Willaim Murdoch creator to speak at Grimsby museum
The box labelled “blasphemy” immediately caught Maureen Jenning’s attention.
She was searching through Ontario criminal case files from the late 1800s as research for a murder mystery series she was working on when she stumbled across one with the unusual label. Unable to contain her curiosity, she dug into the file and was shocked at its contents.
“Inside was a card, the kind they hand out to children in Sunday school with a picture of Jesus, and around the edges of the card, a girl had written obscenities, so shocking even to my 21st century eyes,” said Jennings, who penned the William Murdoch books which are the basis for the Murdoch Mystery series. “I thought well, first of all, how did she know these word, they were not in common use, and why write them on a Sunday school card? She was 12 years old and sentenced to three months in an industrial school.”
While Jennings will never know what possessed the young girl to write words that would make the head’s of even today’s youth turn, she made it right with her pen. Jennings used the case file in Night’s Child, the fifth novel in the Murdoch series. “You can get revenge by writing a mystery,” said Jennings, who will always wonder what possessed such a young girl to write such obscene words. “And there is a powerful revenge in that story,” she said, suggesting the girl was crying for help. “I don’t know whatever happened to her ... and I never will.”
Jennings will share this story and others as part of a Grimsby Museum fundraiser planned for Nov. 5. Jennings is the guest speaker at the annual fundraising dinner, which also features a live and silent auction. She will give a talk entitled “Getting the dead body from book to screen.” She laughs at the title but said she would be speaking on the whole process of taking her books from page to screen and the adaptations and funny things that happen along the way.
It was a long road from the idea behind the William Murdoch series to finishing the first novel, said Jennings. She spent at least three years researching turn-of-the-century Toronto and its historical buildings and landmarks. She would visit old houses and imagine what it was like living in them in the late 1800s. She spent a lot of time reading the street directory, an exercise she described as fun, to have a detailed understanding of Murdoch’s division. And of course, she spent hours and hours digging through old case files, which is where she got the inspiration for most of Murdoch’s mysteries.
“Are they based on true crime? Yes and no,” said Jennings. “Not specific crimes, but they are based on some incident or some detail from that time.”
The plot for book number three, Poor Tom is Cold, is based on the case of a policeman found shot in a laneway. Everything was there in the file, the inquest, the witness reports, everything. But Jennings refused to believe the conclusion.
“I could not believe he committed suicide, that’s what the verdict was,” she said. “So I took all that and put it into a book. We’ll never know the truth, it’s a very very cold case now, but in my story, I am able to change what I don’t like.”
What Jennings most enjoys about a mystery is that it is a complete package. While in real life cold case files collect dust on a shelf, in a mystery novel, everything is wrapped up by the last page.
“Life is so incomplete,” she said. “For instance with that constable so long ago, I’ll never truly know what happened but with a book, you always know what happens.”
Jennings fell in love with the genre at an early age. Growing up in England, she became a fan of Sherlock Holmes at age 13.
“I read tonnes and tonnes of Sherlock Holmes,” she said. “When I was finally ready to commit myself to writing, I knew mystery is what I wanted to write. I couldn’t do anything else.”
She described Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective books as an escape. They were stories she could get lost in and she wanted to provide the same for readers of her own novels. And so she created William Murdoch.
“I wanted him to be someone I would honestly like to meet, I wanted him to be a certain way,” she said, calling herself selfish. “I am sure Sherlock Holmes is in their somewhere. Perhaps Watson too. And maybe my husband.”
The series, said Jennings, has renewed a lot of interest in the seven-book mystery series.
“The series is very different,” said Jennings, who acts as a consultant for the show and wrote the script for an episode. “The series is very much more funny than my books.”
The museum gala takes place Nov. 5 starting at 6 p.m. Tickets are $90 per person, tax receipts will be issued for a portion of the ticket. Seating is limited and tickets will be available until Friday, Oct. 28. Items included in the silent auction are a Bobby Orr jersey with certificate of authenticity, a gourmet dinner at a private historic home, a signed Harry Howell hockey stick and a wine fridge stocked with Niagara wines. For more information, or to purchase tickets, call the museum at 905-945-5292 or e-mail museum@town.grimsby.on.ca. Tickets can also be picked up at the museum, located at 6 Murray St.
Source http://www.niagarathisweek.com/community/article/1233476--mysteries-are-life-made-completeMysteries are life made complete
The box labelled “blasphemy” immediately caught Maureen Jenning’s attention.
She was searching through Ontario criminal case files from the late 1800s as research for a murder mystery series she was working on when she stumbled across one with the unusual label. Unable to contain her curiosity, she dug into the file and was shocked at its contents.
“Inside was a card, the kind they hand out to children in Sunday school with a picture of Jesus, and around the edges of the card, a girl had written obscenities, so shocking even to my 21st century eyes,” said Jennings, who penned the William Murdoch books which are the basis for the Murdoch Mystery series. “I thought well, first of all, how did she know these word, they were not in common use, and why write them on a Sunday school card? She was 12 years old and sentenced to three months in an industrial school.”
While Jennings will never know what possessed the young girl to write words that would make the head’s of even today’s youth turn, she made it right with her pen. Jennings used the case file in Night’s Child, the fifth novel in the Murdoch series. “You can get revenge by writing a mystery,” said Jennings, who will always wonder what possessed such a young girl to write such obscene words. “And there is a powerful revenge in that story,” she said, suggesting the girl was crying for help. “I don’t know whatever happened to her ... and I never will.”
Jennings will share this story and others as part of a Grimsby Museum fundraiser planned for Nov. 5. Jennings is the guest speaker at the annual fundraising dinner, which also features a live and silent auction. She will give a talk entitled “Getting the dead body from book to screen.” She laughs at the title but said she would be speaking on the whole process of taking her books from page to screen and the adaptations and funny things that happen along the way.
It was a long road from the idea behind the William Murdoch series to finishing the first novel, said Jennings. She spent at least three years researching turn-of-the-century Toronto and its historical buildings and landmarks. She would visit old houses and imagine what it was like living in them in the late 1800s. She spent a lot of time reading the street directory, an exercise she described as fun, to have a detailed understanding of Murdoch’s division. And of course, she spent hours and hours digging through old case files, which is where she got the inspiration for most of Murdoch’s mysteries.
“Are they based on true crime? Yes and no,” said Jennings. “Not specific crimes, but they are based on some incident or some detail from that time.”
The plot for book number three, Poor Tom is Cold, is based on the case of a policeman found shot in a laneway. Everything was there in the file, the inquest, the witness reports, everything. But Jennings refused to believe the conclusion.
“I could not believe he committed suicide, that’s what the verdict was,” she said. “So I took all that and put it into a book. We’ll never know the truth, it’s a very very cold case now, but in my story, I am able to change what I don’t like.”
What Jennings most enjoys about a mystery is that it is a complete package. While in real life cold case files collect dust on a shelf, in a mystery novel, everything is wrapped up by the last page.
“Life is so incomplete,” she said. “For instance with that constable so long ago, I’ll never truly know what happened but with a book, you always know what happens.”
Jennings fell in love with the genre at an early age. Growing up in England, she became a fan of Sherlock Holmes at age 13.
“I read tonnes and tonnes of Sherlock Holmes,” she said. “When I was finally ready to commit myself to writing, I knew mystery is what I wanted to write. I couldn’t do anything else.”
She described Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective books as an escape. They were stories she could get lost in and she wanted to provide the same for readers of her own novels. And so she created William Murdoch.
“I wanted him to be someone I would honestly like to meet, I wanted him to be a certain way,” she said, calling herself selfish. “I am sure Sherlock Holmes is in their somewhere. Perhaps Watson too. And maybe my husband.”
The series, said Jennings, has renewed a lot of interest in the seven-book mystery series.
“The series is very different,” said Jennings, who acts as a consultant for the show and wrote the script for an episode. “The series is very much more funny than my books.”
The museum gala takes place Nov. 5 starting at 6 p.m. Tickets are $90 per person, tax receipts will be issued for a portion of the ticket. Seating is limited and tickets will be available until Friday, Oct. 28. Items included in the silent auction are a Bobby Orr jersey with certificate of authenticity, a gourmet dinner at a private historic home, a signed Harry Howell hockey stick and a wine fridge stocked with Niagara wines. For more information, or to purchase tickets, call the museum at 905-945-5292 or e-mail museum@town.grimsby.on.ca. Tickets can also be picked up at the museum, located at 6 Murray St.
Source http://www.niagarathisweek.com/community/article/1233476--mysteries-are-life-made-completeMysteries are life made complete
