Dead Letters by Sheila Connolly

Author:Sheila Connolly
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group, Inc.
Published: 2012-02-06T16:00:00+00:00

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Q&A

The Museum Mysteries

What inspired you to set your mystery series in a Philadelphia historical institution?

I think that Philadelphia has been underused as a setting for novels. The city is rich in both history and culture, but at the same time it’s a modern city—in the past few decades, it’s undergone a lot of major changes, but it continues to be strong. For example, eating in Philadelphia used to be a joke, but now it boasts a wealth of interesting restaurants. It’s not just cheesesteaks any more! And Philadelphia has an ample supply of museums and other cultural organizations, so there’s plenty of fodder for an ongoing book series. Both the children’s museum and the firemen’s museum that I have depicted in this series are inspired by real Philadelphia institutions (although I don’t know of any criminal activities at either!).

Also, the setting is one I’m personally familiar with. I grew up mainly on the east coast, near Philadelphia, so I was always surrounded by American history. As an adult, I found myself working for a financial advisory firm that was trying desperately to keep the city from going bankrupt (we succeeded). Talk about hands-on learning! Later I worked on a couple of Pennsylvania political campaigns. All of these combined gave me a good understanding of the city’s history and its current condition. I knew who the local players were. When I started working as a fundraiser at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, a respected local historical institution, I expected it to be a pleasant change to step back into a simpler, quieter job. But that was before it was discovered that a trusted long-term employee who we all knew and liked had walked off with four million dollars’ worth of collections items over several years, and nobody had noticed (in fact, that was the inspiration for Fundraising the Dead). Luckily many of the items were recovered, but it was a sad episode in HSP’s history—and anything but quiet!

Is there a real-life inspiration for Thomas?

Yes, definitely. HSP has at least one ghost that everyone knows about, and he’s been around for a while: he used to run the mimeograph machine when nobody was around, which gives you an idea of how long. I borrowed much of his history for Thomas. And I and several other people heard someone exclaiming loudly, “Ow! Ow! Ow!” out in a hallway, but when we went to investigate, there was no one there.

All those creaks and thuds in an old building aren’t always due to the plumbing, and that’s something you get used to. In fact, HSP now gives annual ghost tours, as do many other historic places.

What do you enjoy most about writing for your heroine Nell Pratt?

Writers are often asked how much we include of ourselves in our writing. I like to think that Nell is pretty much like me, only better. When I started writing, I realized that a fundraiser made an ideal protagonist. I

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