Author R&R with Verlin Darrow

Verlin Darrow is currently a psychotherapist who lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near the Monterey Bay in northern California. They diagnose each other as necessary. Verlin is a former professional volleyball player (in Italy), unsuccessful country-western singer/songwriter, import store owner, and assistant guru in a small, benign spiritual organization. Before bowing to the need for higher education, a much younger Verlin ran a punch press in a sheetmetal factory, drove a taxi, worked as a night janitor, shoveled asphalt on a road crew, and installed wood flooring. He missed being blown up by Mt. St. Helens by ten minutes, survived the 1985 Mexico City earthquake (8 on the Richter scale), and (so far) has successfully weathered his own internal disasters. 

His latest novel is The Brighter the Light, The Darker the Shadow: Kade Tobin needs every bit of his wisdom as the leader of a rural spiritual community to remain true to his core values as murders pile up around him. Drawn into helping to solve the mystery by a sheriff's detective, Kade sorts through the array of quirky seekers on the community's land, only to end up as the defendant in a suspense-filled trial. He struggles to maintain a stance of kindness while he endures bullies in the jail, a vengeful DA, and the pending judgment of twelve strangers. As the prosecution parades witness after witness, the mounting evidence against Kade becomes alarmingly damning. If he were a juror, Kade believes he might vote to convict himself at this stage of his trial. But he also trusts the universe. Kade remains confident that a force greater than himself—and the justice system—has other plans for him. Or does it?

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

The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow is set in a rural spiritual community in Northern California. Since I live in the same area, and I was once one of the leaders of a similar community, I didn’t need to do any research to create verisimilitude in these arenas. But a lot of the book centers on a murder trial. That was a different story.

As a kid, I wanted to be a lawyer when I grew up, mostly for a rather random reason. My parents saddled me with the middle name of Clarence and my last name is Darrow. So Clarence Darrow was an iconic figure to me. I watched Perry Mason every week (I’m dating myself here), and sought out other courtroom dramas. Since arguing was my family’s main activity, I thought my career plans made sense. Eventually, I discovered what most lawyers actually do, and that was that.

As an adult, I was in a jury box briefly before I answered a question from a psychological perspective (I’m a psychotherapist), horrifying the defense attorney, who immediately rejected me before I filled the other jurors’ heads with such nonsense. I found the proceedings intriguing.

Thus I developed an ear for legal talk and a misguided sense of courtroom procedures stemming from TV tropes. My half hour in a courtroom didn’t add much. This polluted the early drafts of my mystery. When you think you already know something, your motivation to learn more about it can be minimal.

Once I googled the crap out of everything, I discovered scads of legal objections I’d never heard of, and learned that procedures varied from county to county. More significantly, what lawyers were allowed to do on TV would have a real judge repeatedly rapping his gavel.

Emboldened by my humbling research, I expanded my exploration into police procedures, both in Santa Cruz county and in Montreal—another important location in the book. I also learned more about forensics, guns, and what the inside of a sheriff’s station looked like (Google images).

When the writing flowed, I didn’t worry about whether it matched the reality I’d researched. Later, I went back and made corrections, sometimes leaving the inaccurate version when it served the plot or its characters.

Since The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow is my seventh traditionally published mystery/thriller, I was already familiar with a lot of the crime stuff, but I went the extra distance with this one. I think the trial pulled that out of me. I didn’t want it to be seem unrealistic, and the rest of the book came along for the (googling) ride.

Now, having said all that, the protagonist’s trial does contain some intentional, unusual elements. They were necessary for plot twist reasons and they create sustained suspense. If I tell you any more about them, I’ll ruin your reading experience, so I’ll stop here.

You can learn more about Verlin Darrow via his website. The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow is now available via Amazon.