Book Title: AN UNQUIET PEACE
Character Name: Evelyn Bishop
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
Amazing. My family was the best. I lost my mom when I was young, but my father Logan and brother Matthew rallied around me. We really loved each other. I think Dad and Matthew didn’t really know what to do with a girl, so they just included me in everything. I got wrenches, not dolls. Instead of card games or puzzles, I got an engine to rebuild. It’s their fault I grew up as a tomboy, so my father has only himself to blame for what happened at that debutant ball. It’s possible I didn’t tell Nick the full story about why Sally Whitehall hates me with the fire of a thousand suns. And I never will. Some secrets go to the grave.
Matthew and I always had each other’s backs. I really miss him.
What was your greatest talent?
Annoying the heck out of people. Somehow, they don’t find me nearly as funny as I actually am. Which is their loss. Just ask Captain Wharton. Really, though, my secret power is making people feel comfortable enough to open up to me. It’s an honor that they trust me with their secrets, and I don’t take that lightly.
Significant other?
Nick Gallagher. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I want to throw him out an open airplane door. Which I have done, once. But he really deserved it. Most days, though, I feel like he’s the one person who truly understands me. Without him, I don’t think I’d be here today. He kept me alive during the war.
Biggest challenge in relationships?
The idea of marriage is terrifying. Society dictates that you no longer have your freedom, your own money, or even the right to make choices for your own body. Somehow, it all becomes a husband’s possession in the eyes of the law. Even if you’re with the world’s best, kindness, most respectful man, society relegates you into the background. You become Mrs. Husband’s Name. I’m quite fond of being a Bishop. It’s been my name for the last couple of decades, and I don’t think I’d be the same person without it. Plus, it seems like a lot of effort to change it and I’m very busy right now.
Where do you live?
At work. It’s hard getting up to speed with taking over one of the country’s largest airplane companies. The hours are insane, and I’ve been traveling so often. Plus, this new issue with Berlin, which is the last thing I need while trying to get approval to build my factory expansion. Some days, I almost cry when I see my bed because I’m so happy to get some sleep - Oh, wait, you meant an actual location? Los Angeles.
Do you have any enemies?
…You know, it’s not 100% my fault that people keep trying to kill me.
How do you feel about the place where you are now? Is there something you are particularly attached to, or particularly repelled by, in this place?
Los Angeles is home. I was born here, I went to school here… though I do think the person I am now was formed in Europe during my time in the OSS. All the social niceties I was told were essential didn’t seem to matter when someone was shooting at me. I’ll admit, it was hard coming home and trying to fit into the role of the person I was before. I’d seen too much. Done too much. I guess instead of trying to shape myself back into Los Angeles, I found a way to shape Los Angeles to me. It doesn’t always fit comfortably, but I’m guessing no one’s life is perfect.
Do you have children, pets, both, or neither?
Love dogs, but I’m never around to walk them. Plus, the shedding thing. I’m very uncertain about cats. Kids are fine… so long as you never want to sleep in again. Or have nice things. Or wear white... Kids aren’t a definite no, but a definite “not right now”.
What do you do for a living?
I’m the president of Bishop Aeronautics. With just a teeny, tiny smidgeon of spy work. Though technically, they stopped paying me for that a long time ago.
Greatest disappointment?
My father. I still love him. Growing up, he was my hero. I believed he could hold the whole world together because he had done that for me when mine fell apart. I looked up to him and respected him with a blind faith. Now? After everything he’s done…? It feels like the truth taints all my memories and it breaks my heart to think of him.
Greatest source of joy?
Nick and flying. My father taught me how long before I could drive. There’s something about that moment when the tires leave the runway and you’re airborne. It feels like freedom. You could go anywhere and be anyone. In the sky, anything is possible.
What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun?
Wait, that sounds like something that involves free time. I’m currently trying to remember what that is. I have this fantasy about sleeping late, having coffee with Nick, then spending the day reading a book or taking a walk. Something that’s just the two of us, together.
What is your greatest personal failing, in your view?
I’m perfect. Obviously.
…I can’t even say that with a straight face. Really, though, I’m selfish. Not in huge, wreck the world kind of ways, but in small, petty ways. If I don’t want to do something, I’ll say no, even if it’s important to someone I love. I sometimes forget plans and stand people up. I’m blunt, to the point of accidentally hurting a person’s feelings. I don’t always think through my words before I say them.
What keeps you awake at night?
The thought that the USSR and American won’t be able to get their acts together and learn how to co-exist. Each one is always talking about the size of their… weapons. The last thing this world needs is a new war.
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
My assistant, Ruth, is abandoning me to spend time with her grandchildren. The woman barely looks forty! She promised to find her replacement, but all these men, fresh out of college, wearing their Harvard tie like it means something, think they know my business better than me. Unfortunately, most the women I meet are people pleasers. When did we, as a society, decide that is a good skill to instill in girls? (Don’t answer that, it’s only going to depress me.) I need someone who can say no, kindly, firmly, and, if needed, with the fierceness of a fire-breathing dragon.
Is there something that you need or want that you don’t have? For yourself or for someone important to you?
I have been so lucky in my life, that to ask for more seems silly. Besides, the things I want are impossible, like having my mother and brother somehow be alive.
What I want most for Nick is for him to have peace with his family. They abandoned him when he was twelve and I can’t imagine how difficult that was for him. I wish that when he was growing up, someone had told him that he is worthy of being loved. I can say it until I’m blue in the face, but it’s something that should be ingrained in your soul at an early age. I know his parents won’t say it, but maybe if one of his older brothers or his sister told him that they looked for him when they grew up. Or even just that they missed him when he was left behind. It might let him believe that even as a child, he had value and he deserved kindness.
Why don’t you have it? What is in the way?
Not that I can blame him, but Nick doesn’t like to discuss his past. He gets downright prickly. There are days I want to go behind his back and find his siblings anyway, but he has a right to his own decisions. Still… unanswered questions drive me crazy and I hate not knowing more about them and who Nick was before I met him. Maybe one day I’ll have the chance to find out.
Bishop & Gallagher #2
A Mystery
Mr. and Mrs. Smith meets Code Name Verity in this propulsive, quick-witted mystery set in late-1940s Los Angeles, as former WWII spy Evelyn Bishop and LA noir detective Nick Gallagher team up as an unconventional duo . . .
As an undercover operative for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, Evelyn Bishop routinely embarked on deadly missions. By contrast, civilian life should be simple. Yet Evelyn, now back in Los Angeles, struggles with the responsibility of being the new president of Bishop Aeronautics, when people see her as nothing more than a beautiful socialite.
With Nick Gallagher, at least, Evelyn can be entirely herself. Once a fellow spy, now her fiancé, Nick works as a private investigator. But the mission that first brought them together is not entirely over. Evelyn receives a call from her former commanding officer, who is overseeing the Berlin Airlift. He is concerned that the Soviets are trying to recruit Kurt Vogel, a scientist Evelyn and Nick smuggled out of Nazi Germany. After six long years, there’s word his wife and daughter may have survived the war. Is this a chance for a long-promised reunion, or a Russian ploy to lure Vogel to their side?
Past and present collide again when a routine case offers Nick a reunion with a childhood friend who runs a high-class “gentleman’s club.” The clientele includes everyone from Hollywood royalty to mobsters—to a hidden enemy who will draw both Evelyn and Nick into a web as twisted and treacherous as any they have ever faced . . .
Mystery Historical [Kensington, On Sale: April 29, 2025, Hardcover / e-Book , ISBN: 9781496747822 / eISBN: 9781496747839]
Shaina Steinberg is the author of the Bishop & Gallagher Mysteries, as well as a film and television writer who’s worked on Malcolm in the Middle, Everwood, Cold Case, Bionic Woman and Spartacus. Named to the Young and Hungry List in 2013 and the WriteHer List in 2017, she has developed pitches, pilots and features with companies such as Temple Hill, Endgame Entertainment, Fremantle, eOne, Blondie Girl, Josephson Entertainment and Alcon. Most recently, she optioned a feature film to Balcony 9 with shooting scheduled to begin in 2023. She lives with her family in Los Angeles, CA
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