Good Morning Booklovers!
This morning we’re welcoming mystery author Darlene Dziomba to the blog with her article, “Life Experiences Form a Mystery Plot.”
Take it away, Darlene!
If I tell people I work in Finance, I immediately see a glaze cross their eyes. There is an expectation that the next sentence I utter will be boring. In contrast, if I tell people I volunteer at an animal shelter, their eyes alight. They believe a warm and fuzzy dog or cat story will follow.
My protagonist, Lily Dreyfus, is the Adoption Coordinator at the Forever Friends Animal Shelter. In Up Close And Pawsonal, she is present during a drive-by shooting that kills her coworkers’ nephew. While she tries to determine the cause of the killing, her good friend Lucinda Miller conducts an audit at the county police department. Lucinda’s proximity to the police provides an opportunity for Lily to learn how an undercover narcotics operation connects to the murder
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I have had financial processes that I worked with audited many times. It is a nerve-wracking experience. The word audit carries negative connotations that make people unwilling to share more than the basic facts. Lucinda’s suspicions mount when police explanations of their processes do not add up. Lucinda vents her frustrations to Lily, which allows Lily to connect the dots between the facts she has discovered related to the drive-by shooting and a list of potential suspects.
The information Lucinda gathers during the audit will not untangle all of the knots in the twisted ball of yarn, in the plot of Up Close And Pawsonal. Further detail comes from the testimony of several undercover operatives at a grand jury hearing.
I served on a grand jury. The grand jury must determine if the police have sufficient evidence to go to trial. Each day, they are presented with gruesome details of twenty to thirty crimes. The evidence is presented via testimony from police officers and photographic evidence of the crimes.
During my service, the court clerk asked if someone would volunteer to be the sergeant at arms. This job involved leaving the room to call witnesses to testify. I leapt at the opportunity. I volunteered to allow myself to move around instead of being confined to a seat for endless hours. I got to know many of the police officers. I also slipped in a few questions about police procedure.
At the time, I was looking to satisfy my curiosity. Ten years later, I used the experience to write very realistic scenes. I even wrote myself into Up Close And Pawsonal. A grand jury experience is not realistic without a sergeant at arms.
Lily’s path will cross that of a witness on the grand jury. Then, her job, Lucinda’s job, and jury duty will lead to the perpetrator. Like, my Finance career, jury duty service and volunteer efforts led to the plot of Up Close And Pawsonal.
Darlene is a member of Sisters in Crime National and several regional SinC groups. She combined her passion for the written word and animals into the Lily Dreyfus series. Darlene volunteers at the Animal Welfare Association, a New Jersey animal shelter, where she chats with the dogs while completing her assignments. She has a 30-year career in Finance at the University of Pennsylvania and is an avid reader, gardener, and traveler. Darlene lives in New Jersey with her four-legged best friend, Billie.
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Up Close And Pawsonal
blurbGenre: Cozy Mystery
A casual evening of listening to music by a local cover band turns into a murder investigation when a drive-by shooting destroys the tranquility of the night and critically injures two of the band members. Lily Dreyfus stressed and unsettled from having been at the concert, realizes one of the dead band members is the nephew of her coworker at the Forever Friends Animal Shelter. Lily will leash together a set of seemingly unrelated events to seek the perpetrator and make them heel.
Buy link
https://www.amazon.com/Up-Close-Pawsonal-Dreyfus-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0BTC4GM4Q/