Maya Corrigan--Baked Off

DEBORAH CROMBIE: It's been three long years since I've attended a mystery conference (a lack I hope to remedy next year!) and today's post reminded me how much I've missed them. Thank you, Maya Corrigan, for giving us a virtual conference treat! 

Mystery Fan Gatherings: Murder for Pleasure

 Maya Corrigan

 

Thank you. Deborah, for hosting me on Jungle Red Writers. I got to know all of you from mystery fan conventions, which I’ve enjoyed attending for two decades—Malice Domestic, Bouchercon, Sleuthfest, Left Coast Crime, and smaller local conferences and festivals. As a mystery fan since my Nancy Drew days and an aspiring writer, I was delighted to discover that mystery writers were friendly, welcoming, and funny, never taking themselves too seriously. At my first few conventions, I sat meekly in the audience during panels, jotting notes. A couple of years later, I became a panel moderator and finally ascended the dais as a writer, after my first Five-Ingredient Mystery came out in 2014.

In March of 2020 I was at Left Coast Crime in San Diego when Covid shut down the convention on the first day. The abrupt end to the weekend shocked all of us, but was especially hard on the organizers and volunteers who’d worked so hard to make the weekend a success. While sitting in a nearly empty plane back to the East Coast, I realized that upcoming mystery conventions would all be canceled, though I didn’t expect it would be two years before I went to another one.

Knowing how much I’d miss those murder-for-pleasure weekends, I decided to create one in my 8th Five-Ingredient Mystery. Coming out on Nov 29, 2022,  BAKE OFFED takes place at the Maryland Mystery Fan Fest. My sleuths, café manager Val and her livewire grandfather, the Codger Cook, volunteer to help a friend who organized the weekend. At the fest they encounter delightfully idiosyncratic attendees and every conference glitch except Covid. Similar to actual mystery gatherings, the fest includes panels, author signings, and a charity auction. Plus, of course, a murder. Though the characters in the book aren’t based on anyone I’ve ever met at a mystery convention, a true crime case and an actual artifact of mystery history are part of the plot.

A small regional event, the Maryland Mystery Fan Fest is held in an old, reputedly haunted hotel. Exactly a year before the fest, the hotel was the scene of a murder. The victim was found dead after attending an interactive murder mystery staged at the hotel. This scenario comes from an actual 1990’s crime at a hotel on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where most of my books are set. That real murder was solved and the killer convicted, whereas the one in my book has yet to be solved.

Because I write culinary mysteries, I had to incorporate food into the plot, and I wanted to do that in a fun way for mystery lovers. Sitting around a table having a meal with fans and writers of crime fiction is one of the pleasures of mystery conventions, but not because of what’s on the plate. It’s banquet food, edible but unexciting. An idea of how to bring food into the fest came to me as I stared at my bookshelves. Among the many cookbooks I own are some with recipes inspired by the food fictional sleuths eat: DINING WITH SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE LORD PETER WIMSEY COOKBOOK, and THE NERO WOLFE COOKBOOK.  

My fest kicks off with a Deadly Desserts Bake-Off, in which each contestant assumes the role of a cook to a famous fictional detective and must make a dessert the detective would enjoy. Val’s grandfather, a recipe columnist who refuses to make any dish with more than five ingredients, is assigned the daunting role of Nero Wolfe’s gourmet cook Fritz. After flipping through several of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries, Granddad grumbles that he has found only “fancy dishes with scads of ingredients” and no desserts.

In the attic of his Victorian house, he discovers a unique item that belonged to his mystery fan aunt—a book-shaped box containing recipes from a Nero Wolfe book. Among the 34 recipe cards in the box, Granddad is thrilled to find a five-ingredient dessert recipe. He’s even more delighted when he learns how valuable the box is. As one of only a thousand promotional gifts from Rex Stout’s 1938 publicity tour for TOO MANY COOKS, the box is prized by collectors and worth far more than a first addition of the book. In case you’d like this artifact of mystery history, you can find one for sale online, where a rare book dealer is currently asking $3,750 for the recipe box in good condition.

The Deadly Desserts Bake-Off pits Granddad against stiff competition in the bake-off. A culinary arts graduate plays Bunter, Lord Peter Wimsey’s manservant. Taking the part of Mrs. Hudson, Holmes’s landlady, recipe columnist Cynthia Sweet pontificates about the proper way to make tea. Granddad blames her for ripping off the five-ingredient theme of his Codger Cook column to use in her own recipe column and cookbook. He’s not the only one who has a beef with her. Ms. Not-So-Sweet received an anonymous threatening note before the bake-off.

A few hours later Granddad’s prized recipe box has disappeared and Cynthia is found dead in her hotel room next to a whistling teakettle. How do the festival goers who love a murder on the page react to a murder in their midst? Some assume it’s a game devised by festival organizers. Others note echoes of classic mysteries and propose ingenious solutions. With a witness in jeopardy and a killer using every trick in the book to avoid detection, Val and Granddad must read between the lines to prevent another murder.  

I dedicated BAKE OFFED to the hardworking organizers of mystery fan gatherings who bring writers and readers together to celebrate their love of crime fiction. Having this book published in the year when those in-person gatherings resumed is the icing on the cake. I hope you’ll enjoy visiting the Maryland Mystery Fan Fest.

Maya (Mary Ann) Corrigan writes the Five-Ingredient Mysteries featuring a café manager and her grandfather solving murders in a Chesapeake Bay town. Each book has five suspects, five clues, and Granddad’s five-ingredient recipes. Maya’s seventh book, Gingerdead Man, takes place during a Dickens festival, and her newest book, Bake Offed, at a mystery fan festival. A Virginia resident, she has taught college courses in writing, literature, and detective fiction. When not reading and writing, Maya enjoys theater, travel, trivia, cooking, and crosswords. Her website, https://mayacorrigan.com, offers recipes, fun food facts, and mystery history and trivia.

DEBS: I adore the whole idea of the bake-off contestants taking on the roles of famous sleuths' cooks, and I'm dying to know what sort of recipes are in the Peter Wimsey cookbook! I'm hoping Maya will fill us in on that.

Here's more from Maya:

READERS: If you’ve attended gatherings of mystery lovers, what do you like most about them?

If you’ve never been to one, would you consider attending such an event? 

I’ll send a signed copy of BAKE OFFED to one person who leaves a comment.