On May 20, 2023, I released my second novel, a cozy murder mystery called The Spirits of South Drive. It’s the sequel to Virginia’s Ghost in the Virginia Blythe Mysteries series. Spirits could be described as a traditional whodunit in the vein of Agatha Christie; however, what sets it and the first book apart from such classic mysteries is the presence of ghosts. Spirits has four of them!
Like Virginia’s Ghost, the second novel is set in the antiques world. In writing both books, I was inspired by my many years as the glass, ceramics, silver, and toys specialist for a Toronto auction house. While working there, I devoured a lot of novels by Ruth Rendell, the queen of British mystery authors. Rendell’s novels are dark and always contain rich psychological portraits of the murderers–the books are more whydunits than whodunits. While her work prompted me to try to write a mystery of my own, I knew I would take a different approach and create something that balanced the dark with some light and wasn’t as deeply focused on the character development and motivations of the criminal. In other words, something closer to cozy mystery. I knew I had my perfect setting; it always struck me that an auction house would be an ideal setting for a murder mystery, as the old warehouse building I worked in had a dark, creepy, shadowy basement in which we stored the antiques we were preparing to sell. And it seemed natural that ghosts might haunt such a place, given all the old things we handled. Maybe they were even attached to such things. As one of my characters says, “The ghosts probably ride right in on the sofas.” A few of our staff members wouldn’t have disagreed!
Instead of an auction house, much of The Spirits of South Drive takes place in a gloomy Victorian mansion, the contents of which the staff are appraising. The novel features some of the same auction house characters the first book did–including protagonist Virginia Blythe, an antiques specialist who’s a somewhat reluctant sleuth but finds herself drawn into a murder investigation, and her boss and boyfriend George Schlegel, who’s eager to solve the crime. And then there are the new characters–a homicide inspector, an intern, the suspects, and most importantly, the ghostly quartet of 1920s art students who provide readers with a portal to the past and have been haunting the mansion for nearly a century. Why are they still there? And do they know anything about the grisly murder? On both counts, it’s anyone’s guess . . .
The Spirits of South Drive is available on Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble.
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