Pattimari asked Mike Billington:

If you were given the chance to write a book for a movie that would be made for 2015, what genre would you write in?

Mike Billington I think I would probably write a mystery novel. There are three reasons for that:
1) Most of the novels I write are mysteries because, after nearly a half century as a reporter, it's the genre I know best.
2) Mysteries allow us to not only "solve a crime" but in the process also comment on current social issues in the context of a "big event." In my novel "Murder in the Rainy Season," for example, I was able to work in commentary through my characters on the subtle racial prejudice that is a factor in the way the mainstream media covers events and discuss the negative effects that local politics can have on an on-going police investigation.
3) A mystery engages the reader/viewer in a way that other genres seldom can, namely by pulling them into the story as a participant who is also, perhaps unconsciously, also trying to solve the crime.

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