Amanda Chapman, author of Mrs Christie at the Mystery Guild Library, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today to introduce us to Nicola Van Dyne and her cousin Nic

Welcome, Amanda. I’ll turn the floor over to you –

As book conservator for Manhattan’s Mystery Guild Library, Tory Van Dyne prides herself on living a safe, sane, sensible life. So she’s not exactly pleased when she discovers a woman in the library’s Christie Room who calmly introduces herself as Agatha Christie (which Tory totally does not believe), politely requests a cocktail, and announces she’s there to help solve a murder—that has not yet happened.

But happen it does. And soon Tory and the woman claiming to be her very much deceased literary idol begin to unravel the twists and turns of a murderer’s devious mind, aided by an unlikely band of fellow sleuths—including her socialite/actor cousin Nicola, a snarky librarian, an NYPD detective with terrible taste in suits, and an eleven-year-old Irish computer whiz.

Today, I’d like to introduce you to Tory’s cousin Nic, popularly known as one of the three Belles of Broadway. Actually, let’s let Tory do the honors: 

“And then there was my younger cousin Nic, whose “reality mirrors fiction” debut as Christine in Broadway’s Phantom of the Opera was theater lore. Here was a girl stepping in at the last minute to replace the lead in a play about a girl stepping in at the last minute to replace the lead in a play. And the crowd had loved it. From the moment Nic began to sing her little heart out with a ringing “Think of Me,” the audience was hers. And for the next two years, she was theirs. Nic absolutely blossomed in the limelight, whether onstage or off.

Onstage was better, of course, but off was fun, too. As a card-carrying member of New York’s charity gala brigade, Nic was a photographer’s dream, and her wide, delighted smile and outré fashions often spiced up the staid society columns of Town & Country and Avenue Magazine. Besides being, in Nic’s view, “super fun,” this ubiquity on the red carpet ensured that she remained in the public eye when she was “resting between roles.” And if there was no red carpet available, she thought nothing of shimmying out of the latest Alexander McQueen confection to frolic with her two best friends in Central Park’s Three Dancing Maidens fountain wearing only her teeny, tiny silk La Perlas. A photo of which escapade, when posted online by the New York Post, absolutely blew up the internet.”

It is Nic who is the true Van Dyne in the way that Tory can’t be:

“I had always been an observer of life rather than a participant. In fifth grade, while Nic was rehearsing her starring role as Maria in the Spence School production of The Sound of Music, I was diligently scribbling away at my book report on Murder on the Orient Express. In high school, while Nic devoured Teen Vogue’s advice on “50 Ways to Rock Your Own Look,” I was researching my senior paper on “Costume as Character in Golden Age Mysteries.”

            Nic lived her life out loud. I lived mine at a whisper.”

Well, not for long Tory Van Dyne. Because that night — that rainy Sunday night in late September when a woman wearing well-polished brogues, sensible tweeds, five strands of big, fat pearlsanda hat like a deflated soufflé introduced herself as Agatha Christie —  Nic arrived with a little problem:

“In front of me, huddled under the Ionic-columned portico to avoid the rain, was my cousin Nic. That day, she was all Cool Cinderella in a blue satin Fendi jacket, white Rag & Bone jeans and red Doc Martens. She’d accessorized her look with a pair of chandelier earrings made of some hippie-looking red beads that matched the boots perfectly. She’d clearly rushed out without an umbrella, but even dripping wet, she looked great.”

     “I have a problem,” Nic said.

Before I asked what the problem might be—because with Nic there is always a problem—I felt obliged to point out the perils of going out on a rainy evening without an umbrella. “You know, Nic, you’ve pretty much ruined that Fendi jacket.”

“Oh, Tory,” Nic wailed, “Who cares about a stupid jacket?” Well, you would usually. “This is an emergency.”

Even then, I wasn’t particularly worried. All of Nic’s little problems tended to be emergencies.

I glanced back at the staircase, nervous about leaving my visitor alone for too long. “Can it wait?” I asked. “I’m a little busy at the moment.”

“No, it can’t wait,” Nic keened. “Oh, Tory, somebody’s poisoned Bertram!”

It is only much later, looking back to that fateful night, that Tory wonders if she “somehow knew then that my safe, sane, sensible life was as dead as a body with a knife in its back in one of Dame Agatha’s own mysteries.”

Thank you for sharing this with us, Amanda, and good luck with Mrs Christie at the Mystery Guild Library. Readers can learn more about Amanda Chapman by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Instagram and Goodreads pages.

The book is available online at the following retailers:

PenguinRandomHouse  – Amazon – B&N – Bookshop.org – Kobo

About Amanda Chapman (aka Amy Pershing): She is a lifelong mystery lover and wordsmith. Under the name Amy Pershing, she is also the author of the Cape Cod Foodie mysteries. An enthusiastic fan of traditional mysteries and of New York City, she found herself wondering, “What if someone recreated Agatha Christie’s personal library -– even to the furnishings and architecture — in New York City? What would happen in that space?” And thus MRS. CHRISTIE AT THE MYSTERY GUILD LIBRARY — the first in a new series — was born.