Author Interview: Karen Odden

USA Today Bestselling author Karen Odden

 Historical mystery writer Karen Odden's debut novel, A Lady in the Smoke, hit the USA Today bestseller's list and won the New Mexico-Arizona 2017 Book Award for e-Book Fiction.  In her newest release, A Dangerous Duet, Odden returns to Victorian England with Nell Hallam, an ambitious pianist who stumbles across a disturbing mystery while playing piano in a Soho music hall.     Karen took a break from her crazy schedule of writing, book promotions, and family to talk with me about Dangerous Duet, her writing, and more!






Nell Hallam isn't a traditional Victorian young woman.  She doesn't balk at dressing in men's clothing, working in a rough music hall, or facing danger to help friends and family.  What inspired you to create the character of Nell? 

Years ago, when I was doing research for the Introduction that I wrote for Charles Dickens’s Hard Times(for the Barnes & Noble classics series) I came across the story of Fanny Dickens, his older sister, who was a brilliant pianist and attended the Royal Academy of Music in London in the 1820s. Their father was an irresponsible spendthrift, always in debt, which resulted both in Charles working in the infamous bootblack factory, and Fanny having to leave the Academy because she couldn’t afford tuition. Eventually she was allowed to return in exchange for providing lessons to other students. But it got me to thinking—what would happen if she hadn’t been offered that position? There weren’t many professions open to women in the 1870s in England, and most of them weren’t particularly remunerative: seamstress, governess, companion, nurse—and prostitute. Some female performers were paid decently, but that depended upon having a particular skill or what we’d now call “street cred” from graduating from a school like the Academy. So I wondered, could Nell earn the tuition by playing piano? Were there places she might be hired? That brought me to the music halls, of which there were hundreds in London by 1875.

One of the things that I think really sets you apart as an author is your ability to describe London as if it is a living, breathing character.  How do you immerse yourself in the city to describe it in such sensory detail?

Images are a great help. You can go online and find dozens of images for Victorian music halls, the Pantechnicon on fire, the sheet music Nell might have used, costumes, and London itself. I was very lucky this time in that there is still one Victorian music hall standing: Wilton’s, in Graces Alley, Whitechapel (www.wiltons.org.uk). In 2012, when I was researching for this book, I had the chance to tag along with my husband on a business trip, and I went not only to the Royal Academy, where I was lucky enough to find an exhibit on music halls, but also to Wilton’s. I prowled all over the place, including the basement where the plaster was falling off the bricks and the floors were uneven. I stood at the back of the music hall and could envision Nell in the corner at stage right with her piano. From there, it was easy to imagine the Octavian.

Do you carefully plot out every scene in your books or see where the characters take you?

I begin with a premise and a character. After that, it’s an uneven progression among careful plotting, adventurous research, and letting my characters lead. I often write plot points on sticky notes, which I lay out on my floor; then I move them around to find the best order to create tension and build suspense. But let’s say there’s a scene that I know has to happen. For example, in my first book, A Lady in the Smoke, I knew that Elizabeth and Tom Flynn had to meet; I needed a scene in which he gave her a piece of information about her father that she didn’t know, and she convinced him that she was willing to help find the truth. But as I sat at my desk to write that scene, I felt as though both those characters were so clear in my head, I could just push Elizabeth into the room where Tom Flynn has been waiting … and then they did the moving and talking; I just wrote down what happened.

People who have read A Lady in the Smoke will notice the brief cameo in A Dangerous Duet of Mr. Flynn and Jeremy at the Falcon newspaper offices. Was that a coincidence? Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book? Should we expect surprise "guest appearances" by previous characters in future books too?

Yes! I want each book to stand alone, but I love the idea of creating a world in which characters live beyond the pages of a single book. To be honest, I feel wary about writing a series in which the protagonist remains the same. I know many other mystery/suspense writers manage to do it, and do it well—Susan Elia MacNeal, Rhys Bowen, Anne Perry, and G. M. Malliet, to mention a few. But I am afraid it might begin to feel formulaic—and I might get bored! So for now I plan to remain in the world of 1875 London, and while I may revisit characters, I don’t anticipate writing a series of books with the same protagonist every time. However, in my third novel, about a young woman painter at the Slade in London, Mr. Flynn has a cameo—and Inspector Matthew Hallam (Nell’s brother) becomes one of the main characters. 

So much of A Dangerous Duet focuses on the importance of music in Nell's life? Do you play an instrument? What are your favorite kinds of music? Composers?

I played piano (badly and briefly) as a child; but my father was a classically trained pianist and played the organ at churches and gave piano lessons. We had a baby grand in our living room at home, and piano is still my favorite instrument, with the cello a runner-up. Of myself and my three siblings, only my brother Kevin inherited my father’s enormous talent. He can hear a song once and play it by ear on the piano; he played violin when he was young and still plays bass and guitar and keyboards. One of my favorite things about him coming to visit is he’ll play the piano in our den! My son plays piano as well, and one of the pieces he is working on now is the Mozart Sonata in C that is one of Nell’s audition pieces and will be familiar to many of my readers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXIu0MRuIQU). The second piece of audition music is Chopin’s Scherzo, which I picked on the advice of a professional musician; after I heard it a few times it became one of my favorite pieces of classical music. Here’s a link to a performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7o3e8InNig

What kind of research do you do and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?

I usually begin with a premise and research as I go. For example, when I was researching for A Dangerous Duet, I didn’t originally have an inspector character in mind. But when I realized I wanted one, I found several books and articles about Scotland Yard, the best being Haia Shpayer-Makov’s The Ascent of the Detective. After the first draft was finished, I realized I needed to bring the injured character closer to Nell than a random patient, to make her desire to help more personal; so I invented Nell’s friend Marceline—which meant a whole new round of research into trapeze artists of the era. So I don’t do all my research up front; the story often dictates when I have to take a break and start reading around on a particular topic. But research is a delightful rabbit hole! 

What was the most interesting thing you discovered while doing research for this book?

Music halls were astonishing places. People attended them the way we attend movie theaters today. The variety of acts is astounding—everything from trained animals to trapeze acts to knife-throwers and musicians and songstresses. But they also provided a place for the lower classes to consolidate their class identity—not merely in terms of what they weren’t (middle class, rather serious, aspiring to bettering themselves, pursuing their work ethic)—but what they were: bawdy, robust, gleeful, wry, cynical and practical. In tone, most of the acts were more along the lines of a Saturday Night Live skit than a beautifully produced Broadway show.

Did publishing your first book, A Lady in the Smoke, change your writing process?

Oh, gosh yes—in about a million ways. I made so many mistakes writing that book! But bad mistakes make for efficient learning. For example, when I first wrote Lady, the railway disaster—the inciting incident that kicks off the action—didn’t appear until chapter 8! Now (in its finished version) it appears at the end of chapter 1. Those first seven chapters were important to have in my head; but they didn’t belong in the book. It took me some time to see that the inciting incidents need to happen early. With A Dangerous Duet, it starts a bit slower than Lady—there is no trainwreck right away, so to speak. But Nell finding Marceline half-dead in the alley happens in chapter 1. It just takes a little while to see why that’s important and what it means. Lady also taught me the importance of making sure that the stakes are personal for the protagonist. The question I always ask is: what does she stand to lose if she doesn’t solve the puzzle? It can’t just be for the “greater good” of society. I also learned about the importance of writing backstories, even for the minor characters. I need those in order to feel as though my characters aren’t merely foils or helpers or suitors for the protagonist. They have to live and breathe their own concerns, or they feel hollow, and I get an uneasy feeling in my gut.

What particular challenge do you face in your writing?  What is difficult for you?

Many aspects of writing are challenging—in a good way. But what is most difficult for me is humor. I am the least funny person I know. (Seriously!) That’s not to say I don’t laugh—I do! When I get the New Yorker, I read the cartoons first and chortle over them. I love a funny story; I love funny movies; I even like my son’s terrible puns. But let me explain: a few years ago some friends and I were sitting around drinking wine and playing Cards Against Humanity. It’s sort of like Apples to Apples, except for adults, and it’s pretty profane. The idea is that the dealer lays down a card and then all the other players anonymously put down a card from their hand that makes a “match”; usually the aim is to be clever or funny. The person who makes the best match gets to be dealer for the next hand. Well, we went twenty rounds and I was never the dealer. My friends began to feel sorry for me and let me deal a few times, so I’d have a chance! You wouldn’t think humor is important when writing a mystery, but I think the best mysteries do have some humor—dark, or wry, or sideways. It’s necessary to leaven the tale. 

Karen and her hiking partner, Rosy the beagle

When you aren't writing, what else do you enjoy doing?

I have two kids, so a lot of my time the last decade was spent just being a mom. But now that they’re older, they need less of my time, so I take time to hike in the beautiful desert, read (always!) for fun, bake, and binge-watch Netflix! The dark series Ozark, with Laura Linney and Jason Bateman, is my latest catnip.