Berg Fitzpatrick

Sharon Berg Interviews Alice Fitzpatrick

(Stonehouse Publishing, 2025)

Alice Fitzpatrick

Sharon Berg:             I’m so glad to have the chance to interview you, Alice. It’s my feeling that interviews can offer a reader an insightful but very different exploration of a book than a book review, so I’ve prepared a few questions to draw out your vision of the book.

Your characters in A Dark Death are astutely drawn, and each has their personal collection of issues. It’s my understanding your interest in psychology lies behind that skill. You’ve rendered them in a way that broadens the reader’s impression of each character over time, making their interactions seem like real people rather than stereotypes of personalities. Reading becomes as easy as watching a television mystery in your hands. As an author, I’ve been challenged about using the men I dated as fodder for my poems. I wonder if your friends have ever challenged you for observing themselves or other people as fodder for your stories? Please elaborate.

Alice Fitzpartick:      While my protagonist and her ex-husband share their names with two of my cousins, their characters are very different. If my relatives suspect they inspired these characters, they’ve never shared this with me. However, my older women characters are definitely influenced by the strong women in my family, including my aunt and grandmother. Only a few of the older women in my Meredith Island Mysteries ever had husbands, and I think this is because many of my grandmother’s friends lost their husbands and sweethearts in the two world wars. With so many British soldiers and civilians killed, many women simply never found a husband.

SB:      Yes, that is a largely unaccounted-for consequence of wars. I note that you’ve presented Kate Galway as both an amateur sleuth, a person who only desires to do good for others, and someone who constantly annoys the policeman with her observations about the murder of a conman. It is a delicate balance to deal with the negative reactions to your main protagonist from other characters. I’m curious about the potential for missteps. Has there ever been a case when your story became so complicated that it got difficult to turn things back to right or defend your protagonist’s sleuthing?

AF:     It goes without saying that the police dislike amateurs ingratiating themselves into their investigations, so there has to be a good reason why an amateur detective would get involved.

In Secrets in the Water, the first book in the Meredith Island Mysteries, Kate Galway takes on a fifty-year-old cold case and tracks down her aunt’s killer, earning the islanders’ respect as an investigator. So when island mechanic Evan Cragwell becomes a prime suspect in A Dark Death, his wife asks for Kate’s help to prove his innocence.

DI Tom Warwick is quite happy to arrest the first suspect for whom he can make a reasonable case, but Kate isn’t convinced he has the right person and suggests an alternate way of looking at the crime. As the ex-wife of a police detective and the mother of a barrister, she takes care when dealing with the police and even shares all the information she uncovers with Warwick. However, his irritation with what he perceives as interference in his case cancels out any gratitude he might have for her help.

SB:      In A Dark Death you are dealing with the murder of a charlatan from near the beginning of the book, but then you insert the murder of one of the archaeology students, and the back-stabbing contamination of the archaeology site by someone seeking revenge in the same way they once tried to protect the reputation of their father. In other words, the story is rife with twists and turns. Do you ever worry about overcomplicating a tale?

AF:     I never worry about overcomplicating my stories as I believe my plots are simple compared to those of other crime writers. As a reader, I prefer books where I’m not overwhelmed by the plot. Plus if I pick up a book after being away from it for several days, I don’t want to have to reread it to remind myself what’s going on.

So this is how I approach my own books. But I do like to include unexpected events to take the plot—and the readers—in different directions. During my many years of watching crime shows and reading mysteries, I have assembled a list that I call “Complications: Events And Actions,” which is thirty-six ideas to liven up to my plot, ranging from a kidnapping to a discredited witness to an anonymous letter sent to the police containing misleading information. I can always count on these to add twists to the plot.

SB:      If we put your story into perspective as one among many that readers will explore, every book takes a stance not only within its genre, but in the midst of the contemporary social and political concerns that its real-life readers are surrounded by. How would you describe the position of A Dark Death and its areas of concern in today’s world?

AF:     These days it’s more important than ever to feature strong, self-reliant women in stories. Almost all of my women are single and thriving without men. Before Kate’s divorce, her husband’s career as a police detective took all of his time, and she essentially became a single mother while holding down a demanding job. This strength and determination still serve her well.

There is a distinct difference in the way Kate and her ex-husband, James, regard their post-divorce relationship. Kate is happy to be on her own and responsible only for herself. James, on the other hand, feels guilty for his part in their breakup and hopes there is still a chance to reconcile. However, someone else is romantically interested in her. This will provide interesting storylines in future books as Kate will have to decide if she wants another relationship and how to reconcile the demands of that relationship with her need for independence.

SB:      In terms of the audience for A Dark Death, I’m sure you are aware of a group who will be drawn to reading it, and another group that you believe should read it. Are those two groups different? Please explain.

AF:     Typical mystery readers are female with the majority age forty-five and over. My series appeals to this demographic because, as a woman in her mid-fifties, Kate deals with many of my readers’ concerns: an ambitious adult child, the complications of an ex-husband, struggles with issues from her past, and now that she is retired, redefining her role within her community. She also supports her friend and sidekick, Siobhan, as she deals with her own passage into middle age.

At a recent event, a woman asked if my protagonist was an older woman. When I said, yes, she replied, “Oh good,” and bought a book. I’ve discovered that women of a certain age are eager to see themselves in stories.

I wasn’t sure if younger women would be interested in stories that feature women their mothers’ or even their grandmothers’ age. But I’m delighted that they’re also reading and reviewing my books. I want them to see that aging is nothing to fear, that older women are still physically and mentally active, and that we live fulfilling and interesting lives.

SB:      Appropriate and catchy titles are often difficult to come up with for a novelist, though some authors seem to begin with their title. What was your experience in developing a title for A Dark Death? Was it difficult?

AF:     When I first came up with the idea for this series, the plan was to take the theme of each book from a Shakespearean play and use a quote from that play for the title. But Shakespearean quotes don’t lend themselves to genre fiction, and so I had to come up with more commercial titles.

To create a title, I brainstorm the elements and themes in a book, and then check to see if any of the potential titles have already been used. While there’s no copyright on titles, I prefer to have one that is unique and hope it isn’t used by the time the book is published. That happened to Secrets in the Water which now shares its title with two other novels, an anthology, and a TV movie.

At first I wasn’t sure how appropriate A Dark Death was, but I was surprised to discover just how much darkness there is: scenes that take place at night, sunset, or in the rain; the supernatural; the archaeology students exposing artefacts that literally haven’t seen the light of day for centuries; and the murder victim posed face down in the trench. There is also the metaphorical darkness of the characters’ pain, including the dark night of the soul that the minister must endure. Another character sums it up this way: “There was a darkness hanging over the island, an oily black substance which enveloped and pressed upon the land and its people.”

An appropriate title after all.

SB:      Yes, darkness actually seems to be something that can dominate a genre or even a person’s view of the world itself. But the attention of many people in our contemporary developed world is currently dominated by a focus on the media. And media is constantly looking for fresh stories, so any author—perhaps more probably the writer of a series—may discover someone wants to turn their story into a television show, a movie, or a radio script. Then there are the stories which are translated into other languages. What would you say is a key point in A Dark Death that should never be lost if it’s ever converted to another medium or language?

AF:      Since the Norman Conquest in the 11th century, Wales was almost continuously at war with England. Henry VIII introduced the Act of Union which deprived Wales of any official status and replaced the Welsh language with English for official matters. It wasn’t until 1942 that The Welsh Courts Act permitted limited use of Welsh in law courts, and in 2011, it was finally recognised as the country’s official language. To honour the people’s struggle to reclaim their language, I include Welsh in all my books. I wouldn’t want a translator to delete any of these phrases.

With so many centuries of conflict between England and Wales, it is hardly surprising that an animosity between these two cultures exists to this day. During a recent trip to Wales, a Pembrokeshire bus driver asked where I was from. I said I lived in Canada but made the mistake of telling him I was born in England. Upon hearing this, he replied, “Oh, we don’t like the English here.”

In A Dark Death, Myfanwy, a Welsh archaeology student, routinely lashes out at her English boyfriend because he makes a crude joke from the mispronunciation of her name. He calls her Fanny, ignorant of, or purposely ignoring, the fact that a single ‘f’ is pronounced as a ‘v’ in Welsh. For her, it is symbolic of his disrespect for her language, her culture, and ultimately her.

While I would like my books to be made available to non-English-speaking readers, I hope that the translators will be able to retain the importance of the Welsh language and the English-Welsh conflict.

SB:      I understand. Some books require intensive research of a topic or an historical era or some other aspect of the story. Please describe the most intensive research you did for A Dark Death. How far would you travel to conduct research? Have you done most of your research on the internet or through books and printed documents?

AF:     My fascination with archaeology inspired me to add an archaeological element to the book. Luckily, I’ve seen every episode of the British TV series, Time Team and Digging for Britain, and have done online archaeology courses, so I have a good understanding of basic practises. Any additional questions whose answers I couldn’t find on the internet, I took to my chiropractor whose first career was as an archaeologist. While it might seem a strange move from archaeologist to chiropractor, he reminds me “it’s all about the bones.”

SB:      Readers are often interested in knowing how much of a work is invented and how much of it is autobiographical. Clearly, you have not had to deal with a series of murders in your life, but it is well known that authors draw on various aspects of their own experience for their writing. Would you care to share your approach/thoughts on your readers’ curiosity about any aspects of your stories that may be autobiographical?

AF:     Meredith Island is a fictional place because I feared using a real location would involve endless hours researching minutia to avoid irate e-mails from readers saying I got it wrong. With a fictional setting I could control everything: the geography, the weather, the flora and fauna.

However, this idyllic island setting was inspired by a real place. When I was eleven, my British family moved to Wales and each summer would welcome me to Tenby, a popular seaside resort on the southern Pembrokeshire coast. It was during this time that I fell in love with the country and its people.

Because I visited Tenby during my teenage years, many of my memories are tinged with wonder and innocence. It was where I had my first crush and my first heartbreak when a young man took my address, promising to write but never did. It was also the location of my aunt and uncle’s hotel where we often sat in the large kitchen and drank tea—sherry for my aunt—ate buttered scones, and shared jokes. So my island became a place of love and friendship, warm kitchens full of sweet smells, and a pub where people gather for a natter and a gossip. This provides a jarring juxtaposition to the brutality of the murders.

But it wasn’t just the setting that was influenced by my life. Now that I’m older, I often reflect on my past decisions, and how different my life has turned out from how I imagined it would be. Kate also reflects on those differences. Her dream was to be a university professor, but an unplanned pregnancy interrupted her post-graduate studies, and she ended up teaching high school. In her mind, she settled for a career which was second-best. In A Dark Death, these feelings of disappointment resurface when she meets a female university professor who appears to have the life Kate has always wanted. As for the island minister, she must finally come to terms with a decision that resulted in a death for which she has always felt responsible.

SB:      So you’ve explained how the setting of childhood visits and family relations have crept into your series. How does this book fit in the stream of the rest of your literary works? Is there a fundamental difference between A Dark Death and any of your prior works?

AF:     I started my writing career publishing literary short stories. When I decided to write a novel, I continued with the literary genre. Although I had a general idea of what it was about, the story never really came together, so I abandoned it. Then I turned to my first love which is traditional British mysteries. Raised on Agatha Christie novels, how could I do anything else? Plus the mystery novel provides me with a structure that anchors both the story and the writing. I’m currently writing the fifth book in the series, so I’ve fully embraced this genre.

SB:      Well, that information actually explains a lot. Combined with what you’ve said earlier about Kate probably developing a love interest in a future book, you’ve just offered us a bit of a tease. And that means a lot of people will be anxious to hear that you are working on your next book soon. Good luck, and know that we’re all hoping to hear you share news of your progress with Kate’s next adventures soon.

Alice Fitzpatrick has contributed short stories to literary magazines and anthologies, and is a fearless champion of singing, cats, all things Welsh, and the Oxford comma. Her summers spent with her Welsh family in Pembrokeshire inspired the creation of the Meredith Island Mysteries, which include Secrets in the Water and A Dark Death. The Meredith Island Christmas mystery, A Killing Cold, will be released next June. The traditional mystery appeals to her fascination with what makes seemingly ordinary people commit murder. Alice lives in Toronto but dreams of a cottage on the Welsh coast.

Sharon Berg attended the Banff School of Fine Arts Writing Studio in 1982 and was accepted to Banff’s Leighton Artist Colony in 1987. She taught in Ontario after studying to become a teacher with a focus on First Nations Education: B.A./Laurentian U.; B.Ed/U of T; M.Ed/York U; and D.Ed/UBC. She received a Certificate in Magazine Journalism from Ryerson U and is an alumni of Humber College’s Writing Program. Sharon founded and operated the international literary E-Zine Big Pond Rumours (2006-2019) and its associated press, releasing chapbooks of Canadian poets as prizes for the magazine’s contests. Her poetry appears as full books with Borealis, Coach House, and Cyberwit, and she has four chapbooks with BPR Press. Sharon’s short fiction is with Porcupine’s Quill, and her nonfiction appears with BPR Press. Her writing appears across Canada, the USA, Mexico, Chile, England, Wales, Netherlands, Germany, Siberia, Romania, India, Persia, Singapore, and Australia. Her 3rd poetry collection Stars in the Junkyard was a Finalist in the 2022 International Book Awards, and her narrative history The Name Unspoken: Wandering Spirit Survival School won a 2020 IPPY Award for Regional Nonfiction. When she retired from teaching, she opened Oceanview Writers Retreat in Charlottetown (Terra Nova National Park) Newfoundland.