Award-winning author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro joins us to discuss her latest book, the first in her Chesterton Holte mystery series, HAUNTING INVESTIGATION.
Show Notes
Quinn shares the story of HAUNTING INVESTIGATION which features two primary characters, one of whom, Chesterton Holte, is a bit unusual for a mystery series.

We discuss Quinn's writing career which has spanned 48 years and 94 novels. Quinn writes in multiple genres which include mystery, horror, western, young adult and science fiction. She shares her reasons for writing in these different genres.

Quinn spent time as a tarot card reader at the Magic Celler in San Francisco. She explains what tarot cards are and shares a very funny story that winds up an Irish Coffee poured over her head.

Links for Quinn's website, Facebook page and her Publisher's website can be found at the bottom of the post.

For those who prefer to read rather than listen the full text of the interview is below:
Interview with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, author of Haunting Investigation
Stephen: Welcome back to CrimeFiction.FM, where we bring the authors of today's best books directly to you. I'm your host, Stephen Campbell and I'm here with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, the author of "Haunting Investigation," which was released very late last month. Quinn, welcome.

Quinn: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you, especially considering I just finished, literally this morning, the second book in the series.

Stephen: Ah. Well, how exciting. Well, first we want to talk about the first book in the series. What's with this very unusual release date of December 31?

Quinn: You'd have to talk to Paul, who's the publisher. I just figure publishers know what they're doing. I'm assuming there is some good marketing reason for it because he's a very clever fellow.

Stephen: Well, it does sort of make sense as a New Year's Eve book. But first, we'll talk in general about the book, then get into the two primary characters in the book, one of whom is a little bit unusual for a mystery.

Quinn: Yes. Yes, he is. Isn't he? Not your average, everyday sidekick.

Stephen: No, he's not. But the book takes place in the early 1920s, so it's a...

Quinn: 1924, yep.

Stephen: ...historical mystery. There's a lot of rich, evocative setting information in there. It's fun to read. But give us a little sense of the story line if you would, Quinn.

Quinn: Okay. I have a young woman who is a reporter, which was very hard for women to be back in 1924. She comes from the Philadelphia upper crust, and is working for a second-rank Philadelphia paper. She gets called in on a crime case, which is what she really wants to do, even though she's been confined to the Book Club and Garden Party pages.

But it turns out that this is an upper-crust guy, who apparently committed suicide. Because she actually knew him she gets assigned to it, because she can get through doors nobody else in the paper can. So, she's trying to actually establish herself as a crime writer on the newspaper, rather than a garden club writer. In this, she is aided and abetted by someone who knew her father.

He's an ex-spy. In the First World War, he was a spy for Canada, working of course as part of the British Empire, and he's a ghost.

Stephen: Okay. So...

Quinn: And that's it.

Stephen: ...we have the two lead characters. One is a young woman. The other is a gentleman haunt. A gentleman haunt, is that what we call him?

Quinn: Yes. AS he introduces himself. He's Chesterton Holte, Gentleman Haunt.

Stephen: We get into this right away. So there's no sense of surprise or anything. It's just, this is what it is. Then, there's this sense of the young woman who goes by the name, Poppy. She's not really buying into the whole thing.