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I recently moved to Alberta after 35 years in the Yukon. I love the Yukon—its wilderness and wildlife, the calibre of people it attracts, its artistic soul . . . The Yukon is in my blood and I would never have left it.

Except . . .

Except. That’s the thing, isn’t it? The why of someone’s actions. I’m an avid reader of crime reporting but news stories inevitably leave me frustrated. They almost never address the motivation behind the crime. And that, more than anything, is what I want to know.

Why did the real estate agent risk their career by facilitating fraud when it was so easy to get caught?

Why did the gang member shoot three innocent people before finally hitting their target? What was so vital about killing that one person that they were willing to kill innocents?

Why did the father choose to kill his children instead of walking away? Mental illness? To hurt his wife?

These questions baffle me, especially with the benefit of hindsight (“Yes, but why didn’t you do this instead?”). That’s why motivation is so important in my writing.

I have always thought of myself as a novelist, not a short story writer, though in the last few years, I’ve written more and more short fiction. Long or short, the question always remains the same: Why? What motivates my characters to do the things they do?

In The Shoeless Kid, the first of my Mendenhall Mysteries, brand new Chief Kate Williams finds herself wondering why an old homeless man would brave the police department to report a monster abducting a child if there wasn’t a kernel of truth in it. What she can’t admit—even to herself until much later—is that the case reminds her too much of an event early in her career where her lack of action led to a boy’s death.

In The A’lle Murders, the first in the A’lle Mystery series, Constance becomes the first A’lle investigator for Lower Canada. Her motivation for becoming one is to bring a regular pay cheque home to her family, but deep down, she wants to chip away at the discrimination she and all A’lle on Earth face, especially in Lower Canada.

Short story, novella or novel, the motivation for each character has to make sense. Don’t give me a character who does something just for the heck of it (or because the author needs the character to do it). The character may not know why he or she is doing it, or other characters in the story may not know, but the reader has to know. At least, eventually.

In Identity Withheld, my most recent standalone novel, all Cleo wants is to keep her parents safe from whatever has been chasing them all her life—even if it means lying to the police. Her motivation is crystal clear and drives all of her actions.

In “The Mittens,” my story in AHMM, Estelle Martin is the retired commanding officer for the Yukon RCMP. She’s based on a boss I once had, a woman close to six feet tall who strode through life like a Valkyrie. I wanted to be her when I grew up. But Estelle—Stella to everyone else—is unlike my former boss in that she is jaded, impatient and intolerant of stupidity. And she absolutely does NOT want to have anything to do with police work anymore. That part of her life is done.

So why does she get involved in the murder? It all has to do with the mittens.

As for me moving to Alberta, what could possibly have motivated me to leave my beloved Yukon? Well, it turns out Alberta is where they grow the grandchildren.

Best motivation of all.

I’ve always loved reading but my introduction to crime fiction didn’t come until I was in college—the same time I discovered The Blues. I bought my first Muddy Waters album at a used-records store in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and my first Raymond Chandler work—a short story anthology entitled The Red Wind—in a nearby used-bookstore. Just as I was hooked by the sound of Muddy’s voice growling the opening lines of “Blind Man Blues” I read this passage in the bookstore and I knew that I had to buy the book:

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

Chandler led me to Hammett of course, and then McBain and the MacDonalds—John D. and Ross. Through the years I’ve read—and attempted to write—every kind of story imaginable, but I always seem to come back to crime fiction, specifically those in the Noir genre.

I think Netflix more than anything is responsible for piquing my interest in foreign authors. I’ve always loved British mysteries and at one point I stumbled upon a short-lived BBC series based on Ian Rankin’s John Rebus character. I’ve since read all the Rebus novels, and I’m currently awaiting the October release of “A Heart Full of Headstones”—Book # 24 in the series.

When I used to read Stephen King—I still think he’s a great writer, but I only have room in my head for so many 700-word novels—it wasn’t for the horror aspect but because of the characters and the sense of place. The same thing goes for Rankin. In all his Rebus novels, Edinburgh Scotland is as much a character as Rebus himself. Chandler’s L.A, McBain’s New York—I know he didn’t call it NYC, but c’mon—and the Russia of Martin Cruz Smith led me to Stieg Larrson’s Sweden and Jo Nesbø’s Norway.

As far as movies and series, I’ve now become a fan of Australian, Polish, German, and even Icelandic mysteries.

I am a huge fan of the Akashic Books series of Noir anthologies from around the world. Since I lived in Ecuador from 2014 to 2020, I particularly enjoy the South American anthologies. I even pitched an Ecuador Noir anthology to Akashic but alas, it was not to be.

I was able to create a series of my own featuring Wilson Salinas, an Ecuadorian P.I. I based the character—very loosely—on the Ecuadorian taxi driver who picked us up at our hotel in Guayaquil and took us on the four-hour drive through the Andes Mountains to our new home in Cuenca. Wilson’s exploits led me to the creation of another character. Capitán Ernesto Guillén of Ecuador’s policía nacional is a corrupt cop, but also an excellent detective.

Stories featuring these two characters have been published in AHMM, Mystery Tribune, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, and Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine. Throughout these stories I’ve tried my best to give readers a sense of the beauty as well as the darkness and complexity of life in this wonderful country.

One of my favorite pastimes of late is to discover new authors in the genre—at least new to me. Over the past year I’ve discovered some fine authors who let you travel the world without leaving home: Caimh McDonnell—Ireland, Renee Pawlish—Denver, and Lee Goldberg—L.A. If you haven’t read anything by these authors, you owe it to yourself to check them out.

What I have found most interesting to me as a writer is how my characters become real people, to me.  This is especially true of the characters in my fictional town of Ellisville, Ontario.

When I began the Ellisville Stories—of which there are currently four, featuring Detectives John Turner, Bruce MacDonald and Francie Jenkins, with a fifth one in the works—the first person to introduce himself was John Turner, the senior detective on the town’s police force.  He came to me almost fully formed, although bits and pieces of his character were still to be discovered, as the stories progressed.

He said he was “Turner” (although others called him by his first name). I realized that I would call him Turner, not only because that was how he introduced himself but, also, because he is an old-fashioned man in some ways and wouldn’t appreciate people he doesn’t yet know well—including his creator— calling him by his first name. (I grew up with a grandmother who didn’t appreciate familiarity from strangers, so I understood this immediately). Nor would he want me—or anyone—to call him “Mr. Turner” because that was his father, an abusive man who had made Turner’s childhood and his mother’s life a misery.  He would hate that association.  So, Turner it was and Turner it remains.

Bruce MacDonald, on the other hand, was just Bruce, from the beginning. Although he has as complicated a backstory as his best friend, John, he doesn’t mind if stranger or friend alike calls him Bruce.  I have to follow a character’s lead in such things.

I also have to follow a character’s lead when he or she exposes an unsavory side that I didn’t see coming (this is especially true in my story “A Stranger in The House”, in the September/October issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine).  I didn’t see the unsavory side of Francie Jenkins, who worked alongside Turner and Bruce for many years, until it appeared in this story.

It was as much a shock to me as it was to Turner, who had quickly advised that Francie Jenkins was the best detective he had ever worked with, as well as a good friend. He trusted her implicitly. Bruce, who for a short time had been in a personal relationship with her, also thought he knew her well. Both men were shaken when Francie turned out to be a stranger to them. So was I.

Originally, I hadn’t intended to give her such a prominent role in these stories, as I wanted to concentrate on the relationship between Turner and Bruce, partners at work and friends for decades.  I was interested in discovering what a longstanding friendship between two men, carrying burdens of childhood trauma, broken relationships and the deaths of people they loved, might look like.   

Then, Francie stepped up and said, “Here I am and I’m not going to take a back seat,” and she quickly came to the fore.  I liked her.

When she went over “to the dark side” or, more truthfully, returned to it, I kept trying to figure out a way to lure her back into the light, but by the end of “A Stranger in the House,” I admitted defeat and let her be who she was.  To have dismissed that, in hopes of forcing her to be the character I first imagined her to be, would have been to be untrue to her and to the story; still, I mourned Francie, not only because I loved her intelligence and wit but also because of what she first represented to me, a character who believes that things will work out well, in the end. Turner and Bruce were always leery of such as that. 

Eventually, though, a character, like a person, shows you their true nature and things work out as they will. I am looking forward, though, to seeing how things work out with these three people in the next Ellisville story.

TWO LIFE-CHANGING PHONE CALLS . . .

“When the Dams Break” is my first solo sale to AHMM, but it’s not my first story to appear in my favorite mystery magazine.  Last year, my friend Michael Bracken and I had the good fortune to see our collaboration, a football-themed short story called “Blindsided,” in the Sept/Oct issue of AHMM.

That sale was especially significant for me, the realization of a lifelong dream to walk into an actual bookstore, take something off the shelf with my name on it, and pay for it.  To be honest, I shed a tear the day Michael called me and said “Blindsided” had been bought; I teared up again in the Barnes & Noble parking lot, several copies in hand to share with family and friends.

If that had been all “Blindsided” gave to me, it would’ve been enough.  But on January 19, 2022, Michael once again called with news that would change my life.  I was working, so I let it go to voicemail.  “Holy mother of God,” Michael said when I finally listened to the message.  He was stoked about something, and I had to play it twice to absorb the incredible news: “Blindsided” was a 2022 Edgar Allan Poe Award Nominee for Best Short Story.

Wow.  When Michael Bracken calls, pick up the damn phone!

THE EDGAR AWARDS

Last April, my wife and I attended the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards in New York City.  Dawn and I did the usual touristy things, but one of the highlights was my visit to Otto Penzler’s Mysterious Bookshop, where I drank too much champagne and insisted that Mr. Penzler sign my copy of the new MWA anthology, Crime Hits Home.  He was a gracious host and accommodated me, but he asked me not to call him Mr. Penzler.  I said, “Yes, sir,” and he poured me another glass of champagne.

At the Edgar Awards banquet, we were seated at the AHMM table with editor, Linda Landrigan; two Dell Magazines employees, Abby Browning and Chris Begley; Brendan DuBois; Michael Bracken and his wife, Temple; and fellow nominee, R.T. Lawton and his wife, Kiti.  During the ceremony, I tried to track the number of Edgar statuettes on the table behind the podium.  Was there an extra award for two short story winners—Michael and me—while accounting for the remaining categories?  But I was too far away to see clearly.

When R.T.’s name was called for his excellent story, “The Road to Hana,” a cheer went up from our table.  He gave a model acceptance speech—gracious, insightful, and witty.  (I must admit, R.T.’s speech made me curious enough to try a bottle of Crown Royal’s Vanilla Whisky, his drink of choice when a story is sold.  I find I still prefer my favorite Irish whiskey, the appropriately named Writers’ Tears.)

Though “Blindsided” didn’t win, I returned home with new friends and good memories.  As Michael said in that second life-changing phone call, being an Edgar nominee is an achievement in and of itself.

“WHEN THE DAMS BREAK”

My second sale to AHMM was inspired by my wife, Dawn.  (She’s my best friend, first reader, and inspiration for life in general.)  Dawn, an interior designer, told me about one of her clients who was building a lakeside home.  In the middle of construction, the client learned that state authorities had decided to drain four Texas lakes, including hers, due to concerns with aging dams.  Cue the lawyers.

Originally constructed in the 1920s and ’30s, these dams were only supposed to last for 75 years or so.  Two other Texas lakes, Wood and Dunlap, have already been drained following floodgate failures on their dams.  Flooding is nothing new for Texas, but perhaps climate change is impacting the frequency and intensity of these floods.

The state’s early history is rife with stories of catastrophic floods leading to loss of life, livestock, and property, particularly along the Brazos.  In the early twentieth century, the state began constructing dams along many rivers.  The theory is that these flood control reservoirs would absorb rising water levels and prevent disasters.  Today, these dams are being tested by Mother Nature, and efforts are underway to strengthen or replace the aging infrastructure of these lakes before tragedy strikes.

As for my story, I immediately began wondering what secrets might be uncovered when a lake was drained, and what a person might do to keep those secrets.  “When the Dams Break” was born—now I just had to write it.

Since the pandemic, I’ve been working from home exclusively.  While I’ve enjoyed being with my other best friend and writing partner, a Labrador retriever named George, working from home was initially problematic for creativity.  At the end of the work week, I couldn’t sit in the same room, at the same desk, and write fiction.  The dining room became “my office” and the breakfast room—just twenty steps away—became my writing room.

On weekends, I move my laptop and George’s bed to the breakfast room, put on my writing music (usually a digital “mix tape” of my favorite film scores), pour a few drinks (iced coffee for mornings, ginger whiskeys at night), and write short stories.  In this way, I’m able to separate my work and writing areas.

I eventually sold “When the Dams Break” to AHMM.  On August 16^th of this year, the day the Sept/Oct issue hits the shelves, people in the Barnes & Noble parking lot might wonder to see a crying guy with a big stack of magazines.  If they ask what’s wrong, I’ll just tell them, “These are a writer’s tears . . . of joy.”

My neighbors are quiet. I mean, really quiet.

Just outside my window, the numberless dead sleep peacefully (one hopes) in one of several cemeteries that are grouped near my home. My quiet neighbors include e. e. cummings (his name rendered in all caps on the simple marker), Eugene O’Neill (whose previous home, by morbid coincidence, was also my college dorm room), and Anne Sexton. With so many literary neighbors, is it any wonder I turned to writing?

I live in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston, which was once the far frontier of the city, hence the collection of burial grounds. I often walk our dog in St. Michael’s, which was founded in 1905 for the Italian community of Boston. True to its first residents, many of whom came here as stone masons, the cemetery boasts ornately carved memorials, some with statues of the deceased, others with dramatic biblical scenes. Some have early photographs attached to them, while hand-tinted portraits collect dust inside family vaults. I like to practice reading the Italian inscriptions (thank goodness only Rosie ever gets to hear that!) and try to imagine who some of these people were. I’ve found war heroes, children, and even one woman who literally spanned centuries, born in 1900, and passing in 2000.

We started walking there because it was convenient and peaceful (and of course, dog-friendly!). Only later did my uncle Angelo, the family’s historian, tell me that I have a lot of relatives buried here. The possibility never occurred to me, since that side of my family was from East Boston, across the harbor and the rest of the city from here. It must have been an extraordinary trip back in the early twentieth century, to organize a funeral at such a distance. It turns out that, in addition to several aunts and cousins I had never heard of, my great-grandparents and my great-great-grandparents are here. Once, in another morbid accident, I literally stumbled on the marker of an uncle that Angelo hadn’t told me of, Rocco, who died of the flu in 1918.

Seven years after Rocco’s passing changed the family’s future, my grandfather watched on helplessly as his brother Angelo drowned in Boston Harbor. That would have been my uncle’s older brother—my great-grandmother was pregnant with him when this occurred, and the name got recycled (in fact, my uncle was the third to carry the name). Today, that uncle lies in an unmarked grave in a shady corner of St. Michael’s.

Cruelly, my grampa’s aunt accused him of murder. To his dying day, he carried that guilt and it’s a story that still hangs over my family. With his permission, I took the story and turned it into a fictional murder scene in my first novel, Night of the Furies.  I like to believe, in some strange way, that “putting it in the book,” as he was always telling me to do with family stories, helped ease his mind.

It was on one of my dog walks that I noticed the name Florence Uglietta. At first, to our ears, that name might sound both old fashioned and, well, ugly. But as I tried to sound out her name, I imagined it would sound more like “yulietta,” perhaps even related to “Juliet.” I began to think it was beautiful. I imagined that it meant “Flower of July,” though none of my research supports that. Another stone nearby carries the name “Solari,” and that, along with the woman who spanned the centuries, became the seed for “Florence Uglietta Solari: A Full Life in 19 Fragments.”

Once I had my main character, I wondered what that “full life” would have been. What does a 100 year old woman know? How many secrets would she take to her grave? More immediately, what would she accumulate in all that time? If it was anything like the papers I’ve gathered in only half that time, it would be a lot. And despite her pretty name, Florence didn’t strike me as a particularly organized person, hence the jumbled documents some poor soul would find among her effects. Her story came to me as I sifted through those scattered pages as presented in the story.

Since then, my uncle himself has passed into part of the family’s history, though he his not here among our other relatives. As Rosie and I continue our exploration, we’ve found clues to many other tales hidden in the names and dates and hopeful prayers inscribed on the stones here and the other nearby burial grounds.

Who knows what I’ll dig up next?

J. M. Taylor has published more than two dozen short stories, appearing in such mags as Thuglit, Tough Crime, and Wildside Black Cat. “Florence Uglietta” is his first to appear in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. His first novel, Night of the Furies was published by New Pulp Press, and Genretarium has just released his second, Dark Heat, which PW calls an “impressive noirish tale.” Both of them are set in or near Boston, and are retellings of ancient Greek myths. He lives in JP with his wife and son, and when he’s not writing or reading, he teaches under an assumed name. You can read more at jmtaylorcrimewriter.com and follow him on Twitter at @taylorjm7.

For much of my writing career, serial killers have been a feature of the mystery/thriller genre. Many authors and audiences seem to enjoy these human predators on the hunt; this writer? Not so much, and that is odd, given that for many years I lived with one or more enthusiastic, indiscriminate, and crafty serial killers.

With “The Fitz” I gave them their due and created my one and only serial killer plot. It is also one of my few stories with a clear and definite origin. Normally, stories are one of the gifts of the gods, mysterious ideas that appear out of the Muse’s good pleasure or the deep subconscious. Not so “The Fitz,” although it was a long time between the first glimmer of an idea and the finished manuscript.

I can credit the first little inspiration to a black, tuxedo, short-hair cat, Marcel, our son’s once stray pet in Chicago. Marcel was a hunter par excellence, and such was his reputation that periodically Jamie would drive him down to an Irish pub that featured the EPL (English Premier League soccer) on the bar television. While Jamie and the publican had breakfast, Marcel would sweep the basement, periodically emerging to display another little rodent corpse. I used to joke that they should offer an organic pest control service.

This appealing idea, however, refused to take immediate literary form. Besides my usual difficulty coming up with a sound plot, I suspect I needed just the right cat. Marcel was for real mice; what I needed was a literary feline, and I eventually found him at our vet’s, a familiar locale during the many years we had cats. Outdoor country cats need a bevy of shots, they need stitching up after fights with other cats, raccoons and possums and carnivores unknown, they pick up parasites and worms and require routine maintenance.

Our vet genuinely loved animals. She had horses in the pasture outside, photos of her dogs on the walls, a budgie in a cage high above the floor, and a flock of cats, all loose, curious, and active, roaming the waiting area. One of those was Oreo, a black and white domestic long hair with blue eyes, an insolent stare and a lordly manner. I admired him enough to do a little sketch of him for a greeting card, and, in the fullness of time, he acquired a new name, The Fitz, and a complete personality: smart, lazy, pleasure loving and friendly. He was perfect for an organic pest control outfit.

All he needed was a plot. And some useful humans and a venue. These came in reverse order. 2 K Organic Pest Control came with two cash-strapped college friends, who rightly, I think, saw a plushy suburb as the ideal market. The area suggested a plot about money, that useful root of all evil and generator of plot ideas and nefarious schemes. And there it was: “The Fitz” with not one but several serial killers as promised. 

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Janice Law’s The Falling Men, a novel with strong mystery elements, has been issued as an ebook on Amazon Kindle. Also on kindle: The Complete Madame Selina Stories.

The Man Who Met the Elf Queen with two other fanciful short stories and 4 illustrations and The Dictator’s Double, 3 short mysteries and 4 illustrations, are available from Apple Books.