{"id":2114,"date":"2016-11-28T01:52:36","date_gmt":"2016-11-28T09:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=2114"},"modified":"2016-11-28T01:52:36","modified_gmt":"2016-11-28T09:52:36","slug":"author-interview-laura-joh-rowland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/author-interview-laura-joh-rowland\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Interview: Laura Joh Rowland"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LauraLaura Joh Rowland wrote the long running, beloved Sano Ichiro series set in feudal Japan. She has also written mysteries featuring Charlotte Bronte, and now is writing a series set in 1888 London featuring photographer Sarah Bain. In the first of the series, The Ripper\u2019s Shadow, <\/strong>Sarah ends up in the crosshairs of both the police and the Ripper himself.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: Your first series, set in feudal Japan, was always really popular with our customers, and I wonder how you picked that particular time period?<\/em><\/p>\n

A:The short answer is, I watched too many samurai movies while I was in college (at the University of Michigan. Go Blue!). The longer answer is that when I decided to write mystery novels, I needed to carve out a territory for myself, and feudal Japan was wide open. It was a marriage of interest and opportunity.<\/p>\n

Q: I often think historical mystery writers are the most \u201cpure\u201d detective novelists working at the moment, as they aren\u2019t using all the new forensic tools available to contemporary detectives, they have to use good old fashioned shoe leather and deductive reasoning to solve the crime. What are your thoughts on that?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: I agree. Modern forensic tools are amazing, but even nowadays they don\u2019t always solve cases. It often comes down to what a jury believes. I was a scientist when I started writing fiction, and I chose historical novels partly because I wouldn\u2019t have to write about the scientific instruments and techniques I used at my day job.<\/p>\n

Q: You now have had quite a long career, with an impressive number of books, all of them in the historical mystery genre. What drew you to historicals? Are you trained as an historian?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: I\u2019m not trained as an historian, but I love tracking down information. There\u2019s no thrill quite like finding a fact that I need for a story. It\u2019s like a treasure hunt. I like historical novels because they\u2019re a welcome break from modern problems. Whenever life seems rough, I can look back and remember that in Victorian England, public hangings were popular entertainment.<\/p>\n

Q: After a long run in feudal Japan, you jumped to Charlotte Bronte. Hw did that come about?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: I\u2019ve always loved Charlotte Bronte\u2019s own story as much as I love her novels. She was a talented, ambitious woman who became a best-selling, famous author despite her humble background and plain looks. Through her novels and in her personal writings she expressed a desire for adventure. I wanted to give her an adventure that I think she would have liked.<\/p>\n

Q: Was it difficult using such a famous literary figure as a character?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: Writing about famous people can mean challenging readers\u2019 assumptions about them. I think a lot of readers see Charlotte Bronte as a prim church mouse who never left Haworth and never did anything but write. Those readers probably didn\u2019t like my books, in which she travels, solves crimes, and has a passionate love affair.<\/p>\n

Q: Your new novel, The Ripper\u2019s Shadow, <\/strong> centers on probably the most famous unsolved serial murder case of all time. What are you brining to the party that\u2019s different?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: I\u2019m refreshing the idea that the Jack the Ripper case was solved by somebody who was flying under the radar. Many mystery novels about the Ripper focus on rehashing the historical evidence and putting forth a theory about which of the real suspects was actually the Ripper. That didn\u2019t interest me because I think the evidence is too time-worn to prove anything, the case will never be solved, and the culprit was probably none of those suspects. My book focuses on the dilemma of a fictional photographer named Sarah Bain, who has inside information about the Ripper murders and personal reasons for keeping it secret.<\/p>\n

Q: Has it been refreshing, both in this novel and in your Charlotte Bronte novels, to utilize a female central character rather than a male?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: Yes. Women and men really do live on different planets. It\u2019s fun to explore Venus after spending so much time on Mars. I particularly like writing about women\u2019s personal relationships, which I think have complications that are sometimes lacking in men\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Q: Who are your influences, mystery-wise? Any contemporary mystery authors you especially enjoy?<\/em><\/p>\n

A: When I started writing mysteries, P.D. James and Elizabeth George were big influences, although my stories aren\u2019t much like theirs. I enjoy Sophie Hannah, Carol Goodman, Robert Harris, and Thomas Cook.<\/p>\n

Q: What book in your life was transformational \u2013 made the reading light switch on? It can be anything from something you read at age 5 on up.<\/em><\/p>\n

A: I can\u2019t remember! It\u2019s as though I was born loving to read, and all the many books I\u2019ve read are such a part of me that I couldn\u2019t say which was the most important. That would be like choosing between my lungs and my kidneys. In retrospect, the transformational moment was when I got old enough to pick out library books for my father. He was too busy or lazy to go to the library himself, so my mother picked out his books until she passed the job on to me. He loved mysteries, so I became very familiar with that section of the library, and I started reading and loving them myself. The rest is history.<\/p>\n

Q: Finally, what\u2019s next for you?<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m working on the next book in my Sarah Bain series. It\u2019s called The Monster\u2019s Child<\/em>, and the mystery is a kidnapping case that was inspired by the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laura Joh Rowland wrote the long running, beloved Sano Ichiro series set in feudal Japan. She has also written mysteries featuring Charlotte Bronte, and now is writing a series set in 1888 London featuring photographer Sarah Bain. In the first of the series, The Ripper\u2019s Shadow, Sarah ends up in the crosshairs of both the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2116,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114\/revisions\/2116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}