with Susan Slater
We are delighted to welcome mystery author Susan Slater to Omnimystery News today.
Susan's second mystery in her Dan Mahoney series is Rollover (Poisoned Pen Press; July 2014 hardcover, trade paperback and ebook formats), and we recently had the chance to catch up with her to talk about her books.
— ♦ —
Omnimystery News: Why did you choose a male character as the lead for your mystery series?
Photo provided courtesy of
Susan Slater
Susan Slater: In 1991, I was under the influence of Susan Isaacs' Magic Hour — a novel written by a woman from a male POV. It was believable and more importantly "right" for the story and opened up a realm of possibilities for me. I was just toying with the idea of writing a novel — isn't that the ultimate/end all for an English major? Had I wasted that BA and MA in Lit if I couldn't just sit down and pen the next great American novel?
Well, welcome to the struggle. By that time in life I had probably read novels that numbered in the thousands and wasn't it like osmosis? I would have just automatically picked up how to do it? I hadn't. I was faced with a hundred small dilemmas — the most pressing being who would tell my story? The book I had in mind turned into Flash Flood, the first Dan Mahoney mystery.
So, why a male, in this case, insurance investigator? I could move him around. Mobility seemed important and I needed someone foot loose and free enough to just pick up, put the dog in a kennel and go. I envisioned my lead's lifestyle as more male than female. It didn't dawn on me that there was anything odd about choosing an opposite-sex "voice". And it certainly didn't dawn on me that I couldn't write it.
To sum up, I'd like to think I've nailed it.
OMN: How much of your own experience have you included in your books?
SS: All my books but one, some seven or eight to date, are based on real "happenings". In some cases it's been truth is stranger than fiction that has caught my imagination. For example, my latest Dan Mahoney mystery, Rollover, revolves around a bank heist. But not a normal one.
First of all, it takes place in Wagon Mound, New Mexico, a really small town which might limit resources. Secondly, the robbery is achieved by tunneling into a vault of safe deposit boxes — not the vault holding cash. And thirdly, the crime has never been solved.
What was in that small bank in a safe deposit box or boxes that was worth all that work to get to? It really sparked my imagination and what fun to come up with my own version of what could have been so important.
OMN: Describe your writing process for us.
SS: First of all, before a finger touches the computer keys, as a mystery writer I know what's worth dying for. I may not know the "who" but I always know the "what". And I have a working title. From there I come up with four key, turning point, issues. For example, If I'm planning out roughly four hundred pages, I'll have a major event in the beginning, at the end of the first one hundred pages, the second one hundred and the third before I wrap things up.
These are each major "further the plot" kinds of events — some of them surprises for the reader. I put them down on paper and then I write to them. For example, I write in roughly ten page "scenes" and plan ten such scenes in each one hundred page block. These scenes are also movable. There's nothing worse than writing away on page two hundred and fifty only to realize that your reader needs to know that material way before that point in the book.
I used to keep everything in my head. I honestly think the twists and turns of writing a mystery will stave off Alzheimers! Mysteries are my cross-word puzzles. But now I don't trust memory as much, I make lists of possible events, character quirks, places to take them.
The Dan Mahoney series is famous for having a lot of characters. And the books don't start out that way. People, necessary to the plot, just present themselves. I've learned to let them in — if they think they belong there, they always do.
OMN: How do you go about researching the plot points of your stories?
SS: I often wonder if I were having to use pencil and paper to write would I be a writer. The Internet is just too easy, too right there, and often offers a nice break — I can't even imagine having to go to a library for the bulk of background material.
The fun part is consulting with experts. Whether it's on a shooting range, in a morgue, or at the dog track … I've had wonderful interviews and made some friends along the way. My very first book in the Ben Pecos series was the most challenging — my killer was the Hanta Virus. But the book I'm working on now, Hair of the Dog, and third in the Dan Mahoney series is proving to be the most fun.
OMN: How true are you to the settings of your books?
SS: When I was writing about New Mexico, the mesas and adobe structures were as important to my stories as snow is to Fargo. The setting often was a character! The state lends itself to the picturesque. In Rollover I use the lesser Plains and set the story in rural country whose very existence may surprise some readers. Tall grass in a state known for mountains and ski slopes?
I spent time in Wagon Mound and interviewed a number of citizens — getting their take on the robbery — still a hot topic some fifteen years later. I used authentic street names and made up some others. I described the bank in detail more or less to spec but took license with the boarding house where Dan and Elaine stay. So I guess I would say that I am fairly true to local geography.
Originally, I couldn't have imagined Dan Mahoney working anywhere but New Mexico. Then I moved to Florida. Oops. Luckily as an insurance investigator, he's movable because in Hair of the Dog, I tackle greyhound racing. Florida has over half of all working dog tracks in the US. A topic ripe for discussion. And, once again, the backdrop will be everything — think how much fun it is to write about Daytona Beach.
OMN: What's next for you?
SS: Anytime I reach a hundred and fifty or more pages when writing a book, I'm too committed to throw the project away. I have two hefty "starts" sitting on the shelf that are crying for attention. Someday both will be finished. But in the meantime I'm having a great time with Dan.
Number three for Dan is Hair of the Dog,as I've mentioned, and I'm toying with a number four — Epiphany. It seems some priceless relics disappear from the basilica in St. Augustine, Florida …
— ♦ —
Susan Slater lived in New Mexico for over 30 years, but now makes her home in Florida. A long-time college instructor of writing, she now writes full-time.
— ♦ —
Rollover
Susan Slater
A Dan Mahoney Mystery
A bank heist turns sleepy little Wagon Mound, New Mexico, on its ear. It's no straight-forward, "demand all the money at gun-point and hustle out the front door" kind of robbery. It's a sneaky tunneling that probably took months to complete and landed the thieves in a room of safe deposit boxes — not the vault with two million bucks for a ranch sale next door. Was this some mistake, or was the thieves' target the Tiffany-designed sapphire and diamond necklace belonging to eighty-five year old Gertrude Kennedy, a family heirloom from the days of the Titanic?
The necklace is insured with United Life and Casualty for half a million. The company sends their ace investigator, Dan Mahoney, a Chicagoan still in New Mexico recuperating from events in Flash Food, and romancing the intrepid Elaine Linden, to the scene of the crime. Delayed when his Jeep overheats, Dan catches a ride and is the hapless passenger in a rollover that kills the driver and lands Dan in Santa Fe's hospital.
Dan soon learns the rollover was no accident. Someone wants him kept out of Wagon Mound at any cost. Dan hasn't lived his life looking over his shoulder and he's not starting now. But when Elaine disappears and people close to the case, like the bank's manager, turn up dead, he suspects there's more going on than a robbery. The note slipped under his rented room's door in the dead of night says it all — "it's not what you think".
