Links: Kelli Stanley Website / Nox Dormienda Review /

I'm a sucker for noir mysteries and old movies. And while I don't have a falcon or a fedora, I do have a keen belief that justice is just as important as law, and that the two are not necessarily the same. It's the one man, or woman, out to right wrongs because it's the thing to do. I also enjoy historicals, especially those that give me glimpses into the lives of the people low, middle and high.

When I talked to Kelli Stanley about her novel, her enthusiasm was indeed catching. I looked forward to having a chance to meet Arcturus and letting him speak for himself. Well, we got the advanced reader copy and I pounced. (The link to my review is at the top of this page.)

So, when I had to pick an author to interview this month, Kelli seemed the natural choice. Luckily, she was gracious enough to take the time to answer our questions. I hope you enjoy our conversation and the review -- but, I'm even more convinced you'll want to read the book yourself.

Gumshoe: I'm sure you've been asked over and over again about noir and Roman noir so I won't ask. But, I'm curious about why Londinium? And why that particular time period in Roman history?

Kelli Stanley: A terrific question! But before I answer, let me thank you, Gayle, for reviewing Nox and giving me a chance to discuss it on Gumshoe Review ... I appreciate it so much, particularly as a debut author!

Now, back to Londinium. Well, I knew I wanted to write about Roman Britain. I love frontiers -- they are usually dangerous places, and Britannia was the most far-flung, and an almost mythical place to the residents of the Eternal City. Yet auxiliaries and civilians -- traders, shopkeepers, investors -- from all over the Empire were to be found there. Much like the 19th century American West, really.

Roman policy was uncharacteristically harsh and uncompromising about the druids. The druids died hard, so to speak, and some would argue that they never truly vanished .... that even after four hundred years of Roman rule, the Celtic heart of Britain remained untouched.

So it's an amazing place to write about, particularly at this time, when cultural tensions were still so raw. Plus, we have more literary evidence for the first century ... and Londinium was a merchant town, a trading town, just getting established as the capital, so it felt like the right place at the right time. And of course, always write about places you love ... and I love England and English history.

Gumshoe: Arcturus is a great character. Did he develop full-blown or did you slowly put him together? I'm interested in his personal history. You managed to give us a detective who is conflicted and, while competent and secure--he really doesn't seem fully comfortable with his native Britain or as a Roman citizen. Does that make him a better protagonist for you?

Kelli: Arcturus' internal conflicts, class status and personal history make him, for me, the ideal outsider, the man who can fit in everywhere and nowhere. I don't think you can really write hardboiled or noir -- in particular, the classic private eye variety, as established by Chandler or Hammett -- with a protagonist who isn't an outsider.

I conceived of Arcturus as Chandler's man of the mean streets, who is willing to get dirty, but somehow is never truly sullied himself ... not because he's a hero, but because he has honor ... combined with a darkened, damaged soul.

To me, the classic private eye figure is someone who is always alone. Even if companionship, love, friendship, and happiness fill his life, there is a dark part of him that will never really be at home, never really be secure, never really be content. It drives him to seek justice, to search for answers, and he's very lucky if it doesn't drive loved ones away. He's seen too much, he's done too much, he's too capable of violence. And that's the kind of character I tried to create with Arcturus. He has a rich back story, some of which was cut from the final version, but which I hope will find its way into other novels and stories.

In addition, I wanted to confront the question of healing ... of the guilt and awesome responsibility and burden it can be. If you can save someone's life -- if you are, perhaps, the only one who can -- and you fail. How do you live with it? How do you cope?

As for his development ... I knew what direction I wanted to go, but characters will often do something unpredictable in the process. So Arcturus grew into himself, even though I created his back history before I started writing the novel.

Gumshoe: I really want to say that the Glossary was a great help in reading the book. I don't mind "foreign" words and phrases in my reading but I hate to have to stop and find translations when I'm in the middle of reading. Did you have any problems getting a Glossary in a book of fiction?

Kelli: I'm so glad you found it helpful! My aim was to make any translations as seamless as possible, within the text itself ... so that you could figure out from the sense of the sentence what a triclinium was, for example.

I enjoy using Latin as spice, as a flavor of the period ... it's a beautiful language, and, truly, some words, like pietas, just don't translate very well into English. So the Glossary gave me a chance to more fully explain words like that, and hopefully let readers see-through a judicious mixture of all kinds of vocabulary, from street slang to obscenities to technical terms-that Latin is a rich and vivid language, and that they probably know more of it than they think they do.

Luckily, Five Star is a great publisher to work with, and Gordon Aalborg is a wonderful editor. No one ever suggested cutting out the glossary.

Gumshoe: It must be exciting to have your first book out. What has surprised you most about the process -- writing, publication, and publicity?

Kelli: Well, in another life I owned a comic book store with my family, so I was familiar with the business end of the bargain. The need for publicity, for marketing, is something I took for granted ... given the internet, there are many opportunities to try something creative-videos, podcasts, you name it--and I'd love to do more if I could. I work at a day job, so my time is limited.

But I think the biggest and best surprise I've experienced is the incredible generosity of the writing community. I had to contact authors for blurbs myself because I'm with a small publisher, and knew no one personally. The fact that James Rollins, Gayle Lynds, Ken Bruen and Vicki Hinze all took time out of their incredibly busy schedules to read a book by an unknown author just floored me. I've been amazed and humbled by the support I've experienced from ITW, MWA and Sisters in Crime. So that has been, I think, the best unexpected blessing ... it's a truly generous and wonderful community, and for that reason alone, I'm proud to be a part of it.

Gumshoe: You hinted at previous cases solved by Arcturus. Will Maledictus take us forward from Nox Dormienda or back in his life? Can you tell us anything about it? When can we expect to see it in bookstores?

Kelli: Maledictus (Cursed) explores some of the occult and supernatural beliefs of the Romans, as well as the sideshow-like aspect of health resorts and quack medicine. And, of course, picks up the personal stories of Arcturus and Co. It takes place a few months after the conclusion of Nox, but not in Londinium ... the story is set in Aquae Sulis, better known as Bath.

Aquae Sulis was the equivalent of an expensive health resort community. Arcturus is asked to solve the murder of a professional curse-writer ... one whose curses actually came true ...

My goal is to see the Arcturus series picked up by a larger publisher with better bookstore distribution, so we're going to explore those options. Five Star, as I've said, is wonderful to work with, but limiting in terms of distribution, and my goal as a writer is to get my books into as many outlets as possible -- libraries and bookstores. So I hope to see Maledictus out by 2010, maybe sooner if I'm lucky. Meanwhile, a large print edition of Nox has been scheduled for the fall, and I'll continue to write short stories. The next one will probably take us back a few years. I'd love to write a novel-length prequel about Arcturus' youthful fling in Rome.

And then there's the very dark novel I'm currently working on ... a female private eye set in 1940 San Francisco.

Gumshoe: With historical mysteries, I imagine the research end of the writing curve must be quite long? Is it? You've used some real people -- will you keep them secondary to the plot? How cautious do you have to be about keeping fact in the fiction or maintaining historical accuracy?

Kelli: Even with an MA in Classics, the research takes time. What the MA gives me is a thorough understanding of the cultures. But even with this, I constantly have to look things up, to check details, particularly of every day life, which is never as well-documented as the lives of society's elite. I do about half the research in advance, and half as I write.

The people who are historical figures -- Agricola, Saturninus, etc. -- all vary in significance according to how they fit into Arcturus' life. At this point, Agricola and Arcturus are bound together, patron and client, patient and doctor, friends. So what happens to Agricola historically will be of great importance in later books. Other characters may drop away, to reappear at another time and place ... if I'm lucky and the series is successful!

And yes, I'm very cautious about accuracy -- whether it's a historical fact or one about contemporary DNA procedures, I think the author owes it to her readers to be as accurate as possible. However, since I'm dealing with a period for which there are relatively few definitive or specific answers -- and many dissenting opinions -- I sift through the evidence and use what is either probable or possible. I prefer the probable, but will accept the possible if it makes sense and makes for a better story.

Gumshoe: I wandered through your website. Loved the list of films and books in the noir category and surprised myself that I'd read/seen so many. But what are you reading now? Watching? Most recent 5?

Kelli: Unfortunately, when I'm immersed in writing, I can't read fiction. It's a terrible thing, and I feel deprived, because I have a huge TBR pile that looks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa! The problem is that fiction will influence me ... it will pop me out of the zone I need to be in to write my own books. So I'm reading research materials, and non-fiction at the moment. For example, I just found a really great resource ... a 1935 book called Modern Criminal Investigation that is a goldmine of forensic and investigatory techniques for the era I'm currently writing about.

It's easier for me to watch a noir ... it doesn't eject me from my own writing sensibility. The last film I watched, actually, wasn't a noir ... it was Gypsy, which is my favorite musical. And I saw the new Indiana Jones in LA when I was there for BookExpo America. The last noir I saw was on the big screen: The Killers. As a noir fan, I hope you can come out to San Francisco in January for Noir City at some point ... there's nothing like seeing Double Indemnity or Out of the Past the way they were meant to be seen.

Gumshoe: Thanks for your time.