Edith/Maddie Day is on a roll! A new cozy capers book group mystery... and more

 

HALLIE EPHRON: It gives me great pleasure to welcome our own Edith Maxwell into the spotlight as she debuts with yet another book by her alter ego, Maddie Day. I'm always fascinated by how a writer's personal life intersects with the worlds they create. Today Edith/Maddie talks about what inspired MURDER AT THE LOBSTAH SHACK and the Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery series.

EDITH MAXWELL/MADDIE DAY: Thank you, Hallie, for inviting me back to the front of the blog to help celebrate the release of MURDER AT THE LOBSTAH SHACK on November 30th! I’m also celebrating because I recently signed a contract for more books in the series, which now will extend through book #7.

The Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries take place in Westham, a fictional town on Cape Cod in southeastern Massachusetts. As with any fiction set in a place that attracts an influx of seasonal visitors, I need to place some of the stories in the off season. The later fall, winter, and earlier spring are times when the tourists go away. The locals are laid off jobs even as they struggle to pay rents and feed themselves.

When I started the series, I knew I wanted my protagonist, bike shop owner Mackenzie Almeida, to have a big heart and to know how lucky she’s been in her own life. Mac and her friend Gin, owner of Salty Taffy’s candy shop, both work to give back by helping the homeless and hungry in Westham.

Yes, these are cozy mysteries. That doesn’t mean they have to ignore real social issues. The murder and the mystery surrounding it are primary in each book, of course, with the subplot of things like food pantries and the homeless encampment in the park taking place in the background.

We have an amazing organization called Our Neighbors’ Table in my small city of Amesbury in the northeast corner of Massachusetts. Our Neighbors’ Table feeds people in twelve towns north of Boston who need dinners and groceries. A few years ago, Greg Jardis, a generous local hardware store owner, donated an entire building and the funds to develop it to the charity.

Now they don’t have to operate out of a cramped space at the Congregational Church, and the market is bright and airy.

While I was writing Murder at the Lobstah Shack, #3 in the series, I took myself by the Jardis-Taylor Center on my walk one day and got the complete tour from a volunteer named Rose. I learned they call it a free food market, not a food pantry. People – who do not need to declare anything about their income – push a shopping cart around and select what they need. They have coolers and freezers and fresh produce and baked goods and packaged food, just like the for-pay supermarket.

The dinners are similarly called Free Dinners, not a soup kitchen. Both these simple acts of renaming allow their patrons more dignity and sense of normalcy, not easy to come by when you’re hungry.

I used all those details in scenes in my book, including the charity’s name. In Westham, the free food market run by Our Neighbors’ Table is in the basement of the UU church, where Mac’s father is the minister. The Free Dinners take place in the church’s fellowship hall. I even named a character who volunteers in the market after Rose.

In fact, I dedicated the book to Our Neighbors’ Table. Because I’ve been pulling back from several volunteer activities lately, I don’t do a work shift at the market, but I definitely send them donations regularly. (And you can too, here!) And I’ll be dropping off a copy of the book, too.

Learning the mechanics of how Our Neighbors’ Table operates was one of the most uplifting pieces of research I’ve done for a book.

Readers: How does your town help feed the hungry? I’ll send one commenter a signed copy of Murder at the Lobstah Shack – my box of books came in early.

I hope everyone will join another frequent Reds guest, the fabulous Ellen Byron, and me for our fabulous fun conversation December 1 at 7 pm EST in a virtual event at Belmont Books in the Boston area. Register here. We’ll have prizes and maybe games and for sure lots of laughter.

In Murder at the Lobstah Shack, Tulia Peters’ Lobstah Shack offers locals and tourists in Westham, Massachusetts, some of Cape Cod’s most delectable cuisine. But when the body of Annette DiCicero is discovered in the kitchen’s walk-in freezer—with a custom-made claw-handled lobster pick lodged in her neck—spoiled appetites are the least of Tulia’s worries. After a heated public argument with Annette, Tulia is a person of interest in the homicide investigation. To clear Tulia’s name, Mac and the Cozy Capers book group snoop into Annette’s personal life. Between Annette’s temperamental husband, his shady business partner, and two women tied to Annette’s past life as “Miss New Bedford”, several suspects and multiple motives emerge. And they’re getting crabby about Mac intruding on their affairs.

Maddie Day pens the bestselling Country Store Mysteries and Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. As Edith Maxwell, she writes the Agatha Award-winning Quaker Midwife Mysteries and short crime fiction. She’s a lifetime member of Sisters in Crime and a member of Mystery Writers of America, and lives north of Boston with her beau, where she cooks, gardens, and wastes time on Facebook.