Today as part of the January Justice Blog Tour, Athol Dickson is stopping by for a guest post. Im thrilled to welcome him to blog.
Every Murder Mystery Author’s Favorite Question
by Athol Dickson-2013 (Black Lion Tours)
EVERY MURDER MYSTERY AUTHOR GETS THE QUESTION ALL THE TIME: Where do your ideas come from? It’s not our favorite question (that comes later) but to answer it, we often turn to the headlines.
EVERY MURDER MYSTERY AUTHOR GETS THE QUESTION ALL THE TIME: Where do your ideas come from? It’s not our favorite question (that comes later) but to answer it, we often turn to the headlines.
Today for example, there’s this sad story out of New York City, which includes a hit and run with three fatalities, a young married couple and their unborn baby. The baby was delivered alive although the mother had already died. Tragically, the baby passed away soon after.
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| (cc) The Knowles |
Turns out the man who fled the scene claims he was being chased by a gunman. In most cases that would be “a likely story” except this man is in fact exactly the kind of guy who might be chased by a gunman. He once did time for murdering a criminal whose alias later inspired a famous rapper’s stage name (50 cent). Add the fact that the owner of the car he was driving is under investigation for insurance fraud, and the scenario takes on fictional proportions.
Of course, if an author wrote it just that way, that would be a true crime book, not a murder mystery novel. So let’s try asking every murder mystery author’s favorite question: what if?
What if that baby had survived? What if the man who fled the scene was never caught? And what if the baby grew up and came back to New York City to find the man who killed his parents?
See how easy that is? There’s no mystery to coming up with murder mystery ideas. It’s just a matter of, “What if?”
Athol Dickson's mystery, suspense, and literary novels have won three Christy Awards and an Audie Award. Suspense fans who enjoyed Athol's They Shall See God will love his latest novel, January Justice, the first installment in a new mystery series called The Malcolm Cutter Memoirs. The second and third novels in the series, Free Fall in February, and A March Murder, are coming in 2013. Critics have favorably compared Athol's work to such diverse authors as Octavia Butler (Publisher's Weekly), Hermann Hesse (The New York Journal of Books) and Flannery O'Connor (The New York Times). Athol lives with his wife in southern California
Check out the post below for links and tour dates and an expert from Athol's book January Justice!
thank you for posting!
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