How Did a Hardboiled Author Come to Write a Cozy Mystery?

Since the second title The Cashmere Shroud in my cozy mystery series will  soon be out, I decided to run a guest blog I wrote when the first title Quiet Anchorage hit the streets.

Sometimes you like to break out of your mold and try your hand at something a little different and new. Fiction writers often like to make such a change of pace. It keeps us fresh. I’d written and published several titles in the P.I. Frank Johnson mystery series. Frank is generally a stand up guy, and I hope and trust we can keep hanging out together. But as I said, I felt the yearning to stretch my wings. Luckily, not everything I’d written fell in the noir or hardboiled genre.

You see, for a few years, I’d also been writing and selling my stories to the TRUE magazines from Dorchester Media. Those stories (the author gets no tagline) were a hoot to write, and I got paid a decent rate. I must’ve produced forty or more stories. Not all of them sold, but enough did. I spent a few apprehensive days mulling over if I could create a novel intended primarily for a female readership. Could I hack it?

Every Sunday night for years, we’d tuned in to Murder, She Wrote (1984-96) on TV. Jessica Fletcher was a smart, feisty, and persistent sleuth, and the shows made for entertaining and fun viewing. I especially liked Tom Bosley in the role as Sheriff Amos Tupper (1984-88). My pleasant memories of watching Jessica planted the seed for my new direction. My reading of mysteries includes the occasional amateur sleuth title. That’s how I came to explore the idea. Maybe, just maybe, I could do it.

I searched for somebody to base my amateur sleuth creation on, and my two late aunts were the obvious choice. Alma and Isabel were sisters living in a small Virginia town where they were born and bred. I next debated if they’d mind if I used them as my character models. My chuckling mom didn’t think so when I asked her, and I didn’t pick up any spooky vibes from the spirits of their displeasure over my plan.

Thus encouraged, I steamed ahead and wrote the first draft of [book:Quiet Anchorage|10530870]. It was a gas to do. A cinch, I thought. Boy was I ever naïve. The numerous editing rounds turned tricky. Homing in on their authentic voices posed my biggest challenge. Obviously septuagenarian ladies don’t think or speak like the hardboiled Frank does.

Well, I was either a glutton for punishment or plain stubborn since I kept plugging away. A half-dozen female beta readers passed along their comments, both the good and bad ones. And I got plenty of bad ones. Quiet Anchorage wasn’t a book I just plopped down and typed out in couple of months. There was sweat and pain involved. But my pair of amateur sleuths in print gradually took their shapes.

The real Alma and Isabel having lived through two world wars and the great depression knew a thing or two about toughing out the hard times. They weren’t pushovers, and they didn’t suffer fools. In Quiet Anchorage, they’re forced to take up investigating a homicide after their niece Megan is accused and falsely arrested for the murder of her fiancé Jake. Quiet Anchorage is a small town, and the rare murder occurring there stirs things up.

As with any pair of protagonists, their personalities had to differ. Alma is the impetuous, outspoken, and fearless sibling while the older Isabel is more cerebral, reserved, and patient. Having been raised on a farm, both are blessed with common sense and pragmatism. They laugh at themselves, kid around a little bit, and don’t take their sleuthing efforts too seriously. Of course, they’re determined to help Megan. That’s job one.

If I had to pick a small town to move to and live in, Quiet Anchorage would do me quite nicely. It’s a tidy place with friendly folks. The slower pace and more relaxed temperament suit me fine. Families live there. Kids play in the yards. But a murder has rocked Quiet Anchorage, and there will be consequences. The rush to judgment has landed Megan behind bars, and the smug, satisfied local sheriff will soon learn he’s underestimated her daunting pair of aunts. They’re not above offering a bribe if it gets them the information they need to move forward in their quest to free her.

Readers have cottoned to my cozy mystery and become its fans. Reviews, for the most part, have been positive. No doubt as the series unfolds, their characters will take on more depth. I included some back-story in Quiet Anchorage to flesh out their distinct personalities of Alma and Isabel Trumbo. Be looking here on my blog for the news of their next adventure in print.