Hi, everyone.  Friday, we presented part 1 of an interview with Lesley Diehl, a retired university professor of psychology who writes very interesting and unusual mysteries. It you missed it, just scroll down and you’ll find it below today’s offering.  Read it, and then come back here for part 2.  It’s worth it.

JRC:  Today, let’s start with Deadly Draught, with a rather unusual protagonist, Hera, who is a female master brewer.  I have never heard of another protagonist like that.  How did you come up with Hera?

Lesley:  I wanted a unique occupation for my protagonist.  I read and enjoy females amateur sleuths who own catering businesses, who quilt, tat, knit, and sew or who run dude ranches, are computer geniuses, or are artists, school teachers, professors, or magicians, but I wanted something truly different.  I thought taxidermist then realized I’d have to learn something about the business.  Elbows deep in chipmunk entrails?  I don’t think so.  I was touring a local brewery and found it fascinating.  So my protagonist was born out of my interest in spending time driving from brewery to brewery with my husband, asking questions and drinking beer.  I was originally a scotch and wine drinker (not together), but I’ve developed a taste for really great craft brewed beers especially stouts.

JRC:   You retired from being a professor of psychology.  How do you use that background in crafting the characters for your novels?

Lesley:  I was a developmental psychologist.  In my field, we understand that the individual does not embrace change willingly especially during the adult years.  Usually some event makes it clear that old ways of handling issues no longer work.  New approaches have to be tried, but this is what produces changes in us as we go through life.  For my protagonists, murder is that event, the catalyst that forces them to acknowledge that what they have been doing no longer works.  They have to try something new.

JRC:   What are you working on now (or maybe next summer) and what unusual protagonist will you give us in that one?

Lesley:  I’m planning two stand alone mysteries both set in New York.  One is a traditional mystery, the other a kind of macabre, funny book about a multiple personality.  It’s a different humor from that I usually write, edgier, darker, yet absurd.

I have written the second in the Big Lake mystery series, Grilled, Chilled and Killed featuring my Florida protagonist.  Oak Tree Press will release it sometime this coming winter.

My agent also has another manuscript set in Florida.  In it my protagonist has moved to Florida to set up a consignment shop with her best friend.  They feature high-end clothing consigned by West Palm society matrons eager to make a little money to supplement incomes reduced by unfortunate investments made with Bernie Madoff. The shop hasn’t had its grand opening when she discovers the body of one of her society customers dead on the dressing room floor, her size fourteen body bleeding all over the size ten cocktail dress she’d been trying one.  My protag figures the dress is ruined along with her business. But notoriety even over murder, brings with it customers and a private detective too hunky to resist.  Of course, they pair up to solve the murder.

JRC:  Be sure to let us know when it’s released.  It certainly sounds like an interesting read. Any last words of advice to writers?

Lesley:   Write, write, write.  Tell people you meet when they ask what you do that you are a writer.  When they ask, as they inevitably do, what you’ve published, don’t say “nothing”, say “nothing yet.”

JRC:  I call them pre-published writers.  Okay, readers,  I promised a great interview today, and you’ll have to admit, this lived up to the billing.  Thanks, Lesley.  And readers, you can find all Lesley’s books on Amazon.

And if you’re in the Dallas area on Saturday, May 26, stop by a Real Bookstore (in the Villages Shopping Center on Stacy Road at 75) where I’ll be signing copies of both Cleansed by Fire and Murder a Cappella.  I’d love to see you.

Thanks.  James (Jim) R. Callan