It’s all fine and well and good to have a model that inspires, but to write a good and salable mystery series, if I choose to focus on a crime-solving Messianic rabbi as the focal character of my mystery novels, I’ll have to go beyond the admirable qualities I found in the works of Harry Kemelman, and give my series its own flavor, style and uniqueness.
Now, the fact that my novels will feature a Messianic protagonist rather than a conservative rabbi is one element of uniqueness; however, it must go deeper than that.
For one thing, I would want my novels to still be a bit lighthearted. Sure, a series based on a Messianic rabbi is going to be a bit more sober than a series focusing on a crime-solving pizza delivery boy with a ghostly sidekick, but that doesn’t mean the novels have to have a strong theological tone; people read mysteries, I believe, to get enthralled with characters, not to hear a Torah commentary.
So, Messianic rather than conservative? Check. A bit funnier? Hopefully. Wrinkle treatments? Huh?
A good start?
Not yet…
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