Join historical mystery authors Radha Vatsal, Laura Joh Rowland, and Mally Becker for a conversation about what goes into writing a mystery set in the past. We’ll talk about research, creating authentic historical settings and characters, weaving real events into fictional stories, and the challenges—and pleasures—of bringing history to life while keeping readers guessing.
Mally Becker is the award-winning author of the Revolutionary War mysteries, which bring fictional and historical characters to life in a time as divided as our own. Her novels—The Turncoat’s Widow, The Counterfeit Wife, and The Paris Mistress—have each been nominated for an Agatha Award, and The Paris Mistress is the 2025 Independent Publisher Book Award “best mystery” gold medal winner. A former attorney, Mally also leads in-person mystery writing workshops at The Writers Circle Workshops in New Jersey and blogs at www.MissDemeanors.com.
Elizabeth Kerri Mahon is a native New Yorker, actress and history geek. Her first book, Scandalous Women was an RT Book Review Non-Fiction Pick for April 2011. Elizabeth has been featured in the H2 show How Sex Changed the World, as well as The Travel Channel’s Monumental Mysteries, and the ID show Tabloid. A pop culture diva, Elizabeth has written for The Royal Representative, Heroes and Heartbreakers, Ever After Romance, Romance Daily News and Criminal Element. She is also the author of Pretty Evil New York: True Stories of Mobster Molls, Violent Vixens, and Murderous Matriarchs (Globe Pequot Press), her first foray into historical true crime. You can find her musing about history, pop culture, and travel at teaandinfamy.substack.com
Laura Joh Rowland is the author of two mystery series. The first, set in seventeenth-century Japan, chronicles the adventures of samurai detective Sano Ichiro. The second features photographer Sarah Bain and her motley crew in Victorian England. Her new book is a stand-alone thriller titled Resurrection Kill, set in upstate New York in 1953. Her books have been published in fourteen countries and selected for The Wall Street Journal’s list of top ten historical mysteries. Laura is also a painter and cartoonist, working on a graphic novel inspired by her Chinese-American family in Detroit in the 1940’s. She lives in New York City.
Radha Vatsal is the author of No. 10 Doyers Street (nominated for the Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award by Mystery Readers International), and the Kitty Weeks novels set in World War I-era New York. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Lit Hub, Scroll.in, and elsewhere. She is the film & tv columnist for CrimeReads. Born and raised in Mumbai, India, she earned her Ph.D. in Film History from Duke University and lives in New York City. She is a member of PEN America, Mystery Writers of America, and BIO-Biographers International.