The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – A Grave Robbery (A Veronica Speedwell Mystery) by Deanna Raybourn

Episode Date: February 25, 2024

A Grave Robbery (A Veronica Speedwell Mystery) by Deanna Raybourn https://amzn.to/3UTjvxl Veronica and Stoker discover that not all fairy tales have happy endings, and some end in murder, in this latest historical mystery from New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award–nominated author Deanna Raybourn. Lord Rosemorran has purchased a wax figure of a beautiful reclining woman and asks Stoker to incorporate a clockwork mechanism to give the Rosemorran Collection its own Sleeping Beauty in the style of Madame Tussaud’s. But when Stoker goes to cut the mannequin open to insert the mechanism, he makes a gruesome discovery: this is no wax figure. The mannequin is the beautifully preserved body of a young woman who was once very much alive. But who would do such a dreadful thing, and why? Sleuthing out the answer to this question sets Veronica and Stoker on their wildest adventure yet. From the underground laboratories of scientists experimenting with electricity to resurrect the dead in the vein of Frankenstein to the traveling show where Stoker once toured as an attraction, the gaslit atmosphere of London in October is the perfect setting for this investigation into the unknown. Through it all, the intrepid pair is always one step behind the latest villain—a man who has killed once and will stop at nothing to recover the body of the woman he loved. Will they unmask him in time to save his next victim? Or will they become the latest figures to be immortalized in his collection of horrors? About the author New York Times and USA Today bestselling novelist Deanna Raybourn is a 6th-generation native Texan. She graduated with a double major in English and history from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Married to her college sweetheart and the mother of one, Raybourn makes her home in Virginia. Her novels have been nominated for numerous awards including the Edgar, two RT Reviewers’ Choice awards, the Agatha, two Dilys Winns, and a Last Laugh. She launched a new Victorian mystery series with the 2015 release of A CURIOUS BEGINNING, featuring intrepid butterfly-hunter and amateur sleuth, Veronica Speedwell. Veronica’s second adventure is A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING (January 2017), and book three, A TREACHEROUS CURSE, was published in 2018 and nominated for the Edgar Award. A DANGEROUS COLLABORATION was released in 2019, and A MURDEROUS RELATION appeared in 2020 and AN UNEXPECTED PERIL published in March 2021. The latest Veronica Speedwell adventure, AN IMPOSSIBLE IMPOSTOR, will be published in February, 2022. Deanna’s first contemporary novel featuring four female assassins who must band together to take out their nemesis as they prepare for retirement, KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE, will be published in September of 2022.

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There you go. The Iron Lady always sings on the show that makes it official welcome to the big show my family and friends we certainly appreciate you guys for 16 years we've been doing the Chris Voss show the Pulitzer Prize winners the brilliant authors the white house advisors the you name it CEOs

billionaires all the people in the show the show's been going on for so long I'm clearly losing my memory and settling into dementia but I mean seriously has anything changed in 16 years? That's where we're at. We have an amazing multi-book author on the show. You may have heard of her. She's famous in so many ways, and we'll get into that.

Deanna Rayburn's on the show with us today for her latest book, A Grave Robbery. It's part of her Veronica Speedwell mystery series. Book 9 of 9, actually, that's come out. And we're going to be talking to her about what's inside this latest one that everyone's going to be hot off the presses for. It comes out March 12th, 2024, and we're going to get into it with her. She is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling novelist. She is a sixth-generation native Texan.

She graduated with double major in English and history from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She married her college sweetheart and is the mother of one and makes her home in Virginia. What? She left Texas? She was a sixth-generation Texan? She's like, screw this place. I'm out of here. I'm going to Virginia.

Oh, wow. I don't know. We'll have to check with the authorities on that one. Her novels have been nominated for many awards, including the Edgar 2RT Reviewer's Choice Awards and the Agatha 2 Dilly Wins. Do I have that pronounced right? Dilly Wins? Dilly Wins? Dillis.

Dillis Wins. Boy, they misspelled that. It's D-I-L-Y-S. Those are Brits for you. That or I'm very dyslexic. Yeah, well, that's why we left them behind and just formed our own country. And last laugh. She launched a new Victorian mystery series with the 2015 release of A Curious Beginning featuring intrepid butterfly hunter and amateur sleuth Veronica Speedwell.

Welcome to the show, Deanna. How are you? I'm good. Thanks so much for having me. There you go. What made you abandon Texas after all those years? What the hell? Who hurt you?

It's hot, man. It's hot. That's true. It is. Skibbisher.com. Where do you want to have people find you on the interwebs? It's so easy. It's DeannaRayburn.com.

There you go. DeannaRayburn.com hates Texas. No, I'm just kidding. No, I love Texas. I get to go back usually about once a year to sign books, most often in Houston at Murder by the Book. We love them there. So I get my tacos, I get my barbecue, and then I head back home.

I get that barbecue. That's the only reason I don't live in Texas is because every time I go to Austin, man, I eat so much barbecue. It's like sweating out of my veins for like two weeks after. Yeah. And if you've ever hit up a place called Good Company in Houston, man, you know you've eaten. There you go. And I would lay like 400 pounds. I would eat barbecue to my deathbed and people would be like, how chris die he ate too much barbecue people be like is that possible he made it possible welcome to the show give us a 30 000 overview of your new book a grave robbery a grave robbery yeah like you said this is book nine in the veronica speedwell series and the question i get asked most often so i'm gonna head this one right off is is this the last book in the

series and no no it is not we've got more to come which is going to be great fun but it is following the adventures of my victorian lepidopterist which is just a fancy word for butterfly hunter and and she goes around you know falling over dead bodies as you do and she's got a really hunky sidekick and a lot of people want me to take his shirt off in every book, and I usually do. In this one, I take his pants off, too. Everyone should be happy. Whoa! It's not that kind of show.

Calm down. That's why we don't have a lot of romance novels on the show, because I always have to say to them, oh, they got naked on the beach again? In the book? No, I no i'm just kidding anyway you've written a lot of books how many books do you have under your belt here you know i sat and added it up and i think this is my 20th there you go congratulations yeah pretty prolific and so is

the is the veronica speedwell is that just kind of going on its own now? Have you left the others behind or do you have different lanes that you're flipping around and running? Oh, well, you know, in 2022, I published my first contemporary thriller, which was called Killers of a Certain Age. And it has done phenomenally well. And I just turned in the sequel to that last week to my editor. So that'll be coming out in March of 25, I think. And that's called Kills Well With Others. There you go.

Yeah. So it's about my four 60-year-old female assassins who I have to band together when the organization they work for tries to kill them. Wow. Never good when that happens. Lots of murdering. What's up with you? So murder so much murder they're all 60 i mean maybe maybe that menopause should get looked at by a doctor

you know i'm i've told people man stay out of our way because we you know we have we have a lot of rage and our give a shit-shitters are broken. The only reason I'm not in jail is because I don't look good in orange. There you go. That's my motto, too. I have that tattooed to me somewhere. But yeah, those hot flashes can get out of hand, especially if you're near a knife. So that's an issue.

The book opens, and I think most of these series, the Veronica Speedwell mystery series, they're set in a certain time period, aren't they? Is that correct? Yeah, they're all set late 1880s. So far, we're nine books in, and I don't think we've covered more than two and a half years. Oh, wow. So, you know, they're falling over dead bodies like every three or four months. That's Fridays around here. Right. dead bodies like every three or four months that's fridays around here right but yeah we we're we're

kind of at the the sort of at the tail end of queen victoria's reign so there's all sorts of interesting technology which was new for victorians and super exciting you know starting off victoria's reign everybody is riding horses that's as fast as you can get some place and they're lighting their homes with candlelight and by the time she dies in 1901, automobiles have been invented and there's electricity. And in between, you've got gas lights and steam power. And so gas lights and steam power are what my folks have. But, you know, the first telephones had already been installed in London by the time my characters are romping around. Now, they don't have access to them because

those were the purview of the really wealthy. It makes you wonder, the first person who had a telephone installed, who did they call? That's true. I don't know. I think Alexander Graham Bell called his

assistant in the next room. I think, wasn't that how that worked? Yeah, but how did it catch on after that? Like, who do you call? And you know, you're like, hey, we should call that other person with a phone. Hey, what's their number? Well, our number's one, so they must be two. Number two. Yeah, exactly. No, and it's fantastic

because if you go in and you read the minutes for the Houses of Parliament at that time, you can see them debating should these people be allowed to have a phone should those people be allowed to have a phone and it's just it's really fascinating to see how victorians adopted technology because you know the victorians apart from us experienced the greatest technological change over a century we're the only other folks who've lived through more of that.

And so it's really interesting to see how they dealt with it because sometimes they just flipped out and they didn't cope well. You know, the first people to try and set foot on an escalator about lost their damn minds because it's like, what? The stairs are moving. That's not okay. You know, that's a funny story. I had a, when we were young, my family adopted for, well, they didn't really adopt, but they brought him in for a summer Indian boy from the Indian, Indian things. And it was the things Mormons were doing back then. And they'd, they'd move him in. And, and I don't know, they were trying to, I don't know what they were trying to do. Let's leave it off the side. So anyway, he, he come for the reservation, this young man,

he was like 10 or 11 and he had never been on an elevator before. And I remember we, I walked into an elevator with him downtown and we're going to go up a few floors and he was terrified. He's like, where are we going? Why are we going to this room? And I was like,

it's an elevator. You ever been on one? I've never been on one. And I remember when it started moving up, he, he grabbed me and, and crumpled to his knees. it's an elevator. You ever been on one? I've never been on one. And I remember when it started moving up, he grabbed me and crumpled to his knees. He's freaking out. So, yeah, that's kind of an interesting thing when you first adapt to technology. Yeah. Technology can be terrifying if you're not accustomed to it.

That's true. And Victorians had a really hard time adapting some of them. Some people were early adopters and jumped on board, just like some of us did with cell phones in the 1990s. And I remember carrying around my brick. And then other folks, it took them a little longer to warm up. Oh, yeah. The murderous brick. You could murder somebody with that thing.

You really could. It weighed like 20 pounds. You're like, well, at least I can make calls and defend myself from robbery. Yeah, I imagine. I never really thought about that. What was it like getting their first phones? And you're like, yeah, I heard somebody else got a phone. Well, we're number one, and we always call number two.

So their phone number must be number three. It's been pretty easy back in those days. And then there's always there's always a salacious sex that leads any technology so number four was probably i don't know the town the gal in the corner of the town you could call her up it's like an early 900 only fans line wouldn't have surprised me there you go only fans the best callback jokes so the phone the the book opens and do i have the name of this character correct? Stoker?

Stoker. Yeah, he is actually the Honorable Revelstoke Templeton Bane. Honorable just means he's the son of a nobleman. His father was a Viscount, and he is very much the ostracized child in his family. He basically runs away from home by the time he's 12 years old and gets up to all sorts of mischief and hijinks and whatnot and he goes by stoker because revel stoke is a mouthful why would you want to yeah that's probably why he's the black sheep of the family i don't know what that means so the book opens in london on october 1889 and the first line of the book is i draw the line at at monkeys, Stoker said with considerable severity.

I will have no monkeys, Veronica. Hopefully I did that the way you thought of it. So it sounds like you go right for the monkeys business right off the start. I love, love, love for my first lines to try to hook people in and be unexpected. I want a reader to open the book and say, what's going on here? What's what's up with the monkeys. And usually anybody who's,

who's read any of the previous books knows Stoker is usually trying to lay down the law to Veronica and he's usually completely unsuccessful. And so in this case, he's, he's trying to put his foot down about the monkeys. And, you know, he can't. There are monkeys. Yep. That's Fridays around here too. So I feel that. It's always the monkeys. Lots of monkeys. Sometimes over the weekend, they get into the technology and the computer. So you lead this off. What do you feel is going on right now in the

ninth book of this that is there anything that's different anything that you've approved upon or maybe you've taken some different course or people going to pretty much find what they come to expect for you well you know we the the books are they're all loosely related in that you have these two main characters and you've got some supporting characters who are the same who come in and out not everybody is in every book except for the two main characters okay and there's always a mystery to solve but then the relationships kind of go throughout the the entire series you know we we've got some recurring characters who people love who pop up again in this book and then we've got some recurring characters people love who are not in this book and i'm gonna get letters i can't put

everybody in every book it It's too much, but it's no, I had so much fun writing this one because I kind of let the creepy factor off the chain a little bit with this one. And, and so it's, it's a little bit creepier than, than the other books. There's,

you know, the, the whole premise of this is that the, the, at the very beginning of the book, Stoker is asked, he's a natural historian like Veronica is, and he specializes in taxidermy.

And he is asked to turn a wax figurine of a woman into an automaton to put in a mechanism in her chest to make it look like she's breathing, which is what they had at the time. They still have it actually. At Madame Tussauds in well he's he's doing this for a child so i hope not okay that better not yeah yeah madame

tussauds has has a model of an extraordinarily beautiful young woman in 18th century clothing but there's a clockwork mechanism in her chest and it looks like she's just sleeping and they call her the sleeping beauty and when stoker goes to kind of open up a panel in the chest to put this clockwork mechanism in he finds that it's not a wax model after all it's a corpse wow so who's dead why she dead where 'd she come from yep and that's that's what they've got to figure out so why it's creepy right like i feel like that's creepy a grave i, the book is titled The Grave Robbery. I mean, there's some dark things that might be happening there. Exactly.

And I actually got to title this one. I almost never get to title them. So this one, they kept the working title. I'm actually really pleased about that. Awesome sauce. I know that sometimes there's that battle with the publishers. I've got a question for you from the audience and one of your readers that loves your work. And I'll get to that

here in a second, Rosano. But first, tell us how you became a writer before I said of this question. What was the journey? How did you know you were a writer at a young age or whenever it kicked in for you? And how did you become a writer and get down this road i remember being super excited when i learned how to print because i could get stories out of my head and get them on paper so like that's how long i've been i was probably five when i learned how to print and i was i had been making up stories all along so yeah i always knew i was a storyteller and then i double majored in English and history because I knew I wanted to write historical fiction. And I got a teaching certificate at the same time

because I wanted to eat while I was trying to get published. Right? A girl likes her food. And then it took me, after I graduated from college, it took me, I taught for three years and I was really bad at it and then it took me 14 years to get published Wow yeah I wrote my first novel when I was 23 but it took me 14 years to get published and I've been but I've been in print ever since then when I when I sold my first book I that was on a three book contract and within six six months, they had given me another

three book contract. So I went from being a person who like could not get slapped in the face, you know, walking down the street in front of a publishing company to having six books under contract. And lots of slap facing, face slapping. Now, so during those 14 years hiatus where you're trying to, you know, make that first one work, were you, were you constantly rewriting or were you constantly trying to market your book or, or were you writing different things, trying to figure out if there was something that would bite with publishers? Yeah, I wrote, I wrote about seven or eight books during that time. And, you know, the first one that I wrote when I was 23, I sent into a publisher in New York and the

editor of course didn't buy it but when he rejected it he was really really nice and the last line of the rejection was but I think your writing is absolutely wonderful and I went okay that means I can do this I can do this I just have to figure out exactly how and and you know like I said over the next 14 years I wrote a number of things probably seven or eight books that are that are complete crap. But I mean, they were essentially my they were essentially my MFA. You know, I learned what not to do during the course of writing those books. And I was able to get an agent. And she had tried for a couple of years to place me and couldn't get any books

sold. And finally, she said, I just need you to stop writing for a year. I don't want you to write for a year. And I was like, oh, okay. I figured this was her way of firing me. But I said, what am I supposed to do with this year? And she said, just read. And she said, you don't know who you are as a writer. And the only way to figure that out is to know who you are as a reader.

And she said, at the end of a year, you'll know what to do and i just i i thought okay i am never gonna talk to this woman again like she just fired me but didn't say it right and at the end of the year i looked around at all the books that i read and i only read stuff that i really really loved and at the end of the year i looked around and i went huh they all have a mystery structure they all have a slight romantic element to them they all have a historical setting they all have a really kick-ass woman in them and i realized i had a blueprint for what i needed to write and so then i sat down and i wrote a book and it took me two years and i sent it off to my agent and i said okay i know it's been three years and we haven't

talked but here you go and a week later she called me and said this is it this is the this is the one I'm going to be able to sell and that's the that ended up being silent in the grave and that was my first published novel you had to go off in the wilderness and do the journey so this is the night of the soul there you go so I was we've all we've all done some of those journeys right some of us after just drinking hard on a Friday night. So Rossano Stewart asked the question, Deanna, congratulations on your latest title question.

Would you please give a first time novelist some helpful tips on getting off the ground and more sales? We may have done some of that. I think the most important thing is to start writing book two. Because if you get too fixated on what the first book is doing, you can really lose your momentum and lose your focus. And the best thing you can do, whether you're publishing yourself or whether like I've only ever published traditionally, I've only ever worked with a publisher. So I really can't speak to anybody who's doing the self-pub journey.

I'm not qualified to talk about that. But if you're publishing with a traditional publisher, you want to show them that you can keep the momentum going, that you have what it takes, that you're not a one-trick pony, just kind of producing this one book and then being done. Because publishers, they like to know that they can depend on you and they can keep going back to the well you know they want to know that that you've got more of of what they came to you for in the first place yeah they can enslave

you with those multiple and it's so yeah absolutely a multi-book deal is amazing but it is you know it's so easy to get caught up in the numbers and to get stressed out by the numbers and to feel like just because you can quantify sales that somehow you quantify your worth as a writer but you have to remember too yeah it's absolutely a business yes we're in the business of selling books yes we need to do that. But also, the most important part is you're an artist. And that's the part that you can't let go of. That's the part you can't quantify. That's the part that is the most important.

Because if you're not in touch with your creativity, if you're not feeding that and expressing that, then all of it dries up and goes away anyway. Yeah, there you go. An artist, the one thing that's so artistic about your books is the covers. Aren't they gorgeous? Yeah, they really kind of fit the whole 1880 theme. There's a lot going on there, too.

I've been looking at one now for half an hour. Yes, and I can take zero credit for them. They're put together by the art department at Berkeley Publishing. They do a great job. They are so stupid talented. And they give me the most gorgeous covers. And what will happen is about nine or 10 months before the book comes out, sometimes up to a year, they'll ask my editor to come to me and say, are there any particular elements that could be fun to put in a cover? Is there, you know, give us some ideas of things to look for.

And are there any particular colors you're interested in? And most of the time they'll include one or two of the elements I suggest. Occasionally I'll even get a color that I've asked for, which is really exciting, but they, these are their brain children. They are so talented and the covers are gorgeous. Yeah, they're really cool. And they really evoke talented and and the covers are gorgeous yeah they're really cool and they they really evoke the the era of the time they do but they also they also show off the fact that these are mysteries but also that there's some whimsy in them like you look at those covers

and you go these are not books that take themselves so seriously that i'm gonna have trouble getting into it or that it's gonna be dry because that's the fear with historical fiction it's not the darkness of the cover of the first black sabbath album you know it's kind of fun and and you know has that whole mystery and so i love the covers i you know i learned something new on the show with all the great guests we have on like yourself i never knew what a lepidopterist is and see now you can whip that out at parties. Yeah. I mean, I don't have a joke for that. But it's a fancy word for butterfly enthusiast. Why did you choose to make your character, you know, that?

What was it that struck you about that? I think it's kind of an interesting choice. Well, when I went to college ages and ages ago and got my degree in history there, the, the history that we studied, we didn't study material and social history. We studied, you know, basically what were Western European white men doing. And they did a lot of war.

They basically did war. And when they weren't doing war, they were doing trades. And, and so it was a lot of war and a lot of economy and, Oh God, it was just so boring. But then by the time I got out of college,

I was like, okay, other people were doing stuff. stuff i know they were i wanted to go see what women were up to and so i started reading on my own a lot about what victorian women were getting up to i just there was this little niche in history of victorian female explorers that i was fascinated by and so i started reading up on a lot of them. And one of them was named Margaret Fountain. And the great thing about these Victorian women is they left a ton of written material behind. They kept journals, they wrote letters home, they wrote lectures and articles and all kinds of stuff. Some of them even took photographs, they did a lot of sketches and paintings. And so we have massive records of what they were, they were getting up to.

And Margaret Fountain was a lepidopterist who traveled the world, made a living capturing butterflies and sending specimens home because after, you know, with the whole rage about everything Darwin was coming up with, natural science was, was hugely popular. Everybody was collecting ferns or shells or all kinds of stuff like that. Botanical specimens.

And butterflies happened to be one of the things folks collected. And so you could make a really good living traveling the world, netting a few butterflies and sending them back to England to sell. And Margaret Fountain did that. And so she kept these fantastic journals. And the great thing about her journals is not only did she talk about Butterflying, she also talked about all the men she slept with, which is not what you expect from a Victorian woman who's traveling the world by herself. And I just, I thought they were so interesting. And I thought she was so unexpected that I said, you know what? If I ever have the chance to write another Victorian mystery series, because I already did one.

As an homage to Margaret, my main character was going to be a butterfly hunter. There you go. Kind of as a thank you to Margaret for telling her wild and saucy tales. Her wild and saucy tales, a wild and saucy tales of butterfly hunter. Maybe the butterfly was a metaphor. No, I'm just going to leave that joke alone. So I think it's really cool you made that choice and fun and great for the character.

Yeah, I mean, you know, plus butterflies. Who doesn't love them? I mean, they're gorgeous and they're interesting and some of them eat meat. So you have a chance. Yes, there are carnivorous butterflies. But see, that's the fun stuff to throw into a book because then readers go, seriously?

Seriously. And then they go off and they learn stuff about butterflies. Yeah, I learn stuff every day. I always thought that would be fun to go hang out with butterflies. You ever seen like those? I'm sure you have the areas where there's like a billion of them. Yeah. And they're really beautiful ones.

A lot of major cities have got a vivarium. There are loads of them. And anytime I'm in a city that has one, I make a point of going. And they are fantastic. They're usually really humid, like they'll wreck your hair. But they're just, they're glorious to go in there and just kind of sit and just wait for the butterflies to come up and hang out on you. It's only me. Maybe you can get one to dispose of a body.

You ever tried that in a boat? You know, no. You'd have to go with pigs, man. You'd have to go with pigs. That's the way to go. Always pigs. Always pigs. We won't discuss how we both know that.

You can eat through bone. Anyway, yeah. Yeah. It's always good. Because if you bury them in your backyard, your enemies, then they, you'll always get caught.

That's what I found. And if you are going to bury them in your backyard, you need to put an endangered plant on top of them because then people can't get authorization to dig them up very easily. And then get the meat eating butterflies. So if anybody tries to get near that whole area, there you go. Meat eating butterflies. They're going to Google this after the show. Do it. Do it. Being Butterflies. So if anybody tries to get near that whole area, there you go. Being Butterflies.

They're going to Google us after the show. Do it. Do it. Any final thoughts about, as we go out, any tease-outs? I think you're working on the next book, so 10 of 10 in the series. Is that correct? Yeah. Like I said, I just turned in Kills Well with Others, which is a contemporary thriller that will be out in 25.

And then after that, I've got to buckle down and write Veronica 10. Yeah. Does your husband ever get worried about all this murdering that's going on in your head? No, he's very secure. Okay. I'll be keeping one eye open. He is very secure, and he is very beloved. So he is quite safe.

There you go. Well, as long as he stays on your good side. So he probably has lots of motivation. Absolutely. There you go. So thank you very much for coming on. We've really had fun with you stays on your good side. So he probably has lots of motivation. Absolutely. There you go. So thank you very much for coming on. We've really had fun with you coming on, Deanna.

And please come back for your future books. Give us any dot coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? You can find me at DeannaRayburn.com. I do a monthly newsletter and I'm active on Instagram. There you go. Grave Robbery. A Veronica Speedwell mystery comes out march 12th 2024 folks pick it up wherever fine books are sold and all of our other books as well i love the covers just really

cool covers so thanks to our artists for tuning in go to goodreads.com fortress chris voss linkedin.com fortress chris voss all those crazy places on the internet thanks to our audience for the questions be good to each other stay safe and we'll see you guys next time you know how about that whatever