Thursday, May 5, 2016

Why a vampire PI?

When I first decided I wanted to try my hand at writing I turned to the genre I liked best e.g. mysteries. I love reading them and, after consuming so many during my life I thought, “I think I can write a mystery book”.  I wish I could say I had conceived of my lead character, Mark Julian, right from the start but in truth I had more than a few truly hideous initial ideas about the character of my crime solver. I will spare you that horror: think government dogcatcher by day and crime avenger by night.

I soon realized that I liked historical mysteries best and that I was a sucker for noir in my mysteries.  So, by then I knew I wanted my lead to be a private eye and, if I wanted history in my novels, he had to be a vampire so I could flit through his past lives.

Thus Mark Julian, the vampire-turned nephew of the Roman Emperor Augustus, was born. In case you are wondering this person did exist. He died in his early twenties and in unexplained circumstances, which helped with making him a vampire. Having him anchored in a real history ... well it brought him focus for me. I read about the times and imagined the person he might have been living in that era and as a member of that infamous family. In essence the “personality” of the man emerged. I sensed I knew him and thus could figure out how he would believable react to various situations. It also allowed me, in my earlier books, to delve into those turbulent Roman times. In Mark’s first case, the past events in his life rippled into the future bringing horrors and death.

So, why create a vampire PI? Well, it gives me have the best of both worlds. My vampire detective lives in the present solving cases yet his “condition” allows me to bring to take my readers into events and places in historical times that indirectly and, in a few instances, directly connect to his solving a case. Mark is shaped by events in his personal history and they affect how he does his job as a detective. These “time-trips” hopefully shed light on his complex character. Writing about a vampire PI also allows me to create an entire supernatural world for him that exists in present day NYC. They are a population of mystical beings that live their life alongside of humanity yet are run by governments and clans that have no connection to that other world. But, that area is a whole other post topic. J

So that is my answer. Oh besides I think vampire are sexy hot and fun to write about ever since I saw Frank Langella play Dracula on Broadway and got my first youthful.... * wink *.



Please feel free to write me. Yep I do reply.

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