D.C. Brod is a St. Charles author with a flair for mystery and a love of history. She is currently working on her “Getting Even” series of novels. Available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and local bookstores, the series revolves around Robyn Guthrie, a freelance writer turned modern-day Robin Hood. The third book in the series is due out next year.
SD: What about the mystery genre draws you into it?
D.C.: I didn’t really enjoy mysteries that much when I was younger; my mom was really into Agatha Christie and I know it’s almost blasphemy to say this, but I’m not a big Agatha Christie fan. So I was doing some reading and I wound up picking up John MacDonald’s book called “The Lonely Silver Rain,” which was ironically his last book involving his Travis McGee character. And I thought, I had never read any private detective subgenre and I really, really took to that. And so I just read a bunch of those and found some other authors and decided that my character could work as a private detective.
SD: You have a town in your novels called Foxport that’s based on St. Charles, Geneva, Batavia, and that area. What about the Fox Valley Area did you find inspiring?
D.C.: My first book [“Murder in Stone] is actually set in Chicago, and when I realized [my character, Quint McCauley] was going to be a series character, I thought, well, I’m going to move him out here because I know this area better. And I also think that he’s not a real hardboiled character. And one thing I like about the suburban setting is there’s this sort of peacefulness to it, but in ways it’s a facade because there’s all kinds of drama going on in every house, and that’s the kind of thing that I find interesting: not violence for the sake of drugs or gangs, but people who are seemingly normal but something happens that makes them do something they would never have dreamed of doing. And those are the kinds of characters I find fun to work with.
SD: Do you think that having these stories set in a suburban area makes some of the actions of the characters, particularly the bad ones, more unexpected or more shocking?
D.C.: I think so. In Foxport you kind of have to have a murder in every book, so that kind of pushes the envelope of what’s realistic in a nice little town like that. But yes, certainly it is more shocking, and it certainly can’t be written off to gang warfare. It’s more shocking and it also disturbs the facade; it’s an ugly thing that has happened in this very nice place.
SD: I think you find that old saying true that you should write what you know.
D.C.: To a degree. I think that’s partly true, but I think it’s also, write what you love and what you’re interested in, and then you learn about it. And that’s one way I go about learning about things: I find something that I find interesting and I pursue it, because really, what do I know about catching bad guys?
SD: Are there any themes that you find consistent throughout your novels?
D.C.: Often there’s an earlier crime that has to be solved in order to solve the current one that’s the subject of the detectives’ detecting. Not in every book, but I like to play with that – how what you did in the past affects where you are now. I find that kind of intriguing.
Theme-wise, I try not to think too much about theme. I figure if I write to a theme it’s going to be forced, and I actually let the readers decide what they think the theme is. And usually when I’m done, I can see some consistencies, but I don’t ever want to force it.
SD: Are you ever surprised by what readers find in your stories?
D.C. Sometimes they’ll like a character that I didn’t write to be liked, and I find that interesting. I take that as a compliment that they found that character interesting, so that’s a good thing. And some characters that are supposed to be likeable are not.
