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Sunday, August 20, 2006
Fixed on mystery
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It's a genre that sounds a little odd, but one that Graves said came to her very naturally when she first began fixing up her old Eastport home some years ago. "When my husband and I moved to Eastport 10 years ago, we bought a very old house and began fixing it up ourselves, and the disasters and triumphs of the experience just seemed like natural mystery-novel material," said Graves. "Hitting your thumb with a hammer does make you feel murderous sometimes. And of course it is wiser to put it all in a book than to, um, act on the impulse." Graves has written and published nine novels so far in her "Home Repair Is Homicide" mystery series. Her most recently published installment is "Nail Biter" (Bantam Books Hardcover, $22). In that book, series hero Jacobia Tiptree is fixing up a cottage with a friend when they discover a corpse in the toolshed. Graves' 10th book in the series will be out in December, and she's working on the 11th. She lives with her husband in Eastport, in an 1823 Federal-style house. Q: Do you watch a lot of home improvement shows? "Trading Spaces?" "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition?" What's your favorite? A: I don't watch a lot of them, but I do enjoy the A&E show called "Flip This House." They buy a fixer-upper and bring in a team of workers to transform the place in a few days. I think it's the fantasy element of that team of workers that I enjoy so much - someone else hitting their thumb with a hammer instead of me. Q: Why did you pick Eastport as the setting? A: It's a beautiful, historic little city on an island, inhabited by a tight-knit community of individuals with very strong personal traits, opinions, and traditions - just the right background for mystery. Many houses here have survived from the 1800s, so the home-repair aspect of the books has plenty to work with, too. Add to that the wonderful variousness of the people who visit - the wild-card element - and it all combines to make Eastport a great place to be - for me, and I hope for readers of the "Home Repair Is Homicide" series. Q: What are the elements of a good mystery? A: Oh, my. Mysteriousness, first of all, and by that I mean not only in the plot but in the mysteriousness of the human heart. Because that's where motives come from, isn't it? That dark place. What I always want from a mystery is some understanding, some exploration, of the non-cookie-cutter nature of human beings. And - personality. We plod around enough in our daily lives. In books I want zing. A tone of voice that doesn't sound like anyone else is enjoyable. And finally, resolution. The mystery solved, the villain unmasked, because in real life we don't get much of that either, do we? So a good solid ending is essential. And if all of this could possibly be presented in sparkling prose, with sharply etched details, a couple of cliffhangers, and at least one slapstick banana-peel pratfall somewhere in the book, well, that's my idea of the elements of a good mystery. Q: How do you keep coming up with ideas for the series? Do you consider it like one very long book? A: Right now I'm working on the eleventh (book). And there seems to be a never-ending supply of ideas for them. I literally could sit down with a pencil and a stack of spiral notebooks and write one off the top of my head any time. Why this is true I don't know, but I hope it keeps on. As for the series aspect, I think of each book as standing alone. Q: Do you think the series would make a good TV show or film? Have you had offers? A: Scenic location, lots of good parts for actors, funny situations involving dangling from ladders and falling through floors, etc., plus power tools and murder. Hey, that's great television. We've had nibbles, but nothing definite yet. Q: What's the most dangerous situation you've been in while remodeling your home? A: Paying the bills. We finally just decided to nail the checkbook to the kitchen table where everyone could get at it easily. Seriously, though - paint stripper fumes aren't dramatically, visually dangerous, but if you don't ventilate the area and wear a respirator - NOT just a dust mask - those fumes will eat your lungs right out of your chest. Q: If you decided to branch out from this series, what would you like to write about? A: The very same series - only all the characters except the main ones would be zombies. You come to a small, beautiful island town, everything is glorious, you start fixing up your antique house, and only gradually do you realize that everyone on the island except you is a card-carrying member of the Living Dead. Kind of puts a new spin on the whole power-tool aspect of the thing, doesn't it? But don't worry, I hear there's a fellow in Bangor who's already pretty good at that sort of thing - so for now I'm sticking to "Home Repair Is Homicide." Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:
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