As I mentioned in my last post, I have recently completed a new book, which will be the first of a series. I got the initial idea for it a few years ago. Actually, I think it was around 2015, so more than a few years, but it has taken me until now to write it and rewrite it and turn it into something I consider suitable for publication.

The thought process started with the fact that I love mystery stories, and I can never find enough new ones that I really like. I’m not a big fan of the brutal, or the grisly, or the dystopian. I do like some of what are known as cozy mysteries, but a lot of those go to far, for me, in the other direction, and become unbearably cute.

So, having been raised in the philosophy of stop complaining and do something about it, I decided to write one of my own. I have no personal knowledge of police procedure or private detectives, but I do know a lot about one particular kind of mystery solving, which gave me what I thought was an original idea. What if my sleuth is a genealogist?

Genealogy has been a serious hobby of mine for many, many years. There was even a period when strangers occasionally paid me to do genealogical research for them, which I suppose means I was, by the broadest possible definition, a professional genealogist.

Some brief online searching showed me that I was not the first person to think of genealogist as sleuth. There is in fact a niche sub-subgenre known as either the genealogical mystery or the genealogy mystery. So, I wasn’t as original as I thought, but that means that there are potential readers out there for that kind of story.

In any case, I have written one, and it will soon be available to purchase and read. I will share more about it in future posts. If you’re interested, watch this space.