Fellow Angeleno resident Rochelle Staab has written a great historical mystery set in the City of Angels. And wait until you read about her deep and fascinating dive into the city’s past! You’ll feel like you’re right there with her. And Rochelle is giving away a paperback copy of her new release, Behaving Badly, to one lucky commenter.
SLEUTHING SETTINGS
I’m a big fan of the Chicks on the Case, and so happy to be here thanks to the wonderfully funny and talented Ellen Byron. I recently released my first noir historical, specifically chosen to challenge my reporter protagonist (and me) to do her job without a cell phone or computer. To travel back to 1932 Los Angeles for Behaving Badly, I pulled resources like old newspapers, books, photos, and radio shows and movies created in 1932. Really swell, but I struggle putting physical settings on paper in a snap, so my research included an Esotouric Tour of early downtown LA. You can’t beat snooping around the abandoned remains of a 1920s and 30s speakeasy in a tunnel beneath 5th and Los Angeles Street on a Saturday afternoon with fellow writers and academics.
Actually, I prefer playing gumshoe solo, and that’s where my hiking experience served me well. I knew that I couldn’t know old downtown LA well until I explored inside the old buildings. Smell the smells, see the view from the windows, hear the traffic outside, see the shine or dirt on the floors, the wall cracks or old-timey wallpaper—details that bring settings to life.
I love how willing and helpful people were when I entered an abandoned public building or iffy spot, found the nearest security or receptionist and said, “Hi, I’m a mystery writer and I’m using this (location) in my next mystery novel. Can you tell me if…” Even if they couldn’t allow me to explore freely, most were great resources for background and rumors. Important scenes came to life from the ground up. A big one wrote itself when I made the trek from LA City Hall to the top of the bridge above the 2nd Street tunnel. Another required a motor trip to time the drive from DTLA to Long Beach and back on streets, because highways didn’t exist in ’32. I walked a quarter mile out to the lifeguard station at the end of Cabrillo Pier in San Pedro Bay to interview the lifeguard and see where gambling ships once anchored. Sure, you probably can scout all of what I saw in AI or on YouTube, but what fun is that?
The PR person at the Los Angeles Medical Examiner’s office building on Mission Street, built in 1920, met me in the octagonal lobby and shared the what’s, and the how’s of corpse delivery in the past. And then there was my mid-day trek into the alley behind the famous and haunted Alexandria Hotel.
The PR woman at the elegant Los Angeles Examiner building on 11th and Broadway was my best informant. Her invaluable background on the lobby elevator that only William Randolph Hearst could use, the staircases for everyone else, and the fire alarm board that gave me the name and floor for each department, giving heart to the old paper.
Footwork brought Behaving Badly to life, allowing me to write locations like I’ve been there because I have, even if it was decades later!
Readers, I’m not unique in settings footwork and would love to hear about your in-person research adventures! Any tips?
ABOUT BEHAVING BADLY: A Tess Hammond Novel: Recently widowed crime beat reporter Tess Hammond turns grief into purpose when her editor assigns her a seemingly small missing-teen story that balloons into murder, corruption, violence, and white slavery in Depression-wrought, Prohibition-era 1932 Los Angeles. As the search for the young woman leads Tess from an underground speakeasy to a Poverty Row studio, from Hollywood Boulevard nightlife to a gambling ship at sea, she encounters a world of mobsters, corrupt cops and, eerily, the chain of duplicity and corruption that cost her detective husband his life and almost ends her own.
“Overall, [Behaving Badly] is a well-paced mystery that feels fresh, authentic, and uncannily modern.” ~ Kirkus Reviews
BIO: Rochelle Staab is a Los Angeles mystery writer, avid hiker, trail blogger, historian, and former radio and music industry executive. With Mother Nature as a tour guide, Rochelle has blogged about more than three hundred different hikes in the mountains, urbs, and burbs of Los Angeles, exploring SoCal from the ground up. She returned to the mystery writing community following a hiatus to earn a BA in history with an emphasis on American and Los Angeles studies. Her interest in the evolving roles of women in Los Angeles during the early twentieth-century interwar period inspired the historical noir mystery, Behaving Badly, Rochelle’s fourth novel.
You can reach Rochelle at
Website: www.rochellestaab.com
Facebook: Rochelle Staab
Instagram: rochellestaab
LinkedIn: Rochelle Staab
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