I'm pleased to welcome Agnes Nelson to Cozy Up With Kathy today. You can find Agnes on the pages of FRENCH TOAST A LA SANTA FE by Suzanne Stauffer. This book is the second in the Courier Mystery series and was released last week.
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How do you do? I’m very pleased to meet you. My name is Agnes Nelson and I’m a friend of Prudence Bates’. She’s asked me to say a few words about our three-day Detour together, as she’s already been interviewed twice, but she warned me not to give away too much. It’s a rather difficult challenge, but one I think I can meet. I am, after all, a retired teacher from a girls’ school in the Adelaide area, so I’m used to meeting challenges. Adelaid is the capital of the state of South Australia. Unlike you in the U.S. with your fifty states, we only have six. But you don’t want to hear about Australia. You want to know about French Toast a la Santa Fe and our Detour.
While on the Detour, I purchased numerous picture postcards to remind me of my adventure. I will use some of those to illustrate my story, so that you can enjoy the sights with me.
I learned about the Detours entirely by accident. I happened to walk past a travel agents’ office in Adelaide and my eye was caught by a large poster advertising the Indian Detours. I was immediately drawn to it. It was so mysterious and so exotic. I seemed to remember something about “Santa Fe,” but couldn’t bring the memory to mind. Did it have anything to do with that steam train puffing away in the background? Was that large vehicle a HarveyCar? What did that strange birdlike figure symbolize? What was that building – or was it a city – in the background? Who was that figure wrapped in a blanket in the foreground, and what did those poles signify? Why was there a pot sitting on the mound next to the figure? I will confess that the orange mountain rising in the background did rather remind me of our Ayers Rock, but what was that other flat topped hill farther away?
Of course, the travel agent provided answers to many of my questions and the brochure that they gave me answered the rest of them. As soon as I had read it, I signed up for the three-day Detour and booked passage on a ship bound for the United States. I wasn’t able to afford first class, but even we second-class passengers enjoyed comfortable private cabins, and even though we shared a lavatory and bathroom, they were maintained to the highest standards. We ate the same food as the first class passengers. The primary difference being that we ate at communal tables.
I spent much of my day in the well-appointed library – I had never had enough time to read for pleasure when I was teaching – and taking exercise on the promenade deck. I attended the concerts and dances some evenings, but only for the music and the companionship.
About a month later, though it seemed much less, I was boarding the Santa Fe railroad in Los Angeles for the Las Vegas, New Mexico, and very shortly after that, I climbed into a HarveyCar and the adventure began.
The first place that we stopped was the Pecos Ruins (Suzanne : they are now a National Historic Park https://www.nps.gov/peco/index.htm]). Spectacular! Just as the brochure described them. We have nothing like this in Australia. So ancient. So enigmatic. I could sense the spirits of the place, but there were far too many Detourists roaming the area for me to make contact. A rather significant event occurred to ... well, I promised not to say too much, so you’ll have to read the book to find out what and to whom and what the outcome was.
We visited several pueblos over the three days, including Tesuque, Santa Clara, Santo Domingo, and Isleta. I was fascinated by the multi-story buildings, which I immediately recognized from the brochure, and the plazas with their hornos and kivas. If only I had been allowed to descend the ladder into a kiva, I know I could have made contact. Just walking past them, I could feel the psychic energy. But it was prohibited.
I hope that the images in these postcards have not only inspired you to read FRENCH TOAST A LA SANTA FE but to come on out here to New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment, and see the places for yourself! And be sure to subscribed to Suzanne’s Substack newsletter, Amuse-Bouche (https://smstauffer.substack.com/) for prequels and sequels and other short stories.
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Review
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French Toast a la Santa Fe by Suzanne Stauffer
About French Toast a la Santa Fe
Historical Culinary Cozy Mystery 2nd in the Series
Setting - New Mexico
Publisher: Artemesia Publishing, LLC
Publication Date: October 13, 2026
Print Length: 230 pages
In 1929 New Mexico, Prudence Bates joins ten other Detourists, their Courier, and driver, on the three-day Fred Harvey Indian Detour from Las Vegas through Santa Fe and to Albuquerque.
During the trip small, valuable items belonging to the Detourists begin disappearing, and a retired Australian school teacher falls into a kiva. Or was she pushed? Prudence begins to suspect that someone is trying to kill her fellow traveler and wonders where the flapper from Kansas City disappears to at every stop. Or is La Llorona haunting the Detour? And what secrets are the two German men hiding? Prudence is determined to solve the mysteries and uncover the truth.
About Suzanne Stauffer
After 20 years as a librarian and 20 as a professor of library science and library historian, Suzanne Stauffer has moved on to a third career as a mystery novelist. She currently lives in Albuquerque with her Australian husband and brown and white spotted rat terrier dogter, Treme. Her debut novel, Fried Chicken Castañeda (Artemesia Publishing, May 2025), won the CIPA EVVY Bronze Medal in Mystery/Crime/Detection and the New Mexico Book Award for Cozy Mystery.
Author Links:
Blog https://couriersseries1926.blogspot.com/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/couriers1926/
Substack Newsletter Amuse-Bouche https://smstauffer.substack.com/
