QUEEN OF CRIME WRITERS, CANADA'S OWN MAUREEN JENNINGS

By Pam Hobbs

The coffee shop in Toronto's Beach area was as it should be on a sunny weekday morning. Mothers with infants grabbing a coffee before going to the park playground. Older women who meet their friends here on a regular basis. A retired couple, also regulars, seldom talk but seemingly are content with their coffee and morning papers. Two or three dogs are tied up outside. And, tucked neatly in a corner, a woman in a red T-shirt sat reading a paperback. What made me smile in her direction was that I recognized the book she bent over - Don't Forget to Write, my book describing my world war ll experiences as an evacuee from southern England. Wow.

With all tables taken, fate played a hand, as the woman looked up to see me grinning at her. I introduced myself as the book's author. Describing it as a ' fantastic read' she asked me to autograph it's flyleaf and I stayed to chat. Introducing herself as Maureen, she said she, too, was writing about the war. Born in Birmingham in 1939, she remembered the wailing sirens, the bombs, shortages of everything from food to clothes. We talked of that era, and of writing. She was doing what she loved to do most, she said, after years as a psychotherapist. I wished her well with her writing and left.

A week or so later I ran into Maureen again, walking her two dogs on the boardwalk skirting Lake Ontario. Believing her to be a hobby writer enjoying her retirement years, I asked how her book was coming along. She told me it's actually a trilogy, three murder mysteries set in wartime Britain, and she's already finished the first two volumes. I suggested that I might perhaps introduce her to my book's editor. With one eye on her dogs racing about on the beach, she told me "thanks anyway," but she has a publisher. McClelland & Stewart. They had recently taken over her Murdoch series..... McClelland & Stewart ? Murdoch ?

And it hit me - this was Maureen Jennings, one of Canada's top crime writers. She has 10 published books under her belt and three more in the works, plus movies and t.v. series - Murdoch Mysteries - based on her books that airs internationally. Known for her stories' remarkable detail and vivid descriptions, Jennings has fans around the globe.

We met several times after that, most recently in early May as she prepared for a visit to England to research the third of her World War ll novels by walking Birmingham's streets, interviewing former soldiers, looking into the workings of a mental hospital in the l940s. Still I can't quite believe this unassuming woman is the prolific writer whose enormous talent was pretty well dormant until l997 when, at age 58, she published her first novel, Except the Dying, which wowed readers in Canada and overseas..

THE DETECTIVE DEBUTS

Until that time, Maureen Jennings had worn many hats. She arrived in Canada in l956 with her mother, who's sister in Windsor, Ontario, urged her to come to this Land of Opportunity. (Her father had died in Italy's Battle at Anzio in early l944.) Two years after her arrival, Jennings attended Assumption University, graduating with a B.A. degree in psychology and philosophy. She taught high school for two years, decided it wasn't for her, and returned to university, this time in Toronto. A couple of years later she had a Masters degree in English literature. By l966 she was teaching English at what was then Toronto's Ryerson Polytechnic Institute, and there she began associating with people who later became writers: Eric Wright, Graeme Gibson, Constance Beresford Howe and others. In the early seventies, she left Ryerson to pursue a career as a psychotherapist.

Aside from a few short stories, it was close to another twenty years before Maureen's writing was presented to the public, in the form of a play, a friend asked her to write for Toronto's Solar Stage Theatre. Titled The Black Ace it was not at first what the producer wanted. When he told her to put more humour into it Jennings despaired. "He might as well have told me to grow three feet" she recalls. Still, she bought a book called Comedy Writing Secrets, and got the job done. By now married to Iden Ford, who she describes as her 'biggest supporter and manager', she began creating characters for future novels, to be set in Victorian Toronto. Ever since she first set foot in this city she has been attracted to its past, especially the turn-of-the-century architecture in downtown's east side. Extensive research took her into the lives of people who lived there back then, as she spent countless hours studying city archives, (open to anyone she says, and 'a bloody good read' even if you aren't researching a project).

Except the Dying, the first of her seven Murdoch books propelled her into the public eye, with awards, acclaim, and instant fans wanting more of the likeable detective who used modern sleuthing techniques such as finger printing and blood testing. She purposely created Murdoch as a nice man, capable and fair on the job, unsure of himself when it came to romance. Someone we'd all like to know.

Impeccable research, a deep understanding of every strata of society, and an intimate knowledge of the language and habits of her characters, are all woven into the fine fabric of this and succeeding Murdoch books. In their pages we feel the warmth of his boarding house and his landlady's home cooked meals; we shiver with him in the morgue and readily sense the desperation of the homeless. Everything is authentic. Even a stew served in the poor house - Jennings copied the recipe from one she'd seen in a Welsh Museum. She also has an acute understanding of class distinction, which at the time bound people in their own separate worlds.

Her work as a psychotherapist has been extremely useful in that her clients' problems were often similar to those of her characters. "In my practice" she told me, "I would ask myself 'where does the doubt, the fear, the distress come from ?' and then I'd ask the same of my fictional people."

From that first book, which starts in Toronto's winter of l895 when the naked body of a servant girl is found frozen in a squalid alley, Jennings went on to write six other Murdoch novels. Upon learning who she was, I read five of her books over a period of ten days and still wanted more. Never did I tire of the detective and his peers. In fact I was comforted to know he was there - kind, capable, non-judgmental of anyone'ss circumstances or life choices. In Vices of my Blood he goes so far as to enlist the cooperation of likeable rogues living on the wrong side of the law.

A NEW CAREER

When Jennings realized how very much she enjoyed writing these mysteries - and their tremendous success - she gradually phased out her psychotherapy practice, and now writing is a full time occupation. Working in the third floor office of her Victorian style home, she takes a year to plot and write a book. Like so many writers, her routine is to start in early morning and continue writing to lunch time. After that she reads research material ready for next day. But not before taking her two dogs for a run. Varley, a dachshund-spaniel cross, is a rescue dog who would look very much at home in a Murdoch movie. Jeremy-Brett is a champion border collie, named after the actor who portrayed Sherlock Holmes in the BBC series. "The absolute best Sherlock that has been" according to Jennings.

After publication of just three Murdoch mysteries, the television folk came calling. In 2000, Shaftesbury Films optioned the series, and three years later, in association with CITY TV and Bravo, adapted three of the novels into Movies of the Week. One of these, Under the Dragon's Tail, gave Bravo the highest rated Movie of the Week in its history. The 13-episode television series is now in its third season on CITY TV and has been renewed for a fourth.

How Maureen finds time to act as a consultant on the movie sets I don't know. The first two seasons were filmed in Toronto studios, and on location in and around the city. For the sake of authenticity though, season three's first episode was shot in Bristol, England.

Jennings had a busy year in 2006. Not only did we get the sixth Murdoch mystery, Vices of My Blood centred around the murder of a Presbyterian minister in east Toronto, but the first of her Christine Morris books, Does Your Mother Know? was published. Far removed from Victorian Toronto, in both time and place, this story is set in the Scottish Hebrides. It opens with Ontario Provincial Police Detective Sergeant Morris attending a conference in Edinburgh when she learns about a car accident involving her estranged mother on the Isle of Lewis. What unfolds is a delightful insight into the Hebridean way of life, the history, the folklore. Even without the mystery and mayhem it would be an interesting read. (Jennings is a fast worker. For all the detail in this book, she and her husband Iden stayed only one week on Lewis, where she says they were bowled over by the friendliness, hospitality and generosity of the islanders.

Two years later, a second Christine Morris book was released to enthusiastic reviews. The book had already been in the works when Jennings read a news story about a deaf woman who deliberately selected a deaf man to father her child, so that their baby would be hearing impaired. The woman considered herself to be a militant spokeswoman for Deaf Culture, and her motivation was considered political; this so incensed Jennings she abandoned her original plot idea to write The K Handshape. In it, the main character (Deidre Larson) is found dead in Lake Couchiching - the book is set in Orillia, Ontario - leaving her totally deaf child to the mercies of an insensitive grandfather who hardly knows her. To better understand her characters, and to communicate with people in Orillia's deaf community, the author learned to sign.

As readers discover early on, Jennings is not a huge fan of casinos. On the outskirts of Orillia we have Casino Rama, where Deidre plays a little blackjack on Tuesdays and is murdered one night after leaving the property. When writing this book, Maureen got to know Casino Rama well, and was privy to its impressive security and surveillance systems. Her own feelings are echoed when Detective Inspector Christine Morris says of its gamblers. "Casinos do big business by appearing to be jolly, friendly giants handing out lots of money with a Ho! Ho! Ho!, whereas they're actually raking it in and the customers are enticed to lose their shirts and everything else on their person."

The Christine Morris series is already being developed for television by Shaftesbury Films, for release next year.

Jennings began work on her World War ll trilogy two years ago. To immerse herself in that era she's decorated her office walls with wartime photos and posters on her office walls, while songs by Vera Lynn and other wartime entertainers provide background music as she writes. And the red tee shirt she was wearing when I first saw her ? It's large print lettering, reads "Keep Calm and Carry On", a reassuring message crafted by the British Government's Ministry of Information during World War ll. The first of these books, Season of Darkness, will be published by McClelland & Stewart early next year. Set in the quaint village of Whitchurch, Shropshire, in l940, it deals with the death of a girl near an internment camp for enemy aliens. The resulting investigation leads readers into the world of MI6, soldiers returning from Dunkirk and the camp internees.

It also introduces us to Inspector Tom Tyler, a character inspired by actor Thomas Craig, who plays Inspector Brackenreid in the Murdoch Mysteries. The second book, destined for publication a year later, is Beware This Boy featuring a completely new set of characters. Also set in l940, this time in Birmingham, it centres around a munitions factory where sabotage is planned. The third, Sailor Home from the Sea, takes us into a Birmingham psychiatric hospital in l941, where patients include shell-shocked soldiers returned from the front, as well as bombing and other war victims. Tom Tyler, absent from Book #2, returns in the third volume to tidy things up.

ANONYMITY

I met Maureen several times before she left for Birmingham to research her Sailor Home from the Sea. During our last get-together in the coffee shop, we didn't exactly fit the profile of regular customers. Our little table was spread with magazines and notes. She'd brought me some British publications, whose editors she thought might review my book. I had back issues of Good Times to show her some Profiles, like the one I'd be writing about her. I was taking notes; she wrote me the address of her movie producer she believes will be interested in my book.

Thoughtfully studying her crossword puzzle, a woman at a neighbouring table was obviously curious. "Wonder what she made of us ?" I sais as we left. "Oh she has no idea who we are," Maureen said. " That's the lark of being a writer. Anonymity. She probably thinks we're two old broads discussing flicks (movies) we saw last weekend." Truly, you just never know who's buying that double double ahead of you.

For more about Maureen Jennings' work, go to her website at: www.maureenjennings.com