Author Aggie Blum Thompson’s second novel “All The Dirty Secrets” uses 1990s’ Dewey Beach as part of the backdrop for a murder mystery.
In this week’s Arts Playlist, Thompson joins Delaware Public Media’s Kelli Steele to discuss the book and how vacationing every summer in Dewey Beach and Rehoboth Beach provided some inspiration.
A new murder mystery novel uses Dewey Beach and Washington D.C. as its backdrops.
All The Dirty Secrets comes from Bethesda, Maryland author Aggie Blum Thompson, “It is about a mom who is haunted by a friends’ drawing 25 years ago at Beach Week in Dewey in the 90’s. And then flash forward to today when there is another drowning, this time involving her daughter’s best friend. And the daughter is convinced that these two deaths are connected, but the mom doesn’t want to believe it.”
Thompson is a native New Yorker, but after moving to Maryland, she started vacationing in Dewey Beach and Rehoboth Beach, providing some of the inspiration for this book.
“I knew there’s a very dark secret at the center of this book," Thompson said. "But then there are a lot of - kind of - smaller secrets if you will - secrets that teenage daughters keep from their parents and secrets even that parents keep from their kids because they don’t want them to know everything. So I just kind of pulled it all together and called it All The Dirty Secrets.”
Before becoming an author, Thompson worked as a newspaper reporter, covering cops, courts and trials.
She’s already working on a third novel - focused on a murder that happens at the annual Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C.
Thompson will be in Sussex County next month signing copies of "All The Dirty Secrets."
On Aug. 4, Thompson will be at Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. and from 6 to 8 p.m., she'll be at Bethany Beach Books.
And you can get more information about Thompson on her website here.
Delaware Public Media' s arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.