Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret is the Newest Addition to Teresa Trent’s

Swinging Sixties Mystery Series

Welcome, Teresa. We’d love to hear your thoughts on your Swinging Sixties Mystery Series.

Part of the fun of writing books that took place in the Sixties is the research. I think different writers have different methods of research, but mine is pretty organic.

For example: My main character Dot is a secretary, and I might write a scene where she begrudgingly gets coffee for her boss. She walks over to the coffee maker….screech….stop. There were no Coffee Makers in the early sixties. There were coffee pots and percolators. Next thing I know, I find myself looking at pictures of percolators and recalling my own mother filling the metal basket with the long silver pole on the bottom. I even recall the sound of the coffee perking. Good to the last drop.

So many things were different back then. Three network channels, hamburger that had to thaw on the counter because there were no microwaves…or slow cookers. Kids played board games or went (dare I say it) outside to play games generating around their own imaginations.

All of this is a part of Dot’s world. Each book that I’ve written in The Swinging Sixties Series have had their own path in research. In Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret, I spent a lot of time listening to music from the year 1964 and trying to create a radio station in a small town.  I went into it basing most of my knowledge on watching WKRP in Cincinnati, a sitcom from the 1980s. When I found a retired DJ in my church congregation, I overwhelmed him with questions, not only in general but things going on in the scenes to make them more realistic.

In the first book in the series, The Twist and Shout Murder, Dot is in secretarial school and spends time around her father, a clerk in the courthouse. This was easy for me because I attended secretarial school (and yes, I hated making coffee for the boss) and my father was a bailiff in a small courthouse and played poker with clerk of court at lunch time. I knew about the environment and the relationships with the lawyers who frequented the court.

In the second book, If I Had a Hammer, Dot works for a contractor. That was pretty easy too, because we have family connections for that. Construction equipment during that time was not able to do what it can today, so for the demolition of the rental houses, it was more knocking it down than scooping it up.

All the book titles come out of the top ten list of hit songs for each year. Which means, yes, I pick the title and then write the story.

What was the hit song the year and month you were born? The week I was born, The Drifters were sailing along with “Save the Last Dance for Me.”

In the news, my birth month included the Kennedy/Nixon debates. Pretty appropriate, seeing as I used to judge debates.

How about you, Jackie?

On the day I was born, February 15, 1961, “Calcutta” was the number one song in the United States. However, in the UK, the number one song was “Are You Lonesome Tonight” by Elvis Presley, which is way cooler in my opinion.

In the news, John F. Kennedy was president in 1961, and the Peace Corps was established.

I appreciate the opportunity to talk about my new mystery, Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret. Every character Dot meets has a secret, but can you figure out which one includes murder?

Here is a little more about the book.

Everyone has a secret, and in 1964, Dot Morgan’s new job at KDUD Radio is filled with them. Her boss, Holden Ramsey, is a terrible flirt, but he’s also engaged to a beautiful socialite. When Dot finds out he’s hiding involvements with other women, the hidden facts lead to a grisly murder. Can Dot figure out who is murdering the women in Holden’s life before she finds herself next on the hit parade?   

Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret is available on Amazon.

Teresa, it’s been fun having you on the blog. Thanks for your time, and congratulations on Do You Want to Know a Secret!