California Recreation Vehicle Dealers Association

Minnie Winnie Murder Mystery Rolls On;
Writer gets inspired at the helm of her RV as she
canvasses the country for new leads

By Katherine Calos, Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia), Sunday May 15, 2005

Other than the name, what's the difference between Sue Henry and Maxie McNabb?

Both are single women in their mid-60s from Alaska who love to get away in an RV.

Fortunately for Henry, it's only McNabb who encounters a murder. Henry is the one who wrote it into the plot of "The Serpent's Trail," which launched a new series for the popular author of Alaska mysteries.

Now Henry is on the road talking about her books and the joys of recreational vehicles. For the next two months, she's living in a 31-foot Minnie Winnie motor home as she drives from Washington to Colorado by way of North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and New Mexico. She made her first stop at the Americamps north of Richmond, where she took advantage of a perfect spring day to write some notes outside at a picnic table. Don't be surprised if some of her own adventures along the way end up in the next book.

"I'm always looking for settings," she said. "I don't know where Maxie is going next. She lets me ride along."

Henry's first mystery, "Murder on the Iditarod Trail," has sold more than a million copies since its first printing in 1991. Winner of both the Anthony and Macavity awards for best first mystery, it's now in its 17th printing and was made into a television movie. Ten more Alaskan mysteries have featured sled-dog racer and RVer Jessie Arnold and Alaska state trooper Alex Jensen. The 11th in the series, "Murder at Five Finger Light," was just released.

Meanwhile, Maxie McNabb and her mini-dachshund, Stretch, took on a life of their own after debuting as characters in "Dead North." In "The Serpent's Trail, " Maxie drove her Minnie Winnie away from Alaska to visit a friend from college who was dying. She arrived in Colorado just in time to hear the friend's last words. Someone had killed her, and Maxie had to find out who.

"Maxie is a very independent sort who just manages to get mixed up in these things," Henry said. "She's a trip. She's such fun."

Henry doesn't miss much, either.

She has lived in Alaska for 30 years, most of them as an administrator in adult basic education programs for the University of Alaska.

"I traveled all over Alaska on the state's time," she said. That gave her fodder for her first three books, which she wrote while working full time.

She'd been writing all her life, though. "I got my first rejection slip when I was 14 from Ladies' Home Journal," she said. "I sent in something I'd written in pencil and ripped out from a notebook." She framed the rejection slip. She keeps it at her desk to remind herself to work hard.

"All I wanted was a little paperback that I could take to my librarian mother," she said. "As it turned out, people are interested in the sled-dog racing." Maxie McNabb taps into the growing interest in RVs.

Henry got her first RV -- a rented camper -- when she was doing research for her second book on the Klondike gold rush.

"You've got your house on your back," she said. "I just felt like I'd been turned loose. . . . "I followed the Klondike gold rush trail. It was late in the season, and when I got to Top of the World I got snowed on. I was coming down that winding little road, and it was icy, and of course that went into the book."

Henry bought a used 26-foot Minnie Winnie and went up and down the Alaska Highway four times for research on other Alaska-based mysteries. She sold the RV when she realized it would be a couple of years before she had time for a long trip.

Now that her research takes her farther from home, she tends to rent an RV when she gets there.

Trying a rental and buying a used RV are two of the approaches recommended by the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association for first-time RVers. Tips and free videos are available at the Web site www.goRVing.com or by calling (888) 467-8464.

Henry's loaner for her current trip is five feet longer than her old RV and has a slide-out that expands the living area when it's parked. When she arrived here, she was still discovering how everything worked -- such as the fact that the slide-out won't slide if the RV doesn't have its parking break engaged. It's a safety feature that makes sense, as long as you know it's there.

But she didn't know, and she called the Americamps manager to help her figure it out, and they still couldn't get it, so she called Winnebago, and then it was so simple. But it's also an example of the other thing she likes about RVs.

"You meet so many people in an RV," she said. "And they're so friendly."