Cynthia Riggs: Well, shortly after my mother died I was kind of disoriented. One of my B-and-B guests knew I was doing some writing and said I should go back to school to get my master's degree. I said no. I was 68 at the time and figured I had enough schooling. Finally, just to shut her up, I sent the application, knowing they would not accept me, and, of course, they did. I asked my friend Jonathan what I should write. He said write murder mysteries. I knew you needed three things: a character-driven story, a good setting, and the plot is really tertiary. I figured for the character I had my mother. My protagonist is 92 years old and she is a poet.
MT: The titles of your books are all names of plants or flowers. Where did that idea come from?
CR: I always thought a perfect name for a book would be Jack in the Pulpit, dealing with a minister named Jack. Then, when I thought about writing mysteries, I thought, Deadly Nightshade would make a wonderful name, and I started looking up titles, like Bleeding Heart.
MT: So you come up with the titles before you come up with the story?
CR: Definitely. I just finished my eighth book. It's called Death and Honesty, and it's about assessors.
MT: The scenes in your books are real Vineyard places. Do people ask you to put them in your next book?
CR: They don't tend to ask that but they do say, "Was that character patterned after me?" Or they will say, "I recognize so and so," and it wasn't so and so at all.
MT: You lived for many years on a 44-foot houseboat and you had a ferry boat company crossing Chesapeake Bay. Do you still love boats?
CR: I love boats. Our interests change, and I realize there is only so much we can do. So it's gardening and writing and playing around in my new boat.
MT: Ah, the new boat that is sitting in your front yard.
CR: The boat is a wooden 1967 Egg Harbor, 37 feet. I saw it on Craigslist for $1,000. It has no engines and no generator, no nothing. I had it trucked down from New Hampshire to New Bedford, and then brought over on a barge.
MT: What possessed you? This boat isn't likely to float, it's a mess, and you no doubt spent more money getting it here than you did on the boat itself.
CR: Oh, I did. I spent more on redoing the upholstery. I love the looks of boats in people's yards. What could be a better lawn ornament? I'm taking what was the epitome of a luxury boat in its time and at least stabilizing it. Perhaps someday in the future somebody will be able to get it back in the water. Maybe a great-grandchild.
MT: In addition to your writing career, you also run a bed-and-breakfast that caters to artists and writers. How did you come up with that idea?
CR: When I moved back to the Vineyard in 1988, I figured if my mother and I could rent out three rooms we could cover the mortgage. We didn't want to change our lifestyle. There are books and papers everywhere. It's clean but it's a mess. We figured if we catered to poets, writers, and artists, they would understand.
MT: You have said that you will write 20 books and then retire. Do you still feel that way?
CR: I do. I'm working on book nine. I think a writer stands in danger of getting routine, and I think with 20 I can keep enough variety.
Mindy Todd is the host of The Point, which can be heard Monday through Friday at 9:30 a.m. on the Cape and Islands National Public Radio stations, WCAI 90.1/ WNAN 91.1/WZAI 94.3, a local service of WGBH Radio.