Read between the lies

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This article was published 20/03/2024 (729 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When a famous actor keels over on opening night of a small-town theatre production, a middle-aged reporter — exiled from her former urban media gig, her ex-husband and son — needs to pull together the pieces and figure out whodunit.

That’s the story at the core of Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti’s Bury the Lead, the first in the Quill & Packet mystery series named after the fictional newspaper in the fictional cottage country town of Port Ellis, Ont.

Hilton and Renzetti will be in town tomorrow to launch the book at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location, where they will be joined in conversation by former Free Press reporter Temur Durrani.

Prior to Bury the Lead, published earlier this month by Spiderline — an imprint of House of Anansi — Hilton had written three other novels, including Better Luck Next Time and Just Like Family; she currently works as a therapist.

Renzetti worked at the Globe and Mail as a reporter, feature writer and columnist, and has written both a book of fiction (Based on a True Story) and non-fiction (Shrewed).

When the pandemic hit, the friends and fellow Torontonians would meet in the park.

“We were talking about what was keeping us going, and a lot of that was reading mysteries,” says Renzetti by Zoom from Toronto. “Mysteries had sustained both of us for a long time. And then Kate said, ‘You know what we should do? Why don’t we write a mystery together?’

“Once we put our brains together, there was a great creative blossoming that was a real blessing during that horrible time.”

Chasing leads and clues in Bury the Lead is Cat Conway, banished to working at a small-town paper after her journalism career went off the rails in the big city. And every time she gets closer to figuring out whodunit, corporate media outlets and sinister characters come nipping at her heels.

Cat was originally slated to be younger, but it was when the pair opted to make her a middle-aged woman that the story began to click.

“When we aged her up into our age bracket and started to give her the more seasoned perspective of a middle-aged woman who’s seen some stuff and who’s been bruised here and there, who still has dreams for herself but who has disappointments as well … that’s when we really were able to hit the gas on the book,” says Hilton.

The town of Port Ellis — standing in for Muskoka-area cottage country adjacent to Toronto — and its residents play key roles in Bury the Lead.

“The setting in a mystery to me is as important as the mystery itself — it’s another character. All the great detective stories have fascinating settings they work in. To me this is a bit like (Louise Penny’s) Three Pines.” says Renzetti.

Adds Hilton, “What makes a setting sing in a mystery is that there’s a particularity to it, but also a universality.”

The theatre troupe in Bury the Lead adds another layer to the plot and thrust of the novel. After legendary but should-be-cancelled actor Eliot Fraser dies during the first performance of the real-life play Inherit the Wind, it’s gradually revealed that many in the troupe and the town have reason to hold a grudge or vendetta.

“We benefited hugely from the fact that Liz covered the arts beat for so many years and interviewed so many of these old actors who inspired this character. Liz had some amazing insights we were able to bring to this book in the characterization of Elliot and the actors around him,” Hilton says.

The collaborative nature of Bury the Lead saw Renzetti and Hilton alternate writing chapters and sending them to the other — a process that proved revelatory for the authors.

“I’ve said this before, and I will say it again — I’m not sure why anybody writes novels on their own,” says Renzetti, laughing. “It’s just so much easier. You have somebody else to bounce everything off of. You have somebody to hold your hand to get to the finish line.”

Asked to highlight the strength of each other’s writing, Hilton goes first.

“I think Liz is like the imagery and simile champion of all time — all the quotable quotes are Liz’s. She adds so much sparkle to the prose,” she says.

In return, Renzetti says Hilton’s role as a therapist is crucial to the story.

“She’s very, very good at understanding the interiority of the characters. What motivates them, what drives them, what they’re averse to, what they’re attracted to.”

The pair are already at work on their next Quill & Packet mystery, titled Widows and Orphans, with more to come.

“We feel like each book will have a theme that touches on some kind of current affairs, something going on in the world, but more importantly ties in all the characters in their lives and progresses them in some way deepens their relationships,” Renzetti says.

“All I can tell you about the next one is that it takes place at a wellness conference.”

ben.sigurdson@winnipegfreepress.com

@bensigurdson