About the Seffi Wardwell Mysteries
Retired science teacher Seffi Wardwell has moved to coastal Maine looking for peace, fresh air, and an accepting community. So far, she’s enjoying the sea air.
When a corpse turns up in Seffi’s flower garden, she can’t help asking questions about the victim and his death. Police officer Miah Cox doesn’t want her assistance, but Seffi’s curiosity is what made her a scientist.
The more she learns about the dead man’s background, the more she wants to know. Estranged from his wealthy family, and a village pariah for something that happened years before, the dead man had plenty of enemies. At least one wanted to make him disappear forever, and they’re all eager to see this case wrapped up and forget about him.
The way Seffi sees it, somebody has to care about him, and as a fellow outsider, she’s it. But all of her poking around is stirring up trouble in the village. It’s up to Seffi and Miah to figure out whodunit before they strike again, and before the locals decide the handiest scapegoat is Seffi herself.
Beautiful weather, bountiful baked goods, and… bodies on the beach?
Seffi’s pleasure in her long walks among the fall colors is more than a little marred when she encounters cantankerous fisherman Bob Hughes washed up on the shore — sodden, entangled in a net, and very definitely dead. Did the man drink too much and fall overboard in an unfortunate accident? Or was his death something more sinister? With an estranged wife, enemies in the fishing fleet, and ticked-off deckhands, there are plenty of people around Smelt Point who aren’t sorry he’s dead. But did any of them actually kill him? The scuttlebutt at the bakery raises more questions than it answers, and to top it off the fishermen gathering there have eaten Seffi’s favorite treats.
Once again Seffi needs all her reasoning and gossip-gathering talents to help village policeman Miah Cox get to the bottom of the mystery. But will Miah’s own secret tear the village apart?
About the Guest Post
It’s a temptation to explain my choice of Maine for my new mystery series with a glib response like, “because that’s where all the cozy mysteries are.” It wouldn’t even be a complete lie. Maine does seem to lend itself to the genre, being a place full of small, tight-knit villages and cozy settings, not to mention about a million islands and peninsulas,. When I was looking for a setting for a new series, something distinct from the Puget Sound setting of my PTA mysteries, my mind just naturally drifted that way.
But it’s also true that Maine is a place I’ve fallen in love with. We started visiting there in about 2008, after friends moved to a place near Augusta, and have kept going back. The only season I haven’t tried yet is spring — our first visit was in the depths of a January freeze! Since the book I’m currently drafting is set in spring, I may have to remedy that lack.
I particularly like the endless, but accessible, coastline, with so many peninsulas and inlets that there is no problem slipping an extra one in for my heroine to choose as her new home. The feel of a coast sheltered by so many islands (including Nova Scotia) is very different from that of the Pacific coast where Seffi and I grew up. It is an area that calls out to be explored by boat, and Smelt Point is turning out to be a pretty sea-going kind of place, which is fun for me to explore.
I wanted to have Seffi be the “new kid in town” in her first book, so I had her move across the country. After living for many years in the mountains of California (always a struggle for someone who has a bit of salt water in her veins), Seffi is forced to get away from the constant wildfire smoke that, sadly, is not a fiction. She arrives in Smelt Point with only one friend, and several counts against her as she struggles to make it her home.
I worried a little about making Seffi lesbian, but I had personal reasons for giving her a very different life from my own (though of course my friends and relations are finding aspects of me in her. I think that every character I write has aspects of me, so that doesn’t indicate much). She’s also recovering from a pair of harsh blows that came close together before she moved: A bad case of Covid that left her with some Long Covid symptoms, and the loss of her long-time partner to cancer. She doesn’t dwell on that a great deal (and I really didn’t want to make it so, but she eventually showed me how it was with her), but it’s a part of who she is.
When Seffi is finally able to get out and about and explore her new home, she gets to fall in love with the rugged coastline, just as I have. I hope at some point Seffi will get to travel the state a little more, and discover some of the many beautiful lakes, maybe even see the north woods in autumn. That was my first introduction to fall color in the Northeast, and I was blown away.
I’ve tried to both have fun with the stereotypes of the old Maine residents and not to fall into the trap of relying on stereotypes for my characters. Most of the people who live in Smelt Point grew up around there, because who (aside from Seffi, her best friend Nikka, and her old student Miah, and…) would move there otherwise? There turn out to be a lot of good reasons to move to a tiny town on the coast of Maine.
Of course, maybe the best part about having Seffi move to Maine is that I have an extra excuse to visit! Perhaps Seffi should learn to kayak…
About Rebecca M. Douglass
Rebecca M. Douglass has lived and worked around the American West for more years than she’ll admit, while raising two children to adulthood and dreaming up interesting ways to bump people off. Thanks to good friends in Maine, she has also spent time on the other side of the country and has fallen in love with that coast.
Since retiring from work at the library, the author of the Ninja Librarian series for younger readers and the Pismawallops PTA mystery series now lives in Seattle, where she is writing the Seffi Wardwell mysteries. She has also had short stories published in a variety of magazines and anthologies.
When she isn't writing, Ms. Douglass likes to go hiking and backpacking or to travel to discover new places or revisit old favorites, including the Grand Canyon and of course Maine, where so many of the best cozy mysteries are found.
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