Mark Pryor--Fact or Fiction

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm very happy to have our Jungle Red friend Mark Pryor back on the blog today! His new book, THE MOST MYSTERIOUS BOOKSHOP IN PARIS, is out today, and not only does it feature one of my favorite fictional detectives, Hugo Marston, but it's the first book in a spin-off series! How can you beat bookshop, Paris, and a handsome ex-FBI profiler? Oh, add chocolate! And Mark's special expertise, as he will explain.

Mark Pryor:  Fact or fiction? If it's really weird, it's probably true...

I will be doing a fair few book events over the next month or so, and I can guarantee one question will be asked of me at each one. And, to be clear, it's a question I love answering because I'd ask it, too:

"Do you use any of your real-life criminal experiences in your books?"

Oh, let me back up and be clear: those "criminal experiences" do not involve me committing crimes (not that I'd admit to, anyway!), but refer to my sixteen years as a prosecutor and my current profession, a criminal defense attorney.

In that time, I've handled dozens of murder cases, and thousands of other criminal cases, everything from the theft of a watch from Target to gang-related robberies and assaults and... well, if you can think of a type of crime, it's probably landed on my desk. 

So what's my answer? Well, I'm a lawyer so it's not a straight Yes or No, of course. It's both, and here's what I mean.

Yes: what I use is my knowledge of the investigative process. When a crime happens, usually murder in the case of my books, I know what steps the police take to secure the scene and collect evidence. This lets me set a genuinely accurate process in place but also, if I choose, allows me to insert mistakes (or clues) by whoever is investigating. I don't have to call a detective or rely on Google (or, heaven forfend, AI) to get it right. Or wrong, if that's what I'm going for.

No: the truth about most real-world crime, murder included, is that it is one of two things, either (1) grubby, sordid, and "unsexy" in the sense that it wouldn't be at all interesting to read about. For example, a man strangling or beating his wife to death in a drunken, jealous rage. Horrific and tragic, and I don't mean to minimize that, but novel-worthy? Probably not. If not in that category then those few cases that aren't dismal and gross, well, to be honest they are (2) often so weird and bizarre that if I tried to put them in a fictional story, you'd throw that book across the room with an anguished cry of "Ridiculous! That could never happen!"

Two quick examples of this: Picture a recycling plant and the large conveyor where people are sorting the types of recycling, when someone ponders aloud, "Would you look at that - why would someone recycle a mannequin?" and someone closer to this odd sight hits the "Stop" button while pointing out that it's not a mannequin at all. The investigation was quick - mail and papers around the body led police to a specific street address, where blood in a recycling can matched that of the victim, and a nearby surveillance camera captured the killer dumping the body. It also captured what was beside the recycling bin: a trashcan. And in case you didn't know, if you put a body in a trashcan, it goes to the dump and is never seen again.

Which is to say, if I write a novel where my murderer is standing there, a body over his shoulder while deciding whether to use the trash can or the recycling bin, and he goes for the recycling, you would be understandably irritated and incredulous. But it happened. And is why he was caught. 

Second example: a 1985 murder of a beautiful young mother, beaten in her apartment by a person or persons unknown. Here are some of the oddities associated with that case, and why writing it as fiction would render a story contrived and unbelievable:

• At the time, the police collected a written alibi statement from the jealous ex-boyfriend (and as we all know, it's always the jealous ex-boyfriend!), but never checked it;
• Twenty-five years later, a phone call out of the blue pointed police to that ex-boyfriend, the call coming from his current jealous wife (!);
• The cold case detective, Tom, and I visited the scene of the crime, and the woman living there was an absolute carbon copy of the victim, she looked startlingly like her;
• Tom then found the alibi witness, still living in her same neighborhood in Austin;
• That witness remembered the suspect, but not if she was with him at the time of the attack, but told Tom she used to keep a diary of her life;
• She literally went up to her attic and found the diary for that week, and busted the alibi (helping lead to a conviction at trial);
• The suspect's wife then did an about-face and sided with her husband at trial, throwing a dramatic fit when the guilty verdict was read.

All of that was pretty interesting and exciting to be involved in, no question, but if I stitched that sequence of events and coincidences into a novel, you'd be rightly skeptical. 

Which, I suppose, brings us to that famous saying, that truth is stranger than fiction. Is it? Not always... but when it is, it's too strange even for mystery novelists and our ever-discerning readers!

DEBS: Mark, these are great stories! But I agree, not very good for book plots. My husband is a former cop and would agree with you that in real life most criminals are really dumb. Fortunately for us, if not for fiction.

I'd much rather read about fictional crimes, especially ones set in Paris!

Here's more about The Most Mysterious Bookshop in Paris:

Hugo Marston, former head of security at the U.S. embassy in Paris, has retired and is ready to realize his lifelong dream of owning a mystery and antiquarian bookshop. But when a blackmail scheme targeting a chocolatier leads to murder, Hugo is again called to investigate in the first Paris Bookshop Mystery.

And more about Mark:

Mark Pryor is the author of the Hugo Marston series, set in Paris, London, and Barcelona. With nine books in the series thus far, THE MOST MYSTERIOUS BOOKSHOP IN PARIS is the first in a new spin-off series. It sees Hugo Marston still in Paris, and with the same characters around him, but instead of working at the US Embassy Hugo has opened his own mystery bookshop!

Mark also authored the Henri Lefort trilogy, historical mystery novels set in 1940s Paris, and has two books set right here in Austin, the psychological thrillers HOLLOW MAN and DOMINIC.

Away from books Mark is a former prosecutor, and now a partner at a criminal defense firm in Austin, Texas. He began his career as a journalist in England, where his beat was also crime-related - the police blotter. He has been a guest analyst on CourtTV, and appeared on CBS News's 48 Hours, NBC's Dateline, and Discovery Channel's Discovery ID: Cold Blood

 

Mark Pryor on Strong Women in Fiction

DEBORAH CROMBIE: First, a REDS alert! Five of us (so disappointed that Julia and Hallie can't make it) will be attending Bouchercon next week in San Diego, and we'd love to have a get-together with the REDs community. We'll be in the hotel lobby at 9 on Friday morning, so do come by for a chat!

Now, for today's guest, Mark Pryor has some thoughts on creating strong female characters in historical fiction. (And we are very flattered to be mentioned!)

Mark Pryor: The wonderful women who run this blog and write the books that we devour style themselves as "smart and sassy," which is absolutely true. Thing is, I've met most of them and they are so much more. The words "strong," "intelligent," "independent," and "charismatic" are just some of the descriptors I would add.

The same is true for so many of the writers that they feature on their blog, and that's one of the many reasons I'm a fan and have bugged them (more than once) to be a part of their literary world. That's always been my world, I think -- growing up, I was surrounded by strong women and I like having them in my life, they make the world richer, more diverse, and just more interesting.

Which is why, when creating my new Henri Lefort series, I ran into an unexpected problem. You see, the eleven novels I published prior to the first Henri book (called DIE AROUND SUNDOWN, below) were all set in the modern world, whereas Henri is operating in Paris, in 1940.

 

This means that with my first eleven books, if I wanted a detective, prosecutor, diplomat, or politician to be a woman, I could happily invent that. And did so, many times. In my Hugo Marston series, two of the leading (and strongest) characters are women.

But history, as it turns out, was not good to women when it came to power, prestige, and jobs. I mean, duh, right?! But this was not something I'd thought deeply about before as a writer, partly because of the modern setting of my books, but no doubt also partly because of my gender.

So when I was creating this new series, I was flummoxed, baffled, and bamboozled as to how I could include believable strong female characters in a book set in Paris in 1940.

And that's where reading came in. You know reading, that thing we all long to do more of, that thing that leads us to buy three more books when we already have 23 waiting for our attention. Some people also call it research, but I prefer to stick with reading, especially because history is itself so fascinating.

 Anyway, I was reading about Paris in the 1930s and 1940s when I came across the name of a woman I'd never heard before: Princess Marie Bonaparte. Obviously, I'd heard of her great- great- uncle, of course, Napoleon himself. But Marie? Not at all. And yet it turned out that she was an incredibly intelligent, ambitious, and utterly fascinating character in her own right. She became a student of Sigmund Freud, then his friend, and then helped him escape the Nazis. She had all manner of theories about women's sexuality, and generally took no guff from anyone, men especially. What's not to love?

I read the biography about her and I ended up shaping a crucial part of DIE AROUND SUNDOWN around Marie Bonaparte (or "Mimi" as the characters call her). Her psychological interests, life experience, and the strength of her personality helped me unlock and reveal the major plot revelation at the end of the book. And throughout the novel, having the tension between Henri, a strong character of his own, and a woman as independent and smart as he ever was, I think adds both tension and depth to the story.

In the second book, THE DARK EDGE OF NIGHT, which came out two weeks ago, I kept Mimi as a major character but also went looking for another woman from the history books to add to the mix. 

 

While reading about the Second World War I found Virginia Hall, an American one-legged spy who was cleverer and braver than just about anyone in her world. So after reading A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, a book I recommend to everyone now, I made sure to work her into the plot. She provides a touch of romance, a smidgeon of humor, and generally speaking more color and depth than if I'd not included her.

So now a question: when you're reading books, historical fiction or otherwise, do you notice or care about the demographics of the characters? Do you agree that a story is more interesting if it contains the inherently varied perspective of non-(white) male characters? Until writing these two novels I don't know if I'd even been aware of this issue, so I'm fascinated to learn what people think.

I mean, come on: Deborah Crombie as an arch villain? Who wouldn't love to see that...?!

DEBS: Mark, I once had an editor tell me that I was too "nice" to write crime fiction (not meant as a compliment!) so I would love to be a villian! Also, I loved Mimi and can't wait to meet Virginia! 

Here's more about THE DARK EDGE OF NIGHT.

Paris Detective Henri Lefort is about to investigate the murder of a Parisian when the occupying Germans order him to find a missing person – an SS doctor recently arrived from the Fatherland. Irritated (because one missing Nazi isn’t nearly enough in Henri’s mind), he does both jobs, and adds a third task when he starts looking into the disappearance of local children.

His prowess as a detective, and his smart mouth, don’t endear him to the Germans and while tracking down leads he uncovers some truths the Nazis would rather stay hidden. But once Henri sets out to do a job he does it, though he’s clever enough to know that the trap he sets for the killer has to be foolproof. So, with the help of a whip-wielding dominatrix, a French princess, and several members of the Resistance he unravels all three mysteries, which are connected in a finale that NYT best-seller Jeffrey Deaver (author of THE BONE COLLECTOR) called “genius.”

Mark Pryor is the author of the Henri Lefort series set in Paris in the 1940s. The first, DIE AROUND SUNDOWN, was published in August 2022 and the second, THE DARK EDGE OF NIGHT, on August 15, 2023. Mark is also the author of the Hugo Marston series, set in Paris, London, and Barcelona. And he has two books set in Austin, HOLLOW MAN and DOMINIC.

Away from books Mark is a retired prosecutor, and now a partner at a criminal defense firm in Austin, Texas. He began his career as a journalist in England, where his beat was also crime-related - the police blotter. He is a guest analyst on CourtTV and he has appeared on CBS News' 48 Hours, NBCs' Dateline, and Discovery Channel's Discovery ID: Cold Blood.