IF WE DIDN’T LAUGH.... -- Guest Post & Giveaway

If We Didn’t Laugh....
By Steve Hockensmith

Mysteries aren’t just about murder, of course. They also frequently mix in greed, betrayal, hatred, arrogance, ignorance, selfishness and all the other sins and evils of this sad, sad world of ours.

And they can be so much fun!

Go figure.

Of course, not all mysteries are fun. But my favorites are. And so are the ones I write. My newest -- Fool Me Once: A Tarot Mystery, written with my tarot-expert buddy Lisa Falco -- is full of laughs (I hope). Yet it's about murder, domestic abuse, con artists and the lingering psychological cost of being brought up by a sociopath.

Sounds like a real knee slapper, eh? What can I say? If we didn’t laugh....

When I was a kid, it was TV and movies rather than books that drew me to the mystery genre, perhaps because the crime fiction that was pushed on young people back then seemed so deadly dull. (Sorry, Hardy Boys. The Tower Treasure sat on our family bookshelf unread throughout my childhood because my literary Spidey-Sense started tingling -- “I’m sensing tedium!” -- every time I went to pick it up.) And it was a certain kind of mystery that I especially liked to see on the screen.

The arch, witty Christie adaptations Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun made a big impression on me, as did the sometimes surreal adventures of the original Avengers. I loved both snappy ’40s detective flicks like The Big Sleep and Murder, My Sweet as well as the far goofier, more (then) modern Pink Panther series. And when I discovered the Thin Man movies, it felt like I’d finally returned to home I didn’t know I’d left after a long quest I didn’t know I’d been on.

I had arrived. The destination: funny. With murder.

Even the stuff that I found I liked that wasn’t overtly comedic -- anything about Sherlock Holmes, say, or Columbo -- had a dry, droll air about it that was never dampened by a little detail like violent death. And when I finally got hooked on mystery novels, it was Raymond Chandler’s way with a one-liner and Irwin Fletcher’s laconic nonconformity and Archie Goodwin’s genially sardonic patter that did the hooking.

None of which really answers the question I was asking myself when I started writing this: Why? Why do I like this kind of thing? Why do you? (Hey -- you’ve read this far. I think I can assume you enjoy some of this stuff, too.)

I guess that’s a mystery that even Nick and Nora Charles, John Steed and Mrs. Peel, Inspector Clouseau, Fletch, Columbo and Archie Goodwin couldn’t solve. But they could help us laugh about it....
******************************************************************************

Steve is offering a giveaway! One person can choose a copy of Fool Me Once. To be eligible simply leave a comment on this post about humorous mysteries. Leave your comment, along with your e-mail address, no later than 11:59pm EDT Tuesday, August 11, 2015.

******************************************************************************

Steve Hockensmith is the author of 14 novels and dozens of short stories in a variety of genres. His novel Dawn of the Dreadfuls, the official prequel to the smash "mashup" Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, was a New York Times bestseller. His other books include the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies sequel Dreadfully Ever After, the Edgar Award-nominated mystery/Western Holmes on the Range and the science-adventure for kids Nick and Tesla's High-Voltage Danger Lab (written with frequent Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest "Science Bob" Pflugfelder). He writes the Tarot Mystery series with the help of tarot expert Lisa Falco.


Steve's website: http://www.stevehockensmith.com
Fool Me Once, the second book in the Tarot Mystery series: http://www.amazon.com/Fool-Me-Once-Tarot-Mystery/dp/0738742236/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438886967&sr=1-1&keywords=steve+hockensmith
Be Steve's Facebook friend: https://www.facebook.com/steve.hockensmith.7
Follow Steve on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrhockensmith