Welcome Back Delia Pitts

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I’m thrilled to welcome back Delia Pitts! Her latest book, Trouble in Queenstown, the first in a new series, releases today! I love the cover and can’t wait to read this. It will pop up on my Kindle today.

Delia: Thank you for inviting me to join the Wickeds for a mid-summer dip! July here in New Jersey swelters, but to my nostalgic mind nothing compares to the intensity of summers in my hometown, Chicago. Heatwaves rippling above the pavement on the trudge home from the A & P. Sooty gusts direct from the prairies pushing charred scents of cook-out grease across our backyard fence. Cooling down after a round of double-Dutch jump rope by scampering through every lawn sprinkler on the block.

This summer, childhood memories of Chicago are on my mind because they provide the inspiration for my new mystery, Trouble in Queenstown, which launches today. But this contemporary novel is set in a made-up small town in central New Jersey. How does my childhood Chicago fit in?

Trouble in Queenstown follows a tangled case in which Private Investigator Vandy Myrick confronts the entrenched powers of her fictional New Jersey hometown to solve a racially charged murder. I invented Vandy and Queenstown to satisfy my longing for stories which reflected the people and places I knew best, the Chicago I remembered.

After years of reading American and English masters of crime fiction, I wanted to write a PI mystery of my own. But I wanted to festoon my book with trappings not found on hard-boiled urban streets or in secluded country manors. And I wanted a modern hero who looked and sounded like people I’d grown up with. A woman of action to wrestle with power in defense of neighbors she believed in.

To populate Queenstown, I dug into my own family for inspiration. My cousin, Esther Myricks, founded a small private security agency in the Bronzeville district of Chicago’s South Side in the 1970s. Our fathers were brothers, so as a child and teenager, I looked to Esther as an older role model. Esther, now in her mid-eighties, is smart, tough, funny, and determined. Her example of a Black woman tackling jobs in a rough neighborhood gave me the idea that I could accomplish whatever I set my mind to. Esther’s security agency focused on job verifications, property protection, insurance claims, and process serving, I’m pretty sure murder never crossed her docket. Vandy Myrick, the private investigator I created, treads a far grittier, violence-strewn path.

But I endowed Vandy with other features directly mirroring the real-life model. Though Esther is tiny in stature, she has a room-commanding presence. When she speaks, even if it is now a whisper, you best listen. And her sense of style made the most of her natural beauty. I remember she was the first adult in our family to wear an Afro and she did it with fierce grace. Even today, Esther drapes her still-slender figure with elegance. In the world according to Esther, sexy is the fused flip side of tough.

Where did I find inspiration for Vandy’s sense of social mission? Directly from her namesake. For decades, Esther worked as a community activist and civic organizer, sometime inside the fabled Cook County Democratic Party apparatus, sometimes outside its ranks. I borrowed Esther’s dedication to advocacy for the people of her neighborhood. In Vandy, this drive becomes a commitment to helping people whose voices are often dismissed.

I had a blast filling Vandy Myrick with Esther Myricks’ warmth and energy. I hope my cousin Esther is proud of this creation she inspired.

Writers, do you have relatives whose lives inspired your fictional creations? Readers, which distant relatives do you think about on a regular basis?

Bio:

Born and raised in Chicago, Delia graduated from Oberlin College with a Bachelor’s degree in history. After working as a journalist, she earned a Ph.D. in African history from the University of Chicago. She is a former university administrator and U.S. diplomat. Her newest book, a contemporary noir mystery, Trouble in Queenstown, was published by Minotaur Books in 2024. Delia is also the author of the Ross Agency Mysteries, a series set in Harlem. She has also published several acclaimed short stories, including, “The Killer,” which was selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery and Suspense 2021. Delia is an active member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Crime Writers of Color.

Delia and her husband live in central New Jersey and have twin sons living in Texas. To learn more about Delia and her books visit her website, deliapitts.com.

Instagram and Threads:  @deliapitts50

Website: deliapitts.com

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Published by Sherry Harris

Sherry Harris is the author of the Agatha Award nominated Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mystery series and the Chloe Jackson Sea Glass Mystery series.

36 Thoughts

  2. I’m as excited as Sherry about this new book, Delia! What a fabulous person Esther sounds like, and a perfect role model.

    I created a lady PI in the 1920s out of imagining an alternate life for my grandmother Dorothy and put her to work solving crimes with Amelia Earhart. I also paired Dot with my other grandmother, Ruth and gave them an investigative agency in Pasadena with a mission to help women, but that book isn’t out yet.

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  3. DELIA: Congratulations on your book release! Vandy sounds like the type of PI that I love to read and root for.

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  4. Congratulations on the release of TROUBLE IN QUEENSTOWN! Sounds like a fabulous story and is now on my TBR list.

    Since I was an Army brat, any connection to my relatives were strictly limited to our summer vacations. Even then it was, it was only a few days with each one. There were no cell phones and landline calls were expensive and hardly every used except for emergencies. Letters were few and far in between and usually only full of adult things. It wasn’t until my dad retired and we moved back south, did I get to really know my mother’s parents. My grandfather died shortly there after, but I had many years to get to know my grandmother. I do often think of the memories we made during those last few years and wishing we had had more.
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

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    1. Thank you for sharing your memories of re-connecting with your relatives after years of travel.

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  5. Congrats on the book release, Delia. Betty Ahern is inspired by my grandmother, whose name was also Betty and who did work for Bell Aircraft during WWII. She went on to raise two boys, worked in the high school cafeteria, and taught me that I could do anything I set my mind to.

    But I don’t think she ever wanted to be a P.I. LOL

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    1. Thank you for sharing memories of your grandmother! Her inspiration certainly spurred you on to achieving wonderful things!

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  6. Mine isn’t a distant relative but my sister who died too soon. She was 32 when she died in a small plane crash in Nairobi in 1980. I still miss her so much. I would have loved to grow old with her.

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    1. I’m sorry for the early loss of your sister and for all the years you missed having her by your side.

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  7. Welcome to the Wickeds, Delia. Trouble in Queenstown landed in my Kindle app last night and I absolutely cannot wait. I can’t think of any relatives who directly inspired my fiction though they certainly could have. Maybe this is something to explore…

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    1. Enjoy the read, Barbara! And digging into your family lore for fictional inspiration sounds fruitful…

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  9. Congratulations on your latest book, Delia. Esther sounds like an intriguing character and I look forward to reading more about her.

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    2. Congratulations big-time on your new release, Delia! My mom would tell stories about a family member who was a safe cracker. Someday, I’ll have to use that.

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  10. I told myself yesterday that I wasn’t going to buy any more mysteries. But then I read Delia’s exquisite writing and I immediately clicked through to buy a copy!

    The section from heatwaves to sprinklers gave me such a clear image. Her loving words about her inspiration touched me deeply as my grandmother and aunt are my role models too.

    I’m rearranging my schedule to grab my iPad and some cold iced tea to fall into Delia’s book!

    Congratulations!

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    1. Betsy, thank for disrupting your plans to dive into my book! I hope you enjoy following Vandy’s case.

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  12. I have the best cousins that I could ever ask for! We don’t visit each other often. However, I do have a daily connection with them as we share our daily Wordle scores and comment on each other’s games. It’s a great way of staying in touch, and it also lets us all know that we are still alive and kicking.

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  15. Congratulations. I think about my grandmother that I never met. I think about an uncle who was my godfather that died days after I turned 18 years old. I think of aunts that influenced my life. Thank you for sharing. God bless you.

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    1. Thank you, Julie! I’ve carried this inspiration around for years, so it was fun getting to develop a character this way.

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  17. Delia, just finished this for review to post on your pub date. Vandy is a great character! There’s an excellent sense her as a character, and of the setting. My father’s family are all from NJ so we visited often and came to life. Congratulations~

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