We are delighted to welcome author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro to Omnimystery News today.
Chelsea's new mystery is Haunting Investigation (Smoke & Shadow Books; December 2015 hardcover, trade paperback and ebook formats) and we recently had the chance to catch up with her to talk more about it.
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Omnimystery News: Introduce us to the lead characters of Haunting Investigation.
Photo provided courtesy of
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro: Poppea Millicent Thornton is a young reporter in Philadelphia in 1924 — she is from an upper crust family, both her parents are dead, and Poppy is struggling to prove herself in a man's profession. She lives with her paternal Aunt Josephine, who disapproves of Poppy's holding down a job when she doesn't have to. But Poppy has a secret helper, the ghost of a Canadian spy named Chesterton Holte, who is determined to assist her, whether she believes in him or not.
OMN: You are known for your historical tales in a number of genres (historical horror, historical fantasy, historical mystery, etc.). How do you choose what time period to use? Does the time-period come first, or the character, plot, etc.?
CQY: For me, it all starts with the characters, and this is no exception. To me, the environment of a story functions as a tertiary character and the people and the setting have to match up. Poppy and Chesterton fit this time, and the time presents opportunities that are appropriate to them as characters.
OMN: Along those same lines, how "true" to the history do you try to be, since you are writing fiction rather than a nonfiction account of an historical event?
CQY: I try to be historically accurate within the limits of the story. When I've written alternate history, I stick to the environment of the alternate history.
OMN: While you may be best known for your vampire, horror and fantasy work, you've written quite a few mysteries. Can you tell us more about Charles Spotted Moon, Victoire Vernet and Mycroft Holmes.
CQY: Charlie Moon was the central character in the first novel I sold, and in three later novels; an Ojibwa, he practices law in San Francisco. Victoire Verenet and the Mycroft Holmes books I did with Bill Fawcett, both with Sherlockian connections. Victoire is Mycroft's and Sherlock's French granny as a young woman. By the way, I'm not a great Doyle fan, though I admire his structure.
OMN: If you could travel anywhere in the world to do research for your next book, all expenses paid, where would that be ... and why?
CQY: The place I would like to travel for research changes with every new project. I would like to see a great deal of the world not for immediate research, but as a possible site for something that might result from such travel. I have no specific place I'd like to visit right now, but that might change as soon as I finish the current Chesterton Holte book, Living Spectres.
OMN: What kinds of books did you read as a child? Have any specific authors or books influenced how and/or what you write today?
CQY: I read early — I was four, and once I found out how to read, I went after everything I could make my way through. The first book I read on my own was Horton Hatches the Egg. I read Alice in Wonderland when I was seven and War and Peace when I was fourteen. I'm sure everything I've ever read has had some influence on me; Shakespeare most of all.
OMN: Who are some of the mystery and thriller writers you enjoy reading today?
CQY: Generally, I like John Sandford and Michael Connelly, but while I'm writing mysteries I don't read mysteries, just as when I'm writing horror I don't read horror, when I'm writing westerns, I don't read westerns, and so forth.
OMN: What are your hobbies and interests outside of writing and reading?
CQY: Before the arthritis caught up with me, I loved riding; I'd spend three afternoons a week with my horse — I had two of them sequentially. I still love horses. These days I do a fair amount of recreational reading, and occasionally I work on musical compositions. At present I'm working on a suite for chamber orchestra. I also enjoy the company of my cats, and spending time with friends.
OMN: Create a Top 5 list for us on any topic.
CQY: My favorite opera is "Turandot" by Puccini; second is "Don Carlo" by Verdi, third is "Boris Godunov", version 2, by Mussorgsky, fourth is "Norma" by Bellini, and fifth is "Barbiere di Seviglia" by Rossini.
OMN: What's next for you?
CQY: After I finish Living Spectres, I'll finish Saint-Germain #28, Orphans of Memory, and then, who knows? Maybe another Poppy and Holte, maybe a fourth western, or another science fiction novel. I won't know until I get there.
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A professional writer for more than forty years, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro has sold over eighty books, more than seventy works of short fiction, and more than three dozen essays, introductions, and reviews. She also composes serious music. Her first professional writing — in 1961-1962 — was as a playwright for a now long-defunct children's theater company. By the mid-60s she had switched to writing stories and hasn't stopped yet. She has two domestic accomplishments: she is a good cook and an experienced seamstress. The rest is catch-as-catch-can. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with two cats: the irrepressible Butterscotch and Crumpet, the Gang of Two. When not busy writing, she enjoys the symphony or opera.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at ChelseaQuinnYarbro.net and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Haunting Investigation by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
A Chesterton Holte Mystery
Publisher: Smoke & Shadow Books
Spring 1924. The world has clawed its way back from the ravages of WWI and the Spanish Flu pandemic. The 20's are beginning to roar.
Poppy Thornton lives with her Aunt Jo and her excitable cat Maestro in upper-crust Philadelphia. Poppy is determined to make a name for herself as a serious crime reporter, but is stuck reporting on garden parties and ladies' fashion. Then one day her editor assigns her to collect background information on the suicide of a prominent businessman. She soon discovers it was actually a murder … but her surprising source for this information is the ghost of a man killed alongside her father during the Great War. Even if she dared tell anyone, who would believe it?
Together Poppy and her "gentleman haunt" follow the trail of a string of murders. But as their investigation narrows in on an all-too-familiar suspect, Poppy becomes a target herself — and wonders if her ghost of a partner will appear in time to keep her from joining him in the after-life.
— Haunting Investigation by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
