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Jessie Bishop Powell
I juxtapose words a lot when I'm speaking. I mix up verbs, my kids' names, and the words for household objects. (Un-coincidentally, I'm also awful at names.) My husband and I were talking Poe in the car one day and I, intending to say "Murders in the Rue Morgue" said "Marriage" instead. Scott... show more



I juxtapose words a lot when I'm speaking. I mix up verbs, my kids' names, and the words for household objects. (Un-coincidentally, I'm also awful at names.) My husband and I were talking Poe in the car one day and I, intending to say "Murders in the Rue Morgue" said "Marriage" instead. Scott asked, "What did you say?"And I realized I had a fantastic premise and book title. Poe's short story features an amateur detective who solves a crime using specialized knowledge. This model has evolved into many forms of modern mystery, especially the cozy genre. I knew that I wanted The Marriage at the Rue Morgue to have a mixture of similarities and contrasts with Poe, so I kept the amateur detective theme.But the key to the Poe tale is that an orangutan committed the crime, and I wanted this detail to be exactly the opposite in my novel. I wanted a situation where my amateur detectives would know through their specialized knowledge that the orangutan had to be innocent. Oh. And I had to have a marriage to go with the murder. That was important, too. After all, I was planning to call it The Marriage at the Rue Morgue.

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Jessie Bishop Powell's Books
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