Readers are often curious about the origin of a writer’s ideas, so I thought I would talk about the origins of my new “Cat in the Stacks” series and how I developed the characters, the setting, and the plot.
First, a bit of information about me. I’m a librarian (specialty, cataloging) in the Texas Medical Center in Houston. I have two cats, both elderly now. I read a lot of mysteries, along with non-fiction (history, biography) and romance (chiefly historical). I’ve also worked, either part-time or full-time, in a mystery bookstore for the past twenty-six years.
Now, onto the ideas part …. The basic idea for this new series came from my editor at Berkley Prime Crime. She suggested I think about a series with a librarian and a cat. I had actually been thinking for a while about writing a series with a librarian detective, and the addition of a cat to the mix was no hardship. I knew right away that the cat in the series would be a Maine coon, because they’re unusual, and very striking, cats, and I knew I would call him Diesel. The very first Maine coon I ever saw was named Diesel, and he weighed about forty pounds (very large even for a Maine coon) and sounded like a diesel engine when he purred. That Diesel has long since gone to pet heaven, but in tribute to him I created a literary version.
Next came the librarian. I wanted someone older, with some life experience, so I decided to make Charlie Harris, the main character, roughly my age (fifty when the series begins). I also made him a cataloger like me, but also with considerable administrative experience. Without really thinking much about it, I knew Charlie was a widower, with grown children. (It’s just a lot easier for an amateur sleuth to run around and detect without having to check-in with a partner all the time.)
At this point I had my two main characters, Charlie and Diesel. I wanted Diesel to be a prominent character, so I decided he would go almost everywhere with Charlie. That meant a big-city setting for the series probably wouldn’t work. If I were going to use a small town, then, I decided it might as well be in Mississippi. I grew up there and have very deep roots (going back seven generations), and I feel comfortable writing about it. I didn’t want to use a real small town; you have more control when you make one up, and you can arrange the geography of the town however you like without anyone telling you that you put the police station on the wrong street or moved the front door of the library to the wrong side of the building.With my two main characters and my setting I was ready to go. All I needed now was a plot. Pesky things sometimes, plots. Readers expect them, particularly readers of mystery stories. I really like plots that grow out of the characters, so I started thinking about what would motivate Charlie to stick his nose into a murder investigation. After all, he’s gone through some serious emotional trauma before the book starts, and he’s in a regrouping phase. What would bring him out of this and get him involved in life again?
Well, Charlie is a father, and I figured something that would make his paternal instincts kick in was the key. That’s where the idea about taking in boarders came from. What if Charlie had a young boarder who was accused of murder? How would Charlie react? Particularly if the murder victim was someone Charlie knew? And what if the boarder was the child of an old friend? Up popped Justin Wardlaw, the freshman college student, and son of Julia Wardlaw, an old high school friend.
The victim, well, I like knocking off obnoxious people in my books. Can’t do it in real life, so it’s fun to do it in fiction. Over the years at the bookstore I’ve met many writers, most of them perfectly delightful, well-mannered people. But every once in a while, you meet someone who should never be let loose on the unsuspecting public. Godfrey Priest, the victim in Murder Past Due, isn’t as bad as that, actually, but he’s no prince among men, that’s for sure.
From that point on, the ideas for the plot kept coming, and slowly the book grew into what was published as Murder Past Due. (My original title for the book, by the way, was Cat at the Funeral. The marketing department at Berkley wanted a title with more of a library connection to it, and that’s also why they’ve dubbed it the “Cat in the Stacks” series.)
There you have it – how one simple suggestion “a librarian with a cat” grew into a book and, I sincerely hope, a long-running series of mysteries. I’m about to finish the second book in the series, and I thought, What if Charlie’s son turns up, saying he’s quit his job and wants to stay with Dad for a while? And what if an eccentric wealthy book collector is murdered? Stay tuned….
Thank you, Dean. And, I think you know, we're all looking forward to the return of Charlie and Diesel. We'll stay tuned!
Murder Past Due by Miranda James. Berkley Prime Crime, ©2010. ISBN 9780425236031 (paperback), 304p.
