Even though I write fiction—30 novels so far—I’m a feature news junkie. I ignore most reporting about everyday crime, but I love the quirky stuff, especially chain-of-event stories. Some are so interesting or unbelievable that I scour the details and can’t stop thinking about the circumstances. When that happens, I know the crime or character belongs in my next book. Certain stories about social or cultural events hit me the same way, and when those things occur around the same time, I start asking, What if...?
For AfterStrike, the inciting article was about a woman who’d been hit by lightning. At first, she thought she was unharmed, so the ER doctors released her, unconcerned. But over time, her memory started to fail, and she experienced headaches, nerve pain, and mental fog. Medical experts kept telling her she was fine and that her symptoms were likely caused by stress. Sound familiar? Eventually she lost her job, her health, and her spouse. But in time, she found a support group (Lightning Strike & Electrical Shock Survivors), which helped her recover, at least emotionally. The group, which holds a yearly convention, is fascinating in itself, and I knew I had to explore her journey.
That compulsion was solidified a few months later when I read a second article about a lightning strike survivor, then met (and danced with) a man with no arms. As a child he’d climbed an electrical pole, and his limbs had been blown off by an intense shock. Clearly, the universe wanted me to tell their stories.
Around the same time, a headline in a prominent news magazine caught my attention. The subtitle about how a “family bloodied itself to pocket six million” sucked me in. I absorbed every fascinating detail, wondering how anyone could get caught up in such a scam. I’m dying to share some specifics—such as the scary bag of tools the patriarch carried—but I also don’t want to spoil the story for those who haven’t read it yet. Some of the suspense builds from not knowing those oddities until the end.
To develop a thriller plot, I started bouncing those ideas off each other to see how they could interact. I considered writing about the support group as amateur detectives, but quickly rejected the concept. I wanted the story to be a standalone...and intensely compelling. The more I plotted, the more I realized I needed a law enforcement character. Why not bring in an undercover FBI agent my readers’ already love? So halfway through, Agent Dallas gets involved and cranks up the heat.
The story is set in my homeland, the Pacific Northwest, with scenes in Portland, Oregon, and Tacoma, Washington. But the location isn’t particularly relevant. Crime and fraud occur everywhere, and so do lightning strikes. In fact, there are around 240,000 lightning strike incidents every year around the world, with 2,000 deaths. Another unexpected detail: Several members of the LS&ESS group have been hit twice.
With a multiple timeline structure, AfterStrike is the most challenging novel I’ve written. Readers also say it’s my best work, and the response has been amazing. In addition to enjoying the story for its own sake, I hope people will come away with more compassion for those around them who might be suffering in silence from shocking invisible injuries.
L.J. Sellers writes the bestselling Detective Jackson mysteries—a four-time winner of the Readers Favorite Awards. She also pens the high-octane Agent Dallas series, the Extractors series, and provocative standalone thrillers. Sellers also writes thriller scripts, including the true story of how she rescued her grandchildren from a dangerous cult in Costa Rica. She resides in Eugene, Oregon, where many of her 30 novels are set.
You got your start in young adult novels. What are the differences between writing young adult books as opposed to novels for adults? I’ve noticed that YA authors who cross over to “grown up” books come equipped with the gift of pacing their books.
The crime and the trial was much sensationalized at the time, with a media focus on Hulme and Parker’s intense attachment to one another and the gruesomeness of Honorah Parker’s death by bludgeoning. Hulme served 5 years in prison as a juvenile, and was given a new identity upon her release. She eventually moved to Scotland, then, in 1967, to California in the United States, where Perry fulfilled her lifelong dream of becoming a writer.
Robin Agnew for Mystery Scene: I am so sad you are wrapping up your Ruth Galloway books, but I think the arc she has lived in now 15 books is brought to a wonderful conclusion. Can you first talk about creating Ruth? To me, she’s one of the great characters in all of mystery fiction. I used to qualify that as “contemporary” mystery fiction, but I think she’s simply an all-time classic.
The very first book club we belonged to consisted of my sister, my mother, and my aunt. Of course, we didn’t call it a book club back then. But we’d all read the same book and pass it along to each other and then discuss it. Our favorites were sweeping family sagas written by authors like 
Southern California native 
Puzzles get harder as they go along. In the easy section, each Murdle has three suspects, three weapons, and three possible crime scenes. The rules say that a suspect can have only one weapon and can be in only place. Ergo, once you've deduced which weapon a suspect has and where they have been, no other suspect can claim that weapon or be in that place. The identity of the murderer (hopefully) becomes clear. As the puzzles get harder, the number of each variable is increased to four, and you are also asked to guess the motive for the murder.
The Private Eye Writers of America
