Jennings, Maureen

views updated

Jennings, Maureen

PERSONAL:

Born in Birmingham, England; immigrated to Canada; married Iden Ford. Education: University of Windsor, B.A.; University of Toronto, M.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Toronto, Ontario, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Psychotherapist, novelist, and playwright. Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, Ontario, Canada, teacher of English, 1964-72; psychotherapist in private practice, beginning 1972.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Heritage Toronto Certificate of Commendation, Anthony Award nomination, and Arthur Ellis Award nomination, all 1998, all for Except the Dying; Best Novel designation, Drood Review of Mystery, 2001, for Poor Tom Is Cold.

WRITINGS:

"WILLIAM MURDOCH" MYSTERY SERIES

Except the Dying, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Under the Dragon's Tail, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1998.

Poor Tom Is Cold, St. Martin's Minotaur (New York, NY) 2001.

Let Loose the Dogs, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2003.

Night's Child, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2005.

Vices of My Blood, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2006.

A Journeyman to Grief, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2007.

"CHRISTINE MORRIS" MYSTERY SERIES

Does Your Mother Know?, Dundurn Group (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2006.

The K Hand Shape, Dundurn Group/Castle Street Mysteries (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2008.

PLAYS

The Black Ace, produced in North York, England, 1990.

No Traveler Returns, produced, 1992.

OTHER

The Map of Your Mind: Journey into Creative Expression, McClellan & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2001.

(With others) Blood on the Holly, Baskerville Books (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2007.

Contributor to anthologies, including Cold Blood V, 1994, Cottage Country Killers, 1997, Bloody York, 1996, and Crime through Time III, 2000.

ADAPTATIONS:

Film rights for the "William Murdoch" and the "Christine Morris" mystery series were acquired by Shaftesbury Films; Except the Dying and Poor Tom Is Cold were broadcast as television movies, Bravo, 2004, and Under the Dragon's Tail was broadcast in 2005. The Murdoch Mysteries television series premiered on Bravo in 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Mystery writer Maureen Jennings chronicles the cases of detective William Murdoch, who serves with the Toronto Police Department at the end of the nineteenth century. In these historical mysteries "Jennings makes us forget we're reading something set more than a century ago; she evokes the past so vividly it almost instantly feels like the present," according to David Pitt in Booklist.

Jennings's first novel, Except the Dying, is set in Toronto in 1895 and tells of the murder of a young French-Canadian maid who worked for a wealthy family. Investigating the crime is Murdoch, who has spent the past two years mourning the death of his fiancee. In the course of his work, Murdoch encounters a host of characters—and suspects—including the Rhodes family, who employed the victim, and local prostitutes Alice Black and Ettie Watson. "Everybody is lying or hiding something or both, and the best witnesses are two prostitutes who don't want to talk to the police," ac- cording to Amy Rabinovitz in the Houston Chronicle. "At one time or another, the reader can place the guilt on any of the characters."

Except the Dying was well received. More than one critic pointed out that Murdoch's past gives him a depth of character beyond that of many fictional sleuths, while others praised the author's powers of description. "In a bravura piece of writing," reported a writer for Publishers Weekly, "Jennings describes the annual newsboys' meeting of scruffy, destitute youngsters, cynical and amoral beyond their years." Rex Klett, in his review for Library Journal, applauded the novel's "finely flavored plot, credible characters, and detailed atmosphere." Marilyn Stasio hailed Except the Dying in the New York Times Book Review as "a first novel enriched by the vividness of its period settings and animated by the lifelike characters caught up in its broad social sweep."

Jennings followed Except the Dying with Under the Dragon's Tail, another story of murder in nineteenth-century Toronto. The victim, midwife Dolly Shaw, is a contemptible character by any definition: a drunk and a blackmailer. Again, detective Murdoch is on the case, still grieving over the death of his fiancee, and again Jennings explores the stratifications of Canadian society through her portrayals of characters of varying social classes. A critic for Publishers Weekly commented that "late-nineteenth-century Toronto comes startlingly alive in Jennings's second gripping tale."

In Poor Tom Is Cold Murdoch finds a fellow officer shot dead, apparently a suicide. There is a suicide note and even a woman who claims to be the lover who jilted him. But the more Murdoch investigates, the more it looks like murder. Meanwhile, the children of a wealthy Toronto man seem too intent on keeping their future inheritance out of the hands of their father's new, much younger wife. A Publishers Weekly reviewer called Poor Tom Is Cold "a satisfying mystery perfectly wedded to its evocative setting," while Pam Johnson in School Library Journal found that "Jennings weaves an intriguing plot through all types of obstacles, and concludes with a great burst of action." Klett observed that "contemporary social, religious, and sexual mores frame a strong plot line."

In Let Loose the Dogs, Murdoch is reunited with his drunken father, whose violent behavior prompted Murdoch and his sister to run away from home years before. Henry Murdoch is now convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged. When he insists that he is innocent of the crime, Murdoch interviews witnesses to see if he can determine the truth for himself. His efforts pit him against a police force and public who are convinced that the right man is behind bars. "Murdoch will do his duty by this old degenerate, but it will cost him," Stasio wrote. "Jennings is too tough and honest a writer to let anyone off her moral hook, even her hero." A critic in Kirkus Reviews found the novel to be "the most generously plotted of Murdoch's four cases."

Jennings brings Murdoch back in the 2005 addition to the series, Night's Child, in which the detective investigates a child pornography ring in late-nineteenth-century Toronto. Murdoch is made aware of the criminal exploiters by a liberated teacher who dresses in slacks and who notices students coming to her school covered in bruises. Stasio, critiquing the novel in the New York Times Book Review, found Murdoch to be a "humane detective" and described the mysteries as "remarkably unsentimental." Jennings carried the series forward with the 2006 work Vices of My Blood and the 2007 title A Journeyman to Grief, in which Murdoch investigates a four-decade-old crime of kidnapping and enslavement. A critic for Kirkus Reviews felt that the "bracing and chilling" atmospherics of 1896 Toronto were more imposing than Jennings's plot. The same critic called A Journeyman to Grief a "surprisingly tender tale of slavery, addiction, violence and revenge served ice-cold."

In 2006 Jennings initiated a second mystery series featuring contemporary forensic profiler Christine Morris. The first title in the series, Does Your Mother Know?, finds Morris on the Scottish island of Lewis helping to solve a brutal murder.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 1, 2000, David Pitt, review of Poor Tom Is Cold, p. 696.

Houston Chronicle, April 5, 1998, Amy Rabinovitz, "Rookie's Mystery a Chiller," p. 25.

Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2002, review of Let Loose the Dogs, p. 1572; April 1, 2007, review of A Journeyman to Grief.

Library Journal, November 1, 1997, Rex Klett, review of Except the Dying, p. 120; January 1, 2001, Rex Klett, review of Poor Tom Is Cold, p. 161.

New York Times Book Review, December 14, 1997, Marilyn Stasio, review of Except the Dying, p. 30; January 11, 2003, Marilyn Stasio, review of Let Loose the Dogs; May 22, 2005, Marilyn Stasio, review of Night's Child.

Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, FL), October 24, 2007, "‘He Died a Hero,’ Writer Says of Her Rescuer"; October 26, 2007, "Another Drowning: Our Position: Brevard County Is Woefully behind in the Number of Beach Lifeguards."

Publishers Weekly, September 22, 1997, review of Except the Dying, p. 75; August 24, 1998, review of Under the Dragon's Tail, p. 52; November 27, 2000, review of Poor Tom Is Cold, p. 57.

Quill and Quire, July, 2001, review of The Map of Your Mind: Journey into Creative Expression, p. 40.

School Library Journal, July, 2001, Pam Johnson, review of Poor Tom Is Cold, p. 135.