Blog
by Rebecca Cantrell
Thank you, Hilary, for loaning me your spot today to celebrate today’s paperback release of “A Game of Lies,” complete with a bright, shiny new cover. Yup, that it’s over there. For the first time, the books have a recognizable face on them. But who is that mysterious woman on upper half? Is it Hannah Vogel herself? Over at “My Book, the Movie” I cast Hannah Vogel as Naomi Watts, Kate Winslet, and Carice Van Houten (if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing three times!).
The new cover is gorgeous, but it never occurred to me that I’d ever find out the secret identity of this latest Hannah Vogel, until…
Out of the blue in twitter, I received this message “@rebeccacantrell I’m the girl on the cover of Game of Lies: lovely to be associated with you. Does that make me Hannah Vogel?”
A little bit of tweeting back and forth later, I’d discovered that the cover model for “A Game of Lies” is known in real life as Boo Paterson. Like Hannah, she was a journalist. Like Hannah, she collects 1930s memorabilia (Hannah bought it new, Boo not so much). And, like Hannah, Boo has some pretty amazing stories to tell.
To celebrate the new release of “A Game of Lies” with its gorgeous new cover, I’d thought we’d spend some time talking to the cover girl herself.
Thanks for joining us today, Boo! First, I’m dying to know how you ended up in a gorgeous 1930s dress and necklace, on a lovely Art Deco chair, looking so very much like Hannah Vogel right when she steps into the Monte Carlo casino?
I’m friends with the great fine-art photographer Laurence Winram and we occasionally dream up photos we’d like to create using the vintage clothes I collect: everything from portraits to weird and fantastical stunts.
In this case, it was actually a 40s film noir scene we were faking; the result of which has ended up as the cover of Simon Tolkien’s new book, Sombre Eclat, funnily enough.
At the end of the shoot – which was done in my Georgian flat in Edinburgh – I suggested we do a quick photo with my favourite white 1930s dress, sitting in one of my Deco easy chairs: so the picture on “A Game of Lies” is really the result of an afterthought.
I’m definitely glad you had that afterthought! Like Hannah, your life has been shaped by the World War II era. Why was this time period a childhood obsession?
Not so much an obsession, as a necessity, really. My dad was a very intimidating alcoholic, prone to outbursts of rage, which is incredibly frightening for a child.
I found that the only safe subject I could talk to him about without him shouting at me was the Holocaust, as it was his great interest. His bookcases were crammed with tomes about the war and he used to encourage me to read them, even whilst very young. One of my bedtime stories was “The Wooden Horse” and, aged eight, I had already read – and been horrified by – the post-war British propaganda book, “The Scourge of the Swastika,” complete with nauseating photos of Mengele’s experiments and the Allies clearing up bodies from Belsen-Birkenau.
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| Photo by Lauren Winram |
Because of this, I grew up so absorbed by WWII I almost felt it was my duty to discuss the atrocities as an act of remembrance. This lead to the following conversation between my friend and I a couple of years ago:
Me: “I love the story of the Scottish Enlightenment – it’s my favourite subject.”
Friend: “Your second-favourite subject.”
Me: “What’s my favourite subject?”
Friend: “Nazis.”
When I was about 25, I was staying overnight with my parents and my dad was so horrible to me that I finally confronted him over the fact that he had never once said he was proud of me. The next day, outside my room, was the gift of a book entitled: “Never Again – The True History of the Holocaust.”
Because, apparently, nothing says ‘I’m sorry’ like the mass murder of millions.
Ouch, that sounds really difficult. How about we move on to something more recent, and hopefully less painful. The first book in the Hannah Vogel series deals with the cabaret and jazz nightclubs of 1920s Berlin. I think you might have spent more time there than Hannah. What is your attraction to that world and music?
As well as being a journalist, I’m also a music manager and I lived on the jazz scene in New York for two years, not long after the ‘Hannah’ picture was taken. I have a particular love for Manhattan’s speakeasies; blank doors of boarded up shops and hidden alleyways leading to an alternate world of old-time luxury, hot jazz, gin bennets and hushed conversations.
That scene is secret and feels slightly forbidden – one feels one can hide from the cares of the day amongst the artists, musicians and hedonists that populate it.
Billy Strayhorn’s jazz classic, Lush Life, sums up the attraction for me:
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| Photo by Laurence Winram |
I used to visit all the very gay places
Those come-what-may places
Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
To get the feel of life
From jazz and cocktails
There is nothing like it – ‘relaxing on the axis of the wheel of life’ in that easy-going late-night bohemian culture. But if you go all the way through that song, you realise it’s really about alcoholism, despair, regret and dread, which I can also relate a lot to.
You’re even busier as a writer than a model. What’s your latest writing project?
I’ve just finished writing “Blue Notes From New York,” which is a narrative non-fiction book about a time when I was so poor that I was forced to work undercover for a professional gambler in a squalid and dangerous underworld, where I had to keep my identity secret.
I then made one last gamble by withdrawing thousands of pounds on credit cards before escaping with my singer to New York, where we experienced the starry sophistication of Manhattan’s nights and the crushing disappointments and dark reality of life outside the spotlight.
The book – which is threaded through with the lyrics of classic Tin Pan Alley songs – pulls back the curtain on the world’s greatest jazz clubs and exposes the players and liars on and off-stage in a city steeped in music.
Though I don’t shy away from grim realities, I think it’s ultimately a hopeful book about the gambles we all take in life – whether one’s metaphorical horse comes in or not.
That sounds fascinating! Would you mind giving us a sneak peek?
Certainly. Here’s an excerpt:
In the nine o’clock darkness, the hot wind rustles litter across a non-descript street as we search the building numbers, but the only one matching that which we have is a block of flats. An old Chinese man laughs and points to the battered grey door of a boarded up tailor’s and says: “Bussa! Bussa!”
“Eh?”
He reaches past us to press a hidden buzzer half way down the wall.
The door opens and we grope our way through two sets of black velvet curtains into a long, dark, corridor bar with booths down one side, tea lights guttering on their zinc-topped tables.
As our eyes adjust to the lightlessness, a very glamorous redhead sashays out of the dark towards us.
“Hello, I’m Karla.”
I’m quite happy with the exercise I submitted, entitled rather prosaically “Murder from the Point of View of the Murderer, Victim, and Detective,” but the exercise I wanted to write was about letting go in your work, about giving yourself permission to throw words away.
- Scooby – Gary Phillips, for his love of donuts, which we know Scooby loves too.
- Yabba – Reece Hirsch, the brave brother who solves crimes.
- Scrappy – Josh Corin, the glib youngster of the group.
- Shaggy – Michael Wiley, because I can see you in that green shirt, and I sense you can do the voice.
- Velma – I decided to have an evil Velma and good one. Hilary Davidson, you get to be good Velma (you have that brainy science side, we know it) and Meredith Cole, you get to be evil Velma (mostly because Meredith it also techier than she looks, and she also has good Evil Velma boots).
- Daphne – This one was a gimme. Who is the wild red head of our group? Gabrielle Herkert. But she has to be evil Daphne. If you knew her, you’d understand. If you don’t, you’d never believe me if I told you. Tracy Kiely gets to be good Daphne, because I bet she has a purple mini-skirt someplace and she totally has that hair flip thing down.
- Fred – Graham Brown. Because he can accessorize, or he’d better learn by our upcoming Top Shelf in Tucson (wooden beaded necklace like Richard Hammond, don’t forget it!)
- Kelli Stanley, because she actually likes to sing.
- Lois Winston, because she can make cool crafty goth costumes.
- Sue Ann Jaffarian, she’s a shoo in with all her paranormal and vampire books.
- Vicki Delany has a gothic side too.
Everyone is going to Bouchercon this week but me. Not strictly speaking true, because there are a billion people in China who never even heard of Boucheron, plus nearly everyone I know who isn’t a writer or a mystery fan. But in spite of that, it feels like everyone is going but me.
Hannah Vogel does manage to infiltrate the cult of all cults: the Nazi party. Let’s run through the cult checklist: overbearing leader, fanatical devotion, mind control, serious consequences if you leave, questions or doubts strongly discouraged. Yes, on all counts.
Men Who Love Hannah Vogel
By Rebecca Cantrell
This week’s question “why do fools fall in love?” is deceptively simple and completely impossible to answer. So, instead I decided to run through the fools who have fallen in love with Hannah Vogel. Considering her complicated lifestyle, it’s actually a fairly long list. I’ll try not to reveal any spoilers. And, since I just wrote a post where I cast the whole Hannah Vogel series at “My Book, the Movie,” I’ll paste in some pictures of the characters here (
Walter. He never even gets a last name, but he and Hannah were engaged when she was seventeen. They never married because he was killed at the end of the Great War. If he had lived, she probably would have settled down into as a German housewife and started raising kids.
Paul Keller. He was delivered into the hospital where Hannah worked as a nurse with serious injuries to his leg and shell shock. She helped nurse him back to health and he proposed. She gave it a lot of thought, but turned him down because she did not want that housewife life after all. They remained friends and he helped to get her a job at the newspaper. In spite of his rudeness in A Game of Lies, he is my personal favorite for Hannah.
Boris Krause. Hannah meets him in A Trace of Smoke. He’s a banker with a teenaged daughter. His wife died in childbirth, so he’s been alone for a long time. He’s a solid dependable guy who can still hold his own in a car chase or a gunfight. He’s charming and handsome and a good father. He’s probably the guy she should marry.
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| Aaron Eckhardt | Rufus Sewell | Sebastian Koch |
Lars Lang. Hannah meets him in A Trace of Smoke too. He’s a police kommissar who is also a member of the SS. Lars has the toughest journey of any of the characters so far. He’s devoutly loyal to Hannah, but he has a dark past, and a dangerous one. He is exactly the guy she shouldn’t get involved with, even though he has saved her life on numerous occasions (she’s saved his too) and they work well together as an espionage team.
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| Edward Norton | Michael Fassbender | Thomas Krettschman |
So, whom should Hannah pick? Whom would YOU pick? And, which actor should play each character? (casting ideas for Paul Keller are welcome!)
I know this week’s question was about who my protagonist aspires to be. But Hannah Vogel isn’t big on role models. She just does the best she can. But that is obviously WAY too short to be my first blog post in a month or more.
Happy Independence Day Alexandra Sabian and Hannah Vogel!
Today is July 5. I’m calling it “Independence Day” for Jeannie Holmes and me because today we release our latest novels into the wild. In honor of that, I’m totally blowing off this week’s question and instead Jeannie and I will be interviewing each other about our brand new books.
Jeannie: “A Game of Lies” is the third book in the Hannah Vogel series. What is Hannah up to in her latest adventure?
Rebecca: Hannah is in trouble, as always. Ever since “A Night of Long Knives,” Hannah has been smuggling out secret documents to British intelligence. She’s back to pick up another batch and report on the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Her mentor dies in her arms after telling her she needs to take out a package, and she spends the rest of the book looking for his killer and his secret.
Now, can you share a bit of what Alexandra Sabian gets up to in “Blood Secrets,” the sequel to the well-received “Blood Law?”
Jeannie: Alexandra Sabian is dealing with the fallout of turning rogue in the first book, Blood Law, and has been suspended from the FBPI. When a local college student disappears, she’s given a chance to prove the Bureau Tribunal that she’s not a risk to the vampire community. She takes the assignment even thought it means working with Varik Baudelaire again. However, neither of them knows the extent of the danger they’re facing when a killer known as the Dollmaker takes an unnatural interest in Alex.
It’s a tough world out there, but at least I got to make a lot of it up. But Hannah’s stories are centered around the Nazi party’s real life rise to power in Germany during the 1930s. How much research do you conduct for each book?
Rebecca: I spend months researching before I start, research the whole time I’m writing, and then uncover even more new stuff when I start to rewrite. It was a fascinating moment in history, and I want to make very sure that Hannah’s world is a true to life as I can make it.
But Alex’s world rings true to me too. She is a vampire cop, but she works with human police officers who use very modern research methods. How much research do you do?
Jeannie: I’ve done a ton of research on forensics and spoken to law enforcement officers so I can make much of what Alex does as realistic as possible. The wildest bit of research I’ve ever done was to spend a twelve hour shift riding shotgun with a patrol officer on a Saturday night. It’s an experience I will never forget, and I have a deeper level of respect for all law enforcement.
But you can’t really do a ride along. What challenges do you find are the most difficult in writing historical mysteries?
Rebecca: For me it’s knowing that the events I research are real. Real people died. Millions of them. I want to do all I can to take that seriously and do the best I can to show people that world, while also giving Hannah a little bit of peace to fall in love, tell a joke, and raise her son.
Enough talk about challenges. Let’s talk about something fun. What’s your favorite scene in “Blood Secrets?”
Jeannie: I have a few favorite scene, but one scene I particularly loved writing is Alex and Varik. It’s about midway through the book. Varik is trying to make a point and uses some rather unconventional means to make it.
Do you see the series continuing forever or do you have a clear end in mind?
Rebecca: Varik is a rather unconventional guy. I do have an arc planned for Hannah. I’d like to write nine books about her adventures: the pre-war trilogy that “A Game of Lies” completes; a war trilogy starting with next year’s “A City of Broken Glass;” and a post-war trilogy where she deals with the aftermath of war.
How about you? How many books do you think you might have for the series?
Jeannie: I have a total of six planned, and hopefully will get the opportunity to write them all. I never meant for the series to drag out to infinity. I think Alex and Varik would eventually like for me to go away and leave them alone since I have a tendency to torture them unmercifully.
What else are you working on? Any hints about “A City of Broken Glass?”
Rebecca: I’m just starting my first round of rewrites on it. “A City of Broken Glass” is set during November 1938—Kristallnacht. Hannah is dragged back to Germany and searches for a lost little girl while trying desperately to get herself and Anton back to Switzerland. It was by far the toughest book I’ve written.
How about you? Is there more Alex in store?
Jeannie: I’m working on the third Alex book, which doesn’t have a title or release date yet, and I also have a couple of other works in progress.
Rebecca: Thanks, Jeannie, for taking time to chat with me about your new book! Have a great time at Thrillerfest! Best of luck on your release day, Book Buddy!
Before I return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast, I’d like to clink glasses with Jeannie in a cyber toast! I giddily invite you all to join us. The cyber Champagne is on me!
Much like the dining room table that has needed to be refinished for ten years. And don’t even get me started on the sorry condition of the chairs. Back to the bookshelf. Those newspapers are made of lovely old paper. And Kona eats paper. It covers it with mildew. It sends silverfishes scurrying in. It dispatches geckoes to poop on it. And I have recklessly brought those newspapers here.I try to keep them safe. I store them in a blue archival box recommended by a friend who sets up museum exhibits (nice job at the California Academy of Sciences, BTW, Pixie!). It’s acid free and protects against gecko poop and maybe silverfish.
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I have a dehumidifying box in there that has magic crystals that suck the moisture out of the air to protect the paper from mildew. But when I took the box down for these pictures, the indicator crystal had changed from friendly blue to poisonous pink.
It’s in the oven now, having the moisture backed out of it, but how long was it pink? What evil befell the newspapers during the weeks it might have sat there, flashing out a pink beacon of despair?
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I don’t know. But I know it’s all my fault.
