expect to see Charmaine to evolve over the series?

WD: I expect my Charmaine to gradually get better at her job. She's been an investigator in training in the first two books of the series, but those training wheels come off in book three. On the personal front, the relationships between the major characters will also experience change. Char and her actress mother (who abandoned Char at an early age) have plenty of "work to do" to heal some old wounds. As for Steve and Char, many of my readers want to know just how friendly they'll become. I expect to have lots of fun exploring the boundaries of that friendship.

OMN: Into which mystery genre would you place your books?

WD: I call my books "Cozies with a kick." They follow all the conventions of cozy mysteries — the small town setting, the amateur sleuth, the humorous/light tone, no sex or violence on the page. The one exception is the "no profanity" convention. That's where the "kick" comes in. I allow my characters to speak in the manner that is true to his or her character.

OMN: Do you find there is an advantage to labeling your books as "cozies"?

WD: I think there's a definite advantage to having a cozy label. A savvy reader will know to expect a light-hearted, fast-paced story from a mystery labeled as a cozy. It's my job as the author to meet or exceed that reader expectation.

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

WD: Since I write in Char's point of view, it's probably only natural that we share the same sense of humor. Like me, she eats under stress so we're both on perpetual diets, and we're caffeine addicts. Other than that, Char is her own girl with experiences and abilities very different from mine. Char's great-uncle Duke, the crusty Navy veteran who owns Duke's Cafe, is the one series character who is largely based on someone I knew: my late father. I wanted Duke to have a gruff exterior, a heart of gold, and plenty of opinions at the ready. Before I knew it my father's voice and Duke's were one and the same — something I think my dad would get a kick out of.

OMN: Describe your writing process for us.

WD: I'm a left-brained former computer programmer who wrote her first two books (unpublished) on the weekends, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm a plotter and a planner by nature. Before I write a word on page one, I create a high level plot outline. I've found that it needs to be at a high enough level so that the story has room to grow, but with enough detail so that I have a clear sense of direction as I wind my way toward the next plot point. I like to think of my plot as a road map. It's visual with points of interest that I intend to visit, but much like the road trips that I enjoy taking with my husband, if we see a sign for something fun and/or unexpected along our journey and we've got the time, we have a "let's go for it" attitude. After all, in writing as in life, it's all about making it the best journey possible!

After I settled on Charmaine as my sleuth, I interviewed the Jefferson County Prosecutor/Coroner to research and define Char's role as an investigative assistant, and create a sense of place for my story people. Again, I'm a planner, so before I started book one of the series I armed myself with information: character biographies and descriptions, a street map of the community, house plans, etc. So, quite a bit of work went into building my story world. Now, as I work on book three of the series, it's great fun to spend time in my fictional community and breathe more life into it.

OMN: Do you find that your cast of characters expands or contracts as you write the story?

WD: I have a small cast of series regulars — Char's family, friends, and work associates. Not every non-family cast member will make an appearance in every book, but every friend and associate mentioned in the first book of the series, Trudy, Madly, Deeply, will be a recurring character — some of them creating more complications in Char's life than others!

OMN: Tell us more about the setting of the series.

WD: I wanted Char to work for a coroner who was an elected official, not a doctor. This would give her ongoing access to cases of potential murder — perfect for a mystery series featuring an amateur sleuth. For ease of research I wanted the series to take place in a rural setting within a hundred miles of Seattle, where I live. When I discovered that Jefferson County, located a short ferry ride away from Seattle, was one of the few counties in the US where the county prosecutor also serves as the coroner, I knew I was on to something. Soon after a site visit, I took some liberties with geography and created a new county and the fictional town of Port Merritt. Like a few of the port towns in Jefferson County, it's a former mill boom town that's fallen on some tough economic times over the years. That's why Port Merritt, set in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains and known for its sunny skies, reinvented itself as a senior citizen mecca, allowing me to populate the community with a number of feisty oldsters (who make excellent witnesses!).

OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author?

WD: The best advice I've received is also something that took me a while to accept: be myself. That means celebrating my uniqueness and everything that goes into my author voice.

OMN: Sex, Lies, and Snickerdoodles is such a fun title. How did you come up with it?

WD: Since my series sleuth is a human lie detector, I thought it would be only natural to work in some form of the word lie into a title or two. And since Char's a former pastry chef, I thought pairing lies with a cookie could be fun. As soon as that thought popped into my head, Sex, Lies, and Snickerdoodles was born. I wish all my book titles would come that easily!

OMN: What might you say to aspiring writers that you meet?

WD: In my experience aspiring authors can get hung up on the notion of rules and doing things right. All writers in the process of learning their craft should also learn that there is no one right way to write a book. Some writers need to write a detailed synopsis or outline their plot on a spreadsheet. Others abhor plotting (I know a bestselling author who jokingly claims it cramps her brain) and they do no more than jot down a story idea on a cocktail napkin. Do whatever works for you — something experience will teach you.

OMN: What's next for you?

WD: Book three in the series is at the top of my what's next list. There's no release date as yet, but I expect it to become available in early 2015. Also in 2015 will be a few road trips that I hope will include the occasional mystery convention appearance. I invite my readers to friend me on Facebook and check my website for appearance updates and upcoming book news. Also, write me. I love to hear from readers!

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Wendy Delaney writes fun-filled cozy mysteries. A long-time member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Romance Writers of America, she's a Food Network addict and pastry chef wannabe. When she's not killing off story people she can be found on her treadmill, working off the calories from her latest culinary adventure. Wendy makes her home in the Seattle area with her husband and has two grown sons.

For more information about the author, please visit her website at WendyDelaney.com or find her on Facebook.

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Sex, Lies, and Snickerdoodles
Wendy Delaney
A Working Stiffs Mystery

Everybody's got a secret. A secret crush. A secret liaison. A secret recipe. And for a deadly few, a secret murder.

Port Merritt's favorite bad boy, Russell Falco, was a seasoned veteran of secret liaisons. But after his body washes up on the shore of Merritt Bay, Deputy Coroner and human lie detector, Charmaine Digby, suspects one of those liaisons got Russell killed.

Secrets. Lies. Cookie-baking rivals. And a dead guy. Char's on the case and is determined to find the killer … if the killer doesn't find her first!