Former party girl and society photographer Theophania Bogart
flees from London to San Francisco to escape a high-profile family
tragedy. But sudden death shines a light on her hiding place and
she
learns she’s been providing cover for a sophisticated smuggling
operation.
Her apartment is burgled, she starts to fall for an untrustworthy
stranger,
and she’s knocked out, tied up and imprisoned. The police are sure
she’s lying.
The smugglers are sure she knows too much. Her friends?
They aren’t sure what to believe.
Theo needs to find a killer before her new life is exposed as an
elaborate fraud.
But the more deeply entangled she becomes, the more her
investigation is
complicated by her best friend, who is one of her prime suspects;
her young protégé, who may or may not have a juvie record; her
stern and
unyielding grandfather, who exposes an unexpected soft center; and
the
man on her washing machine, who isn’t quite what he appears,
either.
I belong to Net Galley and downloaded Susan
Cox’s award-winning novel The Man on the
Washing Machine. I contacted her publicist for an interview. Once in
contact with Susan, I discovered she is a member of Sisters In Crime. I took
the long way around to find her!
The Man on the Washing Machine won
the 2014 Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of
America First Crime Novel Competition and is Susan’s first published novel. Although
she is new to fiction, she is not a neophyte writer. Susan worked as a
journalist prior to fiction writing.
Please welcome Susan Cox to WWK. E. B. Davis
Main character, Theo, tries to elude
notoriety by changing her name. What is she running from?
*Theo’s
English family is high-profile and wealthy, and 18 months before the novels
opens her mother is murdered and her father commits suicide. With no particular
plan in mind except to hide from the resulting media storm, she flees to San
Francisco where she makes new friends and opens a business, all without
revealing her family background or true identity.
You were born far from San Francisco.
What was your introduction to the city and why did you set your novel there?
*My
husband and I moved there, sight unseen, from the east coast, where we both
went to university. My first glimpse of
the city came as we drove over the Bay Bridge. The sun was setting and
reflecting off the tall buildings and I had an overwhelming feeling of coming
home. That feeling has never left me.
Theo buys a derelict building, which is
part of a HOA in a neighborhood called Fabian Gardens. Much of the action takes
place behind the neighborhood’s buildings where there is an expanse of gardens
with a tot lot, flowers/vegetables, and a compost heap. There are several
Fabian Gardens, but none I found in San Francisco. Did you create the
neighborhood?
*Fabian
Gardens is all my own creation and I had fun doing it. I wanted to write a San
Francisco mystery, but I also wanted an enclosed community for my characters, a
“village” where they could work and make their homes. My first home in the city
was in a neighborhood where the back yards were large and enclosed, but (except
for mine!) they were rather neglected. I’ve
always loved to garden, and the Bay Area climate gave me the opportunity to
grow a wide variety of plants. I used to imagine a sort of neighborhood pocket
park taking up all that space and when I came to write my novel, that idea came
back to me. The name Fabian Gardens is a
nod to George Bernard Shaw.
Theo’s new-found neighborhood provides
a cast of characters, but it’s not without crime. Nat, a beautiful young gay
man becomes her best friend when he saves her life. What happened?
*Before
the action of the novel takes place, Theo is robbed by a knife-wielding thug. Things
are about to get really ugly when Nat happens upon the scene and saves
her. By the time covered in The Man on
the Washing Machine, Theo and Nat are close friends and confidantes.
Theo first meets Inspector Lichlyter
when she sees a handyman of ill repute fall to his death from a building across
from her own after an earthquake. She knows it wasn’t an accident or the result
of the earthquake, and Lichlyter investigates the death. Inspector Lichlyter
behaves untypically. How and why does she plant clues for suspects?
*The
Inspector is convinced that the handyman’s death is connected to other crimes
she’s investigating in Fabian Gardens (I can’t say more without spoilers.) When
she discovers Theo's false identity, her natural suspicions lead her to
take a couple of unusual steps to force Theo’s hand. At one point she leaves
behind a notebook containing some investigative notes, clearly hoping to panic
Theo and her co-conspirators into making mistakes and revealing themselves.
How did you learn to plant red herrings
so well?
*I
credit Agatha Christie. I love the
Golden Age detective novels. Dame Agatha’s have always been my favorites and
I’ve read each of them dozens of times.
Reading her is like a master’s degree in plotting and red herrings!
All the women seem to be agog over
Kurt, the doctor. But he’s a cold fish, isn’t he?
*Theo
learns early that Kurt is cold enough to give any woman frostbite. But he’s a good looking, unattached surgeon,
which makes him an appealing challenge, although he has secrets too. During the
novel he gets his comeuppance, falling for someone who has her own reasons for
keeping him at a distance.
My favorite character is Theo’s
grandfather, who followed her to San Francisco. Has their tragedy made theirs a
closer relationship?
*In
the beginning of the novel their relationship is very formal, with a lack of
understanding on both sides. They grow closer as the story unfolds and they
begin to understand each other better.
Derek, Nat’s live-in lover, is going
bald. He experiments with oriental homeopathic cures. Rhino horns? I had no
idea. How did you know? Is the value you placed on this item real? Explain the
legal/illegal issue?
*
Rhino horn is mistakenly believed to be a treatment for a variety of ills and
conditions and people are willing to pay outrageous prices for it. The dollar
value placed on it was accurate at the time of writing and, incredibly, continues
to rise. The northern white rhino has been forced into extinction in the past
five years and other varieties are close to the end. The Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species (CITES) treaty, with about 180 signatory countries, forbids
the import or export of animal products from animals deemed threatened or
endangered, but rhinos are threatened all over Africa as poachers become more
violent and bold.
Theo owns the building where they
create the first-floor bath shop called Aromas, and Nicole provides the product,
shampoos, soaps, lotions, etc., through a chemist friend of hers. But Nicole
isn’t the stable business partner Theo wanted. When Nicole is murdered, why
does Inspector Lichlyter suspect Theo?
*Inspector
Lichlyter is suspicious of Theo largely because of Theo’s reluctance to reveal
her true identity, and the tangled web of circumstances tying her, despite her
innocence, to other criminal acts in the neighborhood.
Theo befriends a boy, Davie. His
drunken father abuses him. She employs Davie at her shop. What is his unusual
hobby? Why doesn’t he just give them fruit to eat?
*Davie
keeps butterflies, growing them from caterpillars he collects. He learned how to feed them on sugar water
and special food by unrolling their (very, very long) tongues with a pin. (I
didn’t mention this is the book, but butterflies sense food through their
feet!)
What’s next, Susan? Are you planning to
make this a first in a series book?
*I’m
writing Theo’s next adventure, and have plans to write six or seven more.
Are you a beach or mountain woman,
Susan?
*Neither!
I don’t like extremes of weather or geography. I’d say I was more of a gently rolling
hills woman.
