North Haven resident and award-winning author Karen Olson has released 13 crime novels, all of which feature strong women investigators at the forefront of solving mysteries. This is an integral element in Karen’s work and is found again in her latest and thrilling literary offering.

Karen’s new novel, An Inconvenient Wife: A Modern Tudor Mystery, tells the story of Kate Parker, the sixth wife of billionaire Hank Tudor, who discovers a headless body near her new husband’s summer home during their honeymoon. To solve this mystery, Kate must contend with two of Hank’s ex-wives, playing against them in a deadly game of cat and mouse, while determining the identity of both the beheaded person and their killer, in addition to whether the death has a connection to another headless body she knows about from eight years prior.

The book has been a success for Karen, having received good reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and Mystery Scene Magazine.

“It was the April book for Once Upon a Book Club, which [has] over 3,000 subscribers, so they’re all going to get the book” says Karen. “That was really exciting. It’s going to be in a lot of hands.”

Karen says the idea of the book being based on the Tudor period in English history began around 15 years ago after she developed an obsession with Henry VIII and his six wives. Karen wanted to avoid writing an historical fiction novel partly because, “That's not really my thing.”

Karen felt that recontextualizing the popular story of Henry VIII and his wives within a crime and mystery narrative would offer readers, including those intrigued by Henry’s reign, something different regarding a time in English history about which so many have written.

“There’s so many books out there that’s historical fiction about the Tudors,” says Karen. “Alison Weir—who is an historian, and I've read her nonfiction about them—she's written a book each about the wives and [it’s] historical fiction, but set during the time. I wanted to see how they would translate into contemporary times.”

Karen has received great feedback on her novel from Joanna Paul, a leading Tudor historian, who told Karen in an email that “she was so happy that somebody had actually done this because she always thought there should be a modern retelling.”

Those who are not familiar with Henry VIII and his wives, or the Tudor period in general, can still enjoy Karen’s latest novel as a thriller.

“But for anyone who knows about the Tudors, [there are] all these little Easter eggs in there that they'll pick up on,” she says.

The character of Kate Parker being the one to crack the case continues the central trope found throughout Karen’s mystery novels of women being the leading investigators. This is found in three of Karen’s series: the Black Hat Thrillers, the Annie Seymour series (which takes place in New Haven), and the Tattoo Shop series. The women in these series demonstrate qualities of strength and determination, influenced by novels written by Marcia Muller and Sara Paretsky, authors who Karen says “were really at the forefront of the contemporary female...private investigator mysteries.”

“I had no idea that that even existed, and I was like, ‘This is what I want to write. I want to write a female protagonist like these women,’” says Karen.

Karen says writing these types of characters is important for women readers, especially ones of a younger demographic. This is the case for readers of her own novels or adolescent readers of the Hunger Games series and its protagonist, Katniss Everdeen.

“I think that it's good for girls to have books with characters like that,” says Karen. “They’ll show them you can be a strong, independent woman.”

Karen is a member of several crime and mystery novel organizations, including Sisters in Crime, which is focused on increasing equity and inclusion for women crime writers within the publishing industry.

“That was founded in the 80s by Sara Paretsky, mainly because she was noticing that women mystery writers…their books weren't getting reviewed in major publications,” Karen says. “The mystery community as a whole is very supportive. I've made some really good friends. If you go to a conference, people are always willing to stop and talk to people who are readers or people who are trying to start writing their first book. Everybody’s really friendly. It’s a really nice community, and it's a community that I've really felt very much a part of since I started all of this.”

Karen will be featured as part of a Local Author Talk event on Wednesday, May 15 at the North Haven Memorial Library, where she will discuss her new book. Registration for the event is available on the library’s website or at the link: northhaven.librarycalendar.com/event/local-author-talk-karen-olson-13375.