The Detective and The Spy: A Portia Adams Adventure

RSJ instructor Angela Misri is bringing Portia Adams back for her fourth book in the A Portia Adams Adventure series, set to release on Oct. 24.The official launch will be held on Oct.28 virtually hosted by Queen Books. Misri spoke to the RSJ and shared her thoughts on the latest instalment as well as how the book launch has been adapted to a virtual world after being pushed back from summer to fall.

How will the launch differ from the one you had envisioned earlier this year?

Ha! Well, it’s entirely virtual, so I won’t get to physically sign books which is a bummer (‘cause that is super fun for authors). BUT Terry Fallis is hosting my book launch which he might have been too busy for if we weren’t in a pandemic… so that’s a win!

What has promotion looked like for this book?

Awesome so far, and I’m releasing some videos over the next few weeks teasing the big day.

How can your readers engage with you for now?

My website or Twitter or Instagram! I’m also part of the Telling Tales Festival and Word on the Street.

How would Portia Adams handle a pandemic?

Oh she would LOVE it. She’s an introvert, so she’d just lock herself in a room full of books and be thrilled with her life.

Your readers have witnessed Portia grow up throughout the series. How has Portia changed since the start of the first book?

Portia has matured from a lonely misunderstood orphan into a confident woman who has harnessed what makes her different and created a career and a life out of it. She still has moments of loneliness and feeling excluded, but she has surrounded herself with a support system of friends and family who help pull her back into the sun. Her struggles as a poor child growing up in Toronto during the Great Depression make her the compassionate woman she is today, and her experiences as an outsider help her see things that others don’t and make her more aware of societal discrimination than the average person.

At the start of this novel Portia loses two of her abilities, how will this impact her character development?

Like much of Portia’s life, this is another obstacle she must overcome to just be the person she is and do the job she wants to do. She muscles her way through to the point that she can at least do her job if not be taken seriously by the public, and along the way, finds new skills and senses that she will be able to harness in the future. I think in terms of the fall-out of Portia’s loss, it will ultimately be a win because she has once again triumphed despite hardship. Whatever doesn’t kill you…

The novel ends with a strong suggestion that there will be a fifth novel, where do you see the series going?

Ha! Actually, that last part of the novel was supposed to be a subplot in The Detective and the Spy but it got so interesting that I pulled it out for book five. Portia starts book five back on the streets of Toronto, chasing down a threat to William Lyon Mackenzie King, the past and future PM (the man was elected PM three times!). In terms of the whole series, I have it mapped out into the Second World War, where Portia will join MI6 as a spy to help the Allies' efforts.

Since your last Portia Adams novel, you have also written Pickles vs. the Zombies which is a much lighter and comical story, has the different genre influenced your writing for The Detective and the Spy?

Like many writers, I’m writing many stories in parallel, so while I was writing The Detective and the Spy, I was also writing Pickles vs the Zombies, various journalistic articles and a screenplay called Indians in the Room. As I write book five of Portia, I’m editing book two of Pickles (called Trip of the Dead) and am writing book three of Pickles (Valhamster). To answer your question though, I’m a firm believer in practice making us all better, so everything I write improves the next thing I write. My tenth book will be better than my fifth book. 

How has your writing process changed throughout this series?

It hasn’t changed much except that I’m more confident about not trying to solve all problems before pen hits paper. I know I can write 80,000 words, and I know that sometimes, the lightbulb moment may not happen until halfway through that writing. I think the biggest learning I have gained is that no writing is wasted. It may lead to something else, it may land on the cutting room floor, but ALL of it moves you through the story.

In a previous Q+A, you mentioned that you wish you could have written Portia as South Asian character; can we expect more diverse characters in upcoming books?

Yes! So, in the first books, Jenkins was the only person of colour, but diversity came from the people Portia worked with, from homeless child to prostitute to MP in parliament. Both spies in The Detective and the Spy are people of colour quite on purpose, and I intend to keep adding in people of all diversities in the future.

What has been your favorite part of writing this series?

I’ve really loved evolving the various relationships that hold together my little band of friends. Portia and Bryan, Portia and Annie, Portia and her grandparents… even Portia and Gavin. Those are the parts of stories that I most enjoy in books/movies/TV, so I love pulling those threads out of my mysteries. It’s something that I really enjoy in all my writing.