Home Sweet Homicide - but please don't try this in your own home

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In August, at Calgary's annual When Words Collide Festival for writers and readers I sat on a panel titled Home Sweet Homicide: the multitude of ways victims die at or near their homes. The moderator asked us panelists to describe the various methods we'd used in our mystery novels and why we'd chosen those approaches. 

I talked about my Paula Savard Mystery Series set in Calgary. Paula, my sleuth, is an insurance adjuster whose work gets her involved in crimes. In books # 2 and 3 of the series, Paula investigates a building fire and a hit-and-run collision near a victim's home. She comes to suspect both apparent accidents were coverups for murder. Book # 4 begins with Paula investigating a theft from a bicycle store during the COVID-19 pandemic. A murder takes place in the adjacent furniture store, which has closed for the pandemic and become the home of a squatter. The victim is bashed on the head with a weapon of opportunity: a candlestick from the store's dining room display. 

Home Sweet Homicide panel at WWC 2025

The panel's most engaging questions related to the allure of poisons and medications thanks to our expert panelist, Lee-Anne Hancock, a retired nurse who worked at the BC Drug and Poison Information Centre. Lee-Anne told us about ordinary plants and medicines that can kill if used incorrectly -- or correctly from a killer's perspective. She noted that poisoning has been called the female murderer's method of choice, perhaps because it is less messy and violent and doesn't require physical strength.

As a mystery writer, I'm intrigued by the medicinal method that can easily be disguised as an accident. In two of my short stories, someone kills a relative by administering an overdose of their prescribed medicine. Even if suspicions arise and victims are autopsied, it would be normal for traces of their own medicines to show up in their bloodstreams. 

In my novel, A Killer Whisky, set in 1918 Calgary, a man dies in his living room after drinking a glass of whisky. His symptoms are consistent with the "Spanish Flu" that has struck the city and the attending doctor diagnoses the flu as the cause of death. But the man's neighbour, who is the doctor's receptionist, suspects someone laced the whisky with a poison or a medicine that reacted with the alcohol to produce a toxic brew. She convinces a sympathetic police detective to investigate.       

The Home Sweet Homicide panel took a light hearted approach that entertained the audience at the end of a busy festival day. Afterward, I pondered why I've tended to kill off my novel victims in their homes or on nearby streets rather than farther away. I came up with three thoughts. 

1. My killers and victims always know each other, which is most common with real life murders, and relatives and friends often hang out together at or near their homes.  

2. Homes are, by definition, private rather than public. There will likely be fewer potential witnesses to a crime and perhaps no witnesses. Any friends or relatives present might lie or conceal information to protect themselves, someone else, or the victim.  

3. Home is supposed to be our safe place. A home break-in feels like a violation, and a killing in our home or neighbourhood threatens our sense of security.  

Me on the Home Sweet Homicide panel, perhaps contemplating a question 

 

     

Whisk(e)y -- with an 'e' or not?

                                     

                                      Please click this link to learn about the author and her books

When I heard that BWL Publishing planned to publish a series of Canadian historical mystery novels, I was eager to get involved. In 2021, I wrote a mystery short story set in my home city, Calgary, Alberta, during the second and deadliest wave of the 1918 influenza pandemic. I showed the story to a writer-in-residence, who suggested I turn it into a novel. This intrigued me, but I polished the short story and submitted it to the Crime Writers of Canada 40th anniversary anthology. My story, A Deadly Flu, was accepted and published last spring in Cold Canadian Crime. 

But BWL's plan prompted me to consider how I could expand my 4,500 word story into a 75,000 word novel. I mulled ideas and decided I'd add three new characters to the story: two suspects and female protagonist, Catherine. I'd still keep my original detective protagonist as a secondary narrator. He and Catherine would both have personal story arcs, including a romantic subplot. WWI would also feature more prominently in the novel, as the story built to the November 11th Armistice. 

Confident these additions would give the story sufficient fodder for a novel, I asked BWL if I could write one of the books. The concept for the BWL Canadian Historical Mystery Series is that twelve different authors or author-pairs would write novels set in our ten Canadian provinces and two of our territories. Authors would have free rein over what to write, as long as the novel features a crime, takes place during a real historical time period, and is 70,000-80,000 words to keep the book sizes uniform. BWL assigned me the story set in my home province of Alberta.

The series will be published over a period of almost two years. Since I won't have time to start writing my novel before this summer, I asked for the last publication date, December 2024.  The first  Canadian Historical Mystery comes out this month. Rum Bullets and Cod Fish by H. Paul Doucette, set in Nova Scotia, sounds like roaring fun. "The year is 1924 and Prohibition is spawning a new breed of criminal." An undercover investigator tracks the ringleaders illegally transporting liquor to the US mob. 

Since BWL is promoting the whole series right away, they asked each author to provide a title, story blurb, and suggestions for cover images. Luckily, I have a framework for my novel -- my short story and my ideas for expansion. From this, I came up with a blurb. I also needed a new title. My short story title, A Deadly Flu, was a wink at my first novel,  A Deadly Fall. For a novel I'd want something to distinguish the two books. Words like dead, murder, kill, secrets, and their variations are popular for mystery titles. I also find concrete nouns in titles conjure strong images. The weapon in my story is whisky laced with a lethal drug. I settled on a title, A Killer Whisky.

During this process, I discovered a potential problem with the word 'whisky.' Ireland and the USA spell whiskey with an 'e,' unlike Canada and the rest of the world. My research suggests this might have  been due to Ireland's desire to distinguish its whiskey from Scottish whisky. Did Canada adopt the Scottish spelling because many of our early explorers and fur trade merchants came from Scotland, while whiskey became popular in the US with waves of Irish immigration? That's my best guess. 

I debated changing my title to one that wouldn't confuse American readers, or using US spelling, or making the poisoned drink a non-spelling-controversial liquor, like rum. But whisky is so concrete that I can almost smell it when I hear the word. It's also infamous in western Canadian history. Our fur trade is often called the whisky trade, which caused alcoholism problems for indigenous people. In the end, I decided to stay with whisky and Canadian spelling. Early in the novel, I'll have a character point out the difference between the countries, so US readers won't think I can't spell. 

For images, I suggested  a bottle or glass of whisky, as well as a piano. I plan to start the novel with my protagonist playing the instrument and music will feature through the story. Michelle Lee, BWL's cover designer, worked with my suggestions and created a stunning cover. I love the golden whisky colour against the black background. I can hear the clashing chord as the glass hits the piano keys. The glass of whisky stops the music, like murder.  

 

    

       

                      

 

Growing a Short Story to a Novel

 

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Last fall I wrote a historical mystery short story and showed the first four pages to a local Writer-in-Residence. The WIR's main advice was to turn the story into a novel. I had no clue how I'd do this and she didn't offer suggestions, but I was intrigued by the idea. 

Then this spring BWL decided to publish a collection of Canadian Historical Mysteries. They assigned thirteen of their authors to write a novel set in a specific Canadian province or territory. The collection will have twelve books -- British Columbia is co-authored and Nunavut/Northwest Territories will be reunited in one of the books. I'm delighted to represent my home province of Alberta. 

BWL asked us to provide a working title and novel blurb, which they'll publish in a free guidebook as advance promotion. This got me mulling ways to expand my short story, which was set in Calgary during the 1918 influenza pandemic and told through the viewpoint of a police detective. The WIR's other suggestion was to change the protagonist to a character who was present at the victim's death, to make that aspect of the story more immediate. One of the suspects appealed to me as a point-of-view narrator, but if I let readers enter his thoughts I'd lose him as a suspect. Also, while I like experimenting with male protagonists in short stories, I prefer to write female protagonists for novel-length works. This led to my idea for a new character and protagonist, the sister of that suspect. She will be motivated to solve the crime to know if her brother or someone close to him is guilty of murder. 

I plan to keep my detective as a secondary narrator. His investigations and personal story will add many pages to the book. In the short story, he had a romantic interest in a co-worker. For the novel I'll shift his interest to my heroine to enhance their relationship. She's married, but her husband has been overseas for four years, fighting in The Great War, and she's changed during that time. Her feelings for the detective will create lots of conflict for them both. 

My other idea is to create a new suspect for this longer story; a man who opposes the war. The victim and my heroine's brother are injured veterans, who received early discharges. WWI officially ended November 11, 1918, in the middle of the second and deadliest wave of the influenza pandemic, but most of the Canadian troops didn't return until the following spring. I'd like to make the war more present in the novel than it was in the short story, from the perspectives of those on the home front. 

I'm satisfied these additions and changes will be enough to expand my 4,500 word short story to a 75,000 word novel, the median length of the books in the collection. More importantly, I'm eager to write the larger story to develop these characters and find out what happens to them in the new version. 

In effect, the short story is my novel outline. I'm sure much will change in the process of writing the book. Even whodunnit and why the person done it and how he or she done it are up for grabs. So if you read the short story, don't worry about spoilers.  After I showed the WIR those first pages, the short story was accepted for publication. It appears in the recently released Cold Canadian Crime Anthology, available on Amazon, Kobo, and other sites.

 

A new title will be one definite change for the novel. My short story title "A Deadly Flu" was a wink at my first novel, A Deadly Fall. Two similar novel titles would create confusion. 

Here's the cover for the Canadian Historical Mysteries guidebook, which you will soon be able to download for free to read the twelve novel descriptions. 

                For updates, check out the BWL Canadian Historical Mysteries Page

   

 

My Short Stab at Historical Fiction by Susan Calder

 

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One thing I like about writing short stories is the chance to explore genres and characters different from those of my novels. Last fall I completed my first work of historical fiction, a 4,500-word story set during the 1918 influenza pandemic. A Deadly Flu is also my first short whodunit and my first police procedural. I've featured detectives in secondary roles before, but not as story protagonists. 

My idea for A Deadly Flu took root almost two years ago, when the COVID-19 pandemic revived my interest in that earlier virus, which was inaccurately called the Spanish flu. I first heard about the 1918 pandemic on an episode of the 1970s television show, Upstairs Downstairs, when the young wife of the wealthy Bellamy family's son developed a fever and died the same day. 

 During the summer of 2020, I read books and articles about the 1918 pandemic and was struck by its relevance a hundred years later. The prime advice in both pandemics was the same: wash your hands, social distance and avoid crowds. The 1918 Pandemic's second and mostly deadly wave struck my home city of Calgary from October to December 1918. Business, churches and bars closed. People wore masks and lived in fear. 

 Around this time, I was mulling ideas for my fourth mystery novel, to be set during our current pandemic, and wondered if the 1918 flu might provide a parallel backstory. I got the idea of a pharmacist who murders her lover by pouring a medicine that mimicked the 1918 flu's symptoms into his whisky. When he died, the medical profession’s tunnel vision assumed this was another influenza death.

I began writing the backstory as a suspense from the killer’s viewpoint and enjoyed researching Calgary neighbourhoods of the time, along with its streetcar system, fashion, and particulars of the city-wide lockdown. But by the end of the draft, I realized my long ago story wouldn't add enough interest to the contemporary mystery I had in mind. I set the backstory aside and plunged into the current novel. 

                                               Nov 11, 1918 - Calgary WWI Victory parade 

Then the Crime Writers of Canada put out a call for submissions for its 40^th anniversary anthology. Stories had to be set in Canada, feature 'cold' in some way, and be under 5,000 words. I hauled out the backstory and set it during a Calgary cold wave in December 1918, with a detective, rather than a villain, protagonist. A benefit of writing a detective from the early twentieth century is that I didn't have to know about DNA, data bases, and other modern police gadgetry. Since I only had a short space to establish reader connection with my protagonist, I gave him a wound--his wife had died a year earlier in childbirth--and developed a romantic subplot.   

I wrote the story, sent it off, and was thrilled last month to learn A Deadly Flu will be included in the Cold Canadian Crime Anthology, to be released this May. Meanwhile I've been working on my novel-in-progress. Inspired by my historical detective, for the first time in a novel I’m including the viewpoints of two detectives in addition to my insurance adjuster sleuth. I foresee much research into modern police work. One day soon, I’d like to write a historical novel and, perhaps, develop A Deadly Flu into a novella, a genre I haven't tried. That’s another thing I like about writing short stories—they can be stepping stones to future books.