Clearly they weren’t familiar with Chicago’s world-class theater scene! The editor I eventually chose loved the setting and wanted me to add more Chicago flavor to the book (which is how I knew she was the right one).Ĭalkins: Chicago, speakeasies, cocktails and crime just go together. When my agent was shopping the novel to publishers, I spoke to some editors who suggested transplanting the action to New York or Los Angeles because they thought it would give the story a broader appeal. The fictional theater company in Temper is a tiny storefront space, which is something I think of as quintessentially Chicago - and also the perfect setting for the raw, claustrophobic mood I wanted to create. Why couldn’t it have been set anywhere else?įargo: The original inspiration for the book was the real-life scandal at Chicago’s Profiles Theatre, so I honestly never thought of setting the book anywhere else. Tell me why your story is a quintessential Chicago Only thing your two books have in common is that they take place among theįamiliar sights of Chicago. The conversations are combined and lightly edited. The story brims with complex female characters, psychosexual manipulation, and plenty of drama on and off the stage.īelow is an interview between Chicago Review of Books contributor Lori Rader-Day and both Calkins and Fargo.

This sinister, of-the-moment novel focuses on the power struggle between an ambitious actress and an abusive director, but you don’t have to be a theater buff to enjoy it.

Temper is a feminist psychological thriller set in the Chicago theater world. Temper is also Layne Fargo’s first Chicago novel - because it’s her debut.

Murder Knocks Twice is fun and rollicking, with plenty of historical Chicago detail and jazzy lingo. Calkins has turned her sights on her adopted hometown for the story of a young 1920s flapper who stumbles into a job as a cigarette girl at The Third Door, a fictional speakeasy set on Chicago’s Near West Side.

Murder Knocks Twice is the first in a new series by Susanna Calkins, the author of the award-winning Lucy Campion mysteries set in 1600s London. A pair of recent Chicago-set novels show the breadth of Chicago’s robust crime-fiction scene.

Murder Knocks Twice by Susanna Calkins