1–What is the title of your latest release?
BETWEEN A WOK AND A DEAD PLACE: A Spice Shop mystery
2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
When Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, joins in a Lunar New Year celebration and a body is discovered in a long-closed residential hotel, she’s forced to investigate—before someone else’s fortunes take an unlucky change.
3–This is the latest entry in a series set in Seattle. Does it get harder or easier to write a series set in the same city? Why?
I’ve loved Seattle since I was a college student there and writing about the city never gets old! Plus it’s an excuse to keep up with the city, since cities are always changing, and to make regular research trips. And by research, you know I mean eat!
4–Last year we asked if you would hang out with your protagonist in real life. This year we’ll ask which of your secondary characters in Pepper’s life would you like to hang out with the most?
That’s easy! Sandra Piniella, the Spice Shop’s assistant manager, because she’s closely based on a real-life friend of mine, a woman I met when we both worked in a bookstore in our shared hometown. (Bookstore! Second favorite job ever, after writing!)
5–What are some words that describe this secondary character?
Both the real and fictional Sandras are smart, creative, fun, snarky, amazingly capable at retail, and great cooks who make it look easy. Pepper and I have learned a lot from our respective Sandras!
6–What’s something you learned while writing this latest book?
The spark for this book was lit when my husband and I visited the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle, dedicated to the history of the Asian community in the Pacific Northwest, and toured the Kong Yick Hotel, a community center and residential hotel dating back to the 1880s. What if, I wondered, a body was found in the basement of an old hotel? What other secrets might linger in a building with such a rich history? So I created the Gold Rush Hotel, and dug into the history of Seattle’s Chinese community and its residential hotels, which were enormously important to the region’s economic and cultural development. And secrets? Oh, my!
7–What is the most challenging part of writing a novel? The most rewarding?
The key for me, is finding the emotional conflicts at the center of the story and discovering what they lead the characters to do. That is the heart of the story, and it’s both the most challenging and the most satisfying part.
8–Last year we discussed your writing space/office. Can you share where and how you conduct the research phase of writing the Spice Shop mysteries?
For me, research is a combination of reading, eating, and walking the ground. I’m a big fan of historical sites and museums, like those I mentioned in Seattle. For this book, the museum’s website and sites for historic Chinese pharmacies that have been preserved in Oregon and Montana were enormously helpful. I pored over collections of oral histories, a friend’s mother’s memoir of life in China, and a fascinating book called Building Tradition: Pan-Asian Seattle and Life in the Residential Hotels by Marie Rose Wong, Ph.D. By coincidence, during the research phase, my husband and I spent a long weekend in a still-operating hotel of the same vintage, and details like the doorknobs, push-button electricity, and wide staircases worked their way into the book. And I had a chance to walk the Seattle streets again last fall, soaking in the atmosphere and picking up visual details.
The Spice Shop mystery I’m working on right now, for publication in July 2024, hasn’t required nearly as much research, but I’ve got a list of places to ground-truth and food to try on my next visit!
9–How do you go about creating and testing the recipes in the book?
The title spice comes to me early—in some books, it’s been part of the story line. I love searching out recipes that will give readers new ways to think about an herb or spice, like the Lemon Thyme Shortbread in Killing Thyme, or that are simply fun, like the Double Chocolate Peppermint Bark in Peppermint Barked. It’s crucial to me that readers can actually find the ingredients and make the food, and nothing goes in the book that I haven’t tested thoroughly. It helps to have a husband who loves to cook and eat—he’s honest about what works and what doesn’t, and happily cleans the kitchen!
10–Apart from what your characters cook/bake, do you yourself enjoy cooking/baking?
I do! I did not grow up in a foodie family, so discovering Pike Place Market as a teenager was quite a revelation. You can find almost any ingredient and any kind of cuisine there. Every time I visit, I discover a new shop or restaurant—and places that have been there for ages that I had never tried. So much fun!
11–Who is a cookbook author (or just a chef) you admire?
So much contemporary cooking and food writing descends from the great Julia Child! I go back again and again to cookbooks by David Lebovitz, whose blog is also excellent, and Dorie Greenspan. Plus the clippings, printouts, and scribbled notes that fill THREE 3-ring binders on our cookbook shelves!
12–When did you decide that you wanted to write mystery fiction?
I’ve always loved mysteries, though as an English major, I read widely. I’m also a lawyer, which gives me an advantage in writing about crime and justice. The real push came, though, when I was driving a lot and listening to audio books, so many of them mysteries. It’s such a satisfying genre: character development, plots that mean something, intriguing settings, and endings that lean toward justice, in all its many permutations.
13–Who is an underappreciated writer you wish more readers would discover?
I’ll step outside mystery for a moment to praise the late Ivan Doig, whose novels set in Montana in the middle of the last century are gems. He was at his best writing in the voice of the young boy on the cusp of understanding. My favorites are The Whistling Season, The Bartender’s Tale, and The Last Bus to Wisdom.
14–Last year you said Casablanca was your favorite movie, but indicated you have many others. What are some additional favorites?
I love epics, like Dr. Zhivago and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and period gems like Key Largo and The Maltese Falcon.
15–Are you a music fan? What genres/musicians do you enjoy listening to?
My husband is a singer-songwriter who plays the guitar and the sitar, and I love listening to him! There’s a new concert venue in the valley, and we’ve heard Branford Marsalis, Tommy Emmanuel, Shawn Colvin, and more. Next up: Marty Stuart and the Fabulous Superlatives. We’re drinking it all in!
16–What is your idea of a perfect vacation?
Mountains to hike, sights to see, books to read in a room with a view! Last year, we spent a week hiking in the Swiss Alps followed by several days in Florence, Italy, and loved every minute. I could have spent hours in the food market in the heart of Florence. Of course, I live in a place where people vacation, in NW Montana, and that’s pretty sweet!
17–What tv shows, movies, and/or podcasts have you been enjoying this year?
I am kind of obsessed with France, though I haven’t written about it yet, so we’ve been watching Un Village Francais (A French Village) on Prime/MHz (7 seasons, 2012-18). It’s terrific historical fiction set during WW II in a village near the Swiss border. In French with subtitles, so it’s helping me retrain mon oreille pour le francais (my ear for the language).
18–What are you currently reading for recreation?
In Place of Fear by Catriona McPherson and Hidden Beneath by Barbara Ross.
19–What is your favorite book of the year so far? Any genre/year of publication.
Ooh, tough one — I had a great streak of reading this spring! Favorite cozy: The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell (2023). Favorite historical: Anywhere You Run by Wanda Morris (2022). Favorite suspense: One by One by Ruth Ware (2020).
20–What can readers expect from you next?
The 8th Spice Shop mystery will be out in July 2024, tentatively titled To Err is Cumin. I’m also working on a collection of historical short mysteries and novellas featuring a real-life woman, “Stagecoach Mary” Fields, called All God’s Sparrows, coming in 2024.
BETWEEN A WOK AND A DEAD PLACE by Leslie Budewitz
It’s the Lunar New Year, and fortunes are about to change.
Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, loves a good festival, especially one serving up tasty treats. So what could be more fun than a food walk in the city’s Chinatown–International District, celebrating the Year of the Rabbit?
But when her friend Roxanne stumbles across a man’s body in the Gold Rush, a long-closed residential hotel, questions leap out. Who was he? What was he doing in the dust-encrusted herbal pharmacy in the hotel’s basement? Why was the pharmacy closed up—and why are the owners so reluctant to talk?
With each new discovery, Pepper finds herself asking new questions and facing more brick walls.
Then questions arise about Roxanne and her relationship to Pepper’s boyfriend Nate, away fishing in Alaska. Between her worries and her struggle to hire staff at the Spice Shop, Pepper has her hands and her heart full. Still, she can’t resist the lure of the Gold Rush and its tangled history of secrets and lies stretching back nearly a century.
But the killer is on her tail, driven by hidden demons and desires. As Pepper begins to expose the long-concealed truth, a bigger question emerges: Can she uncover the secrets of the Gold Rush Hotel without being pushed from the wok into the fire?
Mystery Amateur Sleuth | Mystery Cozy [Seventh Street, On Sale: July 18, 2023, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781645060611 / eISBN: 9781645060758]
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About Leslie Budewitz
Leslie Budewitz is a three-time Agatha Award winner and the best-selling author of the Spice Shop mysteries, set in Seattle, and Food Lovers’ Village mysteries, inspired by Bigfork, Montana, where she lives. Next up: Peppermint Barked(July 2022). As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody suspense, beginning with Bitterroot Lakeand continuing with Blind Faith (October 2022). Leslie is a board member of Mystery Writers of America and a past president of Sisters in Crime.
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