Confident that I’d buttoned down enough about my hero to continue the series with authority and verisimilitude, I next penned Time Bomb, a book that allowed Dr. D to fade back into the role of expert. Though his love life did take some interesting turns.
That approach continued for the following three novels, until, once again, I felt Alex needed some shaking up in order to enlarge his character. The result was Bad Love, in which a vindictive patient from Alex’s past threatens his very survival. Then back to Dr. D as expert for eight more novels.
Nine years after Silent Partner, I decided it was time to learn more about Milo. The result was The Murder Book, in which we delve into the inimitable Detective Sturgis’s days as a rookie homicide cop, a period when homosexuality, per se, was automatic disqualification for employment in the LAPD. A period during which secrets ruled Milo ’s life and affected his ability to solve a particularly brutal homicide. It is only when a newly integrated Sturgis-by which I mean a Sturgis caught up with his own psyche-reexamines the file that what has become a brain-itching cold case can finally be solved.
The Murder Book also marked a stylistic departure for a Delaware novel in that exclusive first-person narrative-a form I believe has the potential to increase a sense of intimacy between reader and character-was abandoned. Instead, I alternated first person with the third-person flashbacks necessary for excavating Milo ’s initial days as a novice detective. The book could only have been written at that particular time, as it took me that long to build up the courage to deviate from the form.
I decided to break free after reading my brilliant wife’s superb novel Justice, in which Faye initiated that same point-of-view flexibility for her series. I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that being married to Faye has proved an enormous confidence builder in general; she has taught me, always by example, never pedantically, that one needn’t be locked into a stylistic straitjacket in order to maintain thematic and artistic consistency across a series.
Faye’s unintentional mentoring has extended to another area: Anyone who knows my wife knows she is All Girl. Despite that, she displays an almost freakishly masterful ability to write from a male perspective. (Many writers have commented on her brilliance in that regard. The Edgar®-winning author Brian Garfield has opined that no one does it better than Faye.) Faye’s exceptional gift made me wonder if I could pull off a female chief protagonist. The result was Petra Connor, hero of Billy Straight and Twisted and an all-around great gal who surfaces as a collaborator in the Delaware novels when her talents are needed by Alex and Milo.
Milo, Milo, Milo.
He, as opposed to Alex, is described in great physical detail in every single Delaware novel, because we view him, as we view the world, through Alex’s eyes. Despite that, I have received several inquiries from readers wanting to know if he’s white or black. At first, I was puzzled by the puzzlement of those loyal fans, since allusions to Milo’s pallid complexion, straight black hair, and bright green eyes seemed to preclude anything but Caucasian. Then I realized that I’d described him several times as “Black Irish,” a tag that refers to a subset of Emerald Isle Celts with dark hair-probably the result of long-ago genetic contribution from Roman invaders. A common term during my youth but one that has, apparently, lost currency. I may need to be less subtle.
I have also fielded countless questions about Alex’s ethnicity, including one rather rambunctious reader who insisted that, let’s face it, Alex is Jewish.
Let’s face it; he’s not.
I am Jewish; Alex is a self-described “mutt,” and that was a deliberate choice. One of the many things that working as a psychologist taught me was that once we get over what I call the hurdle of ethnicity, we’re all pretty darned similar, intra-psychically. For that reason, and because I see myself as an inclusive man, I yearned to create a universal character-to write universally appealing books that avoided the ethnic tunnel vision that would be distracting and detract from meta-themes.
There may be some Semitic protein floating around in Dr. Delaware ’s ribonucleic acid. I couldn’t tell you, as I’ve never seen the results of any lab test. There’s probably American Indian, German, English, French, and Lord knows what else in there too. But Alex is nothing if not ethnically ambiguous-a distinctly American persona cobbled together from what is best about the greatest nation in history, a truth seeker undeterred by Orwellian notions of “diversity” or by base, creativity-murdering political correctness.
All fiction is to some extent autobiographical, but it is also a particularly entertaining variant of the Rorschach test-a series of deliberately hazy images upon which the reader projects his or her own fears, affections, and drives. Vegans want Alex to eschew meat. Liberals, conservatives, libertarians, all shudder at the possibility that he might not agree with every single opinion they possess on any given topic.
Sorry, he’s his own guy.
Nearly thirty years ago, when Alex Delaware popped into my head, I had no idea he’d ever stay alive long enough to serve as the springboard for exploring my own existential questions, let alone those of tens of millions of other people.
The fact that he continues to do his obsessive, heroic thing without adhering to-or even touching upon-any particular orthodoxy brings me tremendous joy as I continue to tell the stories to which Dr. Delaware directs me.
I love my job.
JOHN LESCROART
Born in 1948 in Houston, Texas, John Lescroart (it’s pronounced Les-kwah) had a varied career background before becoming a successful author who is a regular on the New York Times bestseller list in both hardcover and paperback. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in 1970 with a BA in English with honors, he worked as a computer programmer, advertising director, moving man, housepainter, legal secretary, fund-raiser, management consultant, bartender, and musician. He wrote about five hundred songs and performed for more than two years with Johnny Capo and the Real Good Band (he was Capo). Although the band was somewhat successful, he retired to write full-time. His affection for music never disappeared, though, and he has recently founded his own recording label, CrowArt Records.
His first book, Sunburn (1981), a non-mystery paperback original, was followed by Son of Holmes (1986) and Rasputin’s Revenge (1987), both of which featured Auguste Lupa, the son of Sherlock Holmes (a character reminiscent of Nero Wolfe).
Many of the Dismas Hardy novels also feature Abe Glitsky, a somewhat acerbic and disillusioned San Francisco policeman. Lescroart has recently created yet another popular character, Wyatt Hunt, a private detective who starred in The Hunt Club (2005) and The Suspect (2007).
Lescroart lives with his wife and children in Davis, California.