Sharon

The third book in the Klondike Era historical mystery series will be out later this year.

And it’s official—the title will be “The Missing Heir Murders.”

John Lansdowne Granville and partner Sam Scott agree to find the third son of a powerful Earl. Due to an unfortunate boating excursion, young Rupert Weston is now the Earl’s heir. And he has vanished without a trace.

Weston is a Remittance Man, one of those black sheep younger sons who subsist on the quarterly sums from England—provided they stay far away. And the new heir’s last known address is a Vancouver postal station.

Finding the missing heir is not going to be easy. First they have to find out why the man vanished—and every time they get close to an answer, someone winds up dead.

Catch up with me this Friday (May 16th) at Leanne Dyck’s popular blog sweatercursed.blogspot.ca.

Leanne’s a great interviewer, and we talk about everything from how I got started writing to marketing techniques and what I’m working on now. Drop on by and say hello! (and while you’re there, check out some of Leanne’s other posts–well worth a read!)

While contemplating why a Victorian gentlemen would donate a stuffed trumpeter swan to the local museum in 1894, I went looking for an image of a stuffed trumpeter swan, and found this photo of a Victorian diorama…

(courtesy of Taxidermy UK, who, by they way, are always interested in purchasing Victorian taxidermy, if you happen to have an appropriately old stuffed something kicking around.)

Apparently dioramas became a feature of museums in the Victorian era. It was also the golden age of taxidermy. Not only were the Victorians fond of keeping small stuffed birds and animals in the parlour, arranged as naturally as possible–well, except for   anthropomorphic Victorian whimseys –and often under glass, but any museum worth its salt had extensive displays of  mounted birds and mammals.

When I go to a museum these days, it’s human history I’m focused on. I’d forgotten how fascinated I was with natural history displays as a kid, and I’d never even thought about why every museum had some kind of natural history display.

Now that donated stuffed swan is making sense.  And it was probably a trumpeter swan because they winter here. In fact, Stanley Park has several pair that can be found in Lost Lagoon year-round. I’m going walking there tomorrow;  if I find trumpeter swans, I’ll post a photo.