Maddie Wilcox, physician and winemaker, is visiting Ascroft, eh? to tell us about Death of a Proper Bostonian, the latest novel in the Old Los Angeles mystery series.
Welcome, Maddie. Let’s get started, shall we?
Tell us about the novel that you live inside. Is it part of a series? If so, please tell us about the series too.
It’s quite simple, really. These are my memoirs. My grand-nieces and nephews badgered me into writing them down, although I gravely fear that the badgering had more to do with them being rather tired of hearing about my various adventures. That’s probably why I began them with the water overseer’s body turning up in my irrigation ditch. You might know it as Death of the Zanjero.
I’ve written six, so far. The young people all seem to think that my life has been terribly exciting, having to search out and find so many killers. I don’t think that at all. I would far rather be writing about my medical practice than all of the mayhem that was the usual in Los Angeles in the 1870s, and then finding the same in Boston. Even as the pueblo grew more civilized, I managed to stumble onto more than my fair share of murders.
How did you evolve as the main character?
Oh, dear. That is a difficult one, as I prefer to believe that I am continuing to evolve as a person, even now in my 80s. But I did grow from being a healing woman and terrified that anyone would find out that I have my degree in medicine, to (I hope) a reasonably confident woman who has been able to recognize even the difficult turns one life has taken as ultimately the greatest blessings.
Do you have any other characters you like sharing the story with? If so, why are you partial to them?
Do you mean my dear, dear friends Mrs. Angelina Sutton and Mrs. Regina Medina? I don’t know how I could have found half of the killers I did without them. They were incredibly intelligent and amusing women, sadly gone now. Angelina’s daughter still comes to visit quite often.
Then there are the Ortiz brothers and their families. Sebastiano and Enrique were my partners for a very long time, and their wives, Olivia and Magdalena, respectively, kept house for me. I couldn’t have managed my vineyard without any of them.
But in terms of this book, it is definitely my dear, dear sister Carrie and her family who had the strongest claim on my heart and it was so very good to see her after my thirteen-year absence. And one other, but that should be obvious if you know me.
What’s the place like where you find yourself in this story?
Boston’s Back Bay. This was my first trip back to my hometown of Boston after being unceremoniously dragged to Los Angeles by my late and unlamented husband. I stayed in my sister Carrie’s townhouse with her delightful husband Ambrose Stanton, a poet you may have heard of, and their lovely children. They were so sweet and cunning at the time, I almost forget that several of them are already grandparents now.
Carrie’s house had three floors and an attic, made of brick, as most of those homes were. I suddenly wonder if it’s still there. So much has changed in Boston since then, and had even by the time I made that particular visit. What hadn’t was the smell, although it struck me quite forcefully the day I arrived with my ward Elaine Orton in tow.
The city was a veritable font of culture and learning, but the people remained as narrow-minded as they ever were. The resistance to Women’s Suffrage was endless, and the only worse part were the terrible attitudes toward the Irish, poor immigrants who had only come to this country to escape starvation because of the terrible famine.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell readers about you and the book?
One does not wish to pander; however, there may be a scandalous revelation or two. Nothing terribly salacious, of course. I may not have been the most conventional of women, but I still believe that some standards are worth maintaining. Oh, and thank you for your thoughtful questions. This was quite entertaining.
Thank you for answering my questions, Maddie, and good luck to you and your author, Anne Louise Bannon, with Death of a Proper Bostonian, the latest book in the Old Los Angeles mystery series.
Readers can learn more about Maddie and her author, Anne Louise Bannon by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook, Goodreads, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest pages. You can also follow her on BlueSky, Mastodon and Substack.
The novel is available at the following online retailers:
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About Anne Louise Bannon: Author Anne Louise Bannon’s husband says that his wife kills people for a living. Bannon does mostly write mysteries, including the Old Los Angeles Series, the Freddie and Kathy series, and the Operation Quickline series. She has worked as a freelance journalist for magazines and newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times. She and her husband, Michael Holland, created a wine education blog, and she co-wrote a book on poisons. She and her husband live in Southern California with an assortment of critters.
dianneascroft.com 