We are delighted to welcome author Bruce W. Most to Omnimystery News today.
Bruce's new mystery is titled Murder on the Tracks (Black Opal Books; September 2015 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we recently had the opportunity to spend some time with him talking about his work.
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Omnimystery News: Introduce us to the lead character of Murder on the Tracks.
Photo provided courtesy of
Bruce W. Most
Bruce W. Most: The protagonist is Joe Stryker, a street cop in 1949 Denver. Joe and his rookie partner discover a body on the tracks in the skid-row area. Homicide dismisses it as the accidental death of a drifter. But Joe comes to suspect the victim is linked to the murder of Joe's partner two years before, a death for which Joe blames himself. The body on the tracks is his chance to avenge his partner's death.
But Joe's superiors warn him to stay off the case, at the risk of his career. His clandestine investigation takes him from the familiar world of Denver's seamy side to the unfamiliar world of Denver's rich and powerful involving blackmail, murder, a battle over water rights, adultery, and an unhinged actress. His wife fears chasing his past could cost him their marriage and his life. As Joe learns, murder is easy … redemption is hard.
OMN: What is it about Joe Stryker that appeals to you as a writer?
BWM: I'm attracted to protagonists whose past colors their present. Joe's guilt over his partner's death drives his dangerous obsession to solve this new murder. I'm also attracted to protagonists who are fish out of water. Although Joe is a street-smart cop, he's not a detective and he's certainly not comfortable nosing around Denver's rich and powerful.
An even better example of being a fish out of water is my previous novel, Rope Burn, set in contemporary Wyoming cattle country. Former Baltimore detective Nick DeNunzio has come west to escape a broken marriage and a troubled career. Needing money, he hires on as a stock detective in Wyoming to stop a string of cattle thefts. Chasing modern-day rustlers ought to be a lark for Nick, but the thefts turn violent and people begin turning up dead. Although Nick once rode mounted patrol in Baltimore, he remains a city slicker who knows nothing about rustling or ranching. He must rely on his wits and his investigative skills as a former detective in a world where he is an outsider.
Being a fish out of water provides two benefits for a mystery protagonist. First, it creates inherent tension and suspense — and often humor — because the character must operate in a very different world. It also gives me the ability to inform the reader about a world or subject they might not be familiar with through the eyes of a protagonist also unfamiliar with that world. My ability to explore ranching and cattle rustling would be more limited if my protagonist were himself a cowboy, since cowboys wouldn't talk among themselves about things they already know (such as cattle brands, which figure into the plot).
OMN: Back in the mid-90s you had two mysteries published featuring a recurring character. But your two most recent books are stand-alones. Have you considering writing a series again?
BWM: I grew up on Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and similar series characters. Poirot is a great fictional invention, but I would have gone mad writing 33 books about him. With stand-alones, or a limited number of books with the same character, I can play with what writers in the biz call "character arc." I like seeing characters change, for better or worse, over the course of a novel, or say 2-3 novels. You can do that to some extent with series characters, but it's more difficult to pull off.
Perhaps most of all, I love the variety of story settings, plots, themes, and characters I can tackle with stand-alones. I've published novels about a bail bondswoman, a city-slicker cop in Wyoming, and a post-World War Two Denver street cop. I just finished a mystery about a freelance writer who "doesn't have time for murder." On my plate is a novel based on a famous crime photographer in New York City in 1939, a mystery tied to the Vietnam War, and, if I ever get to it, a mystery based on a famous bombing in 1920 New York City. I love doing the research and working with material, plots, and characters that don't feel derivative of my previous novels. This approach is probably not good from a career standpoint — readers find comfort in coming back again and again to detective characters they like — but you gotta write what you gotta write.
OMN: Into which genre would you place Murder on the Tracks?
BWM: Hard-boiled would be the closest description, though how hard-boiled varies from book to book. Murder on the Tracks is definitely harder boiled, channeling Raymond Chandler, my all-time favorite mystery writer. While labels have their disadvantages if you're blending categories, or breaking categories all together, they're useful for readers. If cozies are your thing, you probably don't want to buy a paranormal mystery by accident. Labels can be useful for the writer as well. It helps to know the conventions of a particular category of mystery you're writing in (say cozy versus hard-boiled), if for no other reason than to artfully break the conventions.
OMN: Give us a summary of Murder on the Tracks in a tweet.
BWM: A burned-out cop discovers a body linked to the murder of his partner two years before, but as he soon learns, murder is easy … redemption is hard.
And here's one for my other stand-alone, Rope Burn:
A former city-slicker cop investigates cattle rustling and murder in contemporary Wyoming.
OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in your books?
BWM: Neither the characters nor the plot of Murder on the Tracks is based on specific events or people. In Rope Burn, I have in-laws who work a ranch in Wyoming, so I'm familiar with cattle ranching — though I'm lousy on a horse. In the mystery I just finished, the main character, a freelance writer with a harried professional and family life, is as autobiographical as it gets.
OMN: Tell us a little more about your writing process.
BWM: I might best be described as a muddler. I'm not a pantser in the sense I sit down and start writing with little story in mind. I brainstorm plot, character, settings, themes, and some scenes before I start, but I don't write a full, detailed synopsis or character biographies or lay out every scene in advance. For one thing, after a certain amount of research and brainstorming, I get antsy to write. Second, I like the discovery of writing. Too much advance plotting makes it feel I'm painting by the numbers. In Murder on the Tracks, I wrote a scene in which a walk-on character's sole role was to provide technical information to my protagonist. Nothing more. He wasn't a suspect or a victim. It was a one-scene walk-on, walk-off bit. For reasons only the Muses know, as I wrote the scene I decided to stick the character in a wheelchair, just to distinguish him slightly. Then I started thinking, why is he in the wheelchair? The answers lead to a larger and larger role that fundamentally changed the plot. I would never I have come up with that plotting in advance.
OMN: How true are you to the settings of your books?
BWM: Setting is extremely important in my novels. Denver is a moisture-starved city, and a battle over water rights in the growing post-war town figures prominently in Murder on the Tracks. In Rope Burn, the flat, barren landscape is a character unto itself, shaping both plot and human characters in the book. I often use real landmarks and street names. Anyone who lived in the 1940s in Denver would recognize Larimer Street, then Denver's skid row, and its environs. I set Rope Burn exactly where my in-laws live, and people who live around there would recognize the descriptions. But I changed the names of communities and other local landmarks to protect the innocent.
OMN: If you could travel anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, to research the setting for a book, where would it be?
BWM: Vietnam. I want to write is a mystery set in the mid-1980s about someone killing members of a group of American war veterans to cover up a crime and a dark secret committed by the group during the war. The book would include numerous flashbacks to Vietnam, so I would love to travel to Vietnam to get a first-hand feel of the culture, geography, sights, and smells.
OMN: What is the best advice — and harshest criticism — you've received as an author? And what might you say to aspiring writers?
BWM: It's a cliché, but to succeed at writing you have to put your butt in a chair and write. Muses may inspire what you write, but they won't put you in the chair. Sitting in the chair and starting to write is what attracts muses, like moths to light.
Write 100 words, 1,000 words, whatever you can manage each time you sit down. Good, bad, indifferent words. Do it the next day and the day after that. Don't look up. Don't be intimidated by the need to write 75,000 words. Just keep writing each day. The words will pile up and before you know it, you will have finished your first draft. Then you begin rewriting and do it all over again until the book is the best you can make it.
The other advice I'd offer aspiring writers is to not confuse wanting to be an author with wanting to be a writer. I've met many a wannabe writer who loves the idea of being a published "author" but lacks a deep-down hunger to write. I love creating, and writing words to bring that creation to light. Without that desire, you have little chance to finish a book, let alone get it published.
The harshest criticism I've received? Well, I have a box full of rejection slips.
OMN: What kinds of books did you read when you were young?
BWM: I read a variety of genres, from science fiction to thrillers. But I especially loved mysteries and the puzzles they presented. I still have around 100 Earle Stanley Gardner novels my grandfather gave me when I was young. I consumed Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Dorothy Sayers, Dashiell Hammet, and most of all, Raymond Chandler.
OMN: What's next for you?
BWM: I'm writing a second mystery about Joe Stryker, Dark Riders, set two years later in 1951. Joe is trying to rebuild his career and marriage in the aftermath of Murder on the Tracks. All he wants to be is a good cop, a good husband, and now a good father. But his efforts are put in jeopardy when the unthinkable happens — another partner is murdered almost in front of his eyes. To find out why his partner was killed — while committing a crime — Joe must once again defy his own corrupt police department and put his marriage and life at risk.
OMN: That sounds like a series.
BWM: I don't envision Stryker becoming a series — unless the world clamors for more!
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Bruce Most is a mystery novelist and former freelance writer. In addition to his mysteries, he ghostwrote a self-help book, The Power of Choice, and wrote over 1000 articles on financial planning topics for the Financial Planning Association. He and his wife live in Denver, Colorado.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at BruceWMost.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook.
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Murder on the Tracks by Bruce W. Most
A Joe Stryker Mystery
Publisher: Black Opal Books
When Joe Stryker, a burned-out, disgraced 1949 Denver street cop, discovers a body on the railroad tracks with a crushed skull and missing hands, he sees his shot at redemption. He believes the body is linked to the murder of his partner two years before, a murder for which Joe blames himself. But seeking redemption can come at a high price.
Joe must not only hunt down a ruthless killer but tangle with Denver's wealthy and powerful, a wannabe mobster, and his own police department, at the risk of his career, his marriage — and his life.
— Murder on the Tracks by Bruce W. Most
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