What a background this author has!  Steve Shrott’s short mystery fiction has appeared in numerous print magazines and ezines. His work has been published in twelve anthologies––two from Sisters-in-Crime (Fish Nets and The Whole She-Bang.) He was a winner in the Joe Konrath short story contest. His humorous mystery novel, Audition for Death, was recently published and his new mystery, Dead Men Don’t Get Married, will be out shortly.

Read on and see what else Steve has accomplished in the world of funny.   Here’s what he says about pairing murder and humor:

My main reason for writing mystery with humor is because it’s fun. I do write some serious short stories as well and enjoy those too. But writing funny always puts me in a better mood, despite the fact that it involves a few dead bodies. That’s probably because it boosts those endorphins.

 

Using humor definitely has some advantages. If somebody cuts you off on the freeway, you can get even, and have a few laughs by killing them off in your book. Maybe have them fall into a pizza-making machine and come out as a sliced pepperoni pie. There’s not too many occupations where you get that kind of opportunity.

 

But seriously (folks), writing a humorous mystery seemed like the easiest route for me since my background is comedy. I wrote jokes for numerous performers like Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller, as well as comedy scripts, humorous articles, funny greeting cards etc. etc. etc. So when I started writing books, it seemed like it would be a natural fit. But I needed something to hang the comedy onto, and mystery turned out to be the perfect partner.

 

So what’s so funny about murder?

 

In my opinion, there’s nothing funny about murder itself. It’s simply the device that enables us to create humor. In the old Bob Hope movies, someone might be murdered, but that wasn’t funny. What was funny was Bob’s reaction to it. He might be frightened or pretend like he’s not–but really is–which was also funny. In short, murder in a novel gives us the opportunity to be amusing.

 

In my humorous mystery, Audition for Death, Joshua Mclintock is an actor obsessed with his career even though most of his roles have been as dead bodies. There’s a murder, and everyone believes (mistakenly) that Joshua is the culprit. He has to go on the run to find out who the real killer is. This in turn leads to many fun situations such as him trying to coax information from an eighty year old hit man who thinks Joshua’s cooz ball is a dangerous weapon, and Joshua being tied up in a shack, his only companion being an amorous moose.

In closing, just remember to be nice to me or in my next book you might end up covered with tomato sauce and Shiitake mushrooms.

Lesley says:  And here Ithought you were just a nice, funny guy.  Now you threaten us with food!

My website is steveshrottwriter.weebly.com

My book, Audition for Death is available at Amazon   http://tinyurl.com/kww7fmq