Travel riches

In various ways, the past few Type M posts have been about setting. Airports, our favourite places to write, and visiting new parts of the country. I too have been thinking about setting. I recently returned from a trip to Russia, with brief detours into Finland and Sweden. It's why I missed my last Type M post. I had a fight with Google, who wasn't happy with my trying to log in on a different device (my mini-iPad) in the middle of the Baltic Sea. It was even less happy when I couldn't confirm my identity using the code they sent to my iPhone (which had a Russian sim card that didn't work on the ferry to Stockholm). It deemed me a security threat, and I had to wait until I was home to convince it otherwise. Clearly the tech world has not caught up with world travelling.

I love travelling the world and seeing different landscapes, cultures, city-scapes, and lifestyles. Admittedly, one can do little more than scratch the surface in two weeks, but even two weeks through the eyes of an eager stranger can be enlightening. In preparation for my trip to Russia, I started to read A Gentleman in Moscow, set in the decades following the Communist Revolution. The author's wry, charming observations on Soviet life provided a rich backdrop to the sights I was seeing, especially now that Russia is in the post-Soviet era, allowing me an even longer view of history. I visited the summer and winter palaces of the tsars, which rival le Palais de Versailles in opulent, gilt-dripping excess. It is this lifestyle that our hero in the book lived as a young Count, and it was fun to imagine him, if not in these grand halls, at least dancing in something similar. And it was sobering to imagine the struggles of the peasants on whose backs all this extravagance was built.

The Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg

I wasn't able to finish the book while I was there, so I finished it at home, and this provided another kind of enjoyment. I had walked many of the squares and streets the author described in the book, and I'd sipped champagne at the famed Metropol where the Count spent forty years under house arrest. I could picture the potted palms and the marble floors.

Champagne at the Metropol Hotel with Vicki Delany

I could picture the grandeur of Nevsky Prospect in Saint Petersburg and the bridges over the Fontanka Canal. I could picture the walk up from the Moskva River past St. Basil's Cathedral into Red Square. What fun to follow a character through streets in your mind!

St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow

I have always made a point of visiting the settings that I write about, spending time there and trying to walk all the paths my characters will walk. I have travelled across Canada for each of the four Amanda Doucette books I have written so far, and have loved every minute of the exploration. Well, perhaps not the snowstorm in Calgary last fall I have learned so much about my country, and I hope that my books take my readers on a virtual voyage of discovery, even if they have never visited the places in reality.

I have also written ten books set in my own city of Ottawa, and I know how much local readers love buzzing around the familiar streets with Inspector Green. Here's a little hint of what is to come... An eleventh Inspector Green novel, which I have only just begun. Who knows what back alleys and elegant neighbourhoods I will drag into the spotlight this time!

My Year In Books, 2017

It’s time for my annual reading wrap-up, although a little delayed.

In 2017 I read 81 books, 5 more than last year, most of them mysteries and non-fiction though I did branch out to some horror/ghost stories and general fiction.

2017 was the year I discovered Marla Cooper’s Kelsey McKenna Destination Wedding Mysteries as well as Emily James Maple Syrup Mysteries and continued my love affair with Alyssa Maxwell’s Gilded Newport Mystery series.

My two favorites in the traditional/cozy mystery category are The Elusive Elixir by Gigi Pandian and The Skeleton Paints a Picture by Leigh Perry.

They’re both great books (and series) with good characters, but what makes me love them the most are Dory, the living gargoyle in Gigi Pandian’s series, and Sid, the living skeleton, in Leigh Perry’s series. They have such wonderful personalities that I want Dory to come to my house and cook vegan food for me (yes, a gargoyle that’s a vegan chef!) and I want Sid to come over and watch movies with me. I love Sid so much that I named a skeleton in the book I’m currently finishing up after him.

I read a lot of interesting non-fiction this past year including The One-Cent Magenta by James Barron (who knew a stamp could be so fascinating?), One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson and The Lost City of Z by David Grann (more interesting than the movie).


I even read some general fiction, something I rarely do. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is my favorite in this category. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I can see it as a film, one I’d watch repeatedly.

That’s my book wrap-up for the year. As usual, I have stacks of books around the house and a slew of them on my Kindle, waiting to be read, but I'm always looking for suggestions.

In other news: The audio versions of the first two books in my Aurora Anderson Mystery series (Fatal Brushstroke and Paint the Town Dead) are now available from Tantor Audio! They’re both read by the wonderful Vanessa Daniels. You can check them out here: Fatal Brushstroke  and Paint The Town Dead