The Strand recently sent me some terrific questions about my work, and about my latest novel The Nameless Dead, so I wanted to share our interview here!

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THE STRAND: For readers new to your work, how would you introduce Chief Inspector Yiannis Patronas and the world of the Greek Islands Mysteries? What makes him the right guide to this corner of Greece?
 

Leta: Patronas is a kind of Greek everyman, a wry and often bewildered commentator on life in his country. While deeply patriotic and sentimental about his heritage, he has no illusions about his countrymen or about modern-day Hellenic life.
 

The Nameless Dead is set on Chios and dives into the migrant camp at Vial and the wider refugee crisis. What first drew you to tell a crime story against that very real, very painful backdrop?

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Leta: I was in Greece when a migrant ship capsized in the strait separating Chios from mainland Turkey, and a child was drowned. I saw news footage of a Greek Coast Guard officer cradling the dead child in his arms and sobbing. That image stayed with me and is the genesis of this book.

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I grew up in Greece and still go back whenever I can, and one thing your books capture beautifully is the tension between the country’s breathtaking beauty and its harsher realities. How do your own experiences in Greece shape the way you write about the islands, the light, and the people?

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Leta: I visited Greece every summer for over forty years during the course of my marriage, and I sought very hard to understand the Greeks as I traveled among them. I watched it change right before my eyes very much like my detective, Yannis Patronas, does in this book. And I mourned those changes—the slow erosion of traditional values and culture that was taking place.

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My late husband was Greek to the core of his being; and he was instrumental in this. I truly believe it is the most beautiful country on earth—the sight of the Aegean in the sunlight, the villages on the islands, all of it—but, that said, I also have no illusions and know that it is a hard place in which to live. I wanted to make sure to show the reality of that aspect while also celebrating its very real beauty.

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Chios is not as over-represented in crime fiction as, say, Mykonos or Santorini. Why Chios? What about that island made it the right setting for this particular story?

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Leta: My husband’s family was from Chios, and I was always drawn to it—in part, because it is so different from the rest of Greece. When I first visited the island in 1976, it was almost like a private kingdom, dominated by a few wealthy ship-owning dynasties. A friend in Athens once said, “It’s like you need an invitation to go there,” and to an extent, that was true. There were physical traces all over the island of the long Ottoman occupation, with a unique blending of Turkish and Greek culture visible in both the food and in everyday life—all of which delighted me!

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This book takes Patronas into some very dark territory: human trafficking, exploitation, and the disposability of migrants’ lives. How did you balance the demands of a compelling mystery with the moral and emotional weight of those themes?

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Leta: I wrestled with this issue continually as I was working on this book, and I kept asking myself how deeply did I want to go? How dark did I want to get? What was the answer or even the start of an answer to this unfolding human tragedy? And as far as easy answers, much like my poor detective, Yannis Patronas, I didn’t come up with one. The suffering in the camps is immense and it’s going to continue. Perhaps we can manage the problem better, but I doubt very much that we’ll solve it.

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Patronas is described as world-weary, even nostalgic for an older Greece, yet he refuses to dehumanize refugees the way some around him do. How did you build that internal contradiction into his character over the series, and where is he, emotionally, by the time we reach The Nameless Dead?

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Leta: I have always been impressed by how resolutely Greeks stay true to themselves and Patronas embodies this. He won’t budge from his core beliefs—from his love of children, to his trust in the legal system, to his commitment as a policeman to justice for all—be they migrant or Greek. It is who he is throughout this series, and he will never change. Like I said, he is resolute. He is made of stone.

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At one point, an undercover operation inside the camp goes tragically wrong. Without spoiling too much, can you talk about writing those scenes—both in terms of suspense and the emotional fallout for Patronas and his team?

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Leta: It was very hard to write those scenes in the hospital. The suffering of my character was so palpable that I could feel it as I typed. I wanted to acknowledge and do justice to it, to be true to what my victim experienced.

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You’ve worked as a journalist for outlets like The Washington Post and The Boston Globe before turning to fiction. How does your journalistic background influence the way you research and construct a crime novel like this?

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Leta: I do a lot of homework before I sit down to write. It’s especially hard for me because I am not Greek and yet my characters are deeply so. In my first book The Devil Takes Half, I got a lot of things wrong—reversing the names of the Piraeus and Athenian soccer teams, for example, or the direction of the meltemi (the sirocco)—and now I am a lot more diligent and double-check everything. At the Post during Watergate, for instance, you had to have three independent sources before something got into the paper. I’m not that bad, but I’m pretty close.

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One thing I loved is how the book lets us feel the texture of everyday Greek life—the food, the humor, the small frictions—even while dealing with very contemporary political and social issues. How intentional is that balance between atmosphere and plot for you?

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Leta: It is very intentional. I strive in my books to recreate Greece as I experienced it. It’s the backdrop—like the setting of a play—and then the drama begins.

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The series as a whole has taken readers across multiple islands and facets of Greek society. What new sides of Greece—culturally, politically, or geographically—did you want to explore specifically in The Nameless Dead?

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Leta: Specifically, the migrant crisis and its impact on Greece. I was in Mytilene when the crisis began, and what I saw there stayed with me. We rode a bus and there were Syrian refugees trudging along on either side of it. At first there was just scattering of red life jackets on the beach, but by the time we left, there were thousands. When the Turk in my story describes it as a ‘tsunami,’ I can attest that it was. And is and will continue to be.   

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Greek readers and readers who love Greece can be very particular about how the country is portrayed. Have you had any memorable reactions from Greeks or from readers who know the islands well?

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Leta: People have been very supportive of my books. They take them with them when they return to Greece for the summer, and many have hosted readings for me here in Boston as well. They joke with me, saying, “You know us too well!”

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You also write historical fiction and even a children’s book. What itch does the Inspector Patronas series scratch for you as a writer that the other projects don’t—and vice versa?

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Leta: Mysteries are fun to plot. There is a rudimentary framework you have to follow, but beyond that, you can have fun, dropping clues or red herrings as the spirit moves you. I rewrote the ending of An Evil Most Men Welcome four times with four different murderers until I found the one I was looking for.  It’s like putting together a particularly daunting puzzle.

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As someone who adores Greece and has spent a lifetime steeped in mystery fiction through my work at The Strand, I’m always curious: Which Greek writers or books—crime, literary, or historical—are especially important to you?

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Leta: I love Greek poetry—Elytis, Cavafy, Seferis—and I treasure Penelope Delta, Papadiamantis, and especially Kazantzakis’s Report to Greco.

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If a reader picks up The Nameless Dead as their first encounter with Patronas, what do you hope stays with them after they’ve turned the last page?

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Leta: What a decent man he is.

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Finally, can you give us a hint about what’s next for Inspector Patronas—or for you in Greece, on or off the page?

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Leta: I’m currently working on another mystery based on my experiences as an obit writer at The Washington Post. I’m also contemplating going to Karpathos in September and visiting Olympos. So I have some fun things in the works.