Home Fires - a guest blog by Priscilla Paton

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I don't know about you, dear readers, but despite the fact I've lived in the same house for almost thirty years, the real estate conditions over the past three years consumes a HUGE portion of my brain. My sister is a Realtor in Northern Virginia whose business exploded during the lockdown, and who had the unhappy duty to tell her clients they were only getting the house of their dreams if they waived inspection and bid $50,000+ over the asking price.

My daughter, meanwhile, struggled for over six months to find a starter home here in Maine, despite having an excellent credit score and a sizable down payment. Meanwhile, empty-nesting friends are faced with the conundrum that "downsizing" may mean paying more and moving further away from the city.

So you can imagine how my eyes lit up when I saw Priscilla Paton's third Twin Cities Mystery was all about the - can we say? - murderously crazy real estate situation in the US. Upscale gentrification, displaced renters, ordinary folks priced out of the market and investors desperate to make a buck: WHEN THE HOUSE BURNS hits them all. (And you have a chance to win a free copy!)

 

Wise relatives of mine winter in Florida and summer in Minnesota. Their summer condo near a Minneapolis lake has the interior of Rapunzel’s Tower with rounded concrete walls and tapestry-style hangings. The design, however, was not based on any castle; the building had been that very Midwest piece of architecture, a grain silo. Photos in the building foyer depict three cylindrical sileage containers rising to the clouds, but when people began outnumbering cows in the neighborhood, the giant cranes arrived.

Silos transmogrified into luxury condos—I had to include that in When the House Burns, my latest mystery with sex, death, and real estate seasoned by a soupçon of arson. The opening scenes feature my recurring detectives, Deb Metzger (un-homed and hunting for a place to live) and Erik Jansson, at a house-for-sale examining the corpse of a murdered realtor. Throughout the story, the characters, including the resident of the silo-condo, must confront what makes a place a home because what they’ve called home is threatened or already lost.

Homeless encampments have been making the news for years, and I had driven by several. One along Minneapolis’ Hiawatha Avenue had over seventy tents, and the occupants were mostly Native Americans. If you’ve been involved with housing issues, you know the solution is complex, involving availability of affordable units, local covenants, unemployment, and mental health and addiction.  As I’m writing this, the Minneapolis StarTribune’s lead story reports that the “unsheltered die at three times the rate of other residents.” 

 

Shelter is necessary—a home is more. At one point in When The House Burns, divorced Erik Jansson, moping in what was supposed to be a temporary residence, remembers an embroidered sampler that hung in his childhood home, In this house, Love is the Host, Love is the Child, Love is the Guest. 

 

 

Love goes wrong, and homes come with dirty laundry, maintenance snafus, family friction, and a cable/streaming bill. In 2019, I’d started writing my third mystery on a different topic. Then in 2020 the Covid Pandemic shutdown forced everyone to stay home, that is, everyone who had one, and the pandemic exacerbated the chronic problem of homelessness. The epigraph for When The House Burns comes from Robert Frost’s “The Death of the Hired Man.” The farm husband states one definition of home: “when you have to go there, / They have to take you in.” The wife counters, “I should have called it / Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.” Two months into the stay-at-home order, the basement of our houses—I’d complained of a stench—was declared toxic. We had to leave pronto and fortunately had a place to go. Meanwhile, young relations in the Twin Cities eager for a first home bid on several houses to be always outbid. I couldn’t help but write about housing and home.

Also, fiction often takes its dark inspirations from broken homes and families. Violence is “domestic” when it begins at home.

Not that my thinking stayed profound. I asked friends to complete the bromide, “Home is where. . . .” The results:

Home is where there’s cat hair.

Home is where the books are piled. 

Home is where the freezer’s stocked with ice cream.

Home is where I control the thermostat (my contribution since I’m cold if it’s below 72 degrees).

Home is where the kitchen gadgets live. (At a holiday rental, my husband lamented not having his Therma pen.)

As for my mystery, after the writing, the editing, and the printing, after I received author copies, I figured out what it was about (should have known in writing the synopsis), beyond greed, lust, betrayal, and other yummy stuff. It was about what, or who, gives a home its heart.

 

Hint: if not immediately found elsewhere, check the kitchen. The first time my husband-to-be met my mother, we walked in on her making doughnuts, the old-fashioned cake kind. The first batch was draining on paper grocery bags. He took one and sat by the woodstove to make himself right at home.

Here’s a link to a recipe like my mother’s, down to draining the doughnuts on brown paper.

 

 

 JULIA: What's your definition of "Home," dear readers? And do you have any house-hunting horror stories to share? One lucky commentor will win a FREE copy of WHEN THE HOUSE BURNS!

When death comes home, is nowhere safe? The quest for love and home becomes deadly when Detectives Erik Jansson and Deb Metzger search for the killer of an adulterous real estate agent.

A volatile real estate market, unrest in a homeless encampment, jealousies among would-be lovers, a case of arson—these circumstances thwart G-Met detectives Erik Jansson and Deb Metzger as they investigate the murder of an adulterous woman. The victim’s estranged husband has holes in his alibi. A property developer grieves too much over the death of the woman while his wife shuts him out. The developer’s assistant resents his boss and suspects that the developer was not only involved with the victim but is being scammed by the arsonist. A sexy young widow, friend of the victim, has past traumas triggered by the case and turns to the developer for protection. A homeless man stalked the dead woman and now stalks the young widow. All may hold secrets about the past burning of an apartment complex and the man who died there.

Before the clues come together, Erik Jansson is trapped in an abandoned house as Deb Metzger hunts for a sharpshooter at a remote construction site. The case will burn down around them unless they can scheme their way out of lethal surroundings.

 
You can find out more about Priscilla, and read excerpts from her books, at her website. You can also friend her on Facebook, share recommendations on Goodreads, and follow her on Twitter as @priscilla_paton

On Luck

JAN: When I was in what was then called Junior High, my best friend Karen had the most incredible social luck in the world. We’d be bored out of our minds on a hot summer day, and she’d turn and say, wouldn’t’ it be great if Jimmy came by and asked us all to go swimming in his pool? Within ten minutes, Jimmy would swing by with the invitation. Or if she wanted it to be Billy inviting us to a barbeque, Billy would appear. Okay, she was good looking and the boys loved her. Still, the specific nature in which her desires were met was uncanny.

My friend Bob has the same kind of parking luck. If he’s driving and we're headed to Fenway park, a completely legal parking spot will suddenly appear before him in Kenmore Square. This happens no matter where we are and how crowded it is.

Personally, I have good luck at cards and have been unusually (even for a baby boomer) lucky at real estate.

In his bestselling book, Blink, Malcolm Gladwell attributes this kind of thing to some sort of intuitive form of intelligence. But I think it’s more fun to think of it as luck. So do you have any special kind of luck? (And be specific, no running on about how wonderful life is in general). And do you really think it's luck? Or is there another explanation?

HANK: Oh, I think this is one on the most interesting topics ever. Luck. I wonder about it all the time. Let's see. Is it--coincidence? All the things in the universe that can happen, and the one that helps you (we're talkin' good luck here) just occurs. Or the person you need. Or the thing you wished for.

I think Malcolm Gladwell was getting at--perception. Even subconscious perception. Which I think is brilliant.

But luck. I'm kind of partial to the: if you really open your mind, the thing will happen. On a practical and quotidian level, there WILL be a parking place. If you really need it. The size skirt you need but can't find is there, but mixed in with the other sizes. You just have to look. On a larger scale: The idea will come to you--but only when it's time.

I think three fast things about luck: You have to be open to it. You have to deserve it. And sometimes, you get what you need.

RO: Oh dear...if I really thought I had any special luck, I doubt that I would say so for fear of losing it.

JAN: Yes, but if it's card-playing luck, (and you aren't a gambler in the old west or a a poker star competiting in Las Vegas) the loss isn't all that great...

HALLIE: Here's the thing -- you have to be LOOKING for **a parking space** (or fill in the blank with anything else you might be looking for) in order to get lucky about finding one. Conversely, if you're looking for a reason to be miserable, you won't have too hard a time finding it, either.

JAN: Yes, I agree. In principle. But I'm often earnestly looking for a parking space, and I never find one. I always end up in the garage paying a fortune.

ROBERTA: I like two of Hank's 3 things about luck--being open to it, and getting what you need rather than what you might have believed you wanted. Not so sure about the deserving it part. Because there's a corollary I don't like--do folks who are unlucky deserve that? Maybe sometimes they've cultivated it, but most often not. I just try to be very grateful when it appears some luck has swung my way.

As for lucky me, I'm not in real estate. Most times when you sell a house, you get paid. Not me, having bought at the peak and selling in desperation in a trough, I had to bring a check to the closing:). So I will rely on my husband's luck in that arena!

JAN: I like Hank's philosophy on luck, it's so optimistic, but I also think in some instances, there's something unsual going on -- whether it's magic or heightened perception, I'm not entirely sure. But I'm leaning toward magic.

How about you?