If no one gives you a job, create one for yourself.
Okay...maybe that's the answer to my ongoing search for full-time employment. And because I've got a bit of experience in writing, both fiction and fact, why not meld the two and create historical...and perhaps hysterical...fiction with actual factual humans as the main characters?
Robert J. Randisi did it with his Rat Pack Mystery novels (which I've touched on before, as you can read about here). Daniel Klein did it with his series of books that starred Elvis Presley as a singing sleuth: Such Vicious Minds; Viva Las Vengeance; Kill Me Tender; Blue Suede Clues.
The idea is, instead of inventing an original fictional character, I can write stories about a real person, using that person's characteristics and idiosyncrasies...and call it a work of original fiction.
Let's see...what other dead person's legacy can I cannibalize?
John Lennon: Crime Scene Investi-Tenor (CSI: Liverpool)
During the Beatles' second set at the Cavern, one of the adoring fans stopped breathing. Everyone assumed it was a medical issue until John noticed a discolored spot on the back cover of her autograph book. She had been poisoned, and John refused to either twist OR shout until he found out who decided, Got to Get You Out of My Life.
Subsequent titles in the series:
- Here Comes the Hearse
- Sgt. Pepper's Stopped Hearts Club Band
- Help! I Killed Somebody
- Baby's in Black and I'm in the Morgue
Benjamin Franklin: Poor Richard's Medical Examiner
Philadelphia's seamstresses are dying. Philosopher, patriot, diplomat, inventor, scientist, and bon vivant man about town, Benjamin Franklin, is called into action to keep the corpses from piling any higher in this historical thriller, A Stitch in Time Killed Nine.
Follow-up titles:
- Early to Bed; Early to Die
- Death and Taxes
- An Ounce of Prevention; a Pound of Curare
Abraham Lincoln: Tall, Dark, and Psychic
Buddy Holly and the Sticky Cricket Wicket
(Ha! Get it? His band's name was The Crickets! Sigh...yeah, okay...shutting up now.)
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