with Darcy Scott
We are delighted to welcome mystery author Darcy Scott to Omnimystery News today, courtesy of Partners in Crime 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.
Darcy's second Maine island-based mystery is Reese's Leap (Maine Authors Publishing; March 2013 trade paperback and ebook formats), and we had the opportunity to talk to her about the book and the series as a whole.
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Omnimystery News: What prompted you to create a recurring character for your Maine Island mysteries?
Photo provided courtesy of
Darcy Scott
Darcy Scott: This is a terrific question because when I first started writing Matinicus, the first of the Maine Island Mysteries (May, 2012), I had no intention of doing a series. My first novel, Hunter Huntress (May, 2010) was a one-off psychological thriller about a woman who seeks revenge after her young son is killed in an automobile accident. I figured Matinicus would also be a one-off. As I got into it, I was amazed how comfortable I felt with my protagonist, the hard-drinking, bachelor botanist Gil Hodges. It was as if I could slip into his skin at will. He turned out to be a real hoot, too — a very human, self-deprecating guy who has a major problem with self-control. Without realizing I was doing it, I wrote a conclusion that left a lot up in the air — the classic set up for a sequel.
When I finished the book, I figured I was finished with Gil, as well, and began an early version of Reese's Leap (March, 2013), set on another Maine island. I envisioned it as another one-off murder mystery — this one about a group of complicated, high-powered women partying during an all-female retreat when things go desperately wrong. Nary a man in sight. But I found I missed Gil. The new story felt flat without his energy. And given his womanizing ways, this book was actually the perfect vehicle for him. And voila, a series was born. Book three, currently in the works, takes his character to a darker, more cynical place.
OMN: Into what mystery sub-genre would you place this series?
DS: If forced to choose, I'd have to say Mystery with the sub-genre of Amateur Sleuth probably best describes the series. Gil is a botanist, after all. But I try not to use this as a descriptor because it's quite limiting and much too simplistic for the stories he tells.
OMN: Tell us something about the book that isn't mentioned in the publisher's synopsis.
DS: I caught the first glimmers of Reese's Leap while on my own annual, all-female retreat on a remote island off the coast of Maine. Take five women itching to raise some hell, put them in a rambling, hundred-year-old lodge with no electricity, phone service or other connection to the outside world, throw in a three-day fog, and the imagination can't help but run a little wild.
OMN: What process do you typically follow when developing your storylines and characters or writing your books?
DS: I'm a very visual person, so when developing my characters I need to find photos of each of them, sometimes even the minor ones, before I can begin to really flesh them out. Once I get an idea for a new character, I start flipping through magazines, catalogues — whatever — till I find the right face. I've found J. Crew to be a great source. Time Magazine works well, too. I tack the photos to a sheet of paper where I jot down details of their lives as they occur. Helps me keep everyone straight.
Funny you should ask about synopses … When I was starting my first book, I was convinced I knew how the story would go so I spent a few months creating a very detailed outline. About 6 months in, I realized the book was going in a very different direction, so I spent another month redoing the outline. Again my characters surprised me and that plotline, too, became useless. This is probably why it took eight years to finished the book. Several novels later, I've learned to loosely plot three or four chapters out at a time. That seems to work for me.
OMN: Describe your writing environment for us.
DS: I live on my sailboat in Maine from May to October each year, and have a small writing space there. It's quiet, I'm mostly undisturbed and it's where I do my most creative work. There are more than 4000 islands off the coast of Maine, and I'm always on the lookout for those that would make good settings for upcoming Island Mysteries. During the colder months, I suck it up and move to land, counting the days 'til I can get back out there again.
OMN: How do you go about researching the plot points for your books? Has there been anything particularly challenging for you?
DS: I consider research to be the underpinning of every novel. I always try and instill a bit of area history into my plotlines; I think it adds heft and depth to any story — makes the whole thing richer somehow.
I've had lots of challenges while researching, but probably the most difficult from the aspect of both personal comfort and available information was while working on the edits for Reese's Leap. The island on which the story is based is a stone's throw from another that played a central role in one of the most infamous times in Maine's history: the state's forcible removal of a mixed-race community from the island it called home in the early twentieth century to encourage resort tourism in the area. It's a heart-wrenching story, almost unbearable in its casual cruelty, and speaks to a time most Mainers would like to forget. One of my first-readers suggested that incorporating part of this bit of area history would not only fit right into my plot, it would greatly enrich it. Doing research on it was a bear, however. There seemed to be a kind of code of silence around that whole terrible time. Until Recently, a very thorough depiction of the entire fiasco was produced in the excellent radio and still-photo documentary, Malaga Island, A Story Best Left Untold, by Kate Philbrick and Rob Rosenthal, produced in cooperation with the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine.
OMN: You mentioned there are over 4000 islands off the coast of Maine. Did you choose real islands as the settings for your books?
DS: Both Matinicus and Reese's Leap are set on real islands off the coast of Maine — islands that are not only historically interesting but emotionally evocative to the point they're almost characters themselves. So I leave them as they are. I'm a true believer that place in its natural state holds a kind of physical memory of the things that have happened there; I use that concept a lot in Reese's Leap.
OMN: What authors do you particularly enjoy reading?
DS: Well, anything by Dennis Lehane. I love his Kenzie and Gennaro Mysteries; he never misses a beat with dialog. I also love the British mystery writer Sophie Hannah and Tana French's evocation of the Irish crime scene.
OMN: What's next for you?
DS: I'm currently drafting Ragged Island, the third in the Maine Island Mystery series. It's here that Gil Hodges character takes a darker, more cynical turn. I can't wait to see where he takes me!
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Darcy at the helm. Photo provided courtesy of Darcy Scott
Darcy Scott is a live-aboard sailor and experienced ocean cruiser who's sailed to Grenada and back on a whim, island-hopped through the Caribbean, and been struck by lightning in the middle of the Gulf Stream. Her favorite cruising ground remains the coast of Maine, however, and her appreciation of the history and rugged beauty of its sparsely populated out-islands serves as inspiration for her Maine Island Mystery Series.
To learn more about the author and her work, please visit her website at DarcyScott.net or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Reese's Leap
Darcy Scott
An Island Mystery
Briefly freed from their complex lives for an annual, all-female retreat on Adria Jackman's remote, 200-acre enclave of Mistake Island, Maine, five longtime friends are forced to put the partying on hold to host the hard-drinking, bachelor botanist, Gil Hodges, stranded there for what could be days.
A hopeless womanizer, Gil is secretly pleased at the layover, but soon finds Mistake's deeply forested interior deceptively bucolic and the women a bit too intriguing for comfort, stirring both glorious memory and profound regret. When a ruthless, diabolical stranger appears out of nowhere, insinuating himself into the fold and bent on a twisted kind of revenge, it falls to Gil to keep the women safe, despite their dawning awareness that not everyone will make it off the island alive.
