BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--AN INTERVIEW WITH MYSTERY AUTHOR MIKE BEFELER

Mike Befeler is the author of nineteen books including the Paul Jacobson Geezer-lit Mystery Series, two of which have been finalists for the Lefty Award for best humorous mystery. Old Detectives Home is the first book in the Omnipodge Trilogy. The second book in the trilogy, Last Gasp Motel, will be released in July. Learn more about Mike and his books at his website and blog. 

When I started writing Old Detectives Home, I was intrigued by many of the fictional detectives in the early years of the mystery genre. I read a number of these books by marvelous early mystery writers. My idea was to mix the fictional detectives with the authors in a mystery.  I set the novel in a fictional town called Omnipodge along the central coast of California. 

 

Also, I came across two scathing reviews of the mystery genre and mystery writers, written by critic Edmund Wilson in New Yorker Magazine in the mid-1940s. I thought it would only be appropriate that the murder victim be the namesake of Wilson. Also, there is a bumbling detective from the Omnipodge police department who investigates the murder. His name is Moriarty, the same name as Sherlock Holmes’ arch nemesis.

 

Throughout the book, there is a running feud between two of the fictional detectives: Hercule Poirot and Auguste Dupin (Edgar Allen Poe’s detective). Hercule is Belgian and Auguste is French, and they become very jingoistic. The climax comes during the performance of a play called Pigpen, a takeoff on Mousetrap.

 

This book was a joy to research and write. It reflects what I like best about being a writer. I can come up with a crazy idea and then turn it into a humorous story.

 

Old Detectives Home

An Omnipodge Trilogy, Book 1

 

Imagine a retirement home populated with residents such as an aging Hercule Poirot and a dementia-suffering Sherlock Holmes and run by staff including Art Doyle, Dash Hammett and Dot Sayers. In this light-hearted spoof of the mystery genre, every character is either a namesake of a real person from the mystery writing world or a character from a mystery novel. On anything but a dark and stormy night, a dead body is found. The staff managers find themselves unable to control the unruly old detectives. Mix in clues and red herrings galore as the cast of suspects investigate each other to figure out who done it. This is what my most recent mystery novel, Old Detectives Home, is about.

 

Buy Links

hardcover 

paperback 

ebook