Whitetail Lodge, Deer Park, and Bitterroot Lake are all fictional, though I have drawn heavily on the history of northwestern Montana and its logging, its mill towns, and its historic lakeside lodges. The region is home to a small lake called Little Bitterroot and a Deer Park Elementary, but their fictional namesakes live only in my mind, and I hope, yours.
Women’s clubs were a critical part of life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, often providing the only social opportunities some rural women had. While the Lakeside Ladies’ Aid Society is fictional, I suspect many organizations did good works that fell far outside their charter.
Book research takes many forms. Thanks to my cousin, Dawn Schwingler McQuillan, for helping me try to solve the mystery of Mrs. O’Dell, known only as a family friend of our great-grandparents, the Beckmans, and a namesake in two generations. We didn’t succeed, but it’s clear the real woman was as well loved as the Mrs. O’D of my imagination.
Jordonna Dores opened her treasure trove of family albums and scrapbooks, allowing me to connect with and better describe what I had imagined lay inside Caroline McCaskill’s trunk. Francesca Droll of Abacus Graphics, LLC created the map of Bitterroot Lake. Our collaboration was a joy, a chance to see how a professional artist and designer can add a critical visual layer to a novel from a rough sketch and a draft manuscript.
My sweet hunny, Don Beans, spent a glorious, clear blue spring afternoon exploring local cemeteries with me and scouting out an old ice house, not far from home but which neither of us knew about before I started researching them for this book. Thank you, love.
What a treat to work again with editor Terri Bischoff, now at Crooked Lane Books, and the rest of the CLB staff. Thanks to Edith Maxwell for reading the proposal, and to the late Ramona DeFelice Long for commenting on a draft. I’m lucky to share a terrific critique partnership with Debbie Burke, who read the proposal and a draft, and brainstormed with me when Terri said “more of this, and less of that” and my brain froze! Mystery writers are the most generous people I know.
My agent, John Talbot, pivoted on the proverbial dime when a series proposal turned into an invitation to write the stand-alone I’d long wanted to write. I deeply appreciate your knowledge of the business and your wise counsel.
Readers, it’s all for you. Thank you.