Research Became Personal

This week, I got to re-release my book, A GIANT MURDER, as part of my new Once Upon a Murder series. It's a 1920's romantic mystery with a fairy tale twist. 

I’m so glad to make this book available again. It was so much fun to write, especially when I was doing the research. That part became extremely personal. Not only was I investigating people and places from my hometown of Dallas, Texas, I was studying the time and places where my grandmother grew up, where she met and married my grandfather, and where she lived her entire adult life.

My maternal grandmother was Bobbie Zeflah Stevenson. Zeflah - I know, right?! I can only guess that it had something to do with the fact that she was either the ninth or tenth child and was a solid ten years younger than her nearest sibling. I can imagine my great grandmother’s insistence on the Z initial. “That’s it. No more!” LOL!

This is a photo of her as a teenager walking in downtown Dallas. She was raised as much by her older
sisters, right alongside their kids, as she was by her aging mother. During the 1920s, she moved off the farm in Gatesville, Texas, to live with her sister, closest in age, Opal Boone, who had just married and moved into Oak Cliff, a suburb of Dallas.

Mamaw Bobbie was a stitch. I can only imagine the fun she had, being a teenager during the Roaring Twenties. She was absolutely gorgeous – Debbie Reynolds type of gorgeous. You can bet I saw her in some of the scenes of my book, particularly the flapper scenes. 

Meanwhile, my grandfather, Lloyd “Red” Morin, was a young firefighter in Dallas with an easy-going nature and an excellent sense of humor. I don’t know where he finally got the courage to speak to my grandmother, but he’d noticed her long before he spoke to her. She was so out of his league, according to him. With a long face, large ears, and untamed auburn waves, he considered himself to have little to offer.

But he had something my grandmother desperately needed – a kind and faithful heart that would love her until the day she died. They married at the justice of the peace with their best friends standing up for them, and then the four of them celebrated at a restaurant afterward. In the early 1930s, it was likely the best they could do, but their meager beginning left a legacy of love, two daughters, five grandchildren, twelve great-grandchildren, and fifty-six years of a marriage.

Here’s a close up of her when she was eighteen in 1933. I dedicated A GIANT MURDER book to my grandmother. My main character, Josephine (Josie) Jacobs is a little like her, spunky and confident, even though she’d consider herself to be rather timid. 

Josie never looks for trouble. She minds her manners and her own business. But when a gunshot explodes on the other side of a hotel door, what can she do except report it? How could she have an inkling that she’d be the one suspected of the shooting?

Can you figure out who killed the giant? Here’s a hint: it wasn’t Josie!

This story fell into place when I challenged myself to figure out a mystery based on Jack and the Beanstalk. Not that it is my favorite fairy tale, but I wanted to branch out beyond the princess stories.

A GIANT MURDER blends unexpected romance in the unique era where simplicity and modernism collided. The fact that it adds elements of “Jack and the Beanstalk” and a juicy murder just for grins is the cherry on top. Or maybe the golden egg!

So what is your favorite fairy tale? Would it make a good mystery? Answering my question in the comments (and leaving your email address), just might win you a free copy of one of my books. And I look forward to hearing your thoughts!