Just like birders, who are always eager to add a new bird species to their birdwatching “life list,” murder mystery readers are always on the lookout for a new writer and series.
Which is one reason why people flocked to hear Steve Burrows speak at the Tec-We-Gwill Women’s Institute Hall in Newton Robinson on Tuesday night.
No apologies for the pun: it’s mild, compared to some of those Burrows himself used to describe his transition from teacher and nature writer, to writer of a series of “Birder Murders.”
The combination of birding and murders was a hard sell to his first publisher, Dundurn Press – but Burrows, asked about his target audience, noted that while there are plenty of murder mystery readers out there, “there are 4.8 million birders in Canada,” not to mention international interest.
Burrows spoke at the invitation of the Tec-We-Gwill Women’s Institute, tracing his own evolution from teacher, to writer.
A birdwatcher since his early teens in the UK, he studied at York University in Toronto after his family moved to Ontario, and he became a high school teacher in Richmond Hill.
His second career took flight when he temporarily moved to Hong Kong, with wife Reesa, both of them teachers. Burrows, familiar with images of Hong Kong’s skyscrapers, thought there would be little scope for birding.
He discovered that 40 per cent of Hong Kong’s land was set aside in natural parks to preserve the city’s water supply, and that the East Asian Flyway provided great opportunities to birdwatch an incredible diversity of species.
Burrows began writing stories for Asian Geographic, illustrated with photos by Reesa.
His first article, on the endangered black-faced spoonbill, earned him a position as field editor with the magazine. He travelled to Papua, New Guinea for a story on birdwing butterflies, to Thailand to photograph Gibbons, and around southeast Asia for a series of nature stories.
But it was his human-interest story for BBC Wildlife magazine, on a cormorant fisherman, that won him an award and convinced him that he could “write narrative.”
It was a short jump from there to writing mysteries.
“I’ve always really, really been interested in mysteries,” he said. “I’m a voracious reader of these things.”
Burrows decided that birdwatching would be the thread that wove through his books, binding together the setting, plot and character.
“For me, character is the driver,” he said.
Burrows wanted his main protagonist, Detective Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune, to be a birdwatcher, but with a personality that would “push back a little bit against the stereotypes” of the birder as a loner, eccentric, and “a bit obsessive.”
Using a series of illustrations that had the audience laughing, Burrows assured them that while “stereotypes helped to form my character,” it was only to make sure that Jejeune was none of the above.
“I did try to make (the setting) Canadian, but Canada is so vast, and so diverse,” Burrows said.
Instead, he chose as his setting Norfolk, on the east coast of England near Cley next the Sea, creating the fictitious town of Saltmarsh as his setting – and made his detective a Canadian, working for the UK police.
His first book, A Siege of Bitterns, was published in 2014, and was written in the best “English Village murder mystery” tradition: a well-written story, packed with imagery and insight that was also a gripping who-dunnit.
Seige of Bitterns won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First novel.
Burrows has since written four more books: A Pitying of Doves, A Cast of Falcons, A Shimmer of Hummingbirds – set in Colombia and the UK - and his latest, A Tiding of Magpies.
A sixth book, A Dance of Cranes, is due out this June.
Although the books are written sequentially, “they are all standalone books,” Burrows said, and although they have sparked an interest in birding, they are definitely not written for birders alone.
Burrows was peppered with questions from the audience that ranged from birdwatching, to tips on writing.
His best advice? “Just write,” even if 80 to 90 per cent of what is written ends up being thrown out. “You can’t edit unless you write.”
He was also asked about his current birdwatching. Ironically, between a full-time job as academic manager of a college in Toronto and his writing, he’s had little time for birding, he said.
The evening included a reading from A Shimmer of Hummingbirds, and a book-signing, with all five of his current novels flying off the table.