Going Back Where I Started

By Elaine Viets

I'm going back to the dark side, and I can't wait to tell you about it.
Brain Storm, my first mystery featuring Death Investigator Angela Richman, will be published August 2. Death investigators work for the medical examiner. They take charge of the body, photographing it, documenting the wounds, and more. The police investigate the rest of the crime scene.

Why return to this gritty world?
Because I was in the mood for hardheaded forensics. To return to the dark side, I took the Medicolegal Death Investigators Training Course for forensic professionals, given by St. Louis University's School of Medicine. The intense training gave me the latest forensic information. Here's one day at this two-credit college course:
We learned about gunshot fatalities, explosion-related deaths, motor vehicle fatalities and drowning. At lunch we watched a teen driving and alcohol video. After lunch was alcohol-related deaths, suicide, blunt-trauma fatalities and more.
I met impressive professionals, from police chiefs to pathologists to real death investigators.

I didn't want to write a dark series with the same old protagonists: the retired cop learning to live with his heart-wrenching divorce or the private eye who drinks to kill "the big hurt." Other writers have done those novels, and done them well.
Instead, I turned my fascination with death investigators into a series featuring DI Angela Richman. This is a unique series. Janet Rudolph, head of Mystery Readers International, believes no other series features a death investigator.
Angela lives in mythical Chouteau County, just west of St. Louis. The rich live in the town of Chouteau Forest, a bastion of old money. The workers live in an area nicknamed Toonerville. But death doesn't discriminate between the rich and the poor. Angela works cases for the super-wealthy as well as the down-and-out. She believes the dead can talk, and they tell her when and how they died. The Angela Richman series is dark, but it's not as gruesome as Patricia Cornwell's novels. It's closer to Kathy Reichs's Tempe Brennan mysteries.
Brain Storm is a deeply personal mystery, which reflects my own fight to survive six strokes, a coma, and brain surgery. It's also the first dark mystery novel I've written in years.
I started writing dark mysteries. My first mystery series featured Francesca Vierling, a six-foot-tall St. Louis newspaper columnist. Tough, glamorous Francesca drove an '86 Jaguar. I wrote four hardboiled Francesca mysteries. The Francesca series ended when the publisher's division was wiped out.

After the hardboiled Francesca series, I worked dead-end jobs until my agent sold Shop Till You Drop, my first Dead-End Job mystery. This series features Helen Hawthorne, a St. Louis woman on the run in South Florida. Now I was writing funny, traditional mysteries, cheerfully slaughtering bad bosses and annoying customers. Shop Till You Drop made the list of 16 Florida Must Read Books, along with John D. MacDonald, Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard. Helen works a different low-paying job each novel, and I've worked most of them. The Art of Murder is my fifteenth Dead-End Job mystery. Once the Dead-End Job series was launched, Penguin asked me to write a cozy series featuring a mystery shopper, Josie Marcus. My mother was a mystery shopper, so I was born to write this series. Besides, it would only be for three books. The series got off to a good start with Dying in Style when it tied for first place with Stephen King on the Independent Mystery Bookseller Association bestseller list

I enjoyed writing all those mysteries, but I missed the dark side. Even cozies aren't all kittens and cupcakes. Miss Marple, the fluffy knitter who declared "I am Nemesis," relentlessly brought killers to justice.
I like writing about Helen Hawthorne's lighthearted adventures in South Florida, but I was getting too comfortable. It was time to change my routine. I'm taking a big risk with this new series. I hope you'll go with me on Angela Richman's visit to the dark side.

Pre-order Brain Storm as an e-book, trade paperback or audio book here: https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Storm-Investigator-Angela-Richman/dp/1503936317/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466101774&sr=1-1&keywords=brain+storm+by+viets

 

Comments

[Sally Schmidt]

This sounds like just my style. Every once in a while you have to escape the cozies and this sounds like a good way to do it. Thanks for the tip about not as gruesome as PC; had to stop reading her for that reason.

Pre-ordered, congrats!

[Elaine Viets]

Thanks, Sally. Hope you'll enjoy the characters and the death investigations. It's an amazing profession.

[Charlaine Harris]

Elaine, I recognize your need to challenge yourself. And you're up to it. Best of luck with this new series! I loved the first book.

[Elaine Viets]

You certainly challenged yourself, Charlaine, and changed the genre. I hope I'll be as successful as you. Thanks for the encouragement.

[Storyteller Mary]

I am eagerly anticipating this book. I've loved the lighter ones, but I also loved the earlier ones. It's good to have variety. <3

[Storyteller Mary]

Six strokes?! I did not know the full extent of your challenge and magnitude of your recovery, though that hasn't stopped me from being inspired. While I usually let the library pick up the check for feeding my book habit, and usually prefer book-books, I'm going to pre-order this new venture (which is how I came to notice that the link wouldn't "click" -- copy/pasting it, but thought you might want to activate it ;-)

[Elaine Viets]

Glad you feel that way, Mary. Between the cozy mystery shopper books, the Dead-End Job mysteries and the new series, I hope I can give readers a mystery for every mood.

[Elaine Viets]

Thanks for the pre-order, Mary. Those are a big help. Yes, I had six strokes, including a hemorrhagic stroke, brain surgery and a coma. But I've recovered thanks to my family, friends, and some very good doctors.

[Elaine Viets]

The link is now activated to order BRAIN STORM as a trade paperback, e-book or audio.

[Alan Portman]

I remember the tour that included the "$250,000 hair cut" after brain surgery.

I can't wait to see the return to the dark side.

[Elaine Viets]

Thanks, Alan. You've been another big supporter. Brain surgeons give the world's worst haircuts -- they only shave half your head. I woke up with long stringy hair on one side of my head and bald on the other. It was a new look, all right.

[Marcia Talley]

This is such a good book! (I got to read it in draft, nah nah nah!!) It's a shame that you had to go through all the stroke "research" to get it right, Elaine! So tickled that Thomas & Mercer is giving Brain Storm such a push!

[Elaine Viets]

Maybe I overdid the research, Marcia, but the stroke scenes are authentic. Glad you liked the book.

[Karen in Ohio]

Can't wait to read this, Elaine. Fingers crossed for huge success!

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Standing ovation. oxoxxoox

[krisneri]

Much luck with the new series, Elaine. It sounds great. It's too bad that you know so much about strokes, but since you did go through those experiences, you now get to make this book more authentic. Can't wait to read it.

[Elaine Viets]

From your lips to my publisher's ears, Karen.

[Elaine Viets]

Thank you, Hank. (taking a bow)

[Elaine Viets]

One good thing about being a writer is that nothing is wasted. All experiences are fodder for our books, Kris. Something you know, too.

[Dana]

Elaine, this sounds brilliant, and I wish you every success with the new series! It's always good to switch things up a bit.

[Elaine Viets]

Yes, it is, Dana, and you're another Femme who switched it up. I've had lots of inspiration here.