Lyn Farrell kicks off new series of Michigan-based books

Having written 11 books set in Tennessee and another set in Wisconsin, author Lyn Farrell was encouraged to set her latest novel in Michigan — specifically Charlevoix, where she owns property.

The result is “In the Dead of Winter” (Camel Press, $17.95), the first in her “Blue Water Mysteries” series. Farrell — the pseudonym of Lynda Farquhar — will speak about and sign copies of the novel Thursday at Schuler Books in Okemos.

“I was in Schuler this morning (March 17) and saw a display of the poster and all my books. I was tickled to see it,” Farrell confessed.

In “Winter,” Victoria Treadwell, a dispatcher for the Charlevoix County Sheriff’s Office, is driving in a snowstorm when she sees the car behind her swerve off the road. After she stops to help, she finds the driver, Carly Yellowwood, bent over the steering wheel and barely breathing. In the backseat is a tiny child in a pink snowsuit. Victoria calls an ambulance and her boss, Undersheriff Pete Manstead. Despite the first responders’ best efforts, they can’t save Carly.

The coroner lists the cause of death as murder. Pete sends his deputies to visit Carly’s neighbors and learns she had been seeing two men. One was her ex-husband, Joe Yellowwood, a Native American living on the nearby reservation. No one knows the second man. Pete believes it was a crime of passion. However, Victoria, who wants to adopt Carly’s motherless child, thinks the motive was far darker.

What makes “Winter” stand out from Farrell’s previous books is the new setting and the new characters.

“Charlevoix County, having very little crime, presented a challenge of how to write a murder mystery in a place with no violent crime and make it plausible,” Farrell said.

The impetus for the plot came from the Native American reservation located just outside Charlevoix. Farrell wanted to include that element in “Winter.”

“So, I made Carly divorced from a Native American man who had been in jail, which allowed me to have legal questions raised about who would have custody of Carly’s young child,” the author said. “I also wanted to make Carly opposed to drugs, and I threw in a twist when she dies of an overdose, which the perplexed coroner struggles to understand because he sees no signs of drug use in or on her body at the post-mortem.”

The book is also set on Beaver Island, where Manstead and his fellow police officers track down the villain.

“I enjoyed writing the parts where Pete and his girlfriend, Ashley, work out the bumps in their relationship, which come when Pete puts his job before his girlfriend,” Farrell explained. “I also wanted several of my characters to struggle with moral challenges, especially Victoria, who wants to adopt Carly’s motherless child but isn’t sure it’s the right thing to do. It was a timely conundrum due to the Supreme Court’s most recent reinforcement of the (Indian Child Welfare Act) law that states Native children must be raised by Native families.”

The eldest of three daughters, Farrell was born in Endicott, New York. Twice widowed, she has two daughters, six stepchildren and 12 grandchildren. She’s a graduate of Okemos High School and a three-time alumna of Michigan State University. She spent 35 years in academics, working for MSU until her retirement in 2008.

Retirement has allowed her the time to pursue her lifelong ambition of being an author, something she’s aspired to since seventh grade, when her teacher read “The Pearl” by John Steinbeck.

She began her writing career alongside her daughter Lisa Fitzsimmons and under the pseudonym Lia Farrell, with the duo penning seven novels together in the “Mae December” series of cozy mysteries.

Asked if she’s a plotter (does she plot her books?) or a pantser (does she fly by the seat of her pants?), Farrell confessed she’s a little bit of both.

“When my daughter and I wrote our first book, we were two-thirds of the way through when we talked and discovered that each of us thought someone else was the perpetrator,” she said. “After that, I have always known whodunit, except for my most recent book. In that one, I didn’t figure it out until the next-to-last chapter. I hope it will surprise readers.”