An Interview with Barbara Ross By E. B. Davis

 

Serving up mouthwatering shellfish, the Snowden Family Clambake has become a beloved institution in Busman’s Harbor, Maine. But when new clues rise to the surface five years after the disappearance of Julia Snowden’ s mother’s friend, the family business shifts to sleuthing . . .
 
Julia and her mother, Jacqueline, have come to the exclusive summer colony of Chipmunk Island to attend a memorial service for Jacqueline’s old friend Ginny, who’s been officially declared dead half a decade after she went out for her daily swim in the harbor and was never seen again. But something seems fishy at the service—especially with the ladies of the Wednesday Club. As Julia and Jacqueline begin looking into Ginny’s cold case, a present-day murder stirs the pot, and mother and daughter must dive into the deep end to get to the bottom of both mysteries . . .

Amazon.com

 

Hidden Beneath is the eleventh book in the Maine Clambake mystery series. Barbara keeps adding to the storyline and shelling more plots with each book. This addition solidifies much of the backstory that Barbara has established, but it ties up loose ends nicely and begins a new endeavor for main character, Julia. I felt sorry for Julia’s mother, Jacqueline, who has too many important things to do and decisions to make, but the truth she seeks lies hidden beneath.

 

Please welcome Barbara Ross back to WWK.         E. B. Davis

Julia and Jacqueline use their Boston Whaler to get around the islands. I have this image of a huge whaling ship. I mean whales are big, right? Just how big is a Boston Whaler?

 

Hi and thanks so much for having me. Boston Whalers come in many lengths from 13 feet to 35 feet. https://www.bostonwhaler.com/ Given the amount of people and stuff the Snowdens have to haul back and forth to Morrow Island, I’ve always pictured theirs as being around 22 feet.

 

Julia and Jacqueline go to Chipmunk Island to attend a memorial service for Jacqueline’s old friend, Ginny Merrill, who has been declared dead after she disappeared five years before. It is a private island with a homeowner’s association, no cars, and vacation homes, which have been passed down from generation to generation. Are there islands or communities like this in Maine?

 

There are 3000-4000 islands in Maine, most along the coast but a few in large lakes, like Sebago. Forty-one islands are inhabited year-round, fifteen of those are unbridged (i.e. the only way to get there is by boat, helicopter, or small plane-and then only for the very largest of them.) Six hundred are privately owned. I couldn’t get a count on unbridged islands, seasonally-occupied by multiple households, like Chipmunk in the book, but at least several dozen.

 

Jacqueline and Ginny were old friends at boarding school, but they haven’t been close for decades. Ginny grew up during the summers with those girls her age residing on Chipmunk Island, who are all this generation’s Wednesday Club members. What is the Wednesday Club?

 

From the book—

 

“What exactly is the Wednesday Club?” I asked.

April smiled. She had pleasantly round cheeks and a dimple near her mouth. “The Wednesday Club is nothing more and nothing less than a group of women who pick a topic, say Pompeii, or Elizabethan England, or the Bloomsbury group. Then each member chooses an aspect of that topic and writes a research paper about it.”

“A research paper?” Of all the things I imagined April was going to tell me the club did, writing research papers wasn’t one of them. “Writing a research paper for summer fun?”

April chuckled. “With footnotes and everything. The writing takes place over the winter, when they have access to libraries and such. The papers get presented in the summer, one every Wednesday. The paper’s author hosts the meeting in her home. They have the same little sandwiches, cookies, and fruit squares for every single meeting.”

“But why do they do it?” I asked.

April laughed again. “The group was founded by my great-grandmother and her friends on the island. They were all college-educated women, desperate to keep their minds active and with limited opportunities to do so.”

“Your great-grandmother would be pleased the group is still going,” I said to April.

She rolled her eyes. “My great-grandmother would be more pleased to know it isn’t necessary for women who want to use their educations to have a group like that anymore.”

Does the fact that Ginny emailed Jacqueline wanting her advice and then named her as executor of her estate give Julia any ideas about how or why Ginny disappeared?

 

It tips Julia that either Ginny had a falling out with her best friends on the island or, she didn’t trust any of them to carry out her final wishes. Figuring out why that would be propels Julia forward in the investigation.

 

Julia discovers the club members are tearing the house apart to find Ginny’s will. Jacqueline takes offense because they have no authority to be there. Why would it have been such a horrible thing if the house went to the state?

 

Ginny’s house is one of the few on the island that has direct access to the water. (Most are high on bluffs.) The state could choose to make the land available to the public, for example to kayakers for picnicking. This would bring strangers to the island, something the club members do not want.

 

The current generation of women want to keep Chipmunk Island the same. Some want Ginny’s house for their own offspring, and yet, after talking with their children, Julia finds none of them have the time, money, or inclination to have a house there. Is this a case of the older generation being in denial or just not recognizing reality?

 

It varies for each character, but I think, in general, it’s a case of wanting the same happy summers for their grandchildren that the club members had and that their children had. It’s a case of holding onto a past that is becoming obsolete.

 

Julia finds her old love, Chris, on the island. He took the job of Chipmunk Island superintendent, which required him to stay on the island when it was deserted during the winter. Why did he do that?

 

Chris comes to the conclusion that he took the job to isolate himself. He and Julia have broken up. He’s estranged from his family. By his own admission, he’s pushed away his friends. He’s punishing himself for something, but what?

 

I was surprised that the summer would be Lupine Design’s slow season. Isn’t there a lot of tourists in Busman’s Harbor then?

 

Yes, but the retail aspect is the smaller part of Lupine’s business. Their larger business is selling their ceramics through other retailers and distributors. Most of the work of making the goods has to be done by spring, so they have inventory for wedding season and the summer retail business.

What does “cash on the barrelhead” mean? Where did the phrase originate?

It means immediate and total cash payment required, no credit extended. (This is the only way Julia’s friend, restauranteur Gus Farnham, operates.) There is speculation the expression goes back to the days when both seats and tables in bars were made from barrels, but barrels were used for so many things related to commerce, I’m a little skeptical of the specificity of that explanation.

 

Ginny strangely painted pictures on the walls that told stories of her growing up. Why would anyone do that? Were they colorful murals?

 

They were colorful murals, primitives. Ginny is telling a story with her murals, a story from her past with the other members of the Wednesday club. But I can think of many reasons you might do this—for decoration or out of an artistic impulse. Here’s the story of one set of murals that inspired me. https://www.jungleredwriters.com/2023/06/inspiration-by-barbara-ross-giveaway.html

 

Few cats get clam and lobster to eat. Is Le Roi spoiled?

 

Le Roi is an expert at conning the guests who come to the Snowden Family Clambake into feeding him treats under their tables.

 

I was surprised that Ginny’s Portland condo association had Ginny declared dead. Why them?

 

Ginny has no obvious heirs and appears not to have left a will or instructions when she disappears. Her condo fees are paid automatically by a standing transfer from her bank account, but the fees have risen while she been gone and she’s in arrears. Legally she’s in limbo, not officially dead but assumed to be so. The condo association is advised it is better to pursue having her declared dead than to try to evict her. The other group that might have pursued having her situation resolved legally, her friends on Chipmunk Island, have no interest in having her declared dead unless a will is found.

 

Although five million dollars is a lot of money, I was surprised that Jacqueline considered the offer on Morrow Island, which included the renovated Windsholme. After spending the time and money renovating the place, with their own plans to hold events there, why would she consider the offer?

 

Five million dollars is a life-changing amount of money, not just for Jacqueline but for her entire family. I think offers like this are something all small business owners have to consider when their businesses or the real estate they rest on become highly valuable. The Clambake is on sound financial footing now, but it’s not that long ago the Snowden family almost lost it all. Life being what it is, those hard times will probably come around again. Jacqueline is being prudent, taking her time to think it all through.

 

When one of the Wednesday Club members is killed, the state police are called in to investigate. Julia is working on solving the disappearance, perhaps murder, of Ginny. I was surprised that the police didn’t want to look at the evidence that Julia compiled even though they were working on the new case. Didn’t they think the cases were related?

 

Ginny has been declared legally dead, presumed drowned. There’s no case for the state police to investigate. But they do, eventually, come to understand the connections and appreciate Julia’s insights.

 

Julia really shows herself when she reads Ginny’s latest journal and Ginny’s rational for what she bequeaths people in her will. Julia decides to let those people know Ginny’s reasoning. That says something about Julia, doesn’t it?

 

Julia never knew Ginny in life, but she really gets to know her through her journals. Julia’s impulse is to honor Ginny’s intentions by letting the recipients know why Ginny chose what she did for them. My parents were left an antique card table by a childless couple who were friends of my father’s parents. My parents treasured the table, but I think they always wondered, why it? Why them? Now I have it and I’m no clearer on the story. I think I was supplying a resolution for myself.

 

What’s next for Julia, and perhaps, Tom?

 

Thanks so much for asking! Julia and Tom appear in “Hopped Along,” the story that is my contribution, along with novellas by Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis, to the collection, Easter Basket Murder, coming January 24. Julia and Tom also appear in the next Maine Clambake Mystery novel, Torn Asunder, coming April 23.

 

An Interview with Author Barbara Ross by E. B. Davis

Mud season takes on a whole new meaning in the coastal town of Busman's Harbor, Maine, when local business owners sling dirt at one another in a heated feud over a proposed pedestrian mall. Vandalism is one thing, but murder means Julia Snowden of the Snowden Family Clambake steps in to clean up the case . . .
 
When Julia spots police cars in front of Lupine Design, she races over. Her sister Livvie works there as a potter. Livvie is unharmed but surrounded by smashed up pottery. The police find the owner Zoey Butterfield digging clay by a nearby bay, but she has no idea who would target her store. Zoey is a vocal advocate for turning four blocks of Main Street into a pedestrian mall on summer weekends. Other shop owners, including her next-door neighbor, are vehemently opposed. Could a small-town fight provoke such destruction? When a murder follows the break-in, it’s up to Julia to dig through the secrets and lies to uncover the truth . . .

Amazon.com

 

Yesterday, Kensington released the tenth book in Barbara Ross’s Maine Clambake mystery series, Muddled Through.

Evidently a reader thought up this title, as Barbara explained in the postscript, and it is an apt title given the season and state of main character Julia Snowden’s life.

 

I can’t tell you how much I look forward to reading the books in this series. When I start a book, I try to become aware of when I slide into the reading and reality recedes. Total failure—I’m immersed before I know it.

 

Barbara puts the reader into intriguing action from the very start, and then she hooks you in with each chapter. But the other aspect that hooks me is the historic and other details that Barbara must research to write. Part of it is teaching. I had no idea lupine flowers (see the cover) was pronounced loopin, not loo-pine (long “i”), which begs the question—why isn’t the spelling lupin, solving the problem? English!

 

Please welcome Barbara Ross to WWK.                                                              E. B. Davis

Fifty years ago, many small-town folk were wary of strangers, or in as they say in Busman’s Harbor, the setting of this series, those “From Away.” But now? We’re such a transient society and Busman’s Harbor has lots of outsiders who own summer cottages there. Would that mentality still exist?

 

It would. I live part of the year in Key West, Florida. The people who have the good fortune to be born in the Keys are “Conchs.” People who’ve moved to the Keys from other places but have lived there full-time for at least seven years are called “Freshwater Conchs.” The rest of us are just passing through.

 

Maine doesn’t even have the “freshwater” gradation. I love this joke, which Katherine Hall Page tells in the thirteenth book in her series, The Body in the Lighthouse.

 

“A Down East man and his pregnant wife are visiting in New Hampshire when she goes into labor. He bundles her into the car, and they drive as fast as they can to the Maine border, but it’s no good. The baby is born before they can cross it. The same day another baby is born somewhere on the Maine coast. As soon as he can travel, his parents take him to Asia, where he lives for the rest of his life. The other baby lives a long life, too, but he never leaves the state again. They die at the same time. The Ellsworth American runs both obituaries. “Local Man Dies in Singapore” and “Man from New Hampshire Dead at Eighty-one.”

 

After spring mud comes black fly season. Remind me why people love Maine so much. Don’t the ocean breezes keep the bugs away?

 

It’s true. Black flies don’t bother us on the coast. But in the woods…

 

If in twelve thousand years, not enough topsoil has developed to absorb rain and snow melt in Maine (leaving clay exposed for potters), how many years does it take to develop topsoil?

 

Twelve thousand years is the blink of an eye in the history of the earth. The main point about the topsoil is there’s not enough of it to absorb and drain a combination of snow melt and spring rains, hence “mud season.”

 

Now that Julia is living with her mother again, broken her relationship with Chris, and unable to continue operating their winter restaurant, she has too much time to think. She’s retrospective, thinking about the last ten years of her life. She’s down. Is this natural or is she depressed?

 

I don’t think she’s clinically depressed (whatever that might mean), but she’s pensive, betwixt and between, trying to make sense of her life and figure out what’s next.

 

What does animatronic mean and how does it apply to Busman’s Harbor?

 

Animatronic comes up in a heated town hearing. A local complains about the “Disneyfication” of their resort town and says the developers won’t stop until the citizens are all animatronic—like the moving statues in the Hall of Presidents at Disney World. It’s a fight about what to keep and what to let go of to accommodate the tourists on which the town depends.

 

Who were “rusticators?” What was the purpose?

 

Rusticators are the first wave of tourists who came to Maine in the late nineteenth century. They came specifically to get away from the growing cities and experience a simple life for a week or a summer. They came to Maine because it was rustic.

 

My husband might be a Mainer. What is that, and is it the same as being cheap or being a potential recycler?

 

Some people might say it has to do with being cheap, but it really has to do with keeping anything you might ever have a use for, no matter how unlikely. My husband may be one, too.

 

Are there a lot of New York City expats in Maine?

 

Oh, my goodness, yes. And since the pandemic, even more.

 

I would have thought the most popular vehicle in Maine to be four-wheel drive trucks, not Subarus. But are the Subarus four-wheel drive as well?

 

Subarus are all wheel drive and Maine is the second-best market for Subarus in the country. (Following only Vermont.) However, there are more Ford F150s here than Subarus. (I just had to look that up.) But Maine’s love affair with the Subaru is well-known and well documented.

 

What does the psychological term “well defended” mean?

 

The way it’s used in Muddled Through it means self-protective, not allowing oneself to be upset by events by pushing feelings away. It’s not a good thing in the long run because the person isn’t feeling their feelings, but it can be a crutch to get through a crisis in the short term.

 

Why does Busman’s Harbor have two main streets? Isn’t it confusing?

 

Busman’s Harbor only has one main street, called Main Street, but it curls around a hill and crosses itself, thereby creating the intersection of Main and Main. You can see a map of it here.

 

What is pine syrup/bitters? Does it taste like pine, just as yucky gin tastes like spruce trees?

 

It tastes like Christmas! Really, pine syrup and pine bitters are lovely.

 

The lobster stew sounds incredible. But even if you could grind up lobster shells so fine as to not cut up your stomach, are they even digestible? They were used to thicken the stew?

 

It’s lobster bisque that was traditionally thickened by ground up lobster shells—and I mean truly ground up to powder. Some chefs still make it that way.

 

What do Mainers call tonic (that stuff you add to yucky gin)?

 

I think you’re alluding to what other people call soda or pop. Old, true New Englanders (not just Mainers) call that tonic. It’s fading from the language rapidly. You hear soda much more often today. I guess they call tonic, tonic as well.

 

I thought pecan pie was a Southern thing. The recipe is titled Cardamom Pecan Pie, but with the substitution of maple syrup, maybe it should be called Maple Nut Pie. It really is a different pie, isn’t it?

 

Hmm. Substituting maple syrup for another sweetener is a common practice. I have a novella coming out next year where maple syrup gets substituted for brown sugar in Irish coffee. I don’t think that makes it a whole different thing, does it? I fully acknowledge that pecan pie is a southern thing.

 

National Geographic Magazine has only employed four female staff photographers in its history. True?

 

As of 2000, when the book Women Photographers at National Geographic was published it was true, and those four were widely spaced in time. Further it says, “Until the 1970s (and some might say beyond) the National Geographic Society was the publishing equivalent of a private men’s club. Women worked at the society, but nearly always as secretaries or clerks. Men and women ate in separate dining rooms.” Nonetheless from 1907 onward, a small number of intrepid women, almost always submitting over the transom in the early days, or later working as free-lancers, did get their photographs published in the magazine. Some of their achievements are extraordinary.

 

Is it terrible to want to preserve memories of someone by avoiding the present-day real person?

 

Such an interesting question. But yes, I think in particular with a romantic partner, when the relationship is firmly in the past, it can be better to remember than to deal with current reality. Sometimes with former friends as well. Like when you rediscover them through Facebook and they’ve turned into jerks.

 

Why would forensic psychologists think that having someone in your family murdered gives anyone in the family more propensity to kill?

 

Because violence begets violence and someone raised in violent circumstances is more likely to be violent. It doesn’t apply in the situation in Muddled Through, though. In this case the psychologist, who hasn’t met the person in question, is generalizing and is wrong.

 

Is it a journalist’s job to make the populace feel safe by portraying murder victims as living unwisely, making them responsible for their own murders? Sounds like blaming the victim and casting aspersions to me.

 

I don’t think it’s a journalism thing. I think it’s a human-being thing. We look at the victims of anything horrible, manmade or natural, and we think, “I’m a different person in different circumstances, so that won’t happen to me.” It’s a defense mechanism. If we thought about all the terrible things that can happen all the time we’d never make it through the day.

 

With that, with the murder cited in the newspaper articles in Muddled Through, there is a degree of victim-blaming, particularly when the stories instigated by “leaks” from the defense counsel.

 

Maine lupines are actually from the West Coast?

 

Yes. The lupines we love to see in meadows and by the side of the road in June are invasive. We do have one native type of lupine, but it’s been wiped out by the visitors and taken a particular type of butterfly with it. We do love the lupines, though. They are beautiful.

 

Pottery must be a lot like writing. It teaches you failure. Right?

 

After interviewing potters for this book, I came away feeling like there was a difference. Both activities are about creating art, but potters face uncontrollable failure all the time from the beginning of their practice to the end. With writing it’s about trying to get close to an ideal and failing. With potters it’s about things literally blowing up in the kiln.

 

A character in the book tells Julia she needs to learn to fail in regard to her relationship with Chris. I’m not so sure that’s correct. Perhaps in the short term. But is it more that Julia has learned where she needs to draw the line, and appreciate that lesson, for long-term success? She’s already done that in her working relationship with Sonny.

 

You’re right about Julia’s decision of course. But I think when a loving relationship founders, we’re all susceptible to feeling like we’ve failed. Julia’s inexperienced at love. Her relationship with Chris is the first romantic partnership in her life that’s lasted more than weeks. Their relationship went on for a long time and was intense. They lived together and worked together. Julia imagined a future together, and I think it’s that imaginary future that she’s actually mourning.

 

What’s next for Julia?

 

After Muddled Through, we pick Julia up in “Perked Up," a novella in Irish Coffee Murder which will be published on January 31, 2023. The eleventh Maine Clambake Mystery is due to my publisher three days from now. (Gulp.) That will be out summer of 2023.

 

Thanks so much for asking! Your questions always make me think.

 

An Interview with Barbara Ross by E. B. Davis

 

The Snowden Family Clambake Company has a beloved reputation in Busman’s Harbor, Maine. Almost as famous is the sleuthing ability of proprietor Julia Snowden, which is why an oyster farmer seeks her out when she’s in trouble.
 
When Andie Greatorex is robbed of two buckets of oyster seed worth $35,000, she wonders if somebody’s trying to mussel her out of business. Could it be a rival oyster farmer, a steamed former employee, or a snooty summer resident who objects to her unsightly oyster cages floating on the beautiful Damariscotta River? There’s also a lobsterman who’s worried the farm’s expanding lease will encroach on his territory and Andie’s ex-partner, who may come to regret their split. Before Julia can make much headway in the investigation, Andie turns up dead, stabbed by a shucking knife. Now it’s up to Julia to set a trap for a cold and clammy killer...

Amazon.com

 

Shucked Apart is the ninth book in the Maine Clambake mystery series by Barbara Ross. It was released yesterday. One of my favorite things about this series is how much I learn by reading it. In this book, I learned about oyster farms in Maine. Now, I have an advantage many readers don’t. I live on Hatteras Island, NC, and we, too, have oyster farms. So, I asked someone I know about our oyster farms to double-check what I learned. The someone used to be a party (not with balloons, but most definitely with beer) boat captain turned oyster farmer, not unlike one of the characters Barbara has created, but without his financial problems. That in and of itself tells me Barb researched aqua farming and the changing times of the fishing industry.

 

There’s tension right from the beginning of Shucked Apart, but the source is surprising. Please welcome Barbara Ross back to WWK.                                    E. B. Davis

Julia isn’t the jealous type. She likes boyfriend Chris’s friend Andie right away. The problem is that Julia thought that Andie was Andy. Why didn’t he mention his poker playing friend was a female?

 

Chris keeps a lot of secrets. Julia had thought they were through the worst of his disclosures, and arguably they were. But in this book she’s surprised to find he’s been keeping quiet about things both large and small. The question is, why?

 

Do two buckets of oyster spat really cost thirty-five thousand dollars? Really?

 

Like agriculture, aquaculture requires investment. Two buckets of oyster spat, if properly cared for, have the potential to turn into hundreds of thousands of babies, so the potential to make money is there. Also, breeding those babies is highly specialized and not done in a lot of places, so there is demand.

 

Do oyster spat look like quinoa (or like Cream of Wheat right out of the box, small, white, round granules)?

 

Yes! That’s how everyone I talked to described them. I did get to see them for myself and I don’t have a better description.

 

Although oysters clean the bodies of water they live in because they filter it, they also give off a lot of scat—especially the spat or oyster seed (tiny baby oysters without diapers). Is the benefit greater than the detriment?

 

This is a controversial topic, especially in places where people are fighting about aquaculture. The farms in Maine are relatively small, owned by individuals and small groups, not giant corporations. The Damariscotta was too polluted to sustain sea creatures of any type until the 1980s. Since the oyster farms have been established, it has only gotten cleaner. In balance, I tend to believe the oysters make the river cleaner.

 

When someone knocks Andie down and runs with the expensive buckets of oyster seed, Andie wants Julia to investigate because Chris has bragged about Julia’s investigative skills. Why does Julia decide to investigate?

 

Julia likes Andie almost immediately. They are young, entrepreneurial women running challenging businesses in Maine. Also, it is a time of year when Julia can help out. Once the clambake season starts, she’ll be working sixteen hours a day every day.

 

I initially had problems with your setting. Andie’s company is named The Great River Oyster Company because the farm is in the Damariscotta River, which would be fresh water, but it isn’t really, is it? Seals can be seen on the river? The lobstermen also have buoys on the river, too? You didn’t make the river’s name up either, did you?

 

The real Damariscotta is a beautiful river in Maine. The source, Damariscotta Lake, is fresh water, but the river is very tidal, and the saltwater coming in on the tide makes the part of the river where the oyster farms are quite brackish. As you mention, seals, lobsters and other saltwater creatures live in that part of the river. I recommend the Damariscotta River Cruise to anyone who visits midcoast Maine in the summer.

 

You mention there are oyster hatcheries. Not to get too spicy, but how do oysters mate?

 

Oysters begin life as males and later become female. The young males release sperm and the females release eggs—millions of them. Some of the sperm finds the eggs and they become larvae, which later become the spat that opens our story in Shucked Apart. The release of the sperm is what gives us the expression that you shouldn’t eat oysters in months without an R in them. It gives the oysters a different taste and texture that some people love and some people dislike. Some farms purchase triploid oysters from the breeders, which don’t reproduce. This practice avoids the spawning season, enabling all months to be R-months’ taste and without the energy spawning requires of the oysters.

 

You mentioned that unlike clams, oysters can’t move. Do oysters just lie on the river bottom or do they sort of dig into the clay? Aren’t oysters a barnacle-type of critter, gluing themselves to things?

 

Oysters aren’t like barnacles in that they don’t attach to docks, boats, etc. They pretty much stay where you put them unless the current carries them along. An oyster’s happiest place is sitting on top of another oyster, but that doesn’t result in a pretty shell that farmers can sell to restaurants at a premium. Another happy place for oysters is on relatively hard bottom, which is why the clay on the bottom of so much of the Damariscotta is so appealing.

 

Andie is on the verge of expansion. A meeting is set in which her expanded farming territory will be approved or rejected. Why are a lot of people against her expansion?

 

People are often frightened of change, period. In addition there are competing interests on the river—oyster farmers and lobstermen who don’t want more river leased to others. Homeowners and pleasure boaters who don’t like the look of the floating oyster cages.

 

One of Julia’s aunts lives on the river with her lobsterman husband. She gets information about the attack on Andie from her uncle, but it also puts her in an uncomfortable position. How does she handle that?

 

Julia loves her aunt and uncle. Though she knows that fights among lobstermen can be absolutely vicious, she doesn’t believe her uncle could be guilty of murder. Though she investigates every clue that comes her way, Julia has to trust someone and decides it is her family.

 

Julia finds out that Andie used to be a romantic and business partner with Mack, who went into the restaurant business and is now married with children to someone else. Mack explains to Chris and Julia the similarities between wine’s terroir and oysters’ merroir. What’s all that? And are oysters a trendy menu item?

 

Just as wine grapes take on the unique taste of the soil, weather, elevation, etc. of the vineyard where they are grown (terroir), oysters take on the taste of the unique composition of the water they grow in—minerals, temperature, and so on (merroir). That’s why all the different oysters on the east coast can be the same breed but look and taste so different from the Canadian Maritimes to New England to the Chesapeake to the Carolinas, where you are, to Florida.

 

Oysters are having a moment. They were a major source of protein at the end of the nineteenth century. In the 1890s New Yorkers ate an average of six hundred oysters a year. Then the Hudson got too polluted to sustain the oysters and the techniques for shipping from other places and farming were not yet in place on the east coast. The oyster fell out of favor. Many chefs attribute the current oyster craze to the sushi craze because it got Americans into eating raw seafood again. Of course you don’t have to eat oysters raw. I include recipes for baked oysters and oyster stuffing in the book.

 

Andie’s next-door neighbor, Pinney Kirwin, doesn’t like oyster farming, especially close to her house and her river. During the 1800s and early 1900s, her family owned a shipbuilding business and owned the entire river front area. But Pinney’s family outvoted her and sold off land and a smaller house to Andie. Why does Julia see a comparison between Pinney’s family and her mother’s family?

 

Julia’s mother and Pinney are both descended from families that made fortunes in Maine when there were fortunes to be made there. Julia’s mother’s family was in the ice business and Pinney’s in shipbuilding. Both families left the state when those industries collapsed, and became summer residents only. Julia’s mother, however, now makes her life among the locals, while Pinney, who appears to live in Maine a lot of the year, moves exclusively in summer people circles.

 

What’s an abutter? Someone you share a property line with.

 

What is a chandlery? A place where ship provisions are stored and sold. It could include items specifically for ships, like sailcloth, rope, and so on, or also fresh food and water.

 

You include a recipe for lobster mash—but what is it? Lobster mashed potatoes—and they are delicious!

 

There are such a thing as soft-shelled lobsters? When do they do that?

Lobsters shed their shells as they grow. In Maine typically this takes place in early summer. During the period right after lobsters grow their new shell they are considered soft-shells. Some people think the soft-shells are the best, others prefer hard-shells. This is a frequent source of lobster-related arguments.

 

What are alewives?

 

They are a species of herring that lives in saltwater but spawns in freshwater. In Damariscotta, there is an Alewife Festival, which takes place when the fish come and climb the fish ladder in town to get to fresh water.

 

What kind of fresh tuna is used in the Sous Vide Spicy Tuna recipe?

 

The instructions say fresh tuna cut 1 ½ to 2 inches thick. You’re cooking it, so it doesn’t have to be sushi grade, but if you want sushi grade and are willing to pay for it, by all means go for it.

 

You say that having a house on the water is constant work. Do you have first-hand information about that? Do they really continually paint the Golden Gate Bridge? (And why is it orange? My six-year-old self was so disappointed.)

 

I’ve heard that analogy to painting the Golden Gate Bridge all my life. (As soon as you work from one end to the other, it’s time to start over again at the beginning.) I have no idea if it is true, but it makes a nice point.) My mother-in-law had one side of her house on the water painted every year. Once all four sides were completed, it was time to go around again.

 

So, Le Roi was right, huh. Should have known. What’s next for Julia?

 

In “Scared Off,” the Snowden Family Clambake novella in Halloween Party Murder, Julia gets a panic call from her niece, Page. High school kids have crashed the little Halloween sleepover party Page is attending at a friend’s house. They’re trashing the place and the friend’s parents are nowhere to be found. I’m currently working on the tenth Maine Clambake Mystery novel, as yet untitled. It takes place during Mud Season. (In Maine mid-March through April).