Amy Stewart's new novel is Girl Waits With Gun.From her Q & A with Caroline Leavitt:
I always want to know what sparks a particular book? What was it about Constance that captivated you?--Marshal Zeringue
It started with one 1915 newspaper article. I was actually researching a gin smuggler named Henry Kaufman for The Drunken Botanist. I wondered what else he might have done, and his named turned up in a New York Times story about a silk factory owner who ran his car into a buggy being driven by the Kopp sisters. I never did figure out if it was the same Henry Kaufman, but the case was interesting, so I kept it.
Now this happens all the time when I'm doing research, and maybe the same is true for you. I run across some unrelated story and think, "Hmmm, that's odd. I'd better keep that." But this was different. I set aside my Drunken Botanist research for the day and kept looking for stories about the Kopps. By the end of the day, I had a stack of clippings and a major crush on these three women. Constance in particular was just so badass. She was a large woman--around six feet tall, 180 pounds--and she was thirty-five and unmarried when this started. When Henry Kaufman started harassing her family, she was just so fierce--maybe because she had nothing to lose, maybe because...[read on]