Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Spotify | Email | TuneIn | RSS
What draws a mystery writer from Chicago to the cobblestone streets and alchemical history of Prague? How can a city’s mystical atmosphere inspire a novel, and what happens when grief follows you to one of Europe’s most beautiful destinations?
Lisa M. Lilly shares how Prague captured her imagination, weaving the city’s gothic romance and ancient legends into her latest detective novel. From the astronomical clock that’s been marking time since 1410 to the legendary golem still said to rest in a synagogue, discover how this enchanting city became both a setting for fiction and a place of personal reflection.
Lisa M. Lilly writes detective novels and supernatural thrillers, and also the author of Writing as a Second Career: Books for Writers. Her latest book, The Skeptical Man, features Prague in the Czech Republic
- How Prague’s architecture and eerie beauty immediately captivated a Chicago-based writer
- The city’s rich alchemical history and the famous golem legend, from medieval mysticism to modern AI parallels
- Navigating grief while traveling after losing a close friend
- Rooftop dining experiences and local Czech specialties, from monastery beer gardens to traditional duck restaurants
- Books about Prague including Wolf on a String, Prague the Mystical City, and more
You can find Lisa at LisaLilly.com
You can also take a day trip from Prague to Kutna Hora where you can find Sedlec Ossuary, or The Bone Church, which inspired my thriller, Crypt of Bone.
Transcript of the interview
Jo: Hello Travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Lisa M. Lilly. Hi Lisa.
Lisa: Hi. It’s so good to see you, and thank you for having me on the podcast. I’m really excited.
Jo: Oh yeah, it’s going to be fun today. Just a little introduction. Lisa writes detective novels and supernatural thrillers, and also the author of Writing as a Second Career: Books for Writers. Her latest book, The Skeptical Man, features Prague in the Czech Republic, which we are talking about today.
So Lisa, you are in America.
Why were you drawn to visit Prague and research the city for this book?
Lisa: It happened the other way around in a way. Two years ago, I went to Prague by way of Krakow because that was the main city we were going to. My travel companion and I went because my grandparents were originally from that area, came to the United States in the early 1920s or so. And I had never been. And so my friend Steve said, “Well, I’ve always wanted to see Prague, but let’s wrap that in too.” And I more or less just said, “Okay, yeah, that sounds good.”
And from the second I saw the city, we took a train there from Paris, because we also went to Paris. I just saw the architecture and we came into Old Town. And I thought, “Oh, I’m going to want to come back here. This is a beautiful city.”
And as we walked around, I was very intrigued by the history of alchemy in Prague and we did not get to the Alchemist Museum. That was on my list to go to next time. But I started thinking about it. All these story ideas – I’m very motivated by place and I had not even been sure I was going to write another book in the series right then. I was thinking of taking a break and all these story ideas started coming to mind and the more places we saw, the more I’d think, “Oh, this would be a great scene. This would be a great place to set something.”
I think Prague is so beautiful and kind of eerie in some places that it just evokes so many ideas.
Jo: Yeah, I think it’s interesting. Well, first of all, you said Krakow and you got the train from Paris. I mean, obviously Krakow’s closer. You could have got the train.
Lisa: Well, we went Paris to Prague, Prague to Krakow.
Jo: Oh, okay. Yeah, because it’s really – for people who might not know, you know, the Czech Republic is really right in the center of Europe, well connected with Germany, Austria, Poland, Slovakia. So, and the trains. And this always surprises me in America, because I’ve been over to the US a lot and the trains are terrible. Whereas in Europe, you could just get everywhere by train, right? So I love that you arrived by train as an American.
Lisa: Well, it turned out for us, it wasn’t the best way to go because we had worked with this travel agent who specialized in trains because we thought, “Oh, trains would be great. We’d always heard this about Europe.” And it was in terms of connectivity, but she didn’t think to tell us we were doing this almost four-week trip, so we had tons of bags. We each had two big rolling bags, two smaller bags. And we were picturing – I know you’ve taken the Amtrak where you get the compartments and you could stow your bags above and check your bags.
So we’re lugging all these bags and there’s nowhere to put them because —
Jo: We all have backpacks!
Lisa: Yeah, exactly. And people are just looking at us like, “What? What are you doing?” And there’s not a porter and we didn’t… so I would say to people, yeah, be prepared. I enjoyed the trip, and I talked to some people from Prague to Krakow. One of my favorite parts of the trip was talking to people in the compartment who were telling me – who were Polish and were telling me about all these traditions, and I’m asking them questions. It was wonderful. But yeah, don’t take eight bags. And don’t… yeah, do it if you’ve got like one bag and a backpack and know your stops.
We got off on the wrong stop. We didn’t know there were two Dresden stops. So we’re out and we’re like, “Why can we not find this connection? We need to get to Prague.” But people were so helpful. I can’t tell you how many people offered to help me with a bag or like block the train door when they were going to close it on us because very serious in Germany about the train times or help me find… I just went up to someone and said, “I don’t know how to get the train to Prague” and they just happened to speak English and were taking that train and said, “Okay, follow, follow us.” Very patient. Very nice people. Just wonderful.
Jo: Oh yeah. Well it sounds like you had an adventure in getting there.
Lisa: It was. We flew the next time.
Jo: Yeah. Okay, so let’s come back. So you said the moment you kind of saw the city and the architecture was all amazing.
What were some of the highlights, like your favorite parts of the city?
Lisa: Yeah. I loved, you know, this is very touristy, but I love the Charles Bridge because there’s just so much going on there. We walked through during the day and at night there are singers, we saw dancers. We saw a couple dressed up as a bride and groom doing a whole song and dance thing together, vendors. And of course I thought, “What a great place for a chase scene, a foot chase scene,” which ended up in my book. So I loved that.
I loved the Old Town Square, the whole Old Town neighborhood. I really enjoyed… We went to see the – I’m sure you’ve seen it – the astronomical clock, which plays I think every half hour. And you can see all these figures coming out. And I think it’s the…
Jo: I just wrote this down. It’s the from 1410, the world’s oldest working astronomical clock.
Lisa: Yeah. It’s… and you see people just standing there watching, which is how we found it. We had trouble finding it because we came to the square in a direction where the way the buildings were and the churches, you couldn’t actually see it and finally saw all these people in this narrow area that’s along the side.
That’s something else I love too, though, just the streets and how you could wander and you’d end up behind the buildings and come out another place. In Chicago where I live, we’re on a grid, so almost everything is square blocks, which is great for navigating but not as intriguing for walking around. So I love the cobblestone streets. I love the Prague Castle. I went there a number of times and we don’t have castles here either, so it’s very… that’s like a proper castle.
Jo: Oh yeah. We should say, if you stand on St. Charles Bridge and look out, it sort of dominates the skyline there, doesn’t it?
Lisa: It is what you think of as a castle and beautiful to see at night. And that reminds me just the river itself, the Vltava River. I found so peaceful. I spent a lot of time sitting by the river and reading and just watching it sparkle. And in any weather, just, I think it might be the prettiest river I’ve seen. The water seems so clear and it’s very tranquil. It’s also very shallow. I found out, so perhaps that’s why it looks so pretty. I don’t know. But the boat tours can’t go very far because they run into the bottom of the river. They just can’t keep going.
Jo: You went this year as well, did you?
Lisa: Yes. I went two years ago and went back this year and did a number of boat trips on it.
Jo: I was there in 2015, so a decade ago. I don’t remember the river being low, but then I was there in the winter. And also this summer has been one of the driest.
Lisa: Yes, I didn’t think about that. They were telling us as the river was low, and they did show us the different times that had flooded. We took one with a small boat where they could go into, I don’t know the right word, but the sort of offshoots of the river and would show us where the flooding had been and where the river level was at different points and that. Yeah, I didn’t think about that. It was very low when we went.
Jo: And you’ve been both in the summer, both times?
Lisa: Both in the summer in mid-May through mid-June. Just beautiful weather both times. We did a lot of rooftop dining, which you could see the whole city, and you could see the Prague Castle. And it’s particularly beautiful at night when the sun sets and it outlines the castle.
Jo: Yeah, it’s very kind of gothic romance. But I was there in the winter, so we went for New Year and you don’t sit by the river reading in the winter. It is freezing. It’s proper furry hoods and boots kind of weather. But also you can eat outside, but there’s lots of heaters and things, so it’s very well set up for winter. Like a lot of people go at winter for the Christmas markets and that kind of thing.
Lisa: Oh, I bet the Christmas market is… is it very big? Is it really something to see?
Jo: Yeah, it’s something. Well that, yeah, it’s the square and all the little places, but again, quite touristy. But Prague’s also well known for its beer and general nightlife.
Lisa: Oh yes. It’s funny, the other amazing thing was the monastery. I loved, you go upstairs and you see the cabinets of curiosity where the emperor had collected all these things that seemed very amazing and exotic from foreign lands. And then you see the notes and it’s like a fossil of some kind of fish that we know today. This is not a big deal, but people… they couldn’t travel the way you could now, and I love that.
And they all these books that you can’t go into the area. But I loved seeing all the books and they kept saying to us, “Oh, you have to go. The monks make this wonderful beer, and you have to go to the beer garden.” I can’t tell you how many people told us that, and neither Steve nor I like beer. So we kept being like, “Well that sounds, that sounds wonderful.” And yeah, so many signs for beer. So apparently, if you like it, good place to try a lot of beer.
Jo: It is. It’s definitely a beer capital of the world. So I mean, I guess one of the areas of the city is the Jewish quarter. I don’t know if you had a look around there.
What about the Jewish Quarter?
Lisa: We did get… the time that we went, there had been some incidents, they were limiting a lot of access, so we were only able to drive in and look at the main synagogue from the outside and we could see the gates to the cemetery. I would have really liked to go in. And our guide mostly was telling us about how much it has changed.
But she told us some of the history. You probably know the story of the golem of Prague. She told us that story.
There’s a number of versions. So the one that she told us was at the time the Emperor Rudolf II. This was like, I want to say 1500s. I hope I’ve got that right. He was very into alchemy and magic, and at the same time there was so much anti-Jewish sentiment trying to either drive the Jews out of Prague, or sometimes kill Jewish people, and yet he and the rabbi had something of a relationship.
But the rabbi created the golem which was made of clay and brought it to life to help protect the people in the neighborhood. And the version, the story she told us was it could only act based on instruction. So by itself it just would stand there. And he gave it instructions, but it came the Sabbath and he forgot to tell it to stop.
And it went on a rampage killing rampage, and he finally had to stop it at the end of the day and like not kill it, but deactivated it, I guess we’d say. And they say it’s still in the synagogue. That it’s still there.
And the funny thing, I had heard the story from a friend who was writing a book that included it, that talked about it as the first robot. The idea of it only acts on instructions, and now our guide said it’s sort of like AI. It only does what you tell it to, but you have to be careful how you instruct it and what you tell it to do.
Jo: That’s so interesting. I actually like that because the story goes that it’s sort of partly to do with Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. And you put, he put letters, the rabbi put letters onto the golem. And that’s the thing that brought it to life and so it’s words that actually brought it to life, that this text is on it, this holy text.
And so I kind of like that with the AI stuff because it’s words that are activating it. But, well, I went a decade ago and went into the cemetery, and I think it’s really interesting because it’s an area that’s obviously been affected by war, and Hitler didn’t destroy that area to keep it as “a museum for an extinct race.” That’s why it was preserved. And I mean, that in itself is just awful in many ways.
And yet that cemetery there because it, as you say, it was a ghetto and the people were hemmed in, they, that goes sort of 10 deep and there’s so many gravestones in there and people put stones on in remembrance.
And so if people listening, if at some point we’re at another point in history where you can visit that cemetery, it’s an incredibly moving place. And quite different because it’s very, I guess dark. And then the Spanish synagogue, which you said you were on the outside, but the inside of the Spanish synagogue also sometimes called the Golden Synagogue because it’s just incredibly decorated and beautiful.
So yeah, I mean that Jewish quarter is fantastic. But yeah, the time in history that we are recording this, it’s a difficult time again. Which in itself is so…
Lisa: Heartbreaking and devastating that so long later and the same things are still happening. She was telling us she would get invited to events there and had to have someone come out and vouch for her and show her ID and let her in because there’s so concerned, understandably, about terrorists coming into the synagogue.
We did get to go to two other cemeteries, I’m going to say it wrong, but Vinohrady and Vyšehrad cemeteries and that was, well, I know you’ll understand this. One of the highlights of the trip for me in the sense of the beauty and seeing these gravestones, we don’t do too many of the above the ground gravestones in the US anymore. It’s all flat. But seeing like family names and this history of the family, and I was struck by so many people put their professions on the headstone, which is another thing that we don’t do here.
Or at least I haven’t seen it much. And it really got me thinking about… I mean feeling connected in a way to, we see these stories of people so long after they’re gone. And the names, I grew up in a neighborhood, lots of immigrants, lots of Polish immigrants, lots of Bohemian immigrants, and so many of the names were, I’m like, “Oh, that’s the name, last name of this friend of mine in grade school.”
And many of them were names I knew. Now were they related to the people I knew, maybe, probably not, maybe distantly, but it gave me that sense of great connection with history and with here we are across an ocean. And that sense of being part of the human family and especially in a time when everyone feels so divided it felt very peaceful and very connected and not as sad as I thought you would think, “Oh, this is sad. You’re looking at all these people who are gone.” But somehow it felt like having a place in that history.
Jo: Yeah. That’s interesting. And yeah, I obviously, I find graveyards wonderful places to think about how short life is, and so we better make the most of it — memento mori.
But you did mention in our emails that a friend of yours died while you were traveling and so you were also facing grief on your visit and thinking about her.
How do you think travel almost helps with grief?
Lisa: For me, it was in a way the perspective of feeling that larger connected sense and that life. The finiteness of life having, of course, we all know that. But I was getting this news about my friend who we had expected she had had a surgery that there was an expected recovery. And I’d seen her a number of times before I left and was sending her photos. She loved travel photos. She always was like, “Send me more, send me more.”
And then they found other problems and she was gone very quickly just in a couple weeks. And some of that news I was getting while we were in the cemetery that the type of news where you look and say, “This is not good. Like this is probably, I’m not going to see her again.” And it was really sad because I could not then be there at the time and couldn’t be there for the wake and be there with the family.
And at the same time, I would think, “Well, I know Julie. She loved travel. She loved hearing about travel, like she wouldn’t want me to spend this time, all of it, just feeling sad.” Of course, I felt sad and was grieving, but it was a reminder that and this is the only time I have, and this is the time to enjoy this or experience it, like don’t miss the experience I’m in because I’m also grieving and feeling sad that trying to maintain both at the same time.
One of your podcasts helped me because I was feeling very sad and then I was feeling not guilty, but almost like, “Well, but I’m here. Like I’m missing it. And I shouldn’t be dwelling on this, but how can I not?” And I listened. I think it was your first one when you restarted the podcast and your guest said something about the difference between vacation and travel and that travel is not always fun.
And it is not always, you don’t always have a great time, like you look forward and think, “Oh, everything’s going to be fantastic.” And it’s not, it’s sometimes challenging, and I think she was talking about other things, but she said, “There is that value.
“You still have the value. Even if it is challenging, you are experiencing something and when you come back, you’ll have experienced this journey.”
And it doesn’t all have to be so much fun and wonderful that it is still a valuable trip and not just. Helped me. It put it in perspective that I am still having this experience and I want to be present in it, even though I’m also having these feelings and this sadness and loss.
Jo: No, I love that. I think that’s really great and something for us all to keep remembering as well. And perhaps even a city like Prague and many in Krakow is another great example, of cities that have suffered in many ways. Obviously we have war in Europe at the moment and so it’s not everything is wonderful all the time anyway.
Lisa: Right, exactly. I kept telling myself that, I’m like, “Well, if I was home, I would likewise, I would be feeling sad and, yeah, life is not wonderful all the time.” Yeah, there are many wonderful things in it. And that that also, my friend who passed, she was really great at focusing on the wonderful things in life.
We had a tradition every year of going to this steak dinner after volunteering at our law school. And for weeks before, she’d say, “Oh my God, I can’t wait to that dinner. Like, they have such great food. Let’s get this as an appetizer, and oh, so-and-so will be there and tell us stories.” And then a month after, she’d say, “Wasn’t that a great time? Like, didn’t we have, remember this thing.” And so I thought about that a lot too. Like she had lots of ups and downs, but she chose to think and remember and anticipate, and I thought “That’s what I need to do. Like think about, oh, these were the great parts of the trip. This is what I really enjoyed.”
Jo: I think that’s really interesting and almost you are honoring her by enjoying the time that you had there and yet, I wonder how many, as I was talking to someone recently who was like, “Oh, I really just want to go to this particular place.” And I’m like —
“Well, why don’t you make a plan to do it because we’re not getting any younger, and you don’t know when something might happen like it did to your friend, or you don’t know when just things change.”
And so I’m like, “Well, you just make a plan, and you save up the money. You book a ticket. We’re very lucky to live in a world where you are going to be able to get to most of the places that people want to get to.”
So do you think sometimes we find it easier to honor other people than honoring ourselves? Like giving ourselves that kind of grace?
Lisa: Yeah. I do, I feel like it’s almost giving, it’s like this person outside of you giving you that permission or that reminder. And especially for me, I’m someone who tends toward anxiety, which is all about thinking about what could go wrong.
And I often deal with it by thinking of friends who think very differently than I do. And I think so now I will think, “Well, how would Julie approach this?” Or I have other friends who will think, “How would this person think about this?” And it helps because. You know, and why can’t I just tell myself to do it? I don’t know.
But it works better when I think of that other person. And maybe it is what you said, it’s like someone else giving you permission and saying, “Hey, it’s okay. Like you can let go of. Oh my God, I’ve got to be sure. I know I’m prepared for everything that might go wrong or everything that might happen,” which is, you know, when travel, I always have a lot of anxiety going up to travel because I’m like, “Did I do this? Did I get that?” And then I’ll say, “You cannot prepare for everything. That’s part of it.”
Jo: Something else, most people are lovely and they will want to help you. Like wherever you are in the world generally, people are just nice and they want to help you.
Lisa: Yeah, I really have found that. I mean, of course here and there, you meet someone who’s not, which is also true at home. But yeah, for most people, for all that, people will say to me, “Well, do they like tourists there?” I’m like, “I don’t, I mean, people seem very nice. They seem glad that we’re there, and if they don’t like us, they’re hiding it really well.”
Jo: I mean, it’s a tourist destination, right? It’s a tourist industry.
Lisa: Yeah. It’s part of what they do. I actually found in Prague particularly, people are, yes, very friendly and seem very, either they’re really, they seem actually really happy at their jobs. So maybe working conditions are better there. And it also might be that they do appreciate this is part of the way, this is especially the Old Town area, it’s a lot of it is tourists and so it’s how people are making their living.
Jo: For sure. Well, just, I guess coming back on the city in terms of the literary side of things, there’s obviously the Franz Kafka Museum is one of the top places. Any thoughts on the literary side?
Lisa: Yeah, you see Kafka everywhere. Everywhere. And I have to confess, we did not go to the museum. Not that I dislike Kafka, but he’s not my first choice for reading. But yeah, there is so much. I read a book before I went this time in between the two trips that a guide that I work with both times recommended and it’s called Wolf on a String. So I wrote down the author and, let me look here. Benjamin Black and it is set in that time at the Emperor Rudolf II. And it is about this kind of amateur alchemist or someone who pretends to be an alchemist, but it has so much history and a lot of it is in the Prague Castle.
So I was very excited to go there and my guide was pointing out, “Oh, this is where the small, they called them houses, but it was basically a room that was bordered on the outside and this is where they stayed. And this is what was called the Golden Row or the Golden Alley. And here’s why.”
And that was really exciting. She took me to, took us to a place called The Alchemist, which borders on a courtyard where a very famous alchemist. Last name was Kelly. Lived in a tower and served the king. So everywhere. If you read anything about Prague odds are you’re going to be able to go there and find that place and still find traces of it.
The place we went had alchemy symbols all over the wall, so you could go and trace that. And I love that so much of history is still there. When a historical novel you would read, you can go and visit. This is, again, probably not as much of a novelty to people who live in Europe. But here there’s so many things are just. It’s old if a building’s a hundred years old, and there I’m seeing these things from the 1300s.
Jo: Yeah. And many of them very well preserved as well. I think, you know, there are a lot of them there. But it’s funny, I mean, like you say, Chicago, I remember the first time I went to Chicago, gosh, in the nineties, and I just, I love the skyscrapers and you can go on architecture tour of modern architecture.
It’s just a very different view, isn’t it? You can see beauty of a different kind. Whereas I feel, you know, here we feel like —
We live in a museum here in Europe.
Lisa: Yes. That’s how it feels when I visit. So I kind of feel better that you say that too. Oh, because always think do, do people look at us and be like, “What? When, why are you so enthralled with this?”
Jo: I find it beautiful, you know, I live in Bath where we’ve got like 2000 year old Roman baths down the road, so.
Lisa: Yeah. And that point about beauty, I think that is what I love traveling, is I, yeah. One of the reasons I love Chicago is I love the architecture. I love the buildings. I love that we have a river, and I’ll take boat tours, architectural boat tours, and just see what else I learn. There’s always more buildings going up, but I go somewhere like Prague and it’s a very different architecture. It’s in some ways. There’s more continuity because much of it is still standing and more is built, but it’s built along the same lines and you have the cobblestone streets and it’s a totally different kind of beauty.
But both places, I look around and think, “Oh, I’m so lucky to be here. I’m so lucky to see this.” Paris, same thing. I feel like so many cities have beautiful architecture. And I have to say in the US, that is not necessarily true. Most cities I go to having grown up where I did, I look around and I’m like, “Wait, what? This is the city. Where are the, where are the amazing buildings?”
Jo: That’s true. That’s true. But just coming back, so earlier you said you weren’t so much into the beer, but —
What food and drink you did enjoy since you said you were eating outside?
Lisa: Yeah. My travel partner and I, we tend to plan trips around where we’re going to eat. We will make these restaurant reservations. So we went to, it’s called Miru. It is only open two months of the year on the rooftop of the Four Seasons Hotel. And last time we were there, we missed it. And this time we were able to go, and it is, they have maybe four or five tables only, and it’s one of these tasting menus. So each course is very small and very beautiful, and they have a drink paired with each, so wine at one point, sake, which I admit I could only have a sip of. And I was like, “Okay, that’s all for that.”
But it’s at night. So you have the beautiful view of the castle and each dish is, you know, it might be salmon, but it’s salmon with a little bit of caviar and some tuna foam and something else. All very elaborate and fancy so that if you just want an experience for a night, it’s wonderful.
This is also touristy, but there is a steak house there that is some of the best steak I ever had. It’s called George Prime, and ironically, the steak is from the Midwest in the United States. But it’s, it was, it’s something about the way they make it. I don’t know. Excellent. And we did two other rooftop restaurants.
One is called Coda on the roof of the Aria Hotel and everything is music themed. The food is very good. Like I had a farm raised chicken that was wonderful. But it’s also just to be up there outside. And if you get a plate, every plate has a different drawing of a different musician on it. And the menu is music themed, so a little bit touristy, but but it is that’s good. Very fun.
And then one, really good local place. Krčma U Fleku, I think, is it? It’s known for its duck. So if you Google duck and Prague and mostly locals there, like we heard mostly Czech being spoken, if you like duck, wonderful duck and wonderful atmosphere. It reminded me, again, as a kid, I went to a number of, if there was a party, it would be in a banquet and often in a Bohemian banquet hall.
And I walked in and I’m like, “Oh, these are the furnishings that I grew up with. This is like being at my aunts and uncle’s houses only stepped up fancy and really, really good food there.” So if you like Bohemian food or Polish food or Czech, that’s a great place to go. I think duck is definitely…
Jo: Duck is the thing for that region.
Lisa: Yeah, really good.
Jo: Yeah, that’s great. That’s fantastic. So this is the Books and Travel show.
You mentioned Wolf on a String. Are there other books that you would recommend that are about or set in Prague or the area?
Jo: Yeah, for research, so between the trips, when I decided to set something in Prague, I got a book called Prague, the Mystical City. It was written in 1970. It goes through 1983. I forget the publication date, but it covers the city 1907 to 1983 and I, it’s at least 10 years old, but it really gives you that feel of Prague. It talks a lot about the history of alchemy and magic and how alchemy worked into science, how much the alchemists were the basis of so many scientific and chemistry advances later.
And it really gives you that feel for Prague if you want to read nonfiction. Interestingly, AI hallucinated for me, other books by the same author, and I was like, “Oh my God, that is a great book.” And I went hunting and hunting and I even asked like a librarian at the local university and she’s like, “Yeah, I think it made this up.”
But that’s how I found this one. I was like, “Okay.” And the other book I just happened to read, I don’t know if you read the All Souls Trilogy. It started with A Discovery of Witches, so the third…
Jo: Deborah Harkness.
Lisa: Right. Deborah Harkness. And this book, they go back, I don’t think this is too much of a spoiler. I’m not going to tell any plot things, but they go back in time and they’re in Prague in the same time period. Somehow I kept running into this same time period with the Emperor Rudolf. And there is a golem in it and it is, she meets a number of these historical figures. So if you are interested in like supernatural books, I would read the first two first, but it was very neat and I just happened to read it maybe six months before coming back to Prague. So I love that one as well.
And of course, Wolf on a String, I will say Wolf on a String. It has a mystery. So I like that. It is a bit bleak, a little bit bleak for me. So I persisted because I wanted to read about the city. And it is an interesting story. But, if you want something more uplifting, maybe, maybe not, maybe not that, maybe not. But if you’re good with a lot of darkness, then go with it.
Jo: And we should say as we record this is not out yet, but The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown is supposedly set opens in Prague. So we shall, I shall be reading that when it comes out.
Lisa: I am so excited about that. You had mentioned that in the email and somehow I didn’t know that until you said it. And yeah, I cannot wait to get that. I love his books anyway. And now to read it in Prague, that will be wonderful.
Jo: And so your book, The Skeptical Man also has some scenes set there. But tell us a bit more about that. Because it’s also across the US as well, isn’t it?
Lisa: Yes, most of it is in the US. I had never, this is the seventh book in my mystery series. I had never taken the characters outside of the United States and I was going to take a bit of a break because the sixth book was kind of a big thing that a mystery was solved that had been running. And taking this trip in the back of my mind, I always had this idea about a magician as the victim, as the murder victim.
A magician who also debunks psychics a little bit like there was a real magician who did that. The Amazing Randi and I used a little bit of his life as a model. So when I went to Prague, I thought, “Oh, how interesting it would be if some of the people that are suspects are somehow connected to like a psychic.”
I didn’t decide was it going to be a genuine psychic or someone who was a little bit of a little bit of a little scammy. And something about being in Prague, I started thinking, “Oh, what what if there was a whole network that was based here and that played into this magician’s death.” He had crossed paths with these people and it. It really inspired me. So in the story, the detective QC Davis is asked to try to solve this murder by a friend.
She’s a lawyer, she’s a friend who’s a judge, and it’s her husband who has been killed. And they wonder like, is it someone he does this debunking of psychics? Is it somebody that he exposed that came after him, or of course there are other suspects as well in other parts of his life. And the Prague part, I just had such fun with, oh, the character’s going to get out of Chicago mostly she’s in Chicago, she’s going to get out and go somewhere else. And how would that be for her as not a world traveler? She has a friend who does a lot of world travel, so you know, it’s her taking her along and being like, “Hey, this’ll be fine. We’ll do this.”
Jo: Oh, cool. Oh, well I’m glad you got to weave it in. Where can people find you and your books online?
Lisa: You can find my fiction and nonfiction and my podcast, which is about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and story, at lisalilly.com
Jo: Fantastic. Thanks so much for your time, Lisa. That was great.
Lisa: Thank you. It was great to be on with you.
Leave a Reply