Scouting Locations
As you may imagine, location plays a starring role in my Southern California Mysteries. Since SoCal spans ten counties and hosts a multitude of terrains, cultures, and industries, there are a lot of choices when it comes to settings. Having been born and raised in SoCal, I enjoy retracing my steps to places that are meaningful to me. Places a reader might like to visit like Balboa Island in Newport Beach. Getting there is a smooth ride aboard a raft-like ferry to a manmade island with an array of splendid eateries, quaint shops, and a miniature amusement park. These same places also have the potential for tripping up my heroine Corrie Locke. When she takes the ferry across the small bay, it’s not exactly a tranquil ride in Murder & Other Unnatural Disasters. She barely makes it across. Or does she?
There are SoCal venues I kind of wish I’d explored more, but I didn’t have the nerve, such as the underground tunnels beneath my alma mater, UCLA. Students typically aren’t permitted such liberties, but that doesn’t stop Corrie when she hunts down a killer beneath a college campus in Murder Gone Missing. Her jaunt underneath gave me a chance to explore the tunnel systems below several campuses, courtesy of online research. I’m still not keen on exploring in-person, especially since these tunnels can be complex, dimly lit, and uninhabited (they’re supposed to be, anyway.)
Corrie’s first job after law school was working in a movie studio, just like me. But she doesn’t spend much time lawyering. How can she? She has cases to crack. As the daughter of a late great P.I., she’s got the skills, which tend to get her into…and hopefully out of… trouble. In Murder: Double or Nothing, I revisited the former movie studio where I worked in Culver City. The place has changed quite a bit since my days of working there, as Corrie showed me, as has all of Culver City, now filled with global dining options, unique museums, even the Blind Barber, a barber shop with a hidden speakeasy.
Although many of the cities in my books are real, my latest novel, Murderous Means, required a whole new town called Los Ranchos. A hamlet, by SoCal standards, the population is 1200 and the vibes decidedly Mayberryesque - where everyone knows each other by name and traffic lights are non-existent. Los Ranchos is squeezed between two powerhouse communities, Calabasas and Malibu, both with small townish vibes of their own. Most SoCal cities are sprawling, but I wanted one that was more self-contained and set apart, sleepy and off the beaten path, with hilly terrain and grasslands, which means plenty of hiding places.
I created a Western style town complete with tumbleweeds, hitching posts, and a cowboy or two. It’s where SoCal tourists drop by, but not for long. Cell phone reception is sketchy and the town lacks refinements, such as restaurants that stay open past eight pm, as well as a grocery store and places to spend the night. Los Ranchos residents are very protective of keeping their town’s status quo, and keeping the hipsters out… all of which sets the stage for a crime to be committed, and to go unnoticed…almost. Throw in the dysfunctional Means family of Means Well Ranch, a psychic vision, and an old Victorian house that may be haunted, and Corrie’s got a case to solve.
A Southern California Mystery, Book 6
Corrie Locke may not be the best rookie lawyer in town, but when it comes to catching a killer, she's got enough skills to bring a band of shifty-eyed suspects to their knees.
When the wealthy matriarch of the dysfunctional Means family dies in her sleep, the family is convinced her death was anything but peaceful. They hire Corrie to prove it, but the only evidence they have to go on is a psychic’s half-baked vision that it was murder. To put
the matter to rest, Corrie sets her sights on proving the psychic is a fraud. After all, everyone knows psychics are crack-pots, don’t they? But what should be a simple investigation morphs into something a little more…deadly.
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