Michael Kaufman holds a PhD in political science and has worked in fifty countries with the United Nations, governments, companies, and NGOs engaging men to promote women’s rights, support diversity and inclusion, and to positively transform the lives of men. He also turned his hand to writing crime fiction in 2021 with The Last Exit, which introduced Police Detective Jen B. Lu and her "partner," Chandler, a SIM implant in her brain and her instant link to the Internet and police records, as well as being a constant voice inside her head. Kaufman's latest installment in that series is The Last Resort, which the author describes as "Margaret Atwood meets Raymond Chandler meets Greta Thunberg."
It’s March 2034 in Washington, D.C., when environmental lawyer and media darling, Patty Garcia, dies in a truly bizarre accident on a golf course. Of the eight billion people on the planet, only D.C. Detective Jen Lu thinks she was murdered. After all, Garcia just won a case for massive climate change reparations to be paid by oil, gas, and coal companies.
Soon Jen is in the crosshairs of those who will ensure the truth never comes to light. Is the culprit an oil and gas big shot? Or Garcia’s abusive ex-husband? Whoever it is, Jen has to move quickly before she’s marked as the next victim on the killer’s hit list.
Today, Michael stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching The Last Resort:
How do you research and write a mystery set in 2034?
The easy way would be to claim (since this is the second book of my Jen Lu/Chandler series) that I’m now the world’s expert on what’s happening in Washington D.C. eleven years from now.
So, it was easy?
Sorry, I couldn’t do that. For one thing, I hate reading a book where the details are wrong. For another, years ago while a graduate student and later writing a number of non-fiction books, I pummeled my brain with a clear message: know everything that you can.
Can an author do too much research?
No, but you can show off your research too much. One of the cardinal sins of fiction is showing your research. We’ve all seen this. The bits with way too much detail about technical facts. Or the author who is so fascinated by the place they just visited that they write a travelogue. Or perhaps they don’t want all that research to “go to waste”. I’m lucky that I get to write both fiction and non-fiction. When I want to educate and explain things, I write non-fiction. When I want to entertain, thrill, amuse and just perhaps enlighten, I write fiction.
Was it fun doing research for The Last Resort?
Totally! To the annoyance of my wife and kids, I’m one of those people who constantly talks to strangers, asking them about, well, whatever. Doing research gives me permission to do just that.
For this one, I spoke to librarians and archivists in the Library of Congress and the National Archives and got to ask questions like, “How would a bad guy go about stealing something from you?”
Since there’s a theme about resistance by Big Oil to climate change reparations (which, as you’ll find out in a few years, will be a very big deal) and because one of the suspects is a chemical-engineer-turned-executive, I spoke at length to a chemical engineer. It turned out that not a single question was directly relevant, but by talking to this person, I understood my character much better.
I got to wander around some of my DC faves, including the always-inspiring Library of Congress and the glass conservatory at the US Botanic Garden.
I invented the ultra-exclusive golf course where the story begins, but I tromped around the existing low-budget public course to see the land on which the private course will be built in a few years. Similarly, I walked and ran along the surrounding pathways of Rock Creek Park.
And the challenges actually writing the book?
The first big challenge is that The Last Resort is set in the near future. Climate change is hitting hard and economic and social inequality are worsening. Yet, I didn’t want this series to be another grim dystopia. The Last Resort is fun to read and, in spite of crappy things going on, there’s a sense of hope and optimism about our capacity as humans to create a better future.
The second challenge is that each book of this series engages one or more social issues. This one has themes around the oil and gas industries and also violence against women. However, these books aren’t political theory. They’re entertainment. So the big trick is to tell a page-turning story that also mentally engages readers. I really believe that my readers are smart people who are engaged in the world, but also want a place they can escape into. It’s a fun balance that takes hard work, but in the end, it’s story-telling that wins out.
Another big one was the specific challenge when writing a series. I wanted this book to be completely stand alone, but also to build on what’s come before. That required a lot of rewriting and tough choices, both about which characters and which storylines from the first of the series (The Last Exit) to include. Turns out that many of the main characters are with us again, but the storyline is totally new.
Finally, was it hard to find your narrative voice for this series?
There are actually two narrative voices. Half the book is a third person narration, but half the book is narrated by the bio-computer named Chandler who is implanted into the brain of D.C. Detective Jen B. Lu. Chandler is a wannabe tough guy, but has a hard time pulling it off since he’s only three years old. Readers and reviewers keep saying they love him which, as a writer, is really gratifying.
What was really interesting to me is how Chandler’s voice came instantly to me. But what I didn’t know until I was half-way into the first book, was how much Chandler would become a complex character who evolves both within each book and from one book to the next.
You can find out more about the author and his books via his website and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Mastodon. The Last Resort is now available via all major booksellers, your favorite indie store, Penguin Random House, and Crooked Lane Books.
