It's A Crime

Welcome Guest Blogger, Jim Stevens

I’m thrilled to introduce our guest blogger today, Jim Stevens, a fellow author who writes humorous mysteries. I have a lot of respect for anyone who can write “funny stuff” and his are truly funny. It is difficult to read an excerpt from any page in one of his books and not smile, and in many places I laughed out loud.

In addition to his Richard Sherlock Whodunit Series, he wrote a book called Whupped (no mystery here), which is my personal favorite. The language is a little rough in that one, so if you have tender ears, stick to his mysteries.

Jim Stevens was born in the East, grew up in the West, schooled in the Northwest, and spent twenty-three winters in the Midwest. He has been an advertising copywriter, playwright, filmmaker, stand-up comedian, and television producer.

Teresa Burrell

Author, Attorney, Advocate

It’s A Crime

It’s downright criminal; there are so many crimes for readers to choose from.

Yesterday, I was trying to come up with excuses to avoid working on my latest Richard Sherlock Whodunit. I do this quite often when I’m stuck, can’t find the right word, or it’s really nice outside and I’m sitting at this computer without an original thought in my head. I Googled away, and guess what I find: TOO MANY DARN DETECTIVE BOOKS OUT THERE. Do you realize there are kid, adult, teenage, tweener, and senior citizen detectives? There are housewives, divorced wives, divorced husbands, shrinks, psychologists, marriage counselors, medical examiners, nosy neighbors, dog sitters, and even writers (who write about other writers solving crimes) figuring out whodidit, howtheydidit, and whytheydidit. There are blind detectives, detectives missing limbs, detectives with diseases, deaf detectives, there’s even a series about an overweight female detective who tries new diets while solving murder cases. What’s next, a detective who figures it all out even though he’s in a coma?

I think someone should impose a moratorium on the writing and creation of all new detective characters. Why? Because we don’t need any more, there’s plenty out there already. Any more will just muck up the muck even further and make it harder and harder to find the good ones, like the ones I’ve written.

Jim Stevens

Author of The Richard Sherlock Whodunit series

The Case of the Not-So-Fair Trader

The Case of Moomah’s Moolah

The Case of Tiffany’s Epiphany 

We know Jim is joking, but he he is certainly correct about all the different sleuths we encounter in mysteries. What is the most unusual mystery series character that you have ever read? Or have written? Or have thought about writing?

Working Crimes with Detective Jackson

by L.J. Sellers, author or provocative mysteries & thrillers

Rules of Crime, Detective Jackson's 7th novel, released this week. For those who haven't met him yet, here's a post in Jackson's perspective. (Originally published by Dru's Book Musings.)

Actor Hugh Jackman

"Detective Jackson, Eugene Police Department." That's how I introduce myself to witnesses and suspects, so that's why this series is called the Detective Jackson series and not the Wade Jackson series. No one calls me Wade, except my girlfriend Kera, and she doesn't do it often.

I wake up most mornings at 5:30, even on weekends if I’m working the first few days of a homicide, which often go round-the-clock. Most days, I’m home long enough to have breakfast with my daughter, Katie, then drive her to high school. I was a single parent even before I divorced, because my ex-wife is an alcoholic and not someone Katie can depend on.

And I'm a workaholic, so my daughter is rather self-sufficient. That's my greatest struggle every day: How do I be a good father to the person I love most in the world and keep my hometown of Eugene, Oregon safe from violent offenders?

At the department, I check my emails and phone messages like any other public servant, but that after that my day gets interesting. My boss, a big gruff woman named Sergeant Lammers, often assigns me a new case or wants an update on the case I'm working. Those are the easy ones. More typically, I get called out to homicide scenes during a date with Kera or on a weekend spent building a trike with my daughter. Murder has no boundaries or patterns, but I seem to catch the toughest cases at the strangest times.

Whenever I get the call, I drop what I'm doing and get out to the crime scene. I like to arrive before the medical examiner does so I have chance to look at the body and the scene up close. On television, the detective often takes a long look around and announces something like "The intruder came in through the window, grabbed the trophy from the fireplace and conked the victim on the head."

It's never like that for me. I get cases where a young girl is found dead in a dumpster without a mark on her—and no leads or witnesses. Or a whole family has been assaulted and killed and the evidence is too messy to make sense of. In my last homicide case, a young veteran was found dead in his car with his throat slit.

Solving murders is often tedious work. Hours spent looking at phone or bank records and days spent tracking down family members, boyfriends, and co-workers to interview. The case often breaks because the killer, in desperation, commits another crime or makes a fatal mistake.

Actor Viggo Mortensen

Or often, it's one of my task force members who sees the connections that lead us to the guilty party. Or a crime lab technician who discovers a key piece of forensic evidence. We're all part of a team, and we've worked together for years. My detective partners are also my best friends, because they're the only people I really trust. Chasing criminals will do that to you.

The case I'm working now (Rules of Crime) is personal—my ex-wife has been kidnapped, and the FBI is leading the task force. My partner, Detective Lara Evans, is investigating the assault of a young woman who was beaten and dumped at the hospital. Any minute now, we'll compare notes and discover how these crimes are connected. I hope you'll be there for the revelation.

And what do you think? Should Hugh Jackman play my part when I make it to the big screen? Or maybe Viggo Mortensen?