Author Lauren Carr
I’m pleased to welcome Lauren Carr, whose wonderful mystery novel It’s Murder, My Son, I’ve also reviewed today.
Author Bio:
Lauren Carr fell in love with mysteries when her mother read Perry Mason to her at bedtime. The first installment in the Joshua Thornton mysteries, A Small Case of Murder was named a finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Award 2005. Her second full-length book, A Reunion to Die For was released in June 2007. It’s Murder, My Son, is the first installment for her new series, The Mac Faraday Mysteries. It’s Murder, My Son is set in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, where she and her family often vacation. She lives with her husband, son, and two dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.
Lauren is a popular speaker who has made speaking appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She lives with her husband and son on a mountaintop in West Virginia.
A Conversation with Author Lauren Carr
Q: Give us a brief synopsis of your new book It’s Murder, My Son.
A: In It’s Murder, My Son, I introduce Mac Faraday. What started out as the worst day of his life ends up being a completely new beginning for this homicide detective. After a messy divorce hearing, the last person that Mac wanted to see was another lawyer. Yet, this lawyer looked very unlawyer-like, wearing the expression of a child who was about to reveal a guarded secret. This covert would reveal Mac as heir to fortunes undreamed of and would lead him to Spencer, Maryland, the birthplace of America’s Queen of Mystery, with her millions and an investigation that unfolds like one of her famous mystery novels.
Behind the gated community in Spencer, Maryland, lives Katrina Singleton, a multi-millionaire who thinks her good looks and charm make her untouchable. Soon after she and her husband, Chad, move to the lake she learns that life in Spencer is not all good. For reasons unknown, a strange man is terrorizing Mrs. Singleton. All indications point to the man, who claims he is “Pay Back,” when Katrina is found strangled in her lake house. However, three months later the file on her murder is still open with only vague speculations from the local police department.
In walks Mac Faraday, sole heir to his unknown birth mother’s home and fortune. Little does he know as he drives his new Dodge Viper up to Spencer Manor that he is driving into a closed gate community that is hiding more suspicious deaths than his DC workload as a homicide detective. With the help of his late mother’s journal and two unsuspecting companions, this newly retired cop puts all his detective skills to work to pick up where the local investigators have left off to follow the clues to Katrina’s executer.
Q: How did you come to write It’s Murder, My Son?
A: The mystery of It’s Murder, My Son had actually been running through my mind for quite a while. It started out as a stalker story I had seen years and years ago on an old episode of Unsolved Mysteries. It was the story of a stalker that no one saw except the victim, until eventually the police concluded that the stalker was a figment of the victim’s imagination.
Q: Both Joshua Thornton in your first two books and now Mac Faraday are continuing characters in your novels. Is it difficult to write “stand alone” storylines that can be read apart from earlier novels because of the continuing protagonists?
A: Not really. My main focus is the mystery. The personal lives of the characters are secondary. Like real people, they do have stuff going on that seeps in between the lines, but I refuse to let personal issues take the reader away from the mystery.
For example, in It’s Murder, My Son, Mac Faraday moves to his late birth mother’s estate in Spencer, Maryland, to meet David O’Callaghan, his half-brother by his father. Mac gets pulled into the mystery of his neighbor’s murder out of brotherly concern when he sees the police chief being rotten to David. Unfortunately, Mac’s attempt to help his brother solve the murder and look good ends up making David the prime suspect. Like most men, they never talk about their relationship as brothers. Mac wonders at times if David may resent him for inheriting millions from the great Robin Spencer while he’s a lowly police officer, but by no means do I let it take over the storyline. All questions get answered by the last page.
I personally can’t stand loose ends. That’s why I write stand alone storylines. I don’t watch continuing television shows because I don’t know if I’m going to be alive next week to find out what happens to Suzy Q. Yes, I know I can record the show, but suppose I get hit by a train before it is aired. I want to know everything when the hour is over. I’m the same way about books.
Q: Give us a brief explanation of how you came to chose and define Mac’s character.
A: At the time that I sat down to write It’s Murder, My Son, I knew that I couldn’t use Joshua Thornton for it. I needed a different type of detective who was more physical, not a lawyer. I needed a cop, not a lawyer.
Mac is the personification of a fantasy for me. A nice guy, he’s a homicide detective at the lowest point of his life due to no fault of his own to have it all turned around in literally one day. Who doesn’t fantasize about something like that when you’ve been betrayed and lost everything? One minute you’re licking the curb, and the next minute you’re king of the world.
Q: One of the critiques of detective/mystery books is that the “hero” is often too good to be true, how does Mac challenge that stigma?
A: I go the other way in that I get very annoyed by protagonists who are so flawed that I have no respect for them. However, it is true that if a character is too perfect the reader does have problems identifying with them. While I do allow my protagonists to be flawed, I don’t allow them to become dysfunctional to the point that I want them to be the next victim.
Some flaws are just natural. In a given situation, readers expect certain people to behave in a particular way, even if it is not the most noble. For example, Mac Faraday is a hardworking cop. He was known by his peers as the most brilliant of detectives, but his superiors took credit for his work and gave him the blame when they let a serial rapist escape the country. So of course, when he has occasion to return to the department after his inheritance he rubs his boss’s nose in it. Even though he usually dressed in jeans and casual shirts, he put on a new tailored suit and parked his hundred-thousand dollar sports car in his former supervisor’s parking space.
But even though Mac is a multi-millionaire and self-professed playboy (though he doesn’t really do that much playing), he eats baloney sandwiches because he doesn’t know how to cook and is easily bored with rubbing elbows with the rich and famous. He is so down to earth that he hates shopping, struggles with guilt about spending too much money, and finds that those who work for him dress better than he does.
Q: What problems did you have to tackle to complete the book and what process did you undertake to finish the story?
A: My sister-in-law asked me to write a mystery placed in Pelican Lake, Wisconsin, which is where my late father-in-law had his summer place. That’s a resort town with a lot of seasonal residents. It is very different form Chester, West Virginia, where I have placed the Joshua Thornton mysteries. After writing the first draft, she was not thrilled when I placed the murder in her house, which is quite distinctive and why I placed it there. She lives on a peninsula that sticks out into the lake and is surrounded by water on three sides.
At the same time, my father-in-law stopped going to Pelican Lake due to health issues, which meant I stopped going there, and my family started vacationing at Deep Creek Lake, which is a wonderful place for a murder mystery. It offers a wide variety of locales, activities, everything I needed. So I created a fictional town, Spencer, on the shore of one side of Deep Creek Lake, with Mac living on Spencer Point.
Q: What advice do you have for first time writers?
A: Write every day. If you’re a writer, you want to write every day. You can’t live without it. The more you write, the better you get. I have written stories and screenplays that will never see the light of day, but the experience of writing them has improved my writing skills. I read A Small Case of Murder recently, which I wrote over ten years ago and I can see where today I am a better writer than I was then.
Also, join writers’ associations, groups and go to conferences. The Internet has opened a lot of doors for writers to social network with other writers and share techniques and links to help sharpen their skills. That was a mistake I made. I thought I had to have “made it” before I was worthy of meeting other writers and asking for advice. I was wrong. The old hands are always willing to help out new and upcoming writers. I’m one who is always willing to talk to another budding author.
Q: What else would you like to tell us about your book?
A: It’s Murder My Son is available in print, Kindle. They can buy either version on amazon.com, or any online bookstore, or even order it from their local bookstore. It’s Murder, My Son will soon be available in audio.
Q: What else would you like to tell us about you?
A: Your readers can visit my website (http://laurencarr.webs.com) to read excerpts or order autographed copies of my books. I also blog about my world of mystery writing at http://writerlaurencarr.blogspot.com
Also, I am available for booksignings and speaking engagements for groups. I give a seminar for authors about publishing, something I never had the benefit of before my first book came out. If any of your readers belong to a writing or book group and would like to have me pay a visit, feel free to visit my website and/or shoot me an e-mail (writerlaurencarr@comcast.net). I’d love to hear from them!
Thanks so much for joining us, Lauren, and I’m eager to read your next Mac Faraday mystery!
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