For my July post on the BWL website, I wrote about a book I read during my spring holiday in Malta.

Holiday Reading

When I travel, I like to read books set in the place I’m visiting. Before my trip to Malta this April, I took out an e-book from my local library. The Information Officer by Mark Mills helped me appreciate many of the sights I saw in this island nation in the Mediterranean Sea. The novel takes place in the summer of 1942, when Malta was a British colony. Its strategic location 50 miles south of Italy made Malta a target for Hitler in WWII. During the novel, the Maltese are enduring daily bombings by Axis planes launched from Sicily.

In the capital city of Valletta, Malta, we visited the Lascaris War Rooms, underground headquarters for the Allies’ defense of Malta. This strategy map shows little Malta below the bigger island of Sicily. Italy was under Mussolini’s fascist rule in 1942 and part of the German Axis.

The Information Officer is a detective novel. Our hero, Max, is, essentially, the British officer in charge of propaganda. His job is to boost the spirits of the Maltese civilians under continuous attack. Max investigates the murder of several women, whose deaths are being ignored by his superiors. Is there a cover-up? Are the murders an attempt to undermine Malta’s resolve to sacrifice for the war? In addition to bombing the cities, Axis planes are sinking cargo ships bringing food and supplies and the residents of Malta are close to starvation.

Malta at War museum displays a Maltese citizen’s daily rations for a fifteen day period during the siege.

In the Malta at War Museum, my husband Will and I put on hardhats to explore an air raid shelter built during the siege. A character in The Information Officer commented that the Maltese had become creatures who lived half their lives underground. The tunnels included hospital and birth rooms for those who needed those services after the air raid whistle blew.

Birth room in the air raid shelter

The siege effectively ended in November 1942, after the Allies sent Malta 163 Spitfires for its defense. King George VI awarded the George Cross for bravery to the citizens of Malta. Each April, Malta commemorates the deaths of the 7,000 soldiers and civilians who died during the siege. Other countries, including Canada, still send flowers.

The novel also mentioned other aspects of Malta, which we encountered on our visit. The Dingli cliffs, the island’s highest point, were used for signals during the war.

Hiking on the Dingli Cliffs

Maltese balconies, a characteristic style of  architecture, appear on houses across the island.

Many residents paint their Maltese balconies bright colours

And our hero, Max, took a short recreational break on Malta’s smaller, more rural island of Gozo, as Will and I did with the mass of local tourists on Good Friday.

Sipping a cappuccino in the main square of Victoria (Ir-Rabat), the capital of Gozo

If you’re travelling this year, check out Books We Love’s selection of novels set in lands around the world. BWL authors offer a variety of historical and contemporary stories set in the United States, Europe, Australia, every region of Canada and more.

Summer is officially here. For my June commitment on the BWL Author Insider Blog I wrote about one of my favourite activities, hiking, and how I made use of it my three novels.

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Ten years ago, when my husband Will retired, we joined a hiking club. In a recent radio interview, I talked about the enjoyment we both get from heading out to the Rocky Mountains, a couple of hours drive from our city of Calgary.

“When I’m out there, all my cares vanish,” I said. “We carpool, too, and socialize with an interesting group of people.”

The broadcaster commented that mystery writers might imagine insidious actions that could happen on a hike. He asked if I’d ever included this in a novel. All I could think of was one scene in my first book. Afterwards, I realized that hiking appears in all three of my novels.

Overlooking Arnica Lake, Banff National Park

In Deadly Fall, book one of my murder mystery series featuring insurance adjuster sleuth Paula Savard, Paula hikes the Mount Indefatigable Trail in nearby Kananaskis with three suspects in the case she’s investigating for personal reasons; the death of her childhood friend. As Paula reaches the trail lookout, she starts to think that the two men on the hike are plotting something sinister. During a moment of panic and paranoia, she fears one of them will push her off the cliff.

Will and I hiked this trail before we joined the club and bought proper hiking gear. I found it a treacherous climb to an awesome view of the turquoise Kananaskis Lakes. I’d like to try the trail again with good boots and poles, but it has been closed for fourteen years due to grizzly bear activity.

Mount Indefatigable south peak

Ten Days in Summer, the Paula Savard sequel, doesn’t include a hike. But a suspect is an avid hiker and mountain camper. I felt this interest showed seventy-year-old Florence’s physical fitness and spunk. Florence is camping in the back country when a fire damages the building she lives in and kills the owner, who occupied the ground floor apartment. When the fire is deemed suspicious, she refuses to provide the name of her hiking companion, even though he could give her an alibi. Florence is, by nature, defensive and doesn’t let anyone push her around. She’s also more daring than I am, since I’d worry about bears if I tented in a mountain wilderness.

Not much protection in these little tents

Hiking plays the largest role in my third novel, To Catch a Fox. The book is partly set at a fictional self-help retreat in southern California. While personal growth and empowerment are the New Dawn Retreat’s primary goals, the body is also viewed as important. The retreat’s co-leader, Sebastiano, leads two hikes a day in the hills that enclose the valley location. Hiking struck me as the ideal physical activity for this spiritual place. Climbing trails is non-competitive, accessible to anyone who’s reasonably fit and requires little equipment.

Rummel Lake hike, Kananaskis

It makes sense for writers to use interests and hobbies in their stories. Whether it’s chess, doll-collecting or hiking, this is the author’s passion and a subject he or she knows details about without the need for research. But I also want to create a wide range of characters and there are many Calgarians who give zero thought to hiking. So it might be time for a novel without one single reference to my favoured activity. My next novel in the Paula mystery series will take place in winter, when most Rocky Mountain trails are covered in snow and have avalanche warnings. Hiking will be far from any character’s mind.

Unless someone ventures on a mountain trail and the situation turns treacherous and suspicious.