Exclusive interview with author G.M. Malliet and a review of her latest Max Tudor mystery
Rating: 3 stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“Every single life decision I’ve made has been in the furtherance of the novels I longed to write,” says The Haunted Season author G.M. Malliet. “I suppose I had some hero-worship of authors going on as I was growing up. I couldn’t think of a more glamorous occupation.”
“The fictional village of Nether Monkslip was the starting point for this series,” says Malliet. “I started doodling a rough sketch of the village, that sketch in the hands of a skilled artist named Rhys Davies, commissioned by my editor at the time, later became endpapers in the hardcover version of the first book, and appeared in several books thereafter. It also features as a banner on my website. In other words, I got a lot of mileage out of that one map.”
The Haunted Season brings the classic elements of a British village mystery, but the stories are not old fashioned. It’s a wonderful twist that cleric Max Tudor was once an MI5 agent. The book starts with the point of view of Max’s new assistant Destiny in London, which is fine, except it switches abruptly to Max in the village. What happened to Destiny? The relationship between Max and his New Age wife is charming.
In the sleepy English village of Nether Monkslip, Max Tudor the vicar and his parishioners look forward to the return of Lord and Lady Baaden-Boomethistle. There’s a murder and a secret involving a kidnapped baby. And, there’s a violation of the sanctuary of the church. Your typical British sleuthing. Overall, the story has too many twists, mysteries and subplots.
For research, Malliet did a lot of reading on rural England and English villages. “I also follow the weather over there quite closely as it is always an element of my books. And travel, I get to the UK once a year on average. Yorkshire is a particular favorite although my Max Tudor books are set along the Southwestern coast. I recently revisited Orchard House, home of Louisa May Alcott, and I was teary-eyed as I was leaving. To have that kind of impact on generations of readers, I think that is what every writer secretly hopes for.”
All four of the Max Tudor books to date have been nominated for the Agatha Award for best novel. Malliet’s first St. Just book, Death of a Cozy Writer, won the Malice Domestic grant and the Malice Domestic Agatha award. Malliet says the Max Tudor and St. series were written with television in mind, and have yet to be optioned for TV or film.
Anne Brewer at Minotaur Publishing Macmillan is Malliet’s editor. “Just being published was a life-long dream come true,” says Malliet. “The most difficult part of writing a book is that you are never quite done. You edit and revise and copy edit and proof, and by the time it is actually published you feel like you’ve read it a dozen times, which you pretty much have, and you are itching to move on to the next thing.”
Malliet got her break when editor at Minotaur found her online. “She liked what she’d seen on my website,” says Malliet. “Fortunately, I had been sketching out the Max books in my head and on paper for a long time by that point, so I was ready.”
Malliet is next writing the fourth book in the St. Just mystery series. She’s finishing writing a draft of a standalone mystery, first-person, set in one of the posh postal codes just outside London. “It is a bit of Desperate Housewives in the Village,” says Malliet.
Malliet lives with her husband in Virginia, near Washington, D.C. She spent her childhood in Fairbanks, Alaska, living in a log cabin.
Website: Gmmalliet.com. Facebook.com/g.m.malliet
The Haunted Season: A Max Tudor Mystery by G. M. Malliet. Hardcover: 304 pages. Publisher: Minotaur Books (October 6, 2015). Language: English ISBN-13: 978-1250021441 $25.99
