Maureen Jennings sure took her time making an impact on Canadian literature.
But when it comes to arguably one of the finest murder mystery writers this country ever produced, the old adage ?better late than never? could never be truer.
With two television series ? CBC?s The Murdoch Mysteries and Global?s Bomb Girls ? based on her work now being aired, the 73-year-old writer is building new audiences ready to devour her next offering.
Jennings will be in London Tuesday at 7 p.m. at London Central Library?s Wolf Performance Hall reading from her new book, Beware This Boy, presented by The Friends of the Library for their Speaking with Friends lecture series.
Jennings? Murdoch Mystery series is the basis of the series, Murdoch Mysteries, now in its sixth season on CBC, about a police detective, William Murdoch, in Toronto in the 1890s.
Bomb Girls was born out of a story idea inspired by Jennings? Beware This Boy, a series about the women working in munitions factories during the war years, the top new Canadian drama series now in its second season.
?You have to love books and you have to love words,? said Jennings of what it takes to succeed as an author in a recent interview. ?Books were my escape, my refuge, my delight.?
Writing ? poetry, plays, stories and books ? has always been a huge part of Jennings? life. But it didn?t become her full-time pursuit until several years after the first of her seven Murdoch mystery series books was published.
Jennings was born in 1939 in Birmingham, England, and barely knew her father who was killed in 1943 at Anzio, Italy, during the war.
She moved to Canada with her mother in 1956, settling in Windsor where she attended Assumption University and graduated with a degree in psychology and philosophy ? studies that would come in handy for developing the characters in her mystery books.
After teaching high school for two years, Jennings went back to school at the University of Toronto to earn a masters degree in English literature, another building block in her writing career.
After teaching English at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute for six years, Jennings left to pursue a career in psychotherapy, which she continued to practice until about 2007.
Jennings? foray into murder mystery writing began when she produced two plays, The Black Ace and No Traveller Returns (produced by Scarborough Players last December), both set in Victorian Toronto.
From there Jennings developed the character, William Murdoch, and the series began.
Aside from the Murdoch series, Jennings wrote the two-volume Christine Morris series, and is now in the middle of writing a new mystery series, the Detective Inspector Tom Tyler Mystery books, including Season of Darkness (2011) and 2012?s Beware This Boy, published by McClelland & Stewart, stories about a detective working in England during the war years.
Two of Jennings? books, The K Handshape (the Christine Morris series) and A Journeyman to Grief (last of the Murdoch series) were nominated for best novel by the Crime Writers of Canada.
Writing about the war years may seem like a natural fit. But Jennings said she has only begun to understand what life in war-torn Britain was really like.
?I remember (as a child) being in the shelters when the bombs were exploding and I remember how, after a raid, my brother and I would go out and there would be a house with the whole front of it sheared off,? she said.
?I also remember it was a time of terror, fear and sorrow, yet it was a time of life.?
joe.belanger@sunmedia.ca
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IF YOU GO
What: Author Maureen Jennings, reading from her new book, Beware This Boy, presented by the Friends of London Public Library for the Speaking with Friends lectures on literature.
Where: Central Library?s Wolf Performance Hall, 251 Dundas St.
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Admission: Free, although donations welcome.
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