Daryl Wood Gerber, author of Murder by the Millions, the latest novel in the Literary Dining mysteries series, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today.

Welcome, Daryl.

Tell us about your novel. Is it part of a series? If so, please tell us about the series too.

Murder by the Millions is the second in the Literary Dining Mysteries. In the first, Murder on the Page, protagonist Allie Catt, a caterer, helps her friend Tegan, a bookstore clerk, when Tegan’s aunt (who owns the bookstore) is murdered. They put on a memorial featuring the aunt’s favorite book, Pride and Prejudice, and ask people to dress up for the period. Allie makes foods pertinent to the era. In the end, Allie, Tegan, and her half-sister come up with the idea to continue to throw literary dining parties based on classic novels.

In Murder by the Millions, the featured book is The Great Gatsby. A wealthy stranger comes to town with the intention to build a mall. Allie doesn’t want Bramblewood (a town near Asheville, NC) to lose its charm. However, the stranger befriends her and asks her to cater a soiree for the town. When Allie finds him dead, she becomes the main suspect.

Where did the idea for the mystery that is central to the story come from?

My mind. Truly. I love The Great Gatsby and thought it would be fun to have a parallel story with a mysterious stranger who is building “something” to woo the woman he loves. Like Gatsby, he is an antihero with a past.

Is there a theme or subject that underlies the story? If so, what prompted you to write about it?

In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby is flawed. He believes in the American Dream and has an unwavering love for Daisy. In some ways he is so unassuming that it’s endearing. The lead character in Murder by the Millions possesses a similar naivete. I wanted to explore his fixation, while at the same time I wanted Allie to have to defend herself and her reputation. She must use her wiles. She will come out the victor.

How do you create your characters? Do you have favourite ones? If so, why are you partial to them?

I’m like any mother. I love all my children. My favorite ones always happen to be my protagonists, of course. I want them to succeed. I want them to use their brains. I want them to learn about themselves and the world as they solve crimes. Anyone who is willing to learn and change and grow is a hero in my mind.

How do you bring to life the place you are writing about?

I created a map of Bramblewood to orient the reader. Then I populated it with shops and streets and activities. As I build it, it comes alive to me. When I visited Asheville before writing the series, I explored a number of nearby towns. This one, in essence, resembles Black Mountain, but Bramblewood lies to the west of Asheville and is located in the mountains.

What research do you do to provide background information to help you write the novel?

I studied up on Asheville, when the town was created and what kind of people and entrepreneurs populated it. For this novel, I studied about artifacts found in the North Carolina location. I read The Great Gatsby a couple of times. I even went to the musical, The Great Gatsby, on Broadway to get more of a feel of the period and the costumes. I researched the food that Allie makes for the party, and I developed recipes based on recipes from that time period including pineapple upside down cake. It was a bunch of fun!

Is there anything else you’d like to tell readers about the book?

I hope they will enjoy the quotations included at the beginning of each chapter. I pulled quotations that moved me. They might not relate to that particular chapter, but they should orient the reader to the text in The Great Gatsby and hopefully enlighten them as to some of the characters as well as to the narrator. Maybe they’ll even want to read the book, if they haven’t.

Thanks for today’s opportunity!

Thank you for answering my questions, Daryl, and good luck with Murder by the Millions, the latest book in the Literary Dining mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Daryl Wood Gerber by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Bookbub, Instagram, Goodreads, YouTube and TikTok pages.

The novel is available at the following online retailers:

AMAZON    BARNES AND NOBLE     BOOKSHOP.ORG    KOBO      MYSTERIOUS GALAXY

About Daryl Wood Gerber: Daryl is the Agatha Award-winning, nationally bestselling author of the Literary Dining Mysteries, the Fairy Garden Mysteries, the French Bistro Mysteries, and the Cookbook Nook Mysteries, as well as the Cheese Shop Mysteries written under the name Avery Aames. She also writes standalone suspense novels and the Aspen Adams Novels of Suspense. Prior to her career as a novelist, she was an actress with roles in television shows including “Murder, She Wrote,” and she wrote for the popular TV sitcom “Out of this World.” Originally from the Bay Area, she now lives in Southern California, where she likes to cook, garden, and spend time with her frisky Goldendoodle named Sparky.