LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

Not your average book launch

Peggy Blair is my idea of a Renaissance woman. She's a lawyer, a realtor, a visual artist and a mystery writer and her debut novel, The Beggar's Opera, is creating a big buzz in the publishing world.

The early reviews are in and they're darned good. Jim Napier, of Deadly Diversions calls it “a nuanced account of the struggles of two men to comprehend the sudden and unexpected turns in their complex lives. Blair nicely strings the reader along, casting doubt on what’s real and what’s imaginary, while serving up a tale that combines a penetrating commentary on Cuban life with a whodunit full of twists and turns … readers can look forward to following the further exploits of the enigmatic Cuban police detective.”

I've preordered the book and I'm looking forward to reading it but what's really caught my attention is the launch on February 16th at the Orange Art Gallery at the Parkdale Market, Ottawa. This will not be your average book launch. Peggy is known in Ottawa for the terrific parties she loves to throw, so the usual cold canapés and quiet author-reading just isn't in the cards for this shindig. She began planning a month or so ago and she's been sharing her plans on her blog, Getting Published. http://peggyblair.wordpress.com. Have a look. It makes great reading.

She told her publisher, Penguin Canada, that she was planning a Cuban party with authentic food and live Cuban music. Penguin would be able to cover rent for the venue, but where was the money for the food and the music and the cake we'd all been reading about on her blog to come from? Here's where the plot thickens

When Peggy was shortlisted for the Debut Dagger in 2010, she was invited to attend the awards ceremonies in Harrogate, England. She was between jobs at the time and the trip was going to cost more than she could comfortably afford. It was at this point that a community building movement began. She threw a Cuban dinner party for thirty people, asked each guest to contribute $35 and that along with other donations was enough to pay for the overseas flight. It was at this festival that she met Ian Rankin who in turn introduced her to his agent. The rest, as they say, is history.

But back to the launch. When it came time to nail down the details, Peggy's friends came forward again. Because we had stepped up to the Harrogate challenge, we were now stakeholders. We had an investment in the The Beggar's Opera and we needed this launch to be a success. It wasn't just Peggy's party any more it was ours too. Many offered to cook Cuban dishes for the event. Others threw in money to help with other expenses.

Peggy began contacting wine makers and soon had offers for free wine and even a fruit wine tasting. Beau's All Natural Brewing Company will bring the beer and someone else is providing chocolate cigars with the Penguin logo on the band.

Although people are bringing rum cake and opera cake, Peggy had her heart set on a cake in the shape of a 1957 Chevy that she saw on www.cakestudio.ca (seen here) and she found out that Kate Green Cakes from Kempville will duplicate the cake (in red and white) and transport it to the launch for a reasonable fee and a signed copy of the book.

It's amazing what people will do when they catch the spirit of an event. The mayor is coming as is Peggy's city counselor and the MPP for the area. "Will there be speeches?" I asked, when I talked to Peggy yesterday. "No!" said Peggy firmly. "And no author reading either. I just want to take a moment when the musicians are on break to thank everyone for all their help." That's a first in my experience.

Around 120 people have confirmed their attendance which is just about the capacity of the Orange Gallery. I've never heard of people being turned away from the launch of an author's debut book but this may be another first.

Peggy does say in her blog that if you would like to attend, to please contact her. She'll fit you in, I'm sure.


Sue Pike has published a couple of dozen stories and won several awards including an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Crime Story. Her latest, Where the Snow Lay Dinted appeared in the January issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Sue and her husband and an opinionated Australian Shepherd named Cooper spend the winter months in Ottawa and the rest of the time at a mysterious cottage on the Rideau Lakes.

LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

The Mighty Greenback

Well, we're finally settled in at the cottage. We were late getting here, what with one thing and another: Bloody Words, a couple of book launches and a visit with

grandchildren in California. But I'm here now and although I brought a fully-loaded Kindle as well as a big bag of books from those and other launches, I find myself fingering, sniffing, reading . . . Greenbacks. Now these aren't the American dollars usually associated with that word. The ones I'm talking about are the old Penguin Crime Classics. You know the ones I mean. They're plain and green with a band of white across the middle.

Here's what Penguin Books has to say about them: The first ten Penguin paperbacks were published in July 1935, including the first two Penguin Crime titles: The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L Sayers and The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie. In those days, all Penguin titles were given a stylish but uniform cover look which was colour coded: orange for fiction, blue for biography, and of course the famous green livery for ‘Mystery and Crime’.

I first started reading greenbacks when I was a child. My mother had shelves of them, both at our home in Toronto and at the old summer cottage on Lake Opinicon. I inherited the ones from Lawrence Park but the summer greenbacks are still lined up

at the old family cottage, owned now by my sister. They're a little moldy, damp and dog-eared from too much reading by too many generations, but they're still there. And whenever I paddle down from the other end of the lake, I end up borrowing one or two of them. It might be one I've read half a dozen times before but I can't resist delving into again. They smell of mildew and mouse and some of the pages are as brown as used coffee filters.

It might be a Michael Innes or a Gladys Mitchell or a Patricia Wentworth. I love those old mysteries with their long descriptive passages and witty conversations. The characters speak in fully formed and grammatically correct sentences and they don't interrupt one another. The clues are cleverly disguised and the detectives are often foppish pedants who can't resist gathering all the suspects together in one room so he (and it was almost always a he) can show the upper classes how clever he's been. You couldn't possibly sell a manuscript like that today. They're far too plot-driven. The characters are stereotypes. The murder methods are contrived.

But I love them. For me they bring back those summer evenings of my childhood when I read them by the light of a coal oil lamp and the whip-poor-wills sang in the distance.

I like my new Kindle and I hope it will serve me well on trips to places where English books aren't readily available. But I never expect to feel the same fondness or nostalgia for it as I do for these old greenbacks.


Sue Pike has published a couple of dozen stories and won several awards including an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Crime Story. Her latest, Where the Snow Lay Dinted appeared in the January issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

Sue and her husband and an opinionated Australian Shepherd named Cooper spend the winter months in Ottawa and the rest of the time at a mysterious cottage on the Rideau Lakes.