“THE ORIGIN OF MURDER”---BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE NEWEST ROGER AND SUZANNE NOVEL

This entry will be posted to my blog when I submit “The Origin of Murder” to Amazon for publication.  It usually takes Amazon about 24 hours to publish a book after the author uploads it to KDP site, so wait till tomorrow before you check out the new book page.  I thought a bit of background, if not the book itself, might interest some of the readers of this blog.

In "The Origin of Murder", Roger, Suzanne, Robert, and Bruce take a vacation cruise through the Galapagos Islands, 600 miles west of Ecuador. Of course, Suzanne finds another dead body floating in the Pacific Ocean and we're off to solve another deadly mystery.  Among the suspects are a mysterious travel agent, a bird watching couple from Germany, a newlywed couple on their honeymoon, two sisters from San Francisco, and couples from Uruguay and Australia.

PROGRESS IN THE GALAPAGOS AND OTHER STUFF

            The current Work In Progress reached a milestone.   The first draft of “The Origin of Murder” is complete, I’ve also completed the first round of edits, and a copy is currently being read by my wife with her trusty blue pen.   I like this new book, which started with rediscovering Elaine’s journal describing her impressions of what we saw when we took the cruise through the Galapagos Islands that Roger, Suzanne, and their entourage take in this current novel.   The plot evolved from the original idea (which is still the central theme of “Whydunit”), to a much more complex story as the peripheral characters began clamoring for enhanced identities and backstories.   “Whodunit” evolved with the novel.   Along the way I ended up doing a lot of research (I’d tell you about what, but that would be a spoiler) and learned a lot about [CENSORED] and [CENSORED].

THE NEWEST ROGER AND SUZANNE NOVEL

The current Work In Progress is almost completed through the first draft stage.   I don’t have a title yet.   Here’s the set-up.   Roger and Suzanne, along with Robert and Bruce, are taking a long overdue vacation tour though the Galapagos Islands.   This is another fascinating piece of South America Elaine and I have visited that I wanted to share with my readers.   On the second day of the tour, as their Zodiac raft motors towards one of the islands Suzanne finds a dead body floating in the ocean just off the beach.   And we’re into another South American mystery novel starring my favorite couple of detectives.   And there to help are Eduardo Gomez, his wife Sophia who we'll meet for the first time, and the mysterious General Vincente Aleman. 

SOUTH AMERICAN MUSEUMS AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

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One of the things we never learned about when I went to school was the history of South America before the Spanish Conquest.  There was (and still is) a rich history, much of which we know about in some detail, culminating with the ascendency of the Incan Empire in the 15^th Century.  One of the benefits of wandering through Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador is getting exposed to this rich and fascinating history of pre-Colombian South America.

A Historical Discovery

Where does the next new book idea come from?  In this case I can give us a very simple and precise answer.  After a lot of years it was time to paint the inside of our house again. That in turn was an excuse (necessity?) to reorganize messy desks and closets and peek into various cracks and crevices. Even (shudder!) to throw away a lot of old junk. But we unearthed a few lost treasures, too. One of them was Elaine's journal from our trip to Quito, Guayaquil, and The Galápagos Islands several years ago. This little bit of hidden treasure ensures that somewhere on the to-do list is a visit to the Galápagos Islands and a body or two for Roger and Suzanne to discover among the Booby Birds and the tortoises. I've also been meaning to re-read Darwin's classic treatise, "Origin of Species", so it might be an excuse to sprinkle a bit of biology into a novel. We'll see.

We met a few very interesting people on that trip. I assume that Roger and Suzanne will meet their fictional doppelgangers in this book to be (book in utero?). These characters should include the two sisters from San Francisco and the mysterious handsome Ecuadorian dude, Raul, who was trying so hard to pick them up (in the face of little or no resistance to the idea).  Raul had his big secret in real life.  Should that secret also transfer to his fictional doppelganger?  I strongly suspect that it will.  One of the low spots of that trip was the taxi drivers' strike in Quito where they closed down travel in the city by setting huge bonfires consisting of burning old tires on the main boulevards.   I don't know if I'll try to work that experience into the story.  One of the high spots of our trip was sitting next to an Ecuadorian Air Force General on the flight from Guayaquil to Baltra and learning about what the Air Force of a modern South American country just to the south of Colombia does.  I'm sure the general will make a guest appearance in the book.  He'll probably get a good sized chunk of the Baltra chapter to himself.

We talked about new technology and writing blog entries more or less spontaneously in an earlier post.  Here's a great example of it.  I have a 1.5 hour train ride and my iPad.  As I sit here now on the Amtrak train traveling from Davis to Oakland, CA for a meeting, I've been thinking about this book, for which I just started writing some scenes. To my right, through the train window, is a beautiful view of the north end of San Francisco Bay.  Next stop is Martinez if you know the route.  Or even if you don't.  My thoughts are on this book in utero. Will this be a romantic getaway just for Roger and Suzanne or should Robert and Bruce be invited along for the trip? Should Eduardo Gomez fly over from Paraguay to meet them or will he be superfluous this time? How about Vincent Romero, Roger's new partner in his detective agency? Decisions, decisions, decisions!