Cozy Mystery
Publisher: Cozy Cat Press
File Size: 528 KB
Print Length: 233 pages
ASIN: B00NDAAWIO
Synopsis
Nina Bannister loves to paint, and she thinks her hobby is painless enough. But she is wrong. Her love of doing seascapes leads to a friendship with a young ex docent from The Chicago Art Museum–and to their entry into the murky and dangerous world of international art smuggling.
Can she save her young friend, who has been kidnapped to the mountains of southern Austria? Can she determine the identity and motives of the mysterious Red Claw? Can she see the real painting that is hidden beneath the false one?
Her success in these matters–indeed her very survival–depend on her ability to perform a last ditch Frame Change!
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BLOG POST TWO
Graz Austria in Frame
Change
One thing your readers may want to know is that Nina goes to
Graz Austria to solve the mystery in Frame Change because we spent
several summers there. Graz is a
relatively unknown city in southern Austria—one noted travel book once stated,
“Graz rests content that the right people know of its existence.” We thought we
would share some of our memories about Graz and how they are linked to the
book.
Maybe we should start with the food. While the German menu
is somewhat limited, Austria takes its culinary world from the old Hapsburg
Empire, which included, of course, middle Europe and even parts of Italy. A
walk down the Sachstrasse can take one by Turkish, Czech and Hungarian
restaurants, as well as the wonderful Krebesenkeller, nestled beside a rock
mountain wall and offering the world’s most superb Wiener schnitzel. And of
course we cannot forget the wonderful Nachtigaller (Nightingale) white wine. In
summer, a farmers’ market is set up in the Hauptplatz (Main Square) and
dirndled Hausfrauen carry woven baskets to hold their purchases. Nina doesn’t eat out much in Graz, but we
first see Franz Beckmeier sitting at the Café Europa, looking out over the city
beneath, savoring a grossen brauner (big brown) coffee and planning how he is
to protect his cache of stolen paintings.
Nina and Michael stay at the Erzherzog Johann Hotel and a
significant scene happens there in the book. Joe stayed there for a few days
one winter. It’s an old hotel with a wonderful central staircase that leads to
a second floor walkway that looks down on the atrium. Each room possesses huge
down comforters to keep the guests warm, in spite of the large casement
windows.
It is a short walk from the hotel to the Hauptplaz and the
Landeszeughaus, where more than 250,000 Renaissance weapons and suits of armor
used in the great battles against the Turks in the 16th and 17th
centuries are stored. Technologically outdated now, they still stand ready if
needed. Franz Beckmeier and Michael have a meeting there.
Nina’s sojourn in Austria takes her to a secluded castle in
the hills in which Graz is nestled. The model for the Baroque palace in which
Beckmeier has assembled his store of paintings is really the Schloss Eggenberg,
an architectural jewel located on the outskirts of Graz. Carol Walker, the
young woman who comes to stay with Nina and ultimately involves her in this
shadowy world is held overnight in one of Eggenberg’s upper chambers. She is
astonished (as the modern visitor to Graz must be) by the vast Eggenberg dining
hall and by the magnificent chandelier which illuminates it. The castle has no
electricity and the chandelier must be lowered manually by a complex system of
ropes and pulleys so that hundreds of candles can be placed one by one in a
series of tiny holders to form an enormous glowing spaceship of light that
hovers above the evening’s guests.
The villages surrounding Graz are equally of interest. Joe
and T’Gracie traveled by train to one (as Nina travels to Moorbach) to visit an
ancient karn (ossuary) near a church. Resting at a nearby tavern, under an
immense cherry tree, they were surprised by the roar of the patrons through an
open window as Austria scored in a World Cup soccer game. Another day, a short
train ride took us to what was then the Yugoslavian border with Austria (though
Nina does not make this trip).
Nina saw all of this because T’Gracie and Joe saw it. What
we have been unable to convey is the feeling of stepping back in time, to a place
in which the “situation is hopeless but not serious,” the world of Emperor
Franz Joseph. His empire is gone, of course, destroyed in the violence of two
20th century world wars. Enough remains that Nina, T’Gracie and Joe
are able to step back into a dream-like realm which will never come again.
T’Gracie
wearing a dirndl
Graz City
Center
About These Authors
Pam (T’Gracie) Britton Reese is an Assistant Professor in the Communication Sciences and Disorders Department at Indiana-Purdue University at Fort Wayne. She has published books about autism with LinguiSystems. She enjoys teaching and research, but is never happier than when plotting (with her husband) a new murder, or coming up with ways that Nina Bannister can solve it.
Joe Reese is a novelist, playwright, storyteller, and college teacher. He has published seven novels, several plays, and a number of stories and articles. He and his wife, Pam have three children: Kate, Matthew and Sam.
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