Author R&R with Michael G. Colburn

Michael G. Colburn has studied and written about the creative process for several decades. He started several businesses and one manufacturing company based on creation and invention. He served with industry associations and was treasurer and then president of Food Service Consultants Society International. He has authored over twenty patents. His books include the bestselling Invent, Innovate, and Prosper and How Julia Found Happiness and Financial Success. He lives with his wife in Vermont, and when he is not writing, they like to travel and take long-distance walking trips, exploring paths and cultures around the world. 

Colburn recently turned his hand to writing fiction, with his first novel, Stolen Brilliance: A Lady Black Mystery, released in April 2024, and the follow-up, former street urchin Edith Black, rescued from the slums of Victorian London, who finds herself ensnared in a web of crime orchestrated by Mrs. Hill, the mastermind behind the Forty Elephants, an infamous gang of lady thieves. While perfecting her deception skills, Edie falls deeply in love with Benji, the man who once saved her. Under Mrs. Hill’s direction, she finds herself navigating crime and adventure in far-flung locations from France and South Africa to Brazil to Australia.

In Asylum Murders, Edith is now in Australia and known as Lady Edith Black. In the flickering gaslight of Victoria Parliament’s inner chambers, a prized symbol of government—the ceremonial Mace—disappears following a night of decadent indulgence involving parliamentarians and officials. Lady Black is soon drawn into the mystery, and although her past remains hidden, her talent and determination is unmatched—and her instincts tell her the Mace is merely the tip of something far darker.

The night the Mace disappears, a young woman is discovered near death. The two crimes intertwine and lead Edie to the foreboding gates of Kew Asylum, where her closest friend, Britina—a novice nun assigned to care for patients—has made a disturbing discovery: patients are vanishing without explanation. When Britina becomes a risk to a sinister plan, she is swiftly silenced, declared criminally insane, and locked away among the very souls she sought to protect. To rescue her friend, Edie must step into the asylum’s grim world of medical secrets, patient abuse, a chilling conspiracy, and enemies willing to kill to keep their secrets buried. But exposing the truth could cost more than her freedom; it could cost her life.

Michael Colburn stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing the book:

My first book in the Lady Black series, Stolen Brilliance, has just one murder, and you don’t find out who is murdered or who the murderer is until the last few pages. In book two, Asylum Murders, there are murders galore. But before we go there, I wanted to tell In Reference to Murder readers a little about me and my writing.

A long time ago,  I went to the drive-in with my parents (I was nine). We watched Trapeze starring Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, and Gina Lollobrigida. There was nothing I wanted more than to become a trapeze artist. I tried making a trapeze out of a pipe I found and clothesline rope, stringing the rope through the pipe and tying it to branches of an apple tree in the field behind our house. The branch broke on my first swing. I realized that being a trapeze artist would not happen and probably wasn’t a good career move.

In my very early teenage years, I abandoned my childhood trapeze ambitions, and I wrote out a list of things I wanted to do and to become. Somewhere in the aging process, I lost that list. I wish I still had it; it would have been fun to check things off. I wanted to retire by 40. What was I thinking? I love working, being busy, accomplishing things, but at 14, what did I know? If I retired, I could play, right? I wanted to be an artist (but I had no talent-I tried). I wanted to start businesses and run them, which I did for four decades. I wanted to be an inventor; I made my business about inventing and authored over 20 patents, which is a writing art form in itself. I wanted to fly a plane and soar in a glider. I’ve done both, but not to the extent I thought I would. 

I could still do more. I haven’t hot air ballooned yet—but there is still time. I wanted to make the Olympics—I didn’t. I wanted to be happily married and raise a wonderful child, and I’m proud to say I did that better than any other accomplishment. Now, to my point. That list included prominently that I wanted to be a writer and write fiction books. I have written a few non-fiction books since retiring, and the accomplishment felt really rewarding, but fiction…

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My wife and I rented an apartment in Glasgow, Scotland, after a self-guided walking tour of Scottish abbeys. We like traveling and discovering new cities. We get acquainted with a new city by taking hop-on, hop-off buses, stopping to check out interesting areas. On this occasion, a young college student had prepared her English tour speech well. As we drove by the shipbuilding areas of the River Clyde, she told the story of the stolen steamship Ferret in 1890. Refurbished and leased by the shipbuilder, the ship disappeared, its location and fate unknown. It was discovered many months later in Melbourne, Australia. 

Why? What happened in those months? How was this possible? Who was responsible? I had the kernel of a fiction novel with elements of real occurrences. I began researching everything I could find. I contacted libraries and historical collections of newspapers in Scotland and Australia. The disappearance, search and eventual trial of some participants were there, along with many unanswered questions. I started developing a story and cast of characters around bits and pieces of research information. Some of my characters are real; some are not. Some events are actual; some are not. 

Lady Black was my creation stemming from one line in a newspaper article. The text read that when Henderson (real, and theft leader) boarded the Ferret with its new crew in Cardiff (before the disappearance) a tall, elegant woman he claimed was his wife accompanied him. I found no mention of her before or after this occurrence, but she is our Lady Black. 

A lot of the first section of book one, Stolen Brilliance, deals with establishing Edith Black’s history. I wanted readers to know her from childhood and how she came to be our heroine. While researching, I found that while the steamship India (Ferret renamed) was in Cape Town, South Africa, a major diamond theft occurred, a true crime that has never been solved. This was just too tempting. It became a major component of Stolen Brilliance and allowed for the creation of another character that will live on in my fiction.

From a writing standpoint, having written what I did in book one, I have characters, timeline, territory, and opportunity to create many stories that continue the saga of Lady Black, Benji Diamond, Jack Kramer, and in particular, for book two, Asylum Murders, Britina Myers, Edie’s best friend growing up in the slums of London.

In Asylum Murders, while investigating the theft of Victoria’s parliamentary Mace, a precious and symbolic representation of the political system, Edie exposes the brutal beating and rape of a beautiful prostitute, left for dead.

Britina, now assigned as a novice nun to serve the needy in the Kew Asylum, discovers that patients have disappeared and are harvested to provide specimens for medical studies and dissection. Head Nurse Kramer, aware of the threat that Britina poses, frames her for murder and has her committed as a criminally insane inmate, whom she keeps in a drug-induced stupor.

Edie risks her own life to clear Britina’s name and free her from her forced incarceration.

I hope you enjoy.

 

You can learn more about Michael G. Colburn by visiting his website and following him on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Asylum Murders is now available via Amazon.