Ann Shepphird Brings Murder Back to Santa Barbara in Fifth Destination Mystery

Ann Shepphird launches Destination Santa Barbara with an author talk and book signing at Tecolote Book Shop in Montecito on November 21 at 3 p.m. The novel is the fifth in her Destination Murder Mystery series. Santa Barbara, usually pitched for weddings and honeymoons, here gets a body count.

The series began with Destination Maui, which introduces Samantha "Sam" Powers, a former investigative reporter who returns to her hometown of Carmel, California, to care for her ailing father. A family friend, the editor-in-chief of Carmel Today magazine, recruits her as a travel columnist. On her first press trip to a luxury Maui resort, a fellow travel writer — someone seemingly everyone loathed — drops dead suspiciously. Sam, apparently the last person to see him alive, is paired with local detective Roger Kai. A relationship blossoms and carries through Destination Monterey, Destination Lake Tahoe and Destination New York City.

How much of Sam is Shepphird?

Plenty. Shepphird served as editor of a travel industry trade magazine before writing fiction. "Sam's adventures are based in part on the many hosted trips I took over the years and the unique dynamics of press trips," she said. Her stated goal: an inside look at the travel industry, a good mystery, and a plug for favorite destinations — Santa Barbara among them.

The setting is personal. Shepphird's parents had a condo at the Santa Barbara Polo Grounds when she was a child; she now rents one there as a writing retreat. Yes, a polo match features in the book.

The plot draws on a real press trip from her magazine years, covering downtown and beachfront hotels plus a tour of organic wineries in the Santa Ynez Valley. She used that itinerary as a template, then revisited locations repeatedly. Her research jaunts included walking the Funk Zone, touring Lotusland, staying in downtown Santa Ynez and driving Highway 154 — "to figure out the best place for a suspicious car accident." That's dedication, of a sort.

Real streets, fictional hotels

Shepphird keeps the geography honest and the crime scenes invented. The sites Sam visits are real; the hotels and wineries where the main action unfolds are products of her imagination. She calls it creating "a fictional world within the larger destination."

Accuracy matters to her commercially as much as artistically. A former travel writer and editor, she has experts fact-check early drafts. Because this book digs into the wine industry, she consulted a colleague who edits a wine industry magazine. The verdict: "I'm very impressed with how well you researched Santa Barbara wine and captured the wine lingo while still keeping it understandable." Shepphird says it made her day.

What about Kinsey Millhone?

Shepphird's lineage runs Nancy Drew to Agatha Christie to Sue Grafton. She admired Grafton's first-person Kinsey Millhone novels enough to take a part-time job with a private investigator after graduate school. Building Sam's voice, she says, followed a similar process. The chatty first-person style lets her fold commentary on destinations and their "unique characters" into the plot.

Next up is Destination Telluride, set at the Telluride Film Festival in the Colorado Rockies over Labor Day. Readers who want the Santa Barbara installment signed know where to be on November 21.