Q&A With Alice Fitzpatrick 

Mickey Mikkelson connected me with mystery author Alice Fitzpatrick! Alice’s novels are Secrets In The Water, A Dark Death & her most recent release A Cruel Cold! I’m so delighted to be doing this interview with Alice today! 

Q: Welcome to Book Notions, Alice! Would you please give a brief description of each of your novels beginning with A Cruel Cold? 

A: A Cruel Cold  (Book 3 of the Meredith Island Mysteries)

It’s Christmas on Meredith Island, and Kate Galway is looking forward to spending some mother-daughter time with her barrister daughter, Alex.  But Kate is forced to adjust her plans when Alex arrives accompanied by her father, Detective Chief Inspector James Hewitt, Kate’s ex-husband.  The island’s matriarch, Sophie Sutherland, is eager to reunite with her old beau, Teddy Bartell, who shows up with an entourage of relations, including his son, the son’s abrasive second wife, and her twin brother.  Everyone joins in the Christmas celebrations at the pub, but the party ends abruptly when someone ingests a lethal dose of cyanide.  A winter storm has shut down access to the mainland, trapping the killer on the island.  With no forensics and minimal support from the mainland police, James, Kate, and Alex must rely on old-fashioned detective work to track down the murderer before they strike again.

A Cruel Cold is an homage to Agatha Christie who inspired me to write traditional British mysteries.  Not only is the victim killed with a lethal dose of one of the Queen of Crime’s favorite poisons, but the killer is trapped on the island with the threat that they might kill again, a situation reminiscent of many of Christie’s storylines.  

Secrets in the Water  (Book 1 of the Meredith Island Mysteries)

Emma Galway’s suicide has haunted the Meredith Island for fifty years. Back on the island to lay her grandmother to rest, Kate can’t avoid reflecting on the death of her aunt. Learning that her late mother had believed Emma was murdered and had conducted her own investigation, she decides to track down her aunt’s killer. With the help of her neighbor, impetuous and hedonistic sculptor Siobhan Fitzgerald, Kate picks up where her mother had left off. When the two women become the subject of threatening notes and violent incidents, it’s clear that one of their fellow islanders is warning them off. As they begin to look into Emma’s connection to the Sutherlands, a prominent Meredith Island family, another islander dies under suspicious circumstances, forcing Kate and Siobhan to confront the likelihood that Emma’s killer is still on the island.

One of the themes in Secrets in the Water is how people tend to mythologize someone who is no longer in their lives.  Because she was just three years old when Emma died, Kate remembers only a loving young woman who played with her and bought her ice-cream.  If she is to solve the murder, Kate has to learn the truth about her aunt.  But in the fifty years that have passed since her death, each islander has their own perception of Emma, making Kate’s job of solving her murder anything but straightforward. 

A Dark Death  (Book 2 of the Meredith Island Mysteries)

Kate Galway is looking forward to a quiet summer working on her latest novel at her home on Meredith Island.  For a place hardly anyone has heard of, her sleepy Welsh island is attracting a lot of visitors, including a conman posing as a psychic and group of archaeology students who believe they’ve unearthed evidence of a Roman temple.  Partway through the dig, however, the students make an even more startling discovery: a body ritualistically laid out in their trench.  While intrigued by the murder, amateur sleuth Kate decides to leave this investigation to the professionals.  However, when she learns that both the island mechanic and her university friend’s son are prime suspects, she and hedonistic artist Siobhan Fitzgerald feel they have no choice but to get involved.

This book examines how people deal with their disappointment when the future life they’ve envisioned doesn’t come about.  Kate never became the university professor she’d always imagined she’d be and was forced to take a job teaching high school instead.  Her feelings of failure are triggered when she meets a female university professor who appears to have the life Kate has always wanted. 

Q: I love reading mysteries, especially the who done it ones! What drew you into writing in the mystery genre? 

A: I grew up reading my mother’s Agatha Christie novels, losing myself in idyllic English villages where everyone knows each other, sprawling manor houses with hidden passageways, and luxurious seaside hotels that reminded me of the England I’d left behind when we’d immigrated to Canada.  With each book, I took on the challenge of matching wits with Miss Christie, ever hopeful that this time I would identify the murderer.  Thus, the traditional British mystery is my favorite genre and the inspiration for this series with its isolated setting, Gothic manor house, and eccentric characters.  

However, the real mystery in my life is my own family.  Like Kate’s aunt and her father who died before Kate was born, my family members have a habit of disappearing from my life.  Because they lived behind the Iron Curtain, I never met my father’s family, nor did he ever talk about them.  On my British mother’s side, my uncle died when my mother was pregnant with me, my cousin broke off all communication with the family for over fifty years, and my great-aunt exiled herself to the Isle of Man.  It’s no wonder that my first book in the series is about a woman seeking to reclaim her family’s history.

Q: In your opinion, what makes the perfect mystery novel? Your wisdom may help future mystery authors?

A: Most people read mysteries to solve the puzzle, to discover who has done it before the amateur sleuth or police can figure it out.  For that reason, I write in multiple third person subjective points of view.  I don’t want to limit my readers to knowing only what my amateur detective knows.  

The clues that enable the reader to solve the puzzle and identify the murder should be there, even if they aren’t initially obvious.  The writer should never hold back crucial information.  In mysteries, writers need to play fair with readers.

Q: Can you reveal the details of your next mystery novel? 

A: The Mystery in Your Eye

When island artists David Sutherland and Siobhan Fitzgerald are invited to Cornwall to teach at an exclusive art retreat organized by David’s ex-wife, a nervous Siobhan begs her friend Kate Galway to accompany them.  What should be a relaxing week attending life drawing and watercolor classes is disrupted by conflicts among the participants and instructors.  Soon a dead body is discovered.  When Kate suspects that the victim and Siobhan’s brother, Ciaran, were involved in art fraud, she must choose between her moral values and her loyalty to Siobhan to help her brother.  

Q: What are important messages you hope readers take away once they finish reading your mystery novels?

A: In my books, Kate brings justice to the victims.  I think most writers of crime novels want to put the world to rights, and my books aren’t any different.  People aren’t allowed to get away with acting badly and hurting people.  While the victims might not be entirely innocent, they certainly don’t deserve to die.  

Having said that, I’m fascinated that seemingly ordinary people are often capable of taking the life of another human being.  Given the right circumstances, the middle-aged man walking his dog or the young woman who serves tea and cake in the local cafe has the potential to commit murder.  Readers gain an insight into the personalities and the life events that provoke people into taking this extraordinary step.

The themes explored in each book speak to everyone’s experiences: the mythologizing of people who have disappeared from our lives in Secrets in the Water, the grieving of a life that wasn’t what we expected in A Dark Death, and the possibility of reconnecting with a lost love in A Cruel Cold.  

Q: Alice would you please provide social media links so that readers of the blog and I may follow you and your work?

A: WEBSITE:   https://www.alicefitzpatrick.com

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/alicefitzp/

INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/alicefitzpatrickauthor