As I wrote the initial drafts of The Hollows, the second novel in my Kinship Historical Mystery series, I became stuck on how to reveal the backstory of the character who is the murder victim.
Part of my challenge was that the victim, an elderly female with no identifying documentation on her and found alone in the woods, was not from the area served by Sheriff Lily Ross (inspired by Ohio’s true first female sheriff in 1925). So, no one can identify the victim. I knew that having Lily go from person to person to ask about the victim would quickly become dull and tedious.
Instead, I used a technique
