Goodreads asked Luke H. Davis:

How do you get inspired to write?

Luke H. Davis A good bit of it is just tapping into the human experience. More specifically, part of the desire to write a murder mystery came from being a reader of the genre. I believe that P.D. James is the living author at the top of the list in crime fiction. I always loved the way she constructed Adam Dalgliesh in her novels and could perfectly balance plot, character, and setting so well. I’ve also enjoyed the more cozy British mysteries of M.C. Beaton and–more recently–James Runcie.
I grew into the mystery writing mode because of several other factors. It’s a creative way to explore the complicated emotions and actions of the human experience, a chance to maneuver the paradoxes of love, forgiveness, revenge, loss, etc., within the grid of a great story. As a high school teacher of ethics, issues of justice and order (and reactions to evil and injustice) are important to me and I find that writing gives me a platform to make the point that justice and honor are charactersitics worth seeking. Because my stories take place within a religious institutions, I can deliver the shock and tremor of unspeakable evil occurring in what many would view as safe havens. With my lead detective, the skeptical Cameron Ballack, I can pose an outsider’s approach to matters of spirituality, faith, and hope while solving a mystery. So there were many layers that folded into this desire.

flag