The Joys of Historical Research

My new book, a historical mystery set in Prohibition era central Illinois, is taking me in many new directions. Since my protagonist, Dr. Earl Snyder Junker, is a physician, I need to know about medical practice in the 1920s. Could my character be a medical examiner as well as a family doctor? What kinds of diseases would he encounter, and what could he offer as treatments before antibiotics?

Fortunately, I have a physician husband (a retired pathologist) who can steer me to the right sort of medical information. Even better, I just signed up for an online course of the history of forensics with Dr. D. P. Lyle, a physician/author who frequently teaches mystery writers:

Dr. D.P. Lyle

Dr. Junker is also an amateur archaeologist during a time when it was still okay for private individuals to dig up burial mounds, before archaeology became an academic discipline. Early arrowhead hunters in Illinois sometimes operated like cowboys, laying claim to sites illegally and shooting at anyone who tried to stop them. Here I have plenty of help from Illinois archaeologists who know the colorful characters and history of digging in the Midwest.

Junker’s wife, Martha, is a German immigrant, so that means investigating anti-immigrant feelings that were rampant between the World Wars. And their nineteen-year-old daughter, Anna, is a nursing student by day and a fun-loving flapper by night. The 1920s was an exciting time for women who had just gained the right to vote and were breaking social taboos left and right: they drank booze and smoked cigarettes in public, wore revealing dresses and short skirts and bobbed their hair short.


But the most fascinating subject is Prohibition and the myriad ways for ordinary people to make and transport illegal liquor. The literature on this subject is vast and often available on the Internet. Two of my favorite discoveries so far: my hometown of Champaign, Illinois, had an underground passage between two major streets so speakeasy patrons could escape excise agents, and there’s a wonderful article on Prohibition in Cincinnati online

Prohibition

Archaeology and Murder,

Meet author Sarah Wisseman

Archaeological sites are composed of layers, just like geological strata. In the Middle East, where I worked on my first excavation, people chose the same sites over and over again to build on for two reasons—the availability of water, and defensibility. Thus, walled cities with protected cisterns inside rose on the same “tells” over and over again.

Unlike the layer-cake they are so often compared too, archaeological layers are messy. Instead of being neat, horizontal layers that are easy to interpret, they are disturbed by running water, animal burrowing, tree roots growing, and humans digging garbage pits and foundation trenches.

Mysteries are composed of layers, too. The top layer, or stratum, is what the reader sees and where the main story takes place. A couple of strata down is where the villain hangs out, plotting and planning away, occasionally rising to the surface like a misplaced artifact in an ancient garbage pit.

Personalities are layered as well, and it's the job of writers to reveal the layers in their characters in ways that move the story along. And everyone has a garbage pit--the family traumas from the past, the dysfunctional relationships of the present. Garbage, like compost, can provide rich beginnings for new stories.

Gradually I'm excavating my own life to unearth situations and characters that will make good mysteries. These include creepy old attic museums, digs in Israel, Italy, and Nevada, and peculiar academic characters that morph into murderers (or murderees!).

My latest book, The House of the Sphinx, has at least three layers. Lisa Donahue, archaeologist and museum curator, finally gets to visit Egypt with her physician husband, James. Their standard tour of Egypt, complete with a four-night cruise on the Nile, is the top layer. Underneath is a terrorist plot to infect Western tourists with smallpox at major archaeological sites. And below that is the complicated layer of interactions within the Arab family that aids the terrorists.

I love reading layered mysteries, especially historicals. A recent discovery is Medicus, by Ruth Downie. It’s about an irascible but loveable Roman physician working in Britannia and his slave/housekeeper Tilla who won’t obey orders. A fabulous read!


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