Why Write About a Female Law Enforcement Officer?

 

What the reader wanted to know was why I chose to write about a female law enforcement officer when those in my family are all male.

When I was growing up, my uncle was a Los Angeles police officer--motorcycle cop, and later a detective. My son-in-law was both a police officer and a sheriff's deputy. Right now, my grandson is a police officer and my grandson-in- law is a deputy.

To be fair, my son-in-law, who was killed in the line of duty, was the one who started me writing about men in law enforcement and their families. He contributed a lot to my Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery series, especially the first one: Final Respects.  At the time we lived in a beach community with some similarities to the fictional Rocky Bluff. In  the books that follow, female officers appear. 

I didn't start writing about my DeputyTempe Crabtree series until after I moved to Springville and went on a ride-along with a female cop, met a female deputy sheriff, and an Indian woman who grew up on the nearby reservation. The three of these great gals combined became my Tempe.

Though the majority of the Deputy Tempe Crabtree books are in the mountain setting of Bear Creek (much is borrowed from the area where I'm living now) in several Tempe goes other places to solve crimes. The latest in the series, The Trash Harem, is set in the city of Temecula.

The fact that when I began writing about males in law enforcement, I heard a lot of interesting tales from my son-in-law. When we first moved into our neighborhood in the beach community, we had several police officers as neighbors. I became friends with them and their wives--and I heard  a lot from them too. 

Frankly, I didn't think much about writing from the point-of-view of male characters. Whoever is the best one to tell the story is the one I write about.

Marilyn who also writes as F. M. Meredith