Crack the case of the scrumptious snickerdoodle

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/12/2020 (2067 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You won’t need to solve a mystery to make the cookies for Day 11 of the Free Press’s 12 Days of Christmas Cookies.

Selkirk murder-mystery novelist Maureen Flynn shares her recipe for Snickerdoodles but there are no plot twists that will spook you while you mix the batter and there is nothing hiding in the oven when you open the door to put them in to bake.

“These ones are kind of soft and fluffy ones. They’re kind of like a sugar cookie only with a little bit of cinnamon taste. You roll them in cinnamon before you cook them,” Flynn says.

Flynn specializes in mysteries that come with a ghost story in the centre — particularly Winnipeg ghost stories. Her latest, Pick Up Sticks, which Flynn released in October, highlights the spectres that purportedly make their home in one of Western Canada’s oldest buildings: the Burton Cummings Theatre.

The original ghost story goes back to 1914, the vaudeville era, when the Burt was known as the Walker Theatre and was only seven years old. The London-based actors, Laurence Irving and Mabel Hackney, had finished a North American tour and were heading to Quebec City to catch a ship back home. They got passage aboard the RMS Empress of Ireland, but the oceanliner ran aground in the St. Lawrence River near Rimouski, Que., and 1,012 people were killed, including Irving and Hackney.

A plaque inside the theatre serves as a memorial for Irving and Hackney and some people believe their apparitions appear at the Smith Street concert venue.

Detective Steve Ascot and his wife Penny are the modern-day crime-solvers and protagonists in Flynn’s mysteries, and they end up delving into history to help find the culprit.

“(The novel) takes place in two eras,” Flynn says. “They get involved with the Burt and there’s a murder to solve. The two tie in together, the past and the present, but they’re two separate stories.”

Flynn’s two previous novels, 2013’s Buckle My Shoe and Shut the Door, which was published in 2016, also have Winnipeg ghost stories at their centre. Buckle My Shoe shines a light on the spirit that some say has lurked at the Marlborough Hotel since a murder took place there in 1943, and Shut the Door checks out the ghost many believe has shut many a door at the Fort Garry Hotel.

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter:@AlanDSmall