Nancy Martin | An American Downton Abbey

Yes, I love Downton Abbey and wait with bated breath for the new season. (The last??—Say it ain’t so, Julian!) I long to hear Lady Violet’s newest putdown. I can’t wait to see what Lady Mary wears. I want the camera to linger in those beautiful rooms of Highclere Castle to see if there’s been any new decorating. And will Lady Edith’s karma continue to wreak havoc with her love life? Will Lord Grantham make one stupid investment too many so that Cora kicks him out at last?

Like most Americans, I know perfectly well that all the archaic good manners and sometimes shocking class distinctions are sadly out of sync with today’s real world . . . but I can’t help myself. The outdated social customs and attitudes--the Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous--fascinate me. What’s more delicious than rich people behaving badly?

Which was some of the original thinking behind my creating the Blackbird Sisters mystery series. The idea that an Old Money family has fallen on hard times--but continues to believe in concepts like ancestral honor and noblesse oblige even when the chips are down--has probably buzzed around in my head since I was a young child and first saw that the Disney version of that Mark Twain story about the switched princes. Or maybe it started when I was ten and saw the movie Roman Holiday, with Audrey Hepburn. But the idea of a mystery series set in such a world all came together in my head when I heard my mother—who’s loaded, if I may speak frankly---began wondering what she’d do with all the money if she won the newly established lottery. Back then, everybody in Pennsylvania was talking about what they’d do if they suddenly got rich. Even the rich! So why not write a book about such characters?

Nora Blackbird and her sisters were born. The three of them grew up in the lap of luxury, but their parents fell on hard times and ran off to South America where they compete in ballroom dance competitions—after first stealing their children’s trust funds to finance their adventures. Finding themselves in reduced circumstances, the Blackbird sisters must get jobs for the first time in their lives. Pass the smelling salts!

Nora Blackbird lands a position as a society columnist for a Philadelphia newspaper, and she starts attending parties for a living. She goes to sumptuous banquets at stately homes, drinks martinis with wily aristocrats, and attends lavish galas where scads of money is raised for philanthropic causes.

Trouble is, behind the velvet rope, high society has always had a trace of crime. Where there’s big money involved, the morally slippery will stop at nothing to get what they want. So while Nora is covering the social scene, she’s constantly stumbling across dead bodies. And only she understands her social class intimately enough to solve the murders.

The thing about Downton Abbey that appeals to us even more than the clothes, the silver, the horses, the manners? The characters may have more advantages than the 99%, but they still suffer the same highs and lows of emotion we do. Their troubles are just as engaging, their laughter just as enjoyable. They may have farther to fall than the rest of us, but that makes their woes just a tad more suspenseful, doesn’t it?

If you’d like to see how I imagine Nora’s blue blood world, here’s a Pinterest board that outlines A Day in the Life of Nora Blackbird.

Meanwhile, the tenth Blackbird Sisters mystery has been published in paperback this week. If you’d like an autographed copy, contact Mystery Lovers Bookshop, and I’ll be sure to personalize a book for you.

About Nancy Martin

Nancy Martin is the author of nearly fifty popular fiction novels. She comes from a distinguished Pennsylvania family. Try her award-winning, best-selling Blackbird Sisters Mysteries or her Roxy Abruzzo Mysteries. Stay tuned for her next release, MISS RUFFLES INHERITS EVERYTHING, coming in November.

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About A LITTLE NIGHT MURDER

Nora Blackbird gets the scoop as she turns the spotlight on a killer in the latest from the author of Little Black Book of Murder....

While a pregnant Nora relaxes in her best friend’s Bucks County pool, she doesn’t have far to look for her next big story. A Broadway show is in rehearsal next door at the home of the legendary late composer “Toodles” Tuttle. His diva widow, Boom Boom, reigns over his estate with an iron fist. She has also racked up a chorus line of enemies, so the old broad’s death is a hotly anticipated event. But imagine everyone’s dismay when it’s her beloved daughter, Jenny, who drops dead just as the lights are set to go on for the lucrative new Toodles musical.

Eager to investigate, Nora must first deal with the dramatic interludes of her sisters’ love lives and also keep her cool during a visit from her mobster boyfriend’s mother. Only then can she finally bring the curtain down on a daring killer...