Sask.-born author releases historical mystery
When BWL Publishing Inc. tasked its authors with writing historical mysteries from each province and territory, Joan Havelange felt very lucky to tackle Saskatchewan.
Having lived in Wolseley for most of her life, she was perfectly poised to dive into the province's history and put a ghostly spin on it for her new book, The Séance Murders.
It's Havelange's seventh book, and her first historical mystery. The story begins in 1908, when young protagonist Myrtle convinces her twin brother Leopold to attend a seance. While everyone at the table is holding hands, someone murders a bereaved patron. Myrtle and Leopold are determined to find out who did it and how it happened.
“People were a little more superstitious than they are now because of education, obviously, so there was a thought that people could contact the dead,” Havelange said in a recent interview.
Leopold has more advantages than Myrtle, who is restricted by the “unwritten rules” for women during that time period, said Havelange.
While a Regina police sergeant is appalled at Myrtle's “unladylike” interest in the murder, a member of the Royal North-west Mounted Police is intrigued.
“Women didn't have the (right to) vote back then. Women were just starting to get into the workforce,” she said. “My protagonist is a young girl and her family is more old-fashioned. Her father is a nice man, but he has thoughts of that era, like girls should just get married and raise children.”
Havelange said she found the genre more difficult than the “whodunits” and thrillers she usually writes because she wanted to do justice to the time period.
In order to give readers a flavour of the time, she leaned on support from historical groups in Regina and Saskatchewan and consulted Leader-post archives. She found helpful information not only from old news articles, but ads and letters to the editor as well.
“If you're writing about an era, did they have street lights, did they have cement sidewalks?” Havelange said. “One of the fascinating things I learned — because cars were just coming in and they were still using horses — there were no stoplights or stop signs. People just went willy-nilly and the pedestrians just took their life in their hands and just crossed the street.”
Regina had just become a city in 1903, five years before the story begins. Saskatchewan became a province two years later.
“Regina was like a booming city. It was just starting out. Everything was new and booming ... it was a frontier city.”
Havelange, who currently lives in Russell, Man., plans to host a book signing at the Russell & District Regional Library on April 17. She also hopes to hold book signings in Wolseley and Regina.