The Ghost of the City: Why I Keep Returning to the Scene of the Crime

​I’ve often been asked why I spend so much of my time—both in my head and on the page—in the dark, soot-covered corners of mid-century America. People see the theater background or the lighthearted sketches and wonder why my novels, like Machine of War or Last Stop Slumberland, lean so heavily into the shadows.

​The truth is, I’ve always been a bit of a hunter for "the feel."

​Finding the Town of Tully

​When I sat down to write Machine of War, I didn't want a generic backdrop. I needed a place that breathed. I ended up creating Tully, Illinois. It’s a fictional town, but it’s built from the bricks and mortar of every real Midwestern town I’ve ever walked through. There’s a specific kind of silence in those places—a silence that feels like it’s hiding a secret.

​Historical crime isn't just about the "who-dunit." For me, it’s about the "where-was-it." It’s the smell of leaded gasoline, the weight of a wool overcoat, and the way a person talked when they had everything to lose but no words to say it.

​The Jack Kelly Mysteries

​In The Phantom Affliction, I introduced Jack Kelly. Writing Jack was a way for me to explore the "broken" hero. We like to think of the past as a simpler time, but for a guy like Jack, the world is anything but simple. He’s navigating a landscape of shifting loyalties and deep-seated corruption.

​Whether it's the Depression-era struggle of Howard Jones in You Gotta Die Sometime or the post-war tension of my other works, I’m always looking for that friction between a person’s moral compass and the reality of a world that doesn’t care if they live or die.

​Why History Matters to Mystery

​I think we look back at historical crime because it allows us to see our own flaws in a different light. The costumes change, the cars get sleeker, and the "noir" becomes "neon," but the human heart remains just as messy as it was in 1945.

​I’m currently working on some new material—staying in those shadows a little longer. There’s a certain magic in the "then," and I’m not quite ready to come back to the "now" just yet.

​Keep reading, keep watching the shadows.

​— Jay