Dive into the life (and death) of Elkhorn Slough with “Mother-Daughter Murder Night”

Paddling out into Elkhorn Slough on a bright, brisk morning in May, Nina Simon pointed out brown pelicans gliding inches above the salty Pacific backwaters, harbor seals basking on the mudflats, Southern sea otters swimming among blades of kelp and the distant din of traffic trucking along Highway 1, which separates the Monterey Bay marine preserve from the ocean.

Simon absorbed all of these scenes for months atop her orange stand-up paddleboard — a pandemic purchase — while researching the backdrop for her debut novel, “Mother-Daughter Murder Night.” But there’s one key element at the core of the author’s best-selling book that wasn’t sourced directly from Elkhorn Slough’s diverse flora and fauna: a dead body.

That twist was inspired by Simon’s mother, Sarina, and her lifelong love of murder mysteries. Together, the duo dreamed up “Mother-Daughter Murder Night” after Sarina was diagnosed with cancer in August 2020 and temporarily moved into her daughter’s real life home in Santa Cruz for months of healing.

Simon says she started jotting down ideas in the morning — her mother would read them over later — as a creative, literary escape from their taxing reality. That daily practice culminated in a 368-page murder mystery set in the slough, which is as vivid a character as any protagonist — a place where beauty and serenity collide with menace and danger.

“Elkhorn Slough was a good place to play with imagery and the metaphors about life and death,” Simon said, sitting in her kitchen-turned-writing nook where copious cups of tea fueled her early-morning writing hours before anyone else stirred. “Anytime you have a place that is on the border of many things, that causes a lot of friction. That friction can cause tension, and tension can mean murder and mayhem in a story.

“When my mom got sick, cancer kind of crashed our house like an uninvited guest, taking up all the oxygen in the room. (This project) didn’t make cancer go away, but it did minimize it — allowing us to choose to talk about how to kill a guy in a wetland, instead of being freaked out about what the next scan was going to show.”

“Mother-Daughter Murder Night” hit bookshelves in September and claimed spots on the New York Times best-sellers list and Reese Witherspoon’s book club shortly after. The story follows three generations of strong women: Beth and Jack Rubicon, a mother-daughter duo forced to acclimate to a new normal living with Lana Rubicon — a Los Angeles-based developer, mother, grandmother and “Prima” who was modeled as a rough-around-the-edges, “outrageous superhero version” of Simon’s mother.

Simon narrates the vibrant relationships of these three women — a grandma, single mom and teenage girl — as they come together to solve a murder. This family drama also provides a rich backdrop for more personal investigations — what it means to be a strong woman, how dynamics of intersectional identities of age, gender and race play out and how to interrogate independence within relationships.

“Especially since the pandemic, a lot of people have been talking very beautifully about mutual aid and this idea that we are stronger together. I think that I intellectually understood that, but it wasn’t until my mom got sick that I really had to interrogate this question,” Simon said. “I really wanted to write an arc that started with people who felt like they were better off being independent, moving in a different direction.”

It’s easy to miss Elkhorn Slough, as you drive along Highway 1. Simon lived just up the coast for more than a decade, but it was her mother who introduced her to its briny backwaters. Despite their being terrible kayak partners — paddling in circles as they teased and got on each other’s nerves — Simon was captivated by the birds, marine life and vegetation thriving along the ocean’s currents.

On top of hours spent paddling the slough, Simon’s research for the book included interviews about the day-to-day lives of folks living near Moss Landing, about the history of the area shared by the Elkhorn Slough Foundation and a UC Santa Cruz professor, and facets of tourism she learned from staff at Kayak Connection. None of the characters or places in “Mother-Daughter Murder Night” are based on reality. However, local readers may catch a few Easter eggs scattered throughout the novel, including slices from Pizza My Heart and the London Nelson Memorial Hospital, a fictitious medical center whose name is a nod to the 19th century man who came to Santa Cruz as a slave, bought his freedom and donated his land, which became the city’s first public school after his death.

“Mother-Daughter Murder Night” evokes other warm and fuzzy murder mysteries that have increasingly captivated readers in recent years, ranging from Richard Osman’s “Thursday Murder Club” to Elle Cosimano’s “Finlay Donovan” series. Simon garnered a whirlwind of praise on a book tour, which included a syndicated webinar in May that connected roughly 3,000 people from 500 public libraries around the country.

While some readers have even drawn comparisons between Simon’s novel and the beloved coming-of-age murder mystery, Delia Owens’ “Where the Crawdads Sing,” Simon said she had none of those titles in mind when she and her mom first started scribbling down scenes.

“I was just thinking, how can I make my mom smile? How can I find something to dive into, so we’re not freaking out all the time?” Simon said. “While my mom was stuck in bed, Lana could be leaping out of bed to solve this murder mystery and kick butt.”

Was Simon’s mother a good editor? Not necessarily. But more importantly, she was always curious about what happened next — weighing in on details like characters’ wardrobes or researching whether anyone could plausibly be killed by poisonous frogs, all while religiously scouring for typos.

“We’d spend the day just chatting — not necessarily about the pages, but about these characters in this world and what might happen next,” Simon said. “I knew that I wanted to write a mystery that, while it would have some wild elements, it was plausible. I also knew that the murderer, however flawed, was going to be a real person, not some psychopath or serial killer that had some brilliant plan. They were going to be somebody who, in a very intense situation, ended up making a very bad choice.”

Her mother’s encouragement proved vital as Simon embarked on writing her first novel, which she said felt like a vulnerable and, at times, “ridiculous” endeavor after a decades-long career working in nonprofits, including serving as the former executive director of Santa Cruz’s Museum of Art & History.

Beyond becoming a best-selling novel and ode to Elkhorn Slough, Simon said “Mother-Daughter Murder Night” transformed her family’s challenging nightmare into a comforting, thrilling adventure.

“When I hear from people who love the book and characters, to have that joy returned to us, it’s just been unreal and very special,” Simon said. “Yes, there’s murder. But there’s also some humor, love and a beating heart.”