An Interview with Colleen Cambridge By E. B. Davis

 

Julia had a rule for managing husbands: feed them, flatter them, and er,

fornicate with them. (She usually used a different f-word when

mentioning the last item of the Rule of the Three Fs.)

Colleen Cambridge, Mastering the Art of French Murder, Kindle Loc. 3464

 

As Paris rediscovers its joie de vivre, Tabitha Knight, recently arrived from Detroit for an extended stay with her French grandfather, is on her own journey of discovery. Paris isn’t just the City of Light; it’s the city of history, romance, stunning architecture . . . and food. Thanks to her neighbor and friend Julia Child, another ex-pat who’s fallen head over heels for Paris, Tabitha is learning how to cook for her Grandpère and Oncle Rafe.
 
Between tutoring Americans in French, visiting the market, and eagerly sampling the results of Julia’s studies at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, Tabitha’s sojourn is proving thoroughly delightful. That is, until the cold December day they return to Julia’s building and learn that a body has been found in the cellar. Tabitha recognizes the victim as a woman she’d met only the night before, at a party given by Julia’s sister, Dort. The murder weapon found nearby is recognizable too—a knife from Julia’s kitchen.
 
Tabitha is eager to help the investigation, but is shocked when Inspector Merveille reveals that a note, in Tabitha’s handwriting, was found in the dead woman’s pocket. Is this murder a case of international intrigue, or something far more personal? From the shadows of the Tour Eiffel at midnight, to the tiny third-floor Child kitchen, to the grungy streets of Montmartre, Tabitha navigates through the city hoping to find the real killer before she or one of her friends ends up in prison . . . or worse.

Amazon.com

 

I found Mastering the Art of French Murder intriguing from the Paris setting, the post WWII era, and the characters—fictitious main character Tabitha Knight and very real Julia Child, no less! Two independent American women secure in their situations befriend each other. Julia older than Tabitha Knight becomes a mentor of sorts, and yet they also have a symbiotic relationship.

 

Colleen Cambridge must have done an enormous amount of research to write this book. But I can also imagine that the research was fun. She brings Julia to life as a progressive woman and hints that her past life during the war with the State Department is best left buried. But as the above quote reveals, Julia was unequivocal.

 

Please welcome Colleen Cambridge to WWK.             E. B. Davis

In your Phyllida Bright mystery series, you team an ordinary housekeeper with her boss, Agatha Christie. In this An American in Paris mystery series, you pair Tabitha Knight with Julia Child, a fun pairing. What summoned the idea of placing talented, but amateur, fictional sleuths with famous and strong real women of the past?

 

Well, to be honest, it was something my editor and publishing team came up with. I love writing historical mysteries, and had written a series featuring an aide of Abraham Lincoln (the Lincoln’s White House Mysteries, writing as CM Gleason) and one day my editor called and asked if I’d be interested in doing a similar sort of thing with Agatha Christie’s housekeeper. I jumped on that chance and haven’t looked back.

 

The fun part about making the protagonist be the friend of the historical person is that I can do whatever I want with the protagonist’s character, life, story, etc. Everyone knows Agatha Christie’s and Abe Lincoln’s and Julia Childs’ stories…but now people get to experience that piece of history through the eyes of Phyllida Bright and Adam Quinn and Tabitha Knight…and I can give them their own lives.

 

Are there any legal rules about putting real historical people into fiction? Do heirs have to give their approval?

 

Not unless you write something libelous, which of course I wouldn’t do. J

 

Did Julia really have a “potty” mouth?

 

Absolutely! She was very earthy and relaxed and bawdy, enthusiastic about learning and experiencing new things—and I’m certain that was part of why Paul, her husband, and her many friends were attracted to being with her.

 

Julia becomes enamored by French food and its history. She starts taking classes at Le Cordon Bleu. The action takes place in 1949 after Julia’s husband Paul is transferred to Paris by the US Information Service as a diplomat. Did that department become or was the precursor to something we know of today?

 

Yes. The US Information Service became the US Information Agency in the late 1950s, I believe.

 

Tabitha is a transplant to Paris from Detroit. What happened that brought her to Paris? What skills does she have from her war experience?

 

Tabitha’s mother is French, and her grandfather still lives in Paris. When he invites her to come and live with him, she eagerly leaves the US for one of the most intriguing cities in the world. She’d worked as a Rosie-the-Riveter at the Willow Run Bomber Plant in the Detroit suburbs, and since the war ended, she has been at loose ends. She’s not the sort of woman who wants to get married and have children (at least, not yet), and she’s not really interested in the other traditional female occupations of nurse or teacher. And so she is eager.

 

Why does Tabitha think that cooking will be like fixing an engine?

 

Because she figures everything just fits into place, each part, like the parts to a mechanical thing.

 

Did Julia’s six-foot, two-inch robust frame affect her trajectory in the cooking arena? Did men have less of an intimidation factor on her?

 

In her kitchen, the counters and the stove were low enough that she would have to bend over a little. Must have been hell on her back!

 

I have no idea whether she ever felt intimidated by men because of her height; from everything I’ve read about Julia it’s that she wasn’t shy and she wasn’t retiring, and wasn’t easily intimidated. I will say that the thing that intimidated her at first in Paris was not being able to speak the language, and feeling left out of conversations.

 

I loved your descriptions of what American food consisted of during the mid 20^th century. Grilled Spam topped with pineapple slices was considered a fancy appetizer. Condensed soup as sauces, and instant coffee! Those descriptions show just how much Julia Child changed American cooking and culinary standards. Did you look at old cookbooks to find these “recipes?”

 

No, not at all. Some of them are simply from my growing up and knowing what my parents ate. And some of them were things mentioned specifically by Julia in her autobiography as what she’d grown up eating as well.

 

What is a suspended food box? (What did they do in summer if they didn’t have an icebox?)

 

Basically it’s a box hung outside the window. I don’t know what the Childs’ did in the summer without an icebox! Julia never says…probably never bought things that would go bad quickly without being refrigerated.

 

What is Tabitha’s sprite?

 

It’s her internal curiousness, her tendency to want to stir things up, to find out more, to have adventures and do fun and different things.

 

If a woman wore pants in Paris, except when bike or horse riding, it was illegal. What did they do to women who wore pants—lock them up? How could they justify this ridiculousness?

 

Well, I don’t think the women were ticketed very often, if at all. But the law was still on the books, and it was unusual for women to wear pants…though not unheard of. Especially in the more bohemian areas like Saint-Germain La Prés, you would see lots of the Existentialist women wearing slacks.

 

What was “Coca-Colonization?”

 

It was the fear that Coca-Cola would take over in France, ruining or affecting the wine industry, and helping to make France too “American” and “capitalistic.” The promotion of Coca-Colonization was mainly from the Communist Party, which was a very powerful force in France at the time.

 

Did Julia and Paul meet during the war when they both worked for the Office of Strategic Services, which was then our intelligence department? What did they do?

 

Yes, Julia and Paul met while working at the precursor to the CIA. They were both stationed in Ceylon for a time. Julia was a secretary, managing the files and data on the employees—including any that were spies. Part of Paul’s role was to help design war rooms, as he was an architect and also very artistic. Who knows if either of them did anything else…

 

What is a képi hat?

 

A képi hat is the familiar stove-pipe shaped cap worn by Parisian police with the slanted top and a little brim. Think Inspector Clouseau. ;-)

 

 

What’s next for Tabitha and Julia?

 I’ve just finished the second book in the series, titled A Murder Most French (May 2024). In this book, Tabitha accompanies Julia to a cooking demonstration at Le Cordon Bleu. The chef doing the demonstration opens a very rare and expensive bottle of wine, takes a taste, and promptly drops dead.