That line from the Baby Animals’ song, Early Warning, was in my mind when I decided how old to make the hero of my series of cosy crime novels that began with Echo Lake. I realised that if I wanted my character, Rose McHugh, to be wise but not too wise, clever, but sometimes too clever for her own good, she couldn’t be too old. So, I settled on mid-forties.
When I first started plotting my Southern Highlands Mystery series, I intended to make the protagonist my age, which was pushing seventy. I thought it would be cool to have an amateur sleuth who could read cursive script or an analog clock—a woman who could bring her sharp wit, refined wisdom and give-zero-fucks attitude. I wanted her to be the smartest person in the room, the one with the best comeback lines and the most historically informed insights. Of course, it had been done before. Vera Stanhope of the Vera series and Jessica Fletcher of Murder, She Wrote both represented the kind of older female sleuth I most identified with. And I liked the political message implicit in the choice: you put older women on the shelf and count them out at your peril! Old ladies can also be sweet and sneaky – very good at knowing more than they appear to know. Just ask Miss Marple. So my initial concept of a sassy, grey-haired sleuth would be in good company.
But as a writer, I had other priorities than making a political point. My first priority was to entertain, and for me, the most entertaining heroes are the flawed ones – the ones who still have lessons to learn, battles to fight, and perhaps most important of all, romances to mess up. I wanted Rose to get messy. If she were already fully evolved, she could get very dull very quickly.
One of my favourite fictional detectives is Dr Ruth Galloway, a forensic archaeologist in her forties whose journey across fifteen books by Elly Griffiths was always at least as engaging as the murders she solved. With my Southern Highlands Mysteries, I planned a dozen or more books, so ultimately, I needed to give my hero a longer runway than I’d first intended.
Putting Rose in her mid-forties to start with meant that I could have more fun with her. They say your job as a writer is to make life hell for your hero, and by placing Rose in middle-age, it meant I could force her to deal with the ups and downs of life’s crazy rollercoaster, including the search for true love.
The romantic angle was perhaps the biggest factor in my decision to make Rose younger than I originally planned. She needed to be pre-menopausal. As Margaret Atwood said, menopause is a pause when you reconsider men. You don’t see Miss Marple, Jessica Fletcher or Vera Stanhope in the arms of a man (or woman). And while older women can still seek and find romance, the search is, shall we say, less urgent. I wanted Rose to feel the urgency that could drive her into the arms of the bad guy, not just the good guy. I wanted her to take a few wrong turns before finding her soul mate. In the second Southern Highland Mystery just out, Whisky Valley, Rose’s romance plays a big part in the story and her journey as a woman.
And who knows? If the series goes on long enough, Rose might catch up with me and still be finding murderers in her seventies. As well as true love. We’ll have to wait and see.
Interested in more about Joan Sauers?
Her website is here and here’s an interview she did with Robyn Walton about how she writes, in particular how she applies her screenwriting skills to the novel.