We pay a lot of attention to where we locate our mysteries. The Sullivan Investigation series, featuring the incomparable Mac Sullivan and his faithful sidekick, Whiskey, are set in Washington, DC. Truth be told, the Northern half of this writing partnership, went to school in our nation's capital, and then lived there for several years following graduation. When we wrote about Dupont Circle as "the physical embodiment of one of Dante's circles of hell," she recalled with regret and frustration, trying to navigate around the area, especially since her first job was located at One Dupont Circle – oy!.

So when we first began the Brianna Sullivan, paranormal mysteries, the Northern half encouraged the Southern half to place these whodunnits in her home state of Oklahoma. She agreed but passed on setting the stories in Muskogee. Instead she proposed Lottawatah and you've got to agree that it is the perfect, melodic name for a fictional town that's got more ghosts than people. Lottawatah is actually the name of a road, whose exit marker can be found on I-44, near the very real Lake Eufaula which we mention frequently in the stories.


Then we wrote Zoned for Murder and set it in Milford, New York, a fictional town based on the real villages that the Northern half knows outside of the Big Apple.

But whether it's Washington, DC, Lottawatah, Oklahoma, or now Milford, New York, the common thread is that the main characters are like fish out of water. Not sure of their place in the world, even when they're still living in familiar surroundings. For Mac Sullivan and Maggie Brooks, they still live in the same town, but they feel out of place as "home" has changed. Mac is a freshly-retired ex-cop, newly-minted private detective. He no longer knows the exact layout of his life. Maggie Brooks is a recent widow and her home, as she envisioned it with loving husband, doesn't exist anymore. She's got to create a new home for herself and children, even if they stay in the same house. And Brianna, who has no permanent roots, who has been traveling the country in a mobile home, hesitantly begins to create a life for herself in Lottawatah, a place she could never have imagined would feel like home, but in fact, has become just that.

All our stories are classic whodunnits, but in each, the characters, much like the authors, are on a journey to find home. And what we've learned – as our characters also do – is that home is a state of mind as much as a place.


Where's home for you?