Me & My Sleuths

I love my sleuths and have lots of fun watching them solve murders and navigate relationships. As the protagonist in a series, each of my sleuths is complex, with both endearing and irritating characteristics. They’re all clever enough to solve mysteries, spunky enough to take risks they have no business taking, and all have blind spots that occasionally lead them to wrong conclusions and into danger. As their creator, I have something in common with each and every one of them. I thought I’d say a few words about my sleuths Lydia, Gabbie, and Lexie—what they’re like and the traits and similarities I share with each.

Lydia Krause stars in A Murderer Among Us and Murder in the Air of the Twin Lakes Mysteries series. She is an attractive widow aged 58, who once ran her own company and now resides in the upscale retirement community of Twin Lakes on Long Island with her red tom Reggie. She has two daughters who give her joy and grief, a slew of new friends, and a budding relationship with Detective Sol Molina. While I live in a gated community on Long Island, it’s nowhere as posh as Twin Lakes, nor is it a retirement community, and, alas, we don’t have an indoor pool. Ironically, Lydia became a widow before I did. I have two sons, not two daughters, and one granddaughter so far, not two as Lydia has. Both Lydia and I have red toms.

In Giving Up the Ghost Gabbie Meyerson comes to the village of Chrissom Harbor on Long Island in the middle of a cold January to teach English at the local high school.
Gabbie is in her midthirties and like Lydia, starting a new life. She has recently divorced her husband, after helping to send him to prison for white collar crimes. She rents a cottage on a bluff and discovers she has a housemate—the ghost of wheeler dealer Cameron Leeds, who plagues Gabbie until she agrees to find out who murdered him. Gabbie’s students play a part in the mystery. While I never had a ghost for a housemate, I was a high school teacher for several years though my subject was Spanish. I never divorced my husband, nor did he ever commit any crimes. We writers must take liberties. <g>

Lexie Driscoll is my sleuth in the Golden Age of Mystery Book Club series. Lexie is a 48-year-old English professor at a Long Island university. Though she is very bright, she has poor judgment when it comes to choosing husbands. Her first husband left her when she was pregnant with her son, Jesse. Now father and son enjoy a close relationship. Years later, she married a fellow academic, only to learn he was extremely unstable. When Lexie told him she was ending the marriage, he burned down her house and died in the fire. In Murder a la Christie, Lexie’s best friend, now married to Lexie’s former college boyfriend, asks her to facilitate a Golden Age of Mystery book club in her wealthy town of Old Cadfield, Long Island. While discussing Agatha Christie and her novels, one of the members becomes ill and dies. Lexie is c

ertain that Sylvia’s been poisoned. More members are murdered, and Lexie fears their lives are on a parallel course of Christie’s novel, And Then There Were None. Lexie’s barrage of questions often upsets the Old Cadfield residents. She exposes old secrets and resentments, until someone tries to kill her. While I’m nowhere as intrusive as Lexie, probably because I haven’t had to, I find it ironic that just before the book was published, my local library asked me to lead the mystery book club. (I am no longer the leader, and we have not suffered any murders. ) A case of life following art.  <g>

What do you and your sleuths have in common?

Is Your Protagonist Your Alter Ego?

Many years ago, after reading the first novel I’d just finished writing, someone told me she could see me in every page. There were many similarities between me and my protagonist. We both wore glasses. (Now I wear contact lenses.) We liked the same foods and had many of the same hang ups. Soon after I started writing books for kids. Since I have two sons, my protagonist was usually a boy. I’d simply put myself inside the head of a boy and imagine how it feels to have an older brother with neurological problems (And Don’t Bring Jeremy.) I imagined how it would feel to suddenly have magical powers (Rufus and Magic Run Amok.)

The more books I wrote, the more my protagonists developed traits of their own. But certain personality and character traits of mine cling to each of my sleuths. Sometimes fiction precedes real life. In my Twin Lake mysteries, Lydia Krause is newly widowed and starting a new life in a gated community. She beat me there, as I became a widow after I wrote the book. Still, we both have a cat and we both live in a gated community.

Gabbie Meyerson in Giving Up the Ghost is also starting a new life. She’s divorced her husband, something I never did, after helping to send him to prison. (Didn't do that, either.) She takes a job teaching English (I taught Spanish) in a small Long Island community, and discovers she’s sharing a cottage with the ghost of Cameron Leeds. Pressed into service, Gabbie finds out who murdered Cam.

Ardin Wesley in Dangerous Relations bears the emotional scars of an abusive marriage, something I’ve never experienced. She finds herself wanting to adopt her murdered cousin’s little girl, which pits her against her cousin’s widower. She tries to ignore the fact that she’s falling for the guy, telling herself she doesn’t want anything to do with romance. In the course of the novel, Ardin comes face-to-face with her ex-husband. Even more painful is overhearing him tell his current wife that he'd never loved Ardin. Through it all, Ardin grows stronger and is able to love again.

There’s no question that Lexie Driscoll in Murder a la Christie is intelligent (she’s an English college professor). But Lexie’s not always wise when it comes to choosing the men in her life. Her first husband left her when she was pregnant with their son. When she decided to divorce her crazy second husband, he burned down her house with himself inside. Lexie finds herself spending the summer housesitting in affluent Old Cadfield, blocks from her college roommate and best friend, Rosie. Rosie is married to one of Lexie’s rejects and lives the life of luxury. Lexie realizes that this life could have hers. But would she have done things differently if she'd known how everything turned out?

The more books we write, the more our characters take on lives of their own. I suppose we subconsciously borrow traits from people we know, from characters in TV series, books and movies. How they behave and interact with one another are offshoots of their personalities and characters. My sleuths vary in age and social position, but they are all strong, intelligent women. Of course they’re all bolder than I am – never afraid to ask questions or to follow up on a clue, which often gets them into trouble as they go about solving murders.

In what ways are your sleuths like you? How are they different?

Creating Your Sleuth

Mystery Writers: do you create your sleuth’s personality and characteristics, or does he/she come to you fully-developed like Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, and ready to snoop?  

Just as both nature and nurture have a hand in the makings of a human being, various elements go into your sleuth’s development. One is the trends of the day. In the Thirties and Forties sleuths were tough PIs. These days anything goes. We’ve grumpy investigators, independent female lawyers, science-oriented CSIs. Your sleuth can be a judge, a homicide detective or amateur sleuth. Even a dog, a cat, or a 12-year-old girl. It depends on the type of mystery you’re writing—cozy, police procedural, traditional.

Your sleuth is the most important character in your book. This is especially true for those of us who  write series. He/she is the hero, the character who IDs the murderer and solves the crime. Some sleuths have achieved world-wide renown. Consider Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe, Phillip Marlowe, and Ellery Queen. When Hercules Poirot “died,” his obituary was printed in The New York Times.

Your sleuth sets the tone of your book. Is she intelligent but flaky? Is he somber and beset by demons from his past? Your sleuth views the world from specific perspective. He/she has a particular method of solving problems, both personal and those related to the mystery. He/she has strengths and weaknesses, and people in his/her life who are supportive (best friend, spouse, lover) or a thorn in his/her side (competitor, disagreeable boss.) Always give your sleuth personal issues to deal with, and plenty of room to develop and grow.

A word about quirky characteristics. Like many TV viewers, I fell in love with Monk. I also enjoy watching the new series “Elementary,” which takes great liberties with the characters of Sherlock and Watson. But be careful not to go overboard. Your sleuth’s neuroses and/or disabilities are not simply window dressing, to be discarded in the middle of a novel. If, like Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe, your sleuth almost never leaves home, be prepared to set your books around this situation.

My sleuths are all female, but of various ages and in different stages of their life. Lydia Krause, in my Twin Lakes books A Murderer Among Us and Murder in the Air, is a 58-year-old widow who has sold her company and moved to a retirement community to start a new life. Lydia is feisty and smart, yet sensitive and a bit vulnerable. She solves mysteries as she makes new friends and finds love along the way. 

Gabbie Meyerson, in Giving Up the Ghost, is in her thirties. Newly-divorced, she takes a teaching job in a small Long Island village. She deals with high school bullies as she finds out who murdered Cameron Leeds, the ghost who shares her cottage above Long Island Sound.

Lexie Driscoll is the sleuth in my new series, The Golden Age of Mystery Book Club. The first, Murder a la Christie, makes its debut this year with L&L Dreamspell. Forty-eight-year-old Lexie is a bright college professor with poor judgment when it comes to men. Her first husband left her when she was pregnant with their son. Her second husband burned down her house with himself inside. Low on funds, Lexie agrees to lead a Golden Age of Mystery book club for her best friend’s wealthy neighbors. House-sitting in the upscale community, she feels like she’s inhabiting a Christie novel. When murder rears its ugly head, she employs Hercules Poirot’s and Miss Marple’s methods of deduction to solve the crimes.

Please leave a comment and tell me who your favorite literary sleuth is, or a bit about your sleuth.