A Conversation with Mystery Author Lauren Carr

with Lauren Carr

We are delighted to welcome back mystery author Lauren Carr to Omnimystery News.

Lauren's new Mac Faraday mystery is Twelve To Murder (Acorn Book Services; February 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we wanted to follow up with her to talk a little more about it. (She also gives us a preview of her next two books, including a sneak peek at the cover of one!)

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Omnimystery News: Give us a summary of Twelve to Murder in a tweet.

Photo provided courtesy of
Lauren Carr

Lauren Carr: Last Call @ Midnight May Prove Fatal in @TheMysteryLadie latest Mac Faraday #Mystery: TWELVE TO MURDER.

OMN: Have any real people influenced the characters in your series?

LC: Yes and no. I have discovered through the Mac Faraday mysteries that much of Mac Faraday's personality is modeled off of my husband Jack, who is practical and analytical. Admittedly, Mac is more romantic. That is fantasy.

There's a lot of Archie Monday in me, except she is more gorgeous, thinner, and more sophisticated. She can also eat whatever she wants. Like me, she's a gourmet cook.

Much of Homicide Detective Cameron Gates, from the Lovers in Crime Mysteries, is my less sophisticated side. She says and gets away with things that I wish I could get away with. Cameron's character is a lot of fun.

Sometimes, simply someone's physical appearance will inspire me. Chelsea Adams, David O'Callaghan's girlfriend in the last three books, was inspired by a young woman I recently met. Her gorgeous fair complexion and small frame makes her appear very fragile. Upon seeing her, I thought, what a great contrast to Police Chief David O'Callaghan's slender, yet muscular look and his take charge personality. Like her appearance, Chelsea is more delicate than the rest of the characters in the cast, which I think adds a whole other dynamic to the books.

As for the bad guys, well, I can't say I'm not inspired by people who tick me off. I don't think any mystery writer isn't inspired by nasty former bad bosses or ex-spouses. I once had a listener on a radio show call in to offer up her ex-husband as a murder victim. It's great therapy.

However, by the time I finish writing the book, the character will end up not being anything like the live person who inspired me. That's because the mystery comes first. I know how the book is going to end, and how it will be resolved and very often, I will need to adjust a character's personality in order to make it work.

OMN: What is the best advice — and harshest criticism — you've received as an author?

LC: Best Advice: Write every day. Even if you are not writing something that you plan to publish, it's an exercise and skill that you need to exercise regularly, not unlike an athlete who must constantly train. If you don't write, then your skill will deteriorate.

Harshest Criticism: There was not one certain piece of bad advice, but rather an experience. Back thirty years ago, I went to my very first writers' conference. I paid an extra fee to have my first book critiqued by a New York Times best-selling mystery writer who was the featured author, who ripped my book apart.

It wasn't so much the criticism as it was the way she delivered it. She was so rude and arrogant that I finally blurted out, "How do you like the typing?" At that point, she stormed out. Later, I found out from another attendee at the conference that this author had told another writer that she had no talent and should give up writing. The writer was devastated.
I didn't write for a year after that experience. But then, I'm a writer and I realized that it is who I am and I did resume writing.

It was fifteen years before I attended another writers' conference and I certainly never went back to that conference. Since then, I have found that most authors are glad to be able to help new writers to encourage and help new writers to achieve their dreams. This author was the exception to the rule.

OMN: Tell us more about the book cover for Twelve to Murder. And is there any special meaning to the title?

LC: All of my book covers for the Mac Faraday Mysteries and the Lovers in Crime Mysteries are designed by Todd Aune of ProjetoOnline.com. Extremely talented, Todd is a dream to work with and very patient. He understands what it is like to work with authors, who are artists of the word.

Sometimes, I know exactly what I want on the cover. Other times, I have a vague idea. Then, there are the books where I have no idea. When that happens, working from the synopsis, Todd will come up with proofs going in different directions until we decide where I want to go.
With Twelve to Murder, I knew that I wanted a clock on the cover. The title is a variation of the phrase, "twelve to midnight." Lenny Frost, a suspect in the murder of his former talent agent and her husband, takes a pub hostage and gives Mac Faraday twelve hours to find the killer and prove he is innocent of the murders, or he is going to start killing hostages.

Mac has twelve hours to murder.

The watch on the cover is a real clock that Todd says belong to his grandfather. Since Lenny Frost's character is a former teen idol, now a second-rate stand-up comic, I suggested a stool and mike on an empty stage to represent Lenny's life since his fall from grace and how he is now alone both personally and profession … on a darkened stage.

OMN: What's next for you?

LC: Right now, I am working on two books!

Real Murder is the second installment in the Lovers in Crime Mystery that is planned for a May release.

When Homicide Detective Cameron Gates befriends the elderly neighbor next door, she is warned not to let herself get lured into helping the woman by investigating the unsolved murder of one of her girls. “She's senile,” Cameron is warned. “It is not a real murder.”

Not so. After the neighbor is brutally murdered, Cameron discovers that the sweet little blue haired lady was a retired madam and her “girl” was one of her call girls, murdered in a double homicide.

Meanwhile, county prosecutor Joshua Thornton is investigating the murder of a childhood friend, a sheriff deputy whose cruiser is found at the bottom of a local lake twenty years after his disappearance. At the time of his disappearance, he was investigating the murder of a local prostitute — a case that no one knew anything about.

It doesn't take long for Joshua and his new bride Cameron to put their cases together to reveal a long-kept secret that some believe is worth killing for.

A Wedding and a Killing is the next Mac Faraday Mystery that is aiming for a June release — just in time for summer weddings!

When Mac Faraday decides to do something, there's no stopping him … even murder.

Not wanting to wait until their big day to start their life of wedded bliss, Mac and his lady love, Archie Monday, decide to elope and get married in secret at Spencer Church, where Mac's grandparents and great-grandparents had been married. However, before the reverend can say, "I do," the sanctuary erupts into chaos when Gnarly finds a dead body in the church office.

As they dive into the investigation, Mac and his team discover more questions than answers. What kind of person walks into a church and shoots a man for no apparent reason? When the victim's life turns up no suspects who would want to kill the quiet, mild-mannered accountant, the question becomes how do you solve the murder of a man who has no enemy in the world?

And then, there is the all-important question, when a murder is discovered before the reverend says "I do," are the couple married?

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Lauren Carr 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.

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 year, several books, over a variety of genre, written by independent authors will be released through the management of Acorn Book Services, which is currently accepting submissions. Visit the Acorn Book Services website for more information.

Lauren lives with her husband, son, and three dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV. For more information about the author and her work, please visit her website at MysteryLady.net, read her Literary Wealth blog, or find her on Facebook.

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Twelve To Murder
Lauren Carr
A Mac Faraday Mystery

Two people are brutally murdered in their summer place on Deep Creek Lake. Suspected of the murders, former child star and one-time teenybopper idol Lenny Frost takes innocent bystanders hostage in a local pub and demands that Mac Faraday find the killer.

Can Mac save the hostages and himself from the wrath of the enraged has-been by piecing together the clues in less than twelve hours, or will it be a fatal last call at the stroke of midnight?