Tag: character-driven mystery

Featured Author: Donna Huston Murray

Donna Huston Murray writes character-driven mystery and suspense novels from the perspective of a woman who doesn’t take herself too seriously. While male counterparts tackle plots with the brain and brawn of an NFL linebacker, Murray’s heroines use their own life experience and an instinctive understanding of human nature. An interviewer once remarked that he read a Murray mystery, “to find out how a woman thinks.” She wished him good luck with that.

In addition to the seven Ginger Barnes Main Line mysteries originally published by St. Martin’s Press, Donna Huston Murray has written for MYSTERY SCENE MAGAZINE, READER’S DIGEST, ECHELON, and REDBOOK. Her work can also be found in the Edgar-award winning companion book, THE FINE ART OF MURDER, and the LETHAL LADIES I and II anthologies by Berkley. CURED (…but not out of danger) is her first novel of suspense.

Donna and her husband live in the Philadelphia area and have two adult children. Continue reading “Featured Author: Donna Huston Murray”

Plot-Driven Mystery by Arline Chase


Vacation for Two by Arline ChaseQuestion: Someone in a class I’m taking said my mystery needs to be more plot-driven. How can I tell if she’s right and if she is, how do I fix it?

Answer: Well there are two kinds of mystery. Plot-Driven means it’s all about what happens and the investigating character does not change. Most mysteries used to always be this way. Character-driven mystery is about characters that change and grow over the story, or even over the series.

The plot-driven mystery is all about the puzzle. Sherlock Holmes is always his superior, calculating, self. At least he is until he meets “The Woman.” And even afterward any emotion or resulting change in his personality is never part of a Sherlock Holmes story. Yes, it is important to have a good puzzle for the reader to solve. And your reader might be telling you that the puzzle might be a tad transparent. If that seems reasonable to you, lay some more false trails, leave some false clues to lead the reader to a false conclusion or two. Continue reading “Plot-Driven Mystery by Arline Chase“