Q&A with Mindy Carlson

 

Mindy Carlson is the author of the novel Her Dying Day. She lives in the Washington, D.C., area.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Her Dying Day, and how did you create your character June?

A: In 2016, I read an article about the 1926 disappearance of Agatha Christie. In December of that year, she disappeared for 11 days. She was eventually found in a spa in Harrogate, Yorkshire. Her husband, Archie, announced he was leaving Agatha for his mistress and proceeded to leave the house. After a period of time, Agatha also left the house and disappeared. After a huge manhunt, and a cloud of suspicion hovering over her husband and his mistress, they finally found her. 

But, what if they hadn't? 

Or, what if she disappeared in the year 2000?

There would be podcasts, articles, Discord forums, and, of course, a documentary. 

And the idea of Her Dying Day was born. 

I wanted a smart, messy, funny heroine to look for this famous author, Greer Larkin, and came up with the plucky yet traumatized June Masterson. June escaped from a restrictive commune where she was raised and fled to New York City where she throws off the teachings of her childhood, makes horrible choices, and becomes determined to solve the disappearance of Greer Larkin no matter how dangerous it gets.

Q: What do you see as the role of humor in your writing?

A: Humor allows me to get even darker during the tense parts. It creates a release valve for the tension I'm building in the other parts. It's also fun! My books are meant to entertain people and who doesn't like a humorous story with twists and turns? 

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

A: I did know the ending. When I write a mystery, I write the beginning three different ways and then I write the ending. The location changed, but the action and spirit of the ending were the same. 

 

I like writing the ending first because it gives me a target to hit. It reminds me of what my destination is and keeps me on the path when I hit the soggy, uncooked ideas in the middle of the book. I read the end again and think up ideas that will take me there.

Q: The author K.T. Nguyen called the book "a racy romp enriched with real emotion"--what do you think of that description?

A: When she blurbed my book I was incredibly flattered with her impression. June is entangled in a love affair that is everything she thinks she wants and everything she knows her parents will hate. She's full of complicated contradictions. She's young and impulsive and passionate--both about her lover and about finding out what happened to Greer Larkin. 

 

And now that she's away from the influence of her family and their commune community she can grow and learn who she really is as a person. With that growth there are some hard lessons and emotional parallels between June and Greer's lives. 

Whodunits have to have an emotional pull to them. I want my reader to cheer June on, to hate her poor choices, and celebrate with her as she grows and succeeds. 

Q: What are you working on now?

A: So many things. I'm writing some short stories that will be published in some cozy anthologies, as well as a mystery about a woman who's failing in her career and returns home to re-center herself only to find that things with her father aren't as rosy as she's been led to believe. 

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: If you're a fan of humorous mysteries, my short story AITA for Using My Husband's Hobby to Teach Him a Lesson has just been nominated for an Anthony Award. Readers can find it in the anthology Myopic Duplicity, edited by Jeff Circle. Originally conceived as an audio-only anthology, it's read by the amazing Hillary Huber, and it's now been made available on Kindle. 

Also - my favorite foods are Chinese dumplings and Vegetable Malai Kofta. I like to have them with Prosecco while watching Taskmaster on YouTube.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb