It’s no secret that I love detective mysteries, but what I really like to read are mysteries from different areas of the world. It’s amazing how different police procedures, organizations and investigations can be, both fictional and real life. Fiona Barton has created one of my favorite female detective persona’s in her Elise King Mystery series. Her writing captures the true struggles female detective face both on and off the job. The job is everything—until it’s not. I hope you enjoy this fascinating series and getting to sit down with Fiona Barton as much as I did.
Kym Roberts: Welcome to the Cozy Corner, Fiona! Your background in journalism has required you look into some dark events and crimes. How were you able to separate your everyday life from the brutality of some of those assignments?
Fiona Barton: It was hard at times – I remember covering the mass shooting of primary school children in Dunblane, Scotland and then returning home to my young family, who were upset about a sick pet. Two different realities but you have to deal with both with empathy. The danger is becoming numb to the terrible events in the news – as a reporter you have to feel to be able to tell people’s stories properly.
Kym: So true, I think as a society we are fighting the numbness. You have a drive to service your community, whether that be on a local or global level. What was the most rewarding service you participated in? As a writer, how do you think that service enriched your work?
Fiona: Working with journalists willing to risk their lives to bring truth to their communities. I was a volunteer in Sri Lanka at the end of the civil war in the country, working with Tamil reporters at a time when journalists were being murdered, kidnapped and tortured by forces connected to the most powerful. Their courage and determination made me realize why journalism is so important.
Kym: What was the hardest part about transitioning from a journalist to a novelist?
Fiona: Resisting the impulse to tell the whole story in the first paragraph! I had to learn the drip, drip, drip of the thriller – and to allow myself to invent…
Kym: You learned to “drip, drip,drip” very well;) You just released Local Gone Missing, a detective Elise King mystery on June 9th. The mystery is about a female detective who had to go on sick-leave from the job she loved due to her fight with breast cancer, when she gets drawn into a local missing person’s case in her seaside community of Ebbing. What drew you into this story-line?
Fiona: I wanted a central character whose life has imploded. Elise King thought she knew exactly how her life was going to work out with her career as a detective at its center. Until her long-term relationship ends suddenly, and she is diagnosed with breast cancer. It makes her question whether she will ever be the woman she was, again. Two women detectives talked to me very openly and frankly about the challenges they faced – both personal and professional – and I put that dilemma at the heart of the story.
Kym: Thank you for seeing and bringing the reality of the life for a female detective alive on the page. Local Gone Missing actually starts out like a cozy mystery, introducing the lead character, Elise, the town of Ebbing, and two close accomplices, Ronnie and Dee, who add a certain flare to the story, but then it turns toward a police procedural and all the little details that pull an investigation together. How do you keep track of all the little details? Do you have a whiteboard, a spreadsheet or a diagram for your mysteries, or are you able to keep it all together in your head?
Fiona: I bought a whiteboard but forgot to use it… I have a spreadsheet for the characters, so I don’t forget who runs the fish and chip shop and try and keep things straight in my increasingly addled brain.
Kym: LOL, I have yet to met the writer who can keep all of the characters straight in their head. If you had Ronnie as a neighbor, would you invite her in for tea, or put up a no trespassing sign?
Fiona: Tea and a good gossip every time. I love Ronnie, my little sticky beak.
Kym: Ronnie as a neighbor would be a great find! If you had to write an alternate ending to LOCAL GONE MISSING, (without giving away too much), who would you like to see get put in handcuffs and why?
Fiona: Spoiler alert. Do you mind if I leave that to the readers?
Kym: I guess I was asking you to give away a bit too much. LOCAL GONE MISSING is your fourth novel. Are some of your characters and places inspired by real people, events and locations? If so, what town did you model Ebbing after?
Fiona: I like to keep my characters grounded in reality – a legacy of my reporting days, I think. But they are a mash up of different people I have met or watched. Same for the fictional town of Ebbing (but I do live on the Sussex coast.)
Kym: Which of your novels was the hardest to write and why?
Fiona: Want to say all of them! You would think it would get easier but each one is a mountain to climb. The feeling of relief when you write The End is indescribable.
Kym: In your bio you talk about your pet cockerel, Titch, crowing while you write. I can’t help but think he’s trying to tell you what you need to put on the page, LOL. If Titch was to tell you a story, what would he say?
Fiona: Er… Chicken Licken?
Kym: Ha! I have no doubt you would protect Titch if the sky was falling! What are you working on now?
Fiona: Book Five. Back in Ebbing and DI Elise King is firmly back in the saddle.
Kym: Yay! Go Elise! Where can our readers find you online?
Fiona: On Twitter and on Facebook.
Kym: Thank you for joining us at The Cozy Corner on Fresh Fiction!
Fiona: Thank you for the lovely questions.
Until next month when Lucy Burdette sits down with us to discuss her upcoming release, A DISH TO DIE FOR, get cozy and read on!
LOCAL GONE MISSING by Fiona Barton
Elise King is a successful and ambitious detective—or she was before a medical leave left her unsure if she’d ever return to work. She now spends most days watching the growing tensions in her small seaside town of Ebbing—the weekenders renovating old bungalows into luxury homes, and the locals resentful of the changes.
Elise can only guess what really happens behind closed doors. But Dee Eastwood, her house cleaner, often knows. She’s an invisible presence in many of the houses in town, but she sees and hears everything.
The conflicts boil over when a newcomer wants to put the town on the map with a giant music festival, and two teenagers overdose on drugs. When a man disappears the first night of the festival, Elise is drawn back into her detective work and starts digging for answers. Ebbing is a small town, but it’s full of secrets and hidden connections that run deeper and darker than Elise could have ever imagined.
Suspense Women Sleuth | Thriller Psychological [Berkley, On Sale: June 21, 2022, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781984803047 / eISBN: 9781984803054]
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About Fiona Barton
Fiona Barton trains and works with journalists all over the world. Previously, she was a senior writer at the Daily Mail, news editor at the Daily Telegraph, and chief reporter at the Mail on Sunday, where she won Reporter of the Year at the British Press Awards. Born in Cambridge, England, she currently lives in southwest France.
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