with Leon Shure
We are delighted to welcome author Leon Shure to Omnimystery News today.
Leon's new mystery is the second in his City of Brunswik series, Littlemayor (August 2014 ebook formats), an excerpt of which we'll feature later this week.
We recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Leon to talk more about his mysteries.
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Omnimystery News: You are the author of multiple series mysteries. Tell us a little more about them.
Leon Shure: I am currently writing five mystery series: (1) the Tommy Spevak and Kate Wehring mysteries, about an impaired veteran and an investigative reporter; (2), the Vanek mysteries, about a crusty and devious Chicago Police Detective; (3) the Dr. Adam Karl mysteries, about a medical doctor fighting against his fate; (4) the Cal Hodges mysteries, about a law firm investigator who is haunted by his past, and (5) the City of Brunswik mysteries, which are tales of political skullduggery.
My characters vary in age and ethnic backgrounds and each series has its own continuing cast of characters. They run the gamut from good to murderous. My main characters are not extraordinary geniuses and, sometimes, are even bad detectives. They are just people caught up in mysteries they can't avoid. Whatever happens to my main character, he or she must really use all their resources, while trying to keep their objectivity, not to mention their sanity. Each has an unusual and unique way of looking at life. They all have a sense of humor and irony. Sometimes romance is possible, but that is not my main concern.
Probably my most unique character is Dr. Adam Karl, a neurologist who struggles against perceptual problems and a difficult family history. His mysteries have received the best reviews, earning five stars.
Also, I write in another genre, humor. My tweet collections #Conversationstoppers: Puns, Non Sequiturs and Impossible Scenarios have been the most popular of my books.
I don't really see my books of puns as being separate from my other work. All my books have a significant amount of word play, and my book titles sometimes are puns, as in the book, Deep Lucy which is "deep blue sea." My next published book will be entitled Isle of Few.
OMN: All of your books are set in the North Shore area of Chicago. Why is that?
LS: I suppose I'm just fascinated with the North Shore area. It is diverse, but mostly, the North Shore is a place of wealth that has had great impact on the nation as a whole. How the best and the brightest from all ethnic and social backgrounds become part of the North Shore is one of the main themes of my books.
I went to school at Northwestern University, which is in Evanston, Illinois, one of Chicago's North Shore suburbs. The Evanston of my recurring dreams has become the imaginary typical North Shore suburb of Brunswik.
The North Shore is, of course, at the southern tip of Lake Michigan.
OMN: With so many series, have there been any cross-over characters?
LS: Usually the main character stays in his or her own series, but many of my books have characters who have appeared before.
Some of the secondary characters, especially Detective Berringer and his reporter wife, seem to pop up in the various other series and, by popular demand, became the lead characters in Audition for Murder, the first in the City of Brunswik series. Another example is Officer Marcus Smith, who first appears in the Detective Vanek series and becomes the partner of Detective Berringer in Audition for Murder and Littlemayor.
A reader can start with any of my books or with any series. Each book is complete in itself. If information from past books is needed as background for a character, I'm careful to reintroduce these facts. Also, I try to specify in the book blurbs who is returning, so the reader, if he or she wants, can continue reading about a favorite character from series to series.
OMN: The recurring character of your City of Brunswik series is a woman. Do you feature both men and women as leads?
LS: Yes. My female characters are strong, resolute, and intelligent. They are as fully presented as possible and are a combination of the wonderful women I've known in my life. There are always clashes of sensibilities and problems that must be resolved. Romance is not their main concern but sometimes can't be avoided.
OMN: How do you categorize your books within the mystery genre?
LS: I consider my books to be police procedurals with a bit of thriller and cozy thrown in for good measure. The Kate Wehring books and the Dr. Karl books have subplots that often depend on possible, not so far-fetched, scientific discoveries, which may feasibly occur in the near future.
OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in your books?.
LS: I have worked as both a reporter and a lawyer. As such, I've met many people, all of whom live on in various ways in my imagination. None of the characters are actual people I knew, but I may have put together some traits from several people to form characters.
OMN: Tell us a little more about your writing process.
LS: I have been writing full time since January 2009. I produce about three books a year. I write a first draft, then put it aside while I write the next book. When I've completed that second book, I edit the first draft and publish.
I am very disciplined about writing each day, seven days a week. I write whether I'm happy or sad, sick or well, in crisis or not. I do not wait for inspiration, but muddle through. Productivity is obviously not one of my problems. I use Scrivener, which, I think, is the best writing program.
My plots are often drawn from the newspapers, after these stories are chewed and spit out by my imagination.
OMN: asdf
LS: I try to alternate series. Since I write so much, the reader can count on my publishing the next book in a series in a little more than a year. I can't promise I won't start new series, but I aim to give the readers some continuity in the others.
My next book, already in first draft, is a new Kate Wehring book, which I expect to publish around Christmas. I'm working now on a first draft of Bursting Baubles, a Cal Hodges mystery.
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Leon Shure is a life-long resident of the Chicago area, and has lived both in the city and in the North and Northwest suburbs. A bachelors and masters graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Shure worked for the Lerner Newspapers (a chain of weeklies in the city); the Day Newspapers, a suburban daily newspaper chain owned by Field Enterprises, now the Chicago Sun-Times; and Paddock Publications, a chain of daily newspapers in the Northwest suburbs, where he worked as a police reporter. He received the Jacob Sher Award for Outstanding Investigative Reporting.
As a lawyer, Shure served as an attorney for a Federal Agency and has held elective office in local governments.
He is married and has two children.
For more information about the author, please find him Twitter.
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Littlemayor
Leon Shure
A City of Brunswik Mystery
Tiny but feisty Mayor Maggie Wellington finds her life and political career threatened when a developer of a shopping mall goes missing and an alderman dies in an arson.
Mac
