Writing historical mysteries is dressed differently than contemporary mysteries.

The same core principles apply. For me, at least, the protagonist and the antagonist are human beings. Both the good guys and gals and the baddies have flaws, but one crosses a line into the unacceptable, and one is working on growth. Something happens, often a murder, but not always, and my PI is called in to investigate and solve what has happened. In that, Goff Langdon, Clay Wolfe, 8 Ballo, Max Creed, Jazz Jones, and Bob Chicago are all faced with solving the transgression.

The villains commit crimes for a variety of reasons, including power, fear, money, greed, jealousy, angst, to cause mayhem, or just because they are wicked, perhaps stemming from childhood trauma. But this has not changed since the beginning of time. The story is the same. Man steals, kills, assaults, kidnaps, or otherwise breaks the rules of humanity, and others look to exact justice upon them.

I have mysteries set in the 1920s, 1950s, 1990s, and in contemporary times. They are all filled with good and evil, clues and red herrings, struggles with gray issues, desires and lust, and everything else that makes the world go round.

But you need to research more for the historical. I am currently writing the third book in my Brooklyn 8 Ballo series, Kings County Gone Amok, and it is easier because I have laid a solid foundation with the first two. But still countless double-checks. When was the origin of that slang, saying, or word? Did it exist in 1925? The same goes for streets. If something happened on Gold Street in Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn, was it called Gold Street back then, or did the name change?

Not to mention the clothes, hats, and shoes that people wore. What refrigerators were like, who had them, and who still had the old icebox version of keeping things cold? Street vendors, trolleys, yellow cabs, toasters, dishware, telephones, speakeasies, race and segregation—it is all uniquely different.

The one clue that I would share with aspiring historical mystery writers is a site called https://www.newspapers.com. It has most of the newspapers of United States history digitally archived. For Velma Gone Awry, the first in the Brooklyn 8 Ballo Mysteries, I read the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper every day for the year 1923. It gave me tremendous insight into what was going on in New York City and the world at the time, but one of the best facets was the advertisements. Fashion, automobiles, furniture, restaurants, movie theaters—it was all there to see and use as needed.

I continued this process for City Gone Askew, then down to Raleigh, North Carolina, for the October release of 1955: A Jazz Jones & January Queen Raleigh Mystery, by reading the Raleigh Observer for that year, and am now back to the Brooklyn Eagle for 1925.

What tools do you utilize to write, read, or understand mysteries?

About the Author

Matt Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014, he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries.

Cost has published six books in the Mainely Mystery series, starting with Mainely Power. He has also published six books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, starting with Wolfe Trap. There are two books in the Brooklyn 8 Ballo series, starting with Velma Gone Awry. For historical novels, Cost has published At Every Hazard and its sequel, Love in a Time of Hate, as well as I am Cuba. The Not So Merry Adventures of Max Creed began a new series this past April. The second book in the chronicles, EveryThing vs. Max Creed, is now out.

Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. Cost now spends his days at the computer, writing.