Please Welcome Mystery Author Gretchen Archer

with Gretchen Archer

We are delighted to welcome mystery author Gretchen Archer to Omnimystery News today.

Gretchen's first book in a new series introduces former cop Davis Way in Double Whammy (Henery Press, May 2013 trade paperback and ebook formats).

We asked Gretchen to tell us more about her new book, and she replied with, "My research is more fun than your research." Indeed!

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Authenticity in writing is a must. We all know writing styles so utterly compelling that suspension of belief isn't an issue. I don't mind that I can't really go through the Leaky Cauldron to get to Diagon Alley or visit Forks and look up 112-year-old Edward Cullen. And we all know fiction writing so realistic we have to be reminded it's fiction, like John Grisham's. Aside from pure-dee talent, Mr. Grisham went to law school and practiced law for years, so every word reads honestly. The rest of us, however, have a responsibility to make our writing credible. To make it real. Write something the reader can believe.

Photo provided courtesy of
Gretchen Archer

My publisher, Henery Press, has an eye for authentic writing. Two of many fine examples: LynDee Walker, author of Front Page Fatality and forthcoming Buried Leads, was a journalist. It shows on every page that LynDee knows her way around a headline. Fellow Hen House writer Heather Ashby was in the Navy, and her husband was a Naval Engineer. So Heather's Love in the Fleet Romance series, starting with Forgive and Forget (July, 2013), rings true bells all over the place. These girls know what they're writing about. It shows.

Sadly, I don't have a platform or background from which to write. (Dagnabit.) My résumé couldn't be more boring. Room Mom. Laundry Expert. Grilled Cheese Champion. I've done nothing more noteworthy on a professional level than work with my husband here and there (mostly there) for the past twenty-some years. In the glass decorating industry. And I was no professional. (Ask anyone.) Even if I had been, who wants to read mysteries set in a glass-decorating manufacturing facility?

Cozies, my faves, generally avoid the authenticity hiccup, because the main character is almost always (in the cupcake business) an amateur detective. When our heroine (fondant icing dripping off her like sugared jewels) trips over a dead body and reacts in the same manner any of the rest of us would (tosses her Mixmaster beaters, runs screaming, cake flour contrailing after her like a sifted ghost), we're good with it. We don't expect Carrot Cake to know exactly how to stop a sucking wound; we're very willing to stumble through it with her. Harder, by far, are main characters who the writer would have us believe are Super Sleuths. Decorated cops. Successful private investigators. Forensic experts. If you've never lived these lives, it's mighty hard to write them with authority.

What's a mystery writer to do? Research. I believe, and feel it should be documented somewhere, that my research is hands down the most fun. My Davis Way Crime Caper series is set at the fabulous Bellissimo Resort and Casino (fictional) in Biloxi, Mississippi. (Not fictional.)

You can image how well this went over at home. Backstory: I had just broken up with my (then) agent after twiddling my thumbs for three years waiting on the economy to recover and the Kindle fire to burn itself out (still waiting on both), with four commercial fiction masterpieces(*) languishing away on my hard drive.

"I'm going to try my hand at a mystery series set in a big casino."

"Good for you."

"Well, I have to go to a big casino. As in hang out. For several days at a time. Many times over."

"Good for you."

"Are you listening to me? I'm hitting the road. You're in charge for a few days. And hand over some green stuff, buddy, because you're bankrolling this latest whim of mine."

"I'm tired of bankrolling your whims. How is this going to be different from your donut delivery project? Or your Yorkshire Terrier Play Park franchise idea? Or the phone app that finds kids' shoes?"

"Don't change the subject."

"Do you mind me asking why you have to go there?" (Whips out wallet.) (Not.)

"Research!"

I have had more fun in casinos than should be allowed. I have the greatest research job in the world. My research beats the heck out of everyone else's research, and I will write casino mysteries for as long as there are casinos and mysteries. (It is my fervent desire to sell them, too.)

Having never worked in a casino, and it being highly unlikely I ever will, at the onset, I needed my main character to also be new to world of high-stakes gambling. Davis and I have learned together. And now we're slot-machine whizzes. I must confess to having two slot machines in my office (a Five Times Pay that never wins and a Super Spin Sizzling 7) which I occasionally try to take apart and put back together and play every once in awhile just to hear the bells and whistles. But for the most part, I go straight to the source. The Mississippi Gulf. Little Las Vegas.

Road trip, anyone? I'll have to work most of the time. Research, you know.

(*) masterpieces — noun, gobbledygook in the form of 100,000-word tomes written by aspiring authors that their mothers can't even get through.

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Gretchen Archer is a Tennessee housewife who began writing when her daughters, seeking higher educations, left her. She lives on Lookout Mountain with her husband, son, and a Yorkie named Bently. Double Whammy is her first Davis Way mystery. Stay tuned for Davis' next crime caper, Double Dip (Henery Press, November, 2013).

To learn more about the author and her books, visit her website at GretcherArcher.com, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Double Whammy
Gretchen Archer
A Davis Way Crime Caper

Davis Way thinks she's hit the jackpot when she lands a job as the fifth wheel on an elite security team at the fabulous Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. But once there, she runs straight into her ex-ex husband, a rigged slot machine, her evil twin, and a trail of dead bodies. Davis learns the truth and it does not set her free — in fact, it lands her in the pokey.

Buried under a mistaken identity, unable to seek help from her family, her hot streak runs cold until her landlord Bradley Cole steps in. Make that her landlord, lawyer, and love interest. With his help, Davis must win this high stakes game before her luck runs out.