1840s Senegal seems worlds apart from my current home in Brittany. While writing this book, I could not be further estranged from Victorian England where I set the first Maurice Leroux detective novel, Calista.
This story takes place two years earlier than Calista. It is 1846 and Inspector Maurice Leroux finds himself on Gorée Island alongside my ancestor, Lieutenant Leopold Candeau who will be his Watson during the investigation.
Nothing pleases me more than assembling puzzles and breathing life into historical figures: Gorée's métis mayor, Armand Laporte; his daughter, the signare Constance Laporte; her husband, the Bordeaux entrepreneur Hilaire Maurel; the famous signare Anna Colas Pépin (who inherited THE house you might have heard of whenever you read about Gorée); and glimpses of one of Senegal's first catholic priests, Abbé Boilat from whom we have acquired many illustrations from this period.
Yet I am most enthralled by my lead signare, Angélique Aussenac. The lady on the cover. She is already one of my favorite characters EVER!
For months now, I have been researching my birth country's history, its people, their beliefs and that fascinating period existing between the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1817 (soon after the Congress of Vienna) and France's abolition of slavery in 1848. It is a period of shifting mentalities, of moral and economic reckoning, a period that would forever change the pulse and purpose of Gorée Island.
I have spoken so little about this novel and its premise because it is still my secret place. I will try to add to this post over time.
There is a trailer on Youtube for now.
The rest I guard it close to my chest.
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