Leslie Wheeler--A Lifelong Love of Trees

DEBORAH CROMBIE; I think I'm just the right person to host our guest on JRW today, author Leslie Wheeler, because I think I am a tree sprite. I have loved trees passionately since I was a small child. Some of my earliest memories are of the wind whispering through the tops of the trees that surrounded our house. Trees are my touchstone, the one thing in nature that I can't imagine living without. And I HATE to see trees destroyed, so you can imagine how Leslie's essay--and the subject of her book--resonate with me.

Leslie, tell us more.

There’s a moment in my new mystery, Shuntoll Road, when the main character, Kathryn Stinson, having just learned that a real estate developer has bought the property she’s renting with plans to turn it into an upscale development, worries that the landscape she’s grown to love will be ruined. She gazes at the pond and sees: “A sudden gust of wind raked the surface. In the water’s disturbed state, the tree reflections seemed to reach toward her, like drowning swimmers grasping for a lifeline before going under for good.” 

I wrote those lines after walking back and forth between my study at one end of my Berkshire house and a room on the other end with a view of the pond and the woods beyond. The image of trees as drowning swimmers grew out of my own lifelong love of trees and distress at their possible destruction.

In the landscape of my Southern California childhood, four trees stand out. California pepper trees with gnarled, twisted trunks, and bright pink berries lined the street where I lived. They were old trees and subject to disease, and I recall being upset when a tree died or was threatened with removal. It was like losing an old friend. My neighborhood was also home to eucalyptus trees. Their spreading branches with bluish leaves and gray bark opening up to a yellowish surface were a source of delight to me, as was their plangent smell in the rain.

We had olive trees in our yard, and in one of them, my father built me a tree house consisting of a wooden platform with a ladder leading up to it. I entertained friends there, but mostly it was where I went to be alone--to read, make up stories in my head, and daydream. 

Another favorite place for day-dreaming was under a sycamore, whose branches reached into our yard from our next-door neighbor’s yard. I’d lie on my back on the grass and look up into its soaring branches. My parents complained about the leaves and hairy brown seed balls it dropped into our yard. But I’ll never forget the feel of those large, soft, leathery leaves on my fingertips.

In New England where I now live, other trees offer shade and shelter, comfort and companionship. A poplar casts a cooling shadow on my Berkshire home in the heat of summer, and whispers to me in the wind. My study there looks out on a white pine, which gives me something lovely to gaze at instead of the blank screen of my computer when words fail me.

My study on the third floor of the Cambridge condo, where I write when not in the Berkshires, overlooks several trees, including an ancient maple that is covered with burls. The newer owners thought it unsightly and wanted it removed, but those of us who’ve lived there the longest fought to save it, so the maple was merely trimmed rather than cut down. Its knobby trunk reminds me of the pepper trees where I grew up, and my eyrie of a study has replaced the tree house of my childhood as the place where I make up stories.

Readers: Do you share a love of trees? If so, do you have a favorite tree or trees, and do these trees appear in your books? One of the commentators will receive an ARC of Shuntoll Road.

Boston library curator Kathryn Stinson returns to the Berkshires, hoping to rebuild her romance with Earl Barker, but ends up battling a New York developer, determined to turn the property she’s been renting into an upscale development. The fight pits her against Earl, who has been offered the job of clearing the land. When a fire breaks out in the woods, the burned body of another opponent is discovered. Did he die attempting to escape a fire he set, or was the fire set to cover up his murder? Kathryn’s search for answers leads her to other questions about the developer’s connection to a friend of hers who fled New York years ago for mysterious reasons. The information she uncovers puts her in grave danger.

An award-winning author of books about American history and biographies, Leslie Wheeler has written two mystery series. Her Berkshire Hilltown Mysteries launched with Rattlesnake Hill, and continue with this book, Shuntoll Road. Her Living History Mysteries, featuring amateur sleuth, Miranda Lewis, debuted with Murder at Plimoth Plantation, recently re-released as a trade paperback by Encircle, and continue with Murder at Gettysburg and Murder at Spouters Point. Her mystery short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies including Mystery Most Geographical; Noir at the Salad Bar, Culinary Tales with a Bite; Day of the Dark, Stories of Eclipse; and the Best New England Crime Stories anthologies, published by Level Best Books, where she was a co-editor for six years. Leslie is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and a founding member of the New England Crime Bake Committee. She divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Berkshires, where she writes in a house overlooking a pond.

You can buy Shuntoll Road here. 

DEBS: Pat D, you are the lucky winner of Kim Power's RULES FOR BEING DEAD! Email me at deb at deborahcrombie dot com and I'll connect you!