Murders in the farmlands

I'm a big fan of mystery novels, especially ones set in Vermont. For decades, Brattleboro author Archer Mayor produced a new entry in his Joe Gunther series annually, delving into some sordid part of the state's culture for a thrilling adventure. These books were incredibly influential for me, and I was bummed to hear that he was taking a break to focus on his other career as a Death Investigator for the Windham County Sheriff's Department in southern Vermont.

So I was excited when I learned that local author Sarah Stewart Taylor was focusing on Vermont in latest novel: Agony Hill. Set in the fictional town of Bethany, Vermont in 1965, it's the first installment of a new series following Vermont State Police Detective Franklin Warren. He's transferred to Vermont from Boston just in time to be called to an investigation: a farmer is killed in a barn fire, and it quickly becomes apparent that the situation is more than just an accident. 

It's a fun, breezy read: Taylor draws on real incidents in Vermont's history, such as the counter-culture movement that sprang up during the Vietnam War, Romaine Tenney's suicide after his farm was taken over by the state to construct I-91, and the ways that the state was changing during that time period, all wrapped up into a mystery with some interesting and eccentric characters.

In the acknowledgements, Taylor thanked the organization I work for, the Vermont Historical Society, noting that she spent a considerable amount of time conducting research for the book. So, I reached out to her to chat a bit about how she used our resources and how she wrote the book to bring Vermont's past to life. 

This interview ran in VHS's bi-weekly newsletter History Happenings, which you can sign up for here.

First off, can you introduce yourself to our readers?

I live in Hartland with my family and I've been writing crime novels for twenty years now. I've also worked as a journalist and writing teacher, among other things. My first series was set in New England (including Vermont) and featured an art historian who specializes in gravestone and funerary art.

Even though the novels had a contemporary setting, they frequently looked to the past and featured old mysteries surfacing in the present, so I think that was when I got the historical mystery bug. I wrote middle grade novels for a bit and then in 2020, I published the first novel in my Maggie D'arcy series, about an American homicide detective in Ireland. And now, I've launched a new series set in Vermont, with Agony Hill.

You set Agony Hill in the summer of 1965 in the fictional Vermont town of Bethany. What prompted you to write a historical mystery?

I love historical mysteries and the way they take a familiar literary structure and set it at some point in the past. It's such a great way to learn about a different era of history. I think I saw it as a challenge too. After writing contemporary mysteries, I relished writing a crime novel in which no one has cell phones or doorbell cameras or geolocation. My characters have to rely on more basic forensic science, their interview and observation skills, and good old intuition. 

Vermont of 1965 was a period of transition, and you not only include some back-to-the-landers that were part of the counterculture movement, but also the ongoing work for the interstate highway system: what attracted you to those parts of Vermont’s history?

Living here in the Upper Valley and serving as a school board member and library board member, struck me how many of the thorny issues we're dealing with right now in Vermont really resonate with what was going on here in the 1960s. Things were shifting so monumentally during that time, from the construction of the interstates, changes in farming, industry and land use, and a wave of school consolidations to Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement and the rise of communes and arrival of new Vermont residents.

I loved the idea of exploring this period through the lives of people in one small town and setting mysteries in this familiar but also dynamic and evolving place. 

In your acknowledgements, you talk a bit about the research that went into getting the setting right: what type of work goes into recreating the past in this sort of book?

I did research on a few different fronts in order to immerse myself in the time period and get the details of mid-1960s Vermont right. The first — and my most favorite — mode of research was talking to people who remember this time period in Vermont and the Upper Valley. I had so much fun hearing stories and firsthand accounts.

I also did a lot of research in newspaper archives. Beyond current events and inspiration for plotlines, I found so many wonderful details in the pages of the many daily and weekly newspapers that were thriving here in Vermont in the mid-60s.  National news, television schedules, social columns, advertisements for clothes and turkey and cars — reading newspapers all the way through gave me so much specific information about what people's lives were like.

I also found the various resources of the Vermont Historical Society incredibly useful. A number of my ideas for the series and the kinds of historical events I plan to take on across what I hope will be many novels were sparked while strolling through the museum. The digital resources, archives and online exhibits provided lots of inspiration and I hope to do some research in the library for my next book.

Finally, another of my favorite ways of researching Agony Hill was studying vintage community cookbooks from the 1950s and 60s. I have quite a large collection now and I've loved learning about the daily lives of home cooks from this period, the ingredients they used, and the food they made for daily meals and for special occasions.  

What do you hope readers of this book will take away from this historical perspective of the state?

First and foremost, I hope readers will enjoy the mystery and getting to know my characters. But I also hope that they'll see some of the parallels between this period of history and our current one. Doing a deep dive into the issues people were thinking about and talking about in 1965 made me think a lot about the areas in which we've made progress and the areas in which we still have a long way to go. Most of all, I hope readers will fall in love with Bethany (though it's a fictional place) and the people who live there.