Titles in the Spokane Clock Tower Mysteries
One of the questions I often get about the Spokane Clock Tower Mysteries is:
Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Taker
This first book in the Spokane Clock Tower Mysteries originally was titled The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker.
Per the title, I’d written my first draft attempting to adhere very strictly to representing each of these characters.
As such, in the original manuscript, the butcher was the murderer, the baker was a crazy person in jail credited with starting the Great Fire of 1889, and the candlestick maker was Mr. Matsumoto, my blacksmith inventor who never left the book.
If you’ve read Butcher, Baker, you’ll see how it changed ever so slightly in the rewrite. I won’t say more here for fear of giving anything away.
The title changed to Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Taker when I realized the Red Rogue was going to play a more central role, and I wanted a twist on the nursery rhyme title so the book would stand out.
Altogether, I thought it worked rather well!
Cupboards All Bared
As I’ve mentioned before, Cupboards All Bared began with an article I discovered announcing the visit of President McKinley to Spokane in May of 1901, and that he’d be staying with the Campbells. I knew the story would center around this, though I didn’t have a title yet.
During my research of McKinley, I stumbled across this political cartoon…
This political cartoon is from 1897, published in Judge, a satirical magazine of the time. Drawn by Victor Gillam, it shows President McKinley as Old Mother Hubbard with a dog wearing the face of Uncle Sam, finding the cupboard, which has an image of the US treasury in deficit, bare.
Need I say more? I even had my nursery rhyme-inspired title to continue the pattern!
I thought it fitting that in the book, over the course of the story, many cupboards are bared—figuratively and literally—revealing the secrets hidden within.
Crazy Maids in a Row
Book 3 in the Spokane Clock Tower Mysteries releases in October! Although I haven’t yet revealed the cover, I can tell you about the title.
In Book 3, we head to the Eastern Washington Hospital for the Insane—or Medical Lake Asylum, as it was more commonly known at the time.
I already had my plot: The Baker is in the Medical Lake asylum, which means all should be well with the world. But when a string of murders draws Marian, Archie, and the Carew brothers to her doorstep, they begin to wonder if she’s at it again…
The title came pretty easily along with the plot!
What will be the title of Book 4?????
You’ll just have to wait to find out!
You can learn more about the Spokane Clock Tower Mysteries all across my website.
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