Interview with Julia Rohatyn, author of Shades of Light and Darkness

 

Today it gives the Indie Crime Scene great pleasure to interview Julia Rohatyn, whose latest novel, Shades of Light and Darkness, appeared on May 29, 2020.

Before you became a writer, you had already had a varied career as a child psychologist and later as a hotel manager in Israel. What drove you to become a writer, and a writer of mysteries?

I have always loved to read mysteries. I started with Agatha Christie as a teenager and went on from there. I have also loved to write but never even thought about being an author until I found myself between hotels. My best friend said that if I read so many whodunits, I should write one. 

You have written two series, the Rebecca Bauer Hotel Mysteries and Betsy Connolly Mysteries. Please can you tell us about these series and the differences between them?

The inspiration and the source for much of the material in the Rebecca Bauer books came from my hotel experiences. Real things happening to real people. I wanted a chance to broaden the field, to be able to expand beyond the limits that were integral to the series. Rebecca may be a magnet for murder, but she also manages a hotel. I took the security director of Rebecca’s hotel, gave her a new profession as a PI, and began the Betsy Connolly series.

Your latest novel, Shades of Light and Darkness, is the next instalment in the Betsy Connolly mysteries. Tell us something about Betsy, your protagonist. How much is she based on you (or not)? 

Rebecca Bauer has quite a lot of me in her. She is doing what I did. She looks a bit like me and she often acts like me. Betsy is based on several people who started out as security people in my hotels, but she is her own person. Young, adventurous, and sometimes impetuous. 

Authors often put much of themselves and their experiences in their books. We have to be careful to use what advances the story and cut what is fascinating nostalgia to us and boring to the reader.

In Shades of Light and Darkness, Betsy is on vacation in Israel with her husband Pete, when they agree to do a favour for a friend: to locate a runaway teenager named Lis. Is it safe to say they find themselves dealing with more than they bargained for?

Absolutely. Pete persuades his wife that she can have her cake and have a nibble as well. That she can do some detecting while she enjoys her vacation. Once they locate the missing teenager, the girl’s mother decides to take matters into her own hands and becomes a suspect when Lis’s boyfriend is murdered. What follows is chaos with drugs, terrorism, prostitution, and a killer who sees Betsy and Pete as a problem to be eliminated.

The novel touches on the problem of terrorism, still very much a live issue in Israel (and elsewhere). How important is that theme to you as a writer?

This is the first book that features terrorism. The next book will be entirely different. Often, I start with a story idea and as it develops, I discover where I must do my research. The results may connect me to a new passion. The first Betsy Connolly book, Killer Remedy, is about a serial killer who targets doctors who work with medical cannabis. I was fortunate in having one of the top cannabis researchers introduce me to the subject. I got hooked. (Not on the marijuana. On the topic and on the need to broaden medical usage.) 

The antagonist, Obeid, is not without sympathetic qualities. Has your work as a psychologist influenced how you write a character like that?

I worked with damaged children and never with a sociopath. There are a multitude of stories there and I probably will never tell them. I did learn how complex the human psyche can be. In early drafts, Obeid was even more likeable. One of my beta readers is a social worker and a lawyer. She has had experience with people like Obeid and she said that he would never do what he did. So, I changed him.

The other main character, Margot, is a diplomat on a dangerous mission. Can you tell us something about her?

Margot is based on a real person, a European diplomat who has worked in the anti-terrorism department of her foreign ministry. The real Margot has handled dangerous and challenging situations without blinking an eyelash and she continues to do so. The fictional Margot is less sure of herself. She feels that her bosses are using her and will not back her up if she gets in trouble. She hooks up with Betsy and Pete and feels safer. As the story progresses, she gets more confident and more able to make decisions for herself.

How important is the setting of the novel, in this case in the Galilee in Israel?

The book tackles problems that are not specific to Israel, but I wanted to take advantage of Betsy’s last book that left her and her husband in the Holy Land. I usually write about Boston and New England where I grew up, but I live in Israel and it was tempting to be able to write location so easily. The end of the book could be made to happen in any historical site but in this story, it is in what is called the Jesus Boat, a fishing boat from the time of Christ that was discovered half sunken in the Sea of Galilee.

In this book, you have woven fact into the fictional plot. How is easy that for a writer?

Using fact gives us a structure and a skeleton that we can use to write fiction. I have always admired writers who are able to construct worlds of their own and one of my early author idols was Ursula K. Le Guin who created a universe and a new definition of sex in The Left Hand of Darkness, one of the first science fiction novels that I read. 

What are you working on now and have you got more or less work done during the coronavirus lockdown?

I was able to use the lock-down time to finish Shades of Light and Darkness and to begin a new book with a working title of Killer Generation. It started as Death in the time of Corona but I thought that the title was too presumptuous. I miss seeing friends and family, but I enjoy the extra time to write.

Tell us something about your other books, and what your plans are.

The Rebecca Bauer series starts with three books that I never published and I keep on promising myself that I will re-edit them. Then, another idea hits me and I am on my way to a new book. At first, my inspiration came from events in the hotels that I managed, but now the germ of a new story can be anything, a book, a dream, a news event, or pure imagination.

My favourite, so far, is The Dream Catcher. It’s a locked room mystery, the story is often funny, there are two murders and one happened during the pre-revolutionary years, and there are Abenaki Indians in the book. It appeals to my funny-bone, my love of history, and my amazement at finding out about the people who lived for thousands of years where I grew up.

What do you enjoy reading yourself?

I usually pick out a mystery, but not always.

Jodi Picoult, first of all. She is an amazing writer, she never fears tackling controversial important questions, she always surprises the reader, and she writes beautiful prose.

My recent Amazon purchases include Tess Gerritsen, Sue Grafton, Harlan Coben who writes twists like no one else can, Lisa Scottoline, Ruth Rendell, P.D. James, Dawn Lee McKenna, Anne Tyler, Val McDermid. I love reading a mystery that is also good literature.

What writers influenced you when you were growing up?

I had a library card, but I barely needed it. Our house was filled with books and I read them with little attention to what was appropriate for a child. Kristin Lavrensdatter by Sigrid Unset was so well written that it convinced ten-year-old me that it was written about modern Norway and that it was real. Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Franz Werfel (The Forty Days of Musa Dagh). I read voraciously and I read everything.

What do you think is the USP (unique selling point) of your novels?

I write what one reader called “gentle mysteries”, not quite cozy and not quite thriller. Sex is never gratuitous and gore is never irrelevant. It’s not for everyone, but the reader who finds that kind of book comfortable, will enjoy the whimsy, realistic characters, and surprising plots. I write as an American but I learned to write from the British authors who were so well represented in the bookshelves in my home. I appreciate that these authors do not condescend to the intelligence or to the vocabulary of their readers.

Has the coronavirus changed how you see writing?

No, but it is changing how I see reading. I read because it gives me pleasure, but I also read to learn. That takes more of the time that lock-down has given me. 

There are authors who use language like an artist uses paint and a musician uses sound. I read them in awe. There are authors who build characters that are unforgettable and authors who plot and leave us gasping. I try to learn from them.

The coronavirus has taught us to value the connections we have and cannot use. It has shown us how the environment can benefit from our temporary absence. It has taught us humility, but I fear that these lessons will not survive, just as similar lessons in 1918 did not outlast their decade.

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About Julia Rohatyn:

Every author is also a reader. Julia Rohatyn (a pen name) grew up in a home full of books and read voraciously. She wrote the kind of stories that children write, but after graduating Radcliffe College, her direction veered off. She became a child psychologist, doing research and working with damaged children. Moving to a communal settlement in Israel steered her into another sharp turn to the world of tourism and hotels which gave her a wealth of experiences, drama, characters, and plots for writing her early hotel mysteries.

When a friend suggested that since she loved to read mysteries so much, why not write one... and she was off to a running start.

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