Liner Notes for The Case Of The Missing Dog
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Liner Notes 1
My original plans for a serial for this year fell through, so I looked through my back up plans. I invented Lacey Lee during a phase when I was writing a lot of poetry. I had the idea that she was a detective whose cases would have a lot of variety, not just investigating different crimes (and sometimes non-crimes) but also finding herself in radically different genres, each month having a different tone and style. This seemed like an excellent idea for something fresh each month.
One type of detective story starts with a mystery, perhaps a crime, that appears straightforward. When the detective starts to investigates it rapidly becomes more complicated, each lead raising more questions than it answers. Obviously this is to create a more interesting story than a simple exercise in gathering evidence and then confronting the perpetrator. (Though that can be a gripping tale too! Beginning with everyone knowing who the villain is and trying to prove it is a proven formula; Columbo did it for years. Keep your eyes peeled for later stories this year to see if Lacey can make the villain confess.)
To escalate a mystery one must begin with significantly lower stakes than one ends with. For an ongoing series to have a climax it must have a rise in tension. For both of these reasons this story opens with the lowest stake clue I could imagine that was still a striking and intriguing image. In this case Lacey Lee, detective extraordinaire, very seriously inspecting a sample of dog poop.
That suggested the question of why she might get involved with such a trivial case. Helping out a friend, or family member or neighbour? Lacey lives and works in the big bad city (London) because the possibilities of different crimes are so great there, yet she comes from a small town. Introducing her there, with her Mum, away from her normal locations and associates seemed like a good way to ease us into the series.
Little Chantry is mostly based on the English countryside in detective stories in books and on TV, the kind of place where there’s a posh squire at one end of the village, and salt-of-the-earth common folk at the other. In between the shop, the pub, the garage and the vicarage and a bunch of off-comers buying second homes in the country. There’s a few real bits in there too; the tramway now a footpath was how we used to get from my Nan’s house into town in Stratford-upon-Avon.
The former Warsaw Pact electronics warfare vehicle is based on an excuse a phone company gave for a quite extraordinary bill a friend of mine was subjected to. It probably wouldn’t work.
Also probably not working is the solution to the mystery. Sorry about that. Except GPS spoofing is a real thing that happens. Drones that could carry a small dog exist. People really go down roads they shouldn’t when their GPS tells them to, and also go out looking for sites from T shows. This isn’t really a fair play mystery – as a short story it doesn’t have space to establish the parameters of what’s real – but I hope I put the clues in anyway.
Charlie the dog is not based on any real good boy, living or dead.
I layered in one or two bits for future storylines, the upcoming wedding between Lacey’s best friend from childhood and her ex being the most blatant. You know that’s going to be a runner.
So Lacey has solved her first case of the year. Unfortunately it has not been lucrative, nor is it one that she can use for promotion without spoiling the situation for everyone, and making her Mum even less popular. Working for not-even-exposure.
I just hope the next case is one she can send in an invoice for at the end
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