Culvert photograph by Danny Elchert
Flung across Thomas Jefferson’s lap in the atrium of the Missouri Historical Society ... puddling blood on the downtown library’s famous glass-floored stacks ... just about anywhere in City Museum ... Where would you have the body found? St. Louis has more than its share of mystery writers, so we posed that question to some of the best—and haven’t been able to sleep since.
“Busch Stadium when a home run is hit and every eye is trained on the ball—1,400 cops and 50,000 witnesses. Or Big Sleep Books—the ever-present dachshund Rudy, often huddled completely beneath a blanket, could be the dog that doesn’t bark in the night.”
—John Lutz, whose Fear the Night came out last November
“Over the course of several novels set in St. Louis, I have had the pleasure of killing people in a variety of exotic locales, including the pyramid atop the Civil Courts Building, the clock tower over Union Station, the River des Peres stormwater tunnel beneath Forest Park, the stairwell halfway up the Arch and a limestone brewery cave in South St. Louis—but the one spot that has intrigued me for decades is the pointed steel obelisk that rises two stories in front of the SBC Building at 10th and Chestnut. I can’t help but think how striking it would be to open a murder mystery at dawn with the rising sun illuminating a splayed corpse impaled on the point of that obelisk, eyes gazing blankly at the sky.”
—Michael Kahn, whose most recent novel is The Mourning Sexton
“Well, the obvious would be the Arch, so we must avoid that, because obviousness is not what you want when murdering someone ... literally. Uh, I mean literarily. So, I’ll go with the series of lakes off Highway D in St. Charles known as Busch Wildlife. It’s easily accessible—there are always hunters and fishermen in and out, so no one would notice you—but it’s also full of isolated, desolate areas. Every time I go there—to fish, not to kill—I always think, ‘I’ve got to set a murder mystery here.’”
—Paul Guyot, who has a TV series in development
The St. Louis City police department lab has a section for developing sensitive film. On the wall between the darkroom and another lab is a turntable-type cylinder big enough for two people to stand in. After they are inside, a round door is slid shut and the cylinder revolves to the other side, opening on the darkroom. I would have the body discovered when the door slides open. By that time, the murderer would have escaped out the lab door—of course, he or she had to be admitted in the first place, no small task since the public doesn’t have access to the lab, but any good writer will figure out a way.”
—Eleanor Sullivan, whose third book, Assumed Dead, was released in May
“The 230-foot-tall clock tower at Union Station has interior access for maintenance of the clock. It’s not open to the public, but since when has that deterred murderers? Picture the victim lying in a crumpled heap at the base of the stairs or squashed in the mechanism of the clock. Why would someone go there in the first place if not for a secret meeting? In solving the murder, there has to be a crucial clue overheard by the detective standing on the staircase that passes under the famous Whisper Arch. Because of some odd acoustics, a person at one end of the arch can hear what someone is saying 50 feet away—a nontech form of domestic spying, all in the interest of solving a murder.”
—Shirley Kennett, whose Time of Death came out last December (and who grew up in a converted funeral home in Lafayette Square, complete with blood gutters in the basement embalming room and a building out back for the hearse)
“I’ve always wanted to set a murder in a museum, where the body is found neatly postured in an exhibit of 18th-century furniture, possibly posed in a Chippendale chair at a writing desk. Or, I figure, the huge and gorgeous Dale Chihuly chandelier near Puck’s in the Art Museum could be dropped down upon some unsuspecting victim who’s turned to shreds by the glass. MetroLink would be a cool place for a body, too, as in, a guy gets on, sits down by the window—crowds of others come and go—but he never gets off ’cause he’s been iced.”
—Susan McBride, author of the Debutante Dropout murder mysteries
