Rosemary Mild, a graduate of Smith College and former assistant editor of Harper's, and Larry Mild, a digital systems and instrument designer for major government contractors in the signal analysis field, are also cheerful partners in crime. They have coauthored the popular Paco & Molly Mysteries, the Dan and Rivka Sherman Mysteries, the Hawaii adventure/thrillers Cry Ohana and Honolulu Heat, and three volumes of short stories, many of which appear in anthologies. Making use of his past creativity and problem-solving abilities, Larry naturally drifted into the realm of mystery writing, where he also claims to be more devious than his partner-in-crime and best love, Rosemary. So he conjures up their plots and writes the first drafts, leaving Rosemary to breathe life into their characters and sizzle into their scenes. A perfect marriage of their talents.
Their latest novel is Kent and Katcha: Espionage, Spycraft, Romance. The year is 1992. The Soviet Union has collapsed, but danger persists. Young Kent Brukner, a freshly trained American spy, arrives in Moscow for a high-risk mission: to infiltrate and compromise a Russian Federation Army facility. Under an alias, in a military uniform, he plies his skills—unprepared for the brutal confrontations and irrational consequences. Kent meets the innocent and passionate Katcha, daughter of a British expatriate and a Russian dissident, and together the lovers embark on a nearly impossible journey, beginning in the foothills of the Ural Mountains. Stalked by the evil Major Dmitri Federov, they must escape from St. Petersburg to Helsinki, Finland, or face life in a Russian prison. Kent also faces a personal choice—will he choose his spine-tingling career or the woman he loves?
Larry and Rosemary Mild tag-team some Author R&R at In Reference to Murder today:
LARRY:
I divide research into two types: general and specific. I find general research good for broadening the mind and great for nonfiction writers, who have to impart to their readers that they are experts on the subject. But it’s wasteful for fiction writers. In writing fiction, authentic description is highly supportive, but it must never trump the plot. Going overboard with minute details interrupts the action, leaving the reader thinking, Get to the story already.
So…what is great for the fiction writer? I call it specific research. It means including just enough detail and facts to convince you, our readers, that you are in the scene with the characters. For our new novel, Kent and Katcha: Espionage, Spycraft, Romance, I determined in advance what I thought I would need.
Rosemary and I have a workable routine for starting each new project. I make up the plot and write the first draft. The complex plot of Kent and Katcha takes place in Russia just after the USSR broke into a myriad of tough-to-pronounce countries. I had the spy part pretty well down already, as I had been a senior design engineer for a defense manufacturer who supplied the intelligence agencies for many years. I actually met a few government contract managers who were once field agents—spies forced to come in from the cold. I’d even been to the locale where field agents were trained. In the performance of my work, I visited many secure military and civilian facilities. I knew what I could write and what I could not write about. I had a fair knowledge of recent Russian history from my dutiful reading of the Washington Post every morning. We own an atlas that has given me an overall picture of Russian geography. My initial concept of the plot was espionage, capture, escape, chase. I’d seen enough movies that I could create an authentic prison camp with its typical flaws. I’d also docked in enough harbors from my years with the U.S. Navy. All of this knowledge helped me start our novel.
For certain, I would need a batch of authentic Russian names, both male and female, as well as a train and bus map of western Russia. I selected Helsinki, Finland, as the ultimate destination for our hero and heroine. So I had to research both Helsinki and St. Petersburg, Russia, in more detail, as well as the modes and schedules of transportation between them. Addresses, famous sights, and foods were also looked into as needed. As the plot progressed, I sought a number of common Russian expressions that I salted throughout the text to give it the right flavor. But these had to be in the transliterated form of the Cyrillic Russian or my readers would not have recognized them. Airports, hotels, cafés, street names—all had to be looked up. The research did not end with me. Rosemary continued to find color for some of the stops on the journey. She also, as always, fleshed out the characters and intensified scenes for dramatic effect.
Fortunately, all the research I needed was on the Internet. I enjoy researching there. An old adage says, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Hogwash! I’m ninety-one and I feel you never get too old to learn new things.
ROSEMARY:
First, I have to tell you I’m dazzled by Larry’s background. We’re married thirty-six years, a second marriage for us both, and I still learn more about him and his past every day. I love how he applies his knowledge and experience to our stories. I also must tell you that Kent and Katcha was the toughest novel I’ve ever worked on. Neither of us has been to Russia or Helsinki. I made some of the research my own domain focusing on 1992, such as the cars in both countries; what the Helsinki harbor and U.S. Embassy looked like; the weather and what clothes the characters were wearing during the months of the story. All with intent to give authenticity to our scenes.
How We Handled Research in Some of Our Other Fiction
We sold a copy of Locks and Cream Cheese, our first Paco & Molly Mystery, to the Hawaii State Library. The acquisitions librarian asked me: “Where did you get your research?” “Oh,” I said with a chuckle, “Larry made it all up! He got the historical details out of his head, based on all the historical novels he’d ever read.”
In Death Goes Postal, our first Dan & Rivka Sherman Mystery, we created the Olde Victorian Bookstore in Historic Annapolis, Maryland, eight miles from our house. We strolled around the quaint neighborhood to make sure we got the street names right. (Of course, that’s not necessary whenever we make up a fictional locale.) In Death Steals A Holy Book, we had to locate an English translation of a rare Yiddish volume that Larry inherited (on which he built a mystery plot). We found it in a bookstore in Brooklyn, New York. Then we had to track down the rabbi who translated it and get his permission to quote from it.
Our most popular novel is Cry Ohana, Adventure and Suspense in Hawaii. We spent twenty years in Hawaii as snowbirds from Maryland (before moving here eleven years ago). Young Kekoa witnesses a murder and is running from the killer. We loaded the novel with local scenes based on our own experience—but always pushing the story forward. In Chinatown on Chinese New Year, we waded through spent firecracker paper, then turned that night into a chase scene with the killer stalking Kekoa. On the Big Island, we witnessed dangerous volcanic steam vents and incorporated those into the plot. We have a character in the hospital with a head wound. His wife had clobbered him with a crystal ashtray. We called the Honolulu Police Department for how they deal with spouse abuse, and applied those details.
Sometimes our research plays an astonishing role, as in Copper and Goldie, 13 “Tails” of Mystery and Suspense in Hawaii. (Goldie is the golden retriever who helps catch bad guys.) In our short story “The Snake Lady,” Auntie Momi visits her fortune teller, but finds her dead—murdered—and Heki, her gentle pet python, missing. Wait a minute! Snakes are illegal in the Aloha State. Detective Danny groans, “Not another reptile. No matter how hard we try, the black market thrives.” I called the Hawaii Department of Agriculture and learned that the penalty is up to three years in prison and a $200,000 fine. But there’s an amnesty plan: Voluntarily turn in your reptile, no penalties. Our research was satisfying, but our plot was at a standstill. It was missing an irrefutable piece of evidence that would nail the killer. A happy personal coincidence solved our problem—and the case. A cousin of ours, a jewelry designer, had just posted her newest creation on Facebook: an exotic snake ring! With her permission, we incorporated the ring into our plot. It led to the killer.
But here I echo Larry. We only include the research that enriches the plot, fits the characters’ behavior, and contributes to the pacing and suspense.
How I Got Carried Away Doing Research—with Dire Consequences
As a student at Smith College, I spent my Junior Year Abroad with the Smith Group in Geneva, Switzerland. For the school year 1955-56, we attended the University of Geneva. Our group leader was a Smith Professor of Government. He fitted his own course into our schedules, American Foreign Policy. We had no tests, just one term paper, requiring us to answer this question: “Was the United States justified in entering the Korean War?” I spent glorious hours doing my research at The League of Nations Library in Geneva. Sitting at a table in the reading room, I could hardly concentrate. The view was exquisite. Azure blue Lake Geneva, and in the distance, the snow-covered Swiss Alps. I proudly turned in my twenty-page paper a day before the deadline. One week later, our papers were handed back with our grades. I stared in shock at mine: a big fat red C, accompanied by the professor’s comment. “Rosemary, amid all your research, you forgot to answer the question: Was the United States justified in entering the Korean War? That was the entire assignment.”
A Little Research Goes a Long Way
Research is always a judgment call—so tempting to show off how much you know. Elmore Leonard, author of Get Shorty and other popular novels, said: “Don’t go into great detail describing places and things. Even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.”—From his New York Times article “Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points, and Especially Hooptedoodle.”
To learn more about the Milds and their books, visit their website, or follow them on Facebook or LinkedIn. Kent and Katcha: Espionage, Spycraft, Romance is available via all major booksellers.
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