Fourth in Series

“Being Someone Else,” fourth in the Sticks Hetrick mystery series is scheduled for release today, July 15, by Whiskey Creek Press, www.whiskeycreekpress.com.

Some people believe violence is foreign to our nature. Dan ‘Sticks’ Hetrick, retired chief and consultant to the Swatara Creek police department, knows better. We put a lid on our natural tendency to violence when we started living in groups, devising moral codes to hold it in check and allow us to live in harmony with others. But, deep down in the Id, there is always that tendency to violence.

When an out-of-state reporter is found murdered in the restroom of a disreputable bar the tendency to violence spirals in the rural Pennsylvania community, and the investigative trail keeps bringing Hetrick and his team back to the family of a wealthy doctor who has returned to his hometown in retirement.

Hetrick and his protégé Officer Flora Vastine are joined by an old friend from his State Police days as they unravel old secrets and mysteries in a tale with as many shocking twists as a country road.

If you haven’t read any of the other books in the series, now is a good time to start. Others in the series are “Something In Common,” “Cruel Cuts” and “Corruption’s Child.”

Review snippets for the series:

“Lindermuth does a wonderful job of bringing his fictional small Pennsylvania town to life by getting us into the minds of a multitude of characters. I enjoyed Lindermuth’s writing and the story itself was interesting and without a dull moment.” Judy Clemens, author of Three Can Keep a Secret, Crime Spree Magazine, www.crimespreemag.com

“J.R. Lindermuth doesn’t write fiction. He writes life! There are twists and turns in every chapter.” Anne K. Edwards, author of Death on Delivery, www.mysteryfiction.net

“Lindermuth has magnum sizzle. Reading him is like a fresh bullet fired from a newly minted gun.” Eric Meeks, author of The Author Murders.

The Generative Factor

What do Michael Connelly and I have in common?

Now I see some head-scratching as some of my friends try making the comparison. I’ll make it easy for you. We share a number of things in common.

We’re both natives of Pennsylvania. We’re both male. We both write mysteries (okay, his are better known and sell far in excess of mine). We’re both former reporters and worked the crime beat. We both knew early on we wanted to be writers. Our interest in the subject was sparked by our youthful reading.

Enough with the comparisons. I could have as easily chosen a number of other writers born in Pennsylvania—John Dickson Carr (master of the locked room mystery and a favorite in my early introduction to the genre), John D. MacDonald or the noir master David Goodis. For my purpose, I could as well have chosen a number of admirable women writers born in the Keystone State: Jane Haddam, Lisa Scottoline, Martha Grimes or even Mary Roberts Rinehart.

Place of birth is of no consequence in making a writer. Nor is gender. Those are matters over which none of us has control. What does actually contribute to our becoming writers, though, is our early reading, our life experience, our association with other people. This mix, which may or may not be augmented by educational experience, is the generative factor.

Whether we succeed depends as much on persistence as on background. There are many others with similar circumstances who set out to become writers and gave up because they weren’t willing to persevere.

That, my friends, is the telling ingredient.