Author Karen Odden returns to McArthur Library on July 17 at 6:30 p.m. She will be the third in in the librarys summer speaker series. In preparation for the talk, I asked Odden several questions, her answers are as follows.

Where do you get ideas for your books?

“I set all my books in 1870s London, partly because I don’t have to go looking very hard for ideas! There were so many bizarre accidents, underhanded financial schemes, and surprising changes in laws – particularly in the area of women’s rights. I’ve been studying and writing about the Victorian period since 1998, and yet I still find fun historical tidbits that surprise me – and surprise is often my surest guide to finding the core of a book.

For example, one day I was reading about London maritime law. The article was rather dry (imagine!), but one sentence caught me: “After the most deadly, horrifying accident ever to occur on the Thames, the loose collection of traditions and practices were codified into law.” And I thought – Wait! What deadly, horrifying accident? I googled and found the disaster that became the core of Under a Veiled Moon.

In September 1878, a small pleasure steamboat (the Princess Alice) full of passengers was rammed by a 900-ton iron-hulled coal carrier. The steamer broke into three pieces, hurling 650 people into the filthy water, and nearly everyone drowned. The symbolism in the clash between the two ships felt obvious: small cottage industries versus industrial factories; pleasure versus work; the countryside and agriculture (wood) versus the city (iron). The surprising tidbit both suggested a crime and held cultural meanings that enriched the book.”

I love your characters. How did you come up with Inspector Michael Corravan?

“My first three books all featured young women protagonists drawn into mysteries. But for Down a Dark River (the first Corravan book), I needed an inspector who could go toe-to-toe with a villain who was killing young women and putting them in boats to float down the Thames. I wanted my inspector to be an outsider but very street smart, with a troubled past and some specialized knowledge that most Yard men don’t have. So Corravan is Irish (the discrimination was horrifying) from seedy, violent Whitechapel (home of Jack the Ripper). After Corravan lost his mother at age eleven, he became a thief, then a bare-knuckles boxer, and a dockworker, so he knows the river intimately. Corravan is handsome, shrewd, and profoundly loyal to his adoptive family, the Doyles, and his special friend Belinda Gale, a novelist. Think the Duke (from Miss Scarlet and the Duke) but a bit rougher around the edges.”

I was recently asked, “Which of Karen Odden’s books should I read?” Do you have an answer to that question? Which is your favorite?

“I would say, if you like novels of suspense written by Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, or more recently Mimi Matthews or Sherry Thomas, with young women protagonists thrown into danger, read ‘A Trace of Deceit’ (Harper Collins, 2019). But if you’re up for seedy London, injustice, crimes of revenge, and a Scotland Yard detective, start with ‘Down a Dark River.’ As for my favorite book? It’s always the one I’m writing now.”