Elisabeth Dini, The Bearer of Bad News and an Aperol Spritz

Not only is an Aperol Spritz one of my favorite drinks of all time - I have not stopped talking about this book. I told my mom. My friends. I told my teenage son about this book.  There is something about the world Elisabeth makes up and the world she reveals - that has completely captured my attention. Part of it, is that the books feels a little bit like a Stephanie Plum mystery but with a more heart-breaking mystery at it's center.   Please - everyone read about this so I can talk about it with someone!! 

A sharply funny and moving debut in which a young woman accepts a job that takes her though the Italian Dolomites and into an international mystery far greater—and more personal—than she could have ever expected.

For someone who hates secrets, Las Vegas hairdresser Lucy Rey is about to be faced with a whole bunch of them. After discovering that her fiancé has been cheating on her with someone from his improv class, she finds herself short on funds and desperate for a change of scenery. Enter a most unusual job opportunity: a Bearer of Bad News.

Sure, it’s a little weird—the job description has few details, and the bad news is more like a vaguely worded threat—but Lucy can’t say no to the perks: an all-expenses-paid trip to the Italian Dolomites, plus a generous bonus if she proves she’s delivered the message. Then she learns that her task is just the tip of the iceberg.

Launched into a world of betrayal and greed involving eighty-year-old secrets, stolen jewels, and a World War II–era mystery, Lucy is in over her head. And she’s connected to her mission in ways she never saw coming.

For fans of Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and Kirstin Chen’s Counterfeit, Bearer of Bad News is an exhilarating romp that deftly explores the weight of secrets, the power of friendship, and how, by healing the wounds of the past, we can build a brighter tomorrow.

Website: http://www.elisabethdini.com

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Transcript

Molly Fader (00:29):

Hello. Welcome to Day Drinking With Authors, the podcast series where I pick a book, the author picks a drink, and we discuss both. I am your host Molly Fader, and today I'm talking about the Bearer of Bad News with Elizabeth Jeanie. And reading this book was constantly surprising. I felt like I would get a handle on it and then something would change. And it ended up like it was one of those books that as a reader and as a reader who's read all sorts of things, I had to just give up expectations and just totally surrender to the ride. And it has been a very long time since a book has taken me on a ride like that where I wasn't trying to pull it apart or pick it apart or figure out what was going to happen next. It was utterly surprising and I felt like I was in the hands of somebody who not only was an incredible writer, but had researched her world so competently and I can't recommend Bearer of Bad News more.
(01:29)
And I'm going to read the back cover copy for my mom and mom, you would love this book. You would love this book. I, in fact, mom, please read this book so that we can talk about it. So here's the back cover copy for someone who hates secrets. Las Vegas hairdresser, Lucy Ray is about to be faced with a whole bunch of them after discovering that her fiance has been cheating on her with someone from his improv clash, she finds herself short on funds and desperate for a change of scenery enter a most unusual job opportunity, a bearer of bad news. Sure, it's a little weird. The job description has few details, and the bad news is more like a vaguely worded threat, but Lucy can't say no to the perks, an all expenses paid trip to the Italian Dolomites, plus a generous bonus if she proves she's delivered the message, then she learns that her task is just the tip of the iceberg, launched into a world of betrayal and greed involving 80-year-old secrets, stolen jewels, and a World War II era. Mystery Lucy is in over her head and she's connected to her mission in ways she never saw coming for fans of Gail Honeymoon's Ella for Eleanor Elephant is completely fine. And Kristen Chen's counterfeit bearer of bad news is an exhilarating romp that definitely explores the weight of secrets, the power of friendship, and how by healing the wounds of the past, we can build a brighter tomorrow. Elizabeth, welcome to Day Drinking with Authors. Elisabeth Dini (02:47):

Thank you so much for having me, Molly. I'm so happy to be here and I'm so happy to hear you recommended this book to your mom because to me that's the highest praise that one could give a book. So I hope your mom Molly Fader (02:56):

Likes it. No, she'll, like my mom has been in the same book club for 30 years, you know what I mean? There's nothing my mom and her book club won't read, and I think they would love this book, and I highly recommend it to book clubs of all types because there's so many things you want to talk about. There's so many things that I went back and reread to make sure that I got, that I wanted to talk to somebody else about. This is a perfect book for book clubs, so thank you for that. Elisabeth Dini (03:29):

Well, thank you. I am happy to hear that there's a lot to discuss. Molly Fader (03:33):

Yeah. So first thing we're going to discuss is our drink. What are we drinking today? Elisabeth Dini (03:37):

Oh, Aperol Spritz. That's an obvious choice for any book that takes place in the Italian dolomites, if not all of Italy. And also a drink that I really enjoy, even though as you learned, my protagonist does not agree with me at first anyway. Molly Fader (03:50):

Yeah, I honestly feel like the Aperol Spritz, which is got to be one of my top three drinks, there's nothing better on a hot day than an AOL spritz, but I felt like her relationship with this drink was a metaphor for her relationship with this job. She went from hating it and kind of being confused to enjoying it, to really getting into it. And I thought it was a really good metaphor for what she was going through. Elisabeth Dini (04:20):

Yeah, it's just a very fun drink. My husband and I like to hike a lot, and so we live in the Netherlands and we often will drive down to Austria to the area around where the book takes place. And to me, that's kind of the epitome of that sort of trip. You hike for a really long time, usually straight uphill, and then you come to some kind of fu heel and there's always Al Spritz on the menu. So it's very refreshing and for me sort of speaks to those mountain times. Molly Fader (04:47):

It's perfect. Let's jump into this book. One of the things that I found both amazing as a reader and then putting on my writer hat is that this is strictly speaking a dual timeline story. You are telling a story in the present tense, and then you are also telling a story in the past, this World War ii, the Secret of a Missing Necklace, the secret of what happened to these two girls in Berlin at the beginning of the war. But it's told through interstitials about reports and letters. It's my question. My question is how hard was that to do? It would just so much easier to just write the scenes. But the way that you chose to do it through these interstitials and these letters that are found just created this level of mystery. How did these letters survive? Who had these letters? It was kind of telling three stories at the same time, so it wasn't just a dual timeline. So I don't really have a question about this except to say, what made you decide to go that route? Elisabeth Dini (06:09):

So I wanted the challenge of telling a story that's in the present day, but still manages to tell the story of something that happened in the past. And then it became, well, how could you do that? What sort of narrative devices would allow your characters who are all living in today's time to really experience things that were lived in the past? And so this idea came to me that if you had, at first it wasn't the Department of Lost Things, but it was just, well, if you had a bunch of materials from the past, what kinds of materials would you need to piece together various parts of this backstory? And then it became, okay, well, how do you contain all these parts? Where could they go? And then I don't even know if it was at this point, the process. I mean, it took me several years to write this book, so I'm not sure exactly when the Department of Lost Things cropped up, but that in and of itself for me was just really intriguing.
(07:07)
And then I thought, oh, of course you have this organisation as one does looking into this case and other cases. And of course they would have a case file, and of course that would span the length of time that they had been looking into the mystery and whatever they'd been able to gather. And then that neatly fit together what I'd been trying to do. And then the next issue became, well, how do you organise that in a novel? What order do the files go in? Are you putting all the files in? How much are you telling the reader about Molly Fader (07:38):

Without spoiling? I mean, I think that was one of the things that was really impressive to me is that it's like you gave us just a little bit more light for this walk down the road. It's like you were not revealing things miles in the distance. It was just a little bit more, or it sort of clarified some things that we had just read. It was just this sort of perfectly measured reveal or tease of information that could not have been easy. Elisabeth Dini (08:10):

I'm glad you experienced it that way as a reader, because I mean, one of the things as an author, you always wonder is are you revealing things in the right order? And I think building the narrative tension and saying enough without saying too much is always a struggle for any type of book that has a mystery edit centre. And for me, that was something that I thought about throughout the process. I mean, up until the final edits are these entries in the right order? And then a lot of errors were caught, I would say late in the editing process. For me, it was a lot of stress thinking like, oh my gosh, I just realised this is misnumbered, or it's referring to something that didn't happen yet. So really going back through the dates and making sure that everything fit together and that when the entry is referenced a previous case file, that number was correct.
(09:02)
I mean, that ended up becoming a much bigger project than I anticipated when I was first coming up with the idea. So I really hoped it wasn't too complicated. And I think for the right kind of reader, it's fun to put it all together, even to go back and maybe read them in order. Of course, in the book that the case files aren't presented in order, so they're numbered differently than how they appear in the book. And the fail file is meant to be organised chronologically. So if you put them in order from one through the end, the dates would be in chronological order. But of course, the way that you as the reader get them is not in that order. So that was another bit. Molly Fader (09:46):

I'm a reader who does not worry about dates, which makes me a writer that doesn't really worry about dates and nothing will mess up that last or that first copy edit, like the internal timeline. It's just the worst. It is the hardest job is keeping your internal timeline right. Elisabeth Dini (10:12):

So I actually, in early draughts, and I know people use a lot of expensive software and different things, I just use Word. So I just have a document. I know how to use it, it's there. But I use headers for each of my chapters, and I put some crucial information in the header, including days of the Week. Of course, that other timeline here is the number of days that Lucy is in the Dolemite. So in early draughts that I had the actual date, and it would be morning, evening, whatever, so I could keep track of where in time I was there very quickly just at a glance. And then I also would use the headers to have information about the entries so that it was there and not lost. I agree with you. It's really hard not to get lost in your own narrative and kind of remember, wait, how many nights has she been there? What morning is it just to make sure that you're consistent internally? Molly Fader (11:04):

Yeah, your first draught, everything happens in one day. You haven't added any clues that days have passed. So this is your debut novel. And which of these stories was the one that you thought of first? Was it the woman who is given this fabricated job of a bearer of bad news, which is so clever? Or was it the story set in World War ii? Elisabeth Dini (11:36):

It was the bearer of bad news, and that actually came to me in a much different way. I didn't start out thinking that it would be a funny book. I'd actually pictured a bearer of bad news in a much more sober environment where, and I think the first iteration, it was actually someone who was dying and couldn't accept that news. And so their family had hired someone to try to get them to come to terms with a very obviously serious situation in their own lives. And that was a very different book. But then the pandemic happened and it was so depress, everything was just so depressing, Molly, and I just thought, I can't write something serious right now. I want to be entertained. I want to laugh. I want something more amusing. And so the tone of the book took a totally different direction. And then instead of hiring a bearer or bad news to do something serious, it was what if you hire someone to do something completely ridiculous?
(12:32)
And then early iterations that didn't make it into the book. It was a lot of funny misunderstandings and really kind of comical situations that could arise from that scenario. And then it sort of crystallised into an idea not of someone locally working as a bearer of bad news, but having some sort of adventure where that job took them to an exotic location, in this case, the Dolomites. And then I was kind of off and running. But the World War II backstory, gosh, when did that come in? I'm not even sure now. It was, again, it was such a long process to write the novel. So I do think that it was very quickly established that there would be some type of object that had been found and had an interesting provenance because that's something I'm interested in. So
(13:23)
I'm always really taken by these stories of particularly thrift store finds. I love a story about a good thrift store find. So you find all these articles where someone will go into their local, I think it was a Habitat for Humanity in Queens. And this guy found, or this woman, I think it was a woman, she found this bust from Germany, and it was like a 2000 year old Roman bust for sale for 34 99, and it had been stolen from Germany by an American soldier, brought back over. And there's actually more of those stories than you would think. So I listened to those sorts of things with interests and particularly disputes about them. So there are a lot of articles about people suing to get things back, and it's not always the person that you would regard as the rightful owner. There was a story I was reading about someone who was basically suing to get something that had been in his family as a Nazi, and he was suing to get that back. And so you're thinking it's just a lot of you don't get that lawsuit, you don't get to get that. But this is very, in terms of fictional fodder, you think, wow, there's a lot of stories there, all these missing objects. And then when I started digging into that, there's an extraordinary number of things that are still missing Speaker 1 (14:39):

That Elisabeth Dini (14:40):

May never be found. And so that really intrigued me and continues to intrigue me. And that started off this whole idea about what if I put in one of those objects as part of the story? And then it started coming together around that, Molly Fader (14:56):

And I found that. So the bearer of Bad News and the Department of Lost things are two completely fabricated devices made up by you, both of which seem like they should exist. And it's kind of hard to land on that sort of thing, something that really does feel like it exists, but is almost like alternative reality, fantasy writing, you know what I mean? There should be a department of Lost things, particularly from World War ii, and I'm wondering about you tied all those things together. So interestingly, one with the setting, because the Dolomites, as you mentioned in the book, was a place where a lot of art and possessions were destroyed by the Nazis. Elisabeth Dini (15:49):

Well, more I would say in Austria and Southern Germany, but yes, toward the mountains because essentially Hitler's last stand, a lot of soldiers were shipping things in trains into this. Well, who knows? I mean, a lot of it's still missing, so I don't even know. But yes, there are in southern Germany lakes where it's rumoured that gold is in the bottom, and there was a mine shaft where a bunch of artworks were found. So it's not quite the dolomite. That part was more of a fictional invention by me. But if you look at a map of that whole area, the Dolomites are part of that mountain range that goes through the whole area of southern Germany, Austria, and that was where a lot of this art was being hidden. Of course, there were probably other places where it may still be today that no one's even found.
(16:43)
And he also had that museum he was trying to build. So I mean, I think it was going a lot of different places, but so much had been stolen, and the idea of getting somewhere in the mountains was partially inspired by a real life guy who'd been a forger in Berlin. And he'd escaped from Berlin on a bicycle and he'd ridden into Switzerland. So I thought, oh, that's interesting. And then once you know, okay, it was possible that people were doing this, then I started thinking, well, where could my characters go? And I'd taken a trip to the Dolomites and just really fallen in love with it. So I thought, huh, it's not quite Austria or Southern Germany, but this certainly could be a place that's close enough to those locations that these characters could have gotten there. And then I think it was really, I loved the Dolomites and I wanted it to be the Dolomites. Molly Fader (17:30):

Yeah, it's a great setting. It's a great setting. It's a great setting. And then the other thing that sort of reflected back on the finding lost things, and it ties into your character, Lucy, who your decision to make the book Lighter obviously comes from Lucy, who's a bit of a failed hairdresser, which is such a perfect career to give her or job the oatmeal skills that you talk about. Can you talk about the decision, oh, sorry, to go back to my main point there is that she also has a bit of a pickpocket. She kind of steals some things, which also sort of ties into all of it. So talk to us about the creation of Lucy once you sort of determined that it was time to make it a lighter book. It is Lucy's story that, or it's the Lucy's character. Her story's pretty tough, but her character's very funny. Elisabeth Dini (18:26):

So my aunt is a hairdresser, so I mean, I've had some very interesting haircuts as a child when she was learning her trade and she would practise on us when we were kids, me and my sister. So I had a mullet. I looked like kind of MacGyver's long lost twin sister. And one of the pictures, fourth grade, she cut all my hair off. So I went into school.
(18:49)
So the hairdressing profession's familiar to me through that. And I'd actually read somewhere that hairdressers are some of the most influential people in our lives because the combination of touching you while you talk to someone, that is something that makes communication more persuasive. And hairdressing is one of the few times when people are talking to you while they're touching you, maybe masseuses, who knows? But yeah, so then I thought, oh, that's very interesting. So that had kind of, I think, come to me in that way. And then also, but it's a sort of profession where you can easily see how being bad at it is not great for your continuation Molly Fader (19:29):

For that profession. Just knows she that she's not good at this, but the soft skills of it come in handy for. And that is so interesting about the touch. And a lot of people have their hairdresser for so many years. Elisabeth Dini (19:50):

I mean, it's a relationship of trust, obviously. Probably you're more trusting if you like that the result of your hairdo, which Lucy's clients maybe don't as much, but, but it was a sort of fun profession, especially for someone who's just trying to figure out what to do next. I think it is something you could do to work your way through college, which is what had brought Lucy to it. And that kind of took off for her in my mind, I don't know. And then I think it's just you start listening to your characters and then the stealing was just what she did, Molly, I don't know why Molly Fader (20:30):

It resonated with me. And that her best friend was like, we've got to put parameters around this. Someone who felt a little bit like she had no control over her life. This was just a little thing that she could have control over just this little pickpocketing, and it paid off for her in terms of some of these, the way that the notes and the reports kind of created this second, the solving of the mystery, it paid off. It worked out for her. Elisabeth Dini (21:00):

I guess if you're willing to steal, that will make getting clues easier. Molly Fader (21:07):

So one of the things that, I was reading some reviews of the book and I have to agree with this review that the author's note of your book is Absolutely. And you had made the decision to name the characters. Well, you tell us, tell the authors note the decisions that you had made about the characters' names. Could you tell us about that? Elisabeth Dini (21:35):

Yeah, so I did a lot of research for the book. I mean, even though it's not billed as a historical fiction book, but I believe strongly that if your readers trust you enough to go on this journey with you, I want to be giving information that's factual. So people are learning about real events to the extent that I could put in true troop movements. And as I said, I read about a guy who actually wrote a bicycle to Switzerland, so I knew it's possible to do some of the journey that they did. And in the research that I did, I was really touched deeply by the stories of regular women who participated in resistance efforts. And many of their stories have never been told. I mean, of course you can find the information if you look online, but I hadn't realised how important of a role a lot of these women had played.
(22:23)
And so when the World War II story started taking shape, I wanted to honour those women in some way. And so in the author's note, I just made sure to keep track of the stories that I'd read and the names and just a little bit of information. Most of the stories are very sad. Most of the women that I'm featuring were murdered by Hitler or his regime sometimes at Hitler's order. So there were women who had received sentences where they would've been spared or they would've been sent to a camp, and he actually personally intervened and said, no, these women should be killed. And they were so they lost their lives fighting for what we now universally view as the right thing. These were very moral people who took a stand and refuse to be silent. And they weren't important powerful people. They were students.
(23:18)
They were just regular folks living their lives. And some of the ways that they fought back weren't, it wasn't like planning bombs or doing those sorts of things you see in movies. It was this leaflet movement, which I had been really surprised to learn about. And it made a lot of sense at the time in Nazi Germany, Hitler had basically eradicated the free press. And so the only news that people were getting was coming from Hitler. And people would therefore resist by printing news that they would listen to radio broadcasts from England or other places. They would get that news and they would type it up and they would distribute it to other people. And that was their form of resistance, really just putting out the truth, putting out actual facts in a time where that's prohibited, where that's forbidden. That is a form of bravery, of resistance. People were killed for doing Speaker 1 (24:14):

That. Elisabeth Dini (24:15):

That for me was really inspiring to learn about. I read these books are, oh, sorry. Go ahead, Molly. Molly Fader (24:22):

I think one of the things that was mean, the characters in your book were young girls and the women that you named those characters after were young women. That particular line of resistance of handing out these flyers, having the flyers underneath fruit that you were selling or flowers that you were selling was so powerful. It's so distinctly a girl's job, and it was so dangerous. I was just so moved by that. They were so young in your book. Elisabeth Dini (24:53):

A lot of the people that were involved in these efforts were college aged. And I'm sure there are stories were never going to learn or hear, but even younger people who did really brave things. So for me, it's really inspiring just to reflect and to remember. Molly Fader (25:08):

So in the author's note, all of the characters that we've been reading about and following along with are named after these women in real life who had stood up to Nazism and had paid one of the women who had survived. But Elisabeth Dini (25:23):

Yeah, so the women who were taking centre stage in the world Wari portion of the book, yes, I either named them or use the initials or in some other way, honour them. And then in the authors, no women to detail about who the row women had been and also some of the books and things that I had read that had provided some of this information. There was a really good one, all the frequent troubles of our days by Rebecca Donner. And she had actually researched her great great aunt who was named Mildred Fish, and she was an American woman who'd actually been killed by Hitler. And she'd been a co-leader of a resistance group in Berlin. And so that book had been fascinating. It was extremely detailed and had a bunch of information about the time period and about her aunt who was a very brave and inspiring woman. Molly Fader (26:16):

Another thing that had come as the story is told in the past and in your author's note, I had not known, I'm using air quotes that you can't see, but U-boats people who had Jews who had survived in Berlin through the entirety of the war or through much of the war, but they were hidden under, and your two girls whose fathers had been arrested were professors. They'd been arrested, and they were just sort of caught in that age, in that time where they were waiting for someone to come back and they ended up having to survive kind of underground. I found that I had never heard about that before. Elisabeth Dini (26:56):

Yeah, there is actually a book written by one of the, again, air quote one you quote, and I had read that book and also been really inspired and also horrified because yes, there were people who were able to survive in Berlin during the war, but often the way that they survived was horrible. So in this book, the woman detailed being sexually assaulted everywhere that she was given lodging and the way that she lived and the things she went through were quite horrifying. But there were other stories like the forger where of course he was a man, so he had different dangers, but he was able to forge documents for people throughout most of the war in Berlin and also to live under the radar. And he also escaped and lived. So there are a lot of stories I think, that we haven't heard traditionally. And that was something interesting to me because I love so many books from the World War II period, and obviously it's a time of interest to me as well, but I wanted to do something slightly different.
(28:01)
And so focusing on Berlin at the fall of the war, which hadn't featured in as many of the things that I've read about, was interesting to me. Also looking at these stories of people who lived in Berlin during the entire war until the Red Army came. And then also looking at the suffering of regular Germans who were left alive at the end of the war, most of them women and children who'd had nothing to do with Hitler's policies who were not powerful in that time. And were subjected to one of the worst mass rapes of history that we know of by the Red Army. And that story hasn't been told either. So some of these historical moments, obviously they don't feature prominently in bear of bad news, but just to mention them, I feel like it's important that we not forget. Molly Fader (28:50):

I mean, as we're talking about this, and I talk about this a lot on the podcast, about the role of research and then the struggle writers go through to manage the research that they've done and keep it from not taking over the story. And the fact that you set this book in modern times with some lightness, the woman that hires her to be the bearer of bad news is an absolute, she's a funny character. She's a very funny character with funny dogs and a funny plan. So how was the balancing of this very serious story you were telling, sort of told at the same time as this, she gets targeted by an influencer. How hard was that? Or were you able to keep the two things balanced with ease? I mean, it would be so hard as a writer not to drift into the heaviness that you were revealing for Elisabeth Dini (30:03):

Writer. Yeah, and obviously that is something that some readers of the books have not liked, right? Because it is in some ways sort of these two tones or two different stories that do have a very different feel. And the reason that I did that is because I wanted to write a book that was amusing and that was fun and that you could take on vacation or have a laugh with, but also that had a little bit something deeper there too. And I didn't plan for it to be the way that it turned out necessarily. That's just the story that came. But in terms of managing the two sort of very different fields, the present day story with Lucy is written in a much lighter way than the files. So by kind of containing that World War II storyline to just those case file moments and the things that are being discovered, but again, since it's present day, there's that distance.
(31:03)
And I had thought at one point, should I do true dual timeline where I'm actually in the heads of these characters who are going through this escape from Berlin and all the things that they're going through. And I decided then it would be way too schizophrenic of a novel. I could really have it feeling really unbalanced. And so this was kind of the way that I tried to bring them together. And it was challenging. And I'm sure there are going to be people who read this and think, oh yeah, good try Elizabeth, the other people who like it. But yeah, Molly Fader (31:38):

I mean, one of the things that, again, as I said at the beginning, having to sort of surrender my expectations. I finished this book at day one of my daughter had this two day swim meet. And if you've ever been in a high school or collegiate swim meet, it's so long and it's so boring and it's so hot, and you kind of just sit there numb until 30 seconds of your kid swimming. And there's, getting emotionally involved in reading in that situation is really hard. And I've done it a million times, and I was sitting there crying that you had paid off the emotional distance with those reports and then paid all of it off with the reveal of how it really went down. This mystery that you're teeing up, that you managed to pull that kind of emotional connection from these reports and these letters was not an easy feat. I just have, I said this enough, Elisabeth Dini (32:47):

I'm so glad that you liked it, Molly. This would've been a very different conversation if you're like, oh, good trial, Elizabeth. No, I mean Molly Fader (32:54):

That you managed to make it. It was this very interesting device where it kept the emotion and the horrors of it sort of at arm's length. And then as things crept up and you realise what was happening, it got more dire. But then that it got so emotional at the end and managed to satisfy what as a reader I wanted was tricky, really tricky. Elisabeth Dini (33:20):

Well, I'm glad. Yeah, I'm glad that you liked it. Molly Fader (33:22):

Was the editorial process for this book just was it tough? I know that you've been working on it for a long time, but did you go through grounds and rounds of edits because it felt very nuanced, which is the thing I always feel like happens in edits. Elisabeth Dini (33:36):

So actually, I'd gone through this book so many times, and I think because it was a debut, meaning I had to get an agent with this book, you had to do kind of all those things. It didn't go through a tonne of changes in the editing process. I mean, the things that changed, it was more like I'd had it said in Covid initially, I had more of a paparazzi presence in the initial draught. It was kind of those things which were fringing smaller. It wasn't really, I mean, what did change is I added more detail to the World War II backstory. So I think in the initial version, it had been Pier, there weren't as many of the files, and they weren't as robust with kind of information. And so that made that story maybe pop a little more, I'm trying to remember now, but I think compared to Molly Fader (34:34):

It's been so long, I mean, that's publishing for you too. You finished the book three years ago, Elisabeth Dini (34:41):

But compared to the book that I'm working on now where I feel like the editorial processes is much more involved and I, yeah, very different. I feel like their bad news arrived more fully formed because I had also just more time to work on it. I think as an author, obviously, if you go through something a million times, it's going to be a lot more polished than something that you have read through three times. Molly Fader (35:05):

Second book is no joke. It really is. No joke. So one of the other things that, in getting ready for this interview, I'm wondering about how much your job, which is an incredibly interesting job and an important job, how much your job sort of is reflected in this book? Elisabeth Dini (35:29):

So I don't currently work there anymore, but I was previously a trial lawyer at the International Criminal Court, which I assume that's what you Molly Fader (35:40):

Yes. Elisabeth Dini (35:40):

What you mean. Yeah. So I think it informs the book in that I am particularly aware of the sorts of things that happen in conflict in a different way because instead of just reading newspaper articles about them, which of course I also do, but I've been on the backend of reading witness statements and trying to put together prosecutions against the people that perpetrate war crimes and crimes against humanity. And so I do have that background, but of course, the cases that I worked on are more contemporary. So I don't have any experience, per se with the prosecutions against Nazi war criminals or those sorts of things short of having read a lot of the foundational documents and having a familiarity with international law. But that doesn't come, I mean, it comes, I guess, into the book in that one of the characters is an international human rights lawyer, but you don't really learn a lot about her profession, at least not in this book.
(36:39)
Maybe there'll be a sequel and she'll pop up again. But other than that, I mean, it led to some interesting discussions. I live in the Hagues, so a lot of my friends here are in the same space. And at one of our book clubs, when I was doing an early draught of this book, we had a very interesting and robust discussion about pillage, how it's defined in the Rome statute, and whether in this sort of murky after conflict time where World War II was in theory done and dusted, but you still have news crawling around news. You want all these things happening. Molly Fader (37:15):

Yeah, this really murky area of time after the war. Yeah. Elisabeth Dini (37:20):

So it led to some interesting discussions, but the book obviously doesn't have a lot of that analysis. So of course, as an author, you bring a certain amount of yourself to any book. I do think the exposure that I've had to certain witness statements might inform how I'd felt about the choices that some people who are fleeing conflicts have to make and what that requires of them. And so that I think came in, I mean, obviously I won't do any spoilers, but of course there's a very poignant decision that has to be made by one of the characters, and I think there's a lot that could be said. Was it the right decision, was it not? And I think some of the things that I've read or seen or experienced probably informed how I put that together.
(38:07)
But other than that, yeah, I don't know mean, maybe in the future I think it would be interesting. I read these books about the international criminal court and the prosecutors, and they're always doing these insanely exciting things that does not at all reflect the actual reality. I watched one movie where it was like someone trying to get this person to testify at the International Criminal Court, and they were like, people shooting out. It was this insane thing. And you're thinking, yeah, they don't even have a warrant squad at the, I dunno who these people are, but it's not my reality. But I guess that's fun about fiction. You can jazz things up a little bit. Molly Fader (38:44):

You can make up the Department of Lost things and there bad news. I'm wondering too, if my reaction to feeling to being able to just give into the experience of reading this book wasn't in part because I felt that those interstitials with the reports, your writing of those was so competent. And I wonder if that isn't, in part because of your career as a lawyer, you've read so many of those kinds of reports. Granted, these are all made up. It just felt like it was different. It felt there was a level of authenticity to that that I felt was really effective. Elisabeth Dini (39:26):

Yeah, I mean, that's probably a good point. I have read a lot of those sorts of things in my life as a lawyer, and so they probably do read the sorts of files that they are, because I do have that sort of firsthand experience, although I'd never really thought of that as a plus before. Usually as a lawyer, you're like, oh man, these boring documents. But then you're like, but now you can recreate them realistically fiction lens, Molly Fader (39:54):

Make something interesting out of it. Yeah, no, it was very effective. And it's one of the, I mean, we'll kind of sum up here, but as I was reading, particularly as you were wrapping things up, I really hope that this is the beginning of a series for you because it felt like you had created a world I wanted more of, and you'd created these fictional departments and jobs that I wanted more of. And there was such a, if you've read Janet Ivanovich, the Stephanie Palm Series, it was exactly that kind of energy towards the end. You had a bit of a love triangle that I want to see more of the team that she had sort of created at the end. She's got her two best friends who are doing all of the hard research work, but she's on the ground. It was so effective, and I'm hoping, wondering if you have other ideas in this Elisabeth Dini (40:55):

World. Yeah, I definitely do. I mean, my second book is not going to be a continuation of this world, but I do plan and hope to revisit Lucy and the Department of las in future novels. And so yeah, hopefully we'll see them on the page in Future Adventures. Molly Fader (41:13):

Well, I can't wait. I can't wait. Elizabeth, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. Yeah, Elisabeth Dini (41:19):

Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation. Molly Fader (41:21): 

Great. Everybody out there, please pick up Bear of Bad News. Mom, you in particular, you'd really like this one. Everybody out there, grab a book, grab a drink. Stay safe