Interview with Lynn Slaughter, author of Missed Cue
Today it gives the Indie Crime Scene great pleasure to interview Lynn Slaughter, whose debut crime novel, Missed Cue, is published on August 8th.
You have written many award-winning YA novels. What made you decide to write your first adult police procedural?
Great question! I think of this as my “accidental” novel. Since I had a background in the performing arts, a writer friend challenged me to write a short story for Malice Domestic’s anthology, MURDER MOST THEATRICAL. I got this idea for a mystery about a ballerina who dies suspiciously onstage in Act III of Romeo and Juliet. After the story came out, I didn’t really feel like I was done. The confines of short fiction didn’t allow me to explore the character and personal challenges of the homicide detective, so I decided to expand the story into a novel. By the time I finished, even the identity of the murderer had changed!
Missed Cue is set in the world of ballet, where young female police detective Lieutenant Caitlin O’Connor investigates the murder of prima ballerina Lydia Miseau. You were a professional dancer yourself. How far did you draw on personal experience in writing the novel?
My professional dance career was actually in concert modern dance, which is somewhat different than the world of professional ballet. But I was certainly acquainted with fierce backstage rivalries, competition, love affairs, and obsessed directors! Fortunately, I had no direct experience with dance company murders.
Caitlin O’Connor is a sympathetic and flawed character who finds her complex personal life reflected in that of the victim. Tell us about Caitlin and what inspired you to write about her.
I’m attracted to flawed characters both in fiction and real life! Perfect people not only don’t exist, but if they did, they would be horribly boring. I also think that the seemingly irrational choices we make in our lives often have to do with unfinished business from our childhoods. That’s certainly the case for Caitlin who’s very good at her job and very bad at managing her personal life. Also, I love the idea that we can keep growing and maturing as adults, which Caitlin sets out to do when she goes into therapy.
As a police procedural, Missed Cue touches on dark themes. The murder victim is found to be pregnant with a child who could not be her husband’s. How do you explore these themes?
Adultery is often a symptom rather than the cause of a dysfunctional marriage. The murder victim, a revered ballerina, is married to the much older artistic director of the ballet company. His interest in her appears to be mainly her usefulness to him as a remarkable dancer and muse. He pays little attention to her outside of the studio, and she’s lonely. She longs for someone in her life who will genuinely care about her, and she finds that person outside her marriage. When we peer closer into her life, we hopefully empathize with her challenges and get greater insight into her behavior.
After the post-mortem, the cause of Lydia’s death is also a mystery. Tell us how you researched that aspect, without giving too much away!
I was extremely lucky to make contact with Luci Hansson aka “the Poison Lady,” an expert on how to kill someone in a way that wouldn’t show up in an autopsy! Her prodigious knowledge has made her a favorite of many mystery authors in need of her expertise.
The world of classical ballet is one that continues to fascinate and captivate readers. Why do you think that is?
It’s an exquisite art form, and the dancers themselves are visions of beauty and physical perfection. I think we are all fans of peeking “behind the curtain” at the lives of performing artists. Dancers, I believe, are especially captivating because they are both athletes and artists doing things onstage that most fans cannot imagine being able to accomplish.
The murder takes place during a performance of the ballet Romeo and Juliet (music by Prokofiev, play by Shakespeare). Why did you choose that ballet?
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy about two star-crossed lovers, and in many ways, the love affair of Lydia Miseau and her extra-marital romantic interest is also a tragedy.
In addition, this particular ballet includes a scene in Act III where Juliet is supposed to awaken after faking her death by taking a sleeping potion. When Lydia Miseau dancing the role of Juliet misses her cue to awaken, it’s because she’s dead. This struck me as a very dramatic way to expire onstage!
Investigating the dance company, Caitlin uncovers an intricate web of betrayal, infidelity, and revenge. Why do you think the realms of theatre, dance and opera conjure stories of such conflicts, real and imaginary?
Performing artists have generally spent years and years working on developing their artistry. They are typically passionate about their work and have a huge emotional investment in what they do. Moreover, the competition for roles is often fierce. There is always someone ready and eager to take an artist’s place. Moreover, the hours and hours spent in rehearsal and performance can lead to closeness among artists, some of which may lead to boundary-crossing relationships.
What about Caitlin herself: in love with a married man, how does she negotiate the dilemmas of her own life and career?
Caitlin is a crackerjack detective whose personal life is a hot mess. She knows it’s wrong to be involved with the very married medical examiner, but she can’t seem to break things off. She’s finally decided to go into therapy to figure out why she keeps getting entangled in unhealthy romances.
Tell us something about Caitlin’s police partner, both a friend and an all-important colleague.
Stan is a good detective, but his life spirals out of control after his wife leaves him for another man. He’s drinking heavily and in major denial that he has a problem. He rebuffs Caitlin’s efforts to get him help until he nearly dies. My own family tree is littered with folks who’ve struggled with alcoholism, so Stan’s story felt especially personal to me.
What drove you to become a writer and how did you set out?
I always enjoyed writing from childhood on, but I gravitated to nonfiction. While I was still dancing, I began moonlighting as a freelancer, mainly for regional parenting magazines, where I specialized in writing about the challenges of adolescence and parenting tweens and teens.
When age and injury led to my retirement from dance, I was grieving the loss of dance in my life. Initially, as a sort of therapy project, I got this idea for a story about a young aspiring dancer dealing with both romantic and family secrets. That project became my first young adult novel, WHILE I DANCED. After that, I was hooked on writing fiction and returned to school to earn my MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. I’ve just kept writing ever since!
Music is very important to you, there are musicians in your family and you are a huge jazz fan, like Caitlin. Tell us about that - and what sort of Jazz?
My dad’s first cousins were jazz musicians, the Teagardens, the most well known of whom was Jack Teagarden. Jack was a trombonist and singer who played with Paul Whiteman, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, and many others. I grew up listening to his music and other jazz musicians whose material was drawn from the Great American Songbook by composers like Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Johnny Mercer, and others.
When you write, do your stories have a soundtrack, real or imaginary?
I often have music playing while I write, often music associated with the characters I’m writing about.
Are you planning on a sequel - and a series - for Caitlin?
I’m not sure! My current Work-in-Progress is a young adult mystery, MISSING MOM, about a young woman whose mother unexpectedly disappears. But down the line, I may return to writing about Caitlin, because I really liked her a lot!
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