Must a Mystery Have a Murder
Must a Mystery Have a Murder?
When I began The Forgotten Laugh, I gave Sera Beckett a mysterious arrival, a girl with missing memories, and a town with more questions than answers.
I did not give her a body.
For a cozy mystery writer, this may sound like forgetting to put the tea in the teapot. But Callie had arrived in Alderhaven without knowing enough about her past to tell Sera where she belonged. I wanted to know the answer too.
Who was she? What had happened to the people who knew her? And how could Sera help without deciding for Callie what her story ought to be?
Those questions kept me writing. They also gave Sera a reason to do what she does best: notice what others overlook, listen carefully, and keep asking when an answer does not quite fit.
Of course, she has help. Marion Steele knows a great deal about Alderhaven’s past. Sheriff Cross has questions of his own. And Simba is available to occupy any evidence that has been left in a warm patch of sunlight.
No one is murdered in The Forgotten Laugh. There is still a mystery to solve, and finding the truth matters enormously to the people living with it.
The Vanishing Road is different. A woman dies, and Sera and Cross must discover what happened. That investigation belongs in the story because a life has been lost. Her death cannot be set aside while everyone returns to their coffee.
It also raises questions that reach beyond the immediate investigation. Alderhaven has an older mystery, and some of the things people remember do not agree with the things they have been told. Sera follows the clues, but she pays attention to the people carrying them, too.
By The Lost Mother, Callie has learned more about her family. She still has questions that no record or clever deduction can answer for her. She has to meet people as they are now, decide what she wants to ask, and make sense of answers that may be more complicated than she hoped.
I think that is why I’m drawn to human mysteries. A person can stand right beside us and still have a story we do not know. Sometimes she has kept it private. Sometimes she has been unable to tell it. And sometimes we have been so certain we understood that we forgot to ask.
A murder gives an investigator an urgent question. I understand why so many mysteries begin there. But a missing memory, a long silence, or someone’s unexpected return can make me turn pages just as quickly. I want to know what happened. I also want to know what the characters will do once they find out.
That is the thread running through all three Alderhaven books. Sera looks for answers, Callie asks questions of her own, and the people around them occasionally discover that they knew less than they thought. Marion may be the exception. She would probably say she was simply waiting for everyone else to catch up.
If you’ve been curious about the series, The Forgotten Laugh is where Sera and Callie’s Alderhaven story begins. There is no body waiting on the first page. There is a girl with a past she cannot remember, and a question Sera cannot walk away from.
What kind of mystery keeps you turning pages, even when no crime has been committed? I’d love to hear your answer. You can write to me at info@megrydercozy.com.