with Nanci Rathbun
We are delighted to welcome author Nanci Rathbun to Omnimystery News today.
Nanci's second mystery to feature librarian-turned-private investigator Angelina Bonaparte is Cash Kills (Cozy Cat Press; November 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we recently had the opportunity to talk with her more about it.
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Omnimystery News: Introduce us to Angelina Bonaparte. What is it about her that appeals to you as a writer?
Photo provided courtesy of
Nanci Rathbun
Nanci Rathbun: Angelina Bonaparte is a 50-something private investigator, living and working in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On the outside, she is stylish and fit, but underneath her professional clothes, Angie's wearing undies that make her man's jaw drop. Think June Cleaver in a thong!
Her character developed from the realization, in my own life, of the freedom from social constraints that aging can bring. As Angie noted in Truth Kills, the first mystery in the series, "The beauty of being a woman, as the French say, 'of a certain age,' is that I can be invisible. Young people, both men and women, look right through me, unless I make the effort to be noticed. Older men look past me, too, to gaze upon the tight, toned, tanned bodies that they wish they could possess. Only older women seem to notice me, because they're judging me against some invisible standard and wondering how I measure up compared to them. It's not usually malicious, it's just how we were raised. Believe me, I do it myself."
OMN: How do you expect to develop the character over the series?
NR: Static characters are no fun! I believe that, unless we change and grow, we're dying inside, so I want my characters to evolve from the experiences they have in the stories. For example, Angie has trust issues, both from her unfaithful ex's behavior and from what she observes as a private detective. But she begins to lay the groundwork for a romantic relationship with Detective Ted Wukowski in Truth Kills, and that relationship moves forward in Cash Kills, where Angie and Wukowski finally say the L word to each other. We'll have to see where things stand between them as I write the third in the series, Deception Kills. I'm constantly amazed at how my characters make their own demands of me as the writer.
OMN: Should readers assume that the books in this series are cozies?
NR: Although I write for Cozy Cat Press, I can't call this series a cozy. For one thing, my lead character is a professional investigator, which breaks one of the cardinal rules of cozies. Finding the right label is not easy. Reviewers have compared Angie to Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone and to Janet Evanovitch's Stephanie Plum — and that's awesome company to be in! Another reviewer called Cash Kills "a first-rate mystery that combines police procedural with private detection." In my mind, it's a softer edged hard-boiled series — with very limited use of cursing and no graphic sex or violence.
OMN: Give us a summary of Cash Kills in a tweet.
NR: How did Adriana's deceased parents get all that cash? Angie Bonaparte is on the case and murder won't stop her from finding out. #mystery
OMN: Where do you usually find yourself most often writing?
NR: I write on a laptop, which gives me the freedom to move my "office" at will. I prefer quiet for my writing, but quite often a song will run through my head as I'm preparing to write. In Truth Kills, it was Billy Joel's "Honesty." In Cash Kills, it was The Beatles' version of "Money (That's What I Want)." Now that I'm writing Deception Kills, Hank Williams' "Your Cheating Heart" keeps playing in my head! Other than that idiosyncrasy, I'm pretty fluid with my writing environment.
OMN: How true are you to the settings of your books?
NR: The Angelina Bonaparte series is set in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I use a lot of local landmarks (The Domes, The Pfister Hotel, Ma Fisher's, the Third Ward, among others) in the stories, for a reason — Angie is a creature of that environment and the setting enriches the mystery, in my opinion. When I mention a real place, I stay true to the reality of that place. I did take one liberty in Cash Kills, when I relocated the downtown tunnels to the Third Ward. After all, I do write fiction!
OMN: Complete this sentence for us: "I am a mystery author and thus I am also …".
NR: I am a mystery author and thus I am also constantly evaluating situations for the possibility of foul play. During a fire evacuation at a hotel in Boston (it was a series of false alarms), the thought came to mind that this would be the perfect way to murder someone in his/her room — no one would have a reliable alibi and all the doors were open! Either slip in and do the deed, leaving a dead body, or tamper with the person's medications or make-up and wait for the inevitable demise.
OMN: Suppose your series were to be adapted for television or film. Who do you see playing the key roles?
NR: I mention in Truth Kills that Wukowski, the homicide detective and Angie's eventual love interest, resembles actor Dana Andrews in the film noir classic, Laura. Since he is deceased, maybe Tom Selleck could play the role — I love his gritty Jesse Stone persona. As for Angie, maybe Helen Mirren. She's got the body and the attitude!
OMN: Create a Top 5 list for us on any topic.
NR: Top 5 Films I Want To Live In:
1. Pride and Prejudice — because Elizabeth Bennett is so darned good at deflating pretension;
2. Laura — because Gene Tierney is a take-charge woman who gets her man;
3. To Kill a Mockingbird — so I could applaud Atticus Finch, too;
4. Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers — to be a bit player in an epic battle for right; and
5. Blade Runner — to confront the challenge of what makes us uniquely human.
OMN: What's next for you?
NR: I'm planning an Old West mystery series next, with a strong female protagonist. Can you tell that I gravitate toward women of character and strength?
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Nanci Rathbun is a lifelong reader of mysteries — historical, contemporary, futuristic, paranormal, hard-boiled, cozy … you can find them all on her bookshelves. She brings logic and planning to her writing from a background as an IT project manager, and attention to characters and dialog from her second career as a Congregationalist minister.
Nanci is a longtime Wisconsin resident who relocated to Tennessee to be closer to her granddaughters — oh, and their parents — and is planning an upcoming move to the West Coast for the same reason. No matter where she lives, she will always be a Packers fan.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at NanciRathbun.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Cash Kills
Nanci Rathbun
An Angelina Bonaparte Mystery
When her office mate, accountant Susan Neh, brings Angelina Bonaparte a client named Adriana Johnson, the PI wonders how she can help this bedraggled young woman. Adriana's parents, immigrants from the former Yugoslavia, were murdered only a week earlier, in a robbery at their small hardware store. Now she has discovered that, despite living like the working poor, they were actually quite wealthy — with numerous large bank accounts located around the world. Adriana is suspicious about her newfound status and hires Angie to discover the nature of her deceased parents' wealth. When Angie arrives to interview with the parents' attorney, Herman Petrovitch, he is missing, but his secretary Dragana is there — lying dead on the office floor, with her head blown off. Homicide detective — and Angie's own boyfriend — Ted Wukowski, cautions her against getting involved in the murder investigation. Of course, Angie pays little heed to his warning.
Angie realizes immediately that Adriana's concerns about her parents' money are probably well- founded and, even worse, that the young woman may be in great danger herself. She secures the assistance of her father's rotund attorney, Bart Matthews, who quickly arranges for protection for Angie's young client, while Angie begins to look into Adriana's parents' background. In their family home, she discovers some strange artifacts in the attic, along with what appear to be Serbian military uniforms and an ethnic wedding dress. Her investigation soon leads her to suspect a connection between Adriana's parents, Attorney Petrovitch, and the Bosnian War of the 1980s. How or why are they linked? Angie doesn't know, but she's as determined to find out as others are determined to prevent her from doing so. So she'd better watch her back, because someone knows about the money in those bank accounts and they don't intend to let Adriana inherit it.
