Home Sweet Homicide
The latest whodunit from an Eastport author combines home repair and a coven of witches.
How do you nail a nifty idea for a mystery series set in Maine? And how do you keep the gimmick from becoming too tacky?
According to Sarah Graves, author of the Home Repair Is Homicide mystery series, "You don't set out to find a marketing hook. Rather, something that is prominent in your mind discovers you." Beyond that, the secret to Maine mystery writing success — at least for Graves — lies in looking at the Pine Tree State with the freshness of someone who originally hails from away, anchoring each plot in some thought-provoking themes, making sure not to take oneself too seriously, and, finally, using the treacherously beautiful Maine scenery for all it's worth.The whodunit, in which the detective is charged with identifying the perpetrator of a murder or a similarly dastardly deed, is a mystery writer's staple. Graves takes the genre into home repair territory in a series of mysteries that might be dubbed the who-dun-it-yourself-Down-East, since each of the novels mixes home repair with crime solving in coastal Maine. In her eighth installment, Nail Biter (Bantam, New York, New York; hardcover; 272 pages; $22), Graves builds on a series she began with The Dead Cat Bounce, published in 1998. When she wrote that book, Graves was a recent transplant to Eastport who had uprooted herself from North Branford, Connecticut, near very urban New Haven.
Graves says she and her husband — jazz guitarist and luthier John Squibb — were ready for a move. The mid-life relocation occurred after each had established a clear career path. Squibb was eager to find a place that would accommodate a workshop where he could build his steel-string acoustic Ellerson guitars, while Graves sought a haven where she could continue writing mysteries. She had already published one non-series book and five more mysteries featuring a nurse protagonist, while also pursuing a freelance writing career in Connecticut and New York City.
"In search of a less-congested environment, we looked everywhere: the [Florida] Keys, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and all over New England — except for Maine," Graves recalls. Finally the couple made their way Down East, and as they approached Maine's easternmost city, "We saw this tiny little place on what is essentially an island," Graves says. "We thought, 'We are all the way up here. We might as well finish this journey and take this tiny road to this little tiny dot on the map.' So we drove out to Eastport."
What they found there was "a small community — population 2,000 — that has a city manager form of government and sidewalks, streetlights — city-ish things," Graves says. But that's not all. The Passamaquoddy Bay area is so "knock-out beautiful, you'll think you're in National Geographic," she adds.
The couple also found a place to call home. They fell in love with and purchased a white clapboard Federal-era house. It was built in 1823 for Captain James Livermore, whose descendents lived in it for 150 years. The house, which Graves describes as "continuously and mundanely inhabited," never stood as an empty invitation to ghosts. "It's the kind of house where even when the lights are out they seem to be on," Graves says of its bright and happy atmosphere.
The house does, however, contain space where a person can conjure up ghosts, witches, and dark and stormy nights. It also offered enough do-it-yourself challenges to last a lifetime. While settling into her writer's space and getting a start on writing her next mystery, Graves joined her husband in "rehabilitating instead of remodeling" the house by removing acres of wallpaper, sanding yards and yards of woodwork, and reconditioning many of the old double-hung windows.
Since the classic mystery novel plot demands that the sleuth fix up a situation that is in need of urgent repair, nailing a few home repair details into the plot of her first Maine mystery seemed only sensible to Graves. When she looked at her completed manuscript, she realized her amateur detective, Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree, was a fixer-upper in more ways than one. Her publisher encouraged her to hammer together more books with home repair subplots, and the Home Repair Is Homicide mystery series was born.
Titled with the same flair Graves showed in Wreck the Halls, Unhinged, Tool & Die, and Mallets Aforethought, Graves' new puzzler, Nail Biter, features do-it-yourself tips — "Always use the right-sized screwdriver. Too big and you'll ruin the screw, too small and you'll ruin the tool" — sprinkled among the clues, as Tiptree tiptoes through numerous delicate situations that arise when she rents an old home to a coven of witches. These new tenants — who are not only from away but seem to pursue a way-out way of life — spell trouble from the moment they arrive.
"I live a very nuts-and-bolts, un-witchy life," Graves says, "but ghosts, goblins, witches, and spirits always fascinate me." A fan of the works of Shirley Jackson and H.P. Lovecraft, she says she had fun, in Nail Biter, writing about a girl who carries a pet bat in her sleeve, only to disappear, bat and all, like steam spiraling skyward from a witch's cauldron.
The book is anchored in some rock-solid reality, too, particularly manifested in the Maine landscape. "Here in Maine, there is such a tremendous sense of place. You don't have to go looking for it. It comes and hits you with a stick!" Graves says. She sees the region's geography as "a complete gift" to the mystery writer. "The very real danger of the Down East coast can lend itself very well to a story in which a person can get into real trouble — and not necessarily on account of the villain. Here you can walk one hundred yards off the road and become so lost you'll never be found, or you can fall into ice-cold water in the middle of a pleasant day and never come out. This is not a sappy, innocent beauty here. This is a place where something bad can happen to you and you have to respect it."
Even characterization can dovetail nicely with the Maine landscape. "If you have grown up with that knowledge of the implacability of nature, if you know that next to you are forces more powerful than you are, the reaction to this can be violence. Maine's natural scene can stand in for the emotional life of a character. Just as there are immovable objects in the landscape, there can be immovable objects in people's personal lives, too," Graves explains. "For the mystery writer, you don't have to construct an appropriate setting. There already is one in Maine."
In Nail Biter, Graves uses Maine's grand Atlantic shore and the state's wildest weather to great advantage. She also takes a look at some problems — such as the drug trade and questions of prejudice and stereotyping — that darken the picture-postcard Down East existence, as they do other communities. But while these questions are not necessarily upbeat, Graves attacks them with good humor that leavens the mix, sparking a reader's chuckle over the locals' suspicious attitude toward a coven of witches moving into their midst, and prompting laughter at our own limitations in looking at large problems.
"I'm not on a mission here, unless it is to say differences and even drug problems ultimately boil down to the personal level," Graves says. "The reasons people have problems with drugs are personal and individual." As for dealing with differences, "it finally comes down to how we treat each other as individuals," she says. "Even in world politics — say with Reagan and Gorbachev, it came down to how they got along, and whether or not they thought each other's jokes were funny." In Nail Biter, "you start with a coven of witches and you come down to looking at individuals" slogging through wet weather, slamming their own thumbs black-and-blue with hammers, worrying at the disappearance of a young person — all the while trying to make a go of it Down East.
Rosemary Herbert is co-editor, with Tony Hillerman, of A New Omnibus of Crime, and editor of Murder on Deck! Shipboard & Shoreline Mystery Stories, both published by Oxford University Press.
According to Sarah Graves, author of the Home Repair Is Homicide mystery series, "You don't set out to find a marketing hook. Rather, something that is prominent in your mind discovers you." Beyond that, the secret to Maine mystery writing success — at least for Graves — lies in looking at the Pine Tree State with the freshness of someone who originally hails from away, anchoring each plot in some thought-provoking themes, making sure not to take oneself too seriously, and, finally, using the treacherously beautiful Maine scenery for all it's worth.The whodunit, in which the detective is charged with identifying the perpetrator of a murder or a similarly dastardly deed, is a mystery writer's staple. Graves takes the genre into home repair territory in a series of mysteries that might be dubbed the who-dun-it-yourself-Down-East, since each of the novels mixes home repair with crime solving in coastal Maine. In her eighth installment, Nail Biter (Bantam, New York, New York; hardcover; 272 pages; $22), Graves builds on a series she began with The Dead Cat Bounce, published in 1998. When she wrote that book, Graves was a recent transplant to Eastport who had uprooted herself from North Branford, Connecticut, near very urban New Haven.
Graves says she and her husband — jazz guitarist and luthier John Squibb — were ready for a move. The mid-life relocation occurred after each had established a clear career path. Squibb was eager to find a place that would accommodate a workshop where he could build his steel-string acoustic Ellerson guitars, while Graves sought a haven where she could continue writing mysteries. She had already published one non-series book and five more mysteries featuring a nurse protagonist, while also pursuing a freelance writing career in Connecticut and New York City.
"In search of a less-congested environment, we looked everywhere: the [Florida] Keys, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and all over New England — except for Maine," Graves recalls. Finally the couple made their way Down East, and as they approached Maine's easternmost city, "We saw this tiny little place on what is essentially an island," Graves says. "We thought, 'We are all the way up here. We might as well finish this journey and take this tiny road to this little tiny dot on the map.' So we drove out to Eastport."
What they found there was "a small community — population 2,000 — that has a city manager form of government and sidewalks, streetlights — city-ish things," Graves says. But that's not all. The Passamaquoddy Bay area is so "knock-out beautiful, you'll think you're in National Geographic," she adds.
The couple also found a place to call home. They fell in love with and purchased a white clapboard Federal-era house. It was built in 1823 for Captain James Livermore, whose descendents lived in it for 150 years. The house, which Graves describes as "continuously and mundanely inhabited," never stood as an empty invitation to ghosts. "It's the kind of house where even when the lights are out they seem to be on," Graves says of its bright and happy atmosphere.
The house does, however, contain space where a person can conjure up ghosts, witches, and dark and stormy nights. It also offered enough do-it-yourself challenges to last a lifetime. While settling into her writer's space and getting a start on writing her next mystery, Graves joined her husband in "rehabilitating instead of remodeling" the house by removing acres of wallpaper, sanding yards and yards of woodwork, and reconditioning many of the old double-hung windows.
Since the classic mystery novel plot demands that the sleuth fix up a situation that is in need of urgent repair, nailing a few home repair details into the plot of her first Maine mystery seemed only sensible to Graves. When she looked at her completed manuscript, she realized her amateur detective, Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree, was a fixer-upper in more ways than one. Her publisher encouraged her to hammer together more books with home repair subplots, and the Home Repair Is Homicide mystery series was born.
Titled with the same flair Graves showed in Wreck the Halls, Unhinged, Tool & Die, and Mallets Aforethought, Graves' new puzzler, Nail Biter, features do-it-yourself tips — "Always use the right-sized screwdriver. Too big and you'll ruin the screw, too small and you'll ruin the tool" — sprinkled among the clues, as Tiptree tiptoes through numerous delicate situations that arise when she rents an old home to a coven of witches. These new tenants — who are not only from away but seem to pursue a way-out way of life — spell trouble from the moment they arrive.
"I live a very nuts-and-bolts, un-witchy life," Graves says, "but ghosts, goblins, witches, and spirits always fascinate me." A fan of the works of Shirley Jackson and H.P. Lovecraft, she says she had fun, in Nail Biter, writing about a girl who carries a pet bat in her sleeve, only to disappear, bat and all, like steam spiraling skyward from a witch's cauldron.
The book is anchored in some rock-solid reality, too, particularly manifested in the Maine landscape. "Here in Maine, there is such a tremendous sense of place. You don't have to go looking for it. It comes and hits you with a stick!" Graves says. She sees the region's geography as "a complete gift" to the mystery writer. "The very real danger of the Down East coast can lend itself very well to a story in which a person can get into real trouble — and not necessarily on account of the villain. Here you can walk one hundred yards off the road and become so lost you'll never be found, or you can fall into ice-cold water in the middle of a pleasant day and never come out. This is not a sappy, innocent beauty here. This is a place where something bad can happen to you and you have to respect it."
Even characterization can dovetail nicely with the Maine landscape. "If you have grown up with that knowledge of the implacability of nature, if you know that next to you are forces more powerful than you are, the reaction to this can be violence. Maine's natural scene can stand in for the emotional life of a character. Just as there are immovable objects in the landscape, there can be immovable objects in people's personal lives, too," Graves explains. "For the mystery writer, you don't have to construct an appropriate setting. There already is one in Maine."
In Nail Biter, Graves uses Maine's grand Atlantic shore and the state's wildest weather to great advantage. She also takes a look at some problems — such as the drug trade and questions of prejudice and stereotyping — that darken the picture-postcard Down East existence, as they do other communities. But while these questions are not necessarily upbeat, Graves attacks them with good humor that leavens the mix, sparking a reader's chuckle over the locals' suspicious attitude toward a coven of witches moving into their midst, and prompting laughter at our own limitations in looking at large problems.
"I'm not on a mission here, unless it is to say differences and even drug problems ultimately boil down to the personal level," Graves says. "The reasons people have problems with drugs are personal and individual." As for dealing with differences, "it finally comes down to how we treat each other as individuals," she says. "Even in world politics — say with Reagan and Gorbachev, it came down to how they got along, and whether or not they thought each other's jokes were funny." In Nail Biter, "you start with a coven of witches and you come down to looking at individuals" slogging through wet weather, slamming their own thumbs black-and-blue with hammers, worrying at the disappearance of a young person — all the while trying to make a go of it Down East.
Rosemary Herbert is co-editor, with Tony Hillerman, of A New Omnibus of Crime, and editor of Murder on Deck! Shipboard & Shoreline Mystery Stories, both published by Oxford University Press.
- By: Rosemary Herbert
