Scientist Jen J. Danna Authors New Forensic Mystery

Jen J. Danna is our guest blogger. As a scientist specializing in infectious diseases, Jen works as part of a dynamic research group at a cutting-edge Canadian university. Her true passion, however, is indulging her love of the mysterious through her writing. Together with her partner Ann Vanderlaan, she crafts suspenseful crime fiction with a realistic scientific edge for Five Star/Cengage. Jen lives near Toronto, Ontario with her husband and two daughters, and is a member of the Crime Writers of Canada.

The Killer Days of Prohibition

My writing partner Ann and I love to find an interesting theme around which to base each of our Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries. Be it fire, witchcraft or photography, we use the theme as an overarching concept in our storytelling. From our point of view, it makes writing the novel more interesting. But, clearly, readers enjoy it also since that is one of the most noted aspects of our writing in reviews. In TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER, the overarching theme is the history of Prohibition that backs the entire case that Matt, Leigh and the team are investigating.

Prohibition was an interesting time in American history, and to this day the Eighteenth Amendment remains the only amendment to the Constitution of the United States to be repealed. Amendment XVIII, ratified in January 1920, was an attempt to shape social change: because alcohol was seen as the ‘devil’s brew’ and people were considered too weak to escape its clutches, temperance was federally legislated. An interesting aspect of that legislation was that it was only illegal to produce, transport, store, or sell alcohol. Once in a person’s possession, it was completely legal for individuals to possess and drink it. Amendment XXI repealed Amendment XVIII more than a decade later.

Prohibition was doomed from the start for several reasons. First and foremost, it proved to be impossible to enforce. Not only were the country’s legislators and enforcers—politicians and law enforcement at multiple levels—breaking the law themselves by continuing to imbibe, but the overwhelming majority of people themselves were unhappy with the law, and went to extreme lengths to circumvent it, sometimes at risk to their own lives.

But one of the biggest reasons Prohibition failed was the rise of both the Mob and the black market to fill the hole left by the removal of legal alcohol sales. When demand for the product went underground, so did the supply. Alcohol was brought by boat into ports like Boston and New York, or was carried overland from border countries Canada and Mexico. Speakeasies—illegal establishments for the express purpose of selling alcohol—flourished, most run by the Mob. Some speakeasies were world-class entertainments in major cities like New York or Chicago, boasting expensive drinks and elaborate floor shows. Jazz was the music of the day and many musicians got their start playing in speakeasies. But behind the glitz and glamour, a war waged between rival mobs and between those same mobs and law enforcement. Violence skyrocketed as individual mobs fought to corner local markets, often at the expense of mob and civilian bystanders; gang shootings in the streets and massacres were not uncommon during the time. Mob bosses rose to superstardom when they used their amassed riches to open soup kitchens for the poor during the Depression, further complicating law enforcement’s attempts to shut them down because they were so well loved by the common man.

This is the fascinating backdrop of TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER—the world of clandestine speakeasies, the mob and dirty politicians:

Prohibition was a time of clandestine excess—short skirts, drinking, dancing . . . and death. But a murder committed so many years ago still has the power to reverberate decades later with deadly consequences.

It’s a double surprise for Trooper Leigh Abbott as she investigates a cold case and discovers two murder victims in a historic nineteenth-century building. Together with forensic anthropologist Matt Lowell and medical examiner Dr. Edward Rowe, she uncovers the secrets of a long-forgotten, Prohibition-era speakeasy in the same building. But when the two victims are discovered to be relatives—their deaths separated by over eighty years—the case deepens, and suddenly the speakeasy is revealed as ground zero for a cascade of crimes through the decades. When a murder committed nearly forty years ago comes under fresh scrutiny, the team realizes that an innocent man was wrongly imprisoned and the real murderer is still at large. Now they must solve three murders spanning over eighty years if they hope to set a wronged man free.

TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER is out this week and can be found at your favorite booksellers: Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, and Barnes and Noble.

Note: Your thoughts and comments are most welcome here.

Interview With Author Jen J. Danna by Jacqueline Seewald

As a scientist specializing in infectious diseases, Jen J. Danna works as part of a dynamic research group at a cutting-edge Canadian university. Her true passion, however, is indulging her love of the mysterious through her writing. Together with her partner Ann Vanderlaan, she crafts suspenseful crime fiction with a realistic scientific edge. Her Skeleton Keys blog at www.jenjdanna.com has been listed by ITSGOV and BestCriminalJustice.com as one of the top forensic blogs on the web. Jen lives near Toronto, Ontario with her husband and two daughters, and is a member of the Crime Writers of Canada. You can reach her at jenjdanna@gmail.com.

First, Jen, congrats on the great review your novel received from Kirkus.

Question: What is the title and genre of your novel?  Why did you select them?

Answer: DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT is a forensic mystery.

The title is a line from the poem "Across the Lines", written by Ethel Lynn Eliot Beers in 1865. Composed during the American Civil War, the poem tells of a Union soldier, fallen on the battlefield and on the brink of death, who fears being buried in an unmarked grave without a headstone to tell the world of his passing. It was a perfect fit for the main theme of the novel:

Dead? and here — where yonder banner
Flaunts its scanty group of stars,
And that rebel emblem binds me
Close within those bloody bars.
Dead? without a stone to tell it,
Nor a flower above my breast!
Dead? where none will whisper softly,
"Here a brave man lies at rest!"

Question:   What inspired this novel? How did it come about?

Answer: Both my partner and I are scientists (lucky Ann, she’s retired!) so our combined scientific backgrounds play heavily into the direction of our writing. I’ve always thought forensic anthropology is fascinating—how the study of decomposed or skeletal remains can tell the story of a victim’s death when they can no longer speak for themselves. So when we started writing crime fiction, it was natural for us to incorporate a strong and realistic science angle into our storytelling.

Question:  Could you tell us a little bit about the heroine and/or hero of your novel?

Answer:  The Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries series features dual protagonists.  Leigh Abbott is a murder cop with the Massachusetts State Police. As the only woman in the unit, she is on the fringe of her own department and is constantly fighting to fit in. Her partner is Dr. Matt Lowell, a forensic anthropologist at Boston University. Matt’s years as a Marine medic in Afghanistan still haunt him, but are directly responsible for pushing him into his current career in science. Together, Matt and Leigh solve the hardest mysteries—those with so little evidence that only the sharpest eye and the strongest intuition can solve them.

Question:   Can you tell us about some of your other published novels or work?

Answer:  My partner and I have written the second full length novel in this series (A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH) which will release in May 2014, and a novella to bridge the two books (NO ONE SEES ME ‘TILL I FALL) in the fall of 2013.

Question:   What are you working on now?

Answer:  We’ve just starting outlining the third book in the series and hope to have it drafted by early fall for 2015 publication.

Question:   What made you start writing?

Answer: I used to write just for fun as a pre-teen, but then gave it up in high school when I got involved in a number of extra-curricular activities. Then came university, marriage, kids, and I didn’t think about writing again for almost 25 years. But then about 6 years ago the bug bit again. I’d been in the same job for about 16 years and my kids were older and suddenly I had time to dabble again. Shortly thereafter I met Ann. We wrote 5 practice novels together before we decided to take a stab at traditional publishing. DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT is the product of that attempt.

Question:   What advice would you offer to those who are currently writing novels?

Answer: Be persistent. If it's something you really want to do, give it your all. I always thought that it was better to try and fail than to lack the courage to try and then look back in 20 years and wonder 'what if...?'. Failure was preferable to regret.

Question:  Where and when will readers be able to obtain your novel?

Answer: DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT is available now through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Chapters and independent booksellers. For those who would like to preview the first three chapters of the novel, it is available here on my website: DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT, CHAPTERS 1 - 3

Readers, now is the time to comment, welcome Jen, and ask any questions you might have regarding her work.