donalee Moulton is an award-winning freelance journalist who has written for print and online publications across North America, including The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Lawyer’s Daily, National Post, and Canadian Business. Her short stories have been shortlisted for a Derringer Award and an Award of Excellence from the Crime Writers of Canada. Other short stories have been published recently in After Dinner Conversation, The Antigonish Review, and Queen’s Quarterly. Her first mystery novel, Hung out to Die, was published in 2023, and the latest, Conflagration!, won the 2024 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense (Historical Fiction).
Conflagration! is set on a warm spring day in April 1734, as a fire rages through the merchants’ quarter in Montréal. Within hours, rumors run rampant that Marie-Joseph Angélique, an enslaved Black woman fighting for her freedom, had started the fire with her white lover. Less than a day later, Angélique is in prison, her lover nowhere to be found. Though she denies the charges, witnesses claimed Angélique was the arsonist even though no one saw her set the fire. In an era when lawyers are banned from practicing in New France, Angélique is on her own. Philippe Archambeau, a court clerk assigned specifically to document her case, believes Angelique might just be telling the truth, but time is running out as Archambeau searches for answers. Will the determined court clerk discover what really happened the night Montreal burned to the ground before it’s too late?
donalee stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching the book:
The trial and tribulations of researching life – and death – in 1734
My second mystery novel, Conflagration!, is my first historical mystery. My publisher has a series of historical mysteries than span Canada from coast to coast. When she unexpectedly lost her Quebec writer, she offered me the opportunity to write the book and step back to 1734 when the colony of New France was ruled by King Louis XV. It was an opportunity I embraced. With trepidation.
At readings and book clubs, I joke that I am not from Quebec, I do not speak French as more than 80% of Quebecers do, and I do not write historical mysteries. So, of course, I said “yes” when my publisher offered me the opportunity to write Conflagration!. I am grateful I did.
What scared me most about writing the book was getting something wrong. Misspeaking. Misunderstanding. Misconstruing. The foundation for Conflagration! (and for all historical mysteries) is accuracy. As a freelance journalist, I am used to writing on topics that I know little (and sometimes, nothing) about. I have written articles on everything from buying cyber insurance to surviving a helicopter crash to paying the tooth fairy. I know how to research, how to interview people, how to find people to interview, and how to find accurate sources of information. For the most part though, the research I’ve done was contemporary or contemporary adjacent. It wasn’t from 300 years ago.
Conflagration! chronicles the arrest, trial, and subsequent execution of Marie-Joseph Angélique, an enslaved Black woman accused of setting the lower town of Montreal on fire. When the flames were finally squelched, forty-six homes and buildings were gone. The quarter, where the merchants lived and ran their businesses, was destroyed. Fortunately, no one died.
I had never heard of Angélique, had never read her story in the many history classes I took throughout school and university. I was not alone in this lack of knowledge. That is because Angélique’s story is also the story of slavery in Canada, and for centuries we have avoided the topic or rewritten the facts to shape the narrative. Fortunately, Angélique’s story is more well known in Quebec, where a plaque has been erected in her memory in Old Montreal.
As I delved into the events of April 10, 1734, I discovered others had gone before me. There were books, websites, articles, documentaries, and shorts. I embraced them all. Some of these sources also referenced court documents, meticulously recorded, albeit in French. One site translated those documents although translations from old French to modern English are not always clear and understandable. The golden rule in journalism is you must have at least two sources before you use any information. I also embraced this rule.
As nerve-wracking as ensuring my story accurately referenced the trial transcripts and sequence of events from the first flames to Angélique’s final breath, I discovered that the justice system was only one element of research required. At one point, I had my main character, Philippe Archambeau, a court clerk assigned specifically to document Angélique’s case, get up early and make himself a cup of coffee. Then I asked myself, “Did they drink coffee in New France in 1734?” (They did, but tea was more common.)
This issue of everyday life came up in a myriad of ways. Philippe goes to put on boots. (Did they wear boots three hundred years ago? What kind?) His wife, Madeleine, is making supper. (How do you make supper when there are no stoves, no ovens, no electricity? What do you eat?)
The answers to these and a multitude of other questions were answered thanks to reliable sources on the internet, books written by authoritative sources, individuals knowledgeable about aspects of the story, the time, the history – and more.
I owe them all a debt of gratitude.
You can learn more about donalee and her books via her website and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Goodreads. Conflagration! is now available via all major booksellers in ebook and print.
Comments