Why did I write The Mercy?
Well, first of all, I’m crazy. What it takes to write and re-write a book requires a certain loose relationship with reality. I love people and stories. I don’t delude myself into believing that my stories will make a dent in the admirable goals to work for world peace or end hunger. I write because I love to write. The Mercy was a story pushing me to share.
Still, how does anyone write a story with funny characters and a comedy routines between an irreverent psychologist and an off-the-bubble lawyer sidekick when the impetus was a suicide?
I wrote The Mercy partly to share what it’s like for family when a child commits suicide. But that’s not the main reason and the suicide isn’t the story. The sleuth happens to be a psychologist coping or not coping with the suicide of a child but the story is about a murder and the quest for justice.
The Mercy is after all a humorous mystery.
I also wrote The Mercy because I love puzzles that take me to places and cultures I find so intriguing that all my regrets and worries melt away. I wrote this mystery to share those moments lost in the heroic roots of the Southwest and the real Mexico with her pyramids and devotion to family. Most people, including my husband, think anyone who gets high strolling through the places I frequent has to be insane.
No denial here. I was too poor to afford drugs in high school or college but I’ve always floated a foot off the ground reading about and finding the stories of people who are who are brave and bright and caring. I wrote The Mercy because I also get a little high sharing what I’ve learned with other people who are brave enough to be intrigued and caring enough to lose themselves in the lives of others while absorbing all the fun life has to give.
If you’re reading this, you have at least viewed the scary, elegant woman with a skeleton finger on the cover of The Mercy, so I count you in that group.
