In today’s episode, Brook and Sarah discuss mysteries that include paranormal elements with author Naomi Kuttner, author of the paranormal mystery series The Retired Assassin’s Guide.
Discussed and mentioned
Thursday Murder Club (2021) Richard Osman
The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Country Gardening (2025) Naomi Kuttner
The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Orchid Hunting (2025) Naomi Kuttner
The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Amateur Theatrics (2026) Naomi Kuttner
Murder on the Orient Express (1934) Agatha Christie
About Naomi Kuttner
Website: https://naomikuttner.com/
For more information
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Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
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Order Life or Delft by Brook and Sarah
Transcript
This transcript is generated by a computer and there may be some mis-spellings and strange punctuation. We try to catch these before posting, but some things slip through.
| Sarah | Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I’m Sarah. |
| Brook | And I’m Brook, and we both love mystery. |
| Sarah | Hi, Brook. |
| Brook | Hi Sarah, today we’re continuing the discussion about paranormal mysteries and we have a treat, we have an author interview. I’m very excited to introduce Naomi Kuttner. She’s a cozy mystery and fantasy writer living in New Zealand. When she’s not busy raising her twin son and daughter or writing, Naomi spends her free time surfing, wing foiling, and retrieving her shoes from Max the dog. |
| Brook | Her Shadow Kingdom series is a blend of urban fantasy and Norse mythology, and she’s currently working on book three of a cozy mystery series set in New Zealand. Welcome, Naomi. Thank you so much for joining us today. |
| Naomi | Hello to everyone, it’s lovely to be here. |
| Sarah | So, Naomi, why don’t we start with you telling us about this series that starts with a book, The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Gardening. |
| Naomi | Yeah, so about two-and-a-bit years ago, twins were born. And one night in the middle of the night, I found myself reading the Thursday Murder Club, as a lot of people were around that time. |
| Naomi | And it just seemed like a perfect blend of coziness with a bit of murder sprinkled in. And I thought, you know, this is what I need in my life right now. I’m getting woken up four or five times a night. I need some kind of outlet. I think I could write one of these. So that was kind of the genesis of the series. And I started off writing it by hand, sort of in the moments that I had in between keeping my twins alive. |
| Naomi | And to be honest, the first book was finished by the end of the year. And I do not remember too much of writing it. It’s a little bit of a blur. But I had this great nostalgia for New Zealand. I was born here, I grew up here, but even so I felt this huge nostalgia for New Zealand of my childhood. So I set this murder mystery, paranormal murder mystery in a fictional town on the west coast of New Zealand. |
| Naomi | I grew up in a small town as well. And I just put in all my favorite bits of New Zealand. I try to make it as as um Kiwi. It’s another name for New Zealanders. It’s our national bird. As Kiwi as possible. And I really had a lot of fun with it. And then now it’s grown to two books and I’m i’m working on the third book. And the ghosts, arms yeah, well we we can talk about the ghosts. I think that’s what we’re going to be mainly talking about. But that was really the the genesis of of the series. |
| Brook | I love that you also grew up in a small town, as did I. And I really felt that when reading your book of that, you know, this is something that you felt very acquainted with. And you knew how to put in the little details that only someone who um lived there would know these little things about the town. And it’s lovely. But as you mentioned ghosts, that is where we would like to take this. And what drew you to writing paranormal mystery rather than, you know, you mentioned Thursday Murder Club, there’s no paranormal elements in that. What made you decide to go that route? |
| Naomi | I think it was sort of the seed of an idea, because the main character in these novels is Dante, who’s retired assassin. He’s retired from MI6, and he’s come to the opposite side of the world to try and live a quiet, normal life. And if you read the books, you’ll see this was very difficult for him, and yet the life he ends up living is far from normal. But I had the kind of the seed of the idea. It’s funny thinking back on how things come from, where they come from. I had this sort of idea of an assassin and a kid who can see ghosts. |
| Naomi | And the assassin being on holiday somewhere and the kid freaking out because he can see all the ghosts. And the assassin thinks it’s for a completely different reason. He thinks he’s been recognized or something. And that was the sort of seed of the idea. And those two characters grew into Dante Reed. And the other character is Charlie, who is a New Zealander. He’s around 20 and he ends up being Dante’s gardener and he can see ghosts. So that was the seed of the idea, but I also had been thinking about the idea of mysteries in general and how a mystery with ghosts it could end up being very boring because you could just ask the ghost who killed you. |
| Naomi | And that would be a very unsatisfying way to solve mystery. So, I was thinking well how could you write the mystery with ghosts and still have have all the things that you have in a mystery where you want the detectors to have clues and red herrings and and all that kind of thing. So, I started thinking about ghosts in that way and that they’re not just hanging around you know wanting to help the sleuths. They’ve kind of got their own things going on. They’ve got their own agendas. |
| Naomi | They’re kind of like the people they were in life, so they’re not always truthful. They’re not always helpful. And even perhaps if the victim of the murder is as there, they may not know who killed them. They may have been attacked at night, they may have been poisoned. So possibly if you could speak to the ghost of someone who’s been murdered, they may not even be able to help you all that much solve the crime. So it was that idea that I wanted to explore and that’s part of why the ghosts showed up in this series. |
| Naomi | If you think about it, one of the great mysteries of um life is death and what happens after it. So, I mean, I just imagine what might happen and what might be kind of nice to to happen that you could actually talk to people after they go. Nobody actually knows, but that’s just added another dimension to the mystery. |
| Sarah | Well, and so that leads really nicely into my next question, which is about, you know, in paranormal mystery, there’s often more than one mystery unfolding. You’ve got the crime itself, but there’s also that question of what’s happening at the supernatural level. So how do you approach balancing those two threads in your writing? |
| Naomi | Well, it’s interesting because in mysteries where there are no ghosts, um I was thinking the other day about say, um Murder on the Orient Express. |
| Naomi | That story, the murder happened off the page quite a few years ago. It was tragic case of a little girl. But that murder kind of haunts the pages of the story. Like you can’t get away from it. It colors everything that’s happened. There’s these people, I think, I can’t remember how many were, I think there were 12 people whose lives had just been completely destroyed by these tragic events. |
| Naomi | And they, even though, know, there are no ghosts in Agatha Christie, the victim still haunts the story in a way because she’s on everyone’s minds. And so found that the way that I dealt with the ghost is a little bit different in each story and this kind of comes down to a world building question because when you’re writing any kind of story, but particularly paranormal, you kind of get make up the rules of the world of the ghost. |
| Naomi | And confess I cheated little bit in that the main character, Charlie, who can talk to ghosts, he’s still figuring out the rules. So, I kind of gave me a chance to to figure out the rules a bit as I went. But in this particular world, some ghosts pass on immediately after they die because they have no unfinished business. They’re ready to carry on to whatever the next stage is and some hang around. |
| Naomi | And so, like in the first mystery, they try to find the victim to find out what she can tell. In the second mystery, the victim actually just passes on. He’s lived a good life, he’s he’s ready to carry on. And so, what I think dealing with the supernatural elements, there’s first the mechanics of the mystery as in what can you learn from these ghosts as you could with any other witness, except these witnesses happen to be dead. |
| Naomi | um But then this idea of catharsis. because hopefully when the sleuths successfully solve the mystery they get closure for that victim and then then that person can pass on or something like that and it’s kind of that hopefully happens in real life as well whether they’re ghosts or not but I guess it’s a the way of kind of making that um making that abstract idea concrete within the rules of this this world. So that answers your question. |
| Sarah | Oh, that’s great. Thank you. |
| Brook | Naomi, do you think that adding the paranormal elements to a murder mystery changes the role of the sleuth or the detective? |
| Naomi | Yeah, it definitely does. I guess I better backtrack a little bit because in this particular series, there are actually three sleuths. So there’s Dante, who’s a retired assassin, and he has his particular set of skills. |
| Naomi | And he also has some massive blind spots to do with interacting with normal people because he hasn’t really done much of that. And then there’s Charlie who can speak to ghosts and is also, don’t know, I think of him almost, he’s a very lovable, quite innocent character. So he’s not really there with all the sneaking around and deception. |
| Naomi | But then there’s Eleanor who is a retiree with her own checkered past. Who’s very good at that kind of being sly and getting things out of people and and all that kind of thing. So, it definitely does, um like you can approach the, the mystery from those three angles with three very different characters that all have very different roles. |
| Naomi | I think it does change the role because a lot of the evidence that, say, Charlie who can talk to ghosts, the evidence that he gets is in no way admissible in any kind of court of law. You can’t say, oh, well, the ghost of so-and-so told me this thing. |
| Naomi | So while the sleuths may have an added layer of inside knowledge, they still then have to go and find all the evidence to be able to prove it and um to get this person to either reveal their own guilt through their actions or to know get them to a drawing room scene where they sort of point the finger at the the guilty person. |
| Naomi | So, yeah, it does add an added layer. And there’s also a huge potential for irony in it as well, because some of the most fun scenes to write are when, say, Charlie is trying to do something, mean some investigation, a witness interview or something like that. |
| Naomi | And then he has all these nosy ghosts sort of staring over his shoulder saying, oh, I wouldn’t do it like that. No, that’s not true. Or yeah just adding in their two pence. And the poor chap, no one else can hear it, but he can. And it’s extremely distracting. So that’s definitely part of the the fun of writing a sort of invisible chorus that no one else can see. |
| Brook | Yeah, yeah. It’s a lot of fun as a reader as well. And, you know, then there’s the period of time where Charlie doesn’t share the information. This is particularly in book one. He doesn’t share the information that he’s learned because he doesn’t feel comfortable sharing that with Dante or the others. Um, so it was it’s almost like evidence that someone has found, but they’re not coming forward with it yet. |
| Naomi | Yeah, it is interesting. I didn’t really consider all the implications when I was like, right, and there will be ghosts. But there’s a lot to unpack. And I kind of have in the book that I’m writing now that takes place, it’s the Retired Assassin’s Guide to Amateur Theatrics. And it’s centered around an amateur production of Macbeth. |
| Naomi | I had no idea that theatres are incredibly superstitious, allegedly haunted places. There’s all these superstitions dating back hundreds of years, like for instance when a theat in when a play is happening, you always have to, when everyone leaves for the night, you have to put a ghost light in the center of the stage. And there’s all these different theories about whether it’s to keep the ghosts happy or to keep the ghosts away and all of these things that are still very much part of many theatres, especially the old ones. |
| Naomi | And the old ones are often, they have like several ghost stories attached to them because a lot of the old theatres also caught fire at various times in their history. And then Macbeth there’s I recently did a tour of one of the theatres in Auckland, which is a gorgeous theatre from the 1920s. It’s kind of made up to look like the Taj Mahal with a night sky. And It’s quite a rare example of that kind of architecture. |
| Naomi | And the guide was talking about the Scottish play and that’s because Macbeth is considered such an unlucky play that you’re not even allowed to say the name Macbeth inside a theatre unless you’re actually doing the play rehearsing the play on stage. |
| Naomi | So there’s all these wonderful superstitions and you can really tap into this rich mythology probably going back as long as humans have been telling stories about ghosts and hauntings and and drama and and all of that so it is it’s just it’s really fun to explore. |
| Sarah | Yeah, it sounds like it’s it’s a lot of fun to write that particular book, but it also sounds like it’s pretty fun to write your series. |
| Naomi | I have been having so much fun I don’t know if I should be allowed to be having this much fun but I have been. |
| Sarah | Mystery readers often care very strongly about fair play or the idea that the reader should have access to the same clues as the detective. How do paranormal characters like ghosts complicate that? You touched on this earlier when you were talking about, you know, that Dante could ask, how did you die? So how do you, you’ve touched a a little bit on on how you work around that. um But are there any other ways that you avoid that complication or work around that complication? Because those those characters know more than would be available to a traditional detective? |
| Naomi | I think actually in the in this latest, the one book I’m writing at the moment, I’ve been playing with the idea, don’t know if I should say this, but I don’t think it’s a spoiler, of about how ghosts have their own agendas so they can be deceptive. |
| Naomi | So while the sleuth may have access to extra knowledge than a traditional detective, that can also be misleading and you can’t exactly completely rely on it. Just because someone’s a ghost doesn’t mean they they have abandoned their own agenda or they they can’t be somehow involved in the crime or something like that or may want to mislead the sleuths for their own purposes. |
| Naomi | But I agree, like fair play, I take that very seriously as well. And I think so far i’ve i’ve provided everyone with all the clues. Like they get the clues at the same time as the sleuths. And um what I do like, which is something that Agatha Christie was a total amazing maestro of or maestra, um is that she gives you all the information but she misrepresents it and she kind of builds in assumptions when she’s giving you the information she she slips in all these assumptions into it that are then going to totally misdirect you as a reader to go off in the wrong direction. And then at the end when when Poirot or Miss Marple gives their summing up you see how they took the same information as you but without making assumptions they came to the right conclusion. |
| Naomi | And I think that’s also part of the art of writing a good mystery is being able to do that. So you have played fair with the reader, but you still managed to pull the rag out from under their feet at the end, hopefully, by misdirecting them with you know what the facts, which is, again, one of that the kind of sleight of hands of writing a good mystery. |
| Sarah | I had not previously thought about ghosts being unreliable characters. And I think I’m going to have think about that a little bit more. |
| Naomi | Yeah I mean there’s all those poltergeist stories and and so on I mean they often they’re not necessarily benevolent really so yeah still part of the world building. |
| Brook | I think that it’s interesting. We also want to think that every ghost wears his some sort of historical costume to, you know, you see the jokes about ah that they wouldn’t be in modern clothing, and they can also be telling lies, because they’re just people. That’s I just love thinking about that as well. |
| Naomi | Yeah, and by and large the ghosts of this little town in New Zealand, are um they just kind of got along, got getting on with the afterlife in a way, and they’re just this gossipy and eccentric thing as they were in life, which is again quite a lot of fun to write. um And then of course you have the the ghosts who are really up to no good. |
| Naomi | So yeah, I guess it all comes along with the whole small town small town um vibe and you know the small towns where a sleuth happens to live end up being very dangerous places to live yourself. You should definitely move out if an amateur detective ever comes to move into your thought down because the body count will just sort of soar up off the charts. |
| Brook | Isn’t that true? Well, share with us a little bit about your writing process as far as like what your routine is and and how you like to build your stories. |
| Naomi | Sure so usually should i just start with the a seed of an idea, which is something that usually goes like, wouldn’t it be fun if blah blah blah. So I thought, wouldn’t it be fun if there was a theatre production that Dante was involved in and I thought it should be a very murdery one like Macbeth and then supposing he has to play a murderer in the play and then he’s trying to pretend not to be a murderer everyone’s trying to get him to be very murderish. |
| Naomi | And so on. So that’s usually like the grain of the idea. I definitely started off as a pantser, so someone who sort of makes up the plot as they go along. And after writing the first mystery, I discovered that that is a very, very labor intensive way to write a mystery. Ideally, when you write a mystery, you should know whodunnit and what they done and how they done it. |
| Naomi | And if you don’t then you end up doing a lot of rewrites. So, I’ve slowly swung more and more into the plotting camp, but I still find that I can only get the plot advanced to a certain point when I just need to start writing the actual story. And at the moment, for instance, I’ve written the first draft of this third book, and then while I’m revising it, I came up with, I think, a good idea to change the plot quite a bit and add an extra twist. and So then that means a bunch more revising. So I sort of swing back between plotting and pantsing. And I don’t know, kind of look in admiration at the people who are able to just write a beautiful detailed plot and then just write the whole thing out in one go. |
| Naomi | They must exist somewhere, but maybe they’re not as many as I think there are. touch yeah So that’s kind of the writing process. And yeah, generally write try to write every day um when my children are asleep or at daycare. And yeah just carry on through to the end basically and then keep on revising until it looks ship shape and then send it to my editor and and my then my beta readers so that’s kind of how it works |
| Sarah | Who are some of your favorite authors writing in this space? |
| Naomi | Yeah, so, I mean, that’s one of those questions that I often blank on it because there’s so many. But when I think about it, um thought I was thinking about when I first started to really love mysteries. |
| Naomi | At first I thought, okay, it was when I started reading Sherlock Holmes, as everyone does when they, well, not everyone, but lots of people do when they’re just starting off into the mystery genre. It’s Sherlock Holmes, and it’s great stuff. It’s really fun. |
| Naomi | Then I thought, actually, earlier than that, I used to read a lot of Enid Blyton, a lot of Famous Five, Secret Seven, Fantastic Four, with Timothy the dog, and the murderer, like, they didn’t have any murders, but the the villains would be like, they’d overhear these conversations, which would be like, |
| Naomi | blah blah blah at midnight tonight blah blah blah we’ll meet down by the old castle and stuff like that. So I think that was probably my earliest mystery reading and also Tintin i mean Tintin the cartoons are often mysteries and they’re so much fun. |
| Naomi | So then the others would be Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, of course, and then Laurie R King, who does wonderful historic Sherlock Holmes reimaginings, Alexander McCall Smith, Ben Aaronovich, who does this great urban fantasy police procedurals. |
| Naomi | And then there’s kind of more unusual ones like Lois McMaster-Bujold. She does a lot of her Vorkosigan stories are actually when you look at them sideways there’s often a mystery there. |
| Naomi | Or Terry Pratchett with his Nightwatch series which are police procedurals but they are also mysteries. I mean, even Harry Potter has, I can think the first three books are mysteries, definitely the first two. |
| Naomi | So i think mystery is one of those wonderful genres that come into so many books because one of the great ways to keep a reader reading to ask a question and then solve it over the course of the story. So, yeah I mean, there’s so and they are like a whole other boatload of writers who are writing great mysteries right now. And my reading list is so long and there’s so little time to actually clear it. |
| Brook | Yeah, I share that affliction, Naomi, that our reading lists are just so long, we’ll never get through. |
| Brook | And and every new books come out that look fantastic. |
| Naomi | So many. So, so many. |
| Brook | So Naomi, share with our listeners where they can find out more about you and your books. |
| Naomi | Sure, so all my books are on Amazon and Audible and I think they Audible books are um They’re written by, mean, sorry, start a again. um So all my books are on Amazon. If you look up the Retired Assassin’s Guide, you’ll find the series there. |
| Naomi | And they also have been made into audiobooks. And I’m very happy to say that the narrator is a New Zealander because often New Zealand accents end up sort of falling somewhere outside of New Zealand, anywhere from Australia to South Africa. |
| Naomi | But the narrator is a Kiwi who’s done a fantastic job as well as doing all the other voices as well. And yes, so if you just look up the Retired Assassin’s Guide on Amazon, you’ll find them all there. |
| Brook | Wonderful. Well, thank you again for joining us today. And thank you listeners for joining us on Clued in Mystery. Until next time, I’m Brook. |
| Sarah | And I’m Sarah, and we both love mystery. |
