P.M. Carlson

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P.M. Carlson's mysteries have been finalists for the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Agatha Awards.
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Dear Reader,
I love murder mysteries -- reading them, writing them. Crossfire, my newest mystery about Indiana Deputy Sheriff Marty Hopkins, mixes murder with motherhood, international crime, rock-climbing, ancient mythology, and a midwinter forest fire.
Keep reading below for some of my thoughts on murder mysteries. Or cut to the chase and click on “Mysteries” above to learn about the books. Enjoy!

Detectives in murder mysteries are a very unlikely group -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's drug addict in a deerstalker hat, Agatha Christie's old lady in an English village, Sara Paretsky's tough woman private detective on the streets of Chicago, and so forth.

But when I began writing mysteries it was crystal clear to me who the least likely detective was. From my own experience, I knew it was a working mother with kids.

We working moms are amazing people who somehow juggle half a dozen full-time responsibilities and still (usually) have time for that all-important hug. But we’re much too busy and frazzled to take on extras. As one mother told me, “When my kids were little, if a body had turned up on the kitchen floor, I would have just put it down the disposal. Who needs more hassle?”

But today, many working moms are in law enforcement. We pay them to seek out trouble and fix it for us. It’s a tough job, often dangerous, and the rest of us aren’t always comfortable seeing women do it.

Especially moms.

Writing about Deputy Sheriff Marty Hopkins, I’m intrigued by the conflicts she faces. Cops work for justice, especially as embodied in the law. The law is admirable for regulating problems between equals and has saved us from many bloodbaths. As a deputy sheriff, Marty’s job is to enforce the law and keep the peace.

But Marty is a mother too, so she knows that lots of problems involve inequality - small powerless children making demands, and big powerful men making demands. Rules based on equality are only occasionally helpful in mothering. Responsibility and caring are usually more relevant than strict justice. And as in families, real-world problems often pit the weak against the strong.

So Marty has to chase the killers, deal with redneck colleagues who think women can’t do the job, take care of her family, and juggle the conflicting standards of how to resolve complicated problems. It’s fascinating to write books about her. I hope you enjoy them too.

Mysteries are terrific entertainment. But WHY are they entertaining? I think the best mysteries grab us because they are retellings of psychologically important myths about the big questions–– death, evil, crime. Think about loner heroes like Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon. The detective faces horrors in the search for the holy grail of truth.

My books Gravestone, Bloodstream, Deathwind and Crossfire use these basic stories too. From Freud and Jung on, depth psychologists have been interested in myths and stories as tools to help us understand ourselves. In my books, Marty Hopkins battles with evil and quests for truth, just like Sam Spade. Doing her job, she works out puzzles and faces danger in the same heroic way. But she’s also a mother, so she resonates to other aspects of the stories that are relevant to her life, and learns from them. For example, in Crossfire, a vengeful murderer hides his tracks while Marty's new boss and her ex-boss are battling, both demanding her loyalty. She must call upon the wisdom and skills of Athene, protector of the community, to resolve both problems.

As a psychologist I’m interested in how people overcome unhappy backgrounds. Many of my characters are people who are already dealing with problems. The murder brings everything to a boil and often forces them to a new level of understanding. I have great admiration for the way most of us cope with major problems, so even though I write about some horrible crimes, there’s an upbeat note to my books as well.

Of coursethere are shoot-outs and chase scenes, too! But I think the stories gain excitement by building on psychologically meaningful myths. So in these mysteries, Marty Hopkins catches the murderers, and in the process learns something important for her life, and for mine, and who knows? Maybe even for yours.

If you like historical mysteries, you might enjoy RENOWNED BE THY GRAVE (Crippen & Landru), the collected short stories about Bridget Mooney, a nineteenth-century guttersnipe and would-be actress who meets famous people such as Ulysses Grant, Lillie Langtry, and Jesse James.

Copyright © 2006 by P.M. Carlson
Thanks for website assistance to John Merchant, Ulrike Carlson and Jim McElroy