Blogs by Flo Fitzpatrick
Another Batch of Kolaches and a Pack of Tonys
11/2/2025 8:19:30 AM
Serenade to a Cuckoo
Confession: I was a huge fan of the CSI forensic dramas that hit TV screens starting in 2000. (I didn’t watch Cyber or CSI: Vegas, mainly because I quit cable around 2015 so didn’t realize they were on.) But by then I’d watched and rewatched every episode of the original big three: CSI Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, and CSI: NY.
Sometime in 2010, I decided I wanted to write a humorous mystery series featuring an amateur sleuth stumbling over dead bodies in the course of her job. And since, back when I was auditioning for a variety of jobs, I’d’ve killed for a gig like this, I figured, “Make her an actress, starring in a CSI type series set in New Jersey.”
Serenade to a Cuckoo
Backstory: My (now-ex) husband and I moved from Manhattan to South Amboy, NJ in August 2001. In 2004, he decided we needed to convert the attic into a living space and have a “real” two story house, which was really three since we had a very usable basement. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea but what the heck…could aid in the value when we sold. This decision led to with my first experience dealing with a contractor. I’ve blocked the guy’s name from my memory (I think it was Vinny something) but let me simply say, as kindly as possible, he was an idiot. And he hired idiots. Who refused to listen to me when I told them a storm was heading for New Jersey and they needed to be sure to put the tarp on what was passing as a roof. They didn’t. So much for the usable basement which we could have converted into an indoor swimming pool the next morning. Nightmare.
But…moving forward. Book. Actress, CSI series set in Jersey. I could call the show Crime Unit New Jersey and be cute with the initials that would sound out “See you, New Jersey”. A perk…the first murder would be a contractor or one of his workers. (What? ME vindictive and seeking revenge? Perish the thought!)
Don’t ask me where the idea to name a bunch of people Tony came from (probably from watching the Tony Awards around the time I was working on the book) but it seemed fun to have Tonys (and Tonis) as victims and as suspects.
As previously noted, I like forensic crime dramas. I also like clocks. Big ones, little ones…new, antique, old-fashioned, whatever. Clocks. Cuckoo clocks, like the one I bought on a trip to Germany that hasn’t worked since college, but gets tacked up in my kitchen whenever I move to a new place. Add to my likes, the band Jethro Tull. One of the coolest things about Tull (to me) is their very imaginative and often bizarre creation of song titles and “Serenade to a Cuckoo” is one of the oddest. But it was perfect for a book that would center around a cuckoo clock.
I know…everyone’s waiting for the batch of kolaches. Well, they snuck in a time or two in the book and the publisher thought it’d be cool if I could include a recipe. So, I printed out (from a very faded sheet of paper) the one my uncle used to make (adapted from Mrs. Pistakcek in West, Texas…see Aria in Ice. Mind you, I, personally, NEVER made the kolaches. My desire to cook or baking is right up with my desire to ever hire Vinny and his gang of idiot roofers. The only dish I used to regularly bake were my Bodice Ripping Brownies (also included in Serenade to a Cuckoo, along with my mom’s Hot Fudge sauce which goes great over vanilla ice cream (which now, for me, is non-dairy!)and the brownies!
So that’s it. A bunch of Tonys and a batch of kolaches and brownies and an amateur sleuth featured on a forensic crime drama. Oh…and a naked dead body on the first page and a pretty wild Thanksgiving Day parade set in South Amboy, New Jersey. There is no such parade (well, there wasn't when I lived there and I moved in 2005) but I keep hoping the mayor and council there will read the book one day and decide “This is the best idea for the town since the high speed ferry to Manhattan!”
Serenade to a Cuckoo bit.ly/43bXhtT
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