Maya Corrigan
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  • Home
  • Bio
  • Writings
    • By Cook or by Crook
    • Scam Chowder
    • Final Fondue
    • The Tell-Tale Tarte
    • S'more Murders
    • Crypt Suzette
    • Gingerdead Man
    • Book Club Topics
    • Stories and Nonfiction
  • Mystery 101
    • Mystery Milestones
    • Detective Story Origins
    • Mystery Fashions
    • Edgar Allan Poe
    • Poe and Lincoln
    • Holmes & Dracula
    • Christie's Clues
    • Christie's Plays
    • A.A. Milne's Mysteries
    • Poe Trivia Quiz
    • Christie Trivia Quiz
    • Sleuthing Sweethearts Quiz
  • Food
    • Candy Corn's Haunted History
    • Chowder in History and Literature
    • Gingerbread's Dark History
    • Pie's Peculiar Past
    • S'mores History
    • Short Story: Delicious Death
    • Recipes >
      • Five-Ingredient Main Dishes
      • Easy Pies and Tarts
      • Six Sweet Recipes
      • Gingerbread Cookie Recipe
  • News/Contact
  • SmorgasBlog

Dickens, Poe, and Ravens

2/7/2022

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Charles Dickens in 1842
Charles Dickens visited America in 1842 and met Edgar Allan Poe in Philadelphia. Poe had favorably reviewed the 1841 serialized Dickens novel, Barnaby Rudge. That novel included an unusual character, a talkative raven. The bird was named Grip after the Dickens family’s pet raven. 

Three years later, Poe’s best-known poem, The Raven, was published. Literary scholars believe that Grip inspired the poem, and there are similarities. A character in Barnaby Rudge hears Grip and says “What was that? Him tapping at the door? Tis someone knocking softly at the shutter. Who can it be?” Compare those words with Poe's: "...suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door." When imprisoned with Barnaby, Grip's vocabulary is reduced to one word that he repeatedly croaks: “Nobody.” Poe's raven also repeats a single word: “Nevermore.” Draw your own conclusions.
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Edgar Allan Poe, 1845, by Sanuel Osgood
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These pictures of Dickens and Poe differ from the ones we often see of them. Dickens is generally depicted as portly and avuncular and Poe as mustached and haunted. But in these portraits, both appear healthy, handsome, and in their prime. 

After Grip died, Dickens had him stuffed and mounted. A collector of Poe memorabilia eventually bought the stuffed bird at auction and brought it to America. The raven Grip, looking as he did when he was in the Dickens household, is now in Philadelphia, where his owner and Poe met 180 years ago. The bird resides in the Free Library of Philadelphia. A plaque there commemorates the relationship of Grip, Dickens, and Poe. 
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Brown, Will - Photographer. Photograph of Grip. [Realia], Free Library of Philadelphia.
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Final Meals on the Titanic

4/14/2021

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Menu for 3rd class passengers' meals on the Titanic, April 14, 1912
GETTY IMAGES, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

​On April 14, 1912, passengers ate their final meals on the Titanic. Fewer than half of them survived to eat another day. We know what they ate that day because a few passengers tucked souvenir menus away. For example, an American banker’s wife had the first-class lunch menu in her purse when she escaped the sinking ship. 

The largest group of passengers were in third class, and less than a quarter of them survived, primarily women and children. On most ships of that era, third-class passengers had to bring food with them for the voyage, but on the Titanic, they were served meals at long tables in a room resembling a school cafeteria. They ate dinner in the middle of the day, as was common among the working classes. A single menu card contained the details for each meal of the day.

First and second class passengers ate more sumptuous meals as the menus below show. 

First Class Luncheon Menu

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Second Class Dinner Menu

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Images licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
​In the first-class dining room, dinners were elaborate multi-course meals based on French cuisine with concessions to hearty English fare. Waiters brought the food to the table on silver platters, offered guests a portion of every dish, and suggested a wine to pair with the food. We have no way of knowing how much of this meat-heavy feast the passengers consumed. No recipes survive from the Titanic's kitchen, but recipes from that era tend to use butter and cream liberally. ​
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In S'more Murders, the fifth of my Five-Ingredient Mysteries, a Titanic-obsessed yacht owner hires my sleuth Val and her grandfather to re-create the final meal served on that doomed ship.

On the anniversary of its sinking, the yachtsman welcomes his guests aboard and assigns them roles in a murder mystery game, "Death on the 
Titanic." Val soon reaches the chilling conclusion that the host is fishing for the culprit in a more recent crime.

No one gets to finish Val's 
Titanic-inspired dinner, and it's the final meal for one person on the yacht. Val and her grandfather have to reel in a real killer before s’more murders go down. 

Read more about S'more Murders and find out where to buy the book. 
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When Valentines Turned Vicious

2/12/2021

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New York Public Library Digital Collections
​During the Victorian era, when store-bought valentines replaced handmade ones, the buyer had two choices: hearts-and-flowers cards expressing love and admiration or valentines with caricatures and insulting verses ridiculing the recipient. 

The typical format of the vinegar valentine was a caricature of the recipient and a short verse at the bottom. Men sent vinegar valentines to damsels who’d dared turn them down or to women they were throwing over. Likewise, women sent cease-and-desist valentines to men who were pursuing them.
 
The vinegar valentines weren't only for men and women in failed courtships. People could buy valentines to chastise the behavior of relatives, neighbors, and acquaintances. 
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​The cards chided women for looking and dressing too well, or for not paying enough attention to their appearance. They were criticized for frowning too much or smiling too broadly. ​Women who campaigned for the right to vote were prime targets.   

​Men were also the butt of vinegar valentines, criticized for drunkenness, vanity, stinginess, and stupidity. 

Nasty valentines poked fun at people’s physical traits or misfortunes:  their age, excessive weight, or widowed status. The worst cards suggested suicide. 

The image on one of them depicts an oncoming train with the verse: Oh miserable lonely wretch! / Despised by all who know you; /  Haste, haste, your days to end – this sketch / The quickest way will show you!
​
View more examples of vinegar valentines and read how they became popular and eventually died out in my article in CrimeReads. 
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Desserts: Five Ingredients

6/8/2020

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Recipes for six five-ingredient desserts are on this website (under the Food menu). Five of the six are easy to make. The only challenging one is the tarte Tatin in the last picture. But it's worth the trouble if you have some time on your hands. 

I've joined the 
Mystery Lovers' Kitchen blog, where writers share their favorite recipes, chat about food topics, and pass on news about their books. Check out some of the easy recipes I've posted there. 
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Costumes: Mirrors of the Soul?

7/13/2019

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Cover of Crypt Suzette by Maya Corrigan with a black cat, jack o'lantern, candy corn, and shelves with books and Halloween decorationsPicture
Crypt Suzette is now available for pre-order and discounted at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Target, and BAM. 
Does a costume disguise or reveal who you really are? That question comes up in Crypt Suzette, my sixth Five-Ingredient Mystery. When Val caters a Halloween party at Bayport’s bookshop, a costume contest is part of the festivities. The contestants are supposed to dress as fictional characters. When the prizewinner, Suzette, is murdered, her competitors are suspects. Val can't help wondering if they might have something in common with the violent characters they portray: Lady Macbeth, the Phantom of the Opera, Count Dracula, and Morgan le Fay, the evil sorceress from Camelot. 
 
Val, who dresses as Nancy Drew, tells her friend Bethany, “People choose costumes that mirror their personalities.” Do you agree? Or is wearing a costume an excuse to take on a totally different personality? How do you choose a costume?

Comment by July 21st for a chance to win an advanced reader edition of Crypt Suzette.
UPDATE: The contest is over. The winner is Gail. Thank you to those who wrote about the costumes they've worn and their reasons for choosing them. It was fun to read the variety of comments. The common thread is that we express ourselves through costumes whether they represent who we are or who we would like to be. 
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Book Clubs: Why I Love Them

7/12/2019

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I enjoy visiting book clubs because ...
  • Book club members tell me if they figured out whodunit. Like most mystery writers, I spend a lot of time thinking up motives, clues, and red herrings, but did I succeed? Book club members let me know if my red herrings worked.
  • Book club members focus my attention on my writing process. Questions about how I come up with plots, structure the mystery, and lay clues make me stand back from the daily word count and reflect on what I do. Answering those questions reminds me of the big picture.  
  • Book club members ask questions about the publishing process that I couldn't answer five years ago. Now I can. It reminds me what an unexpected adventure publishing a book has been.
  • Book club members give me ideas for future books by telling me about the characters and threads they want me to explore.
And finally…
  • Book club members have made recipes from my books! So have bookshop owners. It’s an incredible treat for me, not just to eat what they’ve made, but also to hear that the recipes were quick and easy . . . and also hear their suggestions for improvement!
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My neighbor's Reston Book Club
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Brandeis Women's Mystery Book Club
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Brandeis Women's Mystery Book Club
I like visiting book clubs even if they don't feed me and even if I do it remotely by Skype or FaceTime. Check out my Book Club page for topics of discussion about the Five-Ingredient Mysteries.
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Five-Ingredient Holiday Recipes

11/18/2018

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A roast turkey being carved
Turkey is the classic Thanksgiving dish, but you cannot live by turkey alone. What's your favorite holiday side dish? Comment for a chance to win a free book. Below you'll find two reader-favorite recipes from the first Five-Ingredient Mystery, By Cook or by Crook. The dishes are suitable for Thanksgiving and other holiday dinners. I'm also sharing a simple herb stuffing recipe. To view the recipes, click Read More below.
 
Leave a comment about your favorite holiday side dish to enter a drawing for the Five-Ingredient Mystery of your choice or an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) of the upcoming sixth book in the series. To comment, click on the word Comments in the column to the left of this post. 
 
Last day to enter: Sunday, December 16, 2018. The winner is Kay from Arkansas. Thank you to everyone who shared their favorite side dish. Stuffing seemed to get the most votes, followed by yams or sweet potatoes. 


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Puns in Book Titles

6/30/2018

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Book covers of By Cook or by Crook, Scam Chowder, The Tell-Tale Tarte, and S'more Murders by Maya Corrigan
Puns in the titles of cozy mysteries signal a light tone and often a large helping of humor. The tradition of using a food pun in the titles of culinary mysteries traces back to the 1990s when Diane Mott Davidson’s Cereal Murders and Phyllis Richman’s The Butter Did It came out. If anyone knows of earlier punning titles of food mysteries, please let me know. Four of my titles incorporate a pun with food and the suggestion of wrongdoing or death. For all but my first book, the title dish has five-ingredients or fewer, appears on the cover, and plays a role in the plot. Needless to say, I obsess about titles.

​Comment with your favorite punning culinary (or other) mystery title for a chance to win an Advanced Reader Edition of S'more Murders, which comes out on July 31st. To comment, click on the word "Comments" in the column to the left of this post.
 
Note: I can ship only to U.S. addresses. The contest ends Sunday, July 8th at midnight. I'll contact the winner by email and announce the results in this blog.
Share your favorite puns and good luck! 

Chris Mann is the winner of the contest! 
​

Thank you to everyone who shared a title with a pun. I've enjoyed reading them.

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Titanic Fascination

4/14/2018

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Books covers of S'more Murders, Last Dinner on the Titanic, Titanic for Dummies, and Titanic from Rare Historical Recors
Some books I consulted while researching S'more Murders.
"I want you to duplicate the final dinner served on the Titanic. Ten courses for eight people.”

Val Deniston stared at Otto Warbeck. Was he joking? Not visibly. The yacht owner had wrinkles in his forehead, but no smile lines. Not a man given to jests. When she’d agreed to cater a dinner for him on the Chesapeake Bay, she hadn’t expected him to demand an elaborate, custom-made meal, not to mention one with really bad karma. 
​--S'more Murders, Chapter 1
Today is the 106th anniversary of the day when the Titanic hit an iceberg. When I started researching S'more Murders, my Titanic-themed culinary mystery, I was surprised to find dozens of nonfiction titles about the disaster at my local library, a small subset of the books on the subject. A Google search of Titanic brings up 28 million hits. A rare copy of a menu from the first meal served aboard the Titanic is slated for auction later this month, expected to sell for 100,000 British pounds (140,000 U.S. dollars).

What explains this fascination with a disaster that claimed 1500+ victims more than a century ago? Comment with your thoughts for a chance to win an Advanced Reader Edition of S'more Murders. Note: The contest ended May 1, and the winner is K.G. from Arkansas. ​
To comment, click on the word "Comments" in the column to the left of this post.

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Rebecca's 80th Anniversary

4/12/2018

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Eighty years ago this month, Daphne du Maurier delivered the manuscript of Rebecca to her publisher. The publisher ordered a first print run of 20,000 copies. Within a month the book had sold twice that number. The American Booksellers Association voted it 1938's favorite novel, and it has never been out of print since it was first published.

British bookseller WHSmith, celebrating its 225th anniversary this year, asked readers to select their favorite book of the the last 225 years. Books by Dickens, Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Orwell, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Harper Lee made the shortlist. Rebecca came in as the readers' favorite. 

What's your all-time favorite book? Comment with your answer for a chance to win a free book. To comment, click on the word "Comments" in the column to the left of this post. Note: The contest ended May 1, and the book is on its way to the winner. ​​

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Holiday Giveaway

12/21/2017

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The GIVEAWAY is over. The winner of 12 books is Connie, whose favorite holiday dish is a meatless mincemeat pie. Thank you to those who took the time to comment. I enjoyed reading about everyone's holiday favorites.

While writing a Poe version of "The 12 Days of Christmas," I researched the song's origin. The lyrics enumerate gifts given each day leading up to the 12th day after Christmas, the traditional end of the holiday season. According to Christian tradition, that was the day the Magi presented the Christ child with gifts. Twelfth Night festivities, which date back to medieval England, involved gift giving, games, songs, dances, and a special food--the Twelfth Night cake, made with butter, eggs, sugar, fruit, nuts, spices, and a dried bean. The person whose slice of cake contained the bean served as the king or queen of the revels, with power to command the others. Disguises and sometimes social role reversals occurred, as servants gave orders to their "betters" for one night a year.

To celebrate Twelfth Night, I'm giving away twelve books, mostly cozy mysteries, on January 6, 2018. To enter the drawing for the books, leave a comment about a food you associate with the holidays and include your email address. I'll announce the winner here on January 7th. One winner will receive all twelve books. Sorry, I can send only to postal addresses in the U.S. My favorite holiday food is my grandmother's dessert pierogi with a sweet cheese filling. What's yours?
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Austen and Poe: 10 Things They Have in Common

7/18/2017

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Image of Jane Austen with curls peeking out from under a bonnet
Image of Poe with dark curls, brows, and mustache
On the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death today, I was struck by the similarities between her and Edgar Allan Poe, inspiration for The Tell-Tale Tarte, my latest mystery.  
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1. Mark Twain dissed them both, and in a single sentence. Twain said of Poe: “To me his prose is unreadable—like Jane Austen’s.”
2. Both are honored with action figures, as is Shakespeare, but not Mark Twain (only a bobble head).   
​
​3. Both died young: Austen at 41, Poe at 40.
 
4. Both published in the first half of the 19th century: Jane Austen’s major works came out in the 1810s, Poe’s in the 1830s and 1840s.
 
5. Both had difficulty getting published and earning a living from their writing. Poe needed money more desperately than Austen, whose poverty was genteel.
Poe action figure with raven on his shoulder and Austen action figure with a book in one hand and a quill pen in the other

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Poe Museum in Richmond

6/23/2017

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Postcard illustration of the stone building housing the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, VirginiaPostcard illustration of the stone building housing the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia
​Edgar Allan Poe’s spirit hovers over the Mid-Atlantic. If you fly over the region at night, you can see a string of lights connecting places where Poe lived and worked: Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York. Each has a Poe museum. Looking forward to the publication of my Poe-themed mystery, The Tell-Tale Tarte, I visited the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond last weekend. What a treasure trove!


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Hitchcock and Final Fondue

3/25/2017

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Cover of Final Fondue by Maya Corrigan with fondue pot and ingredients: chocolate, strawberry, banana, an orange, and a cake cube speared with a fondue fork
Poster for Alfred Hitchcock's movie, Rope, with star James Stewart holding a length of rope
This year marks the 90th anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock's first cameo appearance in a movie he directed: The Lodger (1927), a silent film about the hunt for a killer resembling Jack the Ripper. Hitchcock appeared briefly in 39 of his 52 films, often in street, bus, or train scenes.

​In a sense, he makes a cameo appearance in Final Fondue, the third of my Five-Ingredient Mysteries.

Shortly after cafe manager Val and her grandfather serve chocolate fondue to welcome house guests, one of the guests turns up dead in the backyard, strangled with a rope. Nobody imagines that the murder weapon was inspired by one of Granddad's Hitchcock movie posters until threats reminiscent of other Hitchcock films beset Granddad's guests. Is one of them a movie copy cat killer? Which Hitchcock film will inspire the next attack? And who will be the next victim? 

Read more about Final Fondue.


View Hitchcock's cameos.
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Timesaving Recipes and Tips

10/31/2015

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Cover of We'd Rather Be Writing with images of ingredients, including tomatoes, cheese, peppers, and garlic
Just in time for holiday cooking and gift giving, We'd Rather Be Writing: 88 Authors Share Timesaving Dinner Recipes and Other Tips is available. I'm one of the authors who contributed tips and an easy recipe to the book. Here are some photos of the vegetarian version of my Mediterranean pasta with artichokes, olives, and feta cheese. The recipe in the book includes instructions for making a shrimp version.  
At 99 cents for the e-book version and a comparably low price for the paperback, it's hard to pass up this helpful book, available now from Amazon and Barnes and Noble. For more information about the book and a complete list of contributors, visit editor Lois Winston's page about the book.
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    Maya Corrigan

    This blog, like the books and stories I write, combines mysteries, food, trivia, and a bit of humor to leaven the grim subject of crime. Sometimes random subjects intrude here .

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