Author Archive

I bring this up as the result of an article I read on tvwriter.com regarding pop culture and it’s impact on societal evolution, namely racial issues, specifically regarding African Americans (if in fact that is still the correct vernacular). Naturally, I reflected on my own personal contribution of pop culture to the masses in my writing.

That’s when I asked myself a question that I imagine many readers might ponder upon: “Why is Darlene prejudice against Native Americans when she’s married to a black man?” My simple answer is this: I don’t write my series to change the political discourse. I write what I have observed and absorbed about the world around me. And one thing that resonates time and again is the human compulsion for duplicity.

We are very privileged to be born with these huge brains that are more than willing to compartmentalize our beliefs into neat little packages that don’t make sense or communicate with each other. And Darlene is a perfect example of that. She grew up in a pervading environment of belief that Native Americans were violent alcoholics with diminished family lives who wasted away on the reservations waiting for government assistance. It’s probably safe to say that Darlene never knew any of her Native American neighbors personally, so her prejudices stayed stubbornly intact.

Not so with Cameron. Her exposure to him probably eliminated many preconceived notions that were most likely influenced almost exclusively by movies and television. He broadened her perspective about African Americans, but did little to affect her misconceptions about Native Americans. And Cameron most likely has preconceived notions about rural Caucasians that will only be eliminated with exposure and vise versa.

No matter what convenient label the media (myself included) would like to put an any demographic, it really does nothing to explain the entire picture. I like to think my characters resonate with readers because they see traits of themselves in all of them, regardless of race, gender, orientation, etc. It is up to the readers to observe the small sliver of reflection and decide if I’ve exposed them to the possibility of self examination and change.

And if my observations only reinforced deep seeded stereotypes, I take this time to apologize. I blame my big brain.

Diaryland Murders is now available for purchase in Large Print paperbacks on Amazon!

Most of the murders we hear about in real life of pretty straight forward. There are the crazy bastards on a mission who shoot complete strangers with a gun. There is gang violence, again usually with guns. There are school shootings by unstable, disenfranchised, young men (for now), again with guns. Jees, we got a lot of gun violence in this country. Go figure. Then there’s the more intimate domestic violence that escalates from assault to murder, usually with whatever lethal weapon is handy, sometimes just a fist. All of these scenarios are very tragic and regrettable. But there’s no mystery.

Which is why you rarely read about them in mystery novels. In mystery novels if there’s a mass shooting, the assailant is an elusive sniper. If there is gang violence, there’s some underlying criminal motive that needs to be uncovered. School shooting? Well, that’s just a distraction from something more sinister going on within the school. Domestic violence will have an air of vigilantism. See where I’m going with this?

First and foremost, in a mystery novel murders have to have a point to them. They have to have an underlying theme of justification in order to maintain the audience’s attention and get them to go on the journey of suspense and exploration with the characters. The killings can seem senseless at first, but they can stay that way. There has to be a reason.

And for that journey to last tens of thousands of words, the murder will be twisted. There will be lots of background information to uncover, secret relationships, unlikely alliances, dramatic pasts that resurface with irreparable consequences. It’s all meant to keep the characters and the audience constantly guessing and second guessing who actually did the deed and, most importantly, why.

Except in the case of True Crime (a very good, but completely different genre), mystery novels are fiction. They are made up, dramatic literature. Mystery novels are meant to entertain an audience and allow them to escape the real world, where often violence occurs for its own sake and often makes no sense. As I mystery writer, I say “Welcome.”