by Martha Reed
People wonder why I chose New Orleans as the setting for Love Power, my Crescent City NOLA Mystery. There were a few reasons. One, I had conceived of my traditional Nantucket Mystery series as a trilogy, and No Rest for the Wicked, Book 3 was done. As I cast around for a new setting, something topical, eye-catching, and fresh, I knew I needed a location where my characters could encounter serious problems. With 300 pages to fill, personal conflicts are a great sustaining plot device!
Originally, I considered setting the new series in Las Vegas. Then I visited multi-cultural New Orleans with its historic French Quarter setting, superlative food, outrageous Mardi Gras traditions, its voodoo, and its vampires. My characters could get into serious trouble living in NOLA. What NOLA Wants; NOLA gets. Beckoning me in, that entrancing city stole my heart.
Next, with a new series comes the need to develop a new character ensemble. In 2014, I attended Bouchercon, the huge annual mystery and crime fiction author and fan convention. That year it convened in Long Beach, CA. One of the conference panels really got my goat because as I recall, it featured forty pretty much all White male authors. I remember sitting in my chair thinking, “This ain’t right.” As I walked outside into the plaza, I ran into a friend. I mentioned how much that obvious lack of diversity bothered me because no women authors were represented. Jesse, who is gay, said, “Tell me about it.” Then she paused and issued a challenge: “You write traditional mysteries. How many of your characters are LGBTQ?”
Bingo. She was right.
On the flight home, I pondered the legitimacy of a CIS writer developing LGBTQ+ characters. Was I appropriating part of a community I didn’t actively belong to? Was that ethical? I already wrote male and ethnic characters. Was there a difference in writing LGBTQ+? As I de-planed, I decided that I had a duty as a creative writer to fearlessly explore all aspects of our common humanity as long as I wrote my stories with compassion, insight, understanding, and respect.
And Gigi Pascoe, my transgender sleuth was born. I peppered my LGBTQ+ friends with questions to ensure that I fairly and accurately reflected their understanding of the queer community. My beta readers said, if you’re going to go there with Gigi, why limit yourself to only one LGBTQ+ character? Why not explore the pantheon?
Delightedly diving back into research mode, I endowed Gigi with two LGBTQ+ BFFs: Delilah “Dee-Dee” Gardere, a lesbian businesswoman and Fancy Abellard, a gay drag queen. The surprising benefit in developing LGBTQ+ characters is how much it opened my creative imagination. My new characters were multi-faceted. They actively used slang. Their conversations sounded sassy and fun, and they voiced strong political opinions. They surprised me with their lifestyle choices, offering me plot twists and turns I had not anticipated. As a result, my prose freshened. The mystery behind it all became more compelling. The story took flight.
I nervously waited to see what the overall general mystery readership thought about this. Would they accept a diverse LGBTQ+ universe so fearlessly drawn outside the traditional detective, PI, or sleuthing character outlines?
I should’ve given the mystery and crime fiction community more credit. Critics and readers welcomed Gigi Pascoe and her friends with accolades, open arms, and five-star reviews.
Love Power was published in October 2020. In 2021, it became a Killer Nashville Best Mystery finalist, and it won a Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Best Attending Author Award.
Why did I ever doubt it? Historically, PI and sleuth characters are naturally born outsiders. Sherlock Holmes was a loner. Agatha Christie introduced Hercule Poirot as a Belgian refugee. Max Carrados, Ernest Bramah’s private detective, was blind. Nero Wolfe rarely left his townhouse. Gigi Pascoe, my transgender sleuth, fits right in!
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