Carl Schmidt graduated from Denver University with a degree
in mathematics and physics. As a Woodrow Wilson Fellow he studied mathematics
at Brown University.
Carl lived and traveled widely throughout Asia for seven
years, including two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines and
five years in Japan, where he taught English.
Carl has spent dozens of summers in Maine, on lakes and in
the woods. He chose it as the setting for this novel because he loves its
rugged natural beauty and the charming idiosyncrasies of Mainers. He has also
written and recorded three musical albums. This, along with his formal
education, proved invaluable when molding the persona and voice of Jesse
Thorpe, the narrator of Dead Down East, and endowing him with both a
creative eye for detail and a sense of humor.
Dead Down East is the first novel in the Jesse Thorpe
Mystery Series, which includes A Priestly Affair and Redbone. In 2001, New Falcon Press published his non-fictional
book, A Recipe for Bliss: Kriya Yoga for a New Millennium.
Currently, he is a freelance writer living in Sedona,
Arizona with his lovely wife, Holly, and their faithful German shorthaired
pointer, Alize.
Dead Down East
Dead Down East, a fictional murder mystery, is both
detective noir and smart screwball comedy rolled into one. Jesse Thorpe, a
young private investigator operating out of Augusta, Maine, receives a
mysterious phone call from a former client, Cynthia Dumais. She begs to be rescued from an island south
of Brunswick, within a mile of where William Lavoilette, the governor of Maine,
was assassinated the night before. She insists that her life is in danger, but
is unwilling to provide any further information. Reluctantly, Jesse goes to
fetch her.
Within a week, Jesse has three separate clients, each with
his, or her, own desperate need to have the murder solved. He assembles a
motley team of compadres, including rock band members, a tie-dye psychic and
his rousing girlfriend, Angele Boucher, to help him with the case. While the
FBI and the Maine State Police investigate political motives, Jesse looks for
the woman—Cherchez la Femme—as the trail draws him through the lives, and DNA, of
the governor’s former mistresses.
●Who are your influences?
Two novelists come to mind. First, Tim Cockey wrote five quirky
mysteries (The Hearse Novels) before changing his name to Richard Hawke and
writing more traditional, edgy ones. I much preferred the Cockey stories, which
are laugh-out-loud funny…pure entertainment. They are smart, witty, and hard to
put down.
And second, David Guterson, who wrote Snow Falling on Cedars.
This novel was spellbinding for me. Each paragraph is constructed with
precision, texture and feeling.
Both of these two were snuggled somewhere in the back of my mind
as I began writing fiction.
●When did you begin writing?
I published a non-fiction book on Kriya Yoga in 1999. It is partly
autobiographical. Putting that together helped me develop a writing voice, but
it was many years later that I turned to fiction.
● How do you come up with your stories,
characters, character names, POV, etc?
I wait for a basic outline to take shape before I begin writing,
but from the outset I had chosen Maine as the setting for my Jesse Thorpe
Mystery Series. I have spent many summers in Maine and love its natural beauty
and its eccentric personalities.
I use two tricks for developing characters. First, I search the
Internet for photographs of people who might play well in the storyline. When I
find one that seems just right, I put the photograph in a file and refer to it
from time to time to help cement the personality in my mind.
And second, for the names, I go to lists of both first and last
names that are commonly found in Maine for the age of each individual. I want
the names to be authentic. Occasionally, I’ll let an outsider in, but for the
most part, I want the Mainers to be Mainers in every respect.
●Do you work from an outline?
Yes. But it’s an evolving outline, without a lot of detail. I
trust that the story will tell itself, once it begins to roll.
●Tell me about your favorite scene in your novel.
Three different scenes come to mind, and it’s hard to pick my
favorite.
1. The Prologue.
In the novel, Dead
Down East, Jesse Thorpe, the narrator/private detective of the story, has
his first really dicey moment in the middle of chapter four, as he is trying to
worm his way through an FBI roadblock. In my first draft, I had chosen that
moment to insert a rather lengthy internal monologue, to expose the witty side
of Jesse’s nature. I was having so much fun with it that by the time I was
done, it was almost fifteen hundred words long. And while I liked the tension
it created by suspending the dramatic moment in mid-air—for several
pages—eventually I decided that it would be more effective as a prologue for
the book. This way, on the very first page, the reader gets a preview of the inner
workings of Jesse’s mind, a snapshot of his modus operandi and a quick peak at
his girlfriend.
(You can read this prologue by going to
either my website
or Amazon.)
2. The Frank Hayden scene.
In each of my
first three Jesse Thorpe Mysteries, I introduce one character who speaks with a
strong down east accent. The intent is to fully immerse the reader in a “Maine”
experience. If I had allowed this type of dialogue to run rampant in the book,
it would be tedious both to write and to read. Just a touch, however, gives it
local charm and color.
Jesse discovers
that the license plate on the car driven by the man who has assassinated the
governor is “GOFURS.” He suspects the plate has been stolen and put on the car
prior to the killing, but to double check, he runs a search to find the owner
of that plate and calls him on the phone. Here is some of that dialogue:
3. The Dennis Jackson takes a baseball bat and smashes Jesse’s
Subaru scene.
Suffice it to
say, Jesse gets even.
●Can you tell us a little about your writing philosophy?
I work hard to bring together a number of somewhat diverse
elements: humor, an intriguing story, interesting characters, scientific fact,
lively dialogue, and suspense. I want the reader to try to solve the mystery as
it develops, but my primary concern is that the reader enjoys himself…and
laughs out loud.
●Have you ever tried writing in any other genres?
As I mentioned above, my first book was a non-fiction work,
published by New Falcon Press. The title is: A Recipe for Bliss.
●Do you have any interesting writing-related anecdotes to share?
I’ll share just one. The first chapter of Dead Down East is
set in Bear Spring Camps, on Great Pond, not far from Waterville, Maine. The
photograph on the cover is of my son standing on the porch of cabin number 11,
commonly referred to at Bear Spring as “The Sunshine Cabin.” According to my
father, that happens to be the very place where I was conceived. (Not on the
porch, mind you, but inside.)
Pittsburgh PI Lupa Schwartz is out of his element, coerced into helping local police flush out a serial killer re-enacting the history of human sacrifice and martyrdom. Lacking the right skills to handle the case alone, he has been forced to give his chronicler a much larger and more dangerous role than her normal one as his Watson.
