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It’s officially cozy mystery season and Katy Watson is back with another suspenseful tale. Sprinkled with glamorous doses of movie star lifestyle—flashy parties, elegant fashion—a little romance and plenty of adventure, A Very Lively Murder has all the elements of a 1930s mystery set in modern day. I had the chance to interview Watson about her inspiration for the book and how writing the series during the 2020 lockdown put her life and career “on a new trajectory.”

In the followup to The Three Dahlias, we find our trio on a film set in Wales. Posy Starling is a former child star who stepped out of the limelight and into rehab for a while. She’s close to getting a comeback with a starring role as 1930s detective Dahlia Lively in the latest film adaption of Lettice Davenport’s popular books. One day on set, a prop knife is somehow replaced with a real one, with nearly fatal consequences for her costar Rosalind King, who portrayed Dahlia in the original films. The addition of death threats has everyone on edge. With another mystery on their hands, they call in help from the third Dahlia, Caro Hooper, who embodied the character on television for 13 seasons.

When a violent storm comes through and blocks access from their lodging to the town center, it’s up to the three Dahlias to narrow down the suspects and solve the case before someone else gets hurt, or worse. On the list? Just all of the cast and crew, townsfolk and some suspicious characters from their pasts.

More than a mystery series, the books are also lessons on the value of friendship. “I wanted to tell a story about female friendship across the generations,” says Watson. “About women with different life experiences and viewpoints coming together to support each other and become not just friends but found family.”

Read more about Watson’s book and her writing process in the full interview below.

A Very Lively Murder Giveaway

I’ve partnered with Mobius Books for a giveaway on Instagram. Three winners will receive a copy of Katy Watson’s A Very Lively Murder (approximate retail value: $28.00). Visit me on Instagram for full details on how to enter.

(Giveaway runs from December 11, 2023 through December 18, 2023. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Winners will be selected in a random drawing on December 19, 2023 and will be notified via Instagram direct message from Mobius Books. I have to right to obtain and publicize winners’ names and likenesses. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by law.)

Related: Cookbooks with Vintage Vibes to Gift Your Favorite Foodie

Interview with Katy Watson on ‘A Very Lively Murder’ (A Three Dahlias Mystery)

The Dahlia books are different from most murder mysteries in that there’s a team of three women—colleagues who become friends—rather than the typical detective-and-sidekick duo. What made you want to tell the story that way?

I think I have two answers to this question! The first is simply that the idea came to me that way – three actresses who all played the same fictional detective on screen working together to solve a crime. Once I had that idea, I couldn’t imagine it any other way and, to be honest, the three characters of Rosalind, Caro and Posy are so strong that I knew none of them could ever play sidekick to one of the others!

But the second answer is that I wanted to tell a story about female friendship across the generations. About women with different life experiences and viewpoints coming together to support each other and become not just friends but found family. And the fact that they each see the world in their own way, through the lens of their pasts, mean they each notice different things about their suspects, clues and cases that the others might not, which I really enjoy too.

A Very Lively Murder takes place on a film set and there’s a lot of detail about how that works, from how the equipment and props are set up to what people you’d see on set to the logistics of filming on location. How do you know so much about the film industry? Did you visit film sets for research and inspiration or do you have experience in the entertainment industry?

I don’t have a great deal of personal film experience, beyond the odd TV appearance as an extra or as part of a school choir, although I did once work as a production assistant on a play in a West End theatre. But fortunately there are some great resources out there to help me with my research!

One area I do take extra care with my research is that of the police investigations. I’m very fortunate that my brother’s partner is a Detective Inspector and he’s always very patient with my many questions. I also have another friend, an ex-DCI from the London Metropolitan Police, who goes through each of my manuscripts to check the details of the police involvement in each of the cases. He’s been fantastic at adding extra details for authenticity, and making sure what happens on the page is at least possible, even if it’s not always strict police procedure!

The book is set in modern day on a film set for a period piece set in the 1930s. There are lovely descriptions of clothing the three Dahlias wear, especially the gowns they wear to a Classic Hollywood fundraiser in the town where they’re filming. How did you come up with the ideas for the clothing?

Oh, this is pure wish fulfilment! When I’m dressing the characters in these books, I’m imagining all the glorious clothes I would wear if I didn’t spend my days alone at my desk, typing. I do research online for gowns and outfits that famous actresses and ordinary people have worn at different periods through history, then I try to tweak and adjust them to fit the personality of the character wearing them. It’s honestly one of the most fun parts!

I think one of the underlying themes of the book is that your life can change in a drastic way at any point, and it’s never too late for a fresh start. Posy is working toward a big career comeback, the recently married Caro is looking for purpose apart from domestic life, and Rosalind has a potential new interest of her own. You wrote the first Dahlias book during lockdown, your first murder mystery after years of writing books in other genres. Do you think that influenced some of the story?

It definitely did. I wrote The Three Dahlias out of contract, with no guarantee it would ever get published. I’d just finished up a two book contract for a young adult series, and my editor had left that publisher, meaning I was a little bit adrift. I was busy trying to meet deadlines for my other publisher, but also home-schooling my two kids through lockdown, along with my husband, who had taken over my home office while working from home.

I think we were all looking for a little escapism at that time, and that’s what The Three Dahlias was for me. In fact, when I first starting thinking about the book, it was sort of a game. I did a lot of planning before I started writing, but much of that was exchanging text messages with my agent about all the fun things we could include, like the doll’s house in the first book, or Dahlia’s habit of calling everyone ‘kiddo.’

But when I started writing it – when I fell into the world that Rosalind, Caro and Posy inhabited, the one I’d created as an escape from the real world of lockdown – I realised the book was something more. It was a chance for me to make a change, to put my life and career on a new trajectory, writing the sort of book I’d always wanted to write but never been brave enough to. It was a now or never moment, and I’m so, so glad I grabbed it with both hands. However many books I write in my life, The Three Dahlias will always be special because of that.

There are a lot of different characters, who eventually become murder suspects. Most have achieved some degree of fame and success in the entertainment industry, so there are some big personalities and egos. Do you have more fun writing the heroes or the villains? Which happens more quickly?

Writing the Dahlias is always my favourite thing – especially when the three of them are together in a scene. They’re so real to me now that they live, rent free, inside my head, passing comment on my day-to-day life sometimes, so writing them feels completely natural.

But I have to admit that writing the villains is a great deal of fun, too. I like to ensure that every suspect in my books has at least some darkness, and some secrets, and I do enjoy dreaming up those aspects of the characters, then drip-feeding the truth onto the page.

I spend a lot of time working on my characters before I start writing – almost as much as I do figuring out the mechanics of the mystery itself. For the Dahlias, it’s about thinking about where they ended the last book, what they’re struggling with or facing individually over the time span of this book, and where I want them to be by the end of it – as well as their relationships with each other, and the other supporting characters. I want them to grow and develop with each story, as people and as detectives.

For the suspects, I spend time thinking about their pasts, their secrets – what has brought them to this time and place, into the sphere of the Dahlias and the victim, and the murderer of course. I also think about how their past experiences, and the secrets they’re keeping, will make them react to the events that take place in the book – and to being under suspicion. Often it’s this character work that helps me put together a lot of the investigative plot.

If a movie or television show adaptation of The Three Dahlias books was made today, who would you cast as Rosalind, Caro and Posy?

I get asked this question a lot, and I’m afraid the answer is very unsatisfactory: I have no idea.

But that’s actually intentional. As much as I have an image of each of them in my head, I’ve been very careful not to ‘cast’ them with actual people, because I really, really hope that, one day, someone will want to make a TV show of the books. And if that happens, I would hate to be disappointed in the cast, when it inevitably didn’t match the actresses I’d chosen in my head!

What’s next for the three Dahlias?

Well, we’ve just signed off Book 3 in the series – Seven Lively Suspects – which will be out next year, and sees the three Dahlias looking into a cold case at a crime fiction festival, only to realise the case might not be quite as cold as they first thought.

And I’ve also just signed a new contract here in the UK for a further THREE Three Dahlias Mysteries, to be released over the following three years. I’m hopeful that they’ll be picked up for release in the US and Canada too, but we’ll have to wait and see. So watch this space!

Find A Very Lively Murder: A Three Dahlias Mystery on Amazon.

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