Laurie R. King

Award-winning, bestselling, thought-provoking mysteries

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Noblesse Oblige

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I’ve been putting together a book discussion guide for the Castle Shade book club kit (like the ones we did for Riviera Gold and Island of the Mad) and wanted to include a question about the idea of noblesse oblige.  So I did…but I have to wonder what kind of conversations that one will prompt.

Queen Marie of Romania

The phrase refers, of course, to the obligations inherent in being a noble.  Those born into the “upper” classes, whether aristocrats or royals, hold the power, but they also (speaking ideally, of course) hold the responsibility.

Without giving any spoilers, I can tell you that the idea permeates Castle Shade, for good and for bad.  In 1925, Romania was still a land of peasants and monarchy.  Its Queen (in many ways more ruler than the king) was a granddaughter of Victoria, raised to the idea of service.  She lived in mind-boggling luxury, yes, with palaces and jewels and servants for every need; she expected her people to literally bow and press her hand to their foreheads when she approached; she never doubted that even the nations’ rulers meeting to divide up Europe after the War would receive her and do as she commanded —and yet this same woman spent her War years nursing the sick and wounded, and did not retreat to England even when her young son died of typhoid as enemy troops approached.

In feudal times, the survival of a region depended on noblesse oblige.  If a duke or king felt no responsibility for his people, they wouldn’t make it when the next kingdom over invaded.  Over the centuries and millennia, boundaries have expanded, until now entire countries are looking at their neighbors and realizing that responsibilities reach beyond national identity.

If you’re reading this, you are almost certainly one of the world’s aristocracy, born into a degree of power and luxury that vast swaths of the world’s population can only begin to imagine.  If bombs are not falling on your head; if your children and neighbors are not wasting from malnutrition; if you need only flip a switch to push away the night; if your brother disappears into a prison you still feel he has rights—then you, like me, are one of our globe’s aristocrats.

So, is all that too much to inflict on a book club discussion?

Castle Shade, out June 8, 2021, here. Order a copy signed from Bookshop Santa Cruz and Poisoned Pen, or from your local Indie bookshop, or Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

Blood Countess? Or Strong Ruler?

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(Two weeks to Castle Shade! And here’s background of one of the people mentioned.)

Elizabeth (Erzébet) Báthory was the daughter of a prominent noble Hungarian family, born in 1560.  As a child she suffered from seizures, possibly epilepsy.  She was educated, as only the highest levels of women would be, including several languages including Latin and Greek. She was engaged at the age of 10, a common means of establishing political ties.  At 15, she married (her husband was 19) and received as her wedding gift a castle, a country house, and seventeen surrounding villages.

When she was 18, her husband was made commander of Hungary’s war against the Ottomans, and while he was away, she not only ran their vast estates, she oversaw the defense of these key areas. And she did so not by cajoling and depending on the skills of the men around her, but by shoving them aside and curtly getting on with the job. Not a nice woman, by the way, but a strong one.

Her husband died of an illness in 1604, when she was 44. Before he died, he entrusted his family to one of the richest nobles in Hungary, Gyorgy Thurzo—who did not succeed in setting the Countess aside.

And, the king owed a great deal of money to the Count Báthory—and thus to his widow.

Around that time, convenient rumors began to circulate, that the Countess was mistreating girls given into her care.  No, she was abusing them.  Oh no—she was doing worse than that, by beating and torturing them, starving and murdering them—in fact, she kept her beauty by bathing her face in their blood, and she stripped off their flesh to eat it.

Interestingly, the man the king sent to investigate the rumors was… Gyorgy Thurzo.

He elicited testimony by torturing her servants—always a good way to get unbiased and complete information.

He compiled reams of statements from hundreds of accusers—none of which was actual evidence, merely second-hand rumors.

And when she was found guilty and her vast properties taken for redistribution—she was neither executed nor imprisoned, merely sentenced to live out her days in her own castle.

Was Erzébet Báthory a twisted pervert, the worse female serial killer ever, who horribly tortured hundreds of young innocents for her own pleasure?  Or was she a stubborn, impatient, tough-minded woman with what would have been seen as a shameful disability, who married young and almost immediately assumed enormous responsibilities, and who was clearly quite ready to do without any man’s help.

A threat, who was removed by the use of rumor?

In Castle Shade, confronted by rumors against another woman ruler, Mary Russell isn’t so sure the woman was a horror…

Castle Shade, out June 8, 2021, details and excerpt here. Order a copy signed, from Bookshop Santa Cruz and Poisoned Pen, or from your local Indie bookshop, or Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

Family Reunion

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In the summer of 1914, two branches of a powerful and affectionate family came together in the Black Sea resort of Costanța.

It was a summer day in the middle of July, and this would be both a family holiday and a meeting of the heads of two neighboring states. One family travelled down from the summer palace in Sinaia, the other sailed in across the water.

As a state occasion, the arrival was public, with much film expended on capturing every royal move.

At 2:50 you see the motion version of the below photo

And at 4:00, a very young Princess Ileana approaches the camera

One assumes that the family reunion began after the hot, humid, and protracted public arrival. They went off for a cool drink, the young cousins were sent off with their nannies, and the family was free to spend the rest of the visit visiting friends, attending churches—


And maybe even an evening at Costanța’s grand casino—

But another important purpose of the visit was for the children of the two families to mingle, with an eye to future marriage—although as things turned out, the older son of the host family and the daughter of the visitors (Prince Carol, age 21, and Grand Duchess Olga, then 19) would have little to do with each other.  However, the younger ones (Romania’s Princess Ileana and Russia’s Tsarevich Alexei) got along very well, and their parents thought, hmm: perhaps, in ten years or so…

Except that three weeks later, an Archduke was shot and the Great War began.  When it was over, everyone in that visiting family—The Tsar, his wife, and all the children—was dead at the guns of the Bolsheviks.

Standing:

Carol 1 (King of Romania); Russia’s Grand Duchess Anastasia; [?Russia’s Grand Duchess Xenia?]; Prince Carol of Romania; Crown Prince Frederick of Romania (King of Romania a few months later); [?]; Tsar Nicholas II.

Seated:

Russia’s Grand Duchess Maria; [?Russia’s Empress Alexandra?]; [?Russia’s Grand Duchess Tatiana?]; Princess Ileana of Romania (in the Duchess’ lap); Marie of Romania; Russia’s Grand Duchess Olga, with [?Romania’s Prince Mircea?] in her lap.

Front:

Russia’s Tsarevitch Alexei; Prince Nicholas of Romania

Castle Shade, out June 8, 2021, here.

Signed from Bookshop Santa Cruz and Poisoned Pen,

or from your local Indie bookshop,

or Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

Making Hay in Transylvania

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I love finding some ordinary part of life that is so vastly different in a foreign land.  Such as the simple matter of how to store hay for the livestock for the winter. As Russell and Holmes travel through Transylvania towards the village of Bran, they see a rural landscape that is both familiar…and very much otherwise:

I began to catch sight of the haystacks that I had been seeing all day from the train. Nothing like the familiar piled domes of England, these were six or eight metres high with a trimmed sapling protruding from the top. The stacks marched over the countryside like a clan of enormous, shaggy creatures.

“Those haystacks look like gigantic bears,” I said to Holmes, after a while. “Or those mythic Himalayan creatures said to live above the snow line.”

(Image from here.)

“One  does  wonder  if  the  local  hooligans  don’t  occasionally adorn them with a pair of dinner plate–sized eyes.”

I laughed, then with a glance at the driver—behind a glass shield, but still—lowered my voice. “They do rather loom. I’d have thought the people would build their horror tales around those things, rather than dead folk climbing from their graves.”

….

Moonlight is always uncanny. It obscures as much as it reveals, putting every object into sharp and deceptive contrast. Here, it exaggerated the presence of those haystacks. I found myself trying to catch them move. As if they were trolls or woolly mammoths, dancing an imperceptibly slow pavane across the fields.

(Image from here.)

And here’s how it’s done:

 

You can order a copy of Castle Shade signed from Bookshop Santa Cruz or Poisoned Pen Books, unsigned from your local shop through Bookshop.org or Indiebound, or from Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

Meeting Queen Marie

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I met Queen Marie during a trip to Eastern Europe in the fall of 2018.  My friends who own the Poisoned Pen bookshop in Scottsdale talked me into it.  Not that it was difficult.  They said that they were going and asked if I wanted to join them and I had never been on a cruise, and it was on a river and I thought, sure, why not?

Anyway, with that amount of deliberation and pre-planning, and with a full load of writing until the minute I got on a plane, you can understand that my research was less than complete.

I mean hey, this was a holiday.  It’s all about the surprises, right?

So off I schlep to Bucharest, and a couple days later we pile our way into some buses and drive up  into the Carpathian mountains, with a guide who tells us all kinds of interesting things and leads us up a hill to this crazy little castle, and inside it I spot a photo (at the right, below) and hear the guide talking about this English-born Romanian Queen…in the 1920s…and I say: hmm.

So yes, I decided that Queen Marie of Romania could well meet a certain detecting woman and her husband.  And so she did.

And because this little castle up in the Carpathians is in Transylvania, and because we all know what Transylvania is known for–in the world of fiction, at any rate–Bram Stoker’s fantasies enter in.

But I’m not giving away any spoilers.  Instead, let’s see Marie with her people, during the War—

And in an interview, here–

And we also meet her daughter, Princess Ileana, who has a charming accent, and a pair of mischievous ponies, seen here five years after Castle Shade:

 

Castle Shade will be out June 8, here. You can get a copy signed from Bookshop Santa Cruz and Poisoned Pen, or unsigned from your local Indie bookshop, or Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

 

Two Months to Castle Shade!

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You get two Mutterings today–because not only is it the anniversary of The Meet, but it’s also two months until Castle Shade appears on shelves and e-readers. Yay!

Over the next couple of months I’ll be sharing various aspects of the writing process of the story, from travel to research to creation of the map–

and building Bran Castle for the silly videos that are coming up later this month–

But in the meantime, enjoy the idea of two unhappy strangers stumbling across each other on a deserted patch of countryside and finding a reason for living, 106 years ago. May you find many kindred spirits of your own, in 2021.

You can pre-order a copy of Castle Shade at Bookshop Santa Cruz (signed); Poisoned Pen Books (signed); Indiebound (your local bookshop); Barnes & Noble; or Amazon.

Meeting the characters

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I’m working my way through the final proof pages of Castle Shade (out in three months—hooray!)

…which means reading every word aloud, watching for mistakes and, more important, listening for oddities. I can only manage 50 or 60 pages a day, but I am finding small errors on nearly half the pages, even though it’s been edited and copyedited by several people. And although you’d think it’s irritating, seeing how much has got past us all, in fact it’s deeply satisfying, like baking out the impurities.
I’m also seeing the characters again, in their final forms, and remembering when I first encountered—for example—Queen Marie of Romania, seen here in the castle where the book is set, and wearing the pearls that play a role in the story:

And her youngest daughter, the Princess Ileana (who has the most charming accent):

These are two of the true-life characters in Castle Shade–like last year’s Riviera Gold had Lillie Langtry:

I hope you enjoy getting to know Romania’s queen and princess. Mary Russell sure did!

Castle Shade, out June 8, 2021, here.

Order a copy signed from Bookshop Santa Cruz and Poisoned Pen, or from your local Indie bookshop, or Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

The Senses and Riviera Gold

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A recent discussion about my next contract (and how long it would be before I could jaunt off to Paris, sigh…) had me reflecting on how dependent I am on the use of the senses to provide what writers call the “telling detail.”

I have a scene in Castle Shade (no, I’m not going to give you a spoiler here) where all Russell’s senses—the taste of new grapes, the smell of the gardener, the cool dapple of shade on her skin, the sight of Holmes’ long fingers and the cat blinking in the sun—come together in a flash of what she knows is going to be one of those lingering, vivid, Proustian memories we all have.  (Although of course, this being a mystery, the scene also contains a clue.)

Thinking about it, after the conversation with my editor and re-reading that scene in the copyedit, I realized that I tend to be sparing in my use of sensory information, saving it for moments when a smell or taste can underscore some element of the story.  That element may be plot, or a character’s mood or deeper nature.  Unexpected details—jarring, troubling—can be used to undermine the security a reader had up to that point, and suggest that all is not as it seems.  Sensory detail can even foreshadow a larger world, as in the beginning of Riviera Gold, when Mrs Hudson is a young woman arriving at a ball—

The warm air smelled of honey.

The air outside had been sharp with the usual London stinks of horse dung and coal-smoke and rain, making the Duke’s townhouse a welcoming refuge.  Granted, by the end of the night the pleasure would be reversed, with exhausted, footsore dancers stumbling away from the smell of sweat and the stifling miasma of women’s perfumes and men’s hair-oil.  But for now, drifting from portico to cloak-room, hallway to the ballroom itself, all was promise and sparkle and the sweet aroma of beeswax candles.

—since many readers of Riviera Gold are quite aware that in the world of Mary Russell, honey means the beekeeper, Sherlock Holmes, who in that scene lies some years in the future.

When Russell wakes in her Riviera hotel, crisp linen sheets against her skin and the rhythmic sound of a gardener’s rake on gravel assure her (and us) that she’s in a place of pampered luxury.  The odors of salt water and jasmine, the sounds of birdsong, rustling palm fronds, and the music of sailboat rigging in the distance places us on the shoreline of Monaco, while the smell of hot leaves with the drone of cicadas makes the hill Russell is climbing feel even steeper and more exposed to the sun.  When the cloy of death in Mrs Hudson’s home is replaced by the sharp odors of Jeyes Fluid, sunshine, and lemon—the reader’s lungs feel cleared as well.

 

But sensory detail is tricky, and should be used sparingly.  If s sensation is not universal, the writer needs to provide hints: without the sunshine and the lemon, would most 21st century readers know what Jeyes Fluid evokes, or what emotional reaction they should feel at a Charlie Parker record?  It also depends on placement: sand between one’s toes brings up the beach, yes—but does the reader instantly know if the character is enjoying it, or finding it a source of considerable irritation?  It has to be deft: if I can’t find THE exact sensation that provides a missing element, maybe it’s better to go on without it?  And it had to be the right timing: if the plot is moving along briskly, now is not the time to veer into any but the briefest of sensory reflections.

There is nothing like sensory input to provide “the telling detail”—a small thing that casts light on everything around it.  Walking into a room that smells of furniture polish and cigars instantly tells us that we’re in some kind of a men’s club, in a way that a lengthy description of the furniture and lighting cannot.  And warm air that smells of honey—to a woman with Sherlock Holmes lying in her future—can carry with it more weight than simply the presence of expensive Victorian candles.

So I’m curious. Was there any particular “telling detail” that caught your mind’s eye in Riviera Gold?

New book, new category

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Last week, just a few days later than I’d promised my editor, I finished my first draft of Russell & Holmes #17, Castle Shade.

Every book has measures of its progress: the proposal, the first draft, cover art—and when I have the cover and a buy-link, I can open up a web page. But one that always pleases me is the first time I use the title as a category here on the blog.

A new tag makes it real.  And you can now highlight all the posts talking about Castle Shade, by clicking the button over on the blog sidebar.

More to come!

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