Mystery author Phyllis Gobbell chats with me today about her new amateur sleuth novel, Notorious in Nashville.
Bio:
Phyllis Gobbell writes a little bit of everything—mysteries, true crimes, short stories, and creative nonfiction. Her recent release is fourth in the Jordan Mayfair mystery series, Notorious in Nashville.
Her award-winning stories have appeared in 2 Bridges Review, Bellevue Review, Zone 3, Well Read Magazine, Red Mud Review, Coastal Shelf, Tetrahedra, and HomeWorks. She received Tennessee’s Individual Artist Award for Literature. Treachery in Tuscany, the third book in her mystery series, won a Silver Falchion Award for Best Cozy Mystery.
Other books in the series are Pursuit in Provence, Secrets and Shamrocks, and now Notorious in Nashville, which was released October 2023.
Before she began her mystery series, Gobbell co-authored two true crimes, An Unfinished Canvas and Season of Darkness, based on two high-profile murders that have become part of Nashville’s history.
An English professor for twenty years, she served on the faculty at Nashville State Community College, where she taught composition, literature, and creative writing and edited the college’s literary journal. Recently she has taught creative writing in Lipscomb University’s Lifelong Learning Program.
Welcome, Phyllis, please tell us about your current release.
Notorious in Nashville is the latest in my Jordan Mayfair Mystery Series. The mystery is set in Nashville, where old and new collide. Amateur sleuth Jordan Mayfair tries to save a historic building from a crooked developer’s bulldozers, discover what happened to songs a washed-up drunk named Notorious wrote, and solve a young truth-teller’s murder, but her greatest challenge comes when her daughter is kidnapped, and Jordan has only hours to find her.
What inspired you to write this book?
Three Jordan Mayfair mysteries were set in Provence, Ireland, and Italy. I had experience traveling in those locales. I had not decided where to set my fourth when COVID came along, and it was clear I wouldn’t be traveling anywhere soon! So I set the fourth mystery in Nashville, where I have lived all my adult life, a long time! Besides my desire to craft a good mystery, I wanted to say some things about Nashville that are important to me. The collision of Old Nashville and New Nashville is something every resident here is aware of. There must be a murder, of course, and who is a more likely candidate than the young truth-telling reporter who believes the city has compromised its values in deals with greedy, corrupt developers.
Excerpt from Notorious in Nashville:
From Chapter 1
A hush hovered over the room.
Her voice. What was it about that voice? The way it came from something deep inside. Longing. Regret. Old pain for what was lost. Etched in a fresh face. How could a twenty-five-year-old possibly know all of it? But you believed she did when you heard her sing.
I’ve never been a fan of country music. Never followed country music, except for summer visits with my grandparents in south Georgia, when the radio was always tuned to the big clear channel, WSM, out of Nashville. Hearing a classic like Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You can still take me back to that simpler, sweeter time.
After those long ago summers, I didn’t pay much attention to country music.
But Willow Goodheart’s voice grabbed me, pulled me into what she was feeling, made me hold my breath.
The first chill of fall in the air
The smell of wood smoke in your hair . . .
The lyrics, unpretentious but elegant, and the hymn-like melody with a hint of blues. Her quiet rhythmic picking on the acoustic guitar. All of it. And the voice.
Not like any country song I’d ever heard.
Your heart’s first small crack
The part that you never get back . . .
The haunting verse climbed into the chorus that rang with raw honesty, with the resonance of an old soul.
There are things that will vanish,
But they don’t fade away.
Then, as Willow held the audience under her spell, another voice boomed from behind us. “That’s my song, Missy!”
A disheveled man, weathered face, wiry beard, staggered from the bar at the opposite end of the room from the stage. “Mine! You stole my song!” He lurched forward, heading toward the stage, stumbling into a table of four women. Their drinks spilled. The women shrieked.
“It’s mine!” he kept yelling.
Willow went silent in the middle of a line. The stillness in the room turned into a roar of disgruntled chatter. Several men, including Kyle, my daughter’s significant other, jumped up, but before they could rush to rescue the women, a linebacker-type from the bar swung a huge arm around the man’s skinny neck. And then, grasping his scrawny arm and gray scraggly ponytail, swept him out the door.
“Stupid drunk,” Kyle said, under his breath. He sat down and reached for his beer.
“Who is that?” Holly whispered.
“He’s Notorious.” Kyle took a long pull from the bottle.
“Notorious for what?” I asked.
“For drinking like a camel, it would seem,” Alex said.
“Delbert Haskins. Singer, songwriter. He was almost somebody once.” Kyle shook his head. “His stage name was Notorious.”
What exciting project are you working on next?
Prodigal will be released October 2024 (not part of this mystery series). A Southern novel that echoes an ancient Biblical story, Prodigal is about a young man trying to come home to face his cowardice at a shooting, ten years earlier, and confronting family secrets that require struggle and sacrifice in order to find forgiveness and redemption. This one is in pre-production.
Now I am working on another Southern novel, The Princess of Almost Alabama, that takes place in a small town much like the one in which I grew up. I am just getting started but am over-the-moon excited about this one!
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I’ve been writing since I was in sixth grade, when I attempted a novel. (Terrible!) I earned my degree in education and have been teaching off and on until two years ago. I suppose I dared to call myself a writer after I was first published, at about age 30. When I co-wrote a true crime about a Nashville murder and the book was the most successful of anything I’d written, I think that was the time that I started taking myself seriously and saying, “I’m a writer.”
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
Because I wrote whenever I could steal a few minutes, all the years I was teaching, I never developed a strict schedule for writing. Early morning, late at night, sometimes all day, I still fit writing into the whole fabric of my life. The things I do and people in my life when I’m not writing are what provide grist for the mill. I play tennis, play piano, and am much involved in the lives of my family, two daughters and their husbands and children. I am an active participant in a writers group that meets every Tuesday night, and we have done so for many, many years!
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I have never thought I was interesting! It might be of interest to some aspiring writers, however, to know that before I ever type the first line of a novel, I have already filled a composition notebook with handwritten notes about what my plans are. Not an outline, but thoughts as the muse comes to me about names, character sketches, scenes, themes I hope will come out of the story, and sometimes just lines that I want to include, something wise or witty. It’s all part of getting a story in my head.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
In my small town, a woman could be a secretary, nurse, or teacher. I loved school, so it was teacher for me! I also loved writing but never imagined I could do anything with it but entertain myself. So it took years for me to believe that I could be a writer and still be the teacher that I was.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
My email is pgobbell@bellsouth.net, and I love to hear from readers!
Phyllis, I need to add your Jordan Mayfair series to my TBR pile!