Guest Post: The Making of a Mystery by Erin O'Quinn
The birth of the first book, HEART
TO HART, was unusually difficult. It came right before I was hospitalized, and
the only writing I could do was in my head. I remember tossing and turning in
an intensive care ward, trying to write the first book with nothing but
imagination and a refusal to take sleep-inducing meds until someone forced me.
What a pain!
I had an unformed notion that I
would create a roustabout Irishman, a newspaper man with a grand sense of humor
who can hold his liquor, bed his boys, and keep a secret. Because he is, you
see, a gay man in an underground spy organization. I named him Michael McCree,
a name that was to take on more significance as the books developed.
The only man who can match Michael
is one so handsome and aloof that he intrigues Michael from the moment they
meet. Simon Hart is a private investigator who spurns every attention with a
surliness that draws the other man in, a fly in a web, until Michael cannot
escape a fierce attraction.
I also knew before I began to write
that my setting would be the roaring twenties, and that the Irish city would be
one I fashioned from my imagination.
And so the writing began, last
November 1, for the well known occasion called NaNoWriMo, National Novel
Writing Month.
Once I began, the writing was fast
and furious. I made my men a study in contrasts. Michael is large, boisterous,
good natured; Simon is athletic, private, sullen. Michael favors the large,
baggy trousers called “kaffies” in the 1920s; Simon dresses to the nines in
silks and fine suits. Michael, who hides his background completely, confesses
to being educated in the mean streets of Boston, Mass. Simon is Eton- and
Cambridge-trained.
The contrasts are many, but the most
important one is that while Michael glories in his homosexuality, Simon is in
utter denial, and he remains that way through the better part of two novels.
The first mystery concentrates on
one chilling murder and a few sideline crimes the two men take care of on their
way to forming a partnership. The next novel happens the next morning: after
capturing the murderer, Michael and Simon find that a co-conspirator in the
crime has evaded the police. SPARRING WITH SHADOWS tells the story of their
pursuit of that master criminal, and much more besides Simon, of course, is not
wholly impervious to Michael’s charms. But he festers and suffers over the
consequences of admitting his homosexuality. Thus much of the book becomes a
sparring with the “shadows” of his hidden nature, and the consequences of
facing the truth.
That mystery ends in the foul sewer
under the city, lit only by torchlight, and then back to the Victorian-style
flat where the two investigators live. The third mystery, like the second,
picks up the story “the morning after the night before.”
TO THE BONE, the novel just
published by Amber Quill Press, finds the two partners with at least one happy
memory: the previous evening, Simon has finally succumbed completely to the
charms of Michael, but in a completely unexpected way. Both men have delved
almost “to the bone” in an attempt to explore each other, but fate deals them a
tricky hand.
No sooner than Michael and Simon
start to enjoy each other than a nosy, pesky and altogether insufferable new
agent appears in their lives. Moshe is a man from Simon’s past who begins to
burrow like a tick, so far under the skin they cannot shake him off to have a
private moment, or to properly investigate some serious crimes.
As private eyes, the men need to
find more than a score of stolen paintings, and especially one small valuable
work of art worth more than all the others. But the case is more complex the
deeper they look into it. Soon Michael and Simon find themselves looking not
just for a thief, but for a city-wide ring of criminals; and the closer they
get to the paintings, the closer they find themselves to a killer. . . And the
closer they become physically, the more interfering Moshe becomes.
My happiest surprise with these
books is that the relationship between the main characters became
multi-layered, complex, humorous and serious too. The mysteries began as almost
comedies, but they became a vehicle for exploring some serious facets of the
nature of human feelings and interpersonal dynamics.
I am completely satisfied with this
mystery series, the development of the characters and the serio-comic vein of
the writing. Of the twenty books I’ve written, these three stand firmly at the
forefront. They are books with substance, with memorable characters, and
they’re blessed with great covers by a genius named Marion Sipe.
I may never be famous for these
books. But I gladly name them my legacy to the world.
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You can check out the Gaslight Mystery Series at the following links!
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You can check out the Gaslight Mystery Series at the following links!
Comments
I may have said this a few dozen times, but it never grows old: Your covers "made" my series, and I am deeply grateful for your talent.
SIncerely,
Erin O'Quinn