3 Questions for Detective Novelist Deborah Crombie

Deborah Crombie writes what appear on the surface to be orthodox mystery novels but has chosen an unorthodox path to the top of the genre. She is a Texas native who crosses the border to write exclusively about British characters. While many heroes of British crime fiction tend to be tormented, alcoholic, or dysfunctional — wasn’t Sherlock Holmes always on the barely functional end of the autism spectrum? — Crombie’s sleuthing power couple, Detective Superintendent Duncan Kinkaid and Detective Inspector Gemma James of Scotland Yard, are comfortingly normal, decent people with beating hearts who ferret out murderers while balancing work and family. This makes them both easy to relate to and subtly addicting. Crombie’s 18th Kinkaid/James novel is A Bitter Feast (HarperCollins, hardcover and Kindle). She is the first author to participate in the “3 Questions” series:

Your new novel A Bitter Feast has a foodie angle featuring Viv Holland, a chef who relocates from London to her native village in the Cotswolds, where she blends traditional cuisine with innovative ideas. Did you do any food research specifically for this book?

Oh, yes. I interviewed chefs, I toured restaurant kitchens, I read dozens of books on chefs and professional cooking. But best of all, I ate. Finally I had justification for trying those Michelin-starred restaurants in London and in the Cotswolds! It was revelatory, to say the least, and some of the meals were life-memory experiences. Chef Nik Chappell at the Slaughters Manor House in Lower Slaughter cooked a tasting menu for me that was just exquisite.

You and Elizabeth George are among the few major American novelists to populate classic detective novels entirely with British characters — though you have lived in the U.K. and absorbed the culture. Does this give you an objectivity about British culture that a native might not have?

Perhaps. But although I am fascinated by British history and culture and especially the eccentricities of British life, I try hard not to step outside a British viewpoint. It helps that I find the British to be very self-aware, much more so than Americans, so it’s not unusual for a Brit to make cultural or class observations.

Your books always include hand-drawn maps of the areas where the story plays out, a delightful touch for fans of old-fashioned mysteries. What map-enriched classic mysteries convinced you to adopt this form of illustration?

I suspect my love of maps came first from fantasy rather than mystery, especially from J.R.R. Tolkien’s maps in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and C.S. Lewis’s maps of Narnia. But there is a long tradition in mystery as well. Agatha Christie included maps in some early books, as did Margery Allingham. Dorothy Sayers even included a primitive map in The Nine Tailors. Many of Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael novels have beautiful maps, as does Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have had maps drawn by the wonderful illustrator Laura Hartman Maestro grace 12 (so far!) of my books.