Sunday Funnies: Mystery at the Mystery Shelf

Teresa Inge: Beginning with the Business

Teresa Inge is an award-winning mystery author. Her work appears in over a dozen anthologies and novellas including First Comes Love, Then Comes Murder, Murder by the Glass, Virginia is for Mysteries, and Coastal Crimes. 

Teresa grew up reading Nancy Drew mysteries. She is a member of SinC, Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Virginia Writers Club.

She works for a global financial firm as an admin, notary administrator, and corporate reporter. When not writing, she displays her 1955 Ford Thunderbird at car shows. 

Teresa resides in Southeastern Virginia with her husband A.J. and dog Luke, a mixed shepherd-lab. 

Tell us a bit about your most recent work. 

I am finishing edits on The Bride Arrived DOA, a catering hall mystery set in North Carolina's Outer Banks. Cass Kennedy inherits a motel from her estranged brother who died under mysterious circumstances. She investigates the events surrounding his death and discovers that her brother had promoted the motel as a top wedding venue, which was anything but. 

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work? 

My southern coastal mysteries feature female protagonists who run their own businesses. Each protagonist conducts investigations outside of a typical office environment. These businesses include motels, beach shops, wine shops, dog walking and grooming services, wedding and event planning, and fabric stores among other enterprises. 

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer? 

I grew up reading Nancy Drew. Her adventures in her blue roadster motivated me to pursue a career as a mystery writer. Additionally, her influence contributed to my decision to purchase a 1955 Torch Red Thunderbird, which is displayed at car shows and during book signings that often generate fun discussions.

Debbie Viguie: Always Been a Writer

Debbie Viguié has been writing for most of her life and holds a degree in creative writing from U.C. Davis. She has had numerous appearances on the New York Times Bestseller list for the Wicked series as well as cracking the yearly top 10 Christian book list for Booklist with the Psalm 23 series.

I met Debbie at Stellar Con not long ago, and I thought she was pretty awesome, so I figured you needed to meet her too. 

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

I just released Celtic Charms, book 2 in the Twin Destinies series, featuring the world-famous Harp Twins. I depict fictionalized versions of the ladies as the heroes in the stories, fighting the forces of darkness. They create albums of original music to go with each book. We have all three been pushing each other creatively and it has been great fun!

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

The struggle between light and darkness, people being able to accomplish more than they ever dreamed, family is who you choose

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer? 

I’ve always been a writer. I started writing poetry and short stories about my toys when I was very, very young. Then my third-grade teacher pushed creative writing a lot in her class. She told my parents that they should encourage me to be a writer, which I was already thinking about.

What inspires you to write? 

Everything I see and hear inspires me. An interesting song lyric, a weird conversation, a “what if” sort of daydream. I find inspiration everywhere I turn. As for the actual exercise of writing itself, it’s a compulsion. I can’t NOT write. Even when I’m on vacation, it just comes out of me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taken home napkins from restaurants with a paragraph or notes for a book scrawled on them.

The Cover Story: Crime Fiction Now and Then and Now Again

Let's talk crime novel covers. My, how they've changed over the years. Don't believe me? Let's go back to the (almost) beginning (we'll skip over Sherlock Holmes who-dun-its for this article). The that, we need to visit the pulp mags. 

The Pulp Era

The covers of the classic pulp era stand alone as works of "cheap," "vulgar," and "violent" art -- just to mention some of the adjectives thrown at them. But works of art they remain. They knew how to attract a reader with scenes of danger and drama (and more than a little sexual titillation, of course). 

In fact, because of the patriarchal views (some might say misogynistic) of the time, it was hard to find covers that didn't have some helpless woman in various states of either torture or undress. However, even when they didn't have such covers, the images were always high points of action (maybe or maybe not related to one of the stories between the covers) or danger or violence. 

Suspense was the key question when you saw one of these covers. Will the hero save the day? Will the beautiful dame get shishkabobbed? 

These covers screamed and begged you to drop a few cents and find out. And they did it very, very well. 

The Contemporary Summer Bestseller 

Things have changed between then and now. Book covers, even thriller and crime novel covers, are more about mood and tone than telling a story it seems. That's not a judgment, just an acknowledgment. On the plus side, we're no longer inundated with helpless women and burly men saving the day or gore-adjacent covers or some of the darker pulp mags, but I'm not sure the covers to many contemporary mysteries are doing the job they're supposed to (at least supposed to in my opinion). 

As I look at the covers below, I'm not sure I can tell you what the story is actually about. Or, honestly, I don't think I would recognize the book as a mystery/crime book if it weren't shelved in that section of the bookstore. 

Modern covers, while great examples of color, texture, and typographic art, don't feel as immediate to me. I don't get a sense of why I need to open the book oftentimes. I don't feel pressured to ask the questions that make me want to see what happens. 

A quick glance below says these books could just as easily be literary bestsellers or romantic dramas as they could be any other genre of fiction. (On a related but different note, not even the titles convince me they're thrillers, but that's an article for another day.)

 

Original Novels and the Hard-Boiled Pastiches

Let's step back a few decades now, shall we? Inspired by the pulp mags, novels of the '30s and '40s through the '60s and '70s tried to recapture the awesome of the pulp aesthetic without the awful of the pulp aesthetic. Violence was back. Sex was back. And danger was once again front and center. 

Now, the violence and sex tended to be far more subdued, maybe even subtle, as it the semi-open door (still locked) or the look of fear for The Glass Key, but it was there. And it while it also conveyed mood, it didn't shy away from actually teasing the story. There was no way you didn't know what kind of novel you were buying based on the covers on the paperback racks (or most of the hardcovers over earlier years). 

The genre grew up and became procedurals in addition to private eyes. Big thrillers replaced small-scale-one-man-against-the-bad-guys of Key Largo. And the covers grew with them, distancing themselves from the "thing of the past" ideals and values of yesteryear (as you move into the '70s particularly), but the hints were there to see what you were getting into. There was no confusing even the semi-vagueness of these spinner rack covers with a copy of a literary classic or a contemporary lit hit. 

Hard Case Crime 

Hands down, my favorite publisher nowadays is the retro-pulp, hard-boiled, noirish, crime story, private dick publisher Hard Case Crime. The stories are often reminiscent of early crime novels but updated for the present or written with modern sensibilities (sometimes not). And their cover game is top-notch. They do the best job I've seen of capturing the story sensibilities of the early pulp-inspired novels of the '30s and '40s and even tease it a bit with the voyeurism of the original pulp covers before Werthem's Seduction of the Innocent shut down the fun machine. 

To be fair, a lot of these covers do play up the big strong man trope and you see a lot of sexy women on the covers, but they are rarely women in peril. More often than not, they're holding either the gun or all the cards. 

But the thing that really draws me to Hard Case Crime is how I can usually tell exactly what I need to know about the book before I buy it. I can see it in a catalog or on a shell, and bam, I know the kind of story I'm about to spend good money on. To me, that's the main job of a cover. 

And That Leaves Us...

A cavaet: There's always an exception for every rule, and for every cover I've shown here, there a several that make an equal and opposite statement to prove me wrong. You can find vague, artsy '60s paperback covers or even pulpy cover versions of classic literature. You can find gripping, story-driven contemporary covers for thrillers that don't hide the genre in colorful photographic dreamscapes. But for this article, I'm addressing the generality, so don't feel the need to play the "what about" card. I'm not taking the bait. 

Let me reiterate, these are just my opinions about covers for mystery thrillers. Your mileage may vary. You may prefer pretty covers that tease the eye like an impressionist painting or a soft-palette photo of a beautiful tree. If that works for you, fine. You do you, boo. 

Personally, I'd like to see crime fiction return to the style of the paperback racks before the sort of homogenous look took over publishing. I like the covers that tell the story to sell the story. Now, that doesn't mean I want to see a return to the ideals and patronizing and patriarchal values of the '30s and the '40s those old covers may have reflected, just that storytelling style. 

But, as they say, if wishes were horses... 

Crime Fiction: Private Dicks, Armchair Detectives, and Cops on the Job

For our next writer roundtable, let's talk about crime fiction and mystery fiction. 

Which "slice" of this genre do you prefer to write, detectives solving mysteries (or cops solving a procedural) or a more general telling of the crime and folks involved? Why?

Danielle Procter Piper: I prefer to tell the story of the investigator. It's tricky, though, because sometimes it's difficult to stay one step ahead of a very intelligent character. You have to keep tossing obstacles at him or her just to keep the story going. It's also fun to pair him or her with a partner who keeps veering things off course, just to add to the struggle and fun. 

Paul Storrie: Hard-boiled detective fiction. As Chandler put it, "Down these mean streets a man must go who is himself not mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid." (Okay, these days I don't object to a bit of tarnish and, of course, the "man" might be a woman or nonbinary. ) Though I have enjoyed some procedurals, I prefer the private investigator. The underdog. Not part of the system, but striving for some kind of justice nonetheless.

Van Allen Plexico: "Get caught"?! Dude--spoilers, but my criminals get away with it! 😅 I mean, things never go the way they expect, but they at least get away with something!

And so far, I've come up with the objective first, after a lot of historical research, and then puzzled out what they're trying to do and how they go about doing it. Then, once I'm telling the tale, I allow it to grow in whatever useful and interesting directions it wants to go.

Aaron Rosenberg: I definitely write "someone solving a mystery", I'm not entirely sure how you'd do a mystery otherwise. 🙂

Sean Taylor: I vastly prefer to write a mystery. For me, I dig a good P.I. tale, and often the more hard-boiled or at least hard-boiled inspired the better. That's my preference when writing AND reading. I don't think I could ever want to write a cozy or an armchair type of detective. I want grit and action and disillusionment. I also enjoy writing something with a more noir approach, where an everyperson ends up in the middle of some mess and must figure their way out of it, and often that mess involves crime and criminals. 

Bobby Nash: I like following characters as they solve a mystery or chase down a bad guy. For me, the characters are where it starts. The mystery, procedural elements, or even the chase all work in service to the characters. Not every character handles a situation the same way. How Snow approaches a problem is different than how Sheriff Myers approaches it. These character traits inform how the story unfolds. My stories tend to involve solving a case or mystery, but I try to spend time with both the protagonists and antagonists. Still, it all starts with the characters.

Snow is much more of an action/thriller. There are mysteries in the Snow stories, but not all Snow stories are mysteries. As with everything I do, I try to make sure it starts with the characters. Everything that happens in a Snow book does so through Snow-covered glasses. How do the things in the story impact Abraham Snow? How does he react to events? From there, the crime builds around Snow.

The same is true of my other characters as well. At least I hope so. As you mentioned, they have vastly different approaches. I could drop Abraham Snow, Tom Myers, Harold Palmer, Catherine Jackson, and John Bartlett, all investigators and law enforcement in their own right, into the same plot and I would come away with five different stories because of how these characters handle the plot would be different and therefore take the story in a different direction. Tom Myers investigates differently than John Bartlett or Catherine Jackson. Their personalities are different. They have different skill sets. Those attributes help define how these characters solve their mysteries/cases.

Jason Bullock: I have to say I'm drawn to writing mysteries that deal with seasoned investigators encountering the improbable only to find it was the most reasonable explanation at the time. I love a cliffhanger!

HC Playa: I have written a grand total of one mystery short story which I totally winged. Was that the best approach? No, not at all. My story for "The Dragon Wore a Badge" (an anthology that is not yet out), falls in the solve the mystery category, although the person who was the crime victim centers more in this story. So perhaps a bit of both mystery/crime telling for that one. Did I wing that one as well? Why yes, yes I did. 😂

Now, technically book two for Of the Other series that I am working on features a kidnapping that our MCs have to solve....so I guess I write "person(s) solving a mystery."

Ian Totten: I do crime fiction. There’s something about writing grittiness, and an honest portrayal of this that appeals to my mind. It depends on the story, but I rarely give the reader an idea of who the antagonist is.

When writing a mystery, whether procedural, cozy, PI, etc., how do you craft your tale and plot? Just jump in and wing it as you go? Or do you start with the crime and work backward to figure out where the criminal went wrong and what caused them to get caught? Or have a main character just putter along until that final clue or witness falls into place? 

John French: My first ever published story was a detective story for which I had a great closing line and then wrote the story to get there. Generally, I start with a situation or what I want to happen then choose the detective best suited for it. How it goes from there varies, sometimes I know what's going to happen, and sometimes the story or characters take over. But it's always an investigator - police detective, PI (licensed or not), or someone else who would naturally investigate or punish crime.

Bobby Nash: I start with the inciting incident. With In The Wind, Sheriff Tom Myers’ first standalone novella, the idea of the safe house being hit was what I came up with first. I then built the story from there. The first step was getting to know the guy in protective custody. Who is he? Why is he there? What kind of criminal is he? What will he do when the safe house is attacked? Once I had that in place, I started figuring out the rest. Who’s after him? Why? Where does he go? What parts of Sommersville do we need to visit in this story? We’re worldbuilding as we work the investigation. Then I start layering in the pieces until we get to the end.

In Such A Night, I started with the murder and worked outward from there. In the upcoming Standing on the Shadows, we start with a small-engine plane crash. That uncovers a long-buried secret. Then, I build the crime off of that beginning. In Snow Falls, it was with our main character getting shot and left for dead. Evil Ways started with an action scene designed to introduce the characters and also lay the groundwork for the sequel, Evil Intent. Deadly Games! started with a flashback to introduce the characters and their relationships before time jumping to the present situation.

I usually have an idea of the ending when I start, but there have been instances where the ending changed as a result of the story unfolding organically. I don’t do detailed outlines. I know certain plot points to hit, what clues need to be there, that sort of thing, but I leave the story open enough to make discoveries along the way. Some of my better twists resulted in trusting the characters. In one instance, the villain of the story was not who I, the writer, thought it would be. I was at the end of the story, a short piece, and realized that who I thought was the bad guy was not the actual bad guy at all. The twist was great so I went back to insert the appropriate clues so the readers could have the chance to deduce the bad guy’s identity. I like to play fair and have all of the clues appear in the story. To my surprise, the clues were already there. This is further proof that my characters are way smarter than I am.

Writing clues can be nerve-wracking. To me, because I know it’s a clue, they seem so blatantly obvious that there should be a neon sign pointing at them, flashing the words THIS IS A CLUE!  With Evil Ways, I was pleasantly surprised that some of the clues to the killer’s identity were not caught by readers on the first read-through. When I pointed them out in conversation with readers, I could see the dots start to connect. That made me happy.

Paul Storrie: I've got to map it out ahead of time. That way I know the clues and have a rough idea when it makes sense for them to be found. I also need a solid idea of how the story wraps. (I've never quite bought into the idea that if the writer is surprised, the reader will be too.)

Danielle Procter Piper: I'll get a basic idea in my head: For instance, in Venus In Heat, I knew I wanted to write a story about the concept of "obligate carnivores" or "obligate herbivores" and prove such things don't actually exist. Because of the thriller/mystery element, I went with a real fear—people getting eaten. To amp it up, I decided they'd be small children. So, that was the exciting part, the part that makes the reader squirm and wonder what's going on. Next, I chose my main characters and decided to go with ones I was very familiar with: An almost goody-two-shoes retired veterinarian, and a shady streetwise para-policing agent...so there's the combo I mentioned earlier with the intelligent investigator partnered with a near opposite who keeps throwing the case sideways. After that, I took the beginning of an older idea that never went anywhere and made it the start of an entirely new, wild story. It was author Tim Dorsey who told me he writes by just letting the story and characters drag him along, no plotting or planning, and I find that's the most fun for me, too. I'll see logical plot points manifesting in the future and write toward them, then drift along that stream until another starts to appear. Winging it, most people call it. 

HC Playa: In my hybrid planning/seat of the pants approach I know who did the thing, but they aren't the big bad, and why they did it and where, but it's the laying down the breadcrumb trail to my big bad that's tricky. I come up with the next two or three plot beats and then have to stop as I figure out how to keep the trail going and possibly send them on a goose chase. I haven't written that particular style story before, so it's a bit slower than just going, "Ooh, and now there's an explosion" 😁

Jason Bullock: I have to admit that I start my task by exploring an event, a crime, or a problem that could be currently being experienced by my protagonist. I then settle that character into the thick if things. Skipping to a major theme plot element catches readers right out of the gate holds them by the frontal lobe till I'm ready to go back to the beginning of the scene where it began before the main character was involved in the time stream.

Aaron Rosenberg: Oh, I have to know the details of the mystery--who, how, when, where, and why--before I ever start writing. Then I can see what clues got left behind, what hints there are, what trails--and what red herrings, as well. Trying to wing it would result in a ridiculous amount of backfill as you finally figure everything out.

Sean Taylor: I generally have an outline when I work. Yes, I'm not typically a pantser. I'm a notorious plotter. Because of that, I know the ins and outs of the crime, but I still like that surprise when something I didn't even think was important becomes a major clue like the watch in Rick Ruby's "A Tree Falls in a Forest." That started as a throwaway clue, then became more and more important as the story progressed. Rick is an odd blend of capable detective and putterer, working all the angles until he gets the right bite on the line. Then he's smart enough to know that's his new direction to focus on. 

Is it more important that the reader be in the dark along with the MC or should the reader have access to stuff the "detective" doesn't? Which ratchets up the tension best for you?

Aaron Rosenberg: I do mysteries from either first-person or limited third-person POVs, meaning they see what the main characters see, nothing more. I don't believe in hiding details from my reader, having the main characters figure something out or see something and not share it in order to dazzle the reader at the end, but I also don't believe in giving the reader more information than the main character. It's a shared journey, everyone has the same information at the same time.

Jason Bullock: I often times do the reveal of what's important when the MC is encountering the event. Disguising that key clue amidst a bevy of red herrings which are laid out for them to take a whiff at is a great way a murder, robbery, kidnapping, etc. The hidden clue in plain sight is what makes the reveal even better by the main character. "Tweak a strand on the web and the Spider will show itself."- Douglas Aldridge, (protagonist from my novella ENOCH Initiative ©2023)

Paul Storrie: I tend to go with the traditional hard-boiled, private eye, first-person narrative, so the reader gets the clues when the detective does. Haven't yet written a mystery where the reader has more info than the detective.

Danielle Procter Piper: I like to follow the hero precisely, allowing the reader to try and guess what's happening. Showing them how the character thinks and why, explaining how motivations and past experience play into his or her worldview but will take a side trip to write stuff the hero doesn't know if it's necessary to add clarity for the reader. If the reader knows just about everything already and is simply following the hero's path to resolution then I feel the story is not about solving anything or encouraging new ways of thinking and seeing things, but about caring for the characters instead. Either can work. I prefer to write stories of discovery instead of stories about emotions.

Bobby Nash: I prefer to play fair with my readers. All of the clues the detective uses to solve the case need to be in the book. I hate it when detectives use a piece of information or clue to solve a case that the audience did not see. That’s not fair to the readers. I like for readers to be able to try and solve things along with the characters in the book. Plus, if they didn’t figure it out, after the reveal, they can go back and see the clues. That said, I do spend time with the antagonists. In those instances, the protagonists will not have that information. It’s a bit of the best of both worlds, though can be tricky. In my novels, Evil Ways and Suicide Bomb, we follow the killer in each, seeing events through his eyes, hearing his thoughts, but I still keep the identity secret until the hero characters discover it. That can be tough. You have to be careful with how you write those scenes.

Sean Taylor: One of the reasons why I specified crime fiction not just mystery fiction for this roundtable is they are different animals but the same genus, so to speak. In a mystery, someone is trying to find clues and solve the crime. In thriller crime fiction (like Die Hard for a movie example) the villain is already known to the MC, and the only mystery is how the hero is gonna save the day. In a thriller, the reader is usually more knowledgeable than the MC since the POV will bounce from head to head as needed to keep a more "cinematic" pacing and plotting. In mysteries, as most have said before, clues come a little at a time, drizzle by drizzle, and often are packaged with red herrings or rabbit trails. Personally, with Rick Ruby, I like to see him do his due diligence as a capable detective, but sort of stumble into the final piece based on something he did intentionally earlier in the act of investigation, something that he doesn't know he knows yet, but the bad guys may think he knows so they make their move. 

Getting Cozy

Let's talk about cozy mysteries for the next writer roundtable. This time I'm looking for you mystery writers, particularly writers of cozy mysteries.

What sets a mystery apart (in your mind) as a cozy?

Marian Allen: A cozy has the murder take place off-stage. The sleuth is an amateur detective or, at a stretch, a private eye. Cozies are lighter than not, and the danger shouldn't be TOO acute, or at least not treated as acute. You should always know the sleuth is going to get out of any danger. An animal involved and NOT KILLED is a plus. 

Lucy Blue: I can't think of a better definition than Marian Allen's. All I would add is that usually the murder victim pretty much deserved what they got -- very rarely do good-hearted people get murdered in a cozy. 

Ernest Russell: So far, I have tried my hand at one murder mystery. It is a locked-room mystery. The detective never leaves their home. All information about the case is brought to the detective.

The mystery has some marks as a cozy, but it isn't. The detective is sociopathic because of PTSD brought on by one of the other characters. And he is employed by NYPD.

If this were truly a cozy, my detective would be brought to the case in some different ways.

A consultant of a police department, a mutual friend of the victim, or my erstwhile amateur detective is a friend/boyfriend-girlfriend/business partner or perhaps a business relationship. Maybe a case of a letter delivered to the wrong address. I've had lots of ideas on how to get my sleuth involved. The thing is there is usually a light-hearted element in a cozy, maybe humorous, maybe not, but light. A librarian who reads the police report and relates the crime to details of different books perhaps, thus solving the mystery by realizing the various plot points lead to one perpetrator. The main thing is to light-hearted and fun.

What's the most fun part about writing cozy mysteries for you?

Marian Allen: The most fun part of writing a cozy for me is the security of knowing good will triumph and my sleuth will survive. Also: Cozies are allowed to be a bit unrealistic. 

Danielle Palli: For me, it’s discovering more about my characters as I go along (and they always manage to surprise me!). If I Didn’t Care is my first cozy mystery, and I wanted to give throwbacks to old-time movies and detective stories (a la the Thin Man and Columbo). So I purposefully added the witty, fast-talking banter between the characters and enjoyed making many of them larger than life, putting them in situations that would never fly in real life. This hopefully provided a fun escape for the reader willing to suspend their beliefs with me for a few hours. The book takes place in 1997 during the tech boom in Manhattan, so for me, it was a stroll down memory lane. Come to think of it, I don’t know that there was any part of it that wasn’t fun!

Ernest Russell: I had a hard time with writing the one mystery. Not eager to try again soon. I worked the story backward. from the victim to the murder method to who had the motive etc. It was one of the hardest things I've written. I need to read a lot more cozy mysteries and get a better feel for the genre and how the clues are sprinkled through the story before I try again. I am far more comfortable with a Race Williams-style story than a cozy.

I was too ambitious and made the one mystery more difficult to write by including an embezzler, who could have been the murderer as one red herring, a second red herring, and then the murderer. Both criminals are caught.

Lucy Blue: I set up a framework of clues to solution before I start writing (working backward from whodunnit and why), but the most fun part is when I discover new clues or better ways to reveal clues as I'm writing, watching the story blossom outward from that framework as it grows. 

How much do the cozy mysteries you write have to pass the "Encyclopedia Brown Test" (all the clues are there and the reader can solve it along with the detective) or pass muster for their adherence to investigative procedure (like a police procedural by Ed McBain, for instance)?

Marian Allen: All the clues must be available to the reader, period, paragraph. 

Lucy Blue: You definitely have to play fair with the reader--no convenient characters we haven't seen before dropping out of the ceiling in the last scene to be the killer. You can have red herrings; you NEED red herrings; the puzzle has to be challenging. But all the pieces need to be there. But as far as "adherence to investigative procedure"? Um, my "detective" is a 21-year-old silent movie actress who dropped out of college her freshman year and whose primary preoccupation other than her work and her fiance is the Charleston. She just happens to be extremely observant with a deep empathy for other people--the same qualities that make her a great actress make her a great detective. And that's one of the things that's great about cozies; you don't have to depend on "realistic" investigative procedure. Unless your detective is in fact a professional detective or law enforcement professional, in which case, yeah, you gotta get it right. 

Danielle Palli: 100/75. I will always play fair by providing the appropriate clues, but I can’t promise I won’t throw in a few red herrings along the way. I want readers to get excited about solving the crime, but the satisfaction comes from having to work at it a little. As far as how honest it needs to be with regards to investigative procedure? For me, it has to be authentic enough not to raise a lot of red flags, with enough wiggle room to be able to put characters into otherwise impossible situations.  

Ernest Russell: "Encyclopedia Brown Solves Them All" is where I learned to love mysteries. It was a gift sent to me by my father, who I never met, and I devoured it over and over. If I am reading a cozy this is the style I prefer to read. I am simply confident at this time of my ability to write a good mystery, much less one in that vein.

Other than Agatha Christie, who are the "starter pack" writers for readers wanting to dive into cozy mysteries? Who are the best contemporary cozy writers?

HC Playa: I recently started reading a series called Love, Lies and Hocus Pocus. It feels like a cozy mystery mashed with urban fantasy. She's just a librarian wizard who prefers her books and her tea and her cat's company and her miscreant witch friend just insists on dragging her into his antics and then things get weird and she simply must figure out who/what the threat is... then it's all about how to stop them (which is where you leave the cozy mystery part).

I would not have thought that mashup would work, but so far it has.

The main character is female, has no intentions or desire to be a sleuth, but regularly finds herself in situations where she must investigate or research things. Cozy mystery, yes?

Ernest Russell: A current writer I do like is Victoria Thompson and her Gaslight Mystery series. They have a historical setting. 19th Century New York and they are a darker kind of cozy. She doesn't whitewash the period and while her sleuths are 'good' people. they are products of the time. So much for light cozies. LOL!!

The titles in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series are good, classic cozies. The descriptions of the meals add a little of that lightness and will make your mouth water too. My partner and I both enjoy them greatly.

Marian Allen: Michael Z. Lewin's mysteries are more cozy than otherwise. One series features a missing persons detective, one features a private eye (not terribly good), and one features a family of detectives in England. One stand-alone is about a homeless man looking for his missing lady friend. Another is about a man who isn't the sharpest crayon in the box trying to figure out what the heck happened and why he's in trouble. Lewin is a brilliant writer!

Lucy Blue: One book I would highly recommend to anybody studying the form is Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. It uses all the key ingredients of a deductive-reasoning detective plot to tell a much more layered story. The hero detective is an autistic teenager who sets out to find out who murdered his neighbor's dog (yes, it does break that rule, but it does happen off stage before the action of the book starts). And he follows all the same rules as Miss Marple or Sherlock Holmes. Plus it's just a really great novel.

Close to the Vest—Embracing the Mystery in Your Fiction

Quick! What does the green light at the end of the dock mean for Gatsby? What is the significance of the colored rooms in Poe's “Masque of the Red Death”? There are lots and lots of guesses, and lots and lots of critical papers even about such things, but honestly, only Fitzgerald and Poe know for sure. And that's just fine. The reason these two stories continue to resonate with people is because of the mysteries they still hold.

Fine, fine, fine. Those are literary masterpieces. What about popular fiction? Okay. Challenge accepted. I'll go as low-brow as movies. Is Decker a replicant or not? Are you sure? What's really going on with the titular Spider Woman in that movie about her kiss? Is “the shape” in the original Halloween killable or not? (Before the endless sequels, of course.)

See? Mysteries.

And not just the “Was it Colonel Mustard in the dining room with a pipe wrench?” kind of mysteries (though those can work too.)

The best stories, and again, as with any essay on this blog, in my heavily read and studied opinion (vanity, thy name is Sean), all leave a bit of mystery unsolved for the readers, whether in some character's story (What is Ned Land's story?), some symbol that isn't defined (Is the rain really a stand in for sex in this scene?), some action unexplained (What did he say to her in that aside the author didn't reveal?), or some thematic idea unspoken (If good triumphs over evil, why did Hannibal escape?).

And we can learn a lot from them.

Yes, yes, I know. We live in a world of best-sellers and Summer blockbusters where every secret is supposed to be revealed by the end of the final act and we fill in all the blanks for our audiences. After all, that's what modern readers want, right? Everything wrapped up in a pretty little bow with the right tag and a proper message on the card so it gets delivered to the correct person who can open it up and suddenly make sense out of everything he or she or they has seen or read. That's what publishers look for, neat little bows. All the ducks in a row. All the questions answered.

But think about it for a few moments... What if we didn't?

Why mystery?

There are lots of great reasons to leave mysteries in your work. I'll cover just a few of them hear. Feel free to explore the rest of them in your own writing and reading.

1. Mysteries allow the writer to hide inside the work.

Typically writers tend to not want to directly inject themselves and their opinions into their work in order to avoid writing propaganda, and when they do, they tend to avoid mystery. I'm looking at you, Narnia and Atlas Shrugged. But if you look deeper, there are plenty of amazing works of both literary and popular fiction that have a lot to say—maybe or maybe not. And that's because the writers who created them embraced the mystery.

Some might call this subtlety instead, but it's more hidden than that. It's almost like one of those hidden eye puzzles from the 1990s that were so popular. If you learned the trick, most people could see the hidden picture in all the weird zig-zag patterns. But, if you have an astigmatism or just the wrong level of near-sightedness or far-sightedness, you were screwed from the get-go. Try as you might, you just weren't going to be able to see that horse, or sea turtle, or “I love you, mom!” in calligraphy.

And that's how this kind of mystery works. If you're the right target, you probably see it, but you'll never quite understand if it's just something you're bringing to the story yourself or if it's really there.

A case in point—The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I know, I know. The epic high point of literature, right? Regardless, I have a strong opinion that this movie is about a hell of a lot more than just two prudes who get stuck at the secret lab of a transsexual alien. I hear you saying, “Of course it is, stupid. It's about LGBTQIA+ people being trapped and unable to truly be themselves in an American patriarchy. I think while it may also be about that, what it truly has to say is something that remains more hidden, a mystery if you will allow me. That mystery is this: When the sexual revolution is all said and done, the only people to survive it were women. The revolution happens, but traditional maleness like Rocky and reckless individualism like Frank are quick to pay the price. Even Brad, the bastion of patriarchal mores and values is broken (“Help me, Mommy!” he sings). Only Janet faces the revolution and survives, thriving even finally. Rocky Horror is about how women won the sexual revolution of the 1960s and early 1970s.

Am I right? Who knows? Who cares? The important part is that the mystery allows me to play with notions that perhaps Richard O'Brien was trying to hide the story of Rock-n-Roll giving way to Glam Rock in his screen play. Or maybe it was only about LGBTQIA+ feelings all along and that was all. Or maybe it was about the conflict between nostalgia and moving forward into new types of stories. It doesn't matter. O'Brien's views are so deep in that screenplay we may never know, but they're shrouded. They're open for everybody to take a guess. And that's okay.

A few other examples from actual books, for you more high brow types:

– Political Views –

Dickens' perennial classic, A Christmas Carol, isn't just a a fun holiday ghost romp about a mean old miser. It's a political jab at the views of Thomas Malthus. Malthus believed that if people took care of the poor, then they would just continued to procreate and eat up resources. Best to let them starve or work themselves to death and stop using the resources that should be reserved for the industrious providers or the well-off. (I know; sounds familiar today, doesn't it?)

Sophocles, in his play Oedipus at Colonus, is taking pot shots at not just how Greek culture is declining, but why it is declining and how the leaders are pressing the gas pedal on the chariot toward hell.

“Does Sophocles actually say any of these things? No, of course not. He's old, not senile. You say these things open ly, they give you hemlock of something. He doesn't have to say them, though' everyone who see the play (Oedipus at Colonus) can draw his own conclusions: look at Theseus, look at whatever leader you have near to hand, look at Theseus again—hmmmm (or words to that effect). See? Political.” —Thomas Foster, How To Read Literature Like a Professor

– Social Views –

What about traditional religious and cultural rules that trap people into loveless and disastrous marriages? Look no further than Eudora Welty's Ethan Frome or Kate Chopin's The Awakening. With Chopin you also get the added value of early feminism. How about The Bell Jar? Or The Catcher in the Rye? Too fancy for you? Okay. How about Bradbury's cultural beliefs in mankind's rebuilding on another planet in The Martian Chronicles? Or even H. Rider Haggard's evolving views of might makes right between Allan Quatermain and She and the softening of the great white right to expand in later works. And what is E.R. Burroughs saying about the rugged individualism of American male unstoppable-ness in his Mars series?

– Religious Views –

Compare the religious allegories of C.S. Lewis to the religious metaphors and mysteries of J.R.R. Tolkien. Lewis dots all his “i”s and crosses all his “t”s so the point isn't lost or even having to be thought about. Aslan is God and Jesus. You got that. Good. Don't forget it. 

But who is Gandalf? God? Sometimes. Jesus? Well, he does come back from the dead in white robes. Is he a fellow traveler? Sure. Okay. Who the hell is he? And don't even mention the returning king or the friend who sticks closer than a brother? Confused yet by the religious mysteries in the work? Don't worry. It's entirely intentional. Much to Tolkien's credit, he doesn't answer the questions. He lets the mystery linger in the mind of the reader. But can we be sure it is there intentionally? Don't forget that Lewis and Tolkien regularly got together at the pub with the rest of the Inklings to drink and discuss literature and religion and politics and writing.

Bear in mind, though—and I can't stress this point enough—that none of these interpretations are stated. None are set in stone. (Except for Lewis' Aslan.) They are all inferred, not necessarily even implied. They are mysteries in the subtext. And they keep the works fresh in the minds of readers and on the shelves of bookstores each year.

2. Mysteries allow readers to wonder.

Good mysteries put a question into a reader's mind. Great mysteries worm their way into a reader's brain one centimeter at a time, gnawing and licking at the soft tissue of the brain and pushing each stray thought to the side to gain dominance over all the synapses so that the mind can focus on one question alone—my question.

Great mysteries are the kind that make you talk about a movie after you are driving home from the theater. “Was Darth Vader the necessary evil to balance a force that was leaning too far to the good side?” “Is Baby Doll in her real reality when she was lobotomized or could it be just another, more realistic dream?” “What actually happened to Lucy when when transcended her human form?”

Great mysteries are also the kind that keep readers talking about a book when they are online or at their writers group or sitting around the basement doing homework.

Yes, even YOUR book.

But they don't work if you don't write them into your work. And they also don't work if you answer them and fill in all the blanks for readers.

We see it all the time in series fiction. Will they or won't they? Oh, look, they like each other now. I wonder what will happen in the next book. Oh, crap. His wizardess fiancée showed up. I thought she was dead. How will they move past this one—and solve the current dilemma of course.

But what about non-series fiction? And what about fiction that isn't so plot driven or is so plot-driven it doesn't have time for those kind of questions. Well, stick in pin in that right there because you never are so plot-driven that you don't have time for mystery. It just has to be subtle.

For example, in Ian Fleming's 007 novels, you never really wonder if Bond is going to get out alive. That's a given. But what about one of those side characters that Bond actually cares about. What if Moneypenny gets in trouble somehow and that figures through a few books? What if a love interest manages to survive and come back to visit in another volume? No, I doubt you'll see that happen in a Bond book, but it could very well happen in yours.

Just think of the “what if” questions you could plant into your readers minds.

3. Mysteries allow readers to pick a side.

If you really want to see your fiction live forever, let your readers pick sides in an argument about the mysteries that you choose not to spell out and put into a convenient box. 

For example, let's look at the room colors in Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" referenced above at the beginning of this article. Pretty much since the time that story was seen by readers, people has argued about what the colors symbolize. Is it the seven deadly sins? Is it moods and psychological issues as thought by post-Freudian critics? Is it just a random collection of colors that doesn't mean anything? Don't expect those arguments to be ever really be settled for good. Poe was a genius. As long as people disagree on his unsolved color code, that story will continue to live in the public mind. 

Now, you may not have the clout of Poe or Fitzgerald or Fleming or Dent, but you do have readers, and if you want them to remember your work forever and ever, till death do you part, consider helping them break into camps and argue with each other about what you mean by that character or that location or that plot point. 

This works because all people have an innate desire to be right—especially about their own opinions. Play into that. But remember... DON'T WRAP THE ANSWER IN A BOW AND GIVE IT AWAY. When you give the answer, the argument stops. People stop talking about and thinking about your puzzle. 

Let's look again as something like Sophocles, referenced above:

“Was the cave symbolic? You bet.

"Of what?

"That, I fear, is another matter. We want it to mean something, don't we? More than that, we want it to mean some thing, one thing for all of us and for all time...

“What the cave symbolizes will be determined to a large extend by how the individual reader engages the text. Every reader's experience of every work is unique, largely because each person will emphasize various elements to differing degrees, and those differences will cause certain features of the text to become more or less pronounced. We bring an individual history to our readers...”

“One of the pleasures of literary scholarship lies in encountering different and even conflicting interpretations, since the great work allows for a considerable range of possible interpretations.” —Thomas Foster, How To Read Literature Like a Professor

One of the best tools in your writer's toolkit is the puzzle creator and one of your best writer super powers is the ability to portray images and events that can mean different things to different readers. 

4. Mysteries allow a story to stick with readers after they close the book.

Let's look at a few memorable books and movies that have stood the test of time and the questions they leave with readers or viewers:

• John Carpenter's The Thing – Which of the two survivors is harboring the creature? What of neither of them are? What next?
• Roman Holiday – But couldn't they have gotten together if... Will they both be forever unhappy?
• A Farewell to Arms (the book, not the movie) – what happens next to Frederic? Was the universe really out to get Frederic and Catherine for trying to be existentially happy?
• The Wildcards series – how will the Aces ever rebuild real credibility? Can the Jokers ever get genuine acceptance?

There's a wonderful little (or not so little) epic fantasy series by one of my wife's favorite writers, Stephen Lawhead, called the Song of Albion trilogy. One thing about about that series that has always puzzled her though is the introduction of a family in the first volume that helps the main character get from point A to point B in the plot. Then they disappear. My lovely, literate bride spent the entire series looking for that family to appear again and discover their grand purpose in the story—because clearly they had one. Right? Did Lawhead simply forget about them? Did he feel they had served their purpose and didn't need any further "screen time"? Or did intentionally leave their story untold, knowing it would make my poor little wife's head shift into overdrive to wonder about long after she had closed the book on the series and moved on to Cadfael or Evan Evans? 

I used to believe it was an accident, that Lawhead simply forgot about them and let them fall into the cracks between the pages. But the more I thought about it, the more I began to lean toward it being an intentional omission. I believe there story was simply a single point of intersection and that by making the family interesting it would compel readers to wonder about them, particularly to wonder enough to pick up books two and three in the series. 

It's a mystery. 

Why do the mysteries like those covered in this article live on in readers' heads after the books are closed and put back on the shelves? Precisely because they are unanswered, lingering, hinted at but not expounded upon, barely shown but kept interesting, "squirrels" that cause the readers' focus to shift and chase through the yard. 

But how do you do that as a writer?

Well, for starters:

• Untold backstories for interesting side characters
  (Where did that reporter she used to date come from? What was their time together like?)
• Symbols that don't have specified meanings
  (Gatsby's light, Poe's paint jobs)
• Actions that seem initial out of character
  (Why would a big softie like him do THAT?!)
• A lack of denouement
  (So, what happened to the femme fatale who wasn't the killer?)
• The unexpected and lesser preferred ending, i.e. the "WRONG" ending
  (Why didn't they get together, you big meanie?)
• The third act resolution introducing new issues that don't get solved
  (Wait... If that's whodunit, then what will happen to the butler after all?)
• World-building issues that aren't part of the main plot
  (What about that poverty-stricken part of town; is the hero going back there to help or not?)
• Lack of clarity in the resolution
  (Is the heroine in her right mind now... DUM, DUM, DUM... or is it just another multiple personality?)
• Turning a key symbol around in the last act
  (What if Aslan wasn't really God after all, but an imposter?)
• Symbolic bits and bobs that are secretly the writer's opinions about religion, politics, culture, etc.
  (Does that chain on the hero's car mean he is hampered by his caste or not?)

This is just a starter list. The more you exercise this part of your brain as an author, the more avenues you will see open up to you. 

What now?

So, you see, the important thing in all of this is to keep those meddling kids from actually pulling the mask off and revealing the secret. 

Hopefully, this little introduction has started or helped you keep thinking about letting mysteries remain mysterious in your work. Or maybe for some of you, actually weaving some mystery into your stories. Or just looking for them in other books and movies as you read and watch to help you continue to grow in this area of writing. 

The key is to remember that poor dead/alive kitty cat in Schrödinger's famous box. Nobody knows anything for certain until that box gets opened. And as long as you are doing your job as a mystery-creating writer, you're going to do your damnedest to hide all the scissors and utility blades in the house, so that the stupid box never gets opened. 

THRILLS 'N CHILLS WITH BOBBY NASH

What is it that attracts you to writing and reading thrillers?

I love thrillers. That edge of your seat, nail-biting, suspenseful, almost anxiety inducing type of storytelling really gets my blood pumping, both as a writer and a reader. As with everything, character is at the heart of a good thriller. I like to get to know my characters, care about them, and then put them through hell. That’s the beginning of a good thriller. As a reader, I get drawn in by the character’s plight. As a writer, writing the characters in those situations is part of the fun. The other part is figuring out how to then get the characters out of the trouble they’ve gotten themselves into. Everything starts with character. Once I get to know and trust my characters, they will tell me how they want to handle a particular situation. That also opens up some cool story beats and plot twists. Sometimes my characters won’t do what I want them to do.

Another good thing about thrillers is that they mix very well with other genres. You can have a mystery/thriller, crime/thriller, sci-fi/thriller, political/thriller, medical/thriller, suspense/thriller, action/thriller, literary/thriller, pulp/thriller, and so on and on. Almost everything I write has a little bit of thriller in it.

What are the key elements of a thriller?

There are no hard and fast rules for writing a thriller. As soon as we put together rules, a writer will come along with a novel that proves the exception to them. In general, thrillers tend to include these elements.

A powerful antagonist (villain) who can challenge the protagonist (hero) is important. Thrillers generally need both. Most often, there is a personal stake involved or it becomes personal as you go along. A detective keeps interfering in the killer’s plans, so the killer puts focus on beating or taking out the detective. A stalker and their prey. Someone out for revenge. The villain needs a good motivation or presence. Character is everything.

Your protagonist is just as important as your antagonist. Character is everything. This is usually your point of view character for the reader as well. We get to know them, root for them, like them. Usually, though it’s not a requirement, the protagonist is flawed or under some pressure outside of the main story. It gives them one more obstacle to overcome. For example: Harry Bosch is worried about his daughter working undercover and meddles while trying to solve his own case. Tension and anxiety are traits used often in thrillers.

As your thriller moves along, the stakes should get raised. The killer fixates on a detective or the victim that got away, a tragedy separate from the main plot derails your protagonist, or something that raises the stakes as the story progresses. A ticking clock or deadline works well to raise the stakes. We have to catch the killer before he strikes again. We’ve got twenty-four hours to find the antidote before our poisoned protagonist dies. We have to get across town before the assassin finds his target. This keeps your story moving. Thrillers tend to move at a fast clip.

Thrillers often have twists. This is not always necessary, but as a writer, I love writing a good twist. Twists can elevate your story, but it’s important that the twist makes sense. It can’t simply happen. The twist needs to make sense and have things setting it up so the reader has that “Ah Ha!” moment when they realize why something that happened a few chapters back totally makes more sense now. Twists are tough but can be rewarding.

MacGuffins are also a staple of crime and mystery thrillers. Sending your readers down one path to think that the wrong character is the villain can be fun. Like twists, however, they can be tough to pull off. Make sure your clues are there so when we find out the MacGuffin character is not the villain, it makes sense. I sometimes struggle with this because when I write a clue, because I know it’s a clue, it feels supremely obvious to me even though it might not be to the reader. That’s where a good editor and beta reader can help. I was convinced that everyone would know the identity of the killer in my first published novel, Evil Ways as soon as introduced. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that this was not the case.

Tell us a bit about your thrillers.

My first published novel back in 2005, EVIL WAYS, was a mystery/suspense/thriller with a bit of horror tacked on for good measure. It allowed me to mix together various story styles I wanted. I think it worked. It also made for a good elevator pitch: Die Hard’s John McClane finds himself in a horror movie. That was the pitch, and most people knew what to expect from that. The sequel, EVIL INTENT, was released last year. It too has a thriller vibe, but it’s more crime/thriller. The plot is less horror and more crime, but it still feels like part of the same series starring FBI Agent Harold Palmer.

DEADLY GAMES! was my second published novel. It falls into the action/thriller vein. I love writing action and adding the thriller elements allowed me to tell a suspenseful story and still ramp up the action. Deadly Games! is a revenge story. The villain of the piece has plans for his enemies. Can they survive those plans? Homicide detective John Bartlett and reporter Benjamin West are the main protagonists in this one. The action and thriller tropes blend well together. I’m working on the sequel, DEADLY DEALS! now and it is also an action/thriller. The main characters return to face off against a new foe. Can they catch a killer before the next victim is discovered?

The SNOW series mixes thrillers and action, but also brings other genres into the mix as needed. One book is all action. Another is a mystery. Yet another is a crime story. The thriller part ties the series together and connects each book. Abraham Snow is a former undercover government agent when his cover is blown, and he is shot and left for dead on a South American airstrip. He survives but is forced to retire as his injuries make him unable to perform undercover. Still, Snow can’t help himself. He tries to help others, becomes a private investigator, and is still trying to find the man who shot him while trying to build a normal life for himself. I’m currently writing book 7 of Snow’s adventures.

The TOM MYERS series is a mystery/thriller series set in the small town/county of Sommersville, Georgia and starring Sheriff Tom Myers and his deputies. Sommersville was created for Evil Ways and also appears in Deadly Games! and the Snow series so the potential for crossovers is there. Sheriff Myers appears in Evil Ways, Deadly Games!, and Evil Intent. The character connected with me so well that he kept reminding me that he deserved his own stories. It took a while, but I finally found the story for him. I’m currently working on book 3 of this series. I love playing with the crime and suspense of a small community. There’s a lot of room for thriller stories to be told in this setting.

SUICIDE BOMB was my attempt to work in a bit of sci-fi to a mystery/thriller. A mystery villain known as The Controller has developed a way to turn ordinary people into cold-blooded assassins who them take their own lives once the mission is complete. Homicide detective Catherine “Jacks” Jackson and Secret Service Agent Samantha Patterson join forces to stop him before he goes after his ultimate target, the President of the United States. This one is a stand-alone, but I would love to revisit these characters one day.

What are some of the techniques used to put thrills and suspense into a novel or short story?

Unlike movies and TV, my novel doesn’t have the mood music to evoke a reaction. I also can’t do jump scares or have odd camera angles and lights and shadows to heighten tension. There are still ways to evoke those type of reactions in prose. Even though readers do not all read at the same speed, the pacing of the action is mine to control. If I need to speed things up, short, choppy sentences are read faster, giving the illusion of urgency. To slow things down, larger paragraphs work well. Then, once your reader is calm and reading at the slower pace, you can throw the literary equivalent of a jump scare or rising music by switching back to short, choppy sentences to ramp up the urgency. Word usage also plays a role here. Big words slow down the action. Shorter, harsher words can propel it.

Action scenes are less descriptive. I’ve already set the stage before the action starts. You know the location and details about obstacles, colors of walls, other information about where things are happening. When the action kicks off, we’re running, jumping, but not describing. Here’s an example:

    Officer Sean Taylor hated working security during tech conference weekends, but he drew the short straw and his captain had given him the assignment. When he was younger, crowds didn’t bother him, but these days, the thought of being shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people made him sick to his stomach. It wasn’t just the potential for catching something, especially in a world where pandemics seemed to happen on a regular basis, but after being trapped inside that hotel basement last year when the earthquake caused a collapse, he preferred to be outside where he could see blue skies and fluffy little clouds, not inside with the recycled air and piped in muzak.
    The hotel might have been five stars all the way, but it still felt like a prison. Couches lined the lobby, soft and relaxing. The open floorplan offered wide open spaces with high ceilings where chandeliers hung freely, but it didn’t matter.
    He still felt trapped.
    “Get it together,” he muttered. “You can’t afford to lose this job.”
    Before he could dwell on those thoughts more, he heard a familiar crack!
    A gunshot!
    He looked left, right, to the upper floors.
    Nothing!
    The first shot had been a surprise.
    The second shot resulted in a dropped body.
    Nearby, someone screamed.
    Panic took hold seconds later.
    Instinct took over and Sean ran toward the downed victim.
    "Shots fired!” he shouted into the mic clipped to his collar.
    He dropped next to the bleeding victim.
    “Don’t move!”
    “He… hel…” the bleeding man gurgled, drowning in his own blood.
    “Don’t talk! Help’s on the way!”
    Another shot echoed off the wall. 
    Realizing how exposed he was, Officer Taylor missed the crowd.

The scene starts out slow. You get to know the character, in this case one based on our host. You also get part of the setting. In an actual novel, you would probably get a bit more, but for the purposes of the example, it works. It’s a pleasant read. No urgency. No real anxiety, although I’ve placed the thought of it in your mind because he doesn’t like the crowd.

When the gunshot happens, the action moves faster. Short sentences then on to the next short sentence, etc. If I’ve done my job correctly, you feel that urgency start at this point.

What thrillers would you recommend outside of your own novels?

Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch novels are a must read. Alex Kava’s Maggie O’Dell and Ryder Creed novels, Beverly Conner’s Lindsay Chamberlain novels, anything by Elmore Leonard or Stephen J. Cannell, Lee Goldberg, Paul Bishop, or Max Allen Collins. There are a lot of great thrillers out there to choose from.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I am a writer. I am not a hero. I am not an adventurer. I am not a detective (though I did play one on TV once). I am the guy who tells stories about these types of characters. I love getting to know characters and team up with them to tell stories that I hope readers will enjoy. I want readers to be entertained.

In addition to my own creations, some of which are mentioned above, I have been fortunate to write some tie-in fiction with amazing characters I did not create, but like. A few of these include Zorro, Sherlock Holmes, Domino Lady, The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, The Spider, The Avenger, and others. It’s fun to play with someone else’s toys from time to time. I just have to make sure I don’t break them. Ha! Ha! 

I have been fortunate to win an award or three for my writing, which is always a tremendous bonus. You can check out all of my work at www.bobbynash.com and www.ben-books.com. Find me on social media and say hello. 

__________________________________

Bobby Nash is an award-winning author. He writes novels (Snow, Evil Ways, Deadly Games!, Nightveil: Crisis at the Crossroads of Infinity), comic books (Edgar Rice Burroughs’ At The Earth’s Core, Domino Lady, Operation: Silver Moon), short fiction (Mama Tried, Domino Lady, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, The Avenger), and the odd short screenplay (Starship Farragut “Conspiracy of Innocence, Hospital Ship Marie Curie “Under Fire”). 

Bobby is a member of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers and International Thriller Writers.