I am most pleased to welcome back Vicki Delany, one of Type M for Murders founders and long-time members. She is here to tell us all about her new series set in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. Take it away, Vicki!
Researching the Catskills Resort Mysteries
1953. I was there, but I wasn’t exactly taking notice of the social and political environment of the day, so when I decided to write a series set in 1953 I had to do a lot of research. Fortunately, it was easy.
It’s the Catskills. Comedians and big bands and glamorous singers. Paddle boats and bellhops, tomato cocktails and Jell-O salads, swimsuit competitions and unattended children.
1953 really wasn’t so long ago. Unlike writers with books set in, say Ancient Rome, or 18th Century Venice, I could watch movies. Not movies set in the era I am interested in, but actually made then. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing, Esther Williams in the water, gritty hard-boiled detectives like Sam Spade in the Maltese Falcon (although that was made in 1941). Movies are a fantasy, sure, but they are also reflective of their times. I watched the dance movies for scenes in the ballroom of my Catskills Hotel. I listened to big band music by the likes of Glenn Miller, as recommend by Type M’s own Rick. I studied the clothes, the furniture, the tilt of a cigarette in the mouth of a sophisticated woman and listened to the expressions.
I also read a lot of cookbooks from the era and looked at design magazines. Many of these are available online. I can’t say I tried cooking anything I read about though. Jell-O salads with canned pineapple just doesn’t appeal.
All of which helped me, I hope, to create the feel of the times, particularly in those minor but important details such as the cut of a character’s dress or her hair style or what she might order from the bar.
As for the specific history of the Catskills at the time of the famous resorts, there’s a lot of first-hand information available. Many people have very fond memories of the times they spent at the great hotels, or cheap bungalow colonies, either as guests or as employees, or children of owners and employees. “Mountain Rats” the latter called themselves.
1953. The Catskills. Put them together and you have my new series, the Catskills Resort Mysteries. Out front: swimming pool, beach, lounge chairs, tennis games, cards on the veranda, a full dining room, helpful bellhops. Behind the scenes: offices full of women pounding typewriters and answering phones, harried switchboard operators, temperamental cooks, non-stop smoking. Hundreds of employees from gardeners to bellhops to chambermaids to entertainment directors, lifeguards, and dance instructors.
And at the center of it all, Elizabeth Grady, war-widow, bookkeeper, reluctant resort manager. Her mother, Olivia Peters, retired Broadway dance star and unexpectedly the owner of a Catskills resort.
So take a trip back in time with Elizabeth and Olivia and enjoy your visit to Hagerman’s Catskills Resort. It is, after all, 1953.
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Vicki is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. Vicki is the 2019 recipient of the CWC’s Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.
