Marilyn Todd – Crime Scene Mysteries

Marilyn Todd’s latest Victorian thriller introduces England’s first crime scene photographer, Julia McAllister, and offers readers the same racy pacey action that was the trademark of her 13 book Ancient Rome mystery series. Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and today Marilyn explains why she loves resilient heroines and her life on a French hilltop surrounded by chateaux and vineyards. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: Marilyn’s wildly fertile childhood imagination How she got to work on her writing The joys of living on a French hilltop The nastiness of Sparta The writers she admires most What she’d do differently second time around Where to find Marilyn Todd: Website: http://www.marilyntodd.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Marilyn-Todd-Crime-Writer-283458208429732/  Twitter: @marilyntodd12 Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/40180.Marilyn_Todd What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny: But now, here’s Marilyn. .  Hello there Marilyn and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us. Marilyn: And I am absolutely chuffed to be here. Jenny, I really am. Thank you so much for inviting me. And what a fantastic find. Joys of Binge Reading is . I’m a kid in a candy shop here. Marilyn Todd, historic thriller author Jenny: It’s wonderful. Look, beginning at the beginning, was there a Once Upon A Time moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction? And if so, was there some sort of catalyst for it? An active imagination Marilyn: Not really. I was bedridden as a kid a lot of the time – as a small child – and not being a girly girl, there’s only so many Teddies Tea Parties you can host. And it was just me and my imagination really. I’m an only child, so I’d look at the drawings on my Mother’s dress making patterns. And I’d ask who are all these impossibly elegant creatures? Where are they going?  Who are they meeting, and who are they dressing up for? And in fact, every picture I looked at, a story would form until it got to the point where even the school projects came out as stories with characters and conversations. Creating adventures And in those days, you’d literally cut and paste.  I’d pore over – because I was stuck in bed as I say – so I’d pore over National Geographic magazines, whisking myself off on these fantastic adventures, discovering lost tombs in the desert and diving on shipwrecks in shark-infested waters, paddling up the Amazon, although the novelty of  wanting to slash my way through a jungle soon wore off.Even at that age, I was never a camping sort of girl. And spiders weren’t my thing either. But what I could see myself doing was being the first woman to lead a wagon train, that sort of thing. So I mean, we’re talking heroines even back then. Even at that age, I was never a camping sort of girl. And  spiders weren’t my thing either. But what I could see myself doing was being the first woman to lead a wagon train, that sort of thing. So I mean, we’re talking heroines even back then. I Claudia – the first book in the Claudia Seferius series by Marilyn Todd Jenny: Yes. And all these years later, you’ve published 16 historical thrillers, including the thirteen-book, Claudia Seferius series set in First Century Rome. Is that where you started out, in First Century Rome or did you have some other unpublished works that perhaps didn’t see the light of day? How Marilyn got started Marilyn: I’d written a swashbuckling romance, historical romance, which was called The Black Pearl. But don’t tell Captain Sparrow, he’s nicked it off me, and I submitted it to one of the top literary agents.  I got the only rejection letter I’ve ever had. It was a standard typewritten affair. And at the bottom, she’d written how much she enjoyed it, and how well the book read, but it wasn’t actually what she was looking for. It was a standard typewritten affair. And at the bottom, she’d written how much she enjoyed it, and how well the book read, but it wasn’t actually what she was looking for.  So I rang her up and I said, ‘What are you looking for?’ And she said, Ancient Rome. So… don’t know that.  Crime…don’t know that. A proactive heroine….we’re getting warmer.  And humor. Definitely. So I said ‘I can do that.’ And she said, ‘Send me the first 50000 words or 5000 words,’ whatever it is – you know. The first 50 pages. There wasn’t time to panic. The best word ever: Bingo! But, Jenny, I tell you, I will never forget answering the phone, three weeks later, and the first words she said, literally the first word when I picked up the phone was, ‘Bingo.’ Jenny: Fantastic. Marilyn: I know. I tell you, there wasn’t half a run on midnight oil after that. Stocks of elbow grease ran out overnight. I have never seen so much sweat dripping off of a body. Three months it took to put that together. Three months. Really concentrated work. Macmillan took it up and the paperback was reprinted after three unheard of weeks. And they say things come in threes and certainly it did with that one. Jenny: That’s wonderful. So was that the first one you published? Marilyn: That was it. I Claudia. Taking the mickey Jenny: How wonderful. Actually, I loved that name, now that you’ve mentioned it, because of course, there was a very famous literary historical series called I Claudius by Robert Graves, which was very highly regarded and became a TV series. Was it a deliberate play on that? Marilyn: Oh, yes. I wanted people to see right from the outset what they were getting. And if you’ve ever seen the very first cover, which is Claudia filing her nails with a bloody great dagger, the twinkle in her eyes says it all. It’s not to say that Macmillan didn’t have a bit of a tussle with Robert Graves’ estate, but we got there in the end. The first I Claudia cover – Marilyn Todd Jenny: Yes, I loved the cheekiness of it, but it was very much tongue in cheek, obviously.  We’ll get on to talking about how seriously you take your history. I don’t know much about Ancient Rome, but there is a large amount of very fascinating detail in your books. So I think you have become an expert on Ancient Rome in the years since. But you also have this rather nice feeling of thumbing your nose a little bit at it, not taking too much historical seriousness. Writing ‘contemporary’ history Marilyn: I’m not sure that I  thumb nose at it. I do feel it’s important to set the scene. I mean, set it up properly. The background needs to be right. The details need to be right. The facts need to be right. But here’s the thing. As far as I see it, the people living in those times, weren’t living in history. It’s all relative. They were living in contemporary settings like you and I are now. We don’t look back now and think, I wonder how people will write about us in a hundred years, a thousand years or whatever. And so as long as the background and the setting is there, I make it feel contemporary. You know, if I had to write in Chaucer’s time and I wrote it in Chaucer’s language, none of us would understand, certainly not me. And I don’t see the point of throwing in a “Forsooth” here and a “Forsooth” there. (Here a forsooth, there a forsooth . ..! ) Crime scene photographer  I just to try and make it historical, because as far as I can see, if the period is anchored properly everything else follows. And to be honest, you’ve done that in Of Gold & Blood. Jenny: Thank you. That’s lovely. We’ll come back and talk a little bit more about Claudia later. But you’ve got a book out and it’s not set in Ancient Rome at all. You taken a change of location and time setting. It’s lower middle class, Victorian England. And another female heroine. England’s first crime scene photographer, Julia McAllister. What made you decide to shift your time period and setting? Marilyn: I think this was a time of great change.  We’re just on the cusp. This is 1895 and bustles are out and bicycles are in. You can smell emancipation in the air. This is a time where women were no longer obliged to work on the land or work confined to factories. The exciting 1890s Although a good many of them still did, a good many of them were also telegraph operators. They were bookkeepers and secretaries. This is the time where we’re seeing the first women architects, the first women dentists, the British Medical Association is admitting female members. So hey, I thought, let’s have the first female crime scene photographer, because at the same time, speed is suddenly the key to success. Railways have driven down prices. It’s made travel affordable. And now we’re getting telephones and electricity almost run of the mill. And in terms of photography, we’re on the brink as well.  We’re looking at the birth of moving pictures. And this is all cutting edge stuff. And she’s part of it. So am I excited about this period? Yes! Dreams made, hopes shattered Jenny: It sounds great. And what made you decide, though, to move to Victorian England? Did you look at a lot of other periods and decide that was the one that attracted you the most? Marilyn: No. What triggered this was the Klondike Museum in Seattle. Now I know what you’re going to say. Really?  I can’t remember its full name. Something like the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park or something. You can see why I shortened it… but outside the plaque reads ‘Adventure and hardship. Dreams made, hopes shattered, lives changed. A city transformed.’ That’s the plaque on the outside and inside, looking at the photos of that suffering, the challenges those people faced. . . Women on the Klondike rush – Klondike photos inspired new series The bones of the three thousand pack animals who died on one trail alone and whose own bodies still lie there today. I just knew that I needed to write about someone who took images that would also change lives. Photographic pioneer And as I said, in 1895, there were no crime scene photographers in England. The Parisian police were getting some success with a very basic crime scene sets. But over here – I know I’m in France, but in England – they were barely getting to grips with mug shots, never mind fingerprints or footprint casts, much less photographic records that would capture a crime scene before most of the evidence was trampled, contaminated or lost. So it all goes back to the Klondike gold rush. Jenny: It’s very interesting. You know, just a little aside, I came across last year a cache of daguerreotypes that were taken in Gold Rush days in California. And they were actually on display in a – I think it was a Toronto gallery. It was the Canadian art gallery anyway. But I was utterly captivated by these images. They just seemed to reach out from a previous century and grab you, don’t they? I can understand your fascination. The magic of immediacy Marilyn: Yes, it was the immediacy of it. It was the fact that the new style of photography hadn’t actually come in yet. They were still using wet plates. They had to develop them within ten minutes of taking them. And that was the immediacy of it. And it was the rawness. I just knew I had to write about this. But I had to have somebody who was going to change lives and change the world, and in this case it’s crime scenes. Of course Julia is forced into taking dirty pictures to make a living. Jenny: Yes.  So she does take these risque photographs.  Her models are dying around her and it looks like she’s being framed for their murders. So she’s got this rather desperate and intriguing backstory, which means that she can’t just immediately flee and throw herself on the mercies of the police or she feels that she can’t. So that sets up a whole series of really wonderful complications in terms of story plotting. A new series is born You’ve already got some great conflicts and tensions set up there for a series, haven’t you? And it’s obvious from Book One that you are planning this as another series. Marilyn: Oh, yeah, baby. The second book’s coming out soon. It’s available for preorder any second now.  I’m finishing the third one and then I’ll be planning the fourth one, rolling my sleeves up and getting on with that on. No peace for the wicked! Jenny: Is that just a manner of speaking, or is that the title? Marilyn: No, I’m never quite that long winded in the titles! They’re always two words. The next one is Cast Iron because of cast iron alibis, cast iron cases, all that sort of thing. Jenny: Yes. Fantastic. You mentioned that it was the publisher’s decision to put a cover line on Snapshot, which describes it as at an atmospheric thriller. That grabbed me, I thought, is this a new sub-genre? So what do you think they mean by that term? On atmospheric thrillers Marilyn: I’m not sure. I’ve looked up all the synonyms for atmospheric  and they’re things like impressive, distinctive, moody, special, full of atmosphere, full of character. And I thought, well if she asks me to pick one, I can’t. I like them all because I know what I’m expecting from them. The next one is they’ve changed to ‘You can run, but you can’t hide’ which I think more thriller-ish.  If I had to pick one word I’d pick “impressive.” Jenny: Yes, I would have also picked moody as being one as well. That would be appropriate. Marilyn: I won’t settle for just one. Go big or go home! Jenny: The first one is called Snap Shot, which as a first of the series about a female photographer is obviously very appropriate as well. Marilyn: Yes. They’ve all got double meanings to the titles. Plotting to beat the system Jenny: Yes. Julia does have similarities to your Rome goddess, Claudia. They’re both young widows pushed to the margins of society and perhaps needing, although resenting, having a male protector of some kind or other. Would that be a fair way to describe these situations? Marilyn: Let’s put it this way. They’re both frauds. Bottom line is that they’re both frauds, along with Iliona from the Greek series – and I’m starting to see theme here – these women spend half their lives plotting how to beat the system. They’re scheming to find ways to find and retain their independence. I think it’s not so much that they resent male protectors, more the fact the society insists that they to have them to start with. Heroines with a lot of spirit – Marilyn Todd Jenny: Yes. That they are marginalized. And if they want to find a way to exercise power, they almost have to trick the system. You can’t keep a good woman down Marilyn; Well, exactly. As I say, they spend all their time scheming to beat the system. Jenny: Yes. They’re racy and they’re pacey. And you could have a theme of saying you can’t keep a good woman down? Marilyn: Absolutely. Or you can’t keep a bad woman down. I think it was Mae West. who said “When, I’m good. I’m very, very good. But when I’m bad, I’m better.” I love that woman. Jenny: I don’t think I’ve heard that one before. Marilyn: Yes, she was a good girl, was Mae. Jenny: You’ve mentioned your ancient Greece trilogy. I must admit, I haven’t had a chance to look at those books in detail. But I thought even the description of those sounded highly contemporary. You’ve got this high priestess who’s blackmailed into working for Sparta’s hated secret police. That sounded almost like one of those thrillers that were so popular in the 70s. But set in ancient Greece. A short story anthology set in Ancient Rome – Swords, Sandals and Sirens by Marilyn Todd The nastiness of Sparta Marilyn: I don’t think those things have changed through the centuries at all. Absolutely I don’t. And Sparta’s secret police. I mean, they made the Gestapo look like saints. They were nasty, nasty people. She’s spending all that time trying to not just stay alive, but to work it to her advantage. The idea was to keep a sub-class – not slaves – they were called helots – and they just kept these people subjugated. The secret police would just infiltrate them to find out if there was any subversion going on and they would just kill people willy nilly to keep everybody on their toes. It’s a horrible system. A lifetime’s research Jenny: And so you’ve become quite an expert on ancient history. Did that take a long time for you to gain a toehold there? Or did you do like a year’s research in Ancient Rome? Marilyn: I’ve done a lifetime’s research. When other kids, were going through wardrobes, with the The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe to Narnia. I was going through the Lions Gate, in Knossos. My dad had a fascination with the ancient world. From when I was knee high I would learn not just about the ancient buildings and the beliefs, but the myths and the monsters that grew out of them. And I think I was 14 when my dad bought me I Claudius and the Iliad and another Robert Graves, a collection of The Greek Myths. From this I would see how tales of the Minotaur and Medusa, and Cyclops developed, Nothing comes out of pure imagination. Short story mastery There’s usually a spark of truth at the bottom of it. and on how they would grow and evolve. I debunk a lot of them in the Claudia series. But also Blind Eye, which was the first in the Greek series, revolves around the legend of the Cyclops. Ellery Queen for the best in mystery My story in the current issue of Ellery Queen Mystery magazine is called The Day of the Jackal, about the Egyptian jackal God Anubis. It’s a contemporary spin on that. So it never goes away. It’s in my blood. Jenny: That’s amazing. When you were talking about Ancient Greece what came to me was Mary Renault’s series about Mykonos, I think it was. One of the Greek islands. She wrote  a series of fantastic historical novels set in Ancient Greece from probably the 60s or even the 50s. I’m not sure now when they were published, but have you come across them? An award winning writer Marilyn: I know the name, but I’ve never read one. Any fiction I’ve read has really been crime or historical romance. Jenny: So there were 13 books in the Claudius series, then it seems as if you took a little bit of a break from writing before coming back to do Snapshot. Marilyn: No, I did not take a break. The absolute opposite. At the time I was writing short stories, which are doing really well.. I was getting quite a few good commissions from some really good places and I wanted to concentrate on my short story career. I picked up awards from Ellery Queen, and I received a Seamus nomination from the Private Eye Writers of America, I got in the hat for the Edgars .. . I didn’t get anywhere with it, but what the hell? Three short story anthologies I was really enjoying it until I went to the Klondike Museum in Seattle and had that little light bulb moment. But my first love was always short stories. I thought I would always want to write short stories. I don’t know how I got into historic fiction in the first place, but no, I certainly didn’t take a break. I’ve had 50 stories published in Ellery Queen Mystery magazine. Jenny: Oh, gosh, I see, yes. That explains why there haven’t been longer novels in the last couple of years. And your short stories – they are mainly in the historic settings? Marilyn: I’ve had three anthologies of my own stories published. One is The Wickedest Town in the West, which is Jerome, Arizona, you probably know that mining town. And one was commissioned by Crippin and Landru, Swords Sandals and Sirens, set in Ancient Rome, and Dead & Breakfast. They cover everything from crime to contemporary women’s fiction to the time I was asked to write a comic fantasy in the lines of Terry Pratchett. On living on a French hilltop And I asked myself, What do I know about Terry Pratchett? Now suddenly I’m reading Terry Pratchett. As always, I am drawn to blood.  I do like it! Jenny:  Turning to your wider career you do say in your Goodreads biography that you live with your husband on a French hilltop, “surrounded by vineyards, chateaux and vines.” It sounds wonderfully romantic and I couldn’t help thinking that there might be an ideal setting for a novel series sometime in the French countryside, where the contemporary or historic. Are you ever tempted to do that? Marilyn: Well, let me first say it is absolutely fabulous here. We’re above a rocky outcrop topped by the remains of a fortress that goes back to the 11th century. Unfortunately, they backed the wrong side in the Crusades, and got razed to the ground by Richard the Lionheart’s troops. Fairies at the bottom of the garden The crypt from the original chapel is still there, but mostly it’s just a mound of a grassed-over rubble with a couple of ditches. Not withstanding that, they built a new chateau next door, working our way up the hill, complete with crenellations and turrets. And that’s like the fairies at the bottom of the garden. If you stand on the balcony in winter you can just about see the slate roof through the trees. That’s gorgeous. Beyond all of that, the land drops something like 200 metres to a little river that’s got more arms than the goddess Kali. And just a couple of years ago, they discovered the remains of a little Roman bridge at the bottom, because we are just off the Via Agrippa as well.. You ask, is it an ideal setting for a series? Well, when we moved here we bought what was effectively a field. As I say, it’s at the top of the hill, so we had a house built and time consuming isn’t the word. Scorpion Rising – close to home But on the other hand, y’ know… I’ve got a book to write …. and I need a terrific location…. So this new chateau served as a seminary for priests at one point and suddenly I have this book called Scorpion Rising with a college of priestesses, all women, who keep men as sex slaves. And all I needed to do for research was walk down the bottom of my garden. The rocks are even riddled with the caves I wanted. Did I tell you this book wrote itself? So it’s not about a new series. It’s already been written. Scorpion Rising – set in a place very close to home for Marilyn Todd Jenny: Amazing. Marilyn: I know! I can’t believe you’d ask the question. Been there, done that. Jenny: So was that a standalone, that one? Marilyn: No, it wasn’t. It was one of the Claudia’s and I can’t quite remember which because, yes, my memory is not what it used to be. I wrote to over a hundred publishing contracts. I tend to find it hard to keep track The secret of Marilyn’s success Jenny:  If there’s one thing you’ve done in your writing career more than any other, what would you say was the secret of your success? Marilyn: It’s got to be that first contact with a literary agent., it really has. I’ve done my research. I’d drawn up a shortlist,  based on the fact that if you shoot for the moon, you’ll still land among the stars. I set my sights at the top. I went to the top of my list. And because she was behind me three hundred and fifty percent, I think that gave me tremendous confidence and belief in my writing abilities. I’m pretty sure that it all stems right from that. You know, that woman is a saint. Jenny: Yes. She gave you the permission, really, to sit down and just let your talent flow, by the way that you’ve described it. The blessing of a good agent Marilyn: She honed it in many ways, because I’d never thought of Ancient Rome. I never even thought of crime. A proactive heroine? Well, when she said she wanted that, you know, somehow I created a super bitch. One extreme to the other. And it just sort of flowed from there. And the encouragement she gave me was tremendous. Jenny: Are you a plotter or a pantser? And are you a workaholic or do you have to kind of push yourself to get going? Marilyn: Well, they’re thrillers, you’ve got to plot them tightly. You know that yourself. There’s no way around that. We have fingernails for a reason, Jenny. And that’s to bite them. So I’m going to make sure that people are biting them, so no, there’s no question of flying by the seat of my pants with thrillers. I forgot the other question Travel for relaxation Jenny: Whether you’re a workaholic. Have you got a favorite way to relax and unwind. Marilyn: Oh, yes. It’s travel. I mean, to actually be paid to do research,… it’s not a bad thing, is it? At first, the Claudia series gave me the opportunity to get out there and research all these wonderful places – like Tuscany. And it’s not all about the wine. And to go to Umbria and it’s not all about the wine. Croatia, Sicily, all sorts of lovely places to go to for inspiration and research. And even when I went to the writing conventions in America or in the award ceremonies, you’ve got to put a road trip on that, haven’t you? That took me to Arizona, and to the “wickedest town in the west.” Tombstone gave me China Mary. Stories wherever you go Even when I went to Hamlin in Germany, it gave me the Pied Piper. My take on the Pied Piper, anyway. I mean, it’s a little bit of a double-edged sword. We went to Sweden a couple of weeks ago. and there’s a little bay on the water. Well, it’s all water because it’s an archipelago . . . But there was this little tiny cove inlet with a story to it, called The Point of No Return. So if you don’t see Mr Todd for a while, and you’ll know where he’s gone! It’s wonderful to be able to combine the two, to work hard, and play hard. And sometimes, you know, it overlaps a bit, but we never work on holiday. I may make notes, but a holiday is a holiday. What Marilyn’s reading now Jenny: The series is called The Joys of Binge Reading. And it’s predicated a little bit on that. I think there is a change in reading habits in the last decade with the digital revolution that people can very much more easily follow an author’s work. So taking that framework of binge reading, it sounds very much as you’ve been a lifelong binge reader. Who did you like to read and who are you reading now? Marilyn: Right now I’m reading someone called Jenny Wheeler ‘s Of Gold & Blood historical mystery series, and I’m really enjoying it. And I’m not sucking up to you about this. I’ve always read crime. You know, when I was younger, like about 16, I went to the library and they ran out of crime books because I’d read them all. I was a very fast reader. But the joy about digital reading is it’s made things so much accessible and affordable. Now people can buy a book and it’s not even the cost of a cup of coffee. So if they don’t like a series they haven’t lost a lot have they? I think it’s terrific. I love it. I think it’s such an incredible development. Just brilliant. The joy of digital reading Jenny: So you would say your taste mainly extends to historical and crime, right? Marilyn: Yes, it is what I binge now. And also the short stories.  I was a great fan of the late Diana Norman. She wrote some fantastic historical novels and the way she handled romance was out of this world. One can learn from that. I never could do that well, if I studied her for 75 years. Hat’s off to her.  I think it’s always one of my regrets that I never wrote to her or contacted her and said what a great job she was doing. I think it’s now, it’s only this digital age, where people do write to you and say, I’m really enjoying this. Because that’s what makes writing worthwhile. Knowing that people are enjoying what you’re doing. You can’t please all of the people all of the time. You don’t try. But it’s great. Diana Norman was great. Now I tend to read the short stories. Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Ellery Queen magazine. Stephen Kings said of Ellery Queen “The best mystery magazine, Bar none.” So, you know, if it’s good enough for him it’s good enough for me. Doing it all over again Jenny: That’s great. We are starting to come to the end of our time together. So just circling round and looking back over your successful writing career. At this stage, if you were doing it at all again, what would you change, if anything? Marilyn: I wouldn’t. I’m not saying it’s perfect. It isn’t. I’m not saying I haven’t made mistakes. I have. But it’s like Rubik’s Cube. If you change one thing, you change the whole nature of it. The picture changes. Everything slides out of sync. I just say, well, okay, that was a mistake. Learn from it. Move on. It like that old saying, even if you fall on your face, you moving forward. I just look at it and think, hey, I’ll make better mistakes tomorrow. Learning from our mistakes Jenny: Could you think of one thing that you would categorize now as a “mistake” in quotes? I mean, there’s that other phrase that the business people use about failing upwards. So is failure necessarily a bad thing at all? If you learn from it. Could you think of one lesson that you would not prefer not to repeat? Marilyn: I can’t think of anything offhand. That’s not being overconfident or not sharing. It’s just that, you know, bad things…. you just forget about. Bury them and move on. There must be things – I’ll probably wake up at 3:00 in the morning and   think “Ah I could have told her about that,” but I can’t think of it now. Jenny: Actually, that probably says something about your resilience, the ability  to just pick yourself up, and dust yourself. Marilyn: Oh, that’s me to a tee. I’m the eternal optimist. You know, tomorrow will be fine. And it is. Life does go on. Marilyn’s new projects Jenny: Yes. So what’s next for Marilyn the writer? What are you working on now and any new projects? Marilyn: Well, as I say, the second book is due out sort of any minute now. The clock’s ticking. I’m  wrapping up book number three and then I’m going to move on to book number four. But, you know, you can’t just keep on the same railway tracks, you lose focus. So it’ll be back to the short stories again. First of all, I’ve got to get rid of Mr. Told. I mentioned this earlier. The Point of No Return is nagging away inside, it needs to be written. I’ve also got another couple of short stories bubbling away, so I’d like to do those. And of course, we’re traveling as usual. So, yes, there’s quite a lot going on. Nothing desperately specific, other than that. I mean, the Julia series is so new, it demands all attention. Readers are friends in disguise Jenny:  And Book # 3. Has it got a title yet? Marilyn: Yes. A working title. It might not end up being this, but at the moment It’s Bad Blood. This is where I am going with it, like I said, I like blood. Jenny: It sounds like you really welcome interaction with your readers so where can readers find you online? And how do you prefer to interact with them? Marilyn: I do. I’m quite active on Facebook. And I do interact with fans there. It’s great. It is absolutely great. They’re such a good bunch of people. It’s terrific. People can contact me through the website, www.marilyntodd.com but I think there’s something more immediate about Facebook because,  you’ve just commented, they reply, and it’s great. I love it. Jenny: And I guess when you first started out, Facebook wouldn’t have been nearly as much of a medium as it is now. Warming to Facebook Marilyn: It was only relatively recently that I even saw the point of Facebook. I thought, you know, if you want to keep in touch with your friends, you keep in touch with your friends. But now friends takes on a different meaning. And it’s amazing how many friends you do make. It’s not just the numbers, you know. They say so and so’s got 5000 friends. No they don’t.  But you do have really good friends there. There’s a handful of those, just like there’s a handful in life. Perhaps the handful’s a bit bigger on Facebook, but it’s a lovely little community and they interact with each other as well. Amazing. I think it’s just tremendous for everybody. Jenny: One of the indie publishing gurus has got the phrase “superfans.” That writerss can attract these days, super fans. And in a way, yes, you are talking about your super fans, the ones who want to read everything you write. The pleasures of social media Marilyn: Actually, I guess, yes. I think of them as ‘super’ fans, I suppose, but I also think of them as friends. They do want to read everything you write and more, but they’re interested because they’ve connected I think. And it works both ways. I mean, I follow them to know they’re well and happy and that their ups and downs are taken care of. I care about them. Jenny Do they give you suggestions for who they’d like you to write about next or make suggestions for how the next book might go? Marilyn: I think I don’t get involved in that much. My imagination has got enough to contend with. Quite often people say, here’s a good idea for a story. You think, no, not really. You know, it’s about 100 million down the list because if I lived to eternity, I’d never write them all. Jenny: Oh, that’s wonderful, Marilyn.., It’s been great having a chance to talk. It really has. And I look forward to the coming Julia books with great anticipation. Thank you. Marilyn: Thank you for having me, as they say – now I’ve got to get back Madame Moustache if you don’t mind . . (Reference to a character in Poisoned Legacy Book One in Of Gold Blood) If you enjoyed hearing about Marilyn’s Victorian thriller you might also be interested in Julie McElwain’s Time Travel mysteries FBI meets Jane Austen. Thanks To Our Technical Support: The Joys of Binge Reading podcast is put together with wonderful technical help from Dan Cotton at DC Audio Services. Dan is an experienced sound and video engineer who’s ready and available to help you with your next project… Seek him out at [email protected] or Phone + 64 – 21979539. He’s fast, takes pride in getting it right, and lovely to work with. Our voice overs are done by Abe Raffills, and Abe’s another gem. He got 20 years of experience on both sides of the camera/microphone as a cameraman/director and also voice artist and television presenter. Abe’s vocal delivery is both light hearted and warm and he is super easy to work with no matter the job. You’ll find him at [email protected]