Today I will try to tempt you with a guest post!

Synopsis

Former New York darling turned amateur sleuth Madeline Vaughn-Alwin is once again thrown into a colourful yet deadly web of secrets, lies and soirees to die for!

It’s the week of Fiesta in Santa Fe and Maddie is looking forward to enjoying the celebrations. But as ‘Old Man Gloom’ Zozobra goes up in flames, so too do Maddie’s hopes for a carefree life . . . Human remains are found in the dying embers of Zozobra, and then Maddie and her dashing beau Dr David Cole find a body washed up in the arroyo at the edge of town.

Soon identified as Ricardo Montoya, a wealthy businessman and head of one of the most affluent families in Santa Fe . . . the plot starts to thicken. While his beautiful wife Catalina and her complicated children seem less than heartbroken at his untimely demise, and with many disgruntled locals crawling out of the woodwork, Maddie is surrounded by suspects.

With the celebrations of Fiesta continuing around them, Maddie and her ‘Detection Posse’ get busy infiltrating the best parties and hobnobbing with old and new faces – but can they bring the murderer to justice before they strike again?

Guest Post

I’m so excited to be back in Maddie’s world of 1920s Santa Fe for the third book in this series!Though I live here, and so much of what she loved in this place is still what I love (the weather, the art, the food!), there’s a lot that has changed, too.  And that’s true of Fiesta, a week of remembrance and celebration that has changed and evolved over the years, but which is still here.  (My dogs love the Desfile de los Ninos, or Pet Parade as it’s also known, where children and their dogs/cats/guinea pigs/whatever they have, put on a colorful and joyous parade!)

Fiesta has its origins in 1692, when the Spanish who were driven out by the Pueblo Revolt twelve years before, returned, led by Don Diego de Vargas.  In 1712, the Spanish governor of the province proclaimed a religious commemoration of those events, where there were Masses, processions, and family dinners.  This didn’t change for many years, and in fact had much lapsed by the 1760s.

In 1912, the Chamber of Commerce thought Fiesta ready for a revival—as a commercial scheme.  They organized events that often didn’t have much to do with New Mexico, and charged entry fees which shut out many locals and was meant to draw more tourists to the new state.  In the 1920s, a group of artists, led by Will Shuster, protested this and organized their own “El Pasatiempo,” complete with many of the events we have now—parades, dances, and especially Zozobra!  (There are still traditional events, as well, such a Novenas and Masses, and the procession of La Conquistadora, a wooden figure of The Virgin Mary brought to Santa Fe in 1692 and now housed in the Cathedral).

Will Shuster was one of the great characters of Santa Fe in the twentieth century!  Born in Pennsylvania in 1893, he came to New Mexico with his wife in 1920 for his health (he was gassed in World War I) and to pursue his dreams of being an artist.  His natural gregariousness and creativity made him a leader, especially among a group who lived near him called Los Cinco Pintores (or “five little nuts in five mud huts,” as some wags called them!).  He was constantly throwing parties, organizing events, getting into scrapes.  One of his most enduring parties is Zozobra, or “Old Man Gloom.”  Made of wool, wire, and cotton cloth, he now reaches 50 feet high and his burning is attended by around 70,000 people, who crowd into a park to contribute their “glooms” (anxieties or bad events, written on slips of paper to be packed in and around the giant marionette).  In 1924, Zozobra was only about 6 feet high, a puppet in Shuster’s garden to amuse his artist friends.  As far as I know, there were no body parts found in the ashes that year!  By 1926, he realized it was a popular thing and moved to a park for others to see.  On Shuster’s death in 1969, he left the rights to Zozobra’s party to the Kiwanis Club, and it’s run every year as a charitable fundraiser (and gloom-burner).

 

A few sources I’ve found very helpful are:

• Joseph Dispenza and Louise Turner  Will Shuster: A Santa Fe Legend (1989)

• Edna Robertson  Los Cinco Pintores  (1975)

• Jennifer Owings Dewey, Zozobra: The Story of Old Man Gloom

• Gregor Stark and E. Catherine Rayne, El Delirio: The Santa Fe World of Elizabeth White (1998)

• Stacia Lewandowski, Light, Landscape, and the Creative Quest: Early Artists of Santa Fe (2011)

• Van Deren Coke, Taos and Santa Fe: The Artists’ Environment 1882-1942 (1963)

• Edna Robertson, Artists of the Canyons and Caminos (2006, reprint)