Serendipitous Research: A visit from Ann Parker

RHYS BOWEN: Another visit from an old friend today. Ann is a Bay Area resident and I have enjoyed her Silver Rush mysteries since the first one was published. I have been impressed by her meticulous research in Colorado. If you want to read a historical mystery that is pure and true history (as well as a rattling good story) then these books are for you.

Ann Parker here, with a thank you to Rhys Bowen and the Jungle Red Writers contingent for allowing me to step in for a day to talk about one of my favorite subjects… research!

When I spin my Silver Rush historical mysteries, I like to be surrounded by images and objects that capture time, place, and people. Luckily, since my era is mid- to late(ish)-nineteenth century, I can access a lot of material online, including the digital imagery from the Lake County Public Library, in Leadville, Colorado (start here http://www.lakecountypubliclibrary.org/ and click on the “Local History” tab at the top), the Denver Public Library photo collection (https://history.denverlibrary.org/photos), the Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/pictures/), and so on and so forth.

However, nothing digital beats the “real thing,” in my view.

And nothing beats the serendipitous find that sends a little shiver up the spine when spotted.

I had several such happy circumstances during the drafting of the just released fifth in my series, What Gold Buys.Mercury’s Rise) to be part of the new story. But there they were, stepping off the train in Gold, ready to burn through their monthly remittance allowances in Leadville. (For those who are wondering who, exactly, a remittance man is, Wikipedia has a nice little definition here: “In 19th century British usage, a remittance man is an emigrant, often to a British colony, supported or assisted by payment of money from his paternal home. …

Such a person may be seeking business fortune, education, extended vacation, a new place for the family to move, employment, or safety from personal, family, or legal troubles.)

Indeed, serendipity (or the sneaky workings of the unconscious) played a significant part when it came to forming the story and assembling the cast of characters. I truly hadn’t expected the “Lads from London” (a motley crew of British remittance men who first crashed the party in the fourth Silver Rush book, I already had a good handle on Terrance Epperley, who played a fairly major role in Mercury. In fact, “way back when” during the research/writing phase of Mercury, I found a photo of a gentleman that was close to how I pictured Epperley and his facespanner mustache right here on a blog titled “Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century” (although I envision Epperley with a more narrow face and white-blond hair). But who were the other fellows? Now, I had to conjure up more than vague half-formed visages, since they insisted on wandering in and out of Gold and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

This is where lovely serendipity walked in.

I was at a tiny, local antique store (which, in addition to selling this and that and the other, just happens to sell See’s Candies, to which I have an unapologetic addiction), when I saw… THE LADS! They were properly displayed in a lovely carte de viste, resting atop a finely brushed top hat in a display case. After scooping up my weekly allowance of See’s (heavy on their “Awesome Peanut Brittle Bar” which is very very awesome), I asked if the photograph was for sale. The salesperson was a little nonplussed… apparently the photo was supposed to “sell” the top hat, not vice versa. However, he checked around and finally said, yes, I could buy it.

So I did.

Oh, I also bought a 1940s vintage typewriter, apropos of nothing other than I had recently been paid, was feeling “flush,” and thus in a mood to throw my money around.

: The “Lads from London” atop another serendipitous purchase…]

A bit like The Lads when their remittances came in, I suppose!

But that’s not the only way I burn through my research “mad money.” Online venues such as Etsy and eBay prove dangerous to my fiscal health… especially if I am searching for an image (just an image, mind you) of some object, just to get a handle on it so I can describe it more effectively. And if I’m zooming around on these come-hither-and-buy sites late at night, when my will power is weak, well, the results are as can be expected.

For instance, I was looking around on the Internet one night for images of a piquet card deck, circa 1870s. Piquet, which may have come to France by way of Spain, is one of the oldest card games around that is still played. More to my fictional purposes, it is (and was) also used for fortune telling. And what to my wandering eyes doth appear but a c1875 piquet deck on Etsy. At a reasonable price! A quick back ‘n forth with the seller, the deal was sealed, and I am now the proud owner of a piquet deck. (Note: I am playing with a “full deck” here… A piquet deck is composed of 32 cards, including face cards, 7s through 10s, and aces.)

 PIQUET.  My Etsy score: A c1875 deck of piquet cards.]

There is something magical about holding these cards in hand. I wonder about the people who handled this deck more than a century ago, when the faces of the cards were new and unmarked—Who were these folks? Where did they live? What were their lives like? It’s all a mystery, and my imagination begins to wander… spinning tales….

And that is half the fun (and reward) of serendipitous research.

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Ann Parker lives in Northern California and is a science/corporate writer by day and a crime fiction writer by night. Her award-winning Silver Rush historical series, set in 1880s Colorado, features Leadville saloon-owner Inez Stannert—a woman with a mysterious past, a complicated present, and an uncertain future. Her books have won the Willa Literary Award for Historical Fiction, the Colorado Gold Award, the Colorado Book Award, and the Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award. In its starred review, Publishers Weekly calls the newest in the series, What Gold Buys, “emotionally and historically convincing.” Ann’s website: www.annparker.net

RHYS: I know exactly how Ann feels about research and when you stumble upon that perfect object. I was walking along the Portobello Road in London one day when I heard a dealer say, "The bracelet is from 1930". A woman was holding it. I willed her to put it down then snatched it up myself. Georgie's bracelet!
And Ann asked me to tell you that she'll give away a signed copy to one of today's commenters.