I can’t believe that I was twenty minutes late to my own interview. In my defense, the Halversons' three-tier wedding cake wasn't going to deliver itself, and the rain that started somewhere around eight that morning had no interest in stopping for anyone's schedule. To add insult to injury, I'd made it back downtown and got stuck behind Herb Grissholm, cruising down Jefferson Street on his Lawnmower. The old man lost his driver's license sometime last fall after the Twins played a doubleheader and the Prohibition Bar and Grille had cold beer and a comfortable barstool. Herb, being a practical man, obviously decided that a lawnmower was a reasonable alternative to a car. I can’t wait to see how law enforcement weighs in on this.
I pushed through the door of the Bear Claw Bakery, shaking rain off my jacket, and found Carolyn Eichhorn, the subject of my interview, already settled at the table by the window with something warm in front of her, courtesy of Stacy, who gave me a look that said you're welcome and you're late in equal measure.
"I'm so sorry," I said, hanging my jacket behind the counter. "I got stuck behind… well, it doesn’t matter.”
Carolyn smiled. "Stacy took good care of me."
"She always does," I said. "It's her best quality and her most annoying one."
I settled into the chair across from Carolyn, wrapped both hands around the coffee Stacy had already set at my place, and took a breath. "Alright," I said. "Where to begin? Let’s start with you. Tell me about Carolyn.”
The author didn't have to think about it long. "Well, I’m a project manager, dateline junkie, and restaurant enthusiast.”
“OK, so going out, hitting the town…”
“Actually, I’d say I’m more of a homebody." She paused. "I love bookstores, cooking, spending time with my boyfriend..." Another pause, this one with some weight to it. "And not camping."
I looked at her and laughed. "Not camping?"
"Specifically, and emphatically not camping."
"I respect that more than I can tell you," I said. “The only camping I want to do is at home with a great book.”
“It sounds like the perfect adventure,” Carolyn responded.
“So, what adventure led you to mysteries?”
"Nancy Drew," she said, without hesitating.
“Oh, I loved Nancy Drew!”
“But that's just where it started. Then came Agatha Christie. She taught me something I've never forgotten. How to find the crucial clue in a sea of distractions. How to look at everything and know what actually matters."
"That sounds like more than a writing skill," I said.
"It is," she said. "Uncovering hidden truths. Finding solutions. Those things are applicable to life. Not just mysteries."
I thought about that for a moment. I have spent enough years in this town to know that she was right.
“O.K., so, who else? Is there anyone who you feel helped shape your writing?”
“I guess I’d say Stephen King, for point of view. He taught me that you could move between perspectives in the same story and make it work. That became a piece I wrote called Thalassotherapy that actually won first place in Rehoboth Beach Reads."
She smiled at the memory of accomplishment. "I also like Karin Slaughter, because her mysteries aren't just puzzles. They connect viscerally. You feel them." She paused. "And Harlan Coben. Because just when you think you have it figured out —"
"You don't," I said.
"You absolutely do not."
"Tell me about Gina," I said. "She’s a writer too, yes?”
"Yes, a ghostwriter," Carolyn said. "She's spent years hiding behind her keyboard, working on other people's projects, and I think time has just slipped by while she wasn't paying attention. She's been so busy telling other people's stories that she's lost track of her own." She paused. "It takes a series of disruptions to shake her loose."
"What kind of disruptions?" I asked.
"Well," Carolyn said. "In Murder in the Mix, she agrees to write the memoir of a celebrity chef named Marisol St. James. She's expecting high-pressure deadlines and diva behavior." A beat. "She gets murder instead."
"That would shake most people up," I said.
"It does the job," she agreed.
“So, your ghostwriter, tell me about her world.”
"Gina's work puts her inside other people's lives," she said. "In this book, that means the restaurant world. The kitchen culture, the rivalries, the secrets that simmer underneath a beautiful menu." She paused. "And then there's the writing world. The spaces she shares with her friend Mark, who is a mystery novelist."
"Is Mark good company?" I asked.
Carolyn smiled. "Mark is great company. He's a mystery writer, but…" she paused, "considerably cooler than I am."
"I find that hard to believe," I said.
She laughed. "He'd appreciate you saying that."
"A question I always ask is about a writer’s process. I mean, some write all willy-nilly, while others have a strict outline. How do you plot?" I asked. "Do you know who the murderer is before you sit down, or do you find out as you go?"
"I usually have the broad strokes before I start," she said. "The shape of it. But I try to stay open to surprises, because they happen whether I plan for them or not. Ideas are everywhere." She shook her head. "I have to scrawl them down the moment they come, or they're gone. A good line, something that strikes me in a particular way. Then I find a way to work it in."
"What should readers know before picking up Murder in the Mix for the first time that might surprise them?" I asked.
"A few things." She leaned back in her chair. "Gina has her own voice, her own point of view. That view is often very different from her clients. So, readers get to hear Gina, and then Marisol, and then Marisol as written by Gina. Three layers." She paused. "And Marisol's recipes are included."
I set down my cup. "The actual recipes?"
"The actual recipes."
"From a celebrity chef."
"From a celebrity chef," she confirmed. "Who, granted, is fictional. But the recipes are real."
I appreciated that more than she probably knew and wondered if celebrity chefs ever made peach cobbler.
"You told me that you’re a project manager. How do you find time to write every day with a regular nine-to-five?”
"Actually, I don't write every day," she said, in the tone of someone who has made peace with this. "I need enough time to get into my groove, and that's hard to find at home. I like libraries. Coffee shops." She glanced around the Bear Claw. "Places where I can focus without interruptions."
I made a mental note to mention that we opened at six every morning.
"Is there a character in your books that you have a soft spot for?”
"Mark," she said, immediately. "Gina's friend. The mystery writer." She smiled. "I really like him."
"Cooler than you," I said.
"Considerably," she said. "But I made him, so I'll take some credit."
"Credit deserved. So, being a reader and a writer, what makes a mystery satisfying to you?" I asked. "I mean, not just a good one in a reading sense, but truly satisfying.”
She didn't hesitate. "Justice," she said. "It doesn't have to be conventional. But bad people shouldn't get away with it. The feelings you had in your gut while you were reading, they should be justified. Good people should try to make things right." She paused. "That's what I need at the end of a mystery. That feeling that the world, at least in these pages, is a little fairer than it was at the beginning."
I sat with that for a moment. It was a good answer. Tony would like that answer.
"Last question, and I ask everyone this…" I said, "If Gina walked through the door of the bakery right now and went up to the counter, what would she order?"
Carolyn smiled. "A cranberry orange muffin, warmed. And a good cup of coffee." She paused. "Gina is fond of a good muffin."
"Then, Gina," I said, "Is welcome here anytime."
Murder in the Mix is Book One in the Gina Morrison Mystery series. Find Carolyn at carolyneichhorn.com and on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and Goodreads.