Location, Location, Location by Suzanne Trauth

by Suzanne Trauth

When I think of some of my favorite authors, I immediately am reminded of the locations of the stories: the charming town of Three Pines in Canadian author Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache mysteries; gritty Chicago in Tracy Clark’s Harriet Foster novels; and, since I am a New Jersey native, the “Burg” in Trenton for Janet Evanovich’s humorous Stephanie Plum series. All wildly different places, but each setting is essential to the author’s stories. Indeed, I would argue that without their respective locations, Penny’s, Clark’s, and Evanovich’s novels would not be as effective as they are. These authors have shaped their plots and characters’ journeys to accommodate the places of their stories.

I live in northern New Jersey, a compact, densely populated area in the shadow of New York City just across the Hudson River. Much of this part of the state is defined by its access to the great metropolis by commuters, theatregoers, museum visitors, and anyone looking for excitement. Living in the vicinity of “the city” will always be considered an asset for residents of the northern Garden State, a drawing card for folks wanting to combine the pleasures and opportunities of New York with the suburban feel of towns that cozy up to the Lincoln Tunnel and the George Washington Bridge.

When I first debated the setting for my mystery series—the Dodie O’Dell mysteries—I weighed options for the most productive locations: the Midwest where I was born and raised and worked for a number of years; Greenwich Village in Manhattan where I lived for a period of time; or places abroad that I had visited on numerous occasions (Scotland, London, the south of France, Tuscany, Australia). After working through possibilities, I settled on New Jersey and discovered a wealth of potential locations for my novels.

Besides the fact that I knew it well, I realized early on, that placing my mystery series in New Jersey offered a varied range of potential sites that would serve the stories. A character can zip from the Jersey shore to a northern small town, head out to the western part of the state near the Pennsylvania border, and still be home in time for dinner. Or, in the case of my protagonist Dodie O’Dell, in time to manage the dinner rush at the restaurant she manages in Etonville, a fictional setting that is similar to a town in my area. There are lots of nooks and crannies in this state, lots of places where characters can get in trouble and create mayhem.

My mystery series required a main street in Etonville, New Jersey, where a restaurant and a community theatre sat side-by-side, the town center no more than half a mile square, where the local police station, a rumor-mill hair salon, and Jersey diner-slash-coffee-shop took up residence. Various other businesses were scattered along the adjacent avenues. Surrounding the center of Etonville, residential neighborhoods provided housing for my protagonist, her chief of police boyfriend, and her BFF, the theatre diva. My nearby cozy New Jersey town was a great inspiration.

When I wanted to broaden the canvas for one of my mysteries, I moved the story, as well as the cast of characters, down the Jersey shore where I utilized the beach, tiki bars, an outdoor gazebo, and the boardwalk, and created a threatening climax aboard a luxury boat.

On a couple of occasions, I shifted the action to easily-accessible New York City so Dodie could investigate an internationally known arts institution (think Juilliard) as well as enjoy a special dinner with her police chief beau in an out-of-the-way Greenwich Village restaurant.

In a recently completed standalone mystery, the story focused, in part, on socio-economic differences: I needed a middle-class neighborhood for my MC and her family, but also a wealthy, one-percenter location to serve as a contrast. I had no trouble finding models of both settings—in the same town. Graceful English Tudor mansions and beautiful Victorian estates, set back from the road, were distinctly different from the tight-knit neighborhoods where homes sat in close proximity to one another. Where everyone knew your business, word traveled fast, and the local bar and grill provided the focal point for the neighborhood’s social life.

My current work-in-progress was inspired by recent trips to the far western part of New Jersey, just minutes from the Pennsylvania border. Though I was on the road for less than an hour, I had left the city, the shore, the suburbs and snug little towns behind. I was in a pastoral expanse of the state a few miles from the Delaware Water Gap. Miles away from the bustling port of Newark and the New Jersey Turnpike.

Fields and farms, two lane roads—no Garden State Parkway in sight—rolling hills, grazing horses, houses dotting the countryside, and red barns rising from green acreage. My protagonist pursued a mystery in a relatively rural setting, driving a distance to reach her destinations: an abandoned paint factory, a roadside diner where she met with law enforcement, a funeral home in the next town over. But all within forty-five minutes of her base of operations. Still in New Jersey.

I’ve discovered that when it comes to providing settings for my novels, a wide range of potential crime scenes can be found inside the boundaries of the Garden State. (And I’m not even digging into the well-known places associated with the HBO series The Sopranos!) Like Penny’s, Clark’s, and Evanovich’s settings, my New Jersey locations have become integral to the stories, necessary components of the plot and characters’ lives. Without my home state as a backdrop, my books would lose something of their authenticity. It really is all about location, location, location.

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Dodie O’Dell Mysteries

The tide has turned for Dodie O’Dell since a hurricane upended her life on the Jersey Shore. Now she’s further up the coast in sleepy Etonville, managing a restaurant that dishes dinners themed around the community theater’s latest productions. But Dodie just never imagined she’d land the starring role in a case of bloody homicide . . .

Intrigued by rumors of vanishing box office money, Dodie has agreed to help oversee the casting of Romeo and Juliet at the modest Etonville Little Theater. If nothing else, it’s a welcome escape from the thirty-something’s usual going-to-bed-with-a-mystery-novel routine. But when Jerome Angleton, a well-respected member of the theater company, is inexplicably found murdered on the loading dock, deadly drama transcends the stage-and the page. As a crime wave crashes over the small town, the spotlight is on Dodie to orchestrate her own investigation behind the scenes . . . before someone has a chance at a killer encore.

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Suzanne Trauth is the author of the Dodie O’Dell mystery series—Show Time, Time Out, Running Out of Time, Just in Time, No More Time, and Killing Time—and the novel What Remains of Love, a first-place winner in Women’s Fiction, Firebird Book Awards and a finalist for the CIBA Hemingway Prize. Her plays and screenplays have won awards in contests and festivals and been developed in a variety of theatres. She has social media platforms on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/SuzanneTrauth/) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/suzannetrauth/) where her books and plays are promoted. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the Dramatists Guild, and the League of Professional Theatre Women. After receiving her Ph.D in Theatre, she taught in university theatre programs and now lives in Woodland Park, New Jersey.

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers