"Bitter Cold," by Shannon Taft, in Notorious in North Texas, edited by Michael Bracken, North Dallas Chapter of Sisters in Crime, 2024.
The big question with historical fiction is: How much is too much? I'm talking about detail. You want the reader to believe you know what you're talking about, but you don't want them thinking they are reading a history book and falling asleep over it.
It may help if you're writing about something the reader knows nothing about, which is certainly the fact in this story - at least with this reader.
It's January 1918, and the narrator, Major Evans, is the commander of military police at Camp Taliaferro, where American and Canadian pilots are being trained to fight and fly in the World War. It is one of the coldest winters in Texas history and the troops are not prepared nor equipped for it. That could explain how Canadian Flight Cadet Charlie MacDonald wound up dead in his tent, except there is evidence that he was strangled.
Evans has to investigate the murder quickly while being pressured by the brass to play down a dangerous international incident that could play havoc with the already low morale.
The story felt very real to me.
