When one of my beta readers (what a word, not my invention) had finished my new crime novel "Murderous Morning", she said that what impressed her most was how I had captured life in a small town. The gossip, the backstabbing, the living-in-each-others-pockets, the intrigues, the pettiness, the jealousies, the hidden conflicts. Of course, that is not all there is, and I am witness to that. I grew up in a village on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. Our neighbours were a farmer and a nursery. I have fond memories of my childhood in that village. I was not totally sheltered, for which I am thankful, because my days were full of small adventures.
I`m sure that there are intrigues in cities, too, but because a village is more transparent and everybody knows everybody, the conflicts are more out in the open. Even today, I remember a lot of dramas in small town life. And tragedies, too. A girl in my class was raped at age 14, and I was one of the the young pallbearers for babies who were buried in tiny white coffins. In school, I was taught by a Catholic nun who told us girls not to go swimming in the lake (she probably didn`t like our bathing suits).
In "Murderous Morning", the drama is heightened by murder and the fact that the mining town of Whatou Lake in Northern British Columbia is surrounded by wilderness. The people there are facing a whole range of challenges that make life precarious and different. Every year, I spend many months in an isolated village in Northern Newfoundland and I can see how the forces of nature, the weather and the wilderness shape people`s mind sets and reactions.
I like my books not only to be a source of suspense but also a source of knowledge about other cultures and other ways of life. Next time, I will tell you how I am staring down winter in Northern Newfoundland. Maybe the winter and cold will be staring me down...