Hope, or, Why we love a good #mystery #series

At this time of year, it seems perfectly reasonable to write about hope. We gather with family and friends, cuddle up in front of a cozy fire, laugh, talk — and read, of course! As the song says, “we’ll conspire, as we dream by the fire, to face unafraid, the plans that we made …”

books

I’ve been thinking about plans and hope. Not my plans (or my hopes) but those of Adam Kaminski, the hero in the Adam Kaminski mystery series.

Adam has dreams. Or at least he did. Until his view of the world was shattered through one cruel, heartless act. That devastation changed his dreams and changed his life course. He left teaching to join the Philadelphia Police Department, intent on chasing down the bad guys who posed a threat to the safety of the people he loved and cared for.

My job as author is to force Adam to face his lost dreams, to help him strive for his lost hope. It’s not easy! Sometimes it’s so much easier to let him sit back, take life as it comes, watch from the sidelines even. But that wouldn’t make for very interesting reading.

In any mystery, the detective, whether amateur or professional, must throw himself into the path of danger. She must face her fears, thwart the villain. And in each book, that’s exactly what happens. But the attraction of a series is that other story, the longer story arc that the character follows over multiple books.

For Adam Kaminski, that longer story sends him on a quest to find the truth about his family legacy and to find the hope that he lost, the hope that led him to be a teacher in the first place.

Whenever I’m tempted to make life easy for Adam, to let him zip through a case, solve the murder in front of him without delving too deeply into other mysteries, I remind myself of his dream. I owe him. He needs me to let him dig deeper, to send him to unknown places, so that he can find the answers he needs, the faith in humanity that will give him back his hope.

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