Authors Interviewing Characters: Jane Bennett Munro

“The Twelve Murders of Christmas: A Toni Day Mystery” by Jane Bennett Munro follows pathologist and amateur sleuth Toni Day as she finds herself at the center of a hunt for a vindictive criminal who sends her hints to his next victims through holiday cards containing macabre renditions of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

After receiving the first card containing an eerie illustration of a corpse under a tree accompanied by the sinister verse, “on the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a Partridge under a tree,” Toni immediately suspects something is afoul in Twin Falls. Her astute instincts prove correct when the body of Ralph Partridge is later discovered in the same manner depicted in the drawing. With the help of her friends and colleagues, Toni discovers that not only is her ex-boyfriend and stalker, Robbie, out on parole but that the first victim is one of twelve jurors whose guilty verdict put him in prison for the kidnapping and attempted murder of her husband, Hal.

However, the case is not as cut-and-dry as it seems, and other suspects soon start cropping up, including a pesky reporter who possesses an ice pick that matches the cause of death for each of the victims. As the police trail behind and the jury members continue to turn up dead, Toni sets out to decipher the clues and help apprehend the killer before the deadly Christmas carol arrives at its crescendo.

Jane Bennett Munro Interviews Toni Day

INTERVIEWER: Dr. Day, I understand that you are a pathologist. Just to provide a bit of background for our conversation, could you please tell me about what a pathologist does?

TONI: Call me Toni, please. Pathologists are usually hospital-based physicians who examine tissues specimens removed at surgery to provide a diagnosis, including tumor markers that help oncologists decide what drugs to treat their patients with; look at preparations of various body fluids to look for cancer cells, or crystals, or anything else that shouldn’t be there; they look at bone marrows to diagnose leukemia or lymphoma or metastatic cancer, they review abnormal pap smears, and they run the lab.

INT: Wow, that’s a lot. How many years of school does it take to learn all that?

TONI: Four years of medical school, and a five-year residency, and one of those five years has to be a clinical year, that is, actually taking care of patients instead of being in the lab all the time.

INT:   What made you want to be a pathologist?

TONI:  Well, I worked my way through medical school as a medical technologist. It was my dream to have my own lab, and I had to be a pathologist to do that, and at the old hospital, Perrine Memorial, that was exactly what I got to do.

INT: That’s amazing! Congratulations! But I noticed that you didn’t mention autopsies. Isn’t that a big part of what pathologists do?

TONI: It used to be, but now with all the new imaging techniques, it’s possible to see abnormalities just about anywhere in the body and stick a needle in them to get a sample of tissue for us to look at. As a result, autopsies are pretty much going the way of the dodo bird. 

INT: Really? If that’s true, how come the movies and detective shows have all these autopsies?

TONI: It’s true of hospital autopsies, but not forensic autopsies. Those are the ones that deal with victims of crime and the collecting of evidence, and those are the ones they show. As a hospital based pathologist, I normally wouldn’t have to deal with those unless someone dies at home unexpectedly who hasn’t seen a doctor for a long time, or due to an accident, or there’s something that just doesn’t look right, or if the family asks for one. 

INT: Why would the family do that? Don’t most people get squeamish about the body of a loved one cut open?

TONI: Sure, but once in a while there might be questions. For instance, I once did an autopsy of a man who’d recently been seen by a naturopath who told him he was full of cancer, and his wife wanted to know if that was true or not. 

INT: Okay, so do hospital-based pathologists ever do forensic autopsies?

TONI: Oh sure, once in a while. Usually, they’re done by forensic pathologists or medical examiners, who have access to crime scene units or evidence techs, and have more time to go to court, which hospital-based pathologists don’t.

INT: What’s the difference between forensic pathologists and medical examiners?

TONI: Usually they’re the same, but not necessarily. Here in Idaho we have coroners, which aren’t necessarily pathologists or even doctors. They’re elected, and usually they’re either cops or morticians, like Rollie Perkins. They go to the scene and decide whether they need an autopsy or not, but they have to find pathologists to do them.

INT: Is a forensic pathologist different from a hospital-based one?

TONI: Yes. Forensic pathology is an entire subspecialty that requires an extra year of residency and separate board certification. I don’t have that.

INT: But you know an awful lot about it, don’t you?

TONI: Yes, but it was essentially on-the-job training for me. I’ve been required to do quite a few forensic autopsies over the years, and I learn something new every time. I get a lot of help from Pete and Bernie and Rollie, too. 

INT: Tell me about your relationship with Pete and Bernie. They’re police detectives, correct?

TONI:  Yes. Bernie came here from California several years ago, and Pete is local. He went to high school and college here, and he was one of Hal’s students. Now he’s married to Hal ‘s daughter Bambi, and they have two children.

INT: I get the impression that they learn a lot more from you than you do from them.

TONI: Well, I do have medical expertise that they don’t, that’s all.

INT: Didn’t you ever want to get that extra training and become a forensic pathologist?

TONI: No, never. I’m perfectly happy being a hospital pathologist.  Usually, the forensic cases go to Boise, because we have a busy practice and don’t have time to go to court. It’s just that I keep getting drawn into situations that affect me personally. In my first case, Sally Shore was trying to discredit me and get me fired, and then the police decided that I must have killed her because I was the only one with a motive, and I had to get involved to keep myself out of jail.

INT: So, how did the other cases personally affect you? Were you always trying to keep yourself out of jail?

TONI: No, the only other one was when one of our administrators was poisoned. 

INT: What about the other cases? How did they affect your life?

TONI: Well, Jay Braithwaite Burke fleeced many doctors out of their life savings, and it affected the hospital’s bottom line, and was part of the reason we had to sell out to Cascade; and Beulah Pritchard was someone I’d worked with at the old hospital.

INT: Have you ever been involved in anything that didn’t happen in Twin Falls?

TONI: Oh yes. The year my mother retired, she and Nigel and Hal and I went on a Caribbean cruise together. One of the entertainers was murdered, and Nigel and I had to solve it; and then my mother’s best friend’s husband went missing, and she asked me and Hal to come to Long Beach and sort it all out. Then, last Christmas, someone nearly killed off the entire jury that put my ex-boyfriend in prison.

INT: Good grief. Do you think you’ll keep getting involved in more cases?

TONI: Who knows? I certainly won’t go looking for them, I can tell you that right now.

INT: But then you didn’t go looking for any of the others either, did you?

TONI: True. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens next, won’t we?

—

Jane Bennett Munro is a mystery novelist and retired hospital-based pathologist with 42 years of experience. She blends her writing talent with her medical and forensic knowledge, giving her books a realistic and riveting edge. She holds a medical degree from the University of California, Irvine, and is certified in anatomical and clinical pathology. She has won several awards and recognitions for her books, including a 2012 IPPY Award for “Murder under the Microscope” and a 2014 Feathered Quill Award for “Too Much Blood.” She is also the author of “Grievous Bodily Harm,” “Death by Autopsy,” “The Body on the Lido Deck” and “A Deadly Homecoming.” Munro currently lives in Twin Falls, Idaho. To learn more about Munro and her books, please visit janebennettmunro.com.

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Category: Interviews, On Writing