Author R&R with Rebecca Marks

 

An attorney, musician, and owner of dog-show champion Belgian Tervurens, Rebecca Marks is also the author of the Dana Cohen Mystery Series, which deal with a woman who has retired at age 42 from her post as detective with the NYPD and relocated to the North Fork of Long Island. She plans on helping her elderly father manage his winery but soon finds she can't stop solving mysteries. Following the first two installments, On the Rocks and Four Shots Neat, she's just released the third book in the series, Stone Cold Sober, from Black Opal Books.


In the novel, Dana's best friend, Marilyn, is directing a local musical theater production. Dana's estranged lover, Alex Frasier, the father of the child she's carrying, is a Morris dancer in the show, but Dana has no theatrical talent at all. So Marilyn cooks up a way to get the two former lovebirds together, hiring Dana to work security for the production. When Dana discovers a gruesome murder during one of the show's rehearsals, her "detective gene" overtakes her, and she can't resist the urge to throw herself into this case. But as she investigates, she uncovers some dark secrets and realizes, too late, how far someone will go to keep them hidden...

Rebecca stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing her books:

 

In our current culture, sophisticated readers have access to the most updated information about most everything, and they are not shy about finding the information and complaining about errors. So I’ve always felt that it’s very important to make sure that as an author, I do my homework and research all of the parts of the story that entail factual legal procedures. In a mystery, it’s common to talk about police work, legal process, and much of what happens between the crime and the solution.

Although I am a Massachusetts lawyer, I have never been licensed to practice in New York, and the rules and procedures can vary greatly from state to state. The Dana Cohen mystery series takes place entirely in New York. So I followed several different routes to ensure that I got the facts right.

First of all, Google has been a tremendously important tool for me. There is a great deal of information posted online by the state of New York, detailing police procedure, court process, medical examiner rules, and grand jury proceedings, to name a few. I read extensively about all of the following: 

• Police conduct legal searches, but to do so, they need the proper warrants and implements to conduct their searches. The Consolidated Laws of New York’s CPL code provide all of the information about what property police can seize during a search, who and what are subject to such search, when the warrants are executable, and how they are obtained, to name a few of the procedures.
• Because Dana operates mostly in Suffolk County, I consulted the Suffolk County Government Medical Examiner website. It provides extensive information about how the ME operates in Suffolk County, including timing, autopsy policy, and when the ME is called in.
• Grand juries are convened by the county prosecutor to ascertain whether the perpetrator of a crime should be indicted. Although these procedures are similar from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, I researched how it works in Suffolk County, to make sure I didn’t write something that wasn’t true. The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office provides complete information about criminal justice procedures, which were invaluable to me in writing Dana’s stories.
• Finally, court cases also follow the procedure of the jurisdiction where the crime occurred, and New York publishes extensive articles about how criminal procedure works in that state. Luckily, my law background enabled me to understand the gist of the NYS CPL Law Code.

In addition to the rich availability of information on the Internet, there are other extremely useful tools out there for authors to use in the quest to do accurate research. There are several Yahoo groups that provide useful information volunteered by other authors who have already done the research. I have found that the Yahoo group “Crimescene Writer” is extremely useful. On that site, writers can ask questions about absolutely everything they might be planning to write about in their crime novels. Recently, someone asked about a gunshot wound, and how it would affect a victim. Many people answered this question and provided information about where to learn more. There are reports about how the FBI operates, what police do, what is legal and illegal for the police, warrants, and any other questions an author might have about their book.

I have asked several questions of this group in the course of my writing the Dana Cohen mystery series, and I always receive excellent information. Then I am able to refine that information even more carefully by digging into its accuracy.

Finally, there are several organizations that support mystery writers, and I am a member of two of those: Mystery Writers of America (MWA) and International Thriller Writers (ITW). These organizations provide not only a venue for writers to meet other writers, but also give members a place to seek relevant information. 

Research is not only interesting and fun, but doing it thoroughly gives me the confidence that although I am writing fiction, the procedures and actions of agencies involved in my mysteries are correct and believable. 

 

You can learn more about Rebecca and her books via her website, or follow her on Twitter or on Facebook.