Going Back to the Dark Side
By Elaine Viets
I've left the light and gone back home – and my home is dark, violent and bloody. After twenty-five cozy and traditional mysteries, I'm writing dark mysteries again: the Angela Richman, Death Investigator series.
My first series, the Francesca Vierling newspaper mysteries, was hardboiled. When Random House bought Bantam Dell and wiped out that division, I switched to the funny, traditional Dead-End Job mysteries, featuring Helen Hawthorne. The Art of Murder, now in paperback, is the 15th Dead-End Job mystery. I also wrote ten cozy Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper mysteries.
I love both series, but I never abandoned the dark side. I wrote dark short stories for Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and anthologies edited by Charlaine Harris and Lawrence Block. I wanted to spend more time on the dark side, but I didn't want to do another police procedural or a private eye with a dead wife or a drinking problem. Other writers had done those and done them well.
Angela Richman, my new protagonist, is a death investigator in mythical Chouteau Country, Missouri, stronghold of the over-privileged and the people who serve them. Brain Storm was the first mystery in the new death investigator series. Fire and Ashes, the second Angela mystery, will be published July 25.
My death investigator mysteries aren't too gory – not like Patricia Cornwell's "I boiled my dead boyfriend's head." This series is closer to Kathy Reichs' Tempe Brennan series. Janet Rudolph, who heads Mystery Readers International, believes this may be the only death investigator series.
Many readers aren't familiar with DIs, but the profession is nationwide. At a murder the death investigator is in charge of the body, and the police handle the rest of the crime scene. The DI photographs the body, documents its wounds, records the body core temperature, clothing and more. Death investigators work for the medical examiner. They are trained professionals, but do not have medical degrees. They're like paralegals for the medical examiner. I wanted the training – and the contacts – to make the new series accurate. I passed the Medicolegal Death Investigators Training Course for forensic professionals at St. Louis University, a two-credit college course.
Here's how the sizzling Fire and Ashes begins:
Five fire engines, two ladder trucks, a portable light truck, a battalion chief’s van, and what looked like every cop car in Chouteau County were fighting this fire. Death investigator Angela Richman knew it was already too late—she was summoned only for death. Tonight, someone had died in that blazing building, choked by the smoke and seared by those flames. Angela oversaw the bodies at Chouteau County crime scenes or unattended deaths. The death investigator reported to the county medical examiner.
Who was it? Angela didn’t know yet. The detective’s call was cryptic: “Luther Ridley Delor’s house is on fire. One body so far. They’re bringing it out. Get over there now.” Seventy-year-old Luther called himself a financier to take away the sting of how his family made a trainload of money: running a nationwide chain of payday loan companies. People—especially desperate ones—knew the slogan “You get more with Delor.” Was the old man dead? Was the victim his young fiancée? Or did a friend or servant die in that hellish fire?
Luther's fiancée, a twenty-year-old Mexican-American manicurist, Kendra Salvato, is blamed for the fatal fire. After all, she's an outsider who's already made off with $2 million of the old lech's money. She's also accused of setting arson fires in this posh neighborhood. The Forest burns with prejudice and betrayal, and Angela has to fight it with the forensic facts.
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Elaine Viets has written 31 books four series: the dark Francesca Vierling newspaper mysteries, the traditional, humorous Dead-End Job mysteries, and the cozy Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper mysteries. She returned to the dark side with Brain Storm, the first mystery in her Angela Richman, death investigator series. Fire and Ashes is her latest novel. You can find Elaine at www.elaineviets.com
Pre-order the Fire and Ashes e-book for $3.99 through July 25 here: http://tinyurl.com/ltfxsyy
