In Reference to Murder

Author R&R with J. Luke Bennecke

J. Luke Bennecke is a veteran civil engineer with a well-spent career helping people by improving Southern California roadways. He has a civil engineering degree, an MBA, a private pilot’s certificate, and is a partner in an engineering firm. He enjoys philanthropy and awards scholarships annually to high school seniors. In addition to his debut novel, bestseller and award-winning thriller Civil Terror: Gridlock, Luke has written several other novels and screenplays, a creative process he thoroughly enjoys. Luke resides in Southern California with his wife of 32+ years and three spunky cats. In his leisure time he enjoys traveling, playing golf, voiceover acting, and spending time with his grown daughters. Bennecke is a member of International Thriller Writers and looks forward to attending ThrillerFest every year in New York.

In his second Jake Bendel thriller, Waterborne, engineer Jake Bendel finds himself at the heart of a chilling bioterrorism plot when a mysterious illness linked to his revolutionary desalination plants begins affecting men across California. As the architect of these plants, Jake is suddenly embroiled in a lethal crisis, not just fighting to clear his name but also racing against time to find a cure for a rapidly spreading epidemic. With the entire state teetering on the brink of disaster, Jake's journey for survival becomes a complex battle against unseen enemies. From dodging assassination attempts by drones to uncovering the dark secrets of BioStall, the biotech giant involved in the viral outbreak, Jake’s every move is fraught with danger and deceit. The stakes couldn’t be higher as he navigates through layers of betrayal and manipulation in a desperate bid to save millions of lives.

Luke Bennecke stops by In Reference to Murder to take some "Author R&R" about writing and researching his book:

The idea for Waterborne came to me while editing my first novel, Gridlock. I’d been kicking around “what if” questions related to the California drought, giving myself a magic wand, if money were no object, “how would I use science and engineering to solve the drought?” I decided this would be the second novel in the Jake Bendel universe.

In a bit of a “duh moment,” I realized California has 800 miles of coastline, so technically there’s plenty of water here. But, of course, it’s saltwater, right? We’d need a bunch of desalination plants. So, I went down the rabbit hole online and learned as much as I could about the various types of systems to remove the salt from seawater to provide fresh, clean drinking water. I discovered that the process of cleaning the water is notoriously power-hungry.

Again, with the magic wand, what could we power these desalination plants with that won’t kill the environment, make global climate change worse, and at the same time, not break the taxpayer bank? (I assumed in my fictional story the government would fully fund the system.) Not long after searching, I found the solution: Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs)! At the time I started outlining the story (in 2018), MIT researchers had recently resurrected nuclear technology from the 1950s. MSRs are safe, eco-friendly (no carbon footprint, and they can actually run on spent nuclear rods from the OLD light water reactors, the ones creating all of the nuclear waste everyone’s worried about), and relatively inexpensive.

Now that I had the guts of the plot and a science/tech theme, it was time to weave in the rest of my favorite themes: terrorism and safety, environmental issues, survival and perseverance, ethical dilemmas, betrayal/trust, loss/grief, conspiracy/corruption, heroism/sacrifice, and identity/redemption.

I made sure my protagonist, Jake Bendel, went on a journey of self-discovery and redemption by facing challenges that forced him to confront his past, question his identity, and ultimately seek redemption for his perceived failings.

As an author, I’m a hybrid pantser/plotter, and definitely not a full outliner (some authors write 30,000+ word outlines BEFORE they start writing), because as an engineer, I have to have at least a little bit of structure. I wouldn’t want to start building a house or a bridge and “figure it out” as I went along. I’d want at least a skeleton set of plans, knowing where the kitchen would be, how many bedrooms/bathrooms we’d have, and the approximate square footage. And maybe whether the house is one story or two. Big picture stuff like that. Then for the look/feel, the color of the walls, the types of sinks/faucets, tile, flooring, etc. (all the things the homeowners would look/feel/touch), we can figure that out as we go along.

Same thing with Waterborne. I put together an eight-subact structure, with goals/conflict/resolution in each part, and with the underlying plot and themes at the ready, I sat down and started writing as organically as possible.

I think the fact the book has had about 30,000 Amazon downloads and almost 400 4+ star ratings shows that the story ended up providing a wonderfully extraordinary journey for my readers. If this type of story resonates with you, please visit Amazon and give it a read! It’s available in paperback and hardcover (audiobook is currently in production and should be available by the end of August). Hope you enjoy it!

You can learn more about J. Luke Bennecke via his website and follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Waterborne is available via all major booksellers.

Author R&R with Matthew Saeman

Matthew Saeman spent the first twenty three years of his professional life in the industries of construction and sales. He acquired his teaching credential at the age of 47 and now instructs students with Autism and emotional disturbances. Storytelling has always been something he loved to do, but it wasn’t until later in life that he began writing novels. The late Gordon McAlpine was his mentor, inspiring him to take the next step once his short stories began getting published, and once he began writing novels, he knew this was the best way to express his creativity. Matthew enjoys writing in the Suspense/Thriller genre mainly because he loves the concept of keeping the reader constantly wondering what’s going to happen next, which characters might turn out to be bad, and whether or not the hero will win out in the end…which is far from certain. He’s written eight novels thus far, two of which have been published. His most recent, To Preserve, Protect and Destroy was released through Palmetto Publishing in June.

In To Preserve, Protect and Destroy, NASA geologist Terrence Sullivan is thrust into a perilous mission of universal significance. He is tasked with retrieving volatile stones from Mars, the same stones responsible for the disastrous end to a prior terraforming mission there. Initially, Terrence believes this mission is solely for universal safety. However, as the story progresses, he discovers the chilling reality behind its true objective. The stakes escalate beyond his wildest imagination, with the lives of the crew and millions of innocents at risk as the ship carrying the deadly stones is set to return to Earth…but not to land safely. As time dwindles, Terrence is forced to make decisions that will not only seal his fate but also that of humanity. Will he manage to avert the looming disaster and expose the truth, or will he become just another pawn sacrificed in this deadly Presidential power play?

Matthew Saeman stops by In Reference to Murder to take some "Author R&R" about writing and researching his book:

 

Having no first hand knowledge of the Geological science, the inner workings of NASA, or a corrupt U.S. President, in order to write this story with any degree of accuracy, I needed to spend countless hours reading novels, watching movies/documentaries, and scouring the internet not only to locate the “technical” information required, but also to make it believable to the reader that I knew everything there was to know about these topics. Of course, before one minute was spent researching anything, I needed to first put together a proper “skeleton” of the story.

Ideas for the stories I write hit me totally at random. Once I get an idea, I allow it to percolate for at least a day. If I still feel I want to pursue it, I take it to the next stage which is where I’ll write a very brief synopsis from start to finish. There’s a feeling I get in my gut that tells me if it’s an interesting concept and if I’d have fun writing it. With To Preserve, Protect and Destroy, my gut kept telling me to take it to the next stage, which is extending the brief synopsis into a longer one and incorporating more details, to include character names and bios. At this point, the story had begun building momentum, and so I went with it. Stage 4 is the process of developing a chapter outline. The first draft is always minimal but it’s a “living” document that grows as time passes. The outline for this book took about four months to complete… and that’s when I began doing my research.

In today’s world, with access to any and all information at the stroke of a key, the process of educating oneself on any subject is tremendously simpler than it was twenty years ago. But persistence and drive are the keys to success. Once I’d dedicated myself to writing this novel, I’d also dedicated substantial time to not only doing the necessary research, but also incorporating this newfound knowledge with the characters I’d created. Emulating aspects of myself or people that I knew helped me make the characters more real. As I said previously, the outline is a living document, so even after I began writing the chapters, there were changes I made in order for the story to work.

This process is not the same for every writer. In fact, I’d bet every writer does it different. The one aspect that is identical however is sticktoitivity. I love to write and so I manage my time appropriately. When I’m working on a story, there are hours dedicated to the writing process. If I’m unwilling to do this then the stories don’t get written. With To Preserve, Protect and Destroy, I dedicated part of every day to doing something that advanced where I was with that story. To me, writing is like exercising. Once you get into the rhythm of the process, it becomes easier to do each day. If you let days or weeks pass without writing, finding the right words can feel like pulling teeth.

 

You can learn more about Matthew Saeman and his writing via his website and follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. To Preserve, Protect and Destroy is now available via all major booksellers.

Author R&R with Jennifer Moorhead

Jennifer Moorhead graduated from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Geaux Tigers! She has written and produced three indie short films that each made Top 20 at the Louisiana Film Prize and were awarded at festivals around the world. She lives in Louisiana with her husband, two needy golden doodles, one very un-needy shelter kitty, and a plethora of farm animals. Her grown daughters are off creating their own life stories. When she’s not writing, she’s photographing the swamps and winding trails in her backyard or she’s on a tennis court laughing and providing job security for her coach.

Her debut thriller, Broken Bayou, follows Dr. Willa Watters, a prominent child psychologist at the height of her career. But when a viral video of a disastrous television interview puts her reputation on the line, Willa retreats to Broken Bayou, the town where she spent most of her childhood summers. There she visits her aunts’ old house and discovers some of her unstable mother’s belongings still languishing in the attic—dusty mementos harboring secrets of her harrowing past. Willa’s hopes for a respite are quickly crushed, not only by what she finds in that attic but also by what’s been found in the bayou. With waters dropping due to drought, mysterious barrels containing human remains have surfaced, alongside something else from Willa’s past, something she never thought she’d see again. Divers, police, and media flood the area, including a news reporter gunning for Willa, and Travis Arceneaux—a local deputy and old flame.

Jennifer stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching her book:

When it comes to writing and researching, I work backward. I don’t do a lot of research before writing the first draft. Research can turn into quicksand for me so I like to get that first draft down the way I want it to happen first Then, in the next drafts, I change it to what should happen, according to my research.

With Broken Bayou, I started my research online and with the actual town. I printed out a map of southern Louisiana and marked where my made-up town would be on it.

Then I hand-drew a map of the town. I named the streets and added in the stores mentioned in the first draft. One of those stores is a place called Taylor’s Marketplace and Bait Shop. I fashioned it after a real store from my past, the halfway mark between my house and my grandparents’ house called Taylortown Store.

I also downloaded a floorplan to use as a reference for the house my protagonist returns to, Shadow Bluff.

Google Street View helped me look at police stations in small Louisiana towns and I watched several police press conferences on YouTube. I studied the details, the questions, the phrases used. And I compiled a folder with newspaper articles about the story that first gave me the idea for Broken Bayou. The articles were about a missing schoolteacher in New Orleans who accidentally drove her car into a bayou and when divers went in to fish it out, they discovered more than they bargained for. This quote from one of the articles stayed with me:

"Waterways are good dumping grounds…”

Once I was done with setting, I moved on to the delightfully gruesome task (yes, I’m one of those people) of interviewing a forensic pathologist and someone in Louisiana law enforcement. These interviews were over the phone and via email. The men I spoke with told me stories ranging from the strangely high numbers of serial killers in south Louisiana to a body farm in Tennessee to the rate of decomposition once a body is in water. More than once I asked for them to pause during a story so I could take a minute to shake off the images in my head. But that’s where I needed to go to get those pesky details right.

I also had the pleasure of visiting the North Louisiana Crime Lab where I took a tour of the morgue, the DNA sample room, and my favorite, the firearms room where they fired guns recovered from crime scenes to get the markings from the bullets. The room contained something called a firing tank which allowed a tech to fire a weapon into a long rectangular tank of water because water preserves the markings.

Guns are another area I wanted to research. In the past, I’ve taken gun safety classes and growing up in the Sportsman’s Paradise, I’ve had ample opportunities to shoot a gun. I know what one feels like in my hand, how it kicks, what it smells like. All important things to understand if any character at any time uses a gun.

In addition, I took an online class taught by a detective about gun myths and things that can happen on TV shows but not in books. Books are held to a different standard. Did you know that a car door will not block a bullet? I see characters hiding behind them all the time on TV. This is a no-no for a book though. Even in a fictitious town with made-up characters, the details still need to be factual.

Great YouTube video on these myths here: https://youtu.be/U6T0Za3aRI4?si=0ptF2Yu4z5dMyaeC

The most fun I had with my research though were the visits with a friend of mine who is a child psychologist, the profession of my protagonist. In the summer of 2020, we sat on her back porch and talked for hours. She led me through everything it takes to get a Ph.D. in her field - from college to grad school to dissertations and clinicals – all information I would only use as backstory. But I had to know what it took for my character to accomplish what she did. I learned phrases and tricks of the trade as well as a deeper understanding of children who have suffered trauma, are neurodiverse, or both. It was fascinating and heartbreaking and gave me such a deep respect for the profession.

I love to learn so research is something I look forward to. I also know if I start with it, I may never write the novel. I can get lost online or listening to stories or watching YouTube clips. That’s why I put it off until after the first draft. And a lot of what I researched for Broken Bayou never made it into the novel. As writers, we must pick and choose not only our words but also what research is important to include in those words. Too much research will bog down the pace, too little will fail to set up the moment. It’s quite the fine line. I treat research like a giant buffet. I spread it all out on the table, but I only put my favorites on the plate.

 

You can learn more about Jennifer Moorhead and her books via her website and follow her on Instagram and Facebook. Broken Bayou was just released via Thomas & Mercer and is available from all major booksellers.

Author R&R with Chris Coppel

Chris Coppel was born in California and has since split his time between the USA and Europe, living in California, Washington DC, Utah, Spain, France, Switzerland and England. Chris has held senior operations positions for both Warner Bros. and Universal Studios. Chris also held the position of Director of Operations for UCLA’s Film School where he also taught advanced screenwriting. Chris and his wife Clare spent many years helping animal rescue with Best Friends Animal Society in Utah. Before joining Best Friends, Chris was President and Managing Director of the Home Entertainment Division of Testronics in Los Angeles. Following in his father’s footsteps (Alec Coppel wrote Vertigo among many other successful movies) Chris has written numerous screenplays as well as the novels Lifetimes, Lingering, Logistics, Double Down (as C.J. Axelrod), Liner, Lucy, Lakebed, Legacy, Lodge, and Luck. Chris is also an accomplished drummer and guitarist.

His new book, Latency, just released today, is a riveting blend of police procedural and supernatural thriller. Up until now, the only monsters the LAPD had ever seen were of the human variety. When two down-on-their-luck detectives are forced to work together on a series of cold cases, they slowly begin to uncover a common thread that may hold the key to solving some of their town’s grizzliest unsolved murders. Little do they know that the same key will unlock secrets from a different dimension; one filled with monstrous creatures that should never be disturbed…

Chris stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about his writing process:

First, a little about me and my writing.

I wrote my first book, Lucy, thirty years ago, then managed to not write another word for over twenty-five years. Now I write a minimum of one book a year. While my original novel was a gentle tale (or tail) revolving around a Golden Retriever that gets stolen and has to, along with other fine hounds, escape their capturers and find a way home, most of my other works have been in the horror – ghost genres. Why do I choose to weave tapestries of dark and cloying fear? I have no idea. What I can say for certain is that I have always enjoyed a good horror story. Before I go on, I think I need to point out the sort of tale that I DO NOT define as good horror. I am not a fan of gratuitous orgies of blood and gore that start on page one and maintain that same sordid level until the very end without any benefit to the story or the setting. I find that type of horror to be the genre-equivalent of the bottom shelf romance novels that are all written according to a preordained script that dictates content, romantic interaction timeline and conclusion. Having said that, those books sell in the billions every year, so that just shows how much I know.

Horror for me must be original. I don’t find an axe wielding psychopath targeting young sorority girls to be clever or worthy of even a sample read on Amazon. I like subtlety in my horror. I also like a dash of humour, a drop of pathos and most importantly, I want the feeling of discombobulation. I want the reader to feel the same emotions as the characters. To date, I feel that my books have encompassed all those criteria.

I was questioned about how I deal with research. Firstly, the need for in depth research beyond what my imagination can provide, varies from book to book. In Lucy and in Lingering, for example, I didn’t see the need for any research at all except for a little Google map work seeking out a few locations in Southampton. In Luck and Legacy, I needed quite a lot of science, armament knowledge, Native American lore etc. I found that the internet was all the tool I needed. I also learned not to grab the first data chunk from the landing page and then think that I was, at that point, highly knowledgeable on the subject at hand. Look deeper! For example, I needed to know about sniper rifles from the 1990s. I found that by digging deeply in the Google mine then branching into YouTube for some hands-on visualisations, I was able to get a good understanding of the weapon I needed for the story.

The only book I have written that required in-person research was the one I am editing at this moment. Titled Lusas Naturae, it is set in a small coastal town in England that is close to what was one of the biggest coal mines in England. In addition, the town sits atop a plethora of subterranean tunnels that were used by pirates and smuggles hundreds of years earlier. As my knowledge of tunnels and mines is on a par with my knowledge of quantum physics, I chose to meet local historians as well as volunteer tour guides at the local mine museum. The depth (literally) and breadth of knowledge that these individuals were able to impart to me was priceless and enabled me to add a layer of texture that couldn’t have been achieved otherwise.

You can read more about Chris and his writing via his website and follow him on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.  Latency is now available via all major booksellers and via publisher Cranthorpe Millner.

Author R&R with John David Bethel

John David Bethel was a speechwriter to Cabinet Secretaries at the Departments of Commerce and Education during the Bush 41 and 43 administrations. He also served as a press secretary and speechwriter to members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Additionally, Bethel worked as a communications strategist for a number of national and international public relations firms, including Burson Marsteller and Cohn & Wolfe. Bethel is also an award-winning author whose novels include Evil Town, Hotel Hell, Unheard Of, Holding Back the Dark, and A Washington Trilogy, and he's been published in popular consumer magazines and respected political journals.

His latest crime novel is Mapping the Night, in which FBI Special Agents Eileen Prado and Ira Fisher are inserted into the investigation of the Upper East Side serial murders at the instigation of forces working within government who want the identity of one of the victims kept quiet. Their partners in the NYPD have their own agenda: they are hiding the true identity of the man known as The Uptown Savage.

John David Bethel stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about researching and writing the book:

 

My novels are drawn from true crime.

Mapping the Night is introduced with the scene of a boy kneeling beside the body of his mother, trying to revive her by applying a bag of frozen vegetables across her forehead. He explains to the police officers who discover him that this is how “she made me feel better when I was sick.” That haunting scene came straight from a New York City police report of the murder of a single mother. It was the first of many victims of the same killer.

The modus operandi of the perpetrator was consistent – as was his choice of victims. All were single mothers of young boys; all raped and strangled; all the murder scenes were immaculately cleaned beyond what would be necessary to erase evidence.

Having written about serial murderers in other novels, for which I did extensive research, I had a handle on the antagonist in Mapping the Night; however, I had not written about this particular type of offender. There are four types of serial killers: thrill seekers, mission-oriented, visionary killers and power/control seekers. In this novel, the offender is mission-oriented, meaning he justifies his murders as necessary to rid the world of people he considers undesirable. I went to work researching this particular deviant behavior and found that mission-oriented serial killers are organized, stable and clear thinkers. They can hold jobs, sometimes very coveted positions in respected fields, and they plan and commit their crimes quickly and efficiently.

With these details worked out, I needed a protagonist – other than law enforcement – who would enable the reader to identify with a “citizen” central to the action. Someone with a reason to be in the right place at the right time, meaning on the streets of New York in the middle of the night. That became Warren Winston who suffers from xeroderma pigmentosum. Translated it means he is allergic to light.

Winston lives in the dark, only leaving his apartment in the Plaza Residences on the toney side of town in the middle of the night. He wanders the upper East and West sides of the city, as well as Central Park, and knows the history and geography of these neighborhoods intricately – a vehicle to introduce and educate the reader about Uptown New York. It also puts Winston in a position to encounter the Uptown Savage.

After establishing the location for the novel, I also had to do some research on how and who from law enforcement would be handling events. That required understanding how the city is divided into precincts, who directs these precincts, and how the detectives operate within them. Special agents from the FBI would also have a role which meant research was needed to understand their involvement. There is also a political element in Mapping the Night that allowed me to mine my career in politics to add a dash of realism to that aspect of the plot.

I do my research as needed when I am writing. I do not write from an outline nor do I prepare background on the characters until I create them. Many writers work from an intricately prepared outline and prepare elaborate backstories for their characters. This provides a strong foundation that takes them from the first sentence of their novel to the final one knowing where they are going and how they are going to get there. I tried that approach but found it took the fun out of writing for me. I want to be write the way I read; being surprised about what is around the corner; how characters will react to the situations they encounter.

Long story short, I write by the seat of my pants and conduct research when it is needed to inform the plot. In some ways, this is easier and more efficient than information gathering in anticipation of what might be required to write a believable story. Oftentimes, I think writers who deep dive on research feel the need to include every bit of what they find in the novel. That can take the life out of the story. I am a minimalist.

I jump into my writing without a parachute but manage a soft landing.

 

You can learn more about J. David Bethel and his writing on his website and follow him on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Mapping the Night is available for now via Amazon.

Author R&R with H. N. Hirsch

H. N. Hirsch is currently Erwin N. Griswold Professor of Politics Emeritus at Oberlin College in Ohio. Born in Chicago, he was educated at the University of Michigan and at Princeton. He has also taught at Harvard, the University of California-San Diego, and Macalester College, and has served as Dean of Arts and Sciences at Oberlin. He is the author of The Enigma of Felix Frankfurter ("brilliant and sure to be controversial," The New York Times), A Theory of Liberty, and the memoir Office Hours ("well crafted and wistful," Kirkus), as well as numerous articles on law, politics, and constitutional questions. He is currently writing the Bob and Marcus Mystery series, the first of which, Shade, was published in 2021, with the sequel, Fault Line, following in June 2023.

 

Rain is the third installment in H. N. Hirsch’s acclaimed Bob & Marcus Mystery series featuring Marcus George, a professor at UC San Diego, and his life partner, attorney Bob Abramson. Bob is enlisted to defend one of Marcus’s students who has been accused of murder, in a plot that—naturally enough, in sunny southern California—includes handsome hustlers, arrogant multi-millionaires, and twists and turns that boggle the reader’s mystery-solving skills. Jean Redmann, author of the award-winning Micky Knight Mystery Series, has called the duo of Bob and Marcus "a gay Nick and Nora, a couple you’ll want to spend time and solve mysteries with."

 

H. N. Hirsch stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing the books:

 

My Bob and Marcus mystery series began on a beach in Maine.

It was the summer of 1984, I was 32 years old, and I had discovered the lovely resort town of Ogunquit, about ninety minutes north of Boston. At the time I was an assistant professor at Harvard and living in a ramshackle apartment on Beacon Hill. Harvard doesn’t pay lowly assistant professors very much, and Boston was an expensive town, even back then, but I saved my pennies and spent a few summer weeks in Ogunquit.

In many ways, the days I spent there were the happiest of my life. The town was charming. It had a small gay colony, was also a magnet for French Canadians, and it had a beautiful, white-sand beach. Every day, if it wasn’t raining, I would rent a little plastic chair from the hotel at the entrance to the beach and sit on the sand and read, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends.

That summer, I had discovered the mystery novels of Amanda Cross. Cross was in fact Carolyn Heilbrun, a distinguished professor of English and American literature at Columbia University in New York. Her amateur sleuth was (not surprisingly) also a professor of literature at Columbia, Kate Fansler. Many of the books had an academic setting.

Most novels in the series were delightful and fun, but one day, I finished one I didn’t think was very good. I slammed it down on the sand and said to my friends, “We could do better than that!”

These friends, like me, were young academics.

So we started hatching a mystery plot. I don’t remember what moved us to do so, but once we got going, we were throwing ideas around, who killed who, how, why. Of course, since we were all academics, the murder victim was a Harvard student and the amateur detective a young Harvard assistant professor, like me.

I took notes. In the Fall, back at Harvard, nose to the grindstone, I put the notes away.

Flash forward to the Spring of 2020—thirty-six years later. That Spring, of course, is when Covid hit and we all put ourselves on lockdown. As it happens, it was also my last semester of teaching before retirement—I was now sixty-eight years old and teaching at Oberlin College in Ohio.

Like everyone, Covid meant my plans shifted abruptly. I had been planning to move to Chicago, my hometown, travel, possibly do some research at the Library of Congress in my academic field, American constitutional law—but, of course, none of that was now going to happen. Everything was on hold.

I needed something to do.

So after finishing the semester via online teaching, and then sleeping for a month, I puttered around the house, and one day took out the notes from 1984. It was the first time I had looked at them, and reading them over, I could almost smell the ocean and the sunscreen.  

And I thought, “you know, this isn’t half-bad.”

So I ordered several books from Amazon on how to write mysteries—there are some very good ones—and got to work. I had always been a fan of mystery series—Dorothy Sayers, Tony Hillerman, Stuart Woods—and had a pretty good grasp of what made them work.

So I started to write. To my delight and surprise, I enjoyed it, and the writing went quickly. I had never written fiction of any kind, and it felt a bit like I was using muscles that I had neglected during decades of scholarly writing.

And in fiction, you got to make things up. Who knew.

I set that first mystery, Shade, in 1985, around the time I had first made the notes. Marcus, my amateur sleuth, was of course gay like me, and some of what I wanted to accomplish in the novel was to document what it was like to be a gay man back then, although I’ve also tried to be  careful to write the novels in a manner that would appeal to any reader.

As the series has continued, I have moved forward in time. The second novel in the series, Fault Line, is set in 1989, after Bob and Marcus have moved to San Diego (just as I did), and the third, Rain, is set in 2004.

There have been a number of very well done gay mystery series—Michael Nava’s books perhaps the most distinguished contemporary example—but it was a genre that was, and remains, relatively under-developed. There were potboilers published constantly, but “serious” gay mysteries, mysteries with something to say beyond the sex, have been relatively few and far between.

In my reading of mystery series over the years, what kept me reading was less the murder or the crime and more the character of the detective or detectives, seeing them develop as people and change over time.

Since Marcus, the amateur sleuth at the center of Shade, was also a young professor, the novels also offered me an opportunity to describe and comment on academic life. I made Bob, who becomes Marcus’s partner in life, a law student and then a lawyer, which allowed me to focus in subsequent novels on his defense of various criminals. And, since I taught constitutional law for the bulk of my teaching career, including a course on Criminal Law, I was already familiar with police investigations and the complications that can ensue.

So my research has in my many ways been shaped by my own life and observation—as a gay man, as an academic, and as someone with an interest in the law. When I’ve needed more detailed information about the finer points of the law, I’ve found most of the information I need on the internet, and have on one or two occasions also called on former students, many of whom are now lawyers, with my questions (one of them helpfully offering to represent me when the novels are sold to Hollywood. If only.)

After Shade, the next entries in the series are set in San Diego, where I moved in 1986 to teach at the branch of the University of California. So once again I was able to draw on my own experience and make location a central element of the story. California is different—amazingly so. Going from Boston to San Diego, and from Harvard to a large state university, was a bit like moving to another planet.

The third entry in the series, Rain, will be published shortly. In this entry, it is now 2004, and Bob and Marcus have been together for a long time, almost twenty years. Marcus is approaching 50 and Bob is coming up on 40. Following them over time has given me a chance to comment not just on crimes but also on how lives shift and change over time, something we all experience, gay and straight alike.

So, after a lifetime in academic life, I have, much to my surprise, become a writer of  mysteries. . .and perhaps, if my former student is right, the executive producer of a television mini-series.

Life is full of surprises. And mystery.

 

You can learn more about H. N. Hirsch and his books via his website and follow him on Facebook. Rain is now available via Pisgah Press and all major booksellers.

Author R&R with Peter Colt

Peter Colt is a 1996 graduate of the University of Rhode Island with a BA in Political Science and a 24-year veteran of the Army Reserve, with deployments to Kosovo and Iraq as an Army Civil Affairs officer. He is currently a police officer in Rhode Island and married with two sons and two perpetually feuding cats. He is the author of the Andy Roark mysteries: The Off-Islander, Back Bay Blues, Death at Fort Devens, The Ambassador, and the latest installment, The Judge.

The Judge is set in Boston, December 1985. Judge Ambrose Messer, who’s overseeing the bench trial of a chemical company accused of knowingly dumping chemical waste—causing birth defects and cancer—becomes the target of blackmail. The judge doesn’t want a threat to corrupt his judgement, but he also has secrets of his own he doesn’t want revealed. Ex-military operative turned private investigator, Andy Roark, is sent on the blackmailer’s trail, but the disturbing, unexpected revelations he uncovers make him a target of some very dangerous people, who seem determined not only to wreck the life of his client, but to destroy Roark's too.

Peter Colt stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching his books:

 

The Off Islander was born out of two things, Facebook and John Plaster's excellent book Secret Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines with the Elite Warriors of SOG. In 2008 my wife introduced me to Facebook, and I started to reconnect with old friends from my hometown of Nantucket Island. I was also reading Plaster’s outstanding account of Green Berets conducting extremely hazardous reconnaissance missions on the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Vietnam war. 

One night after the duty day was done, I started to write the type of detective novel that I liked to read. I wanted to set the book in a time period that was pre-Google, pre-GPS, pre-Air Tag and pre-internet, but I didn’t want it to be so far in the past that I was going to be in danger of getting the day-to-day details wrong. I settled on 1982 and I made my protagonist a veteran of the U.S. Army’s ultra-secret Special Forces element in Vietnam, known as the Studies and Observation Group (SOG). I had taken Raymond Chandler’s advice about private detectives having to be loners, and what could be more secluded than being a survivor of an elite unit within the Army’s elite?

I was very lucky to end up with an agent and a book deal which led to five Andy Roark books (I am working on number six now). The Off Islander was something that evolved with the bare idea of a plot and the final gunfight, whereas my next book, Back Bay Blues, was a much more heavily plotted and researched book. Back Bay Blues was set in 1985 and dealt with the experience of Vietnamese immigrants in the U.S. The mothballed fleet of Navy vessels in Suisun Bay, California, figured heavily in the story.

My first book had received good reviews and positive feedback from Vietnam veterans. I was very much aware of the fact there were veterans from SOG still alive, as well as other Vietnam veterans, and I had this nightmarish vision of them, or any reader for that matter, throwing the book down in disgust because I got the details wrong. The only thing I could do was research, the type of research my professors in college wished I had done for any paper.

My approach to research is two-fold:  first and foremost, I spent time and money building up a library of books by and about the men of SOG. I practically stopped reading fiction because most of my time was taken up reading the history, learning about the tactics, the weapons, and the kit they used. For instance, if I had my guy at a certain camp in Vietnam, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t some generic description but the most accurate one I could offer.

Many of the scenes and missions that Andy Roark relays to the reader are drawn from the research done in books. This posed another challenge, to make sure any scenes in Vietnam weren’t too similar to the first-person accounts. The best way to ensure I didn’t commit that sin was by meticulously researching the events. In Back Bay Blues, Andy Roark and two of his friends are at a real event that took place when enemy sappers attacked the Special Forces camp in Nha Trang. It led to the single largest loss of Army Special Forces soldiers in the Vietnam War. I wanted to make sure that I got those details right.

Death at Fort Devens, the third Andy Roark book, takes place at Fort Devens and Boston’s infamous Combat Zone (the city's adult entertainment district). I had been going to Fort Devens for various types of reasons since 1991, when it was still an Active Duty post, and later after it was closed leaving a small Reserve/National Guard training area in its place. I had on many occasions cut through the Combat Zone as a kid going from the Greyhound bus station to eat in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood, but I didn’t trust my memory of either place. Fortunately, I was able to find books about both and relied upon them heavily to get the details right.

The other major tool I use to research my books is the Internet. Google is a fantastic tool. When I was writing Back Bay Blues, I was able to use Google Earth to give me an idea of the approximate location of the U.S. Navy’s mothball fleet. Now when I was writing about Andy Roark swimming from one of the boats, I was able to approximate the distance. I was able to accurately describe where he came ashore versus just inventing it. I was also able to use it to give me an idea of what the roads and businesses were like in the area in 1985.

In Death at Fort Devens, I also wanted to use the taillights of a 1975 Ford Maverick as a plot point. A quick image search showed me the many different variations of the taillights that were used on the Maverick, but I was able to match the image to the year model and accurately describe. Why go to all the trouble, one might ask? Simple, because out there, somewhere is a fan of the books who is a "car guy." If I get an easily researched detail wrong, it takes a little something away from the story for them.

In The Ambassador, a portion of the book is set in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, and I wanted to create a seedy, waterfront area. It wouldn’t do if my fictional area turned out to be in a nice neighborhood or a state park. It might not be important to a reader in Arizona or Wisconsin, but it probably means a lot to a reader in Fairhaven, Massachusetts.

I remember reading a Robert B. Parker novel when I was a teenager. Parker’s Spenser was on a case that took him to a brothel in my other hometown of Providence, Rhode Island. Imagine my surprise when the building in question wasn’t just in my city, my neighborhood, my block, but was either my apartment building or the one across the street! Parker’s description was good enough that I knew he had been on my street and so accurate that I could tell which building it was. But, boy oh boy, I was somehow living in a Spenser novel!

My latest book, The Judge, opens with Andy Roark waiting in the world famous restaurant/bar, Jacob Wirths, a Boston institution with a long history. My dad had taken me there as a kid a couple of times, but I couldn’t describe it from memory. If I had tried and gotten it wrong, then my story’s credibility would have gone down the drain with any readers in Boston who know Wirths. But a search of the internet for images and a look at Wikipedia for the history allowed me to accurately describe it.

Why go to the trouble? Why spend hundreds of dollars on books and hundreds of hours researching small details? Yes, I am that guy who will research the headlines, what was on the Billboard Top 100, even the weather the days that I imagine the story taking place. Why go to all that trouble? The short answer is for the reader. They are paying good money or going to the library for my books. They are investing their time. There is a wealth of books out there, but if someone picks up my book, I want them to get their money’s worth. I want them to enjoy it and when they close the book, I want them to miss the characters and the story. All of that can be ruined in a flash by getting easily researched details wrong. The reader deserves better than that.

 

You can learn more about Peter Colt and his books via his website and follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Goodreads. The Judge is now available via Severn House and all major booksellers.

 

Author R&R with Thomas R. Weaver

After successfully launching a tech startup in the restaurant hospitality space which transformed payment and ordering experiences, Thomas R. Weaver realized he had no more excuses not to do what he always wanted to do: write fiction. Despite swearing to friends and family (none of whom apparently believed him) that he’d never run another startup again, he recently started another one focused on bringing some of the ideas to life in Artificial Wisdom, his debut novel, specifically around communicating in augmented reality. In Thomas’s spare time, he is an avid cook, and loves drawing, painting, and chess. Thomas collects more books than he has time to read, especially if they have beautiful covers, like Folio editions.

Artificial Wisdom is set in 2050, where a heat wave has killed millions across the Persian Gulf, including the wife of journalist Marcus Tully. But he has a lead like no other: the heat wave was unnaturally diverted from hitting the USA by geoengineering. The president who gave the order is now running for an even greater office: dictator of the nation states, with a short-term mandate to make hard decisions in order to prevent a climate apocalypse. His final opponent is the world's first AI politician, Solomon, governor of New Carthage, a domed city-state protecting the elite. Solomon's creator may have the evidence Tully needs to make his case to the world–but in the middle of the most important election in history, someone will do anything to stop the truth from coming out.

Thomas R. Weaver stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching the book:

Several weeks ago, I was listening to a new BBC Maestro talk by historical fiction bestselling author, Ken Follett, where he talked about the extensive research he had to do before writing a single word, to the point where for one of his books he spent nearly a year simply researching.

I don’t write that kind of fiction, and that kind of research would drive me mad. My books are mysteries, set in the future, for one thing. Detail is still important, but often my research focuses on how things work today, and how it might be extrapolated into the future.

For example, my debut novel, Artificial Wisdom, a murder-mystery technothriller, was set in 2050, where there has been huge technological progress even while we are on the verge of extinction. It’s a world full of augmented reality devices, super intelligence AI, global cryptocurrencies, new social networks and shifts in the way basic things (like news corporations) function.

How do you even go about building a new world? Educating myself on the macro-trends was the easy bit: not only are there countless non-fiction books to dig into covering each of these subjects, but documentaries, articles, podcasts, Wikipedia pages and more. Writers thirty years ago would have had to camp out in libraries and travel to research, or perhaps consult their trusty home encyclopaedia. Now, we have it all at our fingertips. We probably have the opposite issue: for any one thing we need to know, there’s almost too much information available, and you could study any one thing for years of your life. However, I subscribe to the Aaron Sorkin method of character and plot development: the backstory only emerges as you need it, and so the question becomes researching enough to make things authentic, but not too much that the detail is no longer useful, maybe even detracting from the narrative.

Creating a murder-mystery set in the future presents all sorts of challenges. It’s often said that the 1990s, and the rise of the mobile phone, changed how authors put their characters in jeopardy. The smartphone, with its ability to track locations and be tracked, has changed it even more so. Writing a complex murder-mystery set 30 years from now meant firstly figuring out what technology was going to be possible in the future, and then finding potential loopholes in it. For example, what if automatic cleaning bots cleared up your crime-scene before the police got there?

For me, researching, then, is really à la carte. I’ll be in the middle of writing a scene, and will decide the best thing my character could do right now is, say, go into an underground speakeasy. In Baghdad. In 2055. Fine, but is that even possible? And I’ll go and spend an hour of my life learning what kind of rock ancient Baghdad is built on (limestone), do they have cellars (some) and if you had limestone stairs leading down, would they get slippery with age (yes)? One hour, for perhaps three words most eyes will jump over, but more importantly the validation that I technically could have an underground speakeasy in a future version of Baghdad, and that the character can go there.

Or perhaps a plot point will depend on how cryptocurrencies actually work, and I’ll need to actually speak to an expert about it. We live an incredible time where we can reach almost anyone on social media, although that doesn’t mean they’ll always want to talk to you. When writing my book, I directly consulted experts on climate, geoengineering, augmented reality, cryptocurrency and many more things, usually on very specific snippets to make sure I was being accurate.

ChatGPT has changed the game on this, and has certainly replaced Google for me as my first search tool. I can clearly remember the moment that changed everything for me. In my second book, my protagonist is trying to save someone who has just lost a limb. They need a tourniquet, and don’t have a lot around them to use. I started to Google makeshift tourniquets. I can’t remember what I searched for, now, but I can tell you know that if I’d really needed information in a hurry, my patient would have bled out on the floor before I found anything. There was a lot more about what not to do, than what to do. Asking ChatGPT the question immediately gave me some solid suggestions I was then able to verify externally.

Last week I needed to know how brush motors were made, and how they worked. What were all the individual parts, and what order might they be put together? Googling it was very challenging, since amateurs don’t just make brush motors in their garage, and if they do it comes with the assumption you already know a lot of basic information about electromagnetism. I tried a ChatGPT prompt: “Explain to me all the individual components of a universal washing machine motor as if I know nothing about it, but am going to build one from scratch”, and got a succinct list of all the parts and how they fit together.

Now, no-one who isn’t going to build a brush motor themselves really wants to know all that, but my character knows, and needed to build one, from recycled parts, in a hurry. There’s a fantastic episode of the podcast Writing Excuses (S3E1) on Worldbuilding, where authors Brandon Sanderson, Howard Tayler and Dan Wells explain what’s going on here. They call it smoke and mirrors, the magic trick that creates the illusion things are real, just enough detail to suggest things are credible without providing the entire text of Wikipedia.

When it comes to it, the point of all this research is to add an illusion of authenticity to an imaginary story. We don’t need to put in all the detail, but suggest it, like an impressionist painter. Fiction triggers brain activity like you’re a participant, not an observer, and the brain is great at filling in the gaps, so as authors our job is to maintain that illusion and keep people in the story, ideally helping them learn something new along the way.

 

You can learn more about Thomas R. Weaver via his website and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, and TikTok. Artificial Wisdom is now available via all major booksellers.

Author R&R with Larry and Rosemary Mild

Rosemary Mild, a graduate of Smith College and former assistant editor of Harper's, and Larry Mild, a digital systems and instrument designer for major government contractors in the signal analysis field, are also cheerful partners in crime. They have coauthored the popular Paco & Molly Mysteries, the Dan and Rivka Sherman Mysteries, the Hawaii adventure/thrillers Cry Ohana and Honolulu Heat, and three volumes of short stories, many of which appear in anthologies. Making use of his past creativity and problem-solving abilities, Larry naturally drifted into the realm of mystery writing, where he also claims to be more devious than his partner-in-crime and best love, Rosemary. So he conjures up their plots and writes the first drafts, leaving Rosemary to breathe life into their characters and sizzle into their scenes. A perfect marriage of their talents.

Their latest novel is Kent and Katcha: Espionage, Spycraft, Romance. The year is 1992. The Soviet Union has collapsed, but danger persists. Young Kent Brukner, a freshly trained American spy, arrives in Moscow for a high-risk mission: to infiltrate and compromise a Russian Federation Army facility. Under an alias, in a military uniform, he plies his skills—unprepared for the brutal confrontations and irrational consequences. Kent meets the innocent and passionate Katcha, daughter of a British expatriate and a Russian dissident, and together the lovers embark on a nearly impossible journey, beginning in the foothills of the Ural Mountains. Stalked by the evil Major Dmitri Federov, they must escape from St. Petersburg to Helsinki, Finland, or face life in a Russian prison. Kent also faces a personal choice—will he choose his spine-tingling career or the woman he loves?

Larry and Rosemary Mild tag-team some Author R&R at In Reference to Murder today:

LARRY:

I divide research into two types: general and specific. I find general research good for broadening the mind and great for nonfiction writers, who have to impart to their readers that they are experts on the subject. But it’s wasteful for fiction writers. In writing fiction, authentic description is highly supportive, but it must never trump the plot. Going overboard with minute details interrupts the action, leaving the reader thinking, Get to the story already.

So…what is great for the fiction writer? I call it specific research. It means including just enough detail and facts to convince you, our readers, that you are in the scene with the characters. For our new novel, Kent and Katcha: Espionage, Spycraft, Romance, I determined in advance what I thought I would need.

Rosemary and I have a workable routine for starting each new project. I make up the plot and write the first draft. The complex plot of Kent and Katcha takes place in Russia just after the USSR broke into a myriad of tough-to-pronounce countries. I had the spy part pretty well down already, as I had been a senior design engineer for a defense manufacturer who supplied the intelligence agencies for many years. I actually met a few government contract managers who were once field agents—spies forced to come in from the cold. I’d even been to the locale where field agents were trained. In the performance of my work, I visited many secure military and civilian facilities. I knew what I could write and what I could not write about. I had a fair knowledge of recent Russian history from my dutiful reading of the Washington Post every morning. We own an atlas that has given me an overall picture of Russian geography. My initial concept of the plot was espionage, capture, escape, chase. I’d seen enough movies that I could create an authentic prison camp with its typical flaws. I’d also docked in enough harbors from my years with the U.S. Navy. All of this knowledge helped me start our novel.

For certain, I would need a batch of authentic Russian names, both male and female, as well as a train and bus map of western Russia. I selected Helsinki, Finland, as the ultimate destination for our hero and heroine. So I had to research both Helsinki and St. Petersburg, Russia, in more detail, as well as the modes and schedules of transportation between them. Addresses, famous sights, and foods were also looked into as needed. As the plot progressed, I sought a number of common Russian expressions that I salted throughout the text to give it the right flavor. But these had to be in the transliterated form of the Cyrillic Russian or my readers would not have recognized them. Airports, hotels, cafés, street names—all had to be looked up. The research did not end with me. Rosemary continued to find color for some of the stops on the journey. She also, as always, fleshed out the characters and intensified scenes for dramatic effect.

Fortunately, all  the research I needed was on the Internet. I enjoy researching there. An old adage says, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Hogwash! I’m ninety-one and I feel you never get too old to learn new things.

ROSEMARY:

First, I have to tell you I’m dazzled by Larry’s background. We’re married thirty-six years, a second marriage for us both, and I still learn more about him and his past every day. I love how he applies his knowledge and experience to our stories. I also must tell you that Kent and Katcha was the toughest novel I’ve ever worked on. Neither of us has been to Russia or Helsinki. I made some of the research my own domain focusing on 1992, such as the cars in both countries; what the Helsinki harbor and U.S. Embassy looked like; the weather and what clothes the characters were wearing during the months of the story. All with intent to give authenticity to our scenes.

How We Handled Research in Some of Our Other Fiction

We sold a copy of Locks and Cream Cheese, our first Paco & Molly Mystery, to the Hawaii State Library. The acquisitions librarian asked me: “Where did you get your research?” “Oh,” I said with a chuckle, “Larry made it all up! He got the historical details out of his head, based on all the historical novels he’d ever read.”

In Death Goes Postal, our first Dan & Rivka Sherman Mystery, we created the Olde Victorian Bookstore in Historic Annapolis, Maryland, eight miles from our house. We strolled around the quaint neighborhood to make sure we got the street names right. (Of course, that’s not necessary whenever we make up a fictional locale.) In Death Steals A Holy Book, we had to locate an English translation of a rare Yiddish volume that Larry inherited (on which he built a mystery plot). We found it in a bookstore in Brooklyn, New York. Then we had to track down the rabbi who translated it and get his permission to quote from it.

Our most popular novel is Cry Ohana, Adventure and Suspense in Hawaii. We spent twenty years in Hawaii as snowbirds from Maryland (before moving here eleven years ago). Young Kekoa witnesses a murder and is running from the killer. We loaded the novel with local scenes based on our own experience—but always pushing the story forward. In Chinatown on Chinese New Year, we waded through spent firecracker paper, then turned that night into a chase scene with the killer stalking Kekoa. On the Big Island, we witnessed dangerous volcanic steam vents and incorporated those into the plot. We have a character in the hospital with a head wound. His wife had clobbered him with a crystal ashtray. We called the Honolulu Police Department for how they deal with spouse abuse, and applied those details.

Sometimes our research plays an astonishing role, as in Copper and Goldie, 13 “Tails” of Mystery and Suspense in Hawaii. (Goldie is the golden retriever who helps catch bad guys.) In our short story “The Snake Lady,” Auntie Momi visits her fortune teller, but finds her dead—murdered—and Heki, her gentle pet python, missing. Wait a minute! Snakes are illegal in the Aloha State. Detective Danny groans, “Not another reptile. No matter how hard we try, the black market thrives.” I called the Hawaii Department of Agriculture and learned that the penalty is up to three years in prison and a $200,000 fine. But there’s an amnesty plan: Voluntarily turn in your reptile, no penalties. Our research was satisfying, but our plot was at a standstill. It was missing an irrefutable piece of evidence that would nail the killer. A happy personal coincidence solved our problem—and the case. A cousin of ours, a jewelry designer, had just posted her newest creation on Facebook: an exotic snake ring! With her permission, we incorporated the ring into our plot. It led to the killer.

But here I echo Larry. We only include the research that enriches the plot, fits the characters’ behavior, and contributes to the pacing and suspense.

How I Got Carried Away Doing Research—with Dire Consequences

As a student at Smith College, I spent my Junior Year Abroad with the Smith Group in Geneva, Switzerland. For the school year 1955-56, we attended the University of Geneva. Our group leader was a Smith Professor of Government. He fitted his own course into our schedules, American Foreign Policy. We had no tests, just one term paper, requiring us to answer this question: “Was the United States justified in entering the Korean War?” I spent glorious hours doing my research at The League of Nations Library in Geneva. Sitting at a table in the  reading room, I could hardly concentrate. The view was exquisite. Azure blue Lake Geneva, and in the distance, the snow-covered Swiss Alps. I proudly turned in my twenty-page paper a day before the deadline. One week later, our papers were handed back with our grades. I stared in shock at mine: a big fat red C, accompanied by the professor’s comment. “Rosemary, amid all your research, you forgot to answer the question: Was the United States justified in entering the Korean War? That was the entire assignment.” 

A Little Research Goes a Long Way

Research is always a judgment call—so tempting to show off how much you know. Elmore Leonard, author of Get Shorty and other popular novels, said: “Don’t go into great detail describing places and things. Even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.”—From his New York Times article “Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points, and Especially Hooptedoodle.”

 

To learn more about the Milds and their books, visit their website, or follow them on Facebook or LinkedIn. Kent and Katcha: Espionage, Spycraft, Romance is available via all major booksellers.

Author R&R with Brianne Sommerville

Canadian author Brianne Sommerville studied English literature and theatre at Queen’s University before entering the world of public relations and marketing. She writes news releases and key messages by day, and fiction by night after her three kiddos under five have gone to sleep. Brianne has always been drawn to mysteries and suspense, particularly domestic suspense and psychological thrillers. In 2018, while on maternity leave with her eldest child, Brianne was feverishly scribbling in her notebook, confiding in its pages about her darkest fears as a new mother. It was the infinite days and sleepless nights fraught with anxiety that ended up laying the groundwork for her debut novel. What began as her sleep-deprived stream of consciousness evolved into If I Lose Her, a universal story of a new mother whose mind may or may not be unraveling

About If I Lose Her: The pregnancy podcasts warned Joanna Baker about the baby blues, but when a near-fatal mistake places the first-time mom under the watchful eye of Child Protective Services, she receives a serious diagnosis: postpartum depression. Jo hears the words, yet they don’t make sense. Nothing does. Her blackouts are increasing, and she can’t recall events she’s been accused of. As she fights to keep her daughter, she discovers cracks in her neighborhood, family, and her own home. With the support of her sisters, she attempts to piece together her traumatic past and uncover who is truly in control. Jo must battle her faltering mind to save what’s most important—her daughter.

Brianne Sommerville stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing the book:

With a communications background, sharing the truth is always top of mind but I gravitate towards writing fiction where I can use my imagination and provide escapism for my readers. While my works are largely fictional, I still want my stories to be believable and as authentic as possible, which is why research is still important to my process.

Research usually doesn’t come until I have a strong understanding of where I’d like to take my story. I often begin with my personal experience (write what you know, they say), which was the case with my debut novel.

During the first few months of new motherhood, I was experiencing postpartum anxiety. We had a scare during delivery and a code pink was issued due to my daughter’s slow heart rate. After that, I had a hard time shaking concerns about her health. I found solace in confiding in my journal about the fears I was hesitant to share with friends and family. Those diary entries ended up inspiring the novel and I think it helped with the relatability of my main character Joanna Baker. I wrote the first drafts during the early days of motherhood over two maternity leaves, so my experiences were fresh and uninhibited. Research was easy when I could draw from my own immediate experiences. I’m taking a similar approach with my sophomore novel What She Left Behind, which features a sixteen-year-old diary point of view. I dug out my old teenage journal to help create an authentic teen voice.

Once I have my story shaped (I’m a plotter versus a pantser), then the drafting begins. If I encounter something in the plot that I want to learn more about, I usually put a placeholder in or I’ll take some time to do initial internet research. Like most thriller writers, my search history is alarming. I’d share some examples here but then I would be giving away major spoilers!

I consider myself a visual learner, so sometimes reading about a subject doesn’t cut it. Recently, I spent an hour watching YouTube videos of a dashcam in a snow plough so I could experience what it is like to drive one as I have a character in What She Left Behind who clears snow. That same novel involves renovations of a century home. To prepare, I watched many episodes of This Old House, a longstanding home-improvement show. It is on those days that my writing progress looks minimal but really, spending the time on that research helps ensure I am creating authentic characters and a realistic situation.

I also lean on friends and family who have experience or backgrounds in areas that I want to tap into. For example, I recently picked my sister’s brain who studied art therapy, to ensure a scene depicting a dementia patient’s therapy session was realistic. If I Lose Her references pharmaceuticals, so I consulted my father-in-law who has a pharma background.

A lot of the themes I explore involve mental health and other sensitive topics that require a level of research to ensure characters and their situations are represented appropriately. For If I Lose Her, I drew on my own experience with postpartum anxiety so that the additional research I engaged in complemented my firsthand experience.

 

Connect with Brianne on Instagram, Twitter/X, Goodreads, and TikTok, or visit her website to learn more about If I Lose Her, which arrives on March 5 in e-book, paperback and audio, wherever books are sold.