by Sarah Erwin

This week, we have a review of the debut mystery novel of Kemper Donovan, whom many of you may know through his wonderful podcast All About Agatha. Originally, I (your editor Lorie Lewis Ham) was going to review this book, but work on my own book got in the way, so I handed the job over to our very capable Sarah Erwin. I will be reviewing this one down the line on Instagram and Goodreads. I did have the joy of doing the interview, which was a lot of fun–I am a huge fan of Kemper’s podcast.
Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of the book and a link to purchase the book from Amazon.

The Busy Body by Kemper Donovan
Review by Sarah Erwin

Mystery writer and host of the Agatha Christie focused podcast, All About Agatha, Kemper Donovan presents readers with a true whodunit treat in his new novel, The Busy Body.

Our unnamed narrator is a ghostwriter who has been given the job of a lifetime–to ghostwrite the memoir of Dorothy Gibson. Dorothy is the fictional former Maine senator who ran as an Independent in a recent presidential election and lost. Political pundits believe her running divided the vote and caused the election to swing in favor of the more politically extreme candidate.

The ghostwriter moves into Dorothy’s rural home in Maine and follows Dorothy everywhere she goes, including to the local liquor store where they meet neighbor and supporter Vivian Davis. Only days later Dorothy is notified that Vivian has committed suicide. Dorothy and her entourage decide to attend the memorial service both out of sympathy and disbelief that the woman they had just met had killed herself. Once there, Dorothy becomes even more suspicious, and when she uses her influence to nudge the toxicology report along, the results reveal that the cause of death was in fact murder.

Dorothy is determined to solve this murder, despite the inferior detective’s warnings for Dorothy to stay out of it. Our narrator is along for the ride with Dorothy, although Dorothy seems to be always one step ahead. When another murder occurs, Dorothy brings all the suspects together to reveal the true culprit.

This was such a clever mystery, both witty and mysterious. Dorothy, flaws and all, is such a likable sleuth that even though I, like our narrator, felt one step behind her at all times, I loved following along. Dorothy’s determination is contagious.

The narrator was also both funny and flawed and made for an excellent storyteller. I wasn’t sure whether to trust her or not and enjoyed the moments where a clue or person surprised her. There’s a little bit of romance between our narrator and Denny, one of Dorothy’s bodyguards, that sheds a little light onto the character of our narrator.

This story features clues galore and an assortment of suspects that kept me guessing to the end. And the ending truly is Christie-worthy. I did not see that coming. Agatha Christie fans and mystery lovers will enjoy this entertaining read.

Sarah Erwin started her career as a children’s librarian, later becoming a public library director and now she’s a stay at home mom. While her career might have changed, her love of reading has been a constant since 4th grade and she reads over 200 books a year. Read along with her on her blog Sarah Can’t Stop Reading or on Instagram. Sarah lives in St. Louis, MO with her two kids, her husband and a family dog and cat.

Interview with Kemper Donovan:

KRL: How long have you been writing?

Kemper: I started writing when I was about 30 years old. (That means I’ve been writing for well over ten years now; okay, fine, fourteen years!) I want to be clear that I did not write when I was a child, or in college, or even in my young adulthood. Writing was something I came to relatively late, though I was always an avid reader. (When I was starting to write, I’d get discouraged by the way so many professional writers talked about how they were basically born writing in the crib, and it made me feel hopeless about my own prospects…. So I’m happy to provide an alternate path here. Late bloomers unite!)

Kemper Donovan

KRL: When did your first novel come out, what was it called, and would you tell us a little about it?

Kemper: My first novel came out in 2016. It’s called The Decent Proposal and it’s a contemporary love story set in Los Angeles, about two people (a man and a woman) who are complete strangers to each other, and yet they’re summoned one day by a lawyer and told that some anonymous person wants to pay them to date each other…. As you can see, there is a lot of mystery and suspense in this setup, even though it’s not a proper mystery.

KRL: What brought you to choose the setting and characters in your latest book/series?

Kemper: I host a podcast called All About Agatha, which is all about the one and only Agatha Christie, who I think is the greatest mystery writer, and one of the greatest writers of all time, period. My intention in writing The Busy Body was to pay homage to Christie, and part of the way I did that was by creating a contemporary mystery with lots of humor in it, because that is what Christie did, anchoring her books to the time in which she wrote them, often with lots of lightness and flair. (She doesn’t get enough credit for this!) My book is set in the woods of Maine following a bruising Presidential election. My detective character is a female politician who lost the election, and I was partially inspired by the period in 2016 just after Hillary Clinton lost, when she holed up in her house and took long walks in the woods…. (Hillary Clinton was not my only inspiration for this character; there is a lot of the Republican Margaret Chase Smith in her, as well as other female politicians.) The narrator of the story is a ghostwriter who Dorothy has chosen to help her write her memoirs, now that she has some time on her hands, and these two women end up becoming embroiled in the death of one of Dorothy’s neighbors. The ghostwriter character is unnamed (this is partially a nod to the unnamed first-person narrator in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca), and I suppose the reason I chose these two as my dual protagonists is that they both fascinate me. I hope they have the same effect on readers.

KRL: Do you write to entertain or is there something more you want the readers to experience from your work?

Kemper: I don’t think entertainment and education have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, I think the best books are entertaining without being didactic, and that it’s only upon further reflection that their lessons come through to the reader. I’ll bring up Agatha Christie again, because I can’t help myself. Her books, which are set at various point in the Twentieth Century, have taught me so much about the social history of the time in which she lived—much more so than I ever could have learned from a history book.

KRL: Do you have a schedule for your writing or just work whenever you can?

Kemper: A little of both?! I try to write as much in the mornings as I possibly can, since I find my head is clearest then. But deadlines are helpful, because they force me to get the job done, no matter the time of day!

KRL: Do you outline? If not, do you have some other interesting way that you keep track of what’s going on, or what needs to happen in your book when you are writing it?

Kemper: I find that I must outline for a mystery, since the structure of a mystery is so crucial to its functioning. I did not outline my first book, which wasn’t a mystery, and I think I ended up writing it much more slowly than I would have with an outline. I like having an outline to refer to—even if I end up departing from it as I write (which I invariably do).

KRL: Did you find it difficult to get published in the beginning?

Kemper: Yes! It took me a long time to find my agent, and then two rounds of submissions before my manuscript found the right home. All in all, it was well over two years’ worth of waiting and hoping. It’s a marathon and a slog, punctuated by moments of joy and excitement….

KRL: Who are your writing heroes?

Kemper: Agatha Christie, obviously! She published 66 mystery novels in her lifetime, and well over two-thirds of them are excellent. That is an enviable track record, not to mention an enviable work ethic!

KRL: I am a huge fan of your podcast All About Agatha, can you tell us a little more about what it is and how it started? Also where people can listen to it?

Kemper: Back in 2016, my good friend Catherine Brobeck and I decided to start a podcast geeking out over Agatha Christie, since we were both such huge fans of hers. We came up with a ranking project as the backbone of the podcast, which involved assigning scores to various aspects of each of Christie’s novels, so that we could create a ranked grid of them as a way of comparing them in a robust way. Tragically, Catherine passed away at the end of 2021. I’ve continued the podcast on my own, and now that the ranking project is done, I interview other mystery authors and like-minded Christie obsessives, and continue to delight in Christie. There is always something new to discuss where Christie is concerned….

KRL: I love your podcast and it was so sad when Catherine passed. I am glad you continued it. What do you like to read, other than Agatha Christie, of course?

Kemper: Like Christie, I’m a big fan of Victorian literature, so I’m always dipping back into the likes of Dickens, James, Hardy, the Brontës, etc. I also love Austen (who is not Victorian, of course). And I read lots of other mystery authors besides Christie. Like everyone, I’ve been enjoying Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series, for instance. The last book I read was The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride, which you could *technically* call a murder mystery. In fact, I think it’s a great example of how expandable/pliable these genre categorizations truly are. The line between mystery and literary fiction can get pretty blurry!

KRL: What are your favorite TV shows or movies?

Kemper: Oof, this is hard. The true answer as to my favorite TV show is, perhaps surprisingly, Saturday Night Live, because it’s a show I’ve watched religiously since I was about 10 years old. It’s practically part of my identity. (Did I mention there’s a lot of humor in my mystery novel?) My favorite classic movie is Sunset Boulevard, and one of my very favorite movies from the modern era is Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility (swoon).

KRL: I love Sunset Boulevard! What is something people would be surprised to know about you?

Kemper: I play violin, but only started when I was in my late 30s! This was very foolish of me, as the violin is incredibly hard to pick up late in life. But I have fun playing it badly.

KRL: Is there anything you would like to add?

Kemper: These are great questions; I feel like I’ve probably said enough!

KRL: Thanks so much for chatting with us! Website? Twitter? Facebook? Instagram?

Kemper: kemperdonovan.com; twitter.com/allaboutthedame; facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095414958480; instagram.com/allaboutagatha

To enter to win a copy of The Busy Body, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “busy body” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen March 9, 2024. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via email please include your mailing address in case you win–we will delete it after the giveaway. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. Also listen to our new mystery podcast where mystery short stories and first chapters are read by actors! They are also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify. A new episode went up last week.

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