Cara asks Christi Phillips some questions
Q & A – CARA asks Christi Phillips some questions - she'll be talking at Book Passage on Monday so drop by
1. We’re both writers who live in the Bay Area but write mysteries that take place elsewhere (and in different time frames) – how do you immerse yourself in such a different setting and era?
First and foremost, by reading about it. For The Devlin Diary, I read books about the period, from The English: A Social History to Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of Charles II, and books of the period, from Aubrey’s Brief Lives to The London Spy and Pepys’ Diaries.
2. Research is the best part of my job because I need to visit Paris for a grasp of the district and to capture the unique flavor. But you set your books in other times and other places...tell me about your research. Any escapes from dusty archives to explore Venice and England?
Yes, absolutely. I consider on-site research the best part of my job, too. It’s certainly the most fun, and the most enlightening. For The Rossetti Letter, I’d traveled to Venice before I started the novel, so it was very easy to relate my own experience to what I subsequently read. For The Devlin Diary, I did much of my research first and then traveled to London and Cambridge. It was more challenging to write about London than Venice because it’s changed so much more in the past 300+ years. But there are always happy surprises, unforeseen experiences, and unexpected insights that make on-site research invaluable.
3. In your first book, The Rossetti Letter, you explored 17th century Venice. THE DEVLIN DIARY deals with Restoration England. How do you choose the time period to focus on?
I set The Rossetti Letter in the Early Modern era because I found that period of history fascinating. Also, it wasn’t represented in fiction as frequently as the Medieval, Renaissance, or Victorian eras. The Early Modern era, a 250-300 year time span which is generally agreed to begin around the end of the Renaissance (c. 1500) and end with the advent of the Industrial Revolution (c. 1750), was an incredibly vibrant and important period in European history. It’s the time of the Reformation, of the exploration of the New World, and the beginning of scientific inquiry. People began questioning authority and began to observe the world objectively, without the blinders of religious dogma. Although The Devlin Diary takes place fifty-four years later than The Rossetti Letter, both books are set within the Early Modern era, and the characters in both novels reflect that time.
4. This is the second book featuring the same female lead, Claire Donovan. My books also feature the same female protagonist (amateur detective Aimee LeDuc). I love exploring how Aimee grows as a character in each new book. Do you feel the same? Will you continue with Claire in your next book?
For the next book, which is my third, I’m going to break away from Claire Donovan and Andrew Kent—but I’ll pick up their story again in my fourth novel. My next book is set entirely in the past, in seventeenth-century France. I’m going to have to go to France for three weeks to do research. (Terrible job, but somebody’s got to do it!)
5. Why mysteries? Do you feel this is easier or harder than writing straight, “non-genre” fiction? What are the advantages and disadvantages for you?
I didn’t really set out to write a mystery, although The Rossetti Letter and The Devlin Diary both have elements that are just like mysteries (my publisher refers to them as “novels of intrigue”). I would say that the difference between a mystery and non-genre fiction is that a mystery has a built-in conflict: usually someone is murdered and the hero or heroine attempts to find out who did it and why. This provides a ready-made structure that non-genre fiction doesn’t have. But I’m not certain that this necessarily makes it any easier. A good mystery often has a level of complexity that most “straight” fiction doesn’t have. It’s no small feat to construct a story Byzantine enough to keep most readers guessing until the end. For the author, plotting a mystery is much like playing a game of chess, and understanding how the move you make now will play out much later—say, in another fifteen to twenty moves. And not just one, but all the possible permutations of that move.
For me, the advantage of writing mysteries is the built-in conflict, which is also the disadvantage—it’s sort of like writing inside a box. In non-genre fiction, the conflict can be whatever the author wants it to be. Eventually, I hope to write both types of novels.
