Mystery Writers Are Like Scientists

 Writing a mystery novel is similar to conducting a science experiment in several ways.

·      Writers and scientists both do research.

·      They both organize their observations into a whole, which writers call plots and scientists call hypotheses.

·      They both test and refine their “whole.” Writers edit their prose; scientists run additional experiments.

·      Both require a lot of hard work to gain occasional flashes of insights. To paraphrase Thomas Edison, they’re “one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Why did I drag you through this discussion? I’m trying to explain why so many scientists and physicians became writers of mysteries and thrillers. Consider Michael Crichton (a physician by training), Kathy Reichs (a forensic anthropologist), Robin Cook (a physician). I’m also explaining how as a retired biology professor I came to write mystery/suspense novels with tidbits of science.

Through this discussion, I hope you learn how bits of science add realism to a mystery.

Let’s start with my thriller, I Saw You in Beirut. In this thriller, a woman’s past provides clues for the extraction of a nuclear scientist from Iran (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610092201).

Did you know? In the early 1960s, scientists identified zinc deficiency in peasants in Iran. At that time, two to three percent of the villagers in some regions of Iran didn't pass the physical for the army because of stunted growth. Dr. James Halstead, Sr. who was married to President’s Roosevelt’s daughter, Anna, headed the research team at Shiraz. Surprised?

I created Doc Steinhaus, a fictional character in I Saw You in Beirut, who worked on the project in Shiraz as a grad student. He was a logical way to “show not tell” readers about science in Iran and advance the plot. Let’s face it most foreign agents don’t look or act like James Bond, but they can be a lot more nuanced.

 

Now how about Malignancy? In this suspense novel, a woman scientist tries to escape the clutches of a drug lord and accepts a risky assignment in Cuba (http://amzn.com/1610091779.

When I visited Cuba in 2013, I learned Cuban researchers had patented a therapeutic cancer vaccine to treat non-small cell lung cancer. This drug revs up a patient’s own immune system to produce cells, which recognize substances found on the surface of tumor cells but not on the surface of normal cells, and kills the cancer cells. For those surprised about the sophistication of this work, please note the researchers had spent a lot time at Harvard despite the embargo.

I also read the editorial in Science (6/6/2014) on scientific exchanges between the U.S. and Cuba. I thought Sara Almquist, as an epidemiologist and heroine of my previous medical thrillers Coming Flu (http://amzn.com/1610090985 and Ignore the Pain (http://amzn.com/1610091310), would be the perfect protagonist to do a little “scientific diplomacy” in Cuba.

Of course, Sara gets involved in a lot more than science in both novels; they wouldn’t be thrillers without danger. Why don’t you read them and learn a little thrilling science?

IS IT FACT OR FICTION?

 Or to put it another way—when does a memoir or biography become fiction? I like books labeled as non-fiction to be just that, but I like lots of facts in fiction.

I’m sure many of you will disagree with me because you love to escape into a different world when you read. However, Downton Abbey would lose its zing if costumes, sites, and key historic events in WWI and the flu epidemic of 1918 weren’t described correctly. Even fantasy novels are enhanced by a few facts. The evacuation of children to from London during the Nazi blitzkrieg is the basis of CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.

Points to consider when including facts in fiction

1. Create a strong plot, and #insert facts to create realistic characters.

I’ll give an example from Malignancy. In this thriller, a woman scientist tries to escape the clutches of a drug lord and accepts a State Department assignment to set up scientific exchanges between the U.S. and Cuba. However, the scientific community is less safe than she expected.

That’s the plot. One of Sara’s surprises is Cuban researchers have patented a vaccine that is thought to strengthen patients’ immune response against a certain type of lung cancer. (Fact: The cancer vaccine Racotumomab is in clinical trials now world wide.). Other surprises involve her love interest and the dug czar. They are not based on facts. The scientific facts allow me to show Sara’s expertise and ingenuity. They also keep her from being a busy body, who wouldn’t be included in real exchanges among “diplomats” from Cuba and the U.S.

2. Pick #relevant and exciting topics.

A great author can make any topic interesting but most of us aren’t great writers. Readers are more apt to be interested in tales based on intrinsically interesting issues—global warming or curing cancer. Michael Chrichton (Jurassic Park), Robin Cook (Coma), and Ian McEwan (Solar) were particularly skillful at selecting scary high-tech issues for their thrillers.

3. #Use facts to turn locations into strong characters.

Realistic locations improve any novel. Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises would be pretty boring without the hypnotic descriptions of the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona. The decadence and beauty of Venice set the mood for Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. The Cuba (I visited three years ago and depicted in Malignancy) is surprising and probably transient.

4. Be as accurate as possible.

A writer of thrillers told me recently that readers accept a couple inaccuracies in a novel if you have stated most of the information correctly. I don’t know if that’s true. Certainly, Dan Brown has been criticized for inaccurate historical information in his best selling novel, The DaVinci Code, but he certainly included enough facts to ignite readers’ interest.

Why not pick up copies of Malignancy and see if you like facts in fiction, too? Malignancy won first prize in the 2015 Public Safety Writers annual contest.

Malignancy is available at Amazon http://amzn.com/1610091779

Turning a Trip to Cuba into a Novel

I visited Cuba in 2013. My tour guide was determined for our group to see Cuba as more than a former haunt of mobsters from the U.S. and a place to see vintage U.S. cars. She bragged about how Cuba was modernizing its economy. I figured many of her comments were carefully rehearsed propaganda.

However, one of her claims caught my attention. She said Cuban researchers had patented a drug for cancer. When I got home, I checked. Researchers at the Center of Molecular Immunology in Havana and scientists in Argentina had developed a therapeutic cancer vaccine, called Racotumomab, to treat one type of lung cancer (non-small cell lung cancer). A multicenter clinical trail is now evaluating the drug’s effectiveness.

This drug is an example of a hot area of research – the development of cancer immunotherapy drugs, sometimes called cancer vaccines. These drugs rev up a patient’s own immune system to produce cells, which recognize substances found on the surface of tumor cells but not on the surface of normal cells. These cells then slay the cancer cells, but not the normal cells.

Okay that’s a heavy dose of science. Do these drugs work? The editors of Science named cancer immunotherapy the “scientific breakthrough of the year” in 2013. Hundred of labs worldwide are developing and patenting potential drugs of this sort. So far, none, including the Cuban one, have been a huge success. Several have helped patients to survive longer in clinical trials.

Why the fuss about this one Cuban patent? This patent demonstrates Cuban scientists are doing competitive science and understand the importance of commercialization of their research. I also discovered Cuban were already visiting American universities, and a number of U.S. scientists were trying to augment these scientific exchanges despite the U.S. embargo on Cuba.

I thought this could be the basis of a novel. Realistically the State Department might send (in the near future) scientists to Cuba to explore the possibility of creating government-sponsored exchanges between the two countries. Certainly scientific exchanges between the US and China were early steps in the normalization of our relationship with China during the Nixon administration.

The birth of MALIGNANCY: A Novel. I thought Sara Almquist, the epidemiologist and heroine of my previous medical thrillers Coming Flu and Ignore the Pain would be the perfect protagonist to do a little “scientific diplomacy” in Cuba. Besides, I could throw in a little intrigue about drugs slipping from Bolivia through Cuba and into the U.S.

Here’s a blurb on MALIGNANCY. Men disguised as police officers shoot at Sara Almquist twice in one day. The real police suspect Jim Mazzone, a drug czar who Sara has tangled with several times, will order more hits on Sara. Thus when colleagues in the State Department invite Sara to arrange scientific exchanges between the U.S. and Cuba, she jumps at the chance to get out of town. Maybe, she should question their motives.

I think you’ll find this novel has plenty of action and deserves thriller status. And it has something no other thriller has – a middle-aged woman heroine.