5 “Insider” Facts about Murder at the Flamingo by Rachel McMillan

1. The Flamingo Club is named for the fictional Manhattan Club featured in several Nero Wolfe mysteries by author Rex Stout. It is also the name of a club owned by a famous racketeer in the British miniseries Foyle’s War.
2. Hamish is the Scottish form of James which fits well into his Scotch heritage.  But it is also, according to a theory presented by mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers, what the ‘H’ stands for in John H. Watson of Sherlock Holmes fame.
3. The working titles for this series were named for the Gadsden flags of the American Revolutionary War: Join, or Die; Don’t Tread on Me; and Appeal to Heaven.
4. While Boston is old enough that many of the buildings and streets Hamish and Reggie explored in the 1930s exist today, progress means that roads and squares (such as Scollay Square, home to the Flamingo club in my book, which as been demolished to make way for the Government Center, which exists there now) have changed. Thus, as part of my research, I spent hours at the Massachusetts Historical Society cross-referencing the notes on streets and roads I mention in the book with maps that showed what they were called in the 1930s. 
5. Regina Van Buren’s Boarding House in Charlestown, is next to the Warren Tavern, a pub dating back to the Sons of Liberty where Revere and Franklin and others would have a pint and plot their Revolutionary plans.