Plots from the headlines

Plots come from dozens of places. Someone suggests a plot to me at virtually every event. Other times I see something in the headlines, or online, that catches my attention. Using timely events makes the story relevant, if not (sometimes) too close to reality.

A few years ago, I read a story about a county attorney who was considering charges against a woman who'd killed her husband. Because their relationship included documented physical abuse, the attorney was leaning toward calling it a justifiable homicide. The problem being faced was that the murderer had also killed her previous two abusive husbands. Having read that, I thought there's no way someone would believe that plot.

Instead, I prefer to pluck more plausible threads from headlines and twist them around a bit, then mingle them with scientific tidbits I've gleaned from my memory or research. That's exactly where the "Conflict of Interest" plot originated. I read about some teens who became ensnared in an online dating mess, and I was off to the keyboard.

My cop consultant, Deanna, suggested a twist that put this in a county near my usual Pine County location, and threw in some political intrigue, The politics created a conflict of interest for the local sheriff's department who call on the Pine County Sheriff's Department to conduct an independent investigation.

After discussing the outline with one of my fans, who retired from law enforcement, I learned that there have been at least three similar cases in the past few decades. None involved murders, but they did involve family members of powerful political figures which complicated the investigation of a crime. I stirred that together with the computer headlines, and out came "Conflict of Interest".

Check out this release from BWL Publishing on Amazon, or wherever you buy books.

https://www.amazon.com/Conflict-Interest/dp/B0D15858V6

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/conflict-of-interest-dean-l-hovey/1145417790