Ferndale author celebrates launch of new mystery “Blind Faith” at BACC
Ferndale author Leslie Budewitz is releasing her second novel under the pen name Alicia Beckman and is pulling back the curtain on her creative process at an upcoming book launch event.
Budewitz loves to draw inspiration from places she’s lived and her new book titled “Blind Faith” takes place near where she grew up in Billings. Other parts of the book take place near Red Lodge, the prison in Deer Lodge and parts of Oregon. She said a memory from her childhood sparked the plot for “Blind Faith” when she remembered giving the new girl at school a ride home.
“It was strange to have a new kid in class senior year. She lived in a little motel on the edge of downtown with either her mother or her grandmother and her little sister. That was kind of an unusual place for a family to live in my experience. So, I dropped her off and I never saw her again, and every few years I would wonder what happened. Who was she? Where has she gone? Finally I decided I would never know unless I wrote the story myself,” Budewitz said.
She said it occurred to her after beginning to write the book that the girl’s grandmother probably just didn’t have the $300 needed for tuition and transferred her to another school, but as a crime writer “the train had already left the station.” In “Blind Faith,” Budewitz creates a story from different viewpoints that weaves in and out, keeping the reader on their toes. She said creating a plot like this took some concentration.
“There's a contemporary cold case investigation into a long unsolved mystery, murder and historic scenes that intersperse with that modern timeline. So, it's a little bit more involved than the single point of view character, straightforward narrative of the other books,” Budewitz said. “At one point, the bifold closet doors in my office were covered with sticky notes in different colors for all the different time periods,”
Budewitz has released more than a dozen books during her career, mostly consisting of her two cozy mystery series, “The Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries” and “The Spice Shop Mysteries.” Under her Alicia Beckman pen name, Budewitz said she writes darker, moodier mysteries, including her last novel “Bitterroot Lake.”
“They're not gory or super dark, but they are a little more suspenseful and moodier than my other books, and we didn't want readers to be confused. The name comes from my mother and grandmother, my mother's name was Alice and my father often called her Alicia and the Beckmans were my grandparents— my great grandparents,” Budewitz said.
A lifelong lover of mysteries, Budewitz is a three-time recipient of the Agatha-Award, is a past president of Sisters in Crime and a current board member of Mystery Writers of America. She said although crime novels don’t exactly mimic what people would choose to do in real life, she’s drawn much inspiration from her time as a civil trial attorney.
“Also when I started writing in the late 90s, I lived in St. Ignatius and I was helping teach a class at the law school, so I drove back and forth quite a lot and I was getting books on tape … from the Missoula Public Library, which had a great mystery collection. So, I started reading Sue Grafton and Ellis Peters and Elizabeth Peters, and most importantly: Tony Heller. He wrote a series set on the Navajo and Hopi reservations in the four corners. And because of that, I saw that I could actually set stories here in Montana— in my own communities and not just the places that we usually know in mystery,” Budewitz said.
Budewitz is celebrating the release of “Blind Faith” and answering questions about the creative process at the Bigfork Art and Cultural Center on Oct. 11.
“Blind faith is a good title for talking about the creative process, because you have a lot of blind faith when you're trying to write a 300 page novel— you have to trust that things will work out, that you've got an inner voice that can make the story come together. So, I hope that people who are interested not just in mysteries and Montana stories, but also in how one writer's creative process works, will come out and chat with me,” Budewitz said.
She said when she sits down to write a mystery, she’s not writing strictly about murder.
“I'm writing about the people and the effects of crime on a community and the search for justice. The murder is usually off stage, even in the moodier, more suspenseful novels. It's off stage. And it's the way into writing a story about people in their relationships and conflicts,” Budewitz said.
Budewitz’s book launch and discussion of her creative process will take place on Oct. 11 at the BACC, beginning at 5:30. “Blind Faith'' will be available online at Amazon, Booksamillion, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org and Indie Bound, as well as many local bookstores. For more information on Budewitz’s novels, check out www.lesliebudewitz.com.
