Back Story of My Private Eye Novel The Blue Cheer

The Blue Cheer features PI Frank Johnson who has already appeared in my debut book, The Dirt-Brown Derby. I wanted to take a new approach. I knew Stephen Greenleaf takes his PI away from home in his excellent Marshall Tanner novels. Even Ross Macdonald’s PI Lew Archer takes frequent trips out of his home base in California. So, the premise behind The Blue Cheer is to ship Frank out of his native town of Pelham, Virginia, and transplant him in a different locale.

Frank grows tired and bored with living in Pelham and itches for a change in scenery. He surfs across an ad for cheap property. It comes with a cabin deep in the West Virginia mountains near a fictitious town I called Scarab. The prospect of becoming a mountain man fires up Frank. My in-laws own a cabin in West Virginia, so I had a handy place to send Frank except I made his cabin more primitive and remote. After all, he’s now a mountain man.

Before long Frank figures he has it dicked. He’s grooving on mother nature, splitting up cords of red oak for his winter woodstove, and dealing with an antsy case of buck fever. An autumnal chill nips the air. He promises himself he’ll soon go hunt up a job.

Then one evening while Frank fixes dinner, he hears a buzz in the sky. He sprints outdoors for a look. A Stinger rocket launched at a target drone causes an explosion over his cabin. My work in the defense industry provided the background material for starting off The Blue Cheer with a dramatic boom. A fellow who sells target drones filled me in on its specs. They’re not cheap.

You know the adage telling writers to use what’s at hand to spin their tales? Not true for me. The Blue Cheer required lots more of research than my other PI Frank Johnson books (I have four titles under contract). The Internet wasn’t specific enough. All I can say is thank goodness for email and the generosity of experts. First, the setting had to be exact. Scarab’s main industry is a noisy plant erecting steel bridges on the outskirts of town. A buddy of mine worked for just such an outfit and I picked his brain at a steak house. I also picked up the tab, again not so cheap.

I consulted with an environmental group for the skinny on coal mining pollution. Frank and Old Man’s investigation lead them to an old graveyard. A geology professor aided me with Appalachian cemeteries (type of rock, design, etc.). An auto club in the sprawling Land of Oz assured me that vintage Valiants (Frank’s faithful car) remain roadworthy. I also needed to nail down particular details in creating the characters.

A former autopsy assistant lent me professional insights to create Eva, my own denier. Hattie McGraw, my blind granny lady, was inspired by Eudora Welty’s photograph, “Blind Weaver/Oktibbeha County” (1930s). Like me, Frank is a big bluegrass music fan and a local chamber of commerce supplied the bluegrass musicians native to West Virginia (O’Quinn Brothers).

Jan, the wife of Frank’s pal Old Man Maddox, writes poetry. Her “Vietnam War Memorial Triolet” originally appeared in a literary magazine penned ages ago by yours truly. I like that incongruity -- embedding a poem in a hardboiled detective novel. Noir master writer Charles Willeford wrote verse, too, so I felt on safe ground in using mine. Old Man Maddox, a Viet Nam War vet, likes his C&W music. A DJ who worked at the Vietnam War radio station KLIK in Lai Khe briefed me on their playlists.

Of course I needed to create the bad guys (a hate group called The Blue Cheer). The Southern Poverty Law Center confirmed their suits against hate groups. My bad guys then hatch a scheme to escape from any penury. A court clerk and court librarian set me straight in writing Frank’s legal hassles in the West Virginia courts. An ombudsman with the West Virginia State Police patiently answered my questions (what color uniform, what color squad cars, etc.). The Chief Medical Examiner of West Virginia and a forensic pathologist helped me with the gruesome aspects of my autopsy and crime scenes used in The Blue Cheer.

The devil is always in the details. I only hope I mastered enough of mine to write a vivid story.

Previously published on M.J. Rose's website.