Meredith Cole’s Williamsburg Brooklyn: A Photo to Die For

Winner of the St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic best traditional first mystery contest with her book Posed for Murder, Meredith Cole was also a finalist for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Her series protagonist is Lydia McKenzie, an edgy art photographer who recreates murder scenes in a film noir style. In the series debut, Lydia is forced into the role of sleuth when the police find the model of one of her photographs murdered. The setting of Cole’s first mystery, the Williamsburg district of Brooklyn, “lends social and cultural interest” to the story,  according to Publishers Weekly.

In her second outing, Dead in the Water, just out, Lydia tries to discover who is killing local prostitutes. Publishers Weekly noted of this series addition, “Cole quickly hooks the reader with credible characters and a tantalizing puzzle.”

Merdith, it’s good of you to take time out from your promotional efforts to speak with Scene of the Crime.

Williamsburg is most definitely the new hip location in New York. In fact it might already be headed the way of Manhattan in terms of gentrification and rents. Queens next? Could you describe your connection to Williamsburg and Brooklyn.

I moved to Williamsburg Brooklyn in 1999. My husband is a painter, I was a filmmaker at the time, and we wanted to live where the artists were congregating in New York. Manhattan was completely unaffordable, so that left the outer boroughs. We moved into a loft on the outer reaches of Williamsburg in the summertime with no job prospects, and we almost gave up in despair after several months. I broke my arm, and my one air-conditioned haven in the neighborhood was the library. I spent a lot of time reading there and writing in longhand, since hunt and peck typing is tough for me.

A few years later, we moved to an apartment on the Southside of Williamsburg (much closer to the trendy restaurants and the waterfront). I watched the neighborhood evolve, and was fascinated by the history and the changing demographics. I started writing Posed for Murder, when I was pregnant, and couldn’t travel much. It seemed natural to set the book where I was living.

I wrote the second book, Dead in the Water, in that same apartment, but then moved to Virginia about nine months ago. We felt sad to leave New York, but we were ready to live closer to family, own a house and wake up to sound of birds rather then the elevated train.

I’m writing the third book now, but the neighborhood is so fresh in my mind it doesn’t feel like a problem at all to me. I’ll be going up again in May when my book comes out, and I’m sure I’ll have a list of things to check out.

What things about Williamsburg make it unique and a good physical setting in your books?

The neighborhood has four different ethnic groups living in very close proximity, and not always very harmoniously. The Hasidim occupy a neighborhood south of the Williamsburg Bridge, the Polish live in Greenpoint and North Brooklyn, the Puerto Ricans live on the Southside, and the Sicilians live to the east. When the industry left for overseas, a lot of loft buildings were left empty and artists and hipsters moved in.

The tension between the various groups trying to find enough space to raise their families, etc., makes it always a vital and interesting place. Also, the real estate gold rush hit the place and changed it even more. The influx of people with lots of money caused even more tension. Since tension means drama, it’s a great place to set my series.

Did you consciously set out to use your location as a “character” in your books, or did this grow naturally out of the initial story or stories?

I set out to write stories that were inspired by events and things that I’d seen, and my stories very much from the place. Occasionally the story doesn’t gel completely until I decide something basic like the season or the part of the neighborhood where the story is taking place.  The Northside is very different from the Southside, and the seasons all feel radically different there too.  The summer is baking hot and the winters are bitter with the wind coming off the river. The seasons to behave very differently, either to hang out outside or hide indoors.

How do you incorporate location in your fiction? Do you pay overt attention to it in certain scenes, or is it a background inspiration for you?

The location definitely ends up influencing the shape of the books and inspires a lot of the plot.  In the first book, I use Lydia McKenzie’s obsession with the violent history of Williamsburg to shape the story.  She takes murder recreation photographs using her friends as models. In the second, Dead in the Water, the prostitutes on the waterfront and a serial killer who targeted prostitutes in the 90’s were the starting points for the story. Lydia gets involved with the women’s lives through her photography, and finds herself swept up into their world. She ends up questioning her own relationships and her own choices as she searches for a killer.

How does Lydia McKenzie interact with her surroundings? Is she a native, a blow-in, a reluctant or enthusiastic inhabitant, cynical about it, a booster? And conversely, how does the setting affect Lydia?

Lydia moved to New York when she was 18, and fell completely in love with it. She’s an enthusiastic city dweller who rides her bike everywhere, orders out from restaurants daily, goes to galleries, and regularly listens to live music. There are certain things she doesn’t like–riding the subway and having a very small apartment in a tenement building. But she sees those as small prices to pay in order to live in such a vital and interesting place.

Williamsburg, Brooklyn may be just one neighborhood in an enormous city, but it also has real small town feel.  When I lived there, I could almost never go out for a walk without running into someone I knew. I’ve tried to recreate that experience for Lydia in the books. She definitely enjoys the support of the small artist community plus gets annoyed by the nosy elderly neighbors who know all her comings and goings. It definitely makes writing the stories more interesting to have recurring characters and it definitely helps shape the books.

Has there been any local reaction to your works?

Everyone in the neighborhood who read it has enjoyed it, and hasn’t accused me of taking too much artistic license. Reviewers have either become confused about where Williamsburg is (one said it was Manhattan) or have liked the groovy hipster scene.

Who are your favorite writers, and do you feel that other writers influenced you in your use of the spirit of place in your novels?

I’ve read and enjoyed Ed McBain’s books set in New York (although he never calls it New York), Donna Leon’s books in Venice, Dick Francis’ books set in the English horse racing world, and Tony Hillerman’s books set out west on the reservations. They all use the local customs and the landscape as in their novels, and I’ve done my best to do something similar. It’s definitely my goal to give readers a taste of Williamsburg and what makes it unique and special.

What’s next for your protagonist?

My second book, Dead in the Water, comes out in May. Lydia McKenzie has been photographing prostitutes when one of them ends up a floater in the East River.  She wants to find out what happened, and ends up sucked into the world of Puerto Rican gangs and the sex trade.

Thanks, Meredith, for taking the time to discuss spirit of place with Scene of the Crime.

For more information about Meredith Cole, see her home page.