Dead Insider, Victoria Houston

Air Date:
Heard On The Larry Meiller Show

The Northwoods of Wisconsin can be a peaceful, relaxing destination. But Larry Meiller finds out what trouble can await there in the latest installment of the Loon Lake Fishing Mysteries.

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  • Fishing And Murder Mix In Victoria Houston’s Mysteries

    Victoria Houston lives, writes, and fishes in northern Wisconsin. She is the author of the Loon Lake Fishing Mysteries series, and “Dead Insider” is the thirteenth installment in the series.

    Houston did not expect to still be living with these characters all these years, and stories, later. In fact, the first of the series, “Dead Angler,” was just to prove to her agent that she could write fiction. She sent the manuscript in with an apology. At that point, she thought “no one’s interested in a mystery series set against a background of fishing.”

    Happily, she was wrong, and her agent asked her to consider a series. Houston was happy to do that, since she’d come to like the characters and didn’t want to have to come up with a whole new cast. Her agent asked for more story synopses, and Houston jokes that “all it took me was one glass of wine, and I had ideas for two more books.” Those turned into “Dead Creek” and “Dead Water.”

    Houston noted that just before coming on the program, she saw that famed mystery writer Elmore Leonard ) had died. Houston says that she has always held to the rules for writers that he espoused. Leonard passed away at 87, and was writing up until the last year or so. Houston says that she has a few years to go to reach that age, but hopes that she is writing just as long.

    When creating characters, authors need to live with both likeable and dislikeable ones. Houston says that whether people you’d want to spend time with or not, most characters are a distillation of several individuals. In “Dead Insider,” the character of Kenton, who is Mallory’s new boyfriend, came from years that Houston worked in the newspaper business. She combines memories of guys who were “pushy and full of themselves,” to create him. But even if they aren’t pleasant, “characters like that are a lot of fun to write,” she says. “It’s kind of like being able to just dish about someone, sometimes it just feels good!”

Episode Credits

  • Victoria Houston Guest

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