SleuthSayers: Using Real Life in Fiction

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Guest Post: The Inspiration Behind "Murder on Vacation" Wasn't Murder After All by Gerald Elias

 

Please welcome author Gerald Elias to the blog today. As I recently noted in a “Thursday Treats” post, Mr. Elias’ latest book is his short story collection. Published by White City Press, Murder on Vacation: Stories from the Case Files of Maury Gross, NYPD (Ret.), is available at the publisher, Amazon, and other vendors in digital and print formats.

 

Where does an author get ideas for a story? From personal experience? Deep contemplation? From a passing comment or casual glimpse? From other authors? Totally from out of the blue?

 

How about by accident?

 

Eight years ago, my wife and I stayed at a modest motel on the beach in the cozy coastal town of Cambria, California, in order to attend our niece’s ritzy wedding in wine country. During our stay, which lasted only a long weekend, three curious things popped out to me. (Maybe they were curious only to me because murder mysteries run in my blood.)

 

The first was an elderly couple strolling along the beach’s boardwalk. What was curious about that? Not that they were elderly—Who isn’t these days?—but that the gentleman in question was dressed in what his wife—who I imagined determined his attire–– probably considered appropriate for a California vacation: a 1950s style pair of Bermuda shorts and a gaudy Hawaiian shirt. And ankle-length, black socks—Don’t forget those—to round out the eye-catching ensemble.

 

The second curiosity was a state-of-the-art Porsche sportscar in the motel’s parking lot, which might have cost more than the motel itself.

 

The third and final item was the colony of dozens of elephant seals lolling on the beach about 10 miles north of us. In your mind’s eye, do not mistake an elephant seal for a sea lion. They’re twice as big, up to 4,000 nasty pounds, with a protruding proboscis which gives them their name. They only spend about a month per year out of the water, and you can imagine what they do while on shore leave, like most seafarers: rest, fight, and screw. And when they fight, it’s not for play. It’s for keeps: to become king of the hill or, more appropriately, king of the beach. Why? To win the dear damsel of choice, of course. Why else?

 

As my wife and I observed elephant seal festivities safely ensconced on a bluff with a chain link fence high above the beach, I got an idea to package curiosities one and two together with number three and write a short mystery. What emerged after a few days of resharpened pencils and crumpled paper was a draft of a story I initially called “Elephant Seals,” starring retired NYPD Police Chief Maury Gross and his wife Bobbi (the couple on the boardwalk).

 

I wrote this story only to amuse my wife and myself, with no further thoughts about where it might end up. But I really liked my two protagonists, and so did my wife, so on our next vacation I gathered more curiosities for a story. And the next. And the next…

 

Fifteen Maury Gross stories later, I had spanned the wonders of our great nation from sea to shining sea and decided they were worthy candidates for a collection. There is a great saga to be told how I ultimately found the perfect publisher in White City Press, but that’s another story in its entirety.

 

Suffice it to say that Maury Gross is the nicest, most unassuming and thoughtful cop you’d ever want to meet, and Bobbi is not only his longtime soulmate but also his astute partner in crime solving. And they’re both sharp as a tack.

 

The title of the first story, “Elephant Seals,” was changed to “Murder on Vacation” and, appropriately, is the name of the whole collection. If you’re looking for entertaining summer reading, here’s my advice: get an ice-cold beverage, a comfortable chair or lounge, a shady spot, and Murder on Vacation. As Maury would say, “What’s not to like?”  

 

 

Amazon Associates Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4alkqNN

 

 

Gerald Elias ©2026

 

Silver Falchion finalist Gerald Elias can’t help writing about everything that interests him, from his Daniel Jacobus mystery series (and audiobooks) set in the dark corners of the classical music world, to his Western mystery, Roundtree Days. His short story collections, It’s a Crime! and Murder on Vacation (May, 2026, White City Press) cover everything from spies to sea elephants.

 

A former Boston Symphony musician, Elias is an internationally recognized violinist, conductor, and composer. He spends his free time enjoying the outdoors, travel, coffee, good food, and most of all, being a devoted grandpa. https://www.mysteriesandmusic.com/

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Guest Post: A Memory and Places That Are Gone by Tom Milani

 

Please welcome back author Tom Milani to the blog today as he shares the backstory of his debut novel, Places That Are Gone. Published by Unnerving, the book releases this Tuesday. The official book launch will be held this coming Saturday at Elaines, 208 Queen Street Alexandria, VA 22314, at noon. Tickets are free and can be obtained through EventBrite.

 

 

A Memory and Places That Are Gone

Tom Milani

In the 1980s, I lived in a garden-style condominium in West Springfield, a Northern Virginia suburb. On my eastbound commute, I shared the road with drivers headed to jobs in the inner suburbs of Washington, DC, or into the city itself. One particular day, before I even left my neighborhood, I saw a woman hitchhiking.

And here, I’ll let Bennett Wilder, the protagonist of my debut novel, Places That Are Gone, take over: “Mary Ann Vecchio. That was Bennett’s first thought when he saw the hitchhiker. She crouched and spread her arms, the look on her face pleading. In tenth grade he’d written a paper about John Filo’s photograph of the high school girl kneeling over the body of Kent State student Jeffrey Miller.”

Like Bennett, I picked the woman up, and even at the time, she reminded me of the girl in the Kent State photograph—of that much, I’m certain. During the twenty minutes she was in my car, she told me about herself, showed me a picture of her son and, before I dropped her off, said, “I wish I could party with you.” 

I never mentioned that conversation to anyone, and when I thought about it, what always stood out was how open she had been with me. I didn’t regret turning down her offer, but as a writer, I’ve always been curious about the turn not made, the question not asked, the phone call not answered.

Flash forward to November 2020 and the pandemic. Several writing friends, along with my wife, convinced me to participate in National Novel Writing Month. For NaNoWriMo, the goal was to write 50,000 words in a month. I took two weeks off my day job and started writing just after midnight on November 1. I didn’t outline, but I had a start: Bennett Wilder picked up a hitchhiker named Liz Messina on his way to work. They talked. She said she wished they could party together. Here was where reality and fiction diverged—Bennett accepted her offer.

That was enough of a hook to get me started, and anytime I got stuck, I upped the stakes. Bennett and Liz both had complicated pasts, and what Bennett envisioned as a break from his failing marriage turned into a far darker cautionary tale. By the end of the month, I’d written 42,000 words, ending with Bennett and Liz literally driving off into the sunset. I let the novel sit like that for a few days before deciding that the ending wasn’t earned. Moreover, I wanted to explore Liz’s character and motivation, which led me to show scenes between her and Bennett in separate chapters, from each character’s point of view. The overlapping narrative paints a fuller picture of their relationship. One of my friends asked why Bennett’s buddy Paul would so readily agree to help him. Answering that question led to several scenes from Bennett’s past, showing him as being morally compromised before he even met Liz.

By October 2021, I was pitching the novel. Some three-and-a-half years later, on May 13, 2025, it will be released.

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4jTja7t

 

Tom Milani ©2025 

Tom Milani (www.tommilani.com) has published short fiction in Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties, Illicit Motions, Janie’s Got a Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Aerosmith, and Sleuths Just Wanna Have Fun: Private Eyes in the Materialistic Eighties, among other places. “Barracuda Backfire” was published in 2024 as Book 4 of Michael Bracken’s Chop Shop series of novellas and shortlisted for a Derringer. Places That Are Gone is his first novel. Tom lives in Old Town Alexandria with his wife, glass sculptor Alison Sigethy.

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Guest Post: Writing “Barstow” by Tom Milani

Please welcome SMFS list member Tom Milani to the blog today as he explains the background of his short story in the new anthology, Mickey Finn Vol. 5: 21st Century Noir. Published by Down & Out Books, the book is edited by SMFS list member Michael Bracken.

  

Writing “Barstow”

For me, the germ of a story often comes from small things. A crying waitress, an encounter with a cop. Events that in the retelling strike the listener as odd but not necessarily interesting. On a cross-country road trip with a friend, we stayed overnight in Barstow. That night, we had dinner at the hotel bar, and the next morning, we ate breakfast in the adjoining restaurant. Our waitress was having a hard time communicating with a table of customers wearing matching shirts and speaking Spanish. It wasn’t clear from where we sat what had upset her, but before long she was in tears.

Over the years, I’ve been served by a lot of waitresses, but I’d never seen one come close to crying. That memory stuck with me, so much so that when Michael Bracken issued a call for stories for volume 5 of Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir, I decided to infuse mine with details from that road trip.

The waitress is there, of course, but this time, her tears are the result of a fight with her boyfriend. In my story, recently laid-off Spencer heads west from Virginia, his trip cut short when his car breaks down in Barstow. While he waits for it to be repaired, he hooks up with Emily, the crying waitress, and begins to contemplate a future with her, not realizing that her motivation for being with him is more complicated than he thinks.

There’s more. Remember the encounter with the cop I alluded to earlier? That happened to me in Indiana, and it becomes part of Spencer’s story as well. But to read about that, you’ll have to wait till next year, when volume 6 is released. 

Tom Milani ©2024

Tom Milani’s short fiction has appeared in Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties, Illicit Motions, and Janie’s Got a Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Aerosmith, among other places. “Barracuda Backfire” was published earlier this year as Book 4 of Michael Bracken’s Chop Shop series of novellas. His novel Places That Are Gone will be published next year by Unnerving. 

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