Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson are the co-authors of the New York Times bestselling murder mystery series The Agathas about two girls, a seaside town, and a murder. Kathleen and Liz sat down to chat about book two in the series, The Night in Question, which releases on May 30th PLUS we have the first TWO chapters to share with you!
Liz: Hello, Kathleen. Might I say what an enormous pleasure and privilege it has been to write not one, but TWO books with you over the past few years.
Kathleen: I wish I could say the same! Just kidding. One thing that I loved about creating The Agathas series with you was the way we always ended up laughing, even when the story was tied in knots and we worked out our writerly differences by doing terrible things to the other’s character. Collaborative writing is definitely an art form and one that you have to hone and polish.
Liz: Every time you pushed Alice out of a tree house, I knew something was up. And yes, co-writing is absolutely an art form. But it also means you only have to write half the book… so it’s well worth it.
Kathleen: Let’s catch readers up. The first book, The Agathas, about two very messy girls solving the murder of the richest girl in town, was written in secret. You and I write solo books that are often quite sad and touch on difficult topics and when we first started musing about *maybe* writing something different, and together, it was originally just a project to keep us writing every day. Mystery seemed a natural fit, since you love Agatha Christie and I love true crime. We were also determined to make this story of two girls, a seaside town, and a bucket full of lies an adventure to read.
Liz: We also had to plant a few small threads about other mysteries in Castle Cove, in case we were lucky enough to get a sequel. Which we did! Book two opens on a stormy night at Levy Castle, during the annual Castle Cove High School Sadie Hawkins dance. Alice Ogilvie has decided to take this rare opportunity inside the Castle to explore the life of Mona Moody, who readers might remember as the Hollywood starlet who fell to her death from a balcony in the 1950s. During her hunt, she stumbles–
Kathleen: Remember how collaborative writing is an art form, Liz? I’m cutting you off here before you give too much away. This is why we agreed to keep our dual POV chapters short, because we both tend to ramble. This is also why we work well together and why we could create such a good friendship between Alice and Iris.
Liz: True, true. Their friendship is something that is truly at the heart of the series, and it’s been so lovely hearing how readers respond to it. I will say that writing the second book, on deadline, was a wee bit harder than writing the first in secret, wouldn’t you say?
Kathleen: Absolutely, in terms of growing the seeds we planted in the first book and then planting an entirely new, twisty, devious garden around them. We had to keep track of things old AND new, remember to let Alice and Iris’s friendship evolve in believable ways, let The Zoners move a bit more to the front, and also flesh out Mona Moody’s character, which was a lot of fun and involved researching Hollywood in the ‘40s and ‘50s.
Liz: I will say that I think the mystery in book two is even more intricate than the mystery in the first. It was complicated as hell to plan, but oh-so rewarding once we got it all down on the page. Just like book one, first we worked out the plot in our spreadsheet (google docs rule!), trying to get the general gist of what would happen down, and then we dove into the writing.
Kathleen: Yes. We traded chapters each day, tried to follow our intricate plot-map and made sure to be flexible story-wise, because sometimes in the midst of actually writing, you realize something isn’t working! We’ve gotten a lot of questions about what it’s like to co-write and I’d say the number one thing is being flexible. This isn’t one writer’s book; it belongs to two people and the story is shared. If you can’t do that, then I think cowriting is not for you. Also, cowriting is excellent because solo writing is often lonely; cowriting means chatting with someone else all the time about your absolutely bonkers and amazing mystery.
Liz: Things you will find in OUR amazing mystery, The Night In Question: 1950s Hollywood starlets, a road trip, mixed media, police transcripts, news reports, vintage diaries, more Levy Castle!, secret passages, a deadly dance, more Zoners, a maze, hints of romance…
Kathleen: And very, very bad people! Including some very bad elderly people. I tell you, Liz, old people…they keep a lot of secrets for years and years and years. Quite crafty. Also, I love how in The Agathas and in The Night in Question, you open each Alice chapter with a quote from an Agatha Christie book. I was so jealous you got to do that for The Agathas that I was determined to wedge myself into that somehow with The Night in Question, so….each Iris chapter opens with a quote from starlet Mona Moody. Take that, Liz!
Liz: Uber competitive as always, Kathleen. (Just kidding!) I do love your Mona Moody quotes, though, very much. And finding the Agatha Christie quotes was so much fun, I can see how you would be jealous of it. Much like book one, in book two Alice and Iris use tips and tricks from their dear friend Agatha Christie to solve the central myster…ies at hand. That’s right, in book two, the girls solve not one, not two, not three… but FOUR crimes.
Kathleen: There is crime-ing all over the place in The Night in Question and you know what? The best part of all this misbehavior is that we, in wrapping up this book, actually planted seeds that might….someday come to fruition in a book 3? Maybe? Someday? I might not be ready to let Alice and Iris go.
Liz: I really hope we get to revisit Castle Cove in the future. Alice and Iris forever! Everyone, go get caught up with The Agathas and then jump into The Night in Question! Out May 30, 2023! Available in a store near you (or online! Or at your local library! Also on audiobook! And ebook!)!
CHAPTER ONE
Alice Ogilvie
February 11, 2023
9:02 p.m.
“‘I’m not often bored,’ I assured her. ‘Life’s not long enough for that.’” —Agatha Christie, Murder in Mesopotamia
Brooke Donovan is staring at me from across the room.
She’s wearing the dress we picked out in LA freshman year, when her mom drove us down there to go shopping for prom. The two of us were the only freshman invited that year, much to the chagrin of Rebecca Kennedy.
She looks good, Brooke, fresh and happy, smiling and carefree.
I crumple a cocktail napkin into a tight little ball in my hand. Whoever decided to hang a giant portrait of her in here should be stabbed.
Tearing my eyes away from Brooke’s, I survey the ballroom. It’s filled with my classmates from Castle Cove High School, all in various stages of celebration, all here for the annual Sadie Hawkins Dance. To my left, a group of guys from the basketball team huddle together in a circle, not-so-slyly passing a silver flask between them. To my right, couples are basically dry humping on the dance floor.
I frown.
We’re at Levy Castle, for god’s sake. Some respect should be shown to its past. The site of elegant balls for almost a hundred years, a place where Old Hollywood used to come and play. Charles W. Levy would be rolling over in his grave if he knew what this room was being used for now.
As Brooke’s best friend, I grew up listening to all sorts of tales about Brooke’s great- grandfather. He spent millions of dollars building Levy Castle. It’s five stories and 60,000 square feet of opulence. And with eighteen bedrooms, three pools, two kitchens, and secret passages extending throughout, it basically put the tiny town of Castle Cove on the map. It was also where the film star Mona Moody lived for a few short years, until her untimely death on Castle grounds at the age of twenty.
Mona Moody, with her platinum blonde hair, baby blue eyes, and the husky, sexy voice that made her famous. After several years starring in popcorn flicks, she was all set to break out in her first serious film as the titular role in Jane Eyre, but tragically fell off the Castle’s side balcony just before filming started.
According to the internet, she and Charles Levy had a brief but super intense love affair, and he was so broken up by her death that eventually his own life collapsed around him: he lost everything he’d worked so hard for over the years when he was arrested for embezzlement and spent the rest of his days in prison.
Ever since I was little, I’ve been fascinated by Mona Moody’s life and death, and tonight is my chance to sneak upstairs to see her private quarters.
I turn to find Iris when raised voices pull my attention to the massive DJ booth Kennedy’s dad had built for the dance. According to her, it’s the only way DJ Porcini would agree to play tonight.
I pop up on my toes for a better look, and I’m entirely unsurprised to spot the very same Kennedy arguing with my other former friend Helen Park. They’re both wearing this season’s Natasha Matte off-the-shoulder satin gown in blue, the only difference being the obnoxiously expensive necklace around Kennedy’s neck.
I let out a sigh. This won’t end well. Ever since Brooke died last fall, the two of them can’t seem to hold it together to save their lives. Clearly, they forgot to consult with each other about what they were going to wear tonight. Which is, like, Dance Etiquette 101.
Through the crowd, I spot Ashley Henderson. She’s watching them, probably trying to figure out a way to interject herself into the drama. She thrives on this stuff; says it’s good for her craft, since she desperately wants to be an actress. Mostly, though, I think she’s just nosey. I never really meshed with Henderson, so it’s a relief not to have to pretend to be friends with her anymore. Which goes for all of my former friends, if I’m being perfectly honest.
“What’s going on up there?” Iris says, sidling up to me. “Want one?” She holds out a plastic cup of sparkling apple cider and I take it, noticing Spike at her back.
Iris is wearing a 1950’s vintage prom dress, a black blazer, and Chuck Taylors. I adore the dress, but the blazer and shoes . . . they’re cool and all, but not exactly right for a formal dance. I inhale a calming breath, reminding myself I’m not that person anymore. The one who judges everyone by the labels on their clothing. I’ve evolved.
“Park and Kennedy are at it again.” I say, taking a tiny sip from my cup.
Cole Fielding materializes in front of me. “What’s going on up there?” he asks, echoing Iris. From somewhere outside the castle, there’s a loud crack of thunder.
Spike immediately glances at Iris, who’s whispering into Cole’s ear. Spike’s face falls. “Park and Kennedy,” I repeat loudly. “They are arguing, yet again.”
“Brooke’s murd—. . . err . . .” Spike’s eyes dart to my face as he realizes what he’s saying. “Without Brooke around, they’ve really fallen apart, huh?” he finishes.
I shrug. Kennedy tried to pull me back into their little circle after Iris and I figured out who was responsible for Brooke’s death, but I wasn’t interested. I have no desire to be involved in mundane high school drama, and I have Iris. That’s enough. For now, at least.
“Do you think they’re fighting over—” Spike starts but a familiar voice interrupts him and my stomach, my most traitorous of organs, does a little dance.
“Blini with caviar?”
I turn. “Hello, Raf.”
“Hello, Alice.” He smiles.
“Hey, Raf,” Iris says, taking one of the blinis off the tray and examining it. “Um, what the hell is this thing?”
He shrugs. “Hell if I know. I just bring out what they tell me; I don’t ask questions.” He squints down at his tray. “I think it’s like . . . weird little eggs or something?”
I sigh. “It’s basically a pancake with caviar.” I take one and pop it in my mouth. “They’re delicious.”
Iris bites a nibble off a corner. “Oh, that is good,” she says and nudges Cole. “Grab one.” Cole does as instructed, and as soon as Iris turns away, he wraps it into his cocktail napkin and stuffs it into his back pocket.
“How’s work going?” Iris asks Raf. Since Raf helped Iris and I out with Brooke’s case last year, we’ve all become . . . well, I guess the best word for it is friends. It’s odd; I’ve never been friends with a boy before, not really, so I’m not sure what to do about it or how to act with him, although Iris doesn’t seem to have that same issue. They chat all the time, or at least that’s what it seems like to me. Not that I care.
What I do care about, maybe a little more than I should, is that he has a girlfriend, now, who just so happens to be Cole’s older sister. She works for Splendid Spread Catering part-time, and (according to Iris’s intel) got Raf this gig so he could make some extra cash for college since the Castle Cove Police Department barely pays their interns.
He smirks. “Fine. I’m pretty much invisible to most of the kids here. Which works for me. Really don’t need to get recognized from my high school days, you know?”
“Okay, break it up,” someone—a teacher?—yells over by Porcini’s booth. I sigh again. I suppose I should go help calm those two down. It’s what Brooke would have wanted, after all.
“Be right back,” I say, and push past Reed Gerber and Mason Jefferson, two of Steve’s old buddies from the basketball team, to make my way through the crowd.
When I reach the front of the throng I end up next to Henderson and Steve, who are standing next to each other, watching the scene. Henderson’s mouth is tilted up into a grin, but when she spots me, she quickly rearranges it into a frown. She’s so transparent it’s laughable.
Steve, on the other hand, looks petrified. “Alice,” he says when he notices me. “You’ve gotta do something. They’re at it again.”
I haven’t seen him in two months. After I got him out of jail, he dropped out of school and moved down to LA. He’s only back tonight to catch up with some of his old friends. I bet he’s regretting it now.
“Fine,” I say, irritated that it’s the first thing he’s said to me tonight. I turn at the same moment Park leaps at Kennedy. She grabs a clump of Kennedy’s hair in her hand and yanks her head back, hard.
“Ow!” Kennedy screeches, trying to twist out of Park’s grasp. “Get off me, you brat.”
Ms. Hollister, one of the teachers chaperoning the dance, hovers on the other side of Park and Kennedy wearing a horrified expression. Ever since the stuff came out about Coach and all his lady friends, Hollister and a few other teachers have been going above and beyond the call of duty, kissing Principal Brown’s ass.
A hand clutches my arm. Iris. “I’ll help you, Alice.”
I look over at Park and Kennedy, now wrestling on the floor. “I’d like that very much.” And together, we make our way toward my ex-friends—the Mains.
CHAPTER TWO
Iris
February 11
9:14 p.m.
“All a girl wants is to put on a pretty dress and dance for a few hours. Is that too much to ask?” – Mona Moody, Matched Set, 1947
Alice and I manage to extricate Park and Kennedy, though not without difficulty. Park is quite flexible and keeps slipping from my grasp, though I’m finally able to subdue her by wrapping her in a bear hug just as Alice is able to yank Kennedy backward.
The instant the fight stops, a disappointed “Aww, no, they were gonna kiss!” rises up from the crowd. Of course, it’s from the boys because it’s typical (and boring) that when girls fight, all guys can do is stand there hoping at any moment it’s going to turn sexy.
Alice smooths her hair and glares at Park and Kennedy. Kennedy is inspecting her nails. “Jesus, Park, I spent fifteen hundred dollars on this,” Kennedy pouts. “What’s your problem, anyway?”
Park is huffing, trying to scoop her disheveled hair out of her face and straighten the neckline of her dress. She’s wearing a lacy pink strapless bra with tiny, embroidered hearts, which I find oddly endearing.
“I specifically told you I was going to wear this dress! I sent you pics! And you copied me, anyway! God, sometimes I wish you’d just shrivel up and die,” Park says.
Kennedy rolls her eyes and plays to the crowd. Phones are back up and filming. She’ll be on a hundred stories in about three minutes. This is her moment. “Sounds like a you issue to me, babe. Jealous much?”
Park lunges at Kennedy again, almost catching Kennedy’s necklace in her fingers, an extremely expensive-looking thing with tear-drop shaped jewels. But Kennedy cackles and ducks away, then Park storms off.
Alice shakes her head and looks at me, her eyes drifting from my sea-foam green gown down to my sneakers.
“Gorgeous girl, gorgeous gown, and yet……………………………………… a blazer and sneakers,” she sighs.
I finger the lapels of the black velvet blazer. I just like to feel protected. And I was already nervous about other things concerning this dance, like Cole Fielding. I’d casually asked him if he was going to the Sadie Hawkins dance, definitely stressing the fact that it was a group thing. Ever since Brooke, and the investigation, and, you know, me accidentally accusing him of murder, we’ve been hanging out. Very casually. Roller-skating once or twice on his breaks at Seaside Skate. Maybe a coffee together at Dotty’s Doughnuts. Texting sometimes. None of which I’ve told Alice about, because her feelings toward Cole are well-known. She sees me sometimes chatting with him at school and that’s enough to get me some pointed looks. My mom doesn’t know anything but the barest details, either, because she’d flip out, especially if she knew about me riding on the back of his motorcycle along Highway one. I don’t know how to explain to anyone, even Alice, what’s happening inside me. Like something’s been knocked loose. I can’t stop thinking of Brooke’s body at the bottom of the cliff. I can still feel my father’s fist on my face. The whole time on the back of Cole’s motorcycle, I felt . . . free. Like nothing could touch me.
Brooke is dead, but she’s still here. The Thing is locked up, but for how long?
The only other place I feel like nothing can touch me is when I’m reading one of the many Agatha Christie novels I’ve borrowed from Alice, in a vain attempt to catch up with her knowledge of the Queen of mystery, losing myself in the spirals of deceit and deception. Or when Raf and I are talking about the Remy Jackson case, painstakingly reading the poorly put together case files about his cousin, who was found in a dumpster in downtown Castle Cove, wrapped in a trash bag secured with duct-tape. I’d like to see how Miss Marple would tackle that.
Alice isn’t happy about me hanging out with Raf, either. I can’t tell if she’s jealous or just . . . doesn’t want to get that close to a death case again, after Brooke. The Mona Moody thing she’s skirting around . . . it’s a mystery, for sure, but one that maybe Alice likes because it’s so far in the past, it can’t really touch her. Who knows? As long as I live, I’ll probably never fully understand Alice Ogilvie.
She snaps her fingers at me. “Helloooo?” “Sorry,” I say. “Brain fog.”
I take a deep breath to get my bearings, look around the mammoth Levy Castle ballroom.
I love this, actually. I didn’t think I would. The dance. But everyone looks beautiful, and shiny, and grown up, even Spike, gazing up at the chandelier glistening above us, mesmerized by what seems like a thousand twinkling lights. He seems different tonight, more mature somehow, dressed in his powder blue suit with a paisley tie. His hair’s grown out a bit. He’s been checking in on me regularly since last fall, texting me at night to make sure I get some sleep, and not calling me out for lying when I answer “Yep.”
I shake myself away from the tingling in my stomach. Spike? Stop, Iris. There are entirely too many hormonal things happening to me lately. I force myself to look anywhere but Spike.
The inside of Levy Castle with its golden walls and polished marble staircase is like something from a dream. That chandelier above us? A placard on the wall says it weighs almost 1,700 pounds and has 9,500 crystals. Above the grand, Spanish-tiled staircase to the second floor, a glossy banner hangs: The Films of Mona Moody: A Retrospective, March 29-30, 2023. All around the downstairs, hung carefully on the walls for tourists, are movie stills from Mona Moody films and placards with tidbits of information about the Castle when it was built: six suits of armor from Spain; a private zoo on the grounds for Levy’s daughter, Lilian, that included llamas and lemurs.
Shouts and laughter from the corner of the room distract me. The selfie booth has become a madhouse of photobombing, our classmates jumping in and out of each other’s frames, displaying some choice hand gestures and what looks like a lot of booty patting.
Alice suddenly frowns, staring at something in the distance. I follow her sightline.
I know we did the right thing. I know it’s a good that we found out who murdered Brooke Donovan, even though all hell broke loose.
But having Brooke stare down at us from the huge portrait in the middle of the room makes my heart sink.
“It’s gauche,” Alice says. “And it’s creepy. I know the Castle can do what it wants and they want to honor her with a permanent portrait. But it . . . feels weird.”
It’s been four months since Brooke died. Alice doesn’t talk much about her, but I know she’s hurting. I’m trying to let her have some space. Lately, she’s been throwing herself into odd projects, like learning how to pick locks. While I think all that is valid and interesting, I’m a little worried she’s not spending enough time on other things, like school. She hasn’t even started the Ancestry project in McAllister’s class and it’s due in two weeks.
“I might,” she says now, very smoothly. “Look around. Just while I’m here. Mona stuff, you know?”
In 1949, Moody was found dead at the age of twenty on the lawn of Levy Castle. From my casual internet sleuthing, old articles say her death resulted from a prolonged bout with tuberculosis; weakened, she lost her balance, tumbling off the second-floor balcony, but if you spend some time digging, there are whispers that maybe it wasn’t an accident. After all, she was young and beautiful with creamy skin and a sparkling smile—a film star in the making. She was also Charles Levy’s younger girlfriend and people love to gossip. He was powerful and wealthy and as my former babysitter Ricky Randall once told me, “The closets of the rich are positively ringing with skeleton bones.” But she’s a lawyer, and it’s her job to consider all angles.
“Alice,” I remind her. “This is supposed to be a dance. You know, something fun.” She fixes her ice-blue eyes on me. “It will be fun. Plus, you’ll be busy,” she says, nudging me. “With that.” I follow her eyes.
Cole Fielding is standing by the fountain (I still can’t believe there is an actual fountain inside this mansion), hands in his pockets, looking at me.
“I don’t approve,” Alice murmurs. “But you know that.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Spike. Our eyes meet. He smiles and flicks his hand toward the crowd of dancers. The song is a bop. Is he asking me to . . .
Just then, one of the Stitch Bitches, Tabitha Berrington, sidles up to him and slips her arm through his, tugging him toward the dance floor. He gives me a last glance as he disappears into the writhing bodies.
Why . . . does my stomach drop a little?
I look back at Cole. He tilts his head to the side, like let’s get outta here and I can’t help it. I just can’t. My whole body lightens at the sight of his smile, his tousled hair.
But there is also the tiniest part of me that wants to do what Alice is doing, what I know she’s about to do. Snoop around for Mona Moody stuff. I don’t know what we’d find; there can’t be much here but . . . you never know.
“Alice,” I say as she turns to walk away. “Wait—”
But she’s already gone, disappeared somewhere into the vast gold beauty of the Castle.
