I have the pleasure of sharing a guest post by author Jo A. Hiestand, one of the Roses in the Wild Rose Press garden, who answers...
ELF: What do you think is the strongest attraction about the genre you like to write in?
ELF: What do you think is the strongest attraction about the genre you like to write in?
JAH: I write classic mysteries. I add a strong dose of the cozy element to them—a closed group of people who know each other, all in a small location like a village, and the focus of the story is to solve the identity of the murderer.
For me, and probably many readers, one attraction of reading this type of book is the puzzle, solving the killer’s identity along with—or before—the sleuth does. It’s a race, pitting our observations and reasoning against those of the experienced detective. It’s grand fun, attempting to solve the riddle, figuring out clues; a grand workout for the brain.
Another allure this book exerts is escape. While reading, cares and problems of every day life are left behind. We’re plunged into another world, perhaps a different location from where we live. We get to experience people, sights, customs, cultures unlike our own, and that’s tremendously interesting. We’re learning, too, about these places. Reading a mystery, involving us in the characters’ problems, is a great release from the familiarity (and at times what we may consider boredom) of our routines. Nothing spices up our lives like escaping to Scotland along with McLaren, for example, and keeping out of a killer’s clutches!
Mysteries also offer a dose of Justice. In our present, crazy world we’re bombarded with news of terrorist strikes, mass shootings, civil unrest, and suicide bombers. The mystery shows us that this crime, at least, has been dealt with according to Law. The guilty person has been arrested, possibly about to stand trial and conviction. Right has triumphed; no one got away with anything. The system works.
Control might be another attraction to mysteries. We may have little control over many things in our lives: bad weather, bad drivers, house repairs, co-workers or the boss, family members, rising prices, taxes… These things can produce frustration, anger, or dejection. But when we read that the killer is behind bars and all is well in that fictional world, that sense of everything returning to normal assures us that one place, at least, has gained control of the madness that claimed it for a while.
In addition to all this, the genre awards the sense of safety. No matter the fear produced by the murder, blackmail or assaults, we sense this will end peacefully with the criminal’s apprehension. There will be no more murders, the blackmail has ended, the physical abuse or threats are over. The victims and community can relax, stop looking over their shoulders and avoiding shadows. We are safe.
McLaren isn’t looking for a killer or kidnapper or family trouble in An Unfolding Trap. But those things find him, and his world spirals out of his control. He loses his sense of safety. During his hunt for the killer and the person behind the assaults heaped upon him he is pursing an outcome of Justice for himself and the victims. He, too, puzzles through the clues with which he’s presented, and he triumphs in the end. There’s more than satisfaction in stopping a killer and madman, and rescuing a victim in the Scottish highlands. He’s also brought peace to his own life. It seems to fit right in with the reason we read mysteries.
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by Jo A. Hiestand
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GENRE: British mystery
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BLURB:
Since his infancy, Michael McLaren has been the target of his paternal grandfather’s anger. So when the patriarch sends an invitation to heal the rift, McLaren travels to Scotland, eager to meet and finally end the feud. But the welcome never happens. If Grandfather hadn’t invited him, who had? And why?
In Edinburgh, a man standing beside McLaren in a bus queue is killed in a hit-and-run accident. After an attack leaves McLaren for dead on a wintry moor, he’s convinced someone from his past is trying to murder him.
As McLaren trails the hit-and-run driver from the medieval ‘underground city’ of Edinburgh to the Boar’s Rock the MacLaren Clan’s ancestral meeting place the assaults intensify, and he’s plunged into a very personal hunt for a World War II treasure. The puzzle is fascinating; he just has to stay alive to solve it.
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EXCERPT
Ross leaned forward, closing
the distance between them. “You’re sure you didn’t get angry when you found him
this afternoon?”
“Of course I got angry! Who the hell wouldn’t? The bloody git killed
a man, frightened a dozen others who were there, kidnapped Miss Skene, held her
hostage⎯” McLaren stopped before saying
Lanny had knocked him on the head and left him for dead in the marshland along
the loch, or that he was a threat to Neill McLaren. He took a deep breath. “But
I didn’t kill him. I tied him up so he wouldn’t escape, then phoned you when I
could.”
“An hour later.” The voice
was flat, unimpressed.
“Yes. An hour later. Maybe
ninety minutes. I didn’t write down the time, but I phoned here, in the
village.”
“Why wait so long to ring
us?”
“Pardon?” The suspicion that
things were turning horribly wrong whispered to McLaren.
“Why didn’t you phone right
then? Did you want to put some space between you and the killing so you could
establish an alibi?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
A month-long trip to England during her college years introduced Jo to the joys of Things British. Since then, she has been lured back nearly a dozen times, and lived there during her professional folk singing stint. This intimate knowledge of Britain forms the backbone of both the Taylor & Graham mysteries and the McLaren cold case mystery series. Jo’s insistence for accuracy, from police methods and location layout to the general feel of the area, has driven her innumerable times to Derbyshire for research. These explorations and conferences with police friends provide the detail filling the books.
In 1999 Jo returned to Webster University to major in English. She graduated in 2001 with a BA degree and departmental honors. Her cat Tennyson shares her St. Louis home.
LINKS:
Website
Goodreads
Amazon Author Page
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