The Mystery We Write Blog Tour advances to Day Five. Our guest blogger today is Mike Orenduff, who grew up in a house so close to the Rio Grande that he could Frisbee a tortilla into Mexico. He came by his love of pueblo pottery during weekends, buying small pots from the pueblos his family visited and – in one case – acquiring one when his sister traded chocolate chip cookies for it. His love of pottery expanded to a general interest in archaeology which he studied as an undergraduate. Visit his website at www.orenduff.org
While in graduate school at the University of New Mexico, Mike worked during the summer as a volunteer teacher at one of the nearby pueblos. He went on to serve as President of New Mexico State University and as a visiting faculty member at West Point and President of Bermuda College. After retiring from higher education, he rekindled his love of the Southwest by writing his award-winning Pot Thief murder mysteries which combine archaeology and philosophy with humor and mystery. Among his many awards are the New Mexico Book of the Year, the “Lefty” national award for best humorous mystery and two “Eppies” for the best eBook mysteries.
His first book, The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras, was described by The Baltimore Sun as, “funny at a very high intellectual level and deliciously delightful,” and his latest, The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier, was called “the perfect fusion of murder, mayhem and margaritas” by The El Paso Times.
I’ve been reading a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. I hadn’t read Doyle since high school and wondered if I would still like his stories. I do, but for an entirely different reason. I read every known Holmes story when I was a teenager because I loved the puzzles. I didn’t much like the movies because I thought they concentrated too much on Holmes’ personality, but I loved the books. Re-reading them half a century later (I can’t believe I got so old so fast), my opinion has completely reversed. The puzzles are not so engaging, perhaps because I now invent them myself and realize it is no great achievement to do so. But the personalities are of interest. I don’t much like Holmes, but Watson makes up for that. What entertains us changes as we change. Our taste improves. Or at least we hope it does; maybe it just changes. I used to like westerns. Now I don’t. I used to like Nero Wolfe. Now I don’t. I didn’t like Raymond Chandler (go figure). Now I do.
To quote Ron Benrey, “the list of things we enjoy about mysteries is endless: the puzzle, the setting, the people, the odd facts presented, the triumph of ‘good’ at the end, details about food and hobbies, etc.” Of course, not every book will contain all those elements, and not every reader likes the same ones, which is why there is room for so many different mystery writers.
I like the Pippa Hunnechurch Mysteries by Ron and Janet Benrey because of the humor and the food. I knew I was going to like Bauble and Squeak just from the title. If you get the pun, you’ll love the book.
I like the Bernie Rhodenbarr series because of the setting – Bernie’s bookshop and Carolyn’s dog grooming business are on the exact block where I own a pied-a-terre in Manhattan. Except they aren’t of course, because they are fictional.
I like Marilyn Meredith’s Rocky Bluff PD series because it is like a visit to a small town with interesting people.
I like the Archy McNally series because of the breezy style of Archie, sort of the modern version of Nick in the “Thin Man” movies.
I like Beth Anderson’s books because of the swashbuckling adventures.
There are many other series I like for many other reasons.
Happily, many readers enjoy my books. I do twenty to fifty signings a year and receive hundreds of emails from readers. (I actually received a hand-written fan letter this year; how often does that happen these days?) Here is what they say they like about my books. I don’t keep an actual tally, but I think the order would be something like this: the protagonist, the humor, the setting, the quirkiness and the food. Notice that no one mentions the murders. The El Paso Times has reviewed all my books and said in their review of the latest one, The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier, “as usual, the murder is an aside.”
So I’ll leave you with this observation to ponder. I think the murder is an aside in all mystery novels. And the romance is an aside in romance novels. The futurist science is an aside in science fiction. Books are about their characters, and they work when the characters and the writing are both engaging.
Mike’s mystery novels — The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras, The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy, The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein, and The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier are published by Oak Tress Press and are available as paperbacks in many Barnes & Nobles, Hastings, and Independent bookstores and as ebooks for Kindle and Nook readers.
Here’s the link to Mike’s latest novel: http://tiny.cc/hkps0
I ask that because I have to have fun writing my mysteries or else I’ll get bored and start something else. I like to have secondary characters who are quirky or amusing, and I do this mainly with dialogue. Those are often my favorite characters. I also use their quirkiness to misdirect the reader, which can be fun for both me and them.
