PODCAST
Life-Changing Book
REST YOU MERRYby Charlotte MacLeod
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TRANSCRIPT
Denise: So we're here to talk about Rest You Merry by
Charlotte MacLeod. And the first thing I have to ask. Any relation to Duncan
MacLeod? Sorry!
Daisy: I don't
believe so no.
Denise: I know.
Well, he's fictional so...
Daisy: Yeah, that
would be challenging. I forget. I think Charlotte MacLeod is her real name. She
also had a pen name and wrote as Alyssa Craig, but I think that was the pen
name and Charlotte MacLeod was her real name. So she could be fictional. And
then it still doesn't work.
Denise: Yeah, no, I
just, I loved that last name, actually. And it's probably because of Duncan. I
had a huge crush on him in high school. I'm sure a lot of us did, but-
Daisy: Yeah, yeah.
Denise: And the
book was published in 1979 based off a short story that she expanded into a
longer story, is what I read about it , but it's like her eighth book published
from what I could tell. And it's the first in a series of Peter Shandy
novels. So let me first ask you, what
was your life like before you found this book?
Daisy: I was probably in middle school when I read it
for the first time. So my life was being a middle schooler. My reading life, I
was, I was heavily into The Babysitter's Club and continued to be post-reading
it. The late eighties, early nineties
YA, kind of pre-YA really, it was before
that was really a genre. All of the Black Stallion series of books and all the
Anne of Green Gables and everything . I was only sort of moving into adult
novels.
Denise: That
sounds like me a little bit. Babysitters Club, yup. A little bit of the Black
Stallion novels cause I, I basically read everything, but I didn't find this
book. I read all the Agatha Christies instead, because that's what I found. So
I was surprised that this was that old and I'd never heard of it.
And I was like, when I was looking for mysteries back then,
how come I didn't find it?
Daisy: I think she kind of dropped off, although she
was still pretty popular by the late eighties. She's less known now, but a
bestseller of her time.
Denise: She still
should have been in the library, I would think.
Daisy: Oh yeah.
No, she was still writing. She was still publishing into the late nineties. I
think she died in the early two thousands.
Denise: How did
you even find the book then?
Daisy: My parents
left it in the bathroom.
Denise: [laughter]
[laughter]
Daisy: That's
pretty much how I got into reading mysteries. My parents would leave books in
the bathroom and I picked up that one. I think I thought it had a neat cover
and the opening scene is a lot of fun. My parents are big mystery readers. They
had a house full of books and I just started read my way through all of their
books.
Denise: Do you
remember what the cover looked like?
Daisy: It's sort
of a Christmasy scene with a skull, like a scene of a wintery town and lights. Maybe a skull and Christmas
lights. It's somewhere in their house. It probably was not a first edition, not
the first version published.
Denise: I'll have to see if I can track that down.
Daisy: It had a
fun, kind of look to it.
Denise: Cool.
Did your parents let you read everything?
Daisy: Pretty
much. If they had anything in the house that I wasn't supposed to read , I
never found it. They didn't have real restrictions on age level or content they
tended to read mostly kind of traditional mysteries, anyway. So there wasn't
really much that you can get into that much trouble reading. Agatha Christie
and Aaron Elkins and Emma Lathen and all of that.
Denise: I think my
mom had the same opinion. She was like, you're reading Agatha Christie? Okay.
Because, you know, it's from a long time ago and she knew there was, it was
basically cozy. There's not really anything except for a little bit of murder,
Daisy: On the
other hand, my brother read the graphic novel Maus when he was like 10 or something,
which this I'm not sure. They quite knew exactly what it was, but,
Denise: It had
pictures must be for kids.
Daisy: Yeah.
Denise: Okay. So
describe the book's plot for us.
Daisy: So professor Peter Shandy is a professor of agriculture at a a small new
England college, the Balaclava University, I think it's called, I've forgotten
the name actually.
Denise: Something
like that.
Daisy: Anyway,
he's a professor. He lives in this, there's this faculty housing on this
crescent. Very nice, lovely, old houses that every year, everyone decorates up
for Christmas and people come out and look at it and it's a whole thing. He's
kind of a curmudgeon and he gets tired of being hassled to decorate his house
and finally just kind of cracks and puts up the most outrageous over the top
decorations all over his house. And then takes off, like leaves town to leave
them to deal with it. His leaving town gets cut short. He comes back and he
finds the woman who had been sort of leading the charge at organizing this
display dead in his living room and it's staged to look like an accident, but
he's fairly confident that it's not. So he ends up pursuing it and, and
catching the murderer.
Denise: I kind of feel his pain with the
Christmas decorations.
Daisy: I think
that was really what drew me into that book because it was the first Charlotte
MacLeod I ever read. I just thought it was the funniest thing. His revenge that
he gets on all the people and his crazy loud Christmas music and flashing
lights and Santas on the roof and everything.
Denise: I know
this book was probably written right before 1979, but published in 1979. I kept
thinking in my head when I was reading this was it was like a 1940s - 50s movie.
I kept feeling Rock Hudson was Peter Shandy and Doris Day as Helen.
He's such a lovable, like, he's not an absentminded
professor, but he's independent, kind of
does his own thing person. he'll interact with everybody else, but he just
really can't be bothered in a way. And he's very logical, very, focused, I
would say, on his studies and assignments and stuff like that. So I kind of, I
really felt like I was in the middle of a Doris Day, Rock Hudson movie, the
whole time.
And then, all the regulars would be his neighbors and
co-faculty. I can't even think all the
regulars that would be in the side characters in those movies. I could picture
them. And I was like, yep. There's that guy? He's annoying. Yup. There's that
guy. He's a problem.
Daisy: Yeah.
Denise: So tell me
how you felt when you were reading the book for the first time. Sounds like you
had a lot of fun, with it, with the setup.
Daisy: It's
obviously been a long time. But mostly, I thought it was really, really funny
and that was always, then and even now, sort of what draws me to books. I love
humor. I liked the cast of characters and the adventure of it. And that was
what made me really wanna steal it out of the bathroom and go and take it and
read it and finish it.
Denise: Have you reread it since then or is it
something you reread frequently?
Daisy: Not
frequently, but I actually just happened to have reread it last fall. I've been kind of filling out my things that
I have paper copies, buying them and rereading on the Kindle. And I was happy
to see that it mostly holds up. Sometimes books that you really liked in the
past...
Denise: Yeah.
Daisy: You see things that you didn't see then. I was
pretty happy with it and I think I probably read it a couple of times since the
first time, but it had been a few years.
Denise: It
definitely has a Christmas-y theme to it, which is another reason why I was
surprised it didn't come up before now for me . When there's a seasonal thing,
usually books will rise above like, Oh, Hey, read this book during Christmas.
But it never did.
Have you read the
rest of the series or did you just read-
Daisy: I think
there was a couple of her early books I haven't read, but I've read everything.
The Peter Shandy series goes on for a bit, and then she has three or four other
series, that I've also read.
Denise: So, how do
you think it's impacted you as a writer? Because you write mysteries now? Yeah.
Daisy: Yeah, I do.
I would say it's a major influence. I would say that she and Dorothy Gilman are
probably my biggest influences as a writer.
Charlotte MacLeod,
mostly for the humor, the kind of over the top characters, she does. I think my
biggest takeaway as a writer is to not be afraid to have your characters be a
little bit unusual. I mean, I don't write anybody nearly as over the top as his
university president, the Viking, who runs his university. Definitely
everything I write humor is centered and
characters are larger than life. That's a direct influence from her work.
Denise: She's very
good at giving her secondary characters their own agenda. It's very clear they
have their own different wants and needs. They're not just there to support the
main character and in fact they're there to get in his way.
Was that the first
mystery you read or did you read other mysteries before it?
Daisy: If it
wasn't the first adult mystery, if it wasn't the first, it was probably one of
the first. I read a lot of the Happy Hollisters as a kid, which are sort of
mystery. I don't know if you're familiar with them.
Denise: Un-uh.
Daisy: It's a
series from the fifties, kind of Hardy Boys. It's a very large family of
children who solve very mild mysteries of the missing treasure kind of variety,
not murder sort of things. I never did Nancy Drew. I sort of skipped straight
to adult mysteries.
Denise: Not Trixie
Belden either?
Daisy: No, none of
those.
Denise: Boxcar
Kids?
Daisy: I've had a
couple of the Boxcar Children books. I don't remember them terribly well. Yeah,
no, I kind of skipped straight from the little kid ones to the adult ones. I
think after Charlotte MacLeod I sort of branched into Agatha Christie and never
looked back.
Denise: Yep. I
know that. So were there any themes in the book that popped out for you? This
is a tricky question for this book.
Daisy: It is. I
would say there's probably a theme of personal responsibility.
Denise: That's a
good one.
Daisy: He does not take responsibility for his
impulsive action and it kind of, not only in the murder, but it sort of
trickles down into other parts of his life and takes his very ordered life and
disorders it. And then that is also reflected in the mystery itself, like in
the solution that the mystery has to do with people who have not taken personal
responsibility. I mean, that's fairly vague as spoilers go. I would not say it is a theme heavy book.
Denise: I was thinking the elements. I don't know if
they're, I wouldn't call them themes, but the elements that I liked were his
focus on logic and science and just the way he thought through motives and people.
He didn't not understand people. He did understand them. He just didn't care
sometimes unless it impacted him.
And then the other thing I was going to say is he was
totally cool with being on his own. He didn't require the social aspect, which
I thought was good, but he was not portrayed as lonely. Some of the women were
like, Oh, now you're interesting, we thought you were really quiet. But other
than that, you don't really get the he's just the bachelor kind of
dismissiveness for himself and by other people, you didn't really get any of
that, which I thought was kind of nice.
Daisy: Then of
course he finds something better than being a bachelor.
Denise: He does.
Oh. And that was the other part I liked was, he's awkward. He's like, Oh, what
are these feelings? And then he's awkwardly courting Helen. It's mutual though.
She's a little bit awkward too. But they're almost just Frank about it as you
know, it's pretty quick. They're like we just met, I know we just met that but
I kind of like you.
Daisy: I like that she's not just sort of the love
interest. Like she doesn't just show up and be pretty or something. She's
written as a character that you can see why he would fall in love with her, the
way they interact.
Denise: I only
read the first book, but they felt like they were matches. And I was like, oh, he just totally met his
match and partner because he tells her what's going on. He doesn't try to
protect her so much, I mean, a little, but just as any human being would. He
listens to her thoughts and they kind of work together a little bit. I thought
that was an interesting set up for the series cause I'm pretty sure in book 2
they're married.
Daisy: They're a team for the rest of the series.
They're not always doing everything together, but yeah, I like that relationship.
Denise: That's
cool. Her other series? I know that was about a couple too, right? A married
couple?
Daisy: Actually, all of her other series tend to have
couples in them. Yeah. And Max Bittersohn. That one is really fun too. That
one's interesting because it's after the first couple of books, it tends to
divide more between their point of view. I guess mostly it's from Sarah's point
of view. So instead of with this one's from the guy's point of view, that one
is from the wife's and she's the main character. I think you sometimes get
point of view chapters from Max but not many. They really are an investigative
team. Well, he is a professional art investigator, so that kind of feeds into
that whole thing.
Denise: That's
cool. I've always liked those. I haven't seen it in books that much, but I do
see it occasionally on TV, like. Is it Hart to Hart?
Daisy: Hart to
Hart. Yeah. I've seen some of that. And I mean, The Thin Man is sort of the,
the canonical.
Denise: Absolutely
I love The Thin Man. Although she takes kind of a backseat, she's kind of just
like, you're on your lark. You're doing your thing, but I'll emotionally support you.
Daisy: And pour
lots of cocktails.
Denise: As long as
you walk the dog. It's cool.
Daisy: Yeah.
Denise: So any
characters that you identify with the most?
Daisy: Probably
Peter Shandy. I'm a bit of a curmudgeon myself, not a bachelor, but I can
definitely identify with just getting fed up and being like, well fine! And
then of course, having to deal with the fallout and, that kind of not wanting
to have people bother you. I relate quite a bit to that. Preferring a nice
ordered life.
Denise: Yeah.
Quiet, uninterrupted. I'm not really a
group person, going with the crowd or anything like that. So in any sort of
group, I take a step back and I'm like, why, do I have to be involved? Why are
we all doing this? I think it's my
paranoia for mob mentality or, I'm terrified of some of that. I generally don't put myself in those
situations, so I'm not usually in a big crowd.
Do you have any other strong reactions to any of the other
characters?
Daisy: I just, of
course I love the Enderbles. That's his neighbors, the very elderly neighbors,
he researches small mammals and so they live kind of like small mammals in a
den. I always found that very charming. And then, of course that Viking
university president. It's just like any book he comes in like a hurricane and
there's some great scenes in some of the later books where he comes in at the
kind of big scene at the end and helps with the resolution, with his force of
personality and strength and stuff. And you couldn't build a whole book around
him, but he's great to have.
Denise: Yeah.
That's the trick with those really cool characters that make a big splash is
how to make them any kind of independent character in their own story.
I liked Helen. I
liked her calm. She kind of in a way reminded me of my grandmother in that she
seemed to be able to have a conversation with just anybody. But she, unlike my
grandmother, she seemed to, be good at giving , not passive aggressive, but
like a veiled... if she gets attacked, she gives right back. But it's such a
nice way that you might not even know that you just got, attacked in a way.
Like belittled. Which is so exciting. I love seeing when people can do that,
plus she's a libraian, which I always like.
Daisy: Yeah. A
librarian that actually has a heroic role. Sort of.
Denise: So would
you be friends with Peter or would you be friends with somebody else?
Daisy: Probably
not. I think I'm more likely to be friends with Helen. I'm not necessarily
friends with people who are that much like me. Possibly. I mean, it's, it's
hard because he's obviously isn't so much of an older character and especially
because when I read it originally, I was so young. I think of him as extremely
old, even though the character is probably less than 10 years older than I am
now. But-
Denise: Yeah.
Daisy: So I think
that probably...
Denise: 56?
Daisy: Okay. So it
was slightly more than 10 years older than me, but still like I have friends in
their fifties, certainly. yeah. But it is funny. I sort of imprinted in my me
that he is just a grownup. I could imagine being friends with the Shandys. I
don't think I would be best buddies with, with Peter by himself.
Denise: It would
be like, you go out on couple of dates or as a group or something.
Daisy: Yeah.
I don't think he and I would get a beer.
Denise: I think
you're right. I think I would probably be friends with Helen too.
Yeah. You know, it's funny. I really wanted to see him... Do
you see him teach in other books? Like in a class? Because I really wanted see
that.
Daisy: Very little
if at all. You see him interact with his students sometimes, but I don't,
except maybe you get, as part of the lead into a scene, he's finishing up a
class. I don't think there's any full scene set in his classes. It's been a
while since I read them all, but I'm pretty sure you don't see much of his
teaching.
Denise: Yeah, he's
got tenure. And I kind of wonder like how, because he's so exasperated by most
of the students we do see in this book, he's just like, you fools follow the
rules, do the right thing, be smart about it.
and they're just kids, they're just doing whatever. But are you like
this in your class too? Do you have any favorite students? Cause it doesn't
seem like it, from what I can tell.
Daisy: In later
books, he does seem, he's at least described as a well liked professor and he
will interact with students in the more positive way. I think she was really
leaning into the curmudgeon thing in this book and it lightens up in later
books.
Denise: He's just
grumpy cause it's Christmas and the Illuminations.
Daisy: Yes, pretty
much.
Denise: So what
about the setting? They're they're in a small college, so she's got that small
town vibe for it. It feels isolated. He does kind of sneak off on a ship for a
little while, but for the most part, the whole story takes place on the little
college campu s, not quite sure exactly where, but I don't think it really
matters.
Daisy: It's
supposed to be somewhere in Massachusetts, or possibly Maine, I think it's
Massachusetts.
Denise: Okay. I
know she lived in Maine for a while. I think that's where she died. I couldn't
tell if, I don't really remember seeing.
Daisy: I know that
the Kelling-Bittersohn books were definitely set in Massachusetts. This one
might be set in Maine. Yeah. She is kind of nonspecific, I think.
Denise: Yeah. I
think it's definitely nonspecific. So, did you really get that feel? I definitely got the feel for the small
college. Like everybody knows everybody faculty-wise . I'm not really familiar
with a college dedicated to agriculture, so that was interesting.
And it was a lot of sciencey stuff, engineering. It was
almost like the engineering versus the plant guys versus the biology guys.
Daisy: Yeah. I
mean, it's not my experience. I went to college in Southern California at an
all science and engineering school. I've never lived in the Northeast, but it
seems real. It seems like a very well realized place.
Denise: All you
gotta do is put snow in it for me. And I'm like, sure, because I live in
Arizona.
Daisy: Brick. You
never seen brick buildings. That's a thing that always throws me when you go to
the East coast, brick everywhere.
Denise: Yeah,
that's true. Maybe old, old, old houses when we first populated Phoenix, but
for the most part, it's definitely not brick. and we don't, of course don't
have snow. So it always feels like it's got snow must be legit. And the red
brick, like every house, it's a cute little house there with the red brick.
That sounds cool.
But otherwise, I think I might've felt like, well, they were
on holidays in a way. I kind of thought,
why doesn't he ever go to his lab? Doesn't he have a lab?
Daisy: That is a
little unusual for somebody running a research lab, not to ever even drop
in. When I first read it, I had never
worked in research. In retrospec, yeah, that is a little odd.
Denise: I haven't
worked in research either, but, he
seemed the type where he'd be like, always puttering around.
Daisy: It's just
normal. You don't wander away from your lab for weeks, I mean, you can. People
take vacations, but he should have, you know,
Denise: Lab
assistants.
Daisy: Grad
students. I'm not sure if they have a graduate program at Balaclava College,
but presumably he should have some people working in his lab. You don't do
anything by yourself.
Denise: I thought
it was hilarious that there, his claim to fame was a fancy rutabaga.
Daisy: The
Balaclava Buster. I do remember that.
Denise: I was
like, I don't know if I've ever eaten a rutabaga.
Daisy: Well, no,
the point of that one is that was, it was very good cow feed.
Denise: That's
true.
Daisy: I remember
that detail sticking in my head.
Denise: No, but
that is true. but I still don't think
I've eaten a rutabaga. So what would you say is your favorite part of the book?
Daisy: Okay.
Probably the beginning, the opening 10% or so.
Not that I don't like the rest of it, but from the beginning depth to
when he finds the body. I think that's the part that was mostly in the short
story. And it's the most polished and developed and it just snaps right along.
And you're right there in the world. And you're on his side and cheering him
on as he does what you might want to do,
but never would.
Denise: Yeah
definitely.
Daisy: When I
think about the book, that's what sticks in my mind.
Denise: My favorite part was the second murder because
it caught me off guard. I don't know even why it caught me off guard. Cause I
should have expected it coming, but I was like, Oh, Oh, Whoa. Now you're not
going to get that answer, that guy's dead. And I was right. So that made me
happy. I was like, got you. I knew from
the beginning. Shit. I can't say it because it's gonna be a spoiler, but I will tell you that
I knew from the beginning. I don't always get the killer. Or, at least got that
as early as I did. So I was like, okay, I got it. But at the same time, I
didn't feel cheated. Like, I didn't feel like it was so obvious. Did you feel that that ending was satisfying?
Daisy: Yeah, I
think so. Because I read it the first time before I'd really read many
mysteries, so I wasn't as quite adept at spotting things . There, wasn't sort
of the big confrontation scene that I kind of like, but, I thought it came
together well. All the, all the clues fit in, everything worked in the
resolution.
Denise: Did you
feel like you knew who it was? Do you remember if you knew you got it right?
Daisy: I don't think I knew the first time I read it.
I remembered enough of it when I re-read that I'm like, Oh right. Oh right.
It's that. And it's that. I suspect I didn't just because I was like 12 or
something.
Denise: Yeah. When
I was younger, and even now, sometimes I don't read to try to figure it out. I
just read to go along with the journey.
Daisy: Same. Even,
even the more puzzle, the books that
have like railroad timetables in them and things, I just gloss over and keep going.
They'll tell me at the end, who did it, I'm not going to do the math.
Denise: Which book
has something like that?
Daisy: Oh, there's
definitely a Dorothy Sayers.
Denise: Oh, I
haven't read her yet. I really need to.
Daisy: Oh, you've
got to. Yeah, it might be The Nine Tailors. I can't remember. I'm sort of in
the middle of a Dorothy Sayers reread. She's very good. You can just go ahead
and read it and be like, I'm not going to bother w ith trying to figure it out,
but there is the kind of complicated puzzle, if you want to figure it out.
Denise: Interesting.
I did buy the first one. Peter Wimsey right?
Daisy: Yeah. Yeah, they're all a lot of fun, but she likes
an intricate plot.
Denise: So they
haven't made this off into a show of any kind yet. If you were going to cast
it, who would you pick to be Peter?
Daisy: I was looking at this question earlier and I
just can't think of actors. I think not Rock Hudson or anybody. Not that manly.
Denise: I was
waffling between Rock Hudson and William Powell. And I know William Powell was
Nick from Nick and Nora, The Thin Man.
Yeah.
But that's not the version I was thinking of him. I was
thinking of him as more My Man Godfrey William Powell, but not quite. So like
some kind of hodgepodge William Powell and Rock. I'd say ultimately Rock
Hudson. And I'm just like put him in a sweater, put some glasses on him. So he
looks like a nerdy professor. Ruffle his hair a little bit. So, you know.
Daisy: Yeah. I
think I'm just going to have to pass on this. I'm just not that good at
thinking of actors.
Denise: No, it's
totally fine. And even still. I could picture Rock Hudson but I couldn't
picture any buddy today in general.
Daisy: Maybe
coming up with Stanley Tucci, but that's mostly from the role he played in,
Julie and Julia. Yeah, I'm just not good at this.
Denise: There's no
wrong way to dream cast a book though.
Daisy: I can't
even come up names.
Denise: All right.
So I usually ask about epilogues but it
sounds like, I think there's like eight books after or something like that. So
I feel like she had written her own
epilogue for this book.
Daisy: And then
some,
Denise: And then
some for sure. Do you know very much about the author Charlotte MacCleod
herself?
Daisy: I actually
don't, it's sort of an omission since I've been such a fan of hers.
I think she's
might've been originally Canadian. Two of her series are set in Canada. And she
lived most of her life in the Northeast. And she might've been an early Sisters
in Crime member.
Denise: I didn't
see anything about her being in Sisters in Crime but that doesn't mean that she
wasn't, but it wasn't like highlighted. I did see that she had won a couple
awards for her stories. She won the Nero. She was nominated for two Edgar Allan
Poe Awards. It was the American Mystery Award she won five times. She got the
Bouchercon 23 Lifetime Achievement Award. She was nominated for a couple
Anthony Awards as well. And then she got the Malice Domestic Lifetime
Achievement Award. She did write a lot of books though. For someone so
prolific-
Daisy: She was
very prolific.
Denise: I'm still
stunned that I never heard of her until you mentioned reading her book. It
always puzzles me how many books I haven't read or even heard of that people
want to do on the podcast. I'm just like, I feel, I feel like an illiterate person.
I have not read this book and not only have I not read this one, I have not
heard of it.
Daisy: I hope I
introduced something that you can enjoy. I do feel it's kind of a shame that she isn't very well
known anymore. Cause I really like her. I think she's great. She's a forerunner
of a lot of what you see in modern cozi es, comic small town, amateur sleuth
mystery. She didn't invent it obviously, but you can see some of her, I think
some of her influence, in a lot of what's become the modern cozy.
Denise: Who would you recommend this book to then?
Daisy: I would
definitely recommend it to any cozy readers, people who like the traditional
mystery genre. Anybody who's looking for something that's going to not stress
them out if they are, say, living in a fairly stressful time and would like to
read something that's just enjoyable and not upsetting. I would tell them to
try some Charlotte MacLeod.
Denise: Yeah. I
agree with that. And what are you reading right now?
Daisy: I'm
actually kind of doing a Agatha Christie
reread at the moment. I'm reading the pale horse right now, which is good.
Cause that one I read so long ago, but I have no recollection of how it ends.
So it's almost like reading it for the first time.
Denise: I read all
of them and I was probably 12 and I don't remember any of the details of the
plot at all. I just watched the, that last one that just got turned into a
movie with Kenneth Branagh? I think it was Murder on the Orient Express. And it
was Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot. I
love him so much.
Daisy: I just, I
can't, he's like fist fighting and stuff, that's not Poirot. Like he is by
definition, not a man of action.
Denise: Oh, I
agree with that.
Daisy: It's like
if we were going to do Miss Marple with, with Jennifer Garner. She is by
definition, elderly. It is the whole point of the character. You can't cast a
35 year old playing that character. Sorry. I have very strong opinions on
Agatha Christie. And Kenneth Branagh is a wonderful actor. I think his is Henry
the Fifth is, is spectacular, but he had no business playing Poirot..
Denise: I love
that you love Henry the Fifth. That's like one of my favorite movies. Oh. And
that's where I first saw him. Anyway. So I love him. I even like him as Poirot,
but I totally get your point about how he's a little different in execution. Is
that an understatement?
Daisy: That's
maybe an understatement. Yeah, absolutely. For me, David Suchet is the only
film Poirot.
Denise: Oh, see I
was going to ask you that.
Daisy: He's just
so perfect. Nobody else can do it.
Denise: I actually
love Peter Ustinov better.
Daisy: Well, it
takes all kinds. I
Denise: I like him
being a little portly man. I like his mustache. I like his voice. I don't think
it's related, but I love that Peter Ustinov also played, Prince John in the
Robin Hood, Disney Robin Hood cartoon. I don't know why.
Daisy: Oh did he
really? I love that movie, but, that, that is probably the best film version of
Robin Hood.
Denise: Yeah, I
think you're right. I don't mind David Suchet as Poirot either. I like Poirot,
way more than I like Miss Marple in general. I think he's just a little more
idiosyncratic. I don't know why. I just, I always struggled with the Miss
Marple books a little bit when I was younger, so maybe I need to reread them
and have a different perspective.
Daisy: I like them
but she does tend to kind of come in, in some of them, she comes in just kind
of a deus ex machina like, like the most of the book is something else and then
she just sort of pops up and helps to solve it. I'm just saying this because
I've been doing this reread lately and you do kind of notice that you are about
two thirds of the way through the book before she even appears.
Denise: Oh, wow.
Daisy: Yeah. It's
kind of like one of those Colombo episodes where you watch even watching it for
half an hour before you even see him. I guess it's not that long. It's usually
like 10 minutes.
Denise: Are you
reading it for fun or are you dissecting it so you can understand it better as
an author?
Daisy: Mostly
reading for fun. I mean, I feel like you sort of absorb things as you read and
I'm not, I'm not a terribly analytical reader. So I mean, if I come across
something I'll be, Oh, okay. That's interesting. I see what they did there. But
mostly I prefer just to let myself read and enjoy things.
Denise: And you
said you were also rereading Dorothy Sayers.
Daisy: Sort of off
and on. I'd actually never read Strong
Poison, which is a lot of people's favorites. So I finally got to that one. I'm
not doing anything really in order, but, yeah, I've been dipping back into some
of the classics to try to see what they can teach me.
Denise: Any other
book recommendations?
Daisy: Well, in
terms of somewhat forgotten authors from the seventies, Dorothy Gilman who
wrote the Mrs. Pollifax books I would recommend along the same lines as Charlotte MacLeod, if someone's looking for
something particularly light and fun to read. She's an elderly widow who
becomes a spy for the CIA.
Denise: Cool!
Daisy: I know she
starts with you have to carry this thing and, and hand it to this person.
And because she's an elderly woman, of course nobody's ever
going to suspect her of anything, but then something goes wrong and off we go,
and then there's adventure. They are a little dated and it particularly shows
because they're set in various foreign locales. But if you sort of overlook
some of that, they are a lot of fun.
Denise: You just
made me think of Scarecrow and Mrs. King a little bit. Did you watch that show?
Daisy: I never
did. No. That was just sort of never came on my radar.
Denise: It's a
housewife who accidentally gets sucked into, not accidentally, some of it's
because she's fascinated and she wants to be involved, but basically, becomes a
spy.
Daisy: Similar sort of. Just so much out there you
just don't read or watch it all.
Denise: No, you
can't. Do you listen to podcasts?
Daisy: Not very
often, I'm afraid, when I'm listening to things I listen to music. But I'm very
excited about podcasts.
Denise: There's this podcast called, She Done It. It's
about a lot of women in mystery and there was an episode entirely about Victorian
mysteries.
Daisy: Oh,
interesting.
Denise: There's a whole book about women detectives
written in the Victorian era. And people didn't know they existed, they got
lost. And so it's kind of really cool to, to hear about that. I have to check
out the books because I was so fascinated. In the podcast they were like there
was a lot of lady detectives riding bicycles like that was their M.O. is they
would get around on bicycles. They were very independent.
Daisy: Yeah. The
bicycle was a big thing for independence for women in the Victorian era.
Denise: It was
such a good episode, so fascinating. I'll just link it for everybody that can
listen to it too. Let's talk about your
books.
Daisy: I've got my
first book out. The ebook is out . Unfortunately the print version has been
delayed until the fall and I don't have a publication date for the print
version. The book is called Murder Goes to Market. It is a cozy set in a
artisan marketplace on the California coast where a murder is committed and the
owner of the marketplace who had quit her programming job to move to the
country and run this business has to solve it.
Denise: Is it going to be out on audio?
Daisy: Not, not as
yet. I really hope so. I would love to have it as an audio book, but it's far
as I know there isn't one planned yet, but I'm going to keep nudging on that
one. Cause I'd love to have that.
Denise: Do you have another book in the
pipeline too?
Daisy: So far
there isn't a book two on that series, I'm working on just a new book,
potential new series, that I hope finish the first draft, some point in the
next couple of weeks and start polishing that up and send it off to my agency.
It's another cozy, but at the different setting and different main character.
Denise: Is there
anything else that's coming up for you that you're excited about?
Daisy: Leaving the
house eventually. Plans have been kind of disrupted this year. But, mostly I'm
just really excited about the book coming out and finally seeing it in the real
world. There's a great bookstore in
Alameda where I live that was going to host a launch event and I was really
looking forward to that. So I hope when things are open again and we're allowed
to gather in groups I'm hoping to do some sort of party.
Denise: Where can people find you online?
Daisy: So my
website is just DaisyBateman.com and my most used social media is Twitter. I'm
@DaisyJ there cause I've had that since, before I changed my name. I'm Daisy Bateman Author on Facebook and
@DaisyBatemanAuthor on Instagram. Instagram is at the moment, mostly puppy
pictures because I have an eight week old puppy. So if you want to come see he's
a labradoodle and demon. Trying to eat our entire house. That's the sum total
of my web presence.
Denise: Thank you
so much for being on the Heart-Shaped
Books Podcast.
Daisy: Thank you.
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