Who doesn’t love a good mystery? I surely do, whether it’s in a book, movie or TV show, and even real life. Years ago, I decided I would create my own, and thus the Isabel Long Mystery Series began.
Actually, I didn’t start writing mysteries. First, I wrote poetry and after too long a time when I wasn’t writing at all, I was drawn to what I would call literary fiction. It was after my close friend, Teresa Dovalpage, wrote her first mystery that I told myself to give it a try. And from reading and watching so many mysteries, I believe I figured it out from the get-go with Chasing the Case.
First, an author has to create a mystery worth solving. Often that involves a wrongful death, say one passed off as an accident or a suicide, or an outright murder. It could be about a missing person or a grand theft.
Then someone interesting needs to solve it.
In my series, I let Isabel Long use the transferable skills of her former profession as a journalist to be a private investigator solving cold cases in the rural area where she lives. Isabel is smart, nosy, and a bit sassy, and people who know me would likely say I channel myself a bit through this character. But that’s where the similarities end. She’s a recent widow, mother of three grown kids and grandmother to a little one. She lost her job as editor-in-chief when the newspaper went corporate. Her personal life changes after she starts working as a part-time bartender at the town’s only watering hole and she becomes involved with its owner.
I also gave Isabel an unusual sidekick, her 92-year-old mystery-loving mother who comes to live with her. (My late mother is the inspiration.)
The setting for the series and much of my books is the sticks of Western Massachusetts, which I know well since I’ve lived there much of my life and covered as a reporter.
A mystery needs characters who are complex and interesting. Mine are not based on anyone real, but I feel they could easily live in the setting I’ve created, generally country folk. Among the characters Isabel encounters are a woman who runs a junkyard and garage, a famous poet, drug-dealing brothers, a literary agent, a homeless man, and owner of a small newspaper.
When I watch or read a mystery, I want to be fooled until nearly the ending. Don’t make the distractions and dead ends obvious. Keep me guessing. I am thrilled when a person tells me that’s what happened when they read one of my books.
I applied the same principals to a mystery I wrote that wasn’t part of the series, The Unforgiving Town, my most recent release. This time I let a small town police chief, Scott Stevens, solve the death of a man found alongside a road a week after he was released from prison. In a change of pace, I bumped off the main character, Al Kitchen, in the first chapter. In the second, it is a week earlier when Al comes home much to the town’s displeasure. We follow what Al does up to his death and after that happens, I let Scott solve it.
Just like Isabel and Scott, I don’t start off knowing whodunnit. It’s as much a mystery to me as it is to them, so we solve it together — an experience I find extremely satisfying.
But in the end, we find the culprit. Mystery solved, onto the next, which is what I am doing now. I am writing the ninth case for Isabel in Covering a Crime. (I decided I didn’t like my original title, Covering a Murder.) I am 15,000 words into it. In this case, the victim is not a likable person although the person who hires Isabel, his grandson, is. Stay tuned.
Curious? Here’s the link to my books.
ABOUT THE PHOTO ABOVE: I shot this scene on the street near my home. Looks pretty mysterious to me.