If experience is the best teacher, especially for writers, then Mikel J. Wilson has graduated with honors.
The San Diego author of “A Light to Kill By,” the latest in his Mourning Dove Investigations mystery series, fled his Tennessee home for L.A. as a teenager with only $25 and a Greyhound bus ticket in his pocket. He spent a couple of months homeless, living on the streets of Hollywood. And he recently survived a bout with cancer and its aftermath.
But listening to Wilson today, you hear nothing but positivity, and why not? The 55-year-old Escondido resident is on a roll. “A Light to Kill By” will be released on Tuesday. In this continuing story of Smoky Mountain private investigators Emory Rome, Jeff Woodard and Virginia Kennon the trio tackles a murder at a mysterious Southern mansion. Then next month, Wilson’s very first novel, “Sedona: The Lost Vortex,” will be republished in a 10th-anniversary edition accompanied by an audiobook.
In the meantime, Wilson says he’s about halfway done with the fourth book in his Mourning Dove Investigations series and a third of the way through a sequel to “Sedona.”
It was there in 1999 in the northern Arizona town known for its supernatural vibe as much as for its natural beauty that he discovered his creative spark.
“I really felt I’d lost my way,” said Wilson, who’d actually set out in Southern California to become a screenwriter. “I took two weeks off to go to Sedona by myself. I spent time there thinking about my life, and the place really inspired me. When I came back I wrote a screenplay about the mythology of Sedona. That became my first published novel. After that I started writing the Mourning Dove mysteries.”
Wilson’s novels are distinctive on a number of levels. For one, method is everything.
“I have a no-knives-and-guns policy with murders,” he explained. “Mourning Dove investigators have to search for the perpetrator and motive but also determine how the person was actually murdered. I like to focus not only on whodunit but on howdunit.” A big “X-Files” fan, Wilson said his murders “have a seemingly supernatural but ultimately scientific explanation.”
No spoilers here. In “A Light to Kill By,” which Wilson dubs his “haunted house entry,” tycoon Blair Geister’s death is shrouded in otherworldly circumstances. But as in “The X-Files,” the truth is out there, and PIs Rome, Woodard and Kennon are bound and determined to learn it.
In another departure from most popular mystery series, two of Wilson’s protagonists — Rome and Woodard — are gay, and the evolution of their relationship is part of the ongoing Mourning Dove books. Wilson, who is gay, said he at first regarded his series as “strictly mysteries. Now I would consider them (genre-wise) mystery/slash/LGBTQ.”
These are highly developed heroes whose lively banter is an entertaining companion to the solving of the mystery at hand. Wilson sees them this way:
“Virginia is Black and Emory is half Cherokee and Jeff is Caucasian. I think that’s a good dynamic to have. They’re like me and my best friends, constantly going back and forth. Virginia is Jeff’s best friend. Jeff is a kind of combination of me and parts of my closest friends and people I’ve known over the years — biting and witty.
“Emory is the closest to me. We’re both introverts. I’m a hermit at heart. But he’s an idealized version of me. He’s a lot more perceptive than I am. He’s a big science buff. That’s me. I love, love, love science, and I love researching these books.”
Emory Rome is also a complex young man with a haunting past, clues to which are dispensed throughout “A Light to Kill By” just as they were in the previous Mourning Dove Investigations books. Wilson says answers will come at last in the fourth novel, which he hopes to release by the end of 2022.
The Smoky Mountains setting of the mystery series is practically a character in itself with its dark hardwood forests and snaking rivers. Wilson was born in Lebanon, Tenn., about three hours away.
As Wilson pointed out, that was not an easy place to grow up gay. He’s been in San Diego since 2006 and was invited to speak at Gay Pride a couple of years ago. And when it comes to his Mourning Dove Investigations books, “I think I’ve built up quite a gay audience now as well as a mystery audience.
“When I was growing up, I loved Agatha Christie. I didn’t realize that what I really wanted though was those same mysteries but with a gay lead. That’s what gave me the idea to have this mystery series focused on two basic gay protagonists (Rome and Woodard). People tell me all the time how refreshing it is to see this.”
Like the most committed of authors, Wilson writes every day.
“I only get about four hours’ sleep,” he said. “I write until midnight, then get up around 5 and start all over again.”
With that kind of regime, fans might see the sequel to “A Light to Kill By,” with all its promised revelations, even sooner than expected.
“A Light to Kill By” by Mikel J. Wilson (Acorn Publishing, 2021; 306 pages)
Launch party
Mikel J. Wilson’s “A Light to Kill By” has a wine-lover’s tie-in. A wine invented for the story, Coyote Red, has been re-created by Wilson’s neighbors who have a winery. So the launch party for “A Light to Kill By” will be Aug. 7 from 2 to 5 p.m. at La Fleur’s Winery in San Marcos on South Pacific Street. It’s a free event.
Coddon is a freelance writer.
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In Mikel J. Wilson's 'A Light to Kill By,' the 'how' is as important as the 'who' - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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