Jackie McMahon
speaker
185 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 9 Jul
Jackie McMahon’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
So when I heard that some of the most popular authors of this era were all together in this club, that to me was a really compelling idea because I thought there was so much potential in having all these people who know about fictional murder being together in one place.
What would happen if all of those people had to deal with an actual real murder in their midst?
How would they use their knowledge as crime writers to solve the case?
So that is what the original idea was born out of.
Yeah, so I wanted to keep the historical setting because I really wanted this book to be a sort of murderous love letter to the history of the mystery novel and have it take place during this specific period in history where the mystery genre was really fascinating.
flourishing into what it is today.
So what you'll find when you read the book is that it has a lot of meta in-book references to mysteries, how they work, popular authors from that classic period.
And so that is really integral to the book and what I wanted to do with it.
It really is a murderous tribute to mysteries as a genre.
I also personally just adore historical mysteries and I just can't get enough of them.
I love so many historical mystery series.
The whole reason that I wanted to become an author of historical mysteries is because I first read the Veronica Speedwell mysteries by Deanna Rayburn, which when I read those, I was like, this has every single thing that I love in one book.
It has mystery, it has history, it has romance.
And I'm really glad that I am working with Berkeley, who is one of, in my opinion, the best publishers for historical mystery.
So the decision to keep that classic setting was really born both out of my personal loves as a reader and a writer, and also to have that ability to really explore the history of the mystery itself.
Yes, so the book always started in the same way.
The book begins with Lucy, my protagonist.
She's just been invited to the Cloak and Dagger Club for the first time, so she arrives at the Ritz, gets to meet everyone, and there is a bit of conflict because Frank, one of the other club members, is her ex, and he had no idea that she was invited to the meeting.
And the reason that I really wanted to start in that moment was to really get to know who all of the characters are.
I do also think it can be really helpful for world building if in your story you are able to make the main character someone who is an outsider to a place or a group.
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