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Revisiting Anna Katharine Green with Patricia Meredith
256 Plays1 year ago
Brook and Sarah are joined by Patricia Meredith to learn more about detective fiction pioneer Anna Katharine Green.
Mentioned
A Deed of Dreadful Note (2023) Patricia Meredith
The Leavenworth Case (1878) Anna Katharine Green
The Clocks (1963) Agatha Christie
The Mysterious Key and What it Opened (1867) Louisa May Alcott
The Affair Next Door (1897) Anna Katharine Green
The Golden Slipper and Other Problems for Violet Strange (1915) Anna Katharine Green
More about Patricia Meredith
For more information
Instagram: @cluedinmystery
Contact us: hello@cluedinmystery.com
Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
Transcript
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Transcript
Introduction of Patricia Meredith and her work
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke. And we both love mystery. Hi, Brooke. Hi, Sarah. Happy Friday, recording day. I know, best day of the week. We've said it before.
Patricia's inspiration and personal connection to Anna Catherine Green
00:00:26
Speaker
And we have a really special one today. Yes, we've got Patricia Meredith joining us today.
00:00:33
Speaker
Hello. Hi, Patricia. Hi. I'm going to introduce you really quickly. Patricia Meredith is an author of historical and cozy mysteries. When she's not writing, she's playing board games with her husband, creating imaginary worlds with her two children, or out in the garden reading a good book with a cup of tea.
00:00:53
Speaker
She currently lives just outside Colorado Springs. Patricia's first series, The Spokane Clock Tower Mysteries, is the product of uncovering fascinating local history circa 1901, making it the first historical mystery series set in Spokane, Washington.
00:01:10
Speaker
Her second series about Anna Catherine Green is the first and only historical fiction featuring the mother of detection fiction. Her mysteries are clean, cozy reads known for their quirky yet believable characters backed by extensive research.
00:01:26
Speaker
Patricia's first book of poetry, Happenings, is available in ebook format as well as her palindrome mystery inspired by Agatha Christie's real life disappearance entitled Murder for a Jar of Red Rum. Once again, welcome Patricia. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited about this.
00:01:46
Speaker
We are too. So share with our listeners kind of the premise behind your series that is based on a character that you drew from Anna Catherine Greene. Yeah. So that's the first book in a new series. So the first book is called A Deed of Dreadful Note.
00:02:05
Speaker
And this will be a series of mysteries where Anna Catherine Green is the lead detective, the amateur detective. But she is a real person from history. She's one of those forgotten females that has been overlooked. She is behind almost every
00:02:21
Speaker
trope, cliche, normal aspect of how you would describe a mystery today. And I happened across her and realized that she had written and published long before even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And so when I realized that and that she was the first female author of American detective fiction to really just bring everything together and become
00:02:45
Speaker
she was the Agatha Christie of her day and yet nobody knows who she is today. Most people have never heard of her except for you guys because then that's how I found your that's how I found your podcast was I was I'm always looking for people who are talking about Annie Catherine Green and you were one of the few that had mentioned her and at the time I was working on my first draft of the novel and now it's out there and so now we can talk about it and dive into her history a little bit more. I'm so excited to
00:03:14
Speaker
be reintroducing her to the world. We have so much in common and she just, she has so much to share. So it's been a remarkable journey uncovering the history of her life and getting to bring that forward in historical fiction and filling in those crevices and just uncovering new things every day. So Patricia, you consider Anna Catherine Green to be your sister from another century. Can you explain why that is?
00:03:43
Speaker
Yes. So when I first uncovered her, I had no idea that we would have so much in common. And I actually ended up doing a whole blog. And when I first started researching her four years ago, and then I just rediscovered that list that I had made.
00:04:00
Speaker
And so I made a video about it on my YouTube channel. So if you want to hear the full list, you can check it out there. But some of the main things that we have in common, for example, she was 32 when she had her first novel published. So the Leavenworth case is her first novel. And I was 32 when I had my first short story published, which is a short story called Mary Did You Know in Christmas Fiction Off the Beaten Path. And so
00:04:27
Speaker
you know, we both published at the same time. And then I dove deeper and I discovered that her stepmother is Grace Hollister. And Hollister is actually a family name on my father's side. So I might actually be related to her stepmother, which would be really cool.
00:04:44
Speaker
We're trying to track that back. I have a family member looking into that. But yeah, so that would be really cool. I wouldn't be directly related to her, but to a very influential woman in her life. She moved a lot as a child. The last time I counted, I have moved like 18 times in my life, including
Influence of Christian faith and personal life on writing
00:05:03
Speaker
the most recent one to Colorado Springs.
00:05:05
Speaker
And she moved at least 10 times that I've tracked so far. And that was just before her first book publication. And then since then, after she gets married, she and her family move quite a bit. So lots of moving. And then the biggest thing that I love having in common with her is that she was also a mother. She ends up getting married. She has three kids and continues to publish books. And she manages to publish 36 books
00:05:33
Speaker
total, 32 of which are published after she's married and has given birth to her first born child. And so the fact that she is a wife and mom, I just really connected with that. In this first book, of course, she's still single, but
00:05:49
Speaker
just finding those similarities and made it really easy to connect with her. And then uncovering, thankfully, because she was so famous when she was publishing, she was interviewed quite a bit. So I found a lot of great articles where she talks about her writing process. And we are so similar. It's crazy.
00:06:07
Speaker
And so I was able to incorporate that into the book and just I feel really connected to her like through history because we just we have so many things in common. Her faith is another one. She was a very strong Christian and that comes through in her writing and how she approaches handling finding the murderer and everything and I am also a Christian. And then probably the other like cool thing that it kind of has to do with Anna Catherine Green but kind of doesn't is the only other published book about her.
00:06:35
Speaker
is a biography written by Patricia Mehta. So it's another Patricia. So it's just meant to be. I love that. I love all of those things. And I would agree that the other authors that are mothers and wives also, I always feel a connection to because it's so similar to how we spend our days and how you incorporate some of those really huge responsibilities, but still express your creativity. So I think that's wonderful.
00:07:03
Speaker
Patricia, when did you first discover Anna Catherine Green and become such a fan?
00:07:09
Speaker
Yeah, so I was reading an Agatha Christie book, of course, because I'm a mystery author. So I love Agatha Christie. She's my comfort food. And so it was it would have been 2019. And I was reading The Clocks, which is one of my favorites. It's not in my top 10, but it's definitely one of my favorites. And there's this whole scene where Hercule Poirot is discussing mystery literature with a character.
00:07:38
Speaker
And he starts listing off some of his favorites and kind of making mention of them. And so it's really Agatha Christie commenting on other mystery authors. And at one point he says, the Leavenworth case is admirable. One sabers its atmosphere, its studied and deliberate melodrama, those rich and lavish descriptions of the golden beauty of Eleanor, the moonlight beauty of Mary. And there's the maidservant, Hannah, so true to type, and the murderer, an excellent psychological study.
00:08:07
Speaker
And so that is just one of many things that he lists there. And so I went looking for those books because I'm one of those people who I love getting book recommendations from the books that I'm reading. So cozy mysteries, historical mysteries. I've incorporated that into my Spookian clock tower mysteries. I have them referencing literature all the time that's published pre-1901. So it's all public domain stuff.
00:08:33
Speaker
And so I went looking for these books and the Leavenworth case. And so then I found the Leavenworth case mentioned again in Agatha Christie's autobiography. It's misspelled, but it is mentioned in there as part of her story of why she started writing mystery in the first place. And she reads the Leavenworth case and is talking to her sister about it. And basically it's a dare, right? Her sister dares her to write a mystery.
00:09:00
Speaker
Um, that's as good as the Leavenworth case.
Anna Catherine Green's impact and Patricia's writing process
00:09:03
Speaker
And so I was like, okay, obviously I need to read this book because it's behind all sorts of things. And so I look it up and I discovered it's written by a woman. And that shocked me because I was like, I didn't think that there was any, anything written by a woman. Um, pre, gosh, I mean, really pre Agatha Christie, it feels like it's really hard to find women who wrote liter who wrote, uh, mysteries.
00:09:23
Speaker
And I now know that that's absolutely false. There's several women, including Louisa May Alcott. That was one that I stumbled across. She has a novella called The Mysterious Key and What It Opened. And she's the author of Little Women, of course. And it's another really good one. But yeah, so that's how I found her. And then I just started diving down the rabbit hole, Google search, and just discovered so much about her. And then now I'm at the point in my research where
00:09:52
Speaker
It's repeating itself, right? I haven't found it a lot of new things on the internet I'm starting to discover everybody says the same, you know, five facts that are found in the Wikipedia article and so When I stumbled across some articles from that time period and I'm slowly adding those onto my website So that way everybody else can read them too That was when I was like, okay I have enough here that I could actually write a book about her writing her first book
00:10:19
Speaker
Um, and so that's what a data dreadful note is all about is her writing the Leavenworth case. Um, and, uh, my plan is to have her writing different books throughout her life, um, and moving forward through history. And so we'll, you know, we'll see her get married. We'll see her have kids. We'll see her meet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
00:10:39
Speaker
because they did in America and he was influenced by her greatly. And so it'd be really fun to have those conversations and things and have that all come across. And in fact, even Agatha Christie, I don't think she ever met Agatha Christie, but Agatha publishes her first novel, basically at the end of Anna Catherine Greene, like right before she dies. She dies a couple of years later, like eight years later.
00:11:03
Speaker
Um, and so, uh, yeah, so that will probably be like the day you mom of the, of the whole series is her passing the torch basically, because Agatha is going to take over and sweep everybody away. So, uh, so you mentioned that, uh, you have a similar writing style to Anna Catherine Green. Are there any other influences that she has had on, on your work?
00:11:28
Speaker
I mean, well, writing a book about her. Yes. I mean, and writing this book was, it was really fun to really get into her head. And it's hard sometimes when I'm reading it. It's one of those, I wrote the first draft four years ago and then came back to it about two years ago and reworked it into its current form.
00:11:56
Speaker
And when I did that, it was interesting to me to read my own work. And I honestly couldn't tell, except where I had marked it, whether Anna Catherine Green had said that or I had said it, because it was so similar. And basically, while I was writing it, I was reading the Leavenworth case over and over and over again. I found a free audiobook version, which is not very good. My husband is recording an audiobook version actually now, because he'll do a really good job with the voices and everything.
00:12:25
Speaker
and but I was listening to it and I was reading it and because I just really wanted to make sure that her voice was coming through in this book rather than mine and Thankfully, I've had several people comment that they did find that they read my Spokane series and then they read this one and they were surprised that it was a very different voice And so I'm glad that that's coming through because I want it to be her voice It's all first-person. That was one of the big changes that I made was it was third person and
00:12:49
Speaker
And then I switched to first person because I just wanted to be it's her story. It's all in her head And then along the way in those four years I had found more articles and so I was able to incorporate those even more and more of her words So wherever possible I have her words coming directly out of her mouth. It's all public domain. It's all pre you know 1930 and so those articles and that know the latest article I found is 1923 so I
00:13:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely public domain. And so I was able to put her words back in her mouth, which is so cool because then you're reading it and and hearing actually what she thought about writing and what the process was like for her and then because it's historical fiction I can breathe a little bit a little bit more life into it right by changing a few things bringing some new characters in but wherever possible I used actual characters from her history, so
00:13:44
Speaker
So yeah, I've really enjoyed her influence on my writing because after writing this book, coming back and working on other projects that I have, I think she definitely changed how I write a little bit. She's very poetic, but that was something that we connected over because like you read, I have a book of poetry too.
00:14:06
Speaker
And in college, I was going to be a poet, a poetess, just like Anna. She wanted to be a poet. I love her poetry. Her poetry is very similar to mine. Some of hers, her shorter stuff is similar to mine. Just finding those connections, it's like it was just always meant to be that I was meant to write this book and connect with her and bring her back out because
00:14:25
Speaker
We just have so much in common. It's a God thing. It's just crazy. So it gives me goosebumps whenever I come up with a possible thing. And I'm like, oh my goodness. I could have written that. That's amazing. So yeah. So I love how she's been influencing my writing.
00:14:43
Speaker
That's great.
Themes in historical fiction and strong female characters
00:14:44
Speaker
Was it challenging? What challenges did you face when you were trying to bring this historic figure, I mean, you've spoke on it a little bit, but you know, were there any specific things that you struggled with in trying to bring this historical figure into a fictional sleuth role? Yes, because that's one of the things that I like about writing historical fiction is I like the box that puts me in. And because then it's a challenge.
00:15:11
Speaker
It's, um, and that's why I like writing mystery too is because that's solving the puzzle, right? That's the aspect of Agatha Christie that I love is she's very good at her puzzles. I would argue that Anna Catherine Green is better at her character work. She gets a little bit deeper into her characters than Agatha Christie ever does, which is part of the reason why I like, um, Anna Catherine Green. She also flushes out like her main detective has an arc, whereas like Poirot never has an arc. Um, he doesn't change. He's a, one of those static figures, which is great. You know what you're always going to get with a Poirot, but, um,
00:15:40
Speaker
With Anna, she tries a couple different detectives, but Detective Grice is definitely her top one. And so trying to incorporate that, I guess the biggest challenge was what I decided to do for the outline of the book is she is writing the Leavenworth case based on an actual mystery she's trying to solve.
00:16:02
Speaker
And so the biggest challenge was not just rewriting the Leavenworth case, right? I'm not rewriting it, but I am. I'm bringing it forward to modern audiences because if you go back and you read the original Leavenworth case, like it's very good, but it is definitely Victorian literature. There are some things in it that are
00:16:19
Speaker
It's slower paced, though it's actually very quick for a Victorian novel. It's not lame is, right? She doesn't go off on long tangents. Usually there's one big section where she does. But it's actually very fast paced for a Victorian novel, I feel like.
00:16:37
Speaker
So trying to figure out how to rewrite the Leavenworth case in a way that still was true to her own history. Didn't want to completely change everything. So finding those little tidbits, which actually brings to mind the quote that I have in the front of the book.
00:16:53
Speaker
So this is something Anna Catherine Greene says in an article. It's called Why Human Beings Are Interested in Crime. And it's one of the main articles that I love pulling quotes from because it's her talking about why she loves writing mysteries. And she says, I have found that the incidents in books which people pick out as improbable are the very ones which are founded on fact.
00:17:13
Speaker
truth is stranger than fiction. And I had to put that in the front because that is what this book is, is the things that my beta readers would point out and be like, I don't believe that. For example, the whole thing starting at, so they find the body and immediately you have the coroner arrive and they're having the coroner's inquiry right there in the house. Well, that happens in the Leavenworth case. And it was one of the things that I was like,
00:17:37
Speaker
Really? That's not how it works anymore, but maybe it was back then. I looked it up and it is. That's how they did it. They figured if they bring people in off the street, it's going to be peers because that's who's wandering the street is hopefully people that are probably around the same in the class system. If he dies on Fifth Avenue, it's going to be people who are his peers. They'd go pull random men off the street to come in. They go up and they view the body like it's right there.
00:18:05
Speaker
They see everything. They have the detective come in, but the detective's usually not really... At this point, they're not solving the way that Sherlock Holmes is going to change how detectives solve crime, though it's arguable that Anna did it first with Grace, because Grace is very methodical in the way that Sherlock becomes. But I guess the argument would be that Sherlock
00:18:29
Speaker
Somehow he reaches more people So he has more of an influence and I think it's because he's written by a man So Anna couldn't change the system that she was in because she was a woman in 1878 so and writing in 1872 But so things like the the coroner's inquiry, you know realizing that that was real and
00:18:50
Speaker
Those are things that several beta readers, right up through my ARC readers, were like, I don't believe that. Because that's one of the things I ask my beta readers to look for is, what do you not believe? And I was like, no, that's actually right here. Or she'd make a statement about something. I would put the words in Grice's mouth or in Sokol's mouth.
00:19:10
Speaker
And they're like, oh, I don't believe that. I'm like, okay, she literally says that in an article right here. So the incidents that you find improbable, those are based on truth, which makes it really fun because it's historical fiction. And so you get to fill in those crevices and find those loopholes that are missing from history and flush it out a little bit more.
00:19:32
Speaker
One of the main things I love about historical fiction, my favorite historical fiction to read and then my favorite to write that I try to bring through in my books, is bringing history forward to a modern audience, not by pushing our modern ideals on history, but actually the opposite, pointing out that nothing has changed.
00:19:48
Speaker
There's nothing new under the sun. People are still people and they might have dressed differently and had slightly different technology, but they're still dealing a lot with the same things, especially turn of the century. They were dealing with very similar labor problems with technology, with the industrial revolution. Oh my goodness, AI is going to take over everything, right? Is the problem now? Well, that was their complaint back then.
00:20:12
Speaker
technology is taking jobs from everybody and getting to incorporate that into my books and hopefully remind people as they're reading it going, oh, so she's a real flesh and blood woman who was dealing with a lot of the things of the time. And so you might pick up a Victorian novel, like you pick up the Leavenworth case and the women are fainting and it's very, and
00:20:35
Speaker
So that was one of the things that I wanted to approach with my book and have her talk about she actually has some very strong female characters in her books. The way she writes females is very different from other Victorian literature that you find at that time. And although they are fainting, you'll
00:20:54
Speaker
find by the end of the book, they are always doing it for a reason. They know very well what they are doing. They're using their femininity and what they have been given in the society that they are currently living in, what they can do with that to make their own choices and to move forward. I mean, Anna herself, she doesn't get married until she's, I think she's 38 when they actually get married.
00:21:16
Speaker
You know, the fact that she's a single woman pursuing her own career that her Oh, that was the other thing that people didn't believe was her father supporting her in that decision He didn't push her to get married and in Victorian novels. You're always seeing the father Oh, you need to get married and I think a lot of that is how the same thing you see now where it's commercial fiction and
00:21:36
Speaker
So people write what they think the world wants to hear, right, instead of what people actually think sometimes. And so in Victorian literature, you go back and you're like, oh, well, the women are all fainting, they're all wearing their courses too tight, and they're all, you know, weak women. And then you go back and you read historical accounts, and it's the exact opposite.
00:21:58
Speaker
you find proof that that is not true at all. So you cannot base your perception of literature of history based off of literature. You really need to look at historical accounts instead. And that's what I found with Anna was I was really pleased to go back and find just what a strong female figure she was and be able to incorporate that in the novel and bring that forward. I didn't need to paint her
00:22:23
Speaker
Like her characters in her book and instead I could point out, you know Okay, so if you read my book and then go read the Leavenworth case I want you to notice these choices that she's making because she's doing it on purpose. So Yeah, so the historical box. I love the historical box because it it's a challenge for me
00:22:41
Speaker
Well, and I loved in your book all of those pieces of history that you incorporated. And then in your author's note, you know, the explanation that you provided just to give that context and to say like, actually, this is how it happened. And just imagine if our justice system still operated that way, right? Like it would be.
00:23:12
Speaker
It's just funny. I write mystery novels, but I'm actually very squeamish. Like I can't handle a lot of things, especially like when it's like a video version versus, so like Agatha Christie, right, is a great example. I love Agatha Christie's books. The way they've been remaking some of her books lately is a lot less cozy than the original David Suchet, David Suchet BBC version, which is he's my Poirot, like,
00:23:37
Speaker
hands down. So I like those versions. The newer versions are a little, I can't handle it and I'm a mystery author. So if you were having dinner with Anna Catherine Green, what do you think you would want to ask her? So I was thinking about that. And
00:23:58
Speaker
Man, I think we would just get along so well. We would have a great conversation. I would want to ask her what her current project is, what's your current idea, how you get your ideas, which is interesting because actually one of the things I came across, so this summer I was able to drive out to Delaware and visit the Winterthur Research Museum out there because they had some original journals from Anna and her family
00:24:23
Speaker
So I have now held and seen her handwriting, which just makes me want to cry. It was so cool. Well, one of the things that they had was this journal from when they went overseas. So it's a record of what happened every day. I love it. It's so amazing. And it's an outline for a future book.
00:24:40
Speaker
I can have them go overseas and solve a mystery. It'll be amazing. Well, in the back of the book is notes on a mystery idea and it's just jotted down little ideas. And I don't know which book it is because I haven't read all of her books yet. I'm working my way through them. But I need to figure out like when, you know, look at the timeline of the journal and then when. So it's got to be some book that comes out after that. Right. And try to match it up so that I can have her be inspired to write
00:25:10
Speaker
this book, it supports my whole premise for writing a Dieter Dreadful Note. No, she really was solving mysteries and witnessing things and taking notes and then putting them into her books, just like I do, just like every mystery author does, every author does. I mean, you know,
00:25:25
Speaker
We all sit in in coffee shops and listen to conversations or at least we used to be able to do that. So now it's just surfing the internet and going, oh, that guy is having an odd conversation. Let's watch that. So the fact that like she actually did that. And so I'll be able to incorporate that. But if I think about like what I really want to ask her, it's coming back to my idea for the last book in the series. I want to know what her thoughts were when she watched
00:25:53
Speaker
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published Sherlock and become world famous and just eclipse her in a second. What was that like for her? Did it bother her? Did she not see it coming? Did she fight against it? I just wonder what those conversations would have been with her husband.
00:26:10
Speaker
oh my gosh this guy you know and he's coming over here and he wants to meet me what am I gonna say to him you know hi thanks for stealing my detective and making yours famous and mine is no longer remembered and or Agatha Christie and what was that like for her to realize that her time in the sun was over
00:26:28
Speaker
Which is a sad thought but also I think she honestly would have shrugged and been like I was made for such a time as this I had my time and God gave me the words to write at this point in time. And so I wrote them and Now we're moving on, you know history history moves forward. I hope I can have the same poise someday
Anna Catherine Green's legacy and reading recommendations
00:26:51
Speaker
because she she was in her time she she was quite popular she was right very popular she was literally the agatha christie of her day i mean she was it was articles after articles written about her and um you know her play with me or her uh
00:27:06
Speaker
debut novel was immediately made into a play which is equivalent today of you know someone coming along and turning your book into a movie or a TV show right so the fact that it was immediately picked up it did two or three tours her husband play a leading role in it and it's and then just seeing how many books she published she 36 books and whenever she would introduce some new idea so like when she introduces Mrs. Butterworth
00:27:35
Speaker
Miss Butterworth and she starts solving mysteries like that's gonna go on to inspire Agatha Christie to write Miss Marple and And then she later writes Violet Strange Who is a girl solving mysteries? So it's like Nancy Drew Which by the way, I loved your guys's You did a whole podcast So if anybody listening wants to hear more about Girl Guide mysteries and stuff
00:28:04
Speaker
these two uncovered some amazing early mysteries that inspired that, that I didn't know. I thought Anna Catherine Green had been first and I was wrong. She was inspired by others as well.
00:28:18
Speaker
One thing I love hearing about Patricia is that you've kind of been a detective in this. You know, you went and saw the journals and you're tracing it back and you're looking for clues that you may be related. And you're, so I feel like as somebody who loves mysteries, that's probably really fulfilling because you're doing your own detective work along the way.
00:28:39
Speaker
It's true. I hadn't thought about it that way. It's really exciting. Well, so if we have listeners out there and as you say, Anna Catherine Green is not on the tip of everyone's tongue anymore. But if somebody out there has not read any of her stories, where would you recommend they start? And kind of in general for some of that
00:29:00
Speaker
early mystery fiction. What tips do you have for readers? Most people start with the Leavenworth case. But as I said before, if you are not a fan of slow burn Victorian novels, maybe don't start there. But she's got several high points where she just really kicks it out of the park. The Leavenworth case is really good. It is her debut novel and she gets better.
00:29:24
Speaker
But it is what inspired Agatha Christie. It's what inspired my book. So if you want to, and it's very easy to find, it is probably the only Anna Catherine Green that is easy to find. If you walk into Barnes and Noble or anywhere and ask your independent local bookstore and ask for a book by Anna Catherine Green, if they do a search, the first thing that comes up is the Leavenworth case. And they might have a copy. The Leavenworth case has been reprinted in penguin editions and things like that.
00:29:54
Speaker
None of her other books have. It is very hard to find them. In fact, there are some of them that aren't even in print anymore. Most of them are not in print anymore.
00:30:06
Speaker
So sometimes you can find them as e-books, you can find them on Gutenberg, that kind of thing. But one of the things I'm hoping to track down is there's another museum in Texas that has first editions of almost all of her books. And so I'm hoping to get down there and actually uncover some of these books that have been lost and you can't find them anymore. And maybe even reprinting them myself just so that they're out there because
00:30:31
Speaker
Because yeah, they're amazing. So yeah, so Sloburn, Victorian, original, you know, you read the Leavenworth case. And like I say, in my book, there's just there's so many things that you go back, you read it, and you're like, Oh, my goodness, this is the first time, you know, X, Y and Z has been done. And I mean, Detective Grice himself is just, as soon as you meet him, you're like, Oh, my gosh, it's Sherlock, but it's nine years before Sherlock. Well, 15 years if you go back to when she started writing it.
00:31:00
Speaker
So, she comes up with Grice 15 years before Sherlock has hit the publication. And he doesn't look people in the eye. He's very methodical. People take him for granted and just kind of push him to the side. He's a consulting detective, that kind of thing. And he ends up, the main character in the Leavenworth case, it's told from the point of view of Watson, basically. I mean, that's who he is.
00:31:30
Speaker
as he's a lawyer and he ends up helping Grice solve the case. Grice has rheumatism, which is something that Sherlock ends up getting later in his life. And in fact, Anna Cassin Green and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote letters to each other through the newspaper that are Sherlock writing to Grice and Grice writing to Sherlock.
00:31:51
Speaker
It's lovely about the rheumatism specifically. And it's basically, it's all a marketing ploy. It's so brilliantly done because it's like, you know, well, perhaps, you know, your author should read my newest case. I love it. Yeah. And give you a sidekick like mine because to help with the rheumatism and, you know, all that, it's so, so fun. But then if you jump forward a little bit, one of my personal favorites is when she introduces Miss Amelia Butterworth.
00:32:19
Speaker
And her first one is That Affair Next Door, which was published in 1897. And that's her Spencer detective, who is the precursor for Miss Marple. So if you're a fan of Miss Marple, I would highly recommend you start with that one. She is very witty, very snarky for an 1897 woman, older woman, a woman of a certain age.
00:32:47
Speaker
and never got married. And so what Anna does so well with her is it's first person told through her point of view. And so because she's a woman, the way she sells the case and the things that she's noticing all have to do with being a woman. So it's noticing the hat pin and noticing the style of dress the woman is wearing. So that means she must be, oh, it's last season's gown. So it means, okay, she's hit some hard times or
00:33:13
Speaker
just things like that. She has to follow to the cleaners and track down who was cleaning and starching her gown and things like that. And so it's just very woman-centric. A man could not have solved this. Grace could not have solved this.
00:33:30
Speaker
mystery because he's not a woman and so It's just I love how she incorporated that so well And it and it becomes very clear that like she's always wanted to write a woman detective Which is why I put that in the first one
00:33:46
Speaker
In my book, Adidas Dreadful No, I have her, actually her first draft of the Leavenworth case. She has a female detective. And because I think she absolutely would have done that if she could have gotten away with it. But as we know, sometimes debut novels have a hard time seeing the light of day. She had no idea it was gonna be so famous. And I think the reason it was is because of Grace. But if that still is not your cup of tea, if you love Nancy Drew,
00:34:14
Speaker
if you love and if you want to read something that she wrote much later so towards the end of her career so you want to see like you know how far she came in her writing and if you like short stories. There's a collection called The Golden Slipper and Other Problems for Violet Strange and it was published in 1915.
00:34:33
Speaker
And that's the inspiration for Nancy Drew. Violet Strange is a young debutante. She's in high society and the way that she's described by the guy who hooks her up with the mysteries and stuff like that.
00:34:50
Speaker
is exactly like Nancy Drew. Basically, she can get into places that other people can't because she's high society. One of the main problems that detectives of that time and that policeman of that time faced, and you'll read this over and over again in historical fiction, it's nothing new.
00:35:08
Speaker
But it is really true to history is that they were considered, no one knew what class to put them in. It was a new position having policemen and detectives. And so because of the class distinctions, is he middle class? Is he even lower than middle class? Come into this upper class home.
00:35:27
Speaker
and be daring to ask questions and stick his nose into, you know, personal affairs and usually uncovering scandals because that's, you know, that was their job. And if there's a murder, it probably has something to do with a scandal. And so
00:35:41
Speaker
of Violet Strange can get into those situations without being noticed, right? So again, though, it's a female detective and a young woman. And so again, I just think Anna did a really good job of bringing those into publication. There's only that one collection, unfortunately, of Violet Strange, but it's a brilliant idea. And I'm glad that other authors took that idea and ran with it so that we have Nancy Drew and all of those wonderful stories now.
00:36:10
Speaker
So yeah, so there you go. Three different, depending on what you like to read, three different types of Anna Catherine Green you can uncover.
00:36:19
Speaker
That's wonderful. Thank you so much. So Patricia, this has been so great to speak to
Patricia's upcoming work and closing remarks
00:36:26
Speaker
you. Before we end today, can you tell our listeners where they can find you? Yeah. So I've got a website at patricia-merideth.com. And it's kind of a blog. I publish a lot of the history behind my writing.
00:36:43
Speaker
If you sign up for my newsletter right now, you get a free copy of The Leavenworth Case. I published it as an e-book with an introduction by me, so it's me tying it in, telling you a little bit more of the history behind it, and then, of course, tying it into Adidas Dreadful Note, which I should say, you don't have to have read The Leavenworth Case to read my book.
00:37:01
Speaker
In fact, I almost recommend that you do it vice versa, that you read my book and then read the Leavenworth case because then I think you will notice things in the Leavenworth case that you would not notice on a cursory read on your own. And also the end of deed of dreadful note, like I said, it follows the outline of the Leavenworth case. It is different though.
00:37:22
Speaker
I purposely made sure it was different enough and the answer to the who's the murderer and everything is different than the Leavenworth case So if you read my book first, it won't give away the ending One of those people which I'm one of those people I hate spoilers However, if you read the Leavenworth case first and then read my book you will notice a lot of lines that are pulled straight out of the Leavenworth case and you'll notice
00:37:45
Speaker
a lot of what I'm doing a little bit more. You'll kind of peek behind the curtain of how I tried to structure the book, like the Leavenworth case, and then how she's coming to those ideas and everything. So it's kind of fun to read it either way. I had beta readers who read it either way. And what was funny was reaching out to people and saying, so I needed to read this Victorian novel first, and then you can read my book. So it was specific people I had to ask that who were willing to do that for me.
00:38:13
Speaker
Because I wanted to know if someone had read the Leavenworth case, how they would view my book, right? It has to work both ways. So yeah, so my website, you can learn a lot more about Anna Catherine Green there. I'm trying to collect all of the articles that I used for research on there. And like I said, I'm uncovering more every day.
00:38:33
Speaker
And then I have like a blog that points out all of the quotes that are in a deed of dreadful notes So if you want like an annotated version of my book just print that off and put it next to your book Because it it points out every time I used a quote that was directly from an article Or from the Leavenworth case or from a poem, you know that kind of thing And it's kind of fun because then you can kind of see where it's all coming together in with that I also have a YouTube channel, which is at P Meredith author
00:39:02
Speaker
And on there, I do a lot of similar things. So it's a lot of history behind the mysteries. So if you're more of a visual or audio person, I would recommend checking that out. Because again, what I've been showing on there is like things like when I went to the Winterthur Museum. So you can see her handwriting and you can see the things that I uncovered there. I would kind of recommend not watching that particular one until you've read the book. If you Google Anna Katherine Green, you're going to see who she's going to end up with.
00:39:29
Speaker
Just that is a spoiler. And I did have some people do that. They were like, oh, yeah, so halfway through the book, I wanted to know what was real. And so I went and looked her up, and it answered a couple of things about her life that I probably shouldn't have known going into the book, but that's OK.
00:39:44
Speaker
It's still enjoyable. And then I'm on social media on Instagram and Facebook, mostly Instagram under the same thing. So at P Meredith author, I've got a new book coming out at Christmas in a new series because I'm nuts. And why not? Let's start a third mystery series. Um, and, uh, I'm really excited. It's a fantastical Christmas cozy mystery, um, because it follows a Sam shovel, who is a talking snowman who comes to life once a year at the North pole.
00:40:10
Speaker
And he works with Nick and Nora Claus, who are the Santa's, the lead Santas of the North Pole. And someone has murdered Mr. O. Tannenbaum, who is the leading Christmas tree salesman. And so he's been found murdered and the lead suspects are the other Santas of the Santa franchise from all across the world. And not to mention all the people who live at the North Pole. So we've got Rudolph and it's got enough Christmas references to choke a reindeer.
00:40:39
Speaker
It's so much fun. It's been so much fun. There's Christmas carols. There's Christmas movies. I mean, yeah, it's been so much fun putting that book together. And it just kind of happened. So that'll be coming out this Christmas wherever books are sold. Wonderful.
00:40:55
Speaker
That's fantastic, Patricia. Thank you so much for joining us today. We've been looking forward to this for a long time. And just like you, we're really proud and happy to be bringing more awareness about Anna Catherine Green to Mystery Lovers. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.
00:41:16
Speaker
And thank you all for listening to Clued in Mystery today. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery. Clued in Mystery is produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers at Silvermansound.com. Visit us online at CluedinMystery.com or social media at Clued in Mystery. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or telling your friends.