GUEST AUTHOR LESLEY DIEHL ON SETTING A MYSTERY SERIES IN RURAL FLORIDA

Lesley A. Diehl is the author of several mystery series and short stories, all featuring country gals whose snoopy attitudes and smarts make them great candidates for taking down the bad guys. Whether in the river valleys of Upstate New York, the swamps of rural Florida or the cornfields of the Midwest, these sassy sleuths never let anything get in their way. Learn more about Lesley and her books at her website and blog. 

A Great Place for a Murder

The country is where I set all my mysteries. I am, after all, a country gal raised on a dairy farm in the Midwest. I know the country. I’ve lived in it most of my life. Setting is important to my writing because it influences the make-up of my protagonists as well as the people they encounter. Setting is, for me, inextricably intertwined with character as well as plot.

Two of my series are set in rural Florida, a place few tourists explore. Most people coming to the sunshine state prefer to stay on the coasts for blue water and great sandy beaches. Traveling inland usually means a trip to the land of that mouse fellow to enjoy entertainment with the kids or grandkids.

Go west of Palm Beach and you will find the land changes. Not that there no longer are palm trees waving in the breeze, but there you’ll find wild sabal palms as well as cypress trees, strangler figs and live oaks. So, a shady place, you say? Somewhat, but most often the eye sees broad stretches of Florida prairie and herds of cattle. It’s like a tropical version of Texas. And yes, it’s not unusual to spot cowboys on horses herding these cattle.

There is one of the largest fresh water lakes in the US here.  It is surrounded by a high earthen damn and a canal, build to control the water of the Big Lake, Lake Okeechobee, to prevent hurricanes from destroying lives the way a big one did in the Belle Glade and Pahokee area in the 1930s. Small mammals such as otters, raccoons and rabbits abound here along with bird life—herons, egrets and others. This is the home of the endangered Florida panther, many varieties of turtles and snakes, lots of snakes. At the top of the food chain is the alligator, or the human, depending upon how you look at it.

I’ve described the land in detail because so few know this wild place and because it is against this backdrop that I set my mysteries. Both protagonists in my rural Florida series experience the same reactions as I did when I chose to live here part of the year. They are interlopers who hope to become part of the communities they have moved into. Moving my protagonists into rural Florida accomplishes two objectives in my writing. It creates a physical setting that is alien and can seem threatening. A reader cannot help but feel this from the sense of threat the swamps and wildlife create. Live next to a swamp, see one of those thirteen-foot alligators swim by, and the impending danger from the environment feels real.

On the other hand, a wading great white heron in the backyard is grace and beauty personified. This contradictory sense of the world in which my protagonists move creates a sense of tension into which I write plot and character development.

A “Yankee” moving here is both awed by the area and stands in the position of outsider, an exciting place for a protagonist to be in terms of character development and for setting her up as the sleuth who tracks down the killer. Outsiders can be mistrusted, but they also can be underestimated. Emily Rhodes, the protagonist in my third book in the Big Lake Murders is prone to stumble upon dead bodies. She’s done this twice before, but this time it’s at a re-enactment of the Battle of Okeechobee. It is rainy, it is muddy, it allows me to bring in the setting, the murder and Emily as the unlikely sleuth.

Rural Florida is the last wild place in the state, and its character is under threat from overdevelopment, overpopulation, destruction of wildlife habitat, careless handling of water resources and conflict between environmentalists and big business. Setting takes on political, social and ethical overtones, which I use as the themes that drive my characters into conflict and sometimes into cooperation. Emily Rhodes wants to belong in her adopted home, but she also brings to the story values that may conflict with those held by the ranchers, farmers, and developers who dominate the area. I couldn’t ask for a better mix of physical setting and local conflicts as the place a killer does his work and a sleuth finds him out.

Join Emily in her latest adventure on the edge of the “Big Lake” and see how being a displaced Yankee gal helps and hinders Emily’s search for a killer. Oh, there are recipes in the book. People there eat well, you know (no gator dishes, however).

Scream Muddy Murder

 Murder in the mud. Romance in the swamps. And RECIPES!

EMILY RHODES DOES IT AGAIN! This time she nosedives into a mud puddle at a Seminole War battle reenactment and finds she’s sharing the muck with a dead body. As usual the hunky detective she loves to aggravate, Stanton Lewis, cautions her against getting involved in the case, and as usual she ignores him. Emily’s sleuthing pays off, revealing disturbing information about the victim’s past. Is it the reason behind his murder? With the help of her family and friends, Emily sets out to uncover secrets kept too long and puts herself and the people she loves in the killer’s path. Too late she realizes Detective Lewis was right. Her snoopiness proves to be a deadly idea.

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