mystery – Empowering women through fiction and history.

The War That Didn’t End All Wars: World War I

Today is Veteran’s Day, and we want to honor all people who fight for our country. I want to look at a war that is sometimes forgotten, or, rather usurped by its older brother later in the 20th century: World War I.

There’s no doubt World War II has gained in popularity in the last several years. There was a time when you looked on the Amazon bestseller list for Historical Fiction and saw only (or mostly) books set during the Second World War. But World War I has always been more fascinating to me. I got interested in this war after binge reading Dorothy L. Sayers’ classic series featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. Though the series is set in the 1920s, Wimsey is a World War I vet and there are references to his experiences during the war and even a mystery with the foundations set during the war in the book The Nine Tailors.

When we look at the history of World War I, we find people had very high hopes for it. It was, and still is, referred to as “The Great War” (even though few would deny World War II was greater) and “the war to end all wars” (which, sadly, it did not). This war was a modern war and a coming-of-age for warfare.

Photo Credit: American Soldiers on the battlefield in France during WWI, date unknown, U.S. National Archive: Picryl/Public Domain

World War I was the first war fought on a grand scale, involving 30 nations (including the United States). Wars up until that time tended to be confined to certain geographical areas so this war was the first real global war.

It was also the first to use modern technologies such as tanks, machine guns (the infamous “Tommy gun” was originally designed to be used during the war), automobiles, and airplanes. That made mass destruction easier (sad to say) and so the toll it took physically on those fighting, including the dead and wounded was massive. The total casualties are estimated to be around forty million! While WWII had about twice the casualties, for the early 20th century, this was phenomenal.

But what made World War I stand out above other wars before it was the psychological toll it took on those fighting and on their loved ones. Since such death and warfare hadn’t been seen on a massive scale before, the devastation it brought was huge. Post-World War I was the first time people began to recognize war could cause heavy psychological damage. A new term came into being after the war: shell shock (which we know today as PTSD). One of the things that fascinated me about Sayers’ series is how she shows the effects of shell shock on her protagonist Lord Peter Wimsey even a decade later, including nightmares, migraines, and nervous breakdowns.

So let me call out to honor those who fought and died in World War I. Sadly, none survive today, as the last died in 2011. But we can still appreciate their bravery and the way they showed us the effects of global war.

If you love fun, engaging mysteries set in the past, you’ll enjoy my novella The Missing Ruby Necklace! It’s available exclusively to my newsletter subscribers and you can get it here. By signing up, you’ll also get news about upcoming releases, fun facts about women’s history, classic true-crime tidbits, and more!

The History of Forensic Ballistics

I am not much for guns. I was actually taught how to shoot an M-16 and an Uzi gun during my army service in Israel but I was more interested in getting rid of all the bullets so I could get off the rifle range as fast as possible. I could care less if I hit the target or not.

However, guns are sometimes essential when writing mysteries. That said, there has never been a death from a gun in my Adele Gossling Mysteries. But Book 6 does include murder by gunshot, so that required me to include a ballistics expert in the story.

When I was doing revisions for the book, I became concerned I might be including something that in 1906 (when the book takes place) didn’t yet exist. When things come up in the plot that I didn’t anticipate in the first draft, I tend to write first and do research later (just to get the entire draft written). Ballistics is a fairly new field, right? So maybe in the early 20th century, there were no ballistics experts.

It turns out this was far from true. Forensic ballistics, or, firearm fingerprinting, existed as early as 1835 when in England, police were able to match the bullet in a victim’s body with a bullet mold made by a suspect. Thirty years later, police in England were also able to identify wadding (before cartridges were in use) of a newspaper found in a suspect’s home which helped to convict him.

In the early days, firearm fingerprinting was easier because guns and bullets tended to be handmade by the person who owned them or by a gunsmith whose unique style could be traced. But in the 19th century, men like Samuel Colt began manufacturing guns and bullets so it became harder to identify a bullet found in a victim with a specific firearm. So forensic ballistics had to become more sophisticated.

*Calvin Goddard was the man called in to help the police examine the firearms used in the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929. He invented* a compound microscope earlier in the decade that could do a side-by-side comparison of bullets. His aid helped answer some questions about this mass murder.

Photo Credit: Calvin Hooker Goddard, from an interview given to The Washington Star on 28 July 1931: Wvdp/Wikimedia Commons/PD US not renewed

And it did — with the use of the microscope. In the 1920s, the comparative microscope was invented which could place a bullet alongside one recovered from the victim and compare the grooves to identify it as matching or not matching. This comparative microscope was used to help convict those responsible for the infamous Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929.

Read about how a ballistic expert helps Adele and the police solve the murder of a lady’s maid in my upcoming book, The Case of the Dead Domestic. You can order it for a special preorder price at your favorite online bookstore here.

If you love fun, engaging mysteries set in the past, you’ll enjoy The Missing Ruby Necklace! It’s available exclusively to newsletter subscribers here. By signing up, you’ll also get news about upcoming releases, fun facts about women’s history, classic true-crime tidbits, and more!

The Lady in the Pond: The Case of Hazel Drew

I love books and films that are “inspired by true events”. I actually like these better than biopics or fiction that tries to portray the life of a real-life person based on historical evidence. Stories inspired by true events are about creating another story that readers know isn’t supposed to be true but had its inspiration in truth. For me, fiction that tells the story of a real person’s life is almost speculation no matter how much it is based on real documents, and is like putting words into a dead person’s mouth.

This is why I chose to write Book 6 of my Adele Gossling Mysteries inspired by true events from a real live unsolved mystery. I love watching YouTube videos about historical crimes so I was really taken by the story of Hazel Drew for several reasons. The murder happened in 1908, just around the time frame of the Adele Gossling Mysteries, when modern life was starting to hit America in the face and the Progressive Era brought about many changes in the nation, not all of them positive. Unsolved cases always intrigue me and this one, as of now, is unsolved, even though there are several theories about who could have killed Hazel Drew. And after more research, I discovered the murder of Hazel Drew inspired another creative work that went on to become a cult classic in the 1990s: The hit series Twin Peaks.

Hazel Drew was, in many ways, one of the era’s modern women. She was a working girl who wasn’t confined by the shackles of the separate spheres. She liked to go out and have fun when and she loved elegant things. There is evidence she wanted to move beyond her position as a domestic servant (something that Victorian era ideology, with its rigid social boundaries, wouldn’t have allowed), though what that would have been, no one knew. And, like many New Women of the day, she was an enigma.

And here maybe lies the most fascinating thing about this case. Hazel Drew seemed to present herself as one thing but digging into her life after being murdered, police found evidence of an entirely different person. For example, interviews with family members and friends reveal Hazel didn’t have a beau and didn’t seem much interested in men. But police found in a suitcase she left at the train station on the day of her death dozens of letters from different men (most of them unidentified) who professed undying love and devotion to Hazel. These letters painted a picture not of the modest, church-going young woman people in Sand Lake where she lived had known, but a vivacious, bubbly person who loved expensive trinkets and restaurants and sojourns to New York City, none of which were exactly within a domestic servant’s budget. Many in her more conservative and backward hometown thought her “too big for her britches” – owning jewelry and clothes her maid’s salary could ill afford and working for some of the most prominent families in the city, including its treasurer and a prominent businessman.

Photo Image: Postcard of Sand Lake, NY, where Hazel Drew lived and worked and was killed, 1910, eBay store: Amg37/Wikimedia Commons/PD US

Why, then, was she found face-down in Teal’s Pond one summer night in 1908, dead from a blow to the back of the head, and her face so mangled from being in the water that only her dental records could identify her? Who might have had it in for this harmless maid (another disposable working girl, which I talk about here? And why, after months of searching for the killer, did the local police simply give up where the case remains unsolved today?

These are questions I’ll be tackling in my newsletters next month, so if you’re interested in finding out more about Hazel Drew and her connection to The Case of the Dead Domestic, be sure to subscribe here (and get yourself a free novella while you’re at it!)

Why My Waxwood Series is Also a Mystery

One of the beautiful things about being an author is touching the lives of readers with your stories. I cherish readers who respond to my emails with enthusiasm for the next book (one lovely reader already emailed me asking if I still need Advanced Review Copy reviewers for Book 6 of my Adele Gossling Mysteries when the book won’t be out until August and I haven’t even put out a call for ARC readers!) I also love it when readers discover elements in my stories that never occurred to me when I was writing them.

This is exactly what happened with the Waxwood Series. When I wrote the books, I was thinking of a series arc involving historical coming-of-age, specifically one woman’s journey into the past and her maturing into adulthood in one of the most turbulent and chaotic times in American history.

But one reviewer surprised me by calling the Waxwood Series “a mystery saga of the Gilded Age.” At the time I wrote the series, I wasn’t writing mystery fiction or even contemplating publishing a mystery series. I had written Book 1 of the Adele Gossling Mysteries as more of an experiment during National Novel Writing Month back in 2013 but put it aside to concentrate on historical fiction. So the idea that the Waxwood Series was also a mystery saga came as a complete surprise to me.

But now some years have passed since the last book of that series was published. I can now look back and see the gold nugget my reader discovered is absolutely true.

Now, it’s not a mystery in the traditional sense. It has no detective, no amateur sleuth, no whodunit, and no red herrings. The mystery is largely personal and psychological. In Book 1, Vivian is confronted by a woman who knew her grandmother, Penelope Alderdice, in her youth and the woman she knew was not the woman Vivian grew up with. As a debutante coming into adulthood, Vivian considers it vital to know the truth about her family’s past. So her search takes her through several “clues” (such as Penelope’s summer in Waxwood, the name Grace, and letters Penelope wrote home about that summer) which tell her more about who Penelope was and what she sacrificed to become a shipping tycoon’s wife and Nob Hill socialite in the mid-19th century. The clues also point toward some astonishing truths about Vivian’s family that she never knew. Like a detective, she confronts her mother about these truths (the evidence) and gets some answers — but not all of them.

Book 3 continues Vivian’s sleuthing when a man who was acquainted with Penelope through stories from his aunt drops clues about Penelope that lead Vivian to realize there are still some skeletons in the closet she needs to air out. In spite of her promise to her mother to focus on winning the heart of a wealthy Canadian who can bring them back into the good graces of Nob Hill society, Vivian can’t resist pursuing these clues to unravel the mystery behind her family’s past. Her search takes her to a deserted artist’s colony in the hills and the bowels of San Francisco’s poorest neighborhood to find out about her roots. The results are life-changing for her.

Book 2 focuses on Jake, Vivian’s brother, whose journey is more about his coming-of-age as a man in the Gilded Age. Book 4 presents an even greater mystery for Vivian — the man responsible for her family’s fall from grace comes back into her life unable to speak or communicate. In spite of her loathing for him, she gets involved with unraveling the clues behind his silence and faces the last of her family demons.

Not all mysteries are about finding an external killer. There are crimes of the past that sometimes need to be put to rest before people can move on with their lives, just as finding justice for the murder victim and his or her family allows those involved to move on.

I would love for you to start reading the Waxwood Series right now and you can do that for free with Book 1, The Specter. Vivian’s story continues in Book 3, which is now on sale so you can find out about that here.

*The Waxwood Series is a stand-alone series. That means you do not have to have read all the books in order to enjoy or understand each book.

The Theft Made the Mona Lisa Notorious

The Mona Lisa has been scrutinized and poeticized and theorized for decades, even centuries. It’s probably one of the most famous paintings in all the world, if not the most famous painting. And yet, before the 1910s, it wasn’t that big a deal. Thousands of people had been through the Louvre and caught a glimpse of it in a row with other paintings of similar size.

It might be a little hard to tell here, but the space on the wall is where the Mona Lisa was discovered missing after the theft. As you can see, the painting was hardly a standout among other paintings at that time. It sat below the massive painting of Paolo Veronese’s The Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee (a painting, ironically, that was seized by Napoleon and his men illegally during the Napoleonic wars), which got top billing in the display.

Photo Credit: The Mona Lisa’s vacant place in the Salon Carre after it was stolen in 1911, unknown author, Century Magazine, 1914 February, The Century Company: Meidosensei/Wikimedia Commons/PD anon expired

So what happened to make the Mona Lisa warrant a wall of her own with a heavy wooden railing and bulletproof glass to protect her? In a word: theft.

Many people aren’t aware the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911. And not by some world-renowned professional gang of thieves or a highly skilled and experienced cat burglar either. It was a working man, an everyday house painter, who walked off with the Mona Lisa.

An Italian immigrant working in France by the name of Vincenzo Peruggia stole the Mona Lisa. He had been arrested twice before, once for theft (though he claimed it was a misunderstanding) and once for not having his immigration papers on him. He was highly suspicious of the French, who showed a lot of xenophobia at that time, especially against the Italians, who were the largest immigrant group at that time. There are theories he was psychologically unbalanced due to lead poisoning from the paint he used in his job as a house painter. Yet, he managed to steal the Mona Lisa (painting only – he left the frame on the service stairs of the Louvre) and keep it hidden for two years.

Why he stole it is still a mystery. One theory is that it was an act of patriotism. Tensions were heating up in Europe, especially between France and Germany, and Italy, tensions that would eventually cause the outbreak of WWI in 1914. Peruggia, as mentioned earlier, had been subject to a lot of ridicule and prejudice in France for being Italian. His coworkers had nicknamed him “Macaroni” and he vowed one day to show them just who was a “macaroni.” In addition, the Mona Lisa was painted by an Italian — Leonardo da Vinci — and it was believed at the time France acquired it illegally during the Napoleonic wars when it was known Napoleon and his army would loot a conquered city of its precious artifacts and ship them to France. This story turned out to be untrue (da Vinci left all his works to his assistant, who later sold them to representatives of European monarchs, including the King of France) but maybe Peruggia wanted to believe it to have a reason to steal the painting.

Others surmise it was purely for money. Though the Mona Lisa didn’t have the notoriety it has today, it was still pretty famous and could fetch a cool $5 million at that time by some estimates (today the Mona Lisa is estimated to be worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars.)

Whatever the reason, this relatively small painting (roughly, 2 1/2 x 2 feet – compare with the Last Supper, which is roughly 15 x 29 feet) became a celebrity of its own after it was discovered missing. Media mayhem ensued and a frantic international search began, though it lasted only a few months. After that, all became quiet until 1913, when the painting showed up and Peruggia was apprehended.

Want the full details of this fascinating crime that didn’t involve murder? I’ll be doing a series of newsletters next month where I’ll be exploring all the ins and outs to celebrate the release of Book 4 of my Adele Gossling Mysteries (which is also about the theft of precious items, though none as precious as the Mona Lisa) on January 28, 2023. If you’re not a subscriber of my newsletter, now is a great time to join and find out all about the Mona Lisa heist. And you’ll get a free book when you do!

And if you’re into thieves and golden cats, check out Book 4, which is now at a special preorder price, here.