Edith Maxwell – aka Maddie Day – is a force of nature. I’m not sure when I met her. She might have been organizing an event. She might have been recruiting other authors – members of Sisters in Crime New England, perhaps – to help out. She might have been leading a historical tour. One thing I am sure of, Edith/Maddy knows her way around a cozy! I’m proud to have her here today.
How does a book start for you? I get the time of year and the victim, then I figure out the murder weapon. From there I set up a few plausible suspects, then start following everybody down and writing down what they do. No, I’m not much of a plotter.
Who in your latest book has surprised you most – and why?
My protagonist Mac Almeida is allergic to mammals, so her pet is an African Gray parrot. Belle turns out to be quite a character and I love how she interacts with Mac.
When and/or where is your latest book set and is there a story behind that setting?
MURDER ON CAPE COD is the first in a new series. I played around with a few settings for the series with my editor, but when I mentioned Cape Cod, he got all excited. I spend solo writing time in a retreat cottage in West Falmouth on the Cape a couple of times a year and love the area in all seasons. And with the miles of bike trails, it made sense to have a bike shop proprietor as the protagonist. Mac’s participation in a book group that only reads cozy mysteries was icing on the cake. The paperback is available exclusively from Barnes & Noble for the first year, and will be re-released in all formats a year from now.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on NACHO AVERAGE MURDER, my seventh Country Store Mystery. Chef Robbie Jordan is going to leave southern Indiana to attend her tenth high school reunion in Santa Barbara, California. While there, a friend of her late mother’s hints that Mom’s death might not have been from natural causes, after all.
Which question didn’t I ask you that I should have?
“Don’t you also write a historical mystery series?” Yes, the Quaker Midwife Mysteries, set in northeastern Massachusetts in the late 1880s, with a Quaker midwife catching babies, hearing secrets, and solving murders. CHARITY’S BURDEN, book four, will be out in April 2019.
Agatha- and Macavity-nominated Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries, the Local Foods Mysteries, and award-winning short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she writes the Country Store Mysteries and the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. Maxwell lives north of Boston with her beau and two elderly cats, and gardens and cooks when she isn’t killing people on the page or wasting time on Facebook. Please find her there, at edithmaxwell.com, on Instagram, and at the Wicked Authors blog.