The Professional Detective with Faith Blum

Last article that I have for you on this blog today, and it's about a specific type of detective - the professional. The one that gets hired to solve the mystery. And we have Faith Blum here to talk about it.

Faith Blum is primarily a historical fiction author - Westerns, specifically - but she's branched out into other genres, and the fifth book of her Hymns of the West series features a Pinkerton, which is a sort of professional detective. So, awesomeness. So, let's plunge in and hear what she has to say!

Faith Blum

Christian/Historical Fiction/Contemporary/Sci-Fi

Author of Be Thou My Vision

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Mystery stories can be a lot of fun to read and to write. Who doesn’t like Sherlock Holmes, after all? But how do you actually write one about an amateur detective let alone a professional one?

There are many different types of professional detective. Private Investigator, Pinkerton detectives, FBI, CIA, etc. With those detectives there are many ways you can write said mystery. Some are hard, some are easy(ish). Today, my focus is mainly on the Pinkerton detectives since they are the only professionals I have written about, but I will also talk about generalities of working detectives into your stories.

For my mystery story, I chose to write about a fictional Pinkerton Detective since the agency was around during the Old West when my story was set. It made the most sense and I have also been fascinated by detectives and by westerns, so it was elementary to combine the two, my dear Watson. Oops, sorry. I guess I got a little too carried away.

How does one write about detectives? Well, if your character is in an agency that either has exist or currently exists, I suggest the first thing you do is some research. For my book, I read articles online, non-fiction books, and fiction books about the Pinkerton Detective agency so I could make sure any facts I had in my story were accurate. I learned about the history of how Alan Pinkerton started the agency, who took over when he died, who the first female detective was, and a little bit about how the agency worked.

Although I highly recommend research, there will be times you have a hard time finding things about a particular organization. If this happens, then your readers won’t know the difference and they will forgive you for any possible inconsistencies. I had to do that some with my book. I wasn’t 100% sure how the detectives were given their assignments, but I wanted a cameo with William Pinkerton, so I fit it in by having him give Joshua his assignment directly.

If the detective is from an agency you created out of thin air, I suggest you do some work building this agency. When did it get founded? Who founded it and why? Where is it located? How many agents currently work there? What is their emphasis: ransom, murders, etc.? There is a lot of information you could figure out for the agency, but I think it could be fun.

My biggest tip, however, is to be sure you have fun with the research and the story. If you don’t have fun, most likely your readers won’t have fun either. And since research means you can also read some fiction about some of the greatest detectives, it’s a great excuse to pull out that Sherlock Holmes book you have (or borrow it from the library). After all, it’s research.