Today I’m hosting author, Kay Kendall.
Kay Kendall is an award-winning author of three historical mysteries. Her second book, RAINY DAY WOMEN (2015), won for best mystery and best book at Killer Nashville in August 2016. It is the second in her Austin Starr mystery series. The first was DESOLATION ROW (2013), published by Stairway Press. After You’ve Gone, an Austin Starr prequel, was released February 12, 2019.
In her previous career, Kay was an award-winning international PR executive, working in the US, Canada, Russia, and Europe. She has graduate degrees in Russian history and was a Woodrow Wilson Scholar at Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Kay and her Canadian husband live in Houston, Texas. They’ve rescued abandoned pet bunnies for twenty years and currently have three rabbits and a bemused spaniel, Wills.
Welcome Kay. Please tell us a little about yourself.
As an author of historical mysteries, I’ve traded the fraught world of the late 1960s for the gin-soaked 1920s. While my first two mysteries are named for Bob Dylan songs—DESOLATION ROW and RAINY DAY WOMEN—this new book takes the name of a song popular in the Jazz Age and still around today. (Fiona Apple sings it on YouTube—“After You’ve Gone.”)
The whims of crime fiction fascinate me. Some historical periods draw readers in, while others are not as popular. The Roaring Twenties has boomed in the last decade. The hippie-laden, anti-war sixties has not.
Although I personally love writing about the sixties, I decided to try my hand at something different, and Wallie MacGregor was born. I borrowed some bits from my Texas relatives’ histories. Most important—Wallie’s birth name is Walter, after her father the judge. And my Texas grandmother was exactly the same.
I’ve spent a lifetime wondering how naming a baby girl Walter changed my grandmother’s life. Growing up in Texas, in a real town near where I situate my fictional one of Gunmetal, my grandmother became a real tomboy. She hunted, fished, rode horses and kept it up into her old age. As a matron, however, she founded the Dallas Orchid Society and wore lacy dresses and big picture hats to church and raised three children—my dad being the middle child.
I hope you will enjoy the tale I wrote that was inspired by her life—truly a woman for all seasons. Here is an excerpt from AFTER YOU’VE GONE.
After You’ve Gone- An Austin Starr Mystery Prequel.
When a long-lost relative turns up on the run from his rum-running mob boss and soon dies in a freak accident in small-town Texas during Prohibition, only 23-year-old Wallie believes it was murder. Driven by her love for Sherlock Holmes tales, Wallie pursues the truth only to encounter flappers and floozies, Chicago thugs sent by Al Capone, and a crime lord of the sinful port city of Galveston. Indulged by her father the judge but urged by her prim aunt to be a proper lady, Wallie plays amateur sleuth while courted by two eligible suitors. Will she stay alive long enough to figure out which one is her true love?
Here’s a short excerpt from After You’ve Gone:
CHAPTER ONE
1962
Being a girl with a boy’s name caused me to hanker after adventure. Maybe. All I know is that for as long as I can remember, I’ve always craved it. And for just as long, I danged near got none.
My parents expected a son. That explains their naming me Walter—after my father, the judge. As a male, I could’ve gotten away with daring adventures. Instead, my parents kept the male name and my family saddled me with endless rules of decorum. They groomed me to become the proper wife of some pillar of our community. But a nice married matron who ran a beautiful home was nothing I aspired to be, believe me.
What’s in a name? Shakespeare asked in Romeo and Juliet.
To that question, I always answer, “Plenty.”
Like me, you, my darling granddaughter, received a male name.
While my Walter is usually softened to Wallie, you are and remain simply Austin. That name is tough to shorten. It stands strong, just as you do.
I’ve always thought this trait we share explains the grounding for our compatibility. Neither of us could be accused of being overly feminine in the traditional manner. We both like to speak our minds and go our own way. Despite getting lots of pushback, we keep going. I hope my example has helped you.
My ✰✰✰✰✰ Review
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this 1920s historical mystery. The protagonist Wallie, a tenacious amateur detective, whetted by Sherlock Holmes stories, who along with her prim and proper Aunt Ida, manages to solve the murder of her long-lost uncle, when every man in town believes his death to be an accident. This was a time well before women’s liberation, so she had to overcome her father’s indignation, the small minds in her hometown of Gunmetal, TX, along with gangsters and flappers in free-wheeling Galveston, to find the answers she needs to put together the last days of her uncle’s life.
Well-written, with a great supporting cast of characters. I highly recommend, After You’ve Gone.
Website URL: http://AustinStarr.com
Blog URL: http://thestilettogang.blogspot.com/2016/09/let-good-times-roll.html < http://thestilettogang.blogspot.com/> I blog every third Wednesday of each month.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KayKendallAuthor/ & https://www.facebook.com/kendall.kl
Twitter: @kaylee_kendall
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaykendallmysteries
Buy After You’ve Gone on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/After-Youve-Gone-Mystery-Prequel/dp/1949267164/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=after+you%27ve+gone+kendall&qid=1550673530&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull
And Barnes & Noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/after-youve-gone-kay-kendall/1130303178?ean=9781949267167
Kay and I would love to hear from you, so please feel free to leave a comment.
