One of the big troubles with creating a mystery series is explaining why a particular person is always around when death pops up. After all, I’ve been alive and kicking for 41 years, soon 42, and I’ve never once stumbled across a murdered body.

There are as many ways to solve this dilemma as there are writers to tell tales. Some give them a profession where such occurrences are commonplace, which is why so many mystery stories involve private detectives, cops, lawyers and so on.

Others simply choose to ignore the unlikelihood of it all and just ask the reader to accept the happenstance at face value. That works less and less these days; the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew would seem dang suspicious after the first couple of books, it seems to me. At least in the eyes of modern law enforcement.

My solution is another path: I’m giving my hapless murder-finder a supernatural companion. I won’t go into spoilage just at the moment, but consider it safe to say that my unlikely hero is made a lot more likely with this character hanging around him.

And then I’m also borrowing another element that helps: a healthy dash of humor. And that’s worth more than all the San Francisco resumes in the world.