By M. K. Waller
Today’s post comprises two parts–a bit of fiction followed by a bit of fact–linked by a “fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus” and a mystery writer who used it as a murder weapon–and later confessed to something even worse.
I.
The following flash fiction was inspired by a photo prompt on Friday Fictioneers, a weekly writing challenge sponsored by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.
John ambled into the kitchen. “What’s cooking?”
“Mushroom gravy.” Mary kept stirring.
John frowned. “Toadstools. Fungi. Dorothy Sayers killed someone with Amanita.“
“These are morels.” She added salt. “Everybody eats mushrooms.”
“I don’t.”
“Suit yourself.”
He sat down. “Where’d you buy them?”
“I picked them.”
“You?“
“Aunt Helen helped. She knows ‘shrooms.” Mary held out a spoonful. “Taste.”
“Well . . . ” John tasted. “Mmmm. Seconds?”
“Yoo-hoo.” Aunt Helen bustled in. “See my brand new glasses? Those old ones–yesterday I couldn’t see doodly squat.”
Mary looked at the gravy, then at John. “Maybe you should spit that out.”
II.
The following is a guest post I wrote for Manning Wolfe’s Bullet Books Speed Reads blog. In it, I explain what an author does when she doesn’t have a clue about the subject she’s writing about.
There are many rules for writers. Two of the major ones: Write what you know and Write what you love.
I was pleased that Stabbed, which I co-wrote with Manning Wolfe, was set in Vermont. I love vacationing there: mountains and trees, summer wildflowers and narrow, winding roads, rainstorms and starry nights, white frame churches and village greens.
In Chapter 1, Dr. Blair Cassidy, professor of English, arrives home one dark and stormy night, walks onto her front porch, and trips over the body of her boss, Dr. Justin Capaldi. She locks herself in her car and calls the sheriff. The sheriff arrives and . . .
What happens next? Vermont is a small state. Who takes charge of murder investigations? The sheriff? Or the state police? What do their uniforms look like? Where do major rail lines run? What’s the size of a typical university town? And a typical university? What else had I not noticed while driving through the mountains?
Not knowing the answers, I defaulted to a third rule: Write what you learn. Research. Research. Research. The best mystery authors have been avid researchers.
Agatha Christie, for example, is known for her extensive knowledge of 
poisons. As a pharmacy technician during World War I, she did most of her research on the job before she became a novelist. Later she dispatched victims with arsenic, strychnine, cyanide, digitalis, belladonna, morphine, phosphorus, veronal (sleeping pills), hemlock, and ricin (never before used in a murder mystery). In The Pale Horse, she used the less commonly known thallium. Christie’s accurate treatment of strychnine was mentioned in a review in the Pharmaceutical Journal.
Francis Iles’ use of a bacterium was integral to the plot in Malice 
Aforethought. His character, Dr. Bickleigh, serves guests sandwiches of meat paste laced with Clostridium botulinum and waits for them to develop botulism. If Dr. Bickleigh had known as much about poisons as his creator did, he wouldn’t have been so surprised when his best-laid plans went, as Robert Burns might have said, agley.
Among modern authors, P.D. James is known 
for accuracy. Colleague Ruth Rendell said that James “always took enormous pains to be accurate and research her work with the greatest attention.” Before setting Devices and Desires near a nuclear power station, she visited power plants in England; she even wore a protective suit to stand over a nuclear reactor. Like Christie, James used information acquired on the job—she wrote her early works during her nineteen years with the National Health Service—for mysteries set in hospitals.
Most authors don’t go as far as to stand over nuclear reactors to be sure they get it right, but even the simplest research can be time-consuming.
And no matter how hard they strive for accuracy, even the most meticulous researchers sometimes make errors.
Dorothy L. Sayers was as careful in her fiction as she was in her scholarly 
writing. But she confessed in a magazine article that The Documents in the Case contained a “first-class howler”: A character dies from eating the mushroom Amanita muscaria, which contains the toxin muscarine. Describing the chemical properties of muscarine, Sayers said it can twist a ray of polarized light. But only the synthetic form can do that—the poison contained in the mushroom can’t.
Considering Sayers’ body of work, this one “howler” seems a very small sin, and quite forgivable.
Most readers, however, don’t forgive big mistakes, and reputable writers don’t expect them to. Thorough research is a mark of respect for readers.
Sometimes, getting the facts straight in fiction has real-life consequences the author can’t predict. Christie’s The Pale Horse is credited with saving two lives: In one case, a reader recognized the symptoms of thallium poisoning Christie had described and saved a woman whose husband was slowly poisoning her; in a second, a nurse who’d read the book diagnosed thallium poisoning in an infant. The novel is also credited with the apprehension of one would-be poisoner.
Back to Stabbed—Well, we don’t expect it to save lives or help catch criminals. But doing my due diligence and reading up on Vermont’s railways, demographics, and criminal procedure set the novella on a sound factual footing.
Unlike Christie, Iles, and Sayers, however, I didn’t have to expend too much effort learning about how the murder weapon worked. One look at the book’s title and–well, d’oh–no research needed.
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Learn more about Friday Fictioneers at Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ blog and on their Facebook page.
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M. K. Waller (Kathy) is a former teacher, former librarian, former paralegal, and former pianist at various small churches desperate for someone who could find middle C.
She writes crime fiction, literary fiction, humor, memoir, and whatever else comes to mind.
She grew up in Fentress, population ~ 150 in 1960, on the San Marcos River in Central Texas, the Blackland Prairie, and memories of the time and the place inform much of her fiction.
Except for the part about murders. Fentress didn’t have any murders. At least any that people talked about.
She now lives in Austin.
Austin Mystery Writers 