Real-Life Vampire Lawsuit and Werewolf Trial Inspiration for East High Grad’s New Mystery Novel.

In 1946 Romanian villagers executed a shoemaker because they thought he was a vampire. His outraged widow fought a 50-year legal battle for the right to bury his head with the rest of his body. (His head had been buried separately to prevent the vampire from returning to life.) Author Courtney L. Mroch, former Denver native and class of 1988 East High graduate, found inspiration for her debut mystery novel, Beneath the Morvan Moon, in this wacky lawsuit.

Jacksonville, FL (PRWEB) April 20, 2004 –- “After graduating from East I moved to Tucson where I attended college at the University of Arizona. After graduating from there I became a paralegal. My sister was always giving me trinkets for my office and one day she found one of those themed desk calendars where each day there’s a new interesting fact. This calendar focused on outrageous lawsuits from around the world. Different customs lend themselves to some very interesting legal problems, but when I read the April 8th account of the Romanian widow who had fought to get her husband buried in one grave, the story caught fire in my imagination.”

As much as the plot parallels certain elements of the true story, Mroch exercised her artistic liberties also. For instance, the setting is in France instead of Romania; the executed man was engaged instead of married, was a baker instead of a cobbler, and was suspected of being a werewolf instead of a vampire. Also, no courts are involved in the exhumation process.

“Everybody has a vampire book, you know?” says Mroch. “Originally I started out trying to make it a vampire-based story, but I quickly scrapped that idea when I decided to set the story in France. Wolves are a huge part of their history. When I stumbled across the Morvan in the Burgundy region and decided that would be the setting for my book, I knew only a werewolf would do. Especially when I stumbled across the real-life trial of Jean Grenier.”

In 1603, in the Southwest of France, Jean Grenier boasted of having killed and eaten many girls. He was believed and brought to trial because many children had been murdered in the area. He explained he had accomplished his crimes through shapeshifting with the aid of a magical ointment and a cloak given to him by a mysterious black man he had met in the forest. Neither the mysterious man nor the cloak were ever found. The court ruled Grenier suffered from lycanthropy brought on by demonic possession. He was imprisoned for the rest of his life in a monastery.

“In real-life no one ever found the cloak, but you better believe it’s found it in my book. It’s a subplot that creates much chaos for my heroine.”

But that’s not the only thing creating problems for Mroch’s main character. Unlike the Romanian widow –who eventually proved her husband suffered from porphyria, not vampirism, and saw his remains placed in one grave—Mroch’s heroine has to encounter a few more obstacles before her task is complete. (Like falling in love with a handsome stranger, fending off a werewolf, and defending herself when she’s unjustly accused of murder.)

“The Romanian widow’s story would have made a good book too. I’m even still toying with the idea of tackling that as my first non-fiction work. But for this book I wanted romance and adventure mixed in with the mystery. To do that I had to change certain elements and make it harder on the heroine. Like having her dementia-afflicted grandmother whom she adores asks her to do this incredibly crazy task of digging up old bones in a foreign country. The heroine can’t say no to her Gram, nor can she tell anyone what she’s really doing in France. It gets her in all sorts of trouble.”

After graduating from the University of Arizona, Mroch moved to Phoenix, where she worked for the law firm of Snell & Wilmer. She then moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where she currently resides with her husband and their dog and cat. A member of Mystery Writers of America and the Short Mystery Fiction Society, her award-winning short stories have appeared in numerous zines. Her short story, “Skin Ish Ca,” ranked #2 in the 2003 Preditors & Editors Readers Poll. Her e-book, “Cellfish Ways,” published by Echelon Press, is the publisher’s year-to-date #2 best-selling dollar download. To learn more visit www.courtneymroch.com.

For additional information, or to order a copy of the book, contact the publisher: PublishAmerica, P.O. Box 151, Frederick, MD 21705, (301) 695-1707.

Beneath the Morvan Moon, ISBN 1-4137-1178-2, available from PublishAmerica, www.publishamerica.com, for $21.95.