Please Welcome Novelist Matt Ingwalson

with Matt Ingwalson

We are delighted to welcome back novelist Matt Ingwalson to Omnimystery News.

Matt's most recently published book is Sin Walks into the Desert (May 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats), "a taut, suspenseful tale without a wasted word or scene." — IndieReader.com.

We asked Matt to tell us more about the genre in which he writes, and he titles his guest post for us today, "The Difference Between Mysteries and Thrillers".

— ♦ —

Photo provided courtesy of
Matt Ingwalson

When you write a mystery, you begin at the end. You have an idea for how an impossible crime could have been committed, and then you walk backwards, tracking the detectives through the clues they need to solve the case. The last scene you write is the first chapter of the book, when the detectives get out of the car, walk under a line of yellow tape and ask a uniformed cop, “So, what do we have here?”

That was how I wrote the Owl and Raccoon novellas, anyway. Tightly architected mysteries work. They make readers feel like they're part of a breathless hunt for justice. And dare them to solve the case alongside the police.

But one day, I stumbled across a quote from the author of Game of Thrones. He talked about how some authors are architects. But others are gardeners, developing rich characters and then letting go, allowing those characters to write their own stories along the way. So I sat down and wrote the following words:

“I'm not a sex addict, I just have low standards.”

I didn't have any clear purpose in mind. I just thought it was a clever sentence. And within a couple weeks I'd followed it to a full-length novel about risky decisions and scary people, stretched out over a decade and played out on the American road. I named it Regret Things.

Inside that novel, I discovered a character lurking around the edges. A tattooed and troubled young man with uncomfortable obsessions with firearms and his big sister, Nicki. I called him Sin. And he was so interesting that as soon as I finished Regret Things I set it aside and started writing about Sin's childhood. In another few weeks, I had a second novel. Sin Walks Into the Desert begins with Sin learning his uncle is missing. It follows him as he tracks the old man's path across the Arizona desert. And it dives into the past to discover why these two violent souls needed each other. It's about old age, regret and death. And it's about guns and the people who use them.

The process of writing a police procedural discourages detours. Part of the writer's job is to reduce distractions and move the reader from clue to clue at a breakneck pace. Writing a thriller is different. It challenges the author to create tension out of ether, without any clear crime or puzzling clues. But it's not any harder than writing a mystery. In some ways, it's easier, because your characters write it for you.

— ♦ —

Matt Ingwalson is the author of three books, as well as the upcoming Regret Things. The Owl & Raccoon novellas blend the dialogue-driven edge of modern police procedurals with the locked-room plotting of Golden Age mysteries. The Sin & Nicki books are sweeping stories about characters, crime and consequences.

Learn more about Matt and his work by visiting his website or find him on Facebook and Twitter.

— ♦ —

Sin Walks into the Desert
Matt Ingwalson
A Novel of Suspense

Sin gets a late night call from la Calavera. She's an ex-federal agent living on half a lung in a retirement home near the border. And she says el Viejo is missing.

This is el Viejo she's talking about. Diabetes and arthritis may have the old man in a rocking chair now, but in his day he was the baddest of snipers and the bravest of private eyes. He also saved Sin's life, back when the boy was a 12 year old punk hellbent on shooting up the school bus with his daddy's .357.

So Sin heads off to find his mentor, only to find a nest of killers with ancient vendettas waiting for him in the desert with the kingsnakes and coyotes.