I was having dinner with my nephew the other night and he asked what my new book was about.
You all know by now that I was inspired by a local cold case while I was writing THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER. The story still fascinates me, even after it was solved. All the evidence the police found, all the clues they followed, the way they looked at the angles in the case. You can read my previous blog post about the case here.
At any rate, I was telling him the story, which prompted him to tell ME a story about a trainwreck in Southern Illinois from 1971 that has recently come back into focus. Eleven people died, but one victim went unidentified, and they buried the remains under a memorial stone as such. With the advances in technology and DNA identification, a reporter made the case for exhuming the body all these years later to finally put a name to the victim, but when they opened the body bag, they had spare body parts, i.e., more than one victim buried in the grave. Who else was buried there? That remains (no pun intended) to be seen. DNA has been sent for identification, which takes time.
Naturally, the story sparked my interest. I've been contemplating my next novel and planning a field trip over the weekend to walk around a spooky locale that was once owned by a macabre, eccentric locally famous person. I didn't really have a story plot in mind yet, expecting inspiration to hit while I was touring the estate, but now I'm envisioning conflating (yes, that's my new favorite word) the two stories together--the estate along with the exhumation of an unidentified body that becomes bodies. My imagination is already seeing pictures and having conversations with the characters about what happened and how this comes to light.
This might be a good time to tell you the first ARC reader for THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER came back asking about the cold case featured in that book. It seems she lives not far from me and is familiar with that case (it made the news as far away as South Carolina, based on my dinner conversation the other night). She found the local aspect was fun, and while she knew the "real" story, she liked the way I'd adapted it to fit my story. (This is called artistic license.) Too many times, when I've tried to include nuggets of truth in my novels, people come back with "that could never happen" when, in fact, it did. This is where artistic license comes into play. I can modify things to make them more believable, OR I can make sure the characters are right beside you with the "no way" attitude. It highlights the improbability while also pointing out the fact of the matter.
So while I'm plotting and preparing to write, this is a good time to remind you that THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER is now available in paperback, with the ebook version releasing on July 23. You can preorder the ebook for a discounted price, but that price will go up once it's live, so order now!