The Partnership of Creator and Created

This article was first published in The Mystery Reader

One of the ironies of being a writer is that at some point reality becomes blurred concerning which people you know are breathing three-dimensional humans and which are two-dimensional beings existing only in your mind.

Due to my long association with them, I frequently forget that Paul Manziuk and Jacquie Ryan fit into the latter category. Although Paul and Jacquie first print life in Shaded Light (my first mystery novel which was published by St Kitts press in 2000), they have been alive in my mind for more than 19 years–longer than my youngest son has been with me.

The day after Christmas, 1982, I was reading a mystery from the library. I tossed it on the floor and complained aloud. My lips eventually formed those oft-quoted words, "I could write a better book than this."
My ever-helpful husband, who happened to be reading the newspaper in the same room, looked over at me and said, "So, why don't you?"

Why not, indeed? I grew up reading mysteries. The first and probably most influential were the Trixie Beldon books. As I grew older, my grandmother introduced me to Erle Stanley Gardner. I eventually found John Creasy and Agatha Christie in our library, and soon the mystery world opened up before me.

As for writing, I was hooked on being a writer from the day I discovered the power of getting attention through mere words. I can still remember reading my story about “Alice in Vitaminland” on Parents’ Day at my school and loving the attention I received.

As time passed, however, my need to earn a living pulled me into a career as a high school English teacher. With little time for my own writing, I did come up with some very creative assignments and tests. Then I detoured into raising a family, community and church work, and eventually homeschooling my kids. Now and then I wrote a little bit, but never much.

But that Christmas, something within me said, “Now.”

Dreaming up a plot wasn't difficult. For years, I had been noting locations I thought would be appropriate for hiding a body–like rounding a beautifully manicured tree in a serene Japanese garden and thinking, “What a perfect spot to notice two feet sticking out!”

I knew the storyline would be similar to that of the traditional British puzzle of Agatha Christie and Georgette Heyer because that is the kind of book I most enjoy. I also knew I would use police detectives for my series characters. I couldn’t imagine myself ever being a PI or an amateur detective, never mind coming up with a plausible plot for one. Besides, I wanted to focus on what I felt would be my strength–characterization.

So what I needed were my own personal police people–the ones who would carry the series.

It seemed to me that for a long series, two people offer much more license for discussion and arguments and all that good stuff. Even Perry Mason had Della Street. I have long felt that one of the weaknesses of a long-running series with a single point-of-view character is coming up with new and interesting side-issues. Having two main characters from uniquely different backgrounds would increase the options exponentially.

But which characters?

Although I was raised in isolated small towns in western Canada, for the past twenty years I have been a citizen of the most culturally diverse city in the world–Toronto. A patchwork quilt of culture and language, abundance and poverty, politeness and menace, neon colors and monochromatic haze–the good, the bad, and all the in-between–Toronto has become one of the lenses through which I see life.

The characters that came to me, fully formed and, in my mind at least, alive and kicking, are perfectly suited to the city that is Toronto.

Paul Manziuk. Well, he isn’t kicking exactly. But breathing. Moving slowly, every action pertinent. Thinking, eyes half-closed, expression mummy-like. A big man at six foot five, Paul is certainly modeled on several large men who have intimidated me in the past. But he isn’t any of them. He is uniquely himself.

Paul is 47, a homicide detective with a wife, Loretta, and three children aged 17 to 24. His parents emigrated to Canada from the Ukraine right after World War II and he was born and brought up in Toronto. His parents were fiercely independent blue-collar people with a strong work ethic and a desire to make their new home better than the old.

Unlike many of today’s series cops, Paul isn’t going through a divorce or mid-life crisis. He is married to the only person he ever wanted to marry, and he knows that her sacrifices have held their family together and helped their children live complete lives. He knows that Loretta could carry on without him if she had to, because in her own way she is every bit as strong as he is–perhaps stronger. He is proud beyond words of his eldest son’s recent opportunity to study for his Ph.D. in ancient history at Oxford University, of his daughter’s desire to teach high school, and of his 17-year-old son’s intention to develop computer programs for use in the police force.

Paul is in many ways a pragmatic realist; yet somewhere deep inside, at the very core of his being, there dwells an idealist who dreams of a day when evil will be defeated and justice will prevail. So he goes about his daily job of sorting killers out from the rest of society so that the majority of us might be free to follow our dreams. He strives always to produce, not simply an acceptable solution, but the right solution. He detests incompetence and lack of diligence.

Paul’s foil is Jacqueline Ryan, a 28-year-old policewoman who lives with her mother, grandmother, aunt and cousin. An immigrant from Jamaica, Jacquie’s university-educated father drove a taxi in Toronto until he was killed during a botched robbery. Her mother later married a Caucasian man who became abusive. Jacquie got a lot of support from her grandmother and aunt, and now the five women live together as a new/old kind of family–three generations of women providing a foundation that offers security and laughter amid constant turmoil and tug-of-war.

Jacquie has no man in her life. Since she was a child, she has intimidated the opposite sex by her brains, her athletic prowess, and her drive. A few men have shown interest, but none has reached even first base. Part of the problem, of course, is the hurt she has buried deep inside as a result of first her father’s death and then her stepfather’s abusiveness. She has yet to meet a man who interests her enough to entice her to let her guard down. Besides, she has no time for romantic games. She has too much to prove in the real world.

The Toronto police force has a mandate to promote more women and more minorities. Jacquie and Paul both know she has been promoted to homicide primarily because she is a black woman and therefore meets both parts of the mandate. However, Jacquie doesn’t hesitate to grasp the opportunity with both hands. She is determined to prove not only that she deserves the promotion but also that she can be as good as any cop–even Manziuk

Jacquie is a spark plug–prone to jumping in where angels wouldn't go. As she and Paul appeared in my mind, I could see them arguing with each other, her making up in energy what she lacks in size, him feeling if she would just calm down and listen more, it would all work out in a more orderly manner. They have a unique relationship–in some ways father-daughter, in other ways mentor and novice, occasionally flame and tinder, and now and then just two tired cops who both want to find the truth.

In my mind, as in my books and stories, they are equals. Parts of a whole. Just as I believe men and women are equal, yet at the same time different, and both needed. Incomplete without the other, whether in a marriage relationship or a business relationship.

And incomplete, of course, without me.

It’s a strange feeling to think that these people I have known so well for so many years have no existence except in my mind and in the pages of my stories. To me, they are so real. So alive. So vital and energetic and caring. They have so much to learn, especially about each other. And they will learn, if I choose to let them.

It’s scary, but also sad, to realize that Paul and Jacquie will only be known by others if I plug in my computer, take hold of my keyboard, and write them into life. Without Paul and Jacquie in my world, I am incomplete. Without me, they don’t even exist.