I am so excited to see the story of Lane Winslow beginning a new life with a wonderful new publisher; Touchwood Editions. Her story is that of a woman starting a new life far from her home in England immediately after the war, and now the book, known to its early readers as Dead In The Water, takes on a new life of its own, as A Killer In King’s Cove.
It is a wonderful experience to have people believe in Lane and her adventures with the local Inspector, Darling, and I have loved working with TouchWood Editions to bring her anew into the world. The stories take place in a world that is long gone; an eden in western Canada full of new immigrants from ‘the old country’ who came to jostle with the early mining and lumber industries, to create a fruit growing industry that was unequalled during its day, anywhere in the English speaking dominions.
It is a more elemental world, almost a little pioneering, even in the 1940s. Some people in the more rural areas still do not have telephones or indoor plumbing. If you did have a telephone, you had to go through an exchange, where an operator, generally a woman, put your call through. In King’s Cove, people still had their mail delivered to the community by steam paddle wheeler, where small post offices in communities all up and down the lake became the centre of tiny communities; mail distribution, meeting places, sources of gossip and information about neighbours on nearby farms, or tucked away in the woods on mining claims.
It is almost liberating to re-imagine this world where there were no smart phones, or television. Where tractors worked along side horses dragging ploughs or carts. People were not bombarded with immediate news from all over the world, but heard about things from the wireless or with decorum from newspapers, always with a bit of distance between the cataclysmic events and one’s own life. If one got in trouble, or lost, or had a flat tire on the way up the lake from Nelson back to a small community somewhere, there was no way to phone. One found one’s way, changed the tire, or stood by the side of the road in hopes someone would come by who could help or give a lift. And there was silence, and books. If someone wanted to ‘spend time with their own thoughts’ they did, because there was little to distract them.
There was a strong attachment, during this time when Canada was still a dominion, to the King and country on the part of the immigrants from the British Isles. Young men rushed to sign up in both wars to support both their own country and the ‘old’ one. People had coronation tea cups, and photos of the English king, and went to church on Sunday, and asked the vicar around for lunch. Everyone had a tea at four o’clock, sometimes just a cookie and a cuppa, but sometimes with the full goings-on; sandwiches, cake, scones lots of well-sugared tea.
The release of A Killer In King’s Cove still seems a long way off, but I will fill the time writing a bit about the world in which it takes place. I hope you will join me, both by reading and by commenting!
