Please Welcome Back Mystery Author Lauren Carr

by Lauren Carr

We are delighted to welcome back mystery author Lauren Carr as our guest.

Lauren, who has written several mysteries featuring ex-homicide cop Mac Faraday, is beginning a new series, which she calls "Lovers in Crime". The first book is Dead on Ice (Acorn Book Services, September 2012 trade paperback and ebook formats).

Today Lauren tells us about murder, mayhem, and integrity.

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This time of year, around and shortly after elections, the word integrity crops up. Usually it comes up because we see so little of it among those asking us to instill our trust in them. But that's another post …

Photo provided courtesy of
Lauren Carr

Believe it or not, readers look for integrity in their books. Maybe it's because many readers dive into the pages of a book to escape the dishonesty and chaos of the real world. Their boss may mislead to them about an upcoming promotion. Their child may lie about taking out the garbage. Their husband may fib about how good that tuna casserole was.

But Agatha Christie lie? Never! And if she did? Well, let's just say readers will forgive their husband, to whom they have vowed to love and honor, faster.

Sure, the killer and suspects are all liars. How can you have a murder without deception? Yet, there is one person in a murder mystery who the reader counts on being honest to them.

That person is the mystery writer.

Ironically, in mysteries where lack of integrity is often the root in the motive of a major crime, readers trust that the author laying it out will have a sense of fair play. We mystery authors set up the playing field and challenge the reader to a game of who done it. The goal is to catch the killer before the author reveals him or her. If the reader uncovers the murderer too easily, then the game wasn't enough of a challenge and it is not as much fun.

But, if the solution is revealed to show that the author has not played fair, then the reader feels betrayed, not unlike a driver getting a traffic ticket for not noticing the speed limit sign tucked fifty feet off the road and hidden under a boulder.

Recently, I was on a panel where an author recalled reading a book in which she had assumed the two main characters, a couple, were a man and woman. At the end, it was revealed out of left field that they were a homosexual couple. Finding no hint of this throughout the book, she literally threw the book across the room. That reader felt betrayed. Never would she trust that author enough to set foot into her virtual world again.

As a mystery author, I am as tickled as the reader when they say, "Hey, I caught that clue about the computer whiz in your latest book." The reader feels clever for having caught the clue.

That's okay.

My readers and I are playing a game. The purpose of a game is for everyone who participates to have fun. No one enjoys a game when one of the players is a cheat.

Lack of honesty on the author's part is an intrusion into the reader's virtual sanctuary. Readers expect authors to play fair. Even when a mystery writer is laying out the pieces of a complex mystery, readers expect there to be enough clues scattered about that when the solution is revealed they can go, "Oh, yeah! But of course! I missed that!"

Gotcha!

Together, the reader and author have a mighty chuckle. The author pulled a good one over on the reader. But, having seen the pieces that had slipped by, the reader can respect the author for a job well done.

Through my work with authors, I have come to discover that writers and readers alike have an amazing sense of integrity. We offer it and we also expect it.

Maybe it is because when an author writes a book, they are putting more than words on the page — they are putting themselves out there as well. It is like they are cutting open their hearts and offering it to their readers. They make themselves vulnerable for all readers to see. If what they are putting on the page proves to be false, then they themselves prove to be false.

The very act of picking up a book (whether it be an actual book or a download onto an ereader) and opening up the pages is a gesture of trust for the reader. They are taking a step into the author's world, fictional or non-fictional. Will it prove to be real? Is the author holding anything back? Do they have clues hidden up their sleeves? Will this be a worthwhile journey? When I leave, will I want to come back?

Not if it proves to be a journey of deception. Then, the reader, feeling cheated, will end up hurling the book across the room and won't pick up another one.

It's like catching your husband eating another woman's tuna casserole and liking it. Never again will you open up a can of tuna for that man again!

Likewise, never again will a cheated reader step into a dishonest author's virtual world.

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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 a finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Award.

Lauren is also the author of the Mac Faraday Mysteries, which takes place in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland — It's Murder, My Son, Old Loves Die Hard, and Shades of Murder.

Dead on Ice introduces a new series entitled Lovers in Crime, in which Joshua Thornton will join forces with homicide detective Cameron Gates.

The owner of Acorn Book Services, Lauren is also a publishing manager, consultant, editor, cover and layout designer, and marketing agent for independent authors. This spring, two books written by independent authors will be released through the management of Acorn Book Services.

Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She also passes on what she has learned in her years of writing and publishing by conducting workshops and teaching in community education classes.

She lives with her husband, son, and two dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.

You can learn more about Lauren and her work by visiting her websites at MysteryLady.net and AcornBookServices.com. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter, or on her blog, Literary Wealth.

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Dead on Ice
Lauren Carr
A Lovers in Crime Mystery

Pennsylvania State Police homicide detective Cameron Gates is tasked with solving the murder of Cherry Pickens, a legendary star of pornographic films, whose body turns up in an abandoned freezer. The case has a personal connection to her lover, Hancock County Prosecuting Attorney Joshua Thornton, because the freezer was located in his cousin's basement.

It doesn't take long for their investigation to reveal that the risqué star's roots were buried in their rural Ohio Valley community, something that Cherry had kept off her show business bio. She should have kept her hometown off her road map, too — because when this starlet came running home from the mob, it proved to be a fatal homecoming.